Talk:Sunday Game
IRON TWILIGHT The Fall of the Ronkan Empire
---
For centuries, the Ronkan people had suffered under the rule of the druids, unable to practice the lost arts of magic without elven supervision. But rumors whispered of a new source of power, from the mountains of the south: barag'xoth, an unfamiliar word in an unfamiliar tongue, the halflings said. Power unseen since the days of the arcane.
And so the humans of the land went south, to meet these creatures called dwarves and the power they supposedly wielded. The rumors were not unfounded: the dwarves did indeed possess power. Unlike magic, this power required fire, steam, and steel to function. The elves and dryads frowned upon the barag'xoth, calling it an abomination, and forebade its use in the Woodland League.
That decision was their downfall.
The humans of the land had suffered enough persecution under the elves. The druids were content to maintain the status quo, seeking to carefully and cautiously move forward - but humans had no time for such daintiness. They demanded answers, progress, power. And so they formed a new alliance with the dwarves, and thus was born the Ronkan Empire - a nation in which all were equal, and the use of technology (as the humans called the barag'xoth) was greatly encouraged.
But the humans were a wrathful people, and the formation of a new nation was not enough. The elves must suffer, or so their leaders said; they must come to see things our way, and the only way to do so is to subjugate them under our weapons. And so humans studied and researched and experimented. Alongside utilitarian advances like the printing press and the light-bulb, there were guns and acids and explosives.
The exploration of technological warfare culminated in the so-called "walker:" a mechanical suit of armor bristling with firepower, able to withstand attack after attack while assaulting its foes from distances unimagined since the days of magic. With this, the humans decided, they could crush the Woodland League, and bring a unified vision to the continent. They could show the elves the error of their ways, and pursuits of all kinds could be investigated fully.
And so did the Ronkans march upon the Woodland League. The druids were no match for the walkers; in a few short months, the whole of Sarteri - save for the Lost, that dreaded land, in which no man tread - was conquered.
Thus was the Ronkan Empire born, in a din of steam and bloodshed, fire and machines: an iron dawn.
The Ronkans established themselves in the old Woodland League, bringing their architecture and their ways of life. Twenty years had passed since the Ronkans had exiled themselves from the League, and while nothing had changed in the woods, the humans had changed much. But for all their talk of unification, the elves were treated just as the humans had: poorly, with derision and distrust. And so the elves fled, leaving their lands to the humans. Where the elves went, none can say, but none truly care - the talk of unification was simply to justify the war.
The Ronkan City-States more firmly established themselves, and those few cities of the Woodland League which had not been burned to the ground were put under the iron fists of various high-ranking Ronkan officials. The gaeli were greatly oppressed during this time, being forced out of the Ronkan cities and made to live in the forests, often with nothing but the clothes on their backs. While many perished, those who survived sought each other, and sought to keep their culture - and the ways of the druids - alive.
Time passed, and eventually, ships appeared on the western shore of Sarteri. Men speaking a strange tongue disembarked, alongside other strange beings unseen before in the history of the Empire. Magical communication was employed, and thus did the peoples of the island-continent of Distarin meet with the people of Sarteri for the first time.
Trade routes were established, and the port cities of the western Empire bustled. Many advances in both the arcane and the sciences were made. The moogles, one of the races of Distarin, discovered that they had an innate knack for technology, and set about to the creation of airships, which greatly expedited trade between the two continents.
Today, on November 21, 108 RIY (Ronkan Imperial Year), ninety-seven years after the fall of the Woodland League, a grand celebration is to be had in Arcadia, the northern-most city of the Ronkan Empire. For months, artificers, wizards, and technologists of all races have been hard at work on a 'walker that will incorporate both magic and technology, a grand symbol of the success of the Empire and its intellectual pursuits; dignitaries from all across the Empire have come to Arcadia to oversee the procedure and the following celebration. The final spell will be put into place at two o'clock this afternoon.
