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The History of Rohan, The Foundation of Rohan Philippines’ Story Line
Genesis
Rohan is a world rife with possibility, adventure, danger, and intrigue. Conflict has been the world's constant companion; the delicate relationships between its inhabitants and its progenitors being built and torn asunder since time immemorial. To unravel the unique history of this interesting locale that we all live and breathe upon, well, let's start from the beginning.
Ohn, the First Being, was born of the magical light that emerged in the midst of the infinite void. He was alone as he vaulted leagues upon leagues across the nothingness, casting shadows where there were none before. From these shadows emerged Edoneh, the Second, and Ohn was thankful for his broken solitude. For the light was his power, and his power he was to use, Ohn gave his companion a gift; a world spawned in their image, and together they named it Rohan, in a tongue universal and unchanging.
Thus, the world began, but the place was devoid of life and being.Ohn set foot on land of the world, took a handful of sand from the ground, and breathed on it. From the countless specks of light reflected and glistening on the grains of sand, creatures of all forms, imaginable and unimaginable, were birthed and were set forth unto the vast expanse of Rohan, now no longer an empty body.
Edoneh spun a thread from the winds Ohn exhaled upon Rohan, and from it wove the Five. As they came into being, Edoneh permitted them rule over the world, and the Five were pleased. Following their All-Father's deeds, they created beings in their own image as subjects and companions in their land.
Roha, the Righteous, was first among the offspring, and was justly named from the land he was to dwell in. He created the Humans, staunch creatures who uphold valour and virtue above all else. They were strong, versatile, and quick to establish a noble organization and caste, with Roha as their god. They built communes in the plains; from the stone they fashioned their homes, and their fortitude they brought forth from labour and honest work.
Marea, the Gentle, loved the flow of magical forces in the flora and fauna of Rohan. And so, she brought the Elves to being and bade them live as conduits to the life forces that surround them. The Elves learned from the magic of life from their environment, and gave back with care and devotion to the land and its living inhabitants. They employed the natural forces to aid them in casting spells of healing and growth. But, just as nature is two-sided, the Elves could utilize their magical influences to defend themselves through force as needed.
Gail, the Mighty, formed the Giants to be the most robust among the Five's creations. They were set upon the world as guardians; wardens against dangers their and their brother races might face. Strength, might, and endurance were their aspects, augmented by speed and agility, all taught by the harsh environments in their settlement in Rohan. Imposing in size and capability, they stand fast against what foil time may have them face.
Silva, the Swift, created the industrious Halflings. Hard-working and clever, this shy and modest people make their living off the land of Rohan, using tools they craft with their cunning knowledge of machines and practical technology. They mined and farmed the land, subsisting on what they thought was theirs by right as residents of Rohan.
Flox, the Intelligent, bore the Dark Elves from the fires in his mind, enabling in each of them a singular innate proficiency in the art of aggressive sorcery. In the ruthless but magically attuned volcanic regions of Rohan, the Dark Elves erected a bastion of learning and study, perfecting their mysterious abilities in quiet seclusion. They preferred pouring time over their arcane tomes over the company of other races.
Historians of Rohan call it The Age of Isolation, taking place millennia Before the Purge (BP). Isolation, mainly due to the fact that Ohn himself at last created the Great Dragons from the very heavens from which he came. He appointed the Dragons as custodians of peace, making sure that contact between the different peoples of Rohan were, at best, superficial and coincidental. The Dragons guarded the borders of the host of countries; the aim was peace, and peace was maintained. Every race's culture was spared the rigors of conflict and discord, and flourished for aeons.
With his energy spent and his essence tired beyond compare, his work completed and the world growing on its own, Ohn rested.
Purge
At around 200 BP, the world of Rohan was privy to a world-changing event the likes of which have never been seen before. The sky was black and the light of the stars absent; no sun to mask the horror of what would happen next.
Plumes of flame rained down from the heavens with all in the world bearing witness. Meteors crashed all over the land, some so miniscule when they reached the ground, some titanic and fearsome in their eventual collision with the peaceful locales of Rohan. The multitude of casualties would not compare to the gravity of what actually took place. An extraordinary disaster in the most inopportune moment caught the Gods and the offspring races alike by surprise.
The Five were alarmed. Ohn's grace had departed the world. His spirit fluctuated and trickled down to slivers upon the senses of the Five. Knowing something was not right with the All-Father, they gathered in a place untouched by their children and studied the phenomenal catastrophe, only to come to the conclusion that would shock every one of them: Ohn was dead.
But not quite. While the Five mourned and grieved at the discovery, Roha, being steadfast and calm, clung on to what he felt as the remnants of Ohn from the upheaval that was the Celestial Shower. What slightest hint of Ohn's power he sensed, he held close and reasoned that the All-Father still exists, albeit dispersed, formless, and dormant.
Whatever differences the Five had, if they had any, were put to rest as they hastened to rectify the matter of their fallen Father. Silva suggested they search the heavens for clues as to who was responsible for the calamity.
Gail, being stubborn and tough, elected to find the scattered remnants of Ohn to be pieced together. Marea wanted to find a way to invoke her own life force onto Ohn's scattered spirit. Flox, however, was devastated, and his mind flew apart and harboured feelings of loathing towards everything outside the Five. He spent a century analyzing the intricate details of the forces at work that made them end up in their rut. He miserly spent his time cultivating negative judgment as he laboured to find the unreachable comforting truth that could somehow bring back Ohn.
When he emerged from his study, he deduced that Ohn expended too much power during the Genesis. He felt their own power diminishing as the wheels of time kept turning, and so he put faith in his theory that their offspring were responsible for their present predicament, not caring that the Five themselves were birthed by Ohn's power.
Flox convinced his siblings of his deceitful plan. Ohn's last legacy before he left were the Great Dragons, the supposed stewards of the Age of Isolation. Flox was certain that they were the last great drain on Ohn's reserves, and thus, culpable in the deicide of their All-Father. His feelings of hate and dissonance resonated upon his brothers and sisters; even Roha gradually sunk into a degenerating spiral of distrust that felled his strong will with repeated blows of anxiety and revulsion, reflecting Flox's own wild musings. They mutually agreed that to bring back Ohn, the Dragons had to die.
They believed that killing every last one of the magnificent beasts would return the Father's powers, and possibly some of theirs. They took flight and scoured Rohan for the winged guardians, and struck them down one after the other in an abhorrent act that would come to be known as The Purge. The Dragons were caught off guard, and they fell, one by one and in droves as some mounted the least bit of defence against the Five. Lower Gods that they may be, and slightly diminished at that, but few who underestimated them for their designations survived to tell the tale. They destroyed Ohn's beautiful creations, in a mad rush to bring back the one whom they loved. A hundred years of death, and Ohn, still, did not return. The Five would have to do more.
Way of the Dragons
During the Celestial Shower, Armenes, the Great Blue Dragon, watched the dark heaven pour its wrath onto the world. He felt the storm physically and mentally, and he sunk deep in thought of the things to come. The sage foresaw another storm, one that would cripple his and his fellow Dragons' existence. The meteors that crashed upon the face of Rohan heralded a fate far worse than being pelted by flames spat by the sky.
As the final columns of fire ebbed down, torrential rain fell on the world, as if to ease the land's pain. Armenes spread his massive wings, and flew to the northern lands. Feeling that his life would not be forever as Ohn would have once intended, he chose to live on in a different aspect. He settled upon the peak of a mountain in the centre of what is now known as Bahran Island, and inhaled the pristine air therein. In one immense gust of fire and brimstone, he cracked the earth with his expelled Dragonflame, and the mountain was no more. The land, ashes and all, sunk down beneath the quickly rising waters, forming a large lake where there was once the crag of rock. He flew in circles around the site, the wind he created so harsh it shaped the water and ash and lashed it into shapes much like the Five's offspring.
Armenes blew life into the forms the chaotic water and earth brought forth, and from the waters were borne the Dekans, a name Armenes whispered to the wind on his wings and was carved into the very souls of the beings he had created. He thought on his Father Ohn, and like the omnipotent God, he rested, waiting for the coming of the future.
The Dekans came above the water, and drew in their first breath in the land of Rohan. Though noticeably blue-skinned like their progenitor and the waters from which they were borne and sporting fins and scales, they emerged relatively beyond the notice of the other races. Their peculiar appearance was naught a detriment to their hardiness and ability; their way was bequeathed to them wholly by the Dragons: the ways of the wise, strong, and resilient.
Unbeknownst to them, Armenes and his brethren were on the verge of dying out completely, ultimately leaving them in command of their own lives soon after. Nevertheless, they learned from what the Blue Sire had left them, forming castes to harness their innate talent, and building disciplines hardened by faith and reverence to Armenes. Whether in pursuit of the cerebral arts and fortes or the raw physical strengths given them, the Dekans, as we all know today, were there to stay, outlasting their primaries and proving to the rest of the world their rightful place as living pieces of Armenes' essence.
Scattering
Two decades ago, in the other end of the world, it was 159 BP, and the Human kingdom was in turmoil. Kraute Del Lagos, descended from the line of noble monarchs ruling their namesake region, shook the sovereignty with a sudden rebellion. The majestic city of Einhoren was riveted in civil war, factions taking sides between Kraute and his decadent brother Ferrikhan. In an attempt to subvert his brother's impending decisive attack on his own forces, Kraute invited Ferrikhan to parley in the hallowed halls of Trichia Seminary. In the neutral ground and sanctuary, Kraute murdered his brother, betraying the bond of blood and the tenets of honourable war. He assumed a leadership that would not last two years.
Sergio Del Lagos, son of Caronia, Ferrikhan's queen, sought to avenge his father's immoral death and engulfed Einhoren in the last dispute that would have the name of Del Lagos stained with blood. He mounted a guerrilla resistance against the more experienced, and then turned-arrogant, Kraute. Rousing the devout Paladins from their reluctant subservience to their undeserving king and recruiting them on his side, Sergio won his war by attrition, eventually forcing Kraute to abdicate the throne of Einhoren. Sergio's revenge would not be complete, however, as Kraute escaped barely from the Battle of the East Gate, and took a large remnant of his loyal contingent north with him, passing through the drylands before Juba's Waterclock.
Sergio's troops flanked the routed traitors, and Kraute was injured in their hasty flight for survival. He died of wounds sustained in battle during the long and arduous journey north past Varvylon and Liom. His vizier, the prophet Haillok, took his place in leading the homeless men across the rough terrain.
The Elves observed the Humans' internal hostilities draw to a close from their immaculate base of power in Regen, in the land of Via Marea. They were quick to broker an alliance with Sergio Del Lagos, with common ground being found in religion and the arts, among other things. Einhoren's Paladins were not that far removed from Regen's Monks, and peace was easily reached even after the mysterious disappearance of the Red Dragon that guarded the Human-Elf border.
Headmaster Lauke of the Monks of Marea established strong bonds between the Elves and their close neighbours, soliciting aid from them in the fight against the ever increasing Orcish incursions from the east. Queen Rima Regenon, ruling to this day, was witness to the blossomed friendship between the two races, and until now, the two peoples enjoy a durable peace accord, along with the Halflings of Rima, the people who invented the unanimously accepted currency system of Crone Trading.
The harmony realized by the neighbouring countries Del Lagos and Via Marea began another nation's story. Proximity was the ember that kindled both the Humans' and Elves' longing for social interaction outside of their norms. A renaissance was upon the world now that the Dragons were not there to prevent the intermingling between races. And mingle, they did. Humans and Elves interbred and gave birth to children that weren't exactly expected and normal: half-breeds.
Within two generations, the number of Half-elves grew to a significant fraction of the populace in Einhoren, Regen, and the outlying Human and Elf settlements; so much so that the pureblood residents began to take notice. The half-breed connotation was a quickly erected defence mechanism, and Half-elves everywhere had to endure ridicule, disparity, and at best, indifference. The idea of impure parentage took its heavy toll on the first half-elves, with only their parents to support them - if they're lucky - not their parent nations.
The Half-elves inherited the Elves' passion for nature, and sought the company of the great wilds of Rohan, while their Human side provided them their knack for survival and adaptability. At around 280 AP (After the Purge), Half-elves here and there embarked on an Exodus, and the first tents of what would become Kai'non today sprung up in the forests of lush Morrisen. Coupled with their deprivation of a sense of belongingness, and the drive to set out on their own wanderlust, Half-elves from around the region ultimately converged in that selfsame spot, and with dignity and independence in tow, settled there for good.
Kai'non became a place where the half-breeds could live on without being called one. They trained in the techniques designed for combat in the untamed environment, and groups of mercenaries were formed as their base military unit. Kai'non maintained a neutral stance politically; they took in and cared for refugees from Orc raids on Elven territory, for instance, but they would never directly aid the Elven troops.
The Stirring North
While the Humans and their cadre of allies enjoyed peace in the south, to the prophet Haillok and the remnant of Kraute Del Lagos' loyalists, life had been cruel to them. They had worshiped Roha, only to feel betrayed by their God when they utterly lost their home and hearth to fellow Humans. Travelling directionless in haste to escape their pursuers from Einhoren, they lost their king, but not their hope. Haillok and his brethren prayed to the one God they considered more powerful than their own, Edoneh.
Mother, they called her, and she heard from the heavens and took pity on the battered soldiers. She shone her light and guided them to Bahran, towards the eastern coast before the Arctic Sea. She bade them rest there, and build a home anew. They constructed a city of wood and stone in a secluded valley and named it Par'Talucca, meaning "piece of the blade", forever reminding them that they were once whole, and were broken off. With spite and revulsion towards the Human race and its name, they gave themselves a new name, the Dhan.
Powerful once-Human clans like the Doshizo, the Huma, and Azma, banded together and founded a pseudo-feudal hierarchy that ruled the city and its development. Present day Avengers, taught to breed the taste for retribution against the iniquitous mistakes of Humans, follow this social order and its postulates. The Shadow Walkers on the other hand, are the more ruthless arm of the Dhan caste, training clear-cut killers from their young men and women. Evidently the Dhan honed their martial arts in a cutthroat society held at the seams by a thinning honour-base. They bred assassins, born and raised to kill without hesitation.
To be accepted in Dhan culture was to spill the blood of another race, and that they did with fervour and relish. When a young Dhan came of age, he would travel southwards on a mission from his elders, and would only come back when successful.
Resentful of their history, their thirst for blood was kept only in check by their respect for Haillok's teachings, their memory of Kraute, and their belief in Edoneh. Through the intercession of Haillok, Edoneh entitled the Dhan to shelter from the coming storm; a promise that would see Par'Talucca made whole again and the Dhan standing above all the other races to revel in vindication. How Edoneh plans to enact this, amongst the presence of the other races, and the Five, only Haillok among the mortals would know.
A century after the Purge, the Dhan were surprised to encounter a new nation closer to them than they ever thought. First contact between them and the Dekans of West Bahran was bloody, to say the least, as both nations harboured bitterness and anger against all but their own. Years of border conflicts, raids, and massed battles trudged on and littered the lonely north with corpses of the slain, and the taunts of victors.
Only after more than a decade of fighting was a truce made real, when increasing hordes of monsters threatened to engulf the Bahran islands. Working together only out of sheer necessity, the two warmongering neighbours tolerated each other at last, at least for the time being.
Unbeknownst to the Dhan and Dekans, another civilization thrived in the cold recesses of the northern wastes of Draht. Gail's Giants, more than comfortable with their solitude in their stonework villages and harsh atmosphere, began to come down from their niches at approximately 145 AP. The supposed guardians of the world, nobody knows yet what role they'd play in the new theatre of conflict, with the Dragons gone from the face of the world, and the other races playing against and with each other interchangeably.
Black Magic
Flox and Marea were said to have created the both races of Elves together, being both more attuned to the magical force of Rohan than the others of the Five. But as the Elves inherited the latter's gentleness, the Dark Elves seemingly inherited Flox's tempestuous genius and emotion. And being born of almost similar stock as the Elves, they shared the appreciation of beauty, only marring it with arrogance and zealous mystique.
In Montt, the bastion of the Dark Elves atop the burning terra of Ignis, a different fire burned. Secluded in their corner of the world from the other races even after the Purge, the Dark Elves enjoyed their hermitage, pursuing the deep study of Magic in its volatile untamed state. This academic population innately held within them their progenitor's taste for knowledge - and the taste for a maddening rancour that comes with it.
Kanos Lyonan established the monarchy of Montt nearly three hundred years before the Purge. Kanos was the foremost warlock of their people, and he took the magnificent Emilita as her queen. Aristocracy was the law of the land, with commoners at the foot and the four major noble families - Lardemonde, Arcon, Lyonan, and Armant - at the fore. Reasonably, ability translated into status, and outstandingly able masses were accorded special posts. The Dark Elven civilization flourished for itself in this way, and they spent year after year quietly perfecting the arts of the arcane.
Shortly after the Purge, the aftershocks of the great event were felt even in the secretive hideout of the Dark Elves. Noble and commoner alike felt the waves of magical energy released by the Dragon's deaths, along with the Five's emanations fuelled by hostile intent. Ignis was divided instantly as the people took sides debating whether they are still under Flox's favour or not. With their natural tendency of egotism and dissension, civil war was quickly just beyond their doorstep. Others thought that Flox had abandoned them, others remained loyal to their god, and while others still were bent on taking advantage of the political upheaval.
One such person, Georges Lyonan, descendant of the reigning line, took it upon himself to forever change Montt's and Ignis' fates forever. No records outside of their race exist on how he took his precursor off of the throne, but it was obvious he did so without hesitation and regret. He altered the government of the nation almost immediately and formed a Senate from the other power-hungry nobles. Whether unknowingly or deliberately, he silenced, and united, the infighting Dark Elves; albeit with a gossamer thread of unease. He maintained the worship of Flox, both willing reverence and - to deviant citizens - enforced devotion.
Before long, they were known to have undergone discussions with the faraway denizens of the tumultuous North, despising their nearer neighbours for the Elves' and Humans' outwardly weak position of continental peace and non-aggression.
At Present Day
The Five are restless. Their power slowly but surely waning from their severance from Ohn, they yearned for retribution for an act they blamed the people of Rohan for. They unleashed horror upon horror on the face of the land. Fortresses and cities fell - Regen, Ash Valley, Bothan, Narkhant, dozens more. The world was again engulfed in a great tragedy rivaling that of the Purge.
All was not lost, however. Heroes emerged. Edwin. Ka'el. Lorenzo. Kish. Others yet unrecognized but every bit as courageous. Nearly every being contributed to saving the one thing they had in common, in one way or another. And while they faced a threat so unmistakably insurmountable, to be defeated, beaten, and overcome was just a minor setback.
After all, in Rohan, VENGEANCE IS ALWAYS AN OPTION.