The Chronicles of Saint Ethain 

(history of the setting; This background information is slightly coloured and was supposed to be a ingame source, like an excerpt of a chronic or something similar. I tried to write it that way, but I fear my language skills have failed me in more than one instance. I’m not entirely content with the text, but I’m not in the moot to rework it. Again.) 

Ashkardia was always known to men; they dreamt of it, their legends where formed there. It is open to speculation if the legends were formed by the Ashkardians based upon a contact of both worlds in the dawn of man, or if the legends of men and their common subconsciousness formed Ashkardia to the lands of mysticism and magic it has become.

Ashkardia was called Asgard, Olymp, Tir Nan Ogg or Elysium by the humans, they called the Otherland, the Eternal Hunting Grounds, sometimes Paradise and often Hell. It was the cradle of dragons, the lair of the Echidna, the place the people thought off when they scribbled “there be monsters” on their maps.

The Time of Travels
Arcadia was always near to what we call “Terra” or Earth. In the old times, magic was strong enough on both sides of the gap between the different layers of reality to allow travels between the worlds. Ashkardians came to Earth and left legends of fairies and trolls, of gods, dragons and monsters. Heroes of human origin “descended into the Underworld” and sometimes came back to tell the story. Ashkardian travellers where the origin of many human legends and myths. It was a glorious time, a time of adventure and exploration, when the worlds where still young and optimistic. Back then, there were monsters, and heroes, ad what was supposed gods came to earth and brought miracles and wonders with them, as beautiful as they were terrible. What later historians and archaeologists described as myths and legends were nothing but the reports of the wondrous meetings between men and beings from an other facet of reality. 

The oldest of the Ashkardians – apart from those who called themselves gods, and travelled the lands to satisfy their endless hunger – were the Elder Races, those who were as old as the gods themselves and savvy in the ways of warfare and magic. The Elder Races were the dragons, bound to the elements and terrifying in every aspect, the Trolls, the Rockborn, who had the strength and patience of mountains, and the Elves, called Sidhe in their own tongue, nimble and fair and with an unmatched insight in the hidden truths of magic.
There were other people as well – galloping Kentaurs and sylvan Satys, the winged Hawkpeople and the playful Selkies on the beaches. 

The Shattered Bridges
As the time went by, the humans eventually found a new source of power: iron. Iron broke the magic of Ashkardia and it burned the flesh of the world travellers. Iron the most profane of all metals was poison for those who needed magic as much as oxygen to survive. Magic withered on Terra and the gates between the different world closed. Ashkardians found it harder and harder to cross the gap, and the humans lost their aptitude for magic even faster. And suddenly, their magic gave little protection against the black iron and crossing the gap of the world became a perilous adventure at best. Around the time that mighty Ilion was sacked the first time, the gates closed, seemingly for ever. And the visitors of a stranger world didn’t come anymore. Humanity was alone, and prospered, declined, and prospered again through the changes of centuries. 

The Godswar
Suddenly, those who were used to travel the worlds where captured in there own reality. The Ashkardians weren’t used anymore to have such burdens on their freedom, and conflicts between the different people grew. The gods, oldest and most powerful of the Ashkardians claimed their superiority over all others, and those who refused, where attacked. War became first a threat, than a normality throughout Ashkardia. The gods subjugated those who refused to worship them, or exterminated them. Millions cried. Millions died. 

In the end, the three eldest people united to defend themselves against the wrath of the gods. These three were the Dragons, old and wise, the tall Trolls of the World Spine mountains, vigorous and brave, and the Sidhe from the golden Garden Palaces, cunning and apt in the way of magic. An alliance was forged between the three Elder Races and they fought back, hunting the rampaging gods. And killing them. One by one the, the gods were slain by dragon poison, troll kryst axes and elven witchwood arrows. There were those who tried to protect the gods, but they, too, couldn’t resist the united force of trolls, dragons and sidhe. 

After a century of war and carnage, Makutha the Bear, oldest and most powerful of the gods, was killed by trolls and elves – the dragons had retreated, after taking the heaviest losses of the godslayers. With his last breath, Makutha cursed his murderers and their blood with immortality. The godslayers laughed at the curse, took it as a blessing and feasted over their triumph.

And after the last god’s death, their alliance broke. The dragons flew away, and hunted down the remaining dwarves, the only Ashkadian species that stood always loyal to the gods; and the dwarves suffered heavily for their loyalty. The armies of trolls and elves did not part in friendship, but in scorn and distrust; the oldest of the races were always rivals, and only the mutual struggle bound them together. But the Trolls were annoyed by the scrupulous tactics of the Sidhe and the Elves were disgusted by the Troll’s blood rituals and scarification.

The Time of Fire
The triumph of the Godswar faded, and what seemed as a glorious battle for freedom while it lasted, was soon recognized to be genocide. The victors were ashamed of their actions. And the curse of immortality took its price; overpopulation, spite and increasing profanity overcame the trolls in their mountain halls as well as the elves in their garden palaces. The Ashkardians were isolated in a world which soon grew to be to small for them. Old rivalry grew into struggles about land, struggles into skirmishes, and skirmishes into war. Only two centuries after the last god was slain, his murderers turned on each other.

Troll warriors and Sidhe archers met on the battlefield more and more often. In the beginning, these ‘wars’ were highly ceremonial duels between single champions or small bands of warriors, but the conflict escalated, and even though the Elder Races couldn’t die from age, they still could die from a blade.

The escalating war was also important to ease the population pressure in societies, where illness were rare and noone died from age. In thousand battles, trolls and elves clashed together. Uncountable heroic deeds were fulfilled, praised by the bards and soon forgotten. In thousand battles, troll bearers of the Witch Warrior Rune and Sidhe Spellswords spilled the blood. And with every dead who was denied the immortality, the hate on both sides grew.

The warriors of both sides were equal in their martial power and their deep knowledge of magic. The endurance and sheer physical power of the trolls were matched by the agility and quickness of the Sidhe. No side was predominant, and no side was ever able to get a significant advantage. This all changed when two persons came to power who were exceptional even for the standards of the Elder Races. Aggdegg the Prophet, the Farseer, Elfdoom – he earned many names. Aggdegg, was born with an unique Gift: He could see in the future, and he erred rarely. His augury gave him knowledge about the things to happen, and this gave him an enormous tactical advantage over any enemy who faced him. Aggdegg became a great leader of his people, combining success and the enormous force of personality only a True King has. He lead the Witch Warriors under his command from one victory to the next, avoiding the traps of the Elves, finding their weakest points with ease and shattered the Sidhe forces that opposed him. For the first time in an age old war, the balance began to shift. The war has long lost its meaning, and no side can remember what started it, but Aggdegg was sure that he was the one that was destined to end it.

After a decade under the leadership of Aggdegg, the Trolls ad broke the elvish armies. No mercenary was wiling to waste his life against the seemingly unstoppable Troll army, and the noble born elves declined in decadence awaiting their end. After a dozen years, Aggdeggs troops lay flame on one of the oldest Garden Palaces, and the Elvish core lands were in immediate danger.

The elves seemed willing to let it happen. Their ageless life and the futile resistance drank them in apathy. All of them, as it seems, but one.

Vilanai of the waters was a reputed Sidhe wizard, old and very crafty both in the light and dark sides of magic. For centuries, she delved I the secrets of life, in the arts of vivisection, anatomy and transmogrification. She was no fighter, and was never involved in the war of her people, but she was old enough to remember the Godswar. It is said that all her forty two sons and daughters were killed by the Trolls during the sack of the tree fortress of Yòl and that she grew spiteful and insane after she heard of their descendants. She disappeared from the eyes of the world, and soon from its memories. 

Around the time, the Troll warriors and their auxiliaries and mercenaries closed in on the core lands, Vilanai returned – with an army. She had brought the Ritual of Chimera to perfection, and created from captured trolls and Shidhe “voluntaries” a new species of hybrids, a servitor race of great power and fury. Within merely two years, a legion of the servitors clawed their way out of the artificial wombs of Vilanais Breeding Trees and collected in troops of artificially aged warriors. Vilanais children. Orks. The new breed of servitor warriors came over the surprised Trolls – and killed them. Armed with weapons made from iron and protected against magic, they attacked the trolls like mastiffs attack bears. Aggdegg himself, astonished by the failure of his oracle died under an iron blade. 

The bloody and cruel the constant state of war between Trolls and Elves ever was, no side ever used iron weaponry. It was the greatest atrocity a honourable warrior could think of. And yet, there it was – packs of Ork warriors, armed with iron blades, eager to kill, driven forward by the powerful enchantments of their creator.

No one knows how Vilanai’s ritual worked. But it tipped the scales in the war.

Without Aggdegg and his prophetic visions, the troll armies were left in decay. Without a leader, Aggdegg’s generals had a hard time to cooperate. Apart from the war against the advancing Elves and their Ork shock troopers, an internal power struggle weakened the Trolls.

The next years of the war gave the Time of Fire its name. Aggdegg’s successes where repaid most cruelly. For every Elf who died under the axes and spells of the Witch Warriors, a family was wiped out. This wasn’t a honourable war of noble fighters anymore; it was genocide, and the Elves were out for extinction. Aggdegg was able to treat his enemies with honourable arrogance in the knowledge that they couldn’t compete with his strengths, but the Elves were infuriated and out for extermination. The vast army of orcs left no survivors behind. The settlements were burned, their inhabitants raped and killed and the land was scorched and salted. The rugged and tired remains of once proud troll clans fled back to their homelands in the Spine of the World. 

Even the mountainous ranges of the mountains and the dirt white glaciers of the Spine, the Ork armies pushed on, even though hundreds of them were killed in ambushes and rockslides. But for every Ork that felt, a new one seemed to rise from the artificial wombs. The noose of advancing Orks grew tighter and tighter around the last refugium of the Trolls: The Mil’ Warat, the holy mountain of the whole species, the very rock from where in the oldest of times the ancestors of all Trolls came into existence. There the remnants of the noblest of Elder Races gathered for a last glorious battle before descending into darkness. Sullen determination was written in the defender’s faces, but the Council of Elders, those Trolls who once signed the pack which was the beginning of the end of the Godswar, came together for a last time, and came to a desperate decision.

The Arrival of Mankind and Goblinkin
For millennia, the pathsbetween the worlds had been twisted and unused. But the oldest trolls tossed the closed gates opened, sacrificing themselves to the greatest summoning ever to happen in any facet of reality. A storm of magic crossed the gap between the worlds and called those who had long mastered the secrets of iron and forgotten the secrets of magic; the lords of steel and fire, the iron apes. Us. Us who were never supposed to enter this realm. 

The largest group of men arrived in Ashkardia were the glorious founders of our Holy Order – together with the Saracen warriors they ware eager to kill. It is said that both armies, clad in steel and ready to attack manifested among the approaching Orks and Elves. Ur ancestors were glorious men, and when surrounded by strange shapes of demonic appearance, old enmity was forgotten. The Saracens my be heathen and heretics, but they are still formed after the image of god, and they are still born with a soul – and the knights and the camel riders attacked. The Orc warrior slaves and their Sidhe masters were completely taken by surprise and were not able to react as the humans spread death around them swinging deadly steel. The Sidhe’s troops were scattered and the valley beyond the Mil’ Warat was covered in blood.

The Troll scholars’ sacrifice had called them, but somehow, the summoned humans did not disappear after the spell ended; they had come to stay. The armies of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Saracen warriors were by far not the only humans who arrived in their new world. Humans from different continent and even different times arrived, summoned by the very force of magic. Like in a cyclone, the humans were blown away and landed in a land far away from the world they lived in. Our ancestors were victorious, but confused. Under strange stars and at the foot of a majestic mountain, they felt left alone. The short-termed alliance of Cross and Crescent Moon ended as fast as it began and both armies parted peacefully.

The Trolls were not able to control the summoning, men and other creatures came like locusts over the war-weakened land of Ashkardia. From the depths of a meagre wasteland, the goblinoid people arrived – not as numerous as the humans, but fascinated by the lush and fertile lands that suddenly were all around them. From a true Amoebus Loci, the Golden Ones arrived and cried as they were ripped from Paradise. It seems that people from every facet of reality was drawn to Ashkardia, but none were as numerous as the humans and the tribes of the Goblinoids.

The history of Gondaran
Gondaran is a strange place to us Northerners. While the Goblinoids and Humans devastated the northern continent Ashkardia, the southern lands were invaded by something stranger. There are humans as well, but they are only slaves of different masters. In the jungles, the hidden towns of the lizards kingdoms rule and worship the dragons. 
On the coast, the Vivisectionists live and rule over their slave armies. It is not known what those vivisectionists really are, but their magical powers are even stronger than those of the Elder Races, and there are only a few them, hiding in high towers and ruling through their priest caste over the northern coast of Gondaran. The population of these towns are only slaves and are forced to worship their rulers as if they were gods, and the city states are in a constant of war, where the rulers send ever new magical creatures created in the transmogrifying chambers of their towers and striving through the sunburnt land.

The conquest
The least newcomers were as martial as the Saracens and Crusaders; most of them were simple people, peasants and craftsmen, simple women and uneducated men – the salt of the land. Stranded in a strange world, surrounded by even stranger beings which controlled magical powers long forgotten on Terra, they panicked and leashed out. Mankind grew together and overcame the native Ashkardians. In those days, the newcomers still had iron tools and iron weapons and the first years were a series of easy victories over surprised Ashkardians. It is the irony of our blood: The only time that mankind was ever united was to bring doom and violence over people we did not understand. Our bloodlust still embarrasses your humble chronist. Our ancestors forced the Ashkardians in the wastelands and claimed the fertile soils for themselves. Those who dared to resist were wiped out. The only rivals were the goblinoid tribes in the East; everyone else was no match for the black swords of iron.
It needed seventy years until the thirst for blood was stilled.
After this time of blood and murder, new empires were found. In the north, the descendants of the proud knights of Jerusalem created the Ordensland, ruled by the grand abbots of the faith militant. Nominally, the knights of the faith militant are vassals of the king of Gildfurt, but they are vastly independent.
The king in Gildfurt and his vassals are the dominating force in the centre of west Ashkardia. The ruling family claims to that the powerful Carolingians were there ancestors and it is true that they have the charisma of kings. Their land is fertile, but the nobles under the crown are unruly and do not bend their necks easily. 

In the West, near the still impressive Palace Gardens of the Sidhe, the Caliph claimed his throne, and founded the Caliphat. The Caliph and his followers were the first of the human rulers who hold in the bloodshed and accepted Ashkardians and Goblinkin among them when those accepted to convert to their heathen faith; now, people from all races live among the rule of the caliph.

The descendants of Cathay and stranger coasts live on the south western coast. I do not speak their language, but it is said they call their land the Cradle of the Sun and that it is ruled by powerful clans who are steadily warring each others but united against al foreigners. 
In the wastes on the other side of the Spine, there are vast kingdoms as well, but the contacts are rarer. The goblin sailors report of a harsh steppe where the Horse people live; and it is said that they travel around on their small horses following their large herds of livestock.
In the east, the pyratae danii and the Saxons settled; they intermarried and grew into one people, but they have more kings than it is beneficial for any country; their lands are called the Heptarchiat, for there are seven kingdoms under one crown. It is known that no other nation has that many great warriors. 

In the Southeast, bordering to the Hobgoblin lands and the Spine of the world, the Africans landed. They are a strange people, some as tall as the greatest men in Christianity, others as small as children. They have no king or master who rules them, but even the hobgoblins respect their strength.

On the southern isles, the strangest of all human kingdoms can be found: The empire of the militis aztecae, warriors who dress as animals and plunder the coastal villages.

And in the South, in the fertile lands of the five fingers of the hand rivers there are the remnants of the once most powerful of all empires – the Eagle Empire, founded by powerful hobgoblin centurions and their cohorts.

It is common knowledge that there are humans as well on the far side of the spine and beyond the Hobgoblin reaches and the Wandering Mountains, but they are strange to us and we hear little of them but rumours. The horse people are the most famous among them, who are said to be like the White Huns of older ages.

The Trolls did not only summon our ancestors - they also summoned the doom to the realm.

The walls breach
For three hundred years, there was peace – more or less. The bloodletting of the first decades had disappeared., and humans, other Newcomers and the Natives build contacts – shyly first, but more bravely later. Trade caravans travelled the lands. The others still feared our ancestors and hated them, and your humble chronist fears that will never change after all we did to them, but it was a time of peace and rebuilt. The unity of mankind broke but internal skirmishes and small border wars were the most dangerous what happened.

Than they appeared. They weren’t neither Ashkardian nor Terran; nor did anyone knew about them in their old legends. First, they were only a few, vermin in the dry plains south of the River Simber, the frontier of the Hobgoblin Eagles back then. But they seemed to prosper, and others came as well. Rumours spread about swarms of gigantic insects, of blood red mountain ranges wandering north. And then it all escalated when the rumours proofed to be true. The Klackers had arrived. 

Nobody, not even the oldest sages of the Elder Races knew who or what the Klackers are. They are strange our ands and vision, they are stranger than anything native to Terra or Ashkardia. They are like insects, but of towering height; they seem to be soulless animals but yet they move with the discipline and coordination of battlefield veterans. There are a hundred different races among them, but they all seem to be one big tribe. They are very strange – and even more dangerous. Their hides are tough as Courboule armor, their claws are razor sharp and their warriors are strong enough to kill a horse in one blow. And they travelled north, towards the realms of men. While they move, they built their fortresses out of sand and their own blood, forming the wandering mountains and turn the land into a dry and dust red waste.

The mighty armies of the hobgoblin empire rallied against the Klackers. We all knew that powerful warrior caste of the hobgoblins was unmatched, and only the bigger numbers of humans had saved us from a life as hobgoblin vassals. As the Wandering Mountains grew northwards, the Hobgoblin armies marched to intercept them. It was a shining force. A great host of warriors marching against an more or less unknown enemy.
They lost, and they lost bitterly. The hobgoblin forces were annihilated. Only small troops returned and no one really believed it – this enemy, the Klackers seemed invincible.

The Simber battle
On the Simber, the large river that was the natural frontier between the southern and northern parts of the hobgoblin empire, a vast human army gathered. Humans from all the Ashkardian kingdoms came, as well as the remaining hobgoblin forces and a broad alliance of Asahkardians fought side by side. It was the first time, that such an alliance was formed, and I am glad to report of the great bravery of this pact against the Klackers. And, with the assistance of god, we were victorious. Hundreds of noble fighters and brave knights died on the Timber riverbanks, but somehow, the advancing hordes of the Klackers were stopped. We must slain thousands of these vile beasts, but the blood price was high. We know that they will come again, and it will be hard to form an Alliance like this again. But we must, we must or we will all perish. The Wandering Mountains will only stop when there is no more land to conquer. Or we will have destroyed the last of them. 
 

(So much about history... I really want to describe the same story from a different point of view, for example a troll, but telling the same twice with only few difference might appear at bit repetitive).

The Setting Geography
Ashkardia is a rough mirror image of the real world, especially Europe, Western Asia and North Africa (called Gondaran here). There are some significant differences though: There is an existing land bridge connecting the British Islands with the continent, Gibraltar is closed (and the Mediterranean is thus a smaller inland sea); generally, the sea level is much lower, a result of the slightly lower temperature and stronger glaciation. 
On the other hand, the Iberian peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal) have been shattered, and only hundreds of islands remain here.
The other significant difference is the Spine of the World, a huge Mountain Range, roughly there were the Ural is today. The Spine is a natural border of the known world, and describes the Eastern border of the setting (as the Atlantic describes the Western one.)
The term Ashkardia is used for both the world as a whole as well as the continental equivalent of Europe.
Astronomy works pretty much the same as well, and the calendar is not very different - nor are the other planets. The rest of the starry sky is very different though.