The Archipelago
2023-05-10
There is a story told amongst the elders of Imperial Sembasa, telling the story of an old people who saw a great star descending upon them, flames erupting around edges like the foul corona of a daemon king seeking to consume the innocent souls of their world. The people prayed to the Divines, of Light, or Healing, of Storms, of War. The prayed for salvation and as the black corona began to scream towards their world there was a singular moment of light and song as these believers were whisked away.
Soon after that four great people found themselves upon a gentle hill, great trees of unknown type spreading out father than their eyes could see. They each could hear cries from this great forest of people sounding out for help, men, women, and children all singing to the Divine as the sky was no longer filled with the screams or the flames or the terror. Instead these four great people could enjoy the cool breeze.
The four, after reassessing briefly, realized that each knew the others. Agug the Orcish Dread Lord, Queen Andaleish of the Undying Dwarven Kingdom, Wise Umshire the Purple of Elvenkind, and Catholonia the Imperial Empress. Each represented one of the great nations of their world sought to discuss their situation but none knew the others’ language. Still these great players of statecraft met utop the hill. The Empress began with as much confidence as she could must and to everyone’s surprise they all understood her, and to even more surprise they didn’t hear any of the imperial language, instead this strange mix of sounds and words came out which had sounded similar to a pigeoned version of their collective languages, naming it as the Common language. They went back and forth for hours. Sometimes Agug looked to bring forth is great ax while other times the Queen sought to bring forth her great wealth to sway them. Instead with great effort from the Empress they managed to find a singular point of union, their complete confusion. They discussed the change of location, of flora, of fauna, and so made a pact together to seek out the truth.
For many years they lept between points of interest, collecting the people of their previous places and growing to form a coalition. However, to add to their difficulties those of arcane magics found that their abilities were either gone or so severely weakened to be made almost worthless. And so when they made their way to the ocean, within palisade enclosed walls of their first town they found themselves at odds. Each desired to be the sole power of their new place and in a moment of inspiration they instead played a game of chance, with the Empress winning and the other three taking their followers across the sea. This new sea wasn’t like the previous one however and soon hundreds of these ships had sunk before arriving in any place of happiness for these arrivals, Andaleish, and Umshire drowning in the crossing and scattering their followers across the Archipelago. While Agug struck land and upon finding a new group of people struck out in his old ways, provoking war with this new race of creatures and as they were scattered upon the sand the survivors named this group of red and green creatures “Agug’s Demise”, which has since become “Goblins”.
And with the death of the three great powers soon the Empress sought about creating a new empire in this new land, and with no one else to stop them.
