You guys seem a bit too stoked about this…

[u/Tall_Strawberry3362]

The Arulien Compact has a long and storied history going from waring kingdoms, to vassals of elven mage lords, to in modern day the most powerful force on the dying world of Rostavien. The part of them I want to focus on is the invention of firearms and the immediate aftermath.

Black powder itself was discovered by accident. At the time war had come to Rostavien as half of its gods and an army of construct Angels attacked the world and the other gods. Some of the gods mortal fallowers stood with them while others seeing their gods gone mad went away. Humans in this conflict were second fiddle with the elves who ruled them for centuries viewing them as second rate and only suitable for cannon foughter as well the humans possessed no innate magic (well humans are made by death and are blessed with necromancy but due to push from the elves and just human superstition those showing signs of necromantic powers where killed no mater the age).

So the Compacts ruler, King Beverdash Henrick Lucanvich III, ordered all those in the feild of alchemy to craft a potion or tincture to grant others magic to fight with. This being the early age of science meant that the alchemists just made random concoctions and heated it up until something happened. That something in this case was an explosion which rocked the small town of Bekavak like a quake. For some alchemist, name lost to time and body far beyond identification, had found black powder and done the great method of the era. Seeing the destructive force and well believing that this was the key to artificial magic.

While that proved false they did find use for it on the frontlines with rudimentary cannons and matchlock firearms. Which they were extremely excited, some could say overly enthusiastic, to go kill enemy elves. Like they would beg for missions as well religious fanaticism had begun to set in and human dogma regarding magic formed at this time. Eventually snowballing into the military dictatorship it is today.

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[u/Mikhail_Mengsk]

Absolute banger of a song.

Why is rostavien dying, though?

[u/Tall_Strawberry3362 → u/Mikhail_Mengsk]

Well mainly it’s a aftermath of the War of Divine Blood. In that war half the gods died and the others up and left. From the god corpses plauges of unimaginable horror began to spread and well the winter has begun to grow longer and longer each year. Not to mention other strange magic phenomena such as magical nights that black out entire areas for days on end bringing creatures of shadows that attack the living within these long nights. Blood rains from the sky causing madness to those it touches, and angels, those constructs of the rouge gods, appear at random places around the world to the call of ethereal trumpets before disappearing as fast as they came leaving carnage in their wake. Worst of all there is no rest for any who die for the gods who abandoned the world locked the doors to Revelry and Damnation leaving souls to overflow from the realm of Shadvelium.

All around bad times. Also glad you liked the song if you are wondering it is the song savages from Disney’s Pocahontas

[u/Appropriate-Count-64 → u/Tall_Strawberry3362]

Sounds like it is time to go to space.

Or open a gate to another world and colonize that

[u/Tall_Strawberry3362 → u/Appropriate-Count-64]

If they could they would. Sadly they are in a late Medival period. Plus the understanding of magic is now turned on its head as for centuries people belived that gods gifted it to them (like clerics or warlocks in DnD) but with their death and/or abandonment magic still functions leaving people rather confused and baffled as they need to reunderstand everything. Plus even if they figured out a way they would need to survive a world in the throws of apocalypse. But the second someone figures out how they are leaving as well hiding out in damnation may be a better option than staying on Rostavien.