Unlike many nations, whose history in the last century has been a continuation of much of the same, Avereaux’s culture has faced a new challenge in adapting to life without a Monarchy. Where the Commonwealth has thrown off the shackles of their Kings and Queens and Lieges, Avereaux embraced the grandeur and inspiration of their royal line, until its tragic dismantling in the battle of Cloudreach, where King Lambert the Bold was killed in the first full field battle against the Corrupted in the year 972, 53 years before the present day.
King Lambert died without an heir, and with no-one of royal blood able or willing to take up the mantle of rulership.
In the years since, the Freeholds, the four towns with a Royal Charter, took up the mantle of government, continuing on in much the same way they had, collaborating with their neighbours in the Crownlands, Valdraeth and The Wonder in defending their side of Elandra. Once bitter enemies, in the last few hundred years Valdraeth and Avereaux have maintained a bond of loyalty, in part through the balance offered by The Wonder, and the very physical barrier The Wonder’s forests create.
So far in the war, Avereaux adventuring parties have bolstered the more formal army of Valdraeth, and fought alongside the Sylvan of The Wonder in Thornsthorpe among other fronts.
Seeing the challenge they all face looming, the nine nations of Elandra came together to sign the Pact of the Nine thirty-six years ago in 989, swearing alliance to one another with a renewing of this agreement every five years.
The Fading
Immediately following the Pact, the event known as the Fading has further prevented new progress in the nations; this was some sort of unknown magical calamity which affected and continues to affect the spread of information and its retention – both on paper and in the minds of all people across Elandra.
Land beyond the boundaries of the Corruption is no longer remembered as it should be; it is as if the memory of it has been washed away, and the records of such are blank or missing too. Information from before the Pact is similarly difficult to find, and impossible to recall for those who lived through it.
Other information is similarly missing from recall by all the remaining powers of Elandra, though some snippets of the past are found in oral traditions, festivals and the echo of memory on culture of each nation.
The study of history has been devastated by this calamity, as it is no longer possible to be certain of fact with so many relied-upon sources being unavailable. The record-keepers and historians of every nation have tried to maintain some form of order, but there is a lot beyond mortal knowledge that was once known to all, and it is an ongoing exercise to share what little remains.
Scholars generally blame the Corrupted for having caused this – severing connection to whatever is beyond their borders using foul magic of some kind, but the search to recover what has been lost is a massive international effort.