So I started off over on G+ with posts about my game. It prompted a consideration to just move to my blog. So I shall.
Let’s start with the game’s name: Arvend Fantasy Role Playing Game (or Arvend FRPG or AFRPG or just Arvend). Now that that’s out of that way, let’s go on with the first post I would like to make about the game: a history of the setting.
One of the basic things about Arvend is that the recorded history is separated into eras, some long and some short. Currently, Arvend has begun its sixth era. Each era has a name that describes it. All of the eras are recorded from a humanity point of view. A lot like the Gregorian calendar, the human calendar has two distinct periods relying on religion – Before Awakening (BA) and Post Awakening (PA), as noted by the Awakening of the Gods.
So without further adieu:
The First Era – The Dawn of Humanity (???BA-7xxBA)
The first era is marked to be the dawn of principle humanity. During this era, humanity was primitive like the dragons that terrorized them. Slow development and fear of the sky were the hallmarks of this era as resources were scarce due to draconic presence. Near the end of the era recording started, but not in any indicative way to suggest when the era had begun. The relative end year of this era is known due to a mix of human timekeeping and dragon longevity.
The Second Era – The Long War (7xxBA-6xxBA)
The second era began with the first true developments in early weapon technology, metallurgy in specific. Armed much better than their ancestors, humanity was able to bring the fight to the dragons and resources had begun to become more readily available. During the Long War, many dragons and humans had died and the first appearance of the dragon-blooded had occurred. Humanity ostracized and exiled the Dragon-blooded, more out of ignorance than anything, and the dragons had embraced the exiled as their distant siblings. With the dragon-blooded being a product of humans consuming dragon blood, the dragons experimented and were able to bolster their ranks with numbers that could match humanity’s. The end of the era is marked with the founding of the Dragon Empire.
The Third Era – The Dragon Empire (6xxBA-1BA)
The Dragon Empire is considered the darkest time in human history, where an overpowering faction had enslaved all of humanity. As a whole, the Empire was prosperous, their spread wide and far and powerful. Dissident human cells were crushed and integrated into the slave workforce. Free men were very few and far between. Humans, in captivity, were able to breed in massive numbers, but so did the dragon-blooded and their dragon patrons. It’s at these times that humanity had considered itself lost and hopeless, doomed to be slaves for eternity.
The Fourth Era – The Liberation of Humanity (0PA-5xPA)
A crisp autumn morning marked the starting of this era. A human-form, made of vivid yellow energy, appeared in one of the slave camps and with near-magical ease transformed a cusp of trees into a stack of logs, a vein of ore into well shaped ingots and both into axes and maces. His voice was rumbling but friendly, assuring of freedom. He was one of the gods of humanity, awake from a slumber of many centuries. Over the autumn season, humanity was secretly armed and equipped, the gods of autumn and winter making sure that the uprising would be a big one. Late in autumn, the gods began the uprising, the last of summer’s power going into bolstering the humans and weakening the dragon-blooded. The initial uprising freed many humans and in the following decades the human forces took the Dragon Empire apart. The end of this war saw the dragon-blooded sign surrender agreements, the death of many dragons and the rest of the dragons migrating to the far west. Humanity was freed from the clutch of the dragons, for what seemed at the time and still is permanently.
The Fifth Era – The Time of Prosperity (5xPA-4xxPA)
The fifth era is considered the time that humanity was at its best. Kingdoms rose and fell, the Church of the Eight was established, the Wizard King shared the secrets of magic and friendly connections were established with the newly discovered Valir and Ashura, arriving from the north and south respectively. Humanity eventually settled into factions and stable kingdoms, wars and enmity with the dragon-blooded subsided and the dragons were a forgotten threat, with time. During these centuries, trade established with the Ashura and the Valir contingencies were welcomed. All was good in Arvend.
The Sixth Era – The Time of New Dangers (4xxPA-???PA)
The sixth era has a tentative name, given by the Church and the largest kingdoms. The beginning of the era was marked with 2 great events – the first is the awakening of the ancient dragons, who laid asleep below the surface; the second is the Valir threat, as the northern race suddenly announced a holy war, swearing to conquer all the lands of humanity. The dragon-blooded flocked to the new nations the ancient dragons established while the northern lands slowly cleared of humans and dragon-blooded heading south. Refugees coming from the north and the threat approaching, the large kingdoms began fortifying and preparing. Hard times were coming and they won’t be caught off guard. In their favor, the Ashura began establishing a continental foothold, away from their islands, in order to better assist humanity in fending off the Valir.
So that’s the history, although abridged to a degree. Next up would be each race and their presence.
Gamuzing 