Our glory has faded, the ink has dripped from the ancient pages, fingers falter on strings, the bard cannot remember the second verse…
Valdraeth is down to its last lands, and since the Fade its people have been mostly trying to survive. Stories continue to be made, but they are overshadowed by the roil of the battlefront inching ever closer.
Much is lost from the Age of Legends, though in some small corner a Lorekeep may still have a tale or two from the days of old when the world still smiled. When the corruption appeared in the Age of Calamity, it gnawed greedily away at the land and peoples, many following their ambitions foolishly to the doom of themselves and others. The battle lines fell back again, again and again with little to call hope.
During the age of loss, the last dregs of shattered Valdraethan armies departed on a mission to cross the remaining roads through battle torn lands and bring its ruler to an assembly of the nations. There each nation signed and swore an Oath bound by the most powerful magic to work together in order to drive back the coming ruin of the world and defeat the corruption. However the corruption too, it seems, was in attendance. Our rulers and the brave people of our armies were never seen again.
Except for one. Maireann the Envoy Ever Enduring, snatched up that fated document, and made a pact, swearing her one last Oath. Though her body was badly wounded, she rode fair fast and far, until finally she fell shaking on the steps of one of the last scraps of civilization, and handing over the document, her body began to unknit, and she passed into the full glory of a legend.
Now all those who are about to make impossible stands against the corruption, hope their stories may end with such honour. She is not the only one of legends in these later days. The mages of the Mantle, too many and too gloried in name to list here, sacrificed themselves one after another to weave a powerful magic that would let our people flee the corruption and retreat to the safety of our last stand. Ardrastia the Watchful of the Stalwart, who sacrificed her Refined title and lands to fight on Valdraeth’s last remaining battlefront, stands shoulder to shoulder with silk sellers and swordsmen, all holding the line and their heads high.
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.