Third Chapter: Rise of the Britannian Kingdom
As has been said, each facet's history diverged at
the time when Exodus emerged. What of our facets, Trammel and
Felucca? Exodus was seemingly unknown to Britannians until it was
encountered in Ilshenar. This is not because Exodus did not
exist, but because it had been forgotten. The time when Exodus
entered our shards was during the Esidin Empire. Their magic was
a match for Exodus, and though their battle was great, its record
passed away with the rest of the Esidins' memory, save among the
adherents of the Liturgy of Truth. That which we do know of the
Esidin remained in the tomes possessed by those later adherents who
built the Lycaeum and Empath Abbey, and Exodus was still known to their
monks to the present day. Sadly, their new vow of silence
prevents them to speak of it any longer.
History proceeded largely unaffected by Exodus and
recapitulated the events leading to Mondain's defeat. As with all
facets, at that moment great changes were wrought on the surface of
Sosaria. The Land of Danger and Despair, where Mondain had his
stronghold disappeared utterly, and the Continent of the Dark Unknown
sank beneath the waves until all that remained was the small
archipelago called Elikki. Akalabeth and the Land of the Feudal
Lords collided and formed the present continent of Britannia, and the
Isle of Fire rose from the deep. At the end, the map stood much
as we see it now, save that the islands of Elikki are no more.
The cities that survived the shattering were
Britain, Yew, Moon, Montor, and Paws. Britain was heavily damaged
in the cataclysm, and many years were spent reconstructing. Yew
was relatively unscathed, but its residents remained reclusive.
Paws meanwhile found swamplands steadily encroaching on it. Of
the cities that survived, Moon encountered the most extreme changes in
geography, becoming an island far from the Britannian continent where
it had been. Survivors of the destroyed city of Fawn eked a
meager existence as shepherds on the island called Magincia, while
remnants of the feudal kingdom of Randorin banded together into the
makeshift city of Vesper. The island of Ocllo moved far from its
former position in the Land of the Feudal Lords, but the island itself
remained mostly unchanged. Its inhabitants continued farming the
island in self-imposed isolation. They forgot their history as
descendants of the kingdom of Barataria and came to believe that their
ancestors had been placed on the island by a great hand that rose from
the lake in its center.
Montor, though it survived, found itself on a small
and isolated island with no significant resources. Its people
abandoned the island for the mainland, where they built the village of
Linelle on the southern coast. When they landed, they saw a sight
to chill the blood: in the distance, a flight of dragons. The
dragons flew south from the dungeon Despise sowing destruction on their
path to their new home. A third of the Montorians were afraid and
sailed again until they came to a chain of islands where they
settled. They called it West Montor but soon fragmented into
clans that fought over the limited resources of the island.
Because of the Montorians’ fear, the dragons’ new home was called
Destard. Some survivors of Montor refused to travel any further
and stayed in Linelle, but most Montorians journeyed farther north and
joined survivors of the destroyed city of Grey in building a new city
south of Paws.
The new city in the South quickly found itself set
upon by orcs teeming from the surrounding forests. Likewise,
Britain and Paws came under increasing attack, but the city in the
South at that time faced the greatest danger. The captain of that
city's militia was called Trin, and he set about the ensuring the
defense of the city with moats and wooden palisades. With the
city capable of defense, he began a decisive offense, personally
slaying the orcish leader and staving off further attacks for a
generation. In recognition of his deeds, the city was finally
given a proper name: Trinsic.
In Britain, soldiers in the command of Lord
British’s brother, Lord Robere, soundly defeated the attacking
orcs. In recognition, Lord Robere was granted lands and a
fortress to the north of Britain. With this plot of land to rule,
a desire awakened in Lord Robere to rule yet more land. So
resolved, Lord Robere began civil war with the aim of controlling
Britain itself. On the plain outside Lord Robere's stronghold,
this war was decided in a bloody battle, and Lord Robere was
defeated. That place was afterwards called the Crimson Plain, and
it became a desert, as nothing would grow after so much innocent blood
had been spilled. In the aftermath of these events, new thoughts
came to Lord British's mind. He conceived of a set of ideals that
could unite people and prevent such wasteful strife in the
future. These were the Virtues. Lord British then
dispatched Dupre as an emissary to Trinsic and Shamino as an emissary
to Yew to promote virtue and goodwill between the cities.
The defense of Britain's northern approach was
afterward given to a stalwart warrior, Uulther Malphane. Malphane
built a fortification in the Northeast, from which his forces subdued
the tribes of trolls in the woods and mountains. They drove the
trolls to the far north and west, into the depths of an ancient prison,
called Wrong because of the tortures inflicted on criminals before the
Brotherhood of the Rose brought compassion to justice. In later
times of peace, Malphane’s fort became a village, simply called
Cove. Because of the safety Malphane's soldiers brought to the
region, the monk Brialla was able to make her famous journey to chart
the future site of Minoc, and beyond.
Meanwhile in Vesper, the people took advantage of
the plentiful timber and began the construction of ships. The
first Vesperian sailors were hunters of walruses and whales, the latter
of which they even hunted to extinction. The importance of
walruses to early Vesper for food, fuel, and hides is still celebrated
in the annual Walrus Festival. They traded natural resources to
Moon for magical devices and with the shepherds of Magincia for their
wool fabrics. Before long, piracy was born from Vesper's trade,
and the pirates made their home at Buccanneer's Den. The
Magincians, on the other hand, increasingly diverted their efforts from
sheep herding towards mining new caverns of precious stones and jewels,
with much greater worth than mere wool. Soon, their abundant
wealth gave the Magincians significant power over Vesperian trading
interests and ready access to the latest magical innovations from
Moon. Vesper also encountered Ocllo, but the latter discouraged
further contact and declined to trade.
The Western
cities prospered, as Britain completed
reconstruction and Yew continued to enjoy peace. Lord British
decreed that the Court of Truth be built in Yew to serve Justice.
In Trinsic, Dupre became greatly admired, and his ideals of Honor
widely emulated. Those who followed this ideal were called
paladins, and their guildhall in the center of Trinsic was the first
stone structure in the city. Britain, Yew, Trinsic, and Paws
agreed to form a united kingdom, Britannia, for their common defense,
and settlers from each city cooperated to colonize the new city of
Skara Brae. Skara Brae in its early years was troubled by rampant
disease, until the invention of the famous Skara Braen soap. The
numerous cats, which still populate the island to this day, were
imported to keep it free of plague-carrying rats.
When the fragmented West Montorians were finally reunited under the
warlord Jhel, they petitioned to join Britannia as Jhelom. Their
skills in war made them sought after as mercenaries, and made imports
from the mainland more readily available to the island, itself poor in
natural resources.
Vesper and Magincia viewed the Western cities'
unification with suspicion. They took counsel with one another
and with Moon so as not to fall under the hegemony of Britannia's
influence. Into this situation entered a new Britannian town on
the doorstep of Vesper: Minoc. Vesper and Magincia protested the
encroachment, but knew they had little military might. Relations
remained tense, until Magincia faced a wholly unexpected crisis: the
pirates of Buccanneer's Den became so emboldened as to begin raiding
Magincia itself. At this juncture, the paladins of Trinsic
intervened voluntarily and repelled the threat. Forced to
recognize the value of the defense of a kingdom, Magincia was
sufficiently humbled to negotiate membership in Britannia, though it
retained an independent parliament to review and theoretically reject
any royal decree affecting the island. Fearing isolation from its
trading partners, Vesper shortly after followed suite.
With affairs calmed in the eastern seas, Jhelom
established a new offshoot, New Jhelom. Its original settlers
found life on this desert isle untenable and departed, but not before
the residents of Buccanneer's Den adapted to a new form of piracy
there: gambling.
New
Jhelom morphed into Nu'Jelm, an opulent
vacation resort popular with wealthy Magincians. Minoc also
experienced changes, its mining operations greatly expanded by opening
trade with Vesper. In the exuberance of their prosperity, some
miners forgot that the world still held ancient dangers.
Searching for that rarest of minerals, blackrock, the miners opened the
way to the buried lair of Khelereth the Black Lich. All manner of
monsters then filled the miners' caverns, and since that day the
lumberjacks of Minoc have been plagued by reapers. That dungeon
has been called Covetous, because of the miners' disastrous greed.
Moon at that time was undergoing great internal
turmoil. The magical techniques of the Liturgy of Truth had
already been largely supplanted by a new system of magery, but then
even the ideal of Truth itself became increasingly called into
question. Few lives were lost in the struggle that followed, but
the methods of the mages' war were so arcane that few of the dead were
content to remain entombed in the graveyard. Up to that time,
Moon had most closely aligned with Vesper and Magincia, but during the
tensions between Britannia and the East, Moon found itself too absorbed
in internecine conflict to weigh in on the situation. Moon
eventually emerged from its turmoil as Moonglow, newly rededicated to
Honesty and Truth, and joined the Britannia. The dissenters in
Moonglow departed voluntarily and formed a community in the abandoned
ruins, thereafter called Deceit, on the snowy Dagger Isle.
While surveying his new
kingdom, Lord British
visited the former site of Montor. He explored it alone and found
himself threatened by a mongbat. Before the mongbat could make
any aggressive move, a silver serpent struck out and killed it.
In commemoration of this event, Lord British established there
Serpent's Hold, as a place of training for soldiers to defend the
kingdom. Serpent’s Hold became the last of the three strongholds
of the principles. The Lycaeum stood for the Ancient Liturgy of
Truth since the days of Esidin; the Empath Abbey tempered Truth with
Love in the feudal era; and finally, Serpent’s Hold symbolized the
courage of the Britannian kingdom.
What befell next was a pivotal moment in the history
of our land. A being of great power from beyond our worlds, the 
Time Lord, contacted Lord
British and revealed the extraordinary nature
of our world. Before that moment, only the Followers of
Armageddon had dreamed they were living inside a gem, but the Time Lord
told Lord British the truth that our world was in fact within one of
the Gem's shards. These shards are vulnerable to corruption by
the beings called Shadowlords, and if allowed, the Shadowlords will
turn the shards' power against the true Britannia. The solution
to this vulnerability is to reunite the shards, which will be
accomplished when each citizen of Britannia adopts the virtues for his
or her own moral code. Unfortunately, the consequence of this
unification is that any individual existing in the shards but not in
the true world will cease to exist.
Lord British accepted the necessity of defending the
realm from any threat and so began restoring the ancient shrines and
dedicating them to the Virtues. To give every one of his subjects
a clear and personal understanding of the Virtues, Lord British knew
that he would need the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom. This mythical
book was said to contain the answer to any question the reader should
ask. To obtain 
the Codex,
Lord British summoned his most virtuous
subjects: Geoffery the Fighter, Mariah the Mage, Iolo the Bard, Dupre
the Paladin, Julia the Tinker, Jaana the Druid, Shamino the Ranger, and
Katrina the Shepherd. Their quest led them through each of the
dungeons of Britannia and finally to the Stygian Abyss, which can only
be entered by one carrying the Book of Truth, the Candle of Love, and
the Bell of Courage. In the depths of the abyss, however, the
Codex could not be found. Since then, the book, bell, and candle
have been kept in the three strongholds of the principles.
In opposition to the Virtues, Lord Blackthorn objected on the grounds
that there are many possible moral codes, and each person should be
free to select the values that seem most right. Furthermore, the
lives that would be lost in unification have value that must be taken
into account. He therefore established his own shrine, dedicated
to Chaos.
Into this time of relative peace among humanity, war
erupted again with the orcs. Paws was overwhelmed and reduced to
ruin, its only survivor being Crawworth, who became well known in
Trinsic. Next, the unthinkable happened, and Trinsic itself was
sacked and much of it set ablaze. The paladins resolved not to
leave themselves similarly vulnerable in the future, and the city was
reconstructed entirely of stones with massive inner and outer defensive
walls. Trinsic was from that time impervious to the orcish hosts,
and the orcs withdrew to new encampments near Yew and Cove.
Before long Trinsic's fortifications would serve it
well. Alone in the deep jungle, the village of Linelle ran afoul 
of
an evil witch, but the villagers were not defenseless and managed to
slay her. The witch, however, had three sons, each with strange
powers. One radiated extreme heat to burn anyone near, another
assailed attackers with freezing cold, while the third issued deadly
poison. The three took their revenge upon Linelle and slaughtered
its people. In their continuing fury, they challenged Trinsic
also, but the paladins laid the brothers low.
In Britain, a newly invested grandmaster mage,
Relvinian perfected the spell to summon daemons. He promoted
daemons as a means to free Britannians from unnecessary physical labor,
but not everyone was convinced of the safety of the proposal.
Lord British was willing to hear the merits of the plan, and so
Relvinian was invited to demonstrate its potential at Lord British's
castle. When the time came, the summoned daemons went on a
rampage and killed the castle’s cooking staff before being put
down. Relvinian disappeared and shortly after created the hedge
maze south of Britain to continue his research on daemon summoning in
privacy. Relvinian, however, did not reside there long before
disappearing again from history.
This was 300 years since the shattering of the Gem of Immortality.