Chronicles of Erendar
Introduction
Nearly a decade ago, I have come across a collection of scrolls unlike any I had seen in my twenty years of research in the vaults. These were scriptures made on metal that does not have a name in our archives, but whose qualities would make any smith jealous.
They are written in an archaic form of the Eriandi language, and with that being my chief competence, I am proud to present an adopted translation of the
Erendar Chronicles.
In places, the scrolls have taken considerable damage and were rendered indecipherable. Such will be marked with "[...]" and left to the reader's imagination to fill.
A brief foreword for those who are unfamiliar with the basics of the subject:
Erendari, or Irindai as we call them now, is the outworld nation that formed Raven Realm. They first came to Edalar in the wake of the Shadowfall, a full one and a half thousand years before the founding of Allkingdom, from a world named Tormenta, where the "elements raged ceaselessly and fueled the machines that manipulated Power".
They called themselves Erendar, and on first contact with ‘natives’, they described themselves as “pioneers from a world far away, where technology had reached levels you could not imagine”.
It is commonly accepted that at the same time as Sanguinos unleashed his legions on Edalar, he sent some thousands to Tormenta as well, perhaps hoping to enslave Erendar and assimilate them into his menagerie of broken nations.
But while the Erendar were not a warlike people, and they were few, they obviously loved their freedom above all else. So they fled, likely in several groups, and at least one of their “Aetherium Vessels” bore some thousand men and women of Tormenta to our world.
It arrived just in time to see the aftermath of the Shadowfall on Mirgar, while the shadows and fire were still raging above the ruins of Middle Kingdom.
Now my introduction is over, and I pass the word to Magister Llurien, the Chronicler.
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Part I: The Founding of New Erendar
When at last, after a swift and smooth voyage through Aether, we exited the Channel, we were met by a violent tempest of strange forces.
The one we could only call “the living darkness” at the time, and the other was fire that did not obey the elemental laws...
So alien were these things, that we were lost for answers
The same six moons traveled the sky of this world, so we knew we had not gone too far beyond. And yet, even as newcomers, we could see clearly that this darkness did not belong to the world we fell into.
Our ship was being consumed by the
and our engines were smothered by the shadow, making the critical failure - and fall - imminent.
But then our two Archons resolved to sacrifice themselves to give us a chance of surviving the landfall, though in the gloom we did not even see where to land...
[...]
Their personal force-shields proved enough to slow our fall, yet our Vessel was damaged beyond repair and we could only hope that the place we had found would not be our grave.
[...]
Alas, it was soon clear that “New Erendar”, as we had to call it for now, was a dangerous place, and without the guidence of and wisdom of our Archons, we were hard pressed indeed.
Saving space for the living, we did not think to take with us any of our automata. That we would not be able to reproduce them once landed simply did not occur to us. So it is that we were on our own, in a dead land plagued by alien forces we did not understand.
Luckily, some of the ruins had deep vaults and there we found provisions and various tools that let us start rebuilding civilization.
From those vaults, however, would also come a subtle danger, but only some time later...
For now, the immediate trials of basic survival were overcome, and the differences between the adepts of Aetherium and Mechanicum grew more pronounced.
And without unified leadership, discord and petty intrigues began to grow in the ranks of lesser adepts and their families, with people hiding away their findings and looking to find secret places or weapons for themselves alone, satisfying their long hidden ambitions for power.
Hierarchy of our society began to crumble, even though the ‘elite’ - to which I had to count myself despite my scepticism - still possessed superiority of elemental sorcery and whatever technology we carried on ourselves.
Yet it was clear to me that it won’t be possible to preserve the old ways of our people in a place where little to no technology existed, and nor did any adequate resources or energy, as they did on Tormenta.
To be sure, resources were there to be gathered, but not without constant and terrible peril - and cost - especially in regions irradiated with the unnatural dark fire.
But still, many clung to the idea that we were here to change the world to suit us, not the other way around.
The turning point was the discovery of the vast riches that beneath the ruined cities of whatever unfortunate people had lived here ere the Shadow and fire fell on them.
By that time, our people had already made contact with various nations that used to be this country’s neighbors; most of them proved reasonable and ready for trade and mutual learning.
Gold, silver and diamonds, of which only the latter had been considered useful by us on Tormenta, all became valuable in these new circumstances - the native peoples had a strange habit of giving everything away for a moderate amount of those.
The rule of ‘finders keepers’ worked fine at first, but soon we saw that conflicts grew and bloodshed appeared inevitable.
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Rise of the Raven King
Before I recount the tale of he who became the Raven King, let me write a few words of his younger self.
I met Ethren when he was bare out of boyhood, when, having been with the Mechanicum for the first two years of his scholarship in the Academia on Tormenta, he suddenly joined with Aetherium and was made one of my junior apprentices.
He was one of the very few to change their mind after choosing the Caste.
Indeed, had he any parents alive, it is unlikely he would have been allowed to do so.
But his talents readily allowed for the studying of Aetherium, and we were glad to take one such from our rivals; not to mention the disgrace we could face had we turned away an orphan like this.
So I taught him his formulae and his glyph-lore, and I recall that he always had a solution that was different from the commonly accepted one, often surprising me as well, improvising when he forgot the right answer, never hesitating to invent wild guesses... In one word, resourceful.
He became a prodigious Aether-Smith, commanding the forces of prime elements, bending them with the Natural Law and extracting from them purer elements of plasma, electricity, magnetism...
It was clear to all that his decision was the right one - he had the a mind to see essence in things, not to tinker with gears and cogs.
By the time of our forced and disasterous departure from Tormenta, he was already a competent and high-ranking adept of the Order, and during our voyage, he aided us in maintaining the Vessel’s Aether-Engines.
Once on New Erendar, I believe he quickly realized that the old ways were if not gone, then changed irrevocably. So instead of clinging to the past and the ruins of our legacy, he dedicated himself to learning the ways of the news forces that surrounded us - primary, those of the lingering Shadow, the ‘living darkness’ and the dark flame - as well as the new ways of magic flowing through this world, less abundant, but more diverse and subtle.
Soon, too soon, he was wielding the shadowy energies with as much mastery as he had with Aether.
Then, with his power of persuasion and sorcerous prowess, he built a circle of influence from amongst the more curious and radically-minded adepts of both Castes.
He was careful in sharing his knowledge, never failing to exert a price for his secrets.
Facing opposition from the traditional elite of our order and that of Mechanicum, he and his followers became masters of stealth, deception and blackmail; and were seen flying through the gloom that ever hung in our skies on what looked like spectral feathery wings.
Their spying went beyond masterful - they seemed to see and hear everything, know every secret and detect every plot.
Soon it became known that they used the only animals that survived on our land to their advantage - the large and all-too-clever ravens, so black they could not be easily seen in the lasting darkness of our long nights.
I remember his enemies called him the “Raven King” to mock him... Ironically, it seems that the idea stuck with Ethren and by the time the clashes were ready to erupt into full-scale war among our meager twelve hundred people, he made his move.
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With subtlety, he allowed a ‘leak’ to happen about a plan to destroy the remnant of the Aetherium Vessel.
Now, it is important to note that the Vessel, even in its ruined state, represented tremendous value to both Castes, at least those who stayed true to their old technocratic ways.
Despite their suspicious of a trap, both Castes agreed to send their strongest to secure the Vessel from danger and put protective mechanisms and glyphs around it.
I was not made part of that “rescue mission” - perhaps my brethren doubted my loyalty to the traditions, for I was not seen tinkering desperately over broken machinery and crumbling scriptures as the rest of the ‘elites’ did.
In a temporary union, our brothers and members of Mechanicum Caste gathered around the crash site, relying on their remaining powers to deal with the impudent Raven upstarts should they dare show themselves.
But the timing of the ‘leak’ was perfect - for even as they arrived, Ethren concluded a long and arduous ritual in whose refinement he must have secretly invested most of his years on New Erendar.
It was a Master Ritual of Summoning, like the ones that we had - barely a few times - attempted on Tormenta to more fully command its elemental forces…
Here, it drew a vast part of the Shadow that lay on the land into one place - the site of our crash-landing.
Neither the magisters of Mechanicum nor Aetherium had enough power to break through that darkness that engulfed them from all sides, and in the meantime, Ethren revealed that there was a grain of truth to his deception. For he had indeed found a way to activate the Vessel’s engine and overload it with the dark energy that was now drawn towards it by him ritual...
The explosion that followed freed us from many things - our past, our technology, our tradition of civility, and also the veil of oppressive darkness, or most of it, for Ethren was a practical man, and knew that the Shadow was his ally. So
as a mark of his power, he raised the Black Spire from the shadows that survived his masterful blow.
This was a display of his abilities and also a gesture of good will - albeit conditional - to the rest of our people, for in doing this he pulled the last bits of noxious darkness from the skies and left us with a dead, but clear land to live on.
There may be more to the tale, too. I was not there so see it, but if the words of Ethren’s Ravenling minions are to be given any credit, then we might consider what they had let slip after that pivotal day, drunk on the joy of their first true victory.
As soon as the Vessel was no more, from the chamber he had built beneath the crash site their master rose through the scorched earth, immaterial like a ghost.
The black spire of summoned shades swirled and grew, and Ravenwings were afraid, despite their supposed mastery of it.
But then Sethren floated to the root of the rising blackness and at once it began to fill him, disappearing rapidly into his frail chest.
As he emerged, his followers felt fear, for the power he drank had whitened his skin and blackened his eyes, and the shade that they knew to use only as an outside source was now brimming within him.
There, he gave the ‘gift’ of his powers to the most loyal Ravens, and promised them the world if they served him loyally.
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Whether people believed them or not, it was clear that Ethren became the single most powerful sorcerer amongst us. And with their masters and the last remnants of old technology gone, the lesser adepts of Mechanicum - and our own - surrendered to the Raven King.
In their hearts, many were against the new ways - the “ways of the Shadow” - but the land was still harsh and unforgiving, even without the darkness that had clung to it. We needed powerful sorcery, and only Ethren that now. None could hope to survive for long on their own.
Still, some two hundred people remained openly defiant and accused Ethren of being the worst criminal in the history of Erendar. To which he replied - “At least, we can say that no civil war was ever fought in our nation.”
Many had fled to the south or the east, and in time, with the help of the elves and the gnomes, a number of “Free Cities” had been founded.
But the rest pledged fealty to the Raven King, saying they are a practical people above all else, and Ethren is as capable a leader as any, in this new mad world.
For myself, I will say that although it was a most terrible crime indeed, I felt grateful for the liberation from eternal gloom and the imminent threat of war.
It felt like peeling old skin to let the new one grow... I felt young and strangely excited for quite some time after, the uncertainty, the danger, the wild strangeness of it all.
And I was not the only one who chose to dedicate himselves to more isoteric pursuits and abdicate from material ambition and worry.
The price? Yes, there was one - I believe Ethren soon had put in place mechanisms for keeping his “subjects” ceaselessly under watch, perhaps not without good reason, for he had many enemies.
But that is when I realized that in essence, we had chosen security over freedom, and allowed ourselves to be driven like sheep in a direction chosen, for the most part, by one man.
Either way, it was clear that he embarked on a grand mission to build a new country from nothing but wretched refugees living amidst ruins of a desolated kingdom.
And so with threats and blackmail, promises and debt-based alliances, Ethren Dorlain secured his position of power and began to build our - or his - new country.
In retrospect, I see that he modelled this kingdom after the oldest nations we had already met on this world, of Men and Elves both, perhaps even reclusive Dwarves.
In particular, he allowed the birth of a strong and loyal nobility - for the reason, I suspect, that he had little time for mundane ruling, seeking the secrets of higher sorcery, power and immortality. The original ‘Ravens’ became the first and foremost (note - in our time, they call themselves the Old Families) amongst them, naturally.
He allowed many laissez-faire mercantile policies and considerable tolerance of the worshipping of various deities that are so aplenty on this world - knowing our people were too restless to be put in a small cage, we need one that looks infinite.
Meanwhile, he used the wealth of the Hoard he now controlled to hire masons from the nearby kingdom, some of them a curious lot that lived underground and were sometimes as broad as they were tall.
Soon he sat in a mighty castle, on a throne of carved granite brought from the deepest dungeons...
At first when I heard this I thought it was ridiculous, but I soon realized that Ethren was once again adopting his ways of thinking faster than any of us.
The symbols of brute strength - high walls and towers made of hard stone, a throne and a crown to match them - these things had power in this new world of ignorance and ceaseless struggle.
Mechanicum adepts made use of what they could find in the deep dungeon vaults of our predecessors (we later learned they belonged to the caste of master-smiths and their king - the “Iron Titan” Ismeron). Soon we had ourselves considerable amount of synthetic implements, albeit less advanced than what we were used to.
As for the members of Aetherium Order, they adopted to the demands of wizardry on this new world and made do without the secret powers of purified Aether. Instead, they now eagerly learned from the magi of this world - most of all, from the curious race of Elves, whom it was difficult not to like.
After some time, Elves from the southern kingdom of Syr’Sieth came to Raven King’s black-and-white castle and we all took it for a sign of their recognition of our nation, and an offer of friendship, which we gladly accepted.
In their curious tongue, Erendar became Irendai, and somehow the nobility adopted the new style, perhaps feeling like it made them more sophisticated.
But not all our neighbors were as friendly as the fair elves. We soon learned that others took matters of gods, morals and war much more seriously than we did...
[...]
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This marks the end of the first scripture. We can safely assume that Magister Luriel refers to the ‘War of Madness’ that was started by Ardai’s newly formed clerical leadership, either from true fanaticism or desire for the Vedamir’s Hoard.
End note to Part I:
Magister Lurien died some fifty years after the Landing under uncertain circumstances.
Apparently the Chronicle was target of severe censure, or worse. What I hold in my hands now is a masterful copy of a kind that one makes when fearing the safety of the original or foreseeing the need to give it up for obliteration.
