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A Short History of Trinity

What follows is a rough history of the world of Trinity. It is not intended to be read as a complete history; its purpose is merely to serve as a rough idea of what has occurred in the past.

In Time Forgotten

Long before written history, the elves dwelled in the continent of Ashkar, among the first of the sentient races to arise in the world. However, after some time, they discovered that their race was plagued by a horrid disease known as Petrifaction, which caused those who suffered it to slowly turn to stone. Fortunately, the disease was not contagious, except for a short period after the suffering had completely turned to stone. However, lacking this knowledge and fearing that the disease would spread throughout the entirety of the population, they fled throughout the world, rapidly devising sea travel so that they could escape the disease. Some went to the northwest, landing on Lotharien; others went to the south, to Sarteri, with small segments of the population landing on the Boomerang Isles; still others went northeast, to the continent of Molandum.

No written accounts of these events exist; however, this migration has been theorized by many historians, who find the fact that elves can be found nearly anywhere throughout the world odd, as well as the fact that several elven subraces exist. Proving this theory is difficult, but there are indeed elven statues scattered throughout secluded areas in Ashkar, which show extreme age - indicating that this theory could very well be true.

The Beginning

The exact story of the creation of the world is uncertain. Various religions have their own beliefs regarding the creation of the world, but - for the time being - there is no way to validate any of these.

Known history begins with the Woodland League, a political entity formed by a variety of races and peoples who dwelled on the continent of Sarteri. The League consisted of the elves and various fey of the expansive Woodlands; the gnomes of the Blue Hills, to the southwest; and the humans of Wayveri, to the east; and the halflings, of the fields of the south. Prior to the formation of the League, humans had warred with the halflings, but the formation of the League brought peace to the whole of the known world.

The humans, however, were a curious people, and soon began toying with powers beyond their understanding. They learned of dangerous and powerful magic, and used it against each other in territorial disputes. The most powerful family, the Wayveri - for whom the region was named - used their magic to utterly annihilate those who opposed them, turning the entirety of the eastern region into a vast desert, which became known as the Lost.

After the Lost was formed, the practice of arcane magic was outlawed, save by those who gained druidic sponsors - and such sponsorships were gained only through complete trust. However, a small segment of the elven and human population disagreed with this and, not wishing to subjugate themselves to the will of the Woodland League, went north into what was then unknown; it has since been found that these were the elves that settled the nations of the Iscali Theocracy and Adren, and the humans settled the nation of Dralin, on the continent of Ashkar.

Meanwhile, in the south, the gnomes encountered a curious people, the dwarves, who lived in the mountains south of the Blue Hills. Here, the stocky people did battle with the orcs for control of the mountains. The orcs were a strange race, and many of their number naturally mutated over time, gaining strength and power unknown. The dwarves, to counteract this menace, had invented a great number of devices and oddities the gnomes found intriguing. The gnomish people split into two camps - those who were interested in upholding their heritage of learning of the Blue, the world memory; and those who were interested in learning of the ways of the dwarves.

Humans, also, became interested in the dwarven inventions. Those who were not allowed to wield arcane magic ventured south to learn of this thing called "technology," and hoped that it would lead them to some facsimile of the power the druids had denied them.

While humans and gnomes ventured south, the halflings were under attack from a breed of insects known as Prophet Moths - giant insects who were capable of spewing spores that had a variety of deleterious and vicious effects. They built a city known as Medibaria, which - in halfling legend - was said to be the last halfling city built before the end of the world.

To the south, the combined forces of the humans, gnomes, and dwarves were able to fend off the orcs, and peace was reached. However, the races new to the region had no interest in returning to the oppressiveness of the Woodland League, whom they feared would deem their technology inappropriate and dangerous, as they had arcane magic. So they formed a new nation, which they named the Ronkan Empire, and they threatened war with the Woodland League.

Elsewhere in the world, on the continent of Lotharien, illithids from another world - led by Anabstercorian, an alhoon of great power - came and subjected the races to their will. However, the power of their dimension-spanning device ripped the world asunder, and caused a spatial rift to open on the southern end of the continent, which opened into the northern extremes of the Woodland League. Goblins escaped south, and told tales of the illithids and their horrible mental powers and hunger for the brains of sentient beings.

Few paid attention to the tales of these strange creatures, however, as the Ronkans brought war to the Woodlanders. The combined genius of the Ronkans had brought forth a new breed of machine, known as "walkers" - humanoid-esque machines with the firepower of a dozen wizards each. The defeat of the Woodland League was rapid, and the people who had once protected the woodlands from arcane magic fell before guns and machines.

While the Ronkans overtook Woodland, the halflings overcame their own difficulties. Assisted by dwarven gunsmithing techniques, the halflings forged a new weapon known as a gunblade. The leader of the halflings, Liat'ned of the Eld, rode with twelve gunslingers and smote down the prophet moth queen, ending the threat to his people.

With the Woodland League properly subjugated, the humans who had fled the persecution of arcane magic took up the art of wizardry. A foolish few, however, attempted to combine it with technology, into what they termed " magitech." In particular, the construction of a magitech 'walker was attempted, but - as the final spell was put into place - the device exploded with incredible force, leveling dozens of miles around the epicentre and killing thousands in the blast. With the forceful detonation, the rift to Lotharien was closed, leaving the remaining goblins and other slaves to fend for themselves.

With that explosion, the dawn of the world ends.

The First Age

The gnomes and halflings, who had survived the destruction and resulting fallout, headed northeast, to avoid the destruction. The gnomes and dwarves built a flying city, which they named Urilaulri, and flew into the skies, to not be heard of again until the Third Age. The halflings, meanwhile, built standard sailing ships and sailed to the northeast, leaving a multitude of ruins in their wake. They found themselves on the southwestern coast of the continent of Chaliraz, and found fey and other races, such as the lunari.

Meanwhile, in Lotharien, the slaves of the illithids had managed to throw off the yolk of oppression, and sent their masters scurrying back through the portal whence they came - but their freedom had a cost: the entirety of the continent sank beneath the waves, leaving only a few hundred survivors. The only remaining part of the continent became known as the "Evil Isle", in remembrance of the evil that had spawned from the continent it was once a part of. In the wake of the illithids, members of a race not native to Adnez - the githyanki - were left here.

The surviving members of the other races in Woodland - the elves, and the humans - ventured north, and found a new continent, Ashkar, also filled with humans and elves. At the time, the existence of elves and humans on another continent was not questioned, given that intercontinental travel had not existed prior to this point in history.

However, shortly after the various races had moved about the world, the dragons of the world stirred. How long they had slumbered was unknown; where they came from was as equally mysterious. However, it was believed that the destruction of the Ronkan Empire had been the cause of their awakening, and they roamed the skies, warring amongst each other for unknown reasons. This time period came to be known as the Dragon Wars, and few societies managed to make any advances in this time.

It is from this time period that the vast majority of dragons comes from, and this knowledge is rather limited in scope. The various colors of dragons have been recorded; their likenesses have been recorded in a good many books written during the period. Few dragons were taken down by mortal means - it had been found that certain varieties of dragon were resilient to certain effects, and thus did the traditional organizations of dragon (that is, chromatic, metallic, gem, and ore) come to be formalized as a method of recognizing what a given dragon would be largely immune to.

Despite the dragons, some cultures did manage to continue to thrive. The elves on Ashkar forged a new nation called Adren with their southern brethren, and the Ashkar elves did not fear arcane magic as did their cousins - thus did they, too, begin to return to the arcane. Using their newfound-might, the elves conquered the whole of eastern Ashkar, easily overtaking the nation of humans, called Dralin. They named their empire the Empire of Ashk, and they would rule over the region for hundreds of years to come.

After there were only a few dragons left, they returned to their slumber, to places unknown. The races of the world came out of hiding, and began to build civilization once more.

It was in the second half of the First Age that the other races from Sarteri began to spread, such as the orcs and the sedan. However, some segments of the Ronkan Empire remained behind as city-states, only loosely allied to each other; however, the Ronkan Empire would never again hold as much power as it did before the First Age.

Those who had escaped the illithids on Lotharien continued to flee, heading east and southeast from the Lost Isle; some arrived on Molandum, while others arrived on Ashkar, where they were treated as second-class citizens by the elves - save for the githyanki, who the elves felt were long-lived enough to gain true wisdom.

Late in the First Age, a human by the name of Kotrit Wayveri was born in the Empire of Ashk. With the bloodline of the Wayveris flowing through him, he manifested sorcerous powers at an incredibly young age. Hateful towards the Empire, and becoming egomaniacal with his power, he would shortly become the most dangerous being ever known in Trinity.

The War of the Illusionist

In 115 CY, Kotrit had summoned a legion of undead, and used it to commandeer his hometown and the surrounding region. Seeking more power, he went west to the Lost Isle, seeking the Tower of Illusion.

Once there, he unlocked the secrets of epic magic, and raised the continent of Lotharien. Among his new spells was also a spell capable of creating an eternal winter on a small continent; he used this spell to change the northern tip of Ashkar into a barren, frozen wasteland that would come to be known as the Coldlands. He then used this spell on the southeastern portion of Chaliraz, which had heavy fey populations. The population of the Ashkian Empire sufficiently cowed, he conquered the entire continent with his undead armies.

Kotrit was defeated in 118 CY, when the combined armies of the rest of the world took his legions head-on. Meanwhile, Tarian the Wanderer assembled a small group of experts in the nine Forces and assaulted Kotrit's stronghold of the Tower of Illusion. There, Tarian confronted Kotrit and destroyed his physical form. Tarian then sealed the tower, which would remain sealed for hundreds of years. The War of the Illusionist was the first instance in the history of the world in which the nine forces worked together rather than at cross purposes.

However, Kotrit was not defeated; his spirit remained, trapped in the Tower, even while his armies were decimated in the Ashkian Empire. He studied for several years, and then cast yet another, even more powerful epic spell: in 121 CY the entire southern portion of the world disappeared from memory. Kotrit had seperated the world into two parts, so that he might protect the nation of Wayverith in Sarteri. Until the seal on the Tower of Illusion was broken in 398 CY, the continents of Distarin and Sarteri were inaccessible, and the world's memory of those places were vague.

The Analytic War

In 174 CY, the first analytical engine was built by enterprising gnomes in their flying city of Urilaulri. In short order, this wondrous new device was put to a multitude of uses - mathematics was chief among them. In order to make use of this machine, however, one had to learn Assembly, due to technological barriers.

Analytical engines spread, and became used extensively in the northern half of Chaliraz. In 190 CY, the analytical network was realized - a vast network of wires and pistons, powered by electricity, that allowed users of analytical engines to communicate over vast distances. The wires required for the usage of this system spread throughout the region, and land was cleared to make way for them to allow even the most distant cities have access to the shared knowledge of the network.

However, the fey and other races of the southern half remembered legends of the Ronkan Empire and what their sudden advances in technology had done to their people. In 238 CY, wielding the powers of nature, the fey swarmed over the Dividing Range and attacked the people of the Hofstadt Confederacy, without any warning whatsoever. Though the Confederacy called for a diplomatic solution, the fey ignored them - their people yet suffered scars from technology of ages past, and would tolerate such technology no longer. With no other options left to them, the Confederates prepared themselves for war.

The citizens of Hofstadt - who came to be known as the Analytics - fought back, and called out for help. Few answered their cry - specifically, the dwarves of Molandum sent troops and land vehicles to support the overwhelmed Analytics. They were also assisted by a great number of mercenaries, the famous duo Thranos and Grakyl among them. The Naturalists - as the fey and their allies came to be called - were assisted by a great number of elves from the Empire of Ashk, who had long felt that the analytical network was a great danger to the force of Magic.

The war lasted until 240 CY, and much of the infrastructure of the Hofstadt Confederacy was destroyed. In the end, the Naturalists were beaten back, and the Confederacy began rebuilding. The analytical network, too, was repaired, and became stronger than before. However, many technologists throughout the world had lost all respect for the fey and the ways of nature; no more were their opinions towards technology regarded with any seriousness. Many who practiced technology in the Empire of Ashk fled, feeling that the Empire's attitude towards technology in the War would cause them to hunt down technologists in the Empire. As it turned out, they were correct - in 241 CY, the Empire of Ashk purged itself of technology, either deporting or killing those within their borders who studied the ways of technology.

The Fourth Age

In 397 CY, the planet Ganymede was struck by a terrifying menace, a race of monstrous aliens which came to be known as the Tyranids. Many Adnezians who had went to Ganymede and lived in New Mechanicus fled, though a small number remained behind; likewise, the vast majority of those native to Ganymede stayed on the planet, in an attempt to fend off the alien menace.

Among the ships that fled the planet were the sister ships Arcturas and Arcostes, which - rather than flee to Adnez - fled deeper into space, their passengers having witnessed the devastation the tyranids were capable of: they assumed that both Ganymede and Adnez would be lost, and so they sought out a new world to live in.

In 398 CY, Admiral X and his companions broke the seal on the Tower of Illusions, and found the Wanderer's Blade, left there by Tarian nearly three centuries prior. Breaking the seal on the Tower of Illusions, however, was what Kotrit Wayveri wanted. Since his apparent death at the hands of Tarian, Kotrit had lived on as a dracolich, and had sealed off a small part of the world. With the opening of the Tower, the "blue veil" was lifted, and Kotrit was given access to the whole of the world once more. With nearly three centuries of gained power, Kotrit summoned his generals to him, and marched a legion of undead across the world.

Admiral X and his companions, though unable to halt the advance of the undead, were able to slay Kotrit and his generals. It would take over three decades, however, for the world to recover from the disaster.

As for the Tyranids, fortunately for Adnez and Ganymede, the Tyranid menace was halted by Admiral X and his companions, when they confronted the hive queen of the tyranid fleet and destroyed her. Those Adnezians who had stayed behind on Ganymede to assist in fending off the tyranids were welcomed by the Ganymedians, and the nation of New Mechanicus became recognized as a sovereign nation by the various peoples of Ganymede.

Meanwhile, in space, the Arcturas and Arcostes were still navigating the system. While attempting to navigate the asteroid belt, the Arcostes struck a rather large asteroid, and was unsalvageable; luckily enough for the crew, the asteroid was large enough to hold an atmosphere, and so the atmosphere from the ship was leaked onto the asteroid, allowing them to survive there. The Arcturas, meanwhile, carried onward, deeper into space. The ship passed by the orbit of Shadow.

Eight months after passing the orbit of Shadow, all hope seemed lost. Their food supplies had dwindled; the engineers onboard managed to piece together something resembling a cryonic system, which would allow them to put the crew into stasis while the coglings onboard worked to find a suitable planet.

The humanoid occupants were dormant for two weeks, when a planet surfaced. Not knowing or caring if it was hostile to life, the ship changed its heading to meet the planet head-on. With the majority of the ship's systems offline to support the cryonic systems, and only a handful of artilects and coglings attempting to run the ship, they were completely blind as to the nature of the planet; they crash-landed, and found themselves on the planet Arcturas. They named the planet in honor of their destroyed ship, and began building something resembling a civilization.