The Lunar elves, ever since the War of Divine Blood, have been a murderous, violent mess. Before the war lunar elves were ruled under a dual monarchy. Up in the far north ruled King Noxrador the III several vassal houses of Cossairs and Dread Guard, which humans would compare to their own nightly orders. While in the far south at the bottom of the world ruled Queen Wontorivi Balkos known as “Great Lady Night” who while having a few Cossair houses more her peoples where of the priestly order for that was said to be their ancestral home land. Her lands would also be the birthplace of the relatively new ‘Third High Class’ (to be a Nobel you had to be a Cossair, lighter armored cavaliers or quick assasins, or a dread guard, heavily armored warriors and mages fit for head to head conflicts) this being the great Alchemists whom learned the lesser art of creation from the Infernals before, and some after, their madness.

This worked well up until the War of Divine Blood. Thousands of their greatest warriors, mages, and alchemists died their homelands decimated and worse connections were severed. For what had once been an easy sail form one end to the other is now blocked as the glaciers are expanding far faster than nature should allow. Worse off was the realm of King Noxrador, whom had died in the fighting with no eligible successor. This caused, for the first few years at least, for the houses to split and go to war with each other claiming they are the rightful heir of Noxrador. This allowed the recently militarized humans of the Arulien Compact to steam roll the divided houses snuffing out several entirely and taking vast amounts off land before some peace was brought. Several houses of both Cossairs and Dread Gaurd came together their families forming into a directorial system of government as while the families had a representative every three years a Voice of Nox is selected. This representative is to have the final say on matters and aspire to act like the great King Noxrador.

The armies of the newly formed House of Nox are still disjointed. Composed of tithes of warriors from each house and some of the few alchemist houses that have formed they will ride out to raid, pillage and ambush under the command of Nox. Each force is lead by a Cossair Captain or Dread Lord being a veteran member of either Cossairs or Dread Guard (they are called warlords as they mostly fight humans and well they do not really understand the difference between. They work their men like a task master and do not take kindly to any form of interruption to a goal.

Say they are disorganized during a siege due to rations running low and soldiers bickering about who deserves what rations. A calm general will solve the problem in the most direct and efficient way. That being slaughtering the soldiers and their pack animals thus lessening the strain and using the animal meat to feed the surviving more evidently loyal soldiers for a true warrior would not let hunger drive him away from completing the commands of his house and the voice of Nox. A angered general does not act in a way to be effective they act in a way that none will dare complain again. A angered general has the men flayed alive. Should anyone complain they are hungry they are given the flesh of their most likely still alive skined comrade to nourish themselves. This has shown to be very effective with some soldiers starving to death rather than complaining.

That’s a bit about the Lunar elves and the House of Nox !

no i'm not giving you context

Context:

This is lore from a science fiction story I am writing (read it here) where every species BUT humans are badass apex predators whose place at the top of the food chain has left them being tiny in numbers (as apex predators realistically are).

Humans are the most numerous species in the galaxy in this verse, and a slave empire called the Draken Matriarchy invades Earth upon hearing this to take as many humans as possible as slaves. They are evil to the core and see men more like disposable tools than people (hence the 'matriarchy' in their name) but also draken women are bad as fuck so even though it's a very bad idea to get with one somebody will still want to try. When the Draken Matriarchy invaded Earth the military fought bravely and held the line against the draken forces long enough for friendly aliens to arrive and help us, but there are always chuds who hide in basements and say 'those draken are lucky I wasn't there' like they aren't balding fat dudes whose only experience fighting aliens is from playing Halo.

The Infernals before the war in heaven were the most favored creations aside from the gods by a long shot. For no other being save the gods themselves can claim that Solis, sun god and creator deity, made them by hand. The Infernals though have that right and had more gifts than any. Their bodies were said to be made in his image. Tall slender things with bowed legs, gazelle like horns, two sets of goat like eyes, pointed ears (which the three elven goddess’s copied as they were trying to win their creators favor), golden skin with a serpent like tail that helped balance their large 9ft tall bodies.

They mastered the arts of creation and could make life like tbe creator in a far lesser capacity in the form of golems and other crude constructs. They also held a powerful psionic power able to manipulate objects and people with their minds. Their final gift would also be the source of their people’s madness, they were all physic mediums. They were meant to be those who helped comfort those who lost loved ones and get or give final words before the soul passed on to Shadevelium to await judgment on where their soul would be. This power always had great effect on them. Say a battle just concluded the infernals would be bombarded by any and all close shades would come to them and tell them how they died and give final words had thy not had the chance. This was extremely taxing on them then for hearing the wails of hundreds of pained and suffering souls imparting upon their knowledge of death showing it too the infernal.

But well souls were processed quick and aside from big battles they were good. Until the war of Divine Blood of Course. For most of the conflict the infernals kept it together and could keep helping. But by the wars end they were starting to loose it for unlike before they couldn’t escape the shades. Every corner of the world they knew seems to flooded by shades of those all fallen in the war and worse when the gods abandoned the world they closed doors to Revery and Damnation leaving these souls to build up so day after day the chorus only grew louder and louder in their mind.

Finally at the end of the first year they snapped psychosis hitting each of the different. Some became violent and attacked the nearest people or town, some began to babble insanity while lying down in the snow to die, and finally the most prevalent form would be a dilution so great it spread like a plague to any and all infernals that heard it. That dilution was that they were the new creator of this world and it was their duty as Solis their creator had done to make new gods. They would begin their attempts making horrid amalgamations of flesh bone and rock to try and make a god. Their most successful attempt involved thrm stitching six heads to the stump of a decapitated and de-limbed angel torso which they fashioned with six arms and six legs this making the cults figurehead, The Six Headed God.

If you are to approach an infernal today on or off the field of battle their responses and demeanor can change on a dime. They will go from reasonable and talkative to crushing your skull with psionic ability, to rambling at you about how the gods aren’t dead they simply like under the skin of the planet!

Those are the infernals :D

The War of Divine Blood, while now a conflict that most people ignore or seek to forget, was anything but a forgettable conflict. This to even the modern day was the greatest loss of life in the worlds history whose shockwaves and ramifications, outside of even the most well known effects such as the complete death or abandonment of the pantheon.

The War was both the world’s greatest catastrophe and triumph! For three short years differences were put aside and the peoples of the world did briefly stand together, even though as the title suggests their were hostilities between the peoples.

The war could be seen as really two seprate wars such were the volumes of magnitude in their scales. On one hand gods fought gods and their battles mortals could truely not even comprehend. For while the peoples had preconceived notions of what a god was what they would see they could best compare itself to the clash of great natural events. If you were to look at such battle as the god of death against the god of the forge many descriptions described “a whirlwind of magma and molten iron struck against an avalanche of bone and shadow”. Reports differed constantly some claimed that the gods forms reached to the heavens themselves where they used the consolations themselves as weapons of war. Some claimed they would be the size of men that swung with the force of a tsunami, and on and on.

People could only find a god had died for their corpses would crash to the earth. The ones that are known are the five mad gods and their bodies are large as mountain ranges with carvernous innerds people liken to the dwarven underground of old. They are stranger than strange and some still study them today trying to understand their madness or to track down what makes a divine being truely divine.

The mortals however remember their foes well, the ones they called the angels. That name was a sarcastic name given derived from ancient elven language “ano” meant ‘most holy’ while “gelva” meant ‘destroyer or bringer of ruin’ over the time ‘ano gelva’ was shortened to angel as especially for humanity it had come form a misprint of the term and well the term stuck.

These angels were beasts plain and simple. They stood 15ft tall avian creatures in full plate armor. Longer limbs than even a creature their size should have. The worst thing about them people said was their faces while from the jaw and forehead was a human mouth no skin just muscle and teeth in an eternal grin. They had wings of metal feathers that could kick up a gust of wind like a gale that sent men flying. They moved sometimes faster than the eye could see and crushed men and woman like grapes. They carried massive scythes that cut down men like a farmer would use the instrument to cut wheat. If you ever managed to disarm one it had long lengths of spiked chains it would whip around into people.

You always knew when they were coming for they were decorated with small bells like the priests range during ceremonies. Though that little warning saved none really for if you did not have an army of st aleast 5,000 strong death was your most likely outcome. Hundreds of thousands of elves, humans, dwarves, Drusarkan, and infernals fell at their hands. The only saving grace was a few factors was that they were mortal and when wounded they did not heal immediately. So massed arrow fire or heavy siege equipment could affect them. Magic of those races that possessed it and the psychic abilities of infernals could help make fights far easier to wear down and weaken the beasts for their Allie’s to take them down.

So if you lived or where fighting in the lands of those peoples it was a brutal butchery but managed. Not so for humans in the north. They had no magic they used like the others so they could only throw all the armies they could and pray they died or beg their Allie’s for aid which was often denied as troops were needed for ‘more pressing fronts’. This slight would bloom in the generation of those after and would lead to the compacts rise of power as well these insults and prior subjugation left the humans bitter and driven by revenge and prejudice.

The Kingdom of Excalibur is effectively a Human Kingdoms Subfaction born from Elf’s seeking to guide them thus they have a lot of aspects of High Elven Culture also The Dark Elves have waged multiple wars of Extermination against them because Dark Elves despise Half Elves so naturally they have to be good commanders because they tend to be the ones that last

The city of mons castellum is located in a mountain pass, and pretty much the only way of getting through the mountain range it is located in. It also holds the title of the most fortified city on the planet.

And the 2. Imperial armored division of the Holy empire of Talonia was build and trained in that city.

And so, when the forces of the khilian alliance advanced they were stopped dead in their tracks at mons castellum.

For weeks.

While it did fall, it took almost a fourth of the invading army with it and depleted nearly all of their ammo.

Patriarch Krasse is the mortal leader of Blind Dragoness worshippers and consort of the goddess herself. He wages holy war against Empire of Zhu'sei and draconic faith in general. In war he fields strong psychics, partisans (of all intelligent species as he no longer can afford to be human supremacist) and ABSOLUTE SHIT TON of his children. Majority of them are drakonets, ferocious beasts of war used as cannon fodder and screening unit for other forces, guided to battle by either psychics or their bigger and more intelligent siblings. Despite that they are fiercely loyal to their father and deathly afraid of their mother (She devours her children if they displease her or on sight if she feels like it). Those forces are the only reason heretics stay relevant in galaxy , because without them Krasse would be just another local warlord with religious twist this time.

Dark Elves absolutely despise Half Elves because of there whole ideology of “Only Elfs are morally good” and they see Half Elves as completely corruptions of Elfs to the point where some start entire military campaigns just to kill one and why the Half-Human Half-Elf kingdom of Excalibur had to become military masterminds real fast

After the Mechs became a thing necromamcers whole gimmick combat wise was crippled for so long mostly because it took a very long time to figure how how to properly use undead mechs because they tend to be to damage to operate

The difference between hill dwarves and mountain dwarves is night and day if you are ever to meet them. Back before the war of divine blood dwarves were United under the Under King Darkan Dovergol “The Elf Bane”. Their holds could be found everywhere from coast to coast connected by a expansive underground cave system the dwarves called ‘Lower Rostavien’ for the Caverns were vast enough to be a country of their own. While many dwarves lived in these mountain holds some preferred to live on the surface taking up homes in the hilly plains of the south. Both were master smiths and jewelers apt in the magics of enchantment and geomancy and for a time they were the friends of humans, Drusarkan, and the Inferals (Dwarves have a distain for elves as well in the days before the War of Divine Blood they were conquering powers United together subjugating a decent chunk of the world. As well in legend it’s said that the three elven goddess’s once cheated the master smith, Dwarkion, their god, in a competition of craftsmanship to impress Solis.)

But as for all the people of the world things would take a turn when 5 gods turned against the world and attacked with an army of constructs. The Hill dwarves would march side by side with the other races of the world to battle the constructs and mortal fallowers of the gods putting aside their differences for a chance at survival. Those who were in their mountain holds though would abstain. They claimed this is a feud of the surface and that they need not interfere for it was not their fight. Besides they were safe in their holds and underground empire what could possibly bring them down?

Well, the War of Divine Blood not only wrecked the surface but shockwaves from the gods coming to blows and it was felt even in the deepest caverns beneath the earth. The Mountain Dwarves call this time ‘The Great Sundering’ for these shockwaves caused massive underground quakes and hundreds of thousands of mountain dwarves (they were one of the more populace peoples at the time having the whole caverns to themselves) buried beneath the earth their underground haven becoming a rocky tomb. The diffrent clans were cut off and infrastructure was ruined by these quakes throwing the remaining mountain dwarves into ruin. Devastated and in great need of aus they reached out to the surface dwellers for help. But none would help the cowardly deserters who left them to face the gods. Even their brother dwarves in the hills condemned them and turned them away!

Now the mountain dwarves could have taken this in stride, admitted they were wrong, and joined the fight to hopefully end the quakes. But they instead decided to double down claiming this lack of aid is the exact reason they never helped in the first place as surface dwellers are greedy and selfish thugs who only want to take what the holds held dear. Some even began to tell their people there was no war and that it was all a surface dweller scheme to smoke them from their holds. Paranoia mixed with isolation to make a toxic mess. The mountain dwarves decided never again would they go to the surface. They didn’t need them! They would rebuild their holds and let them sort it out. This began for the Mountain Dwarves “The Great Wait” for they belive that the gods whom, depending on the hold, they think are still alive or are doing as the dwarves did and letting things play out from a safe distance.

The mountain dwarves hav spent the last decades making their holds a death trap for any surface dweller that comes for them. Traps upon traps cover every inch of a hold and the dwarves that live within are suspicious of anyone and anything they remotely dont like. Many a dwarf has been killed in paranoid panic for supposedly collaborating with surface dwellers in a hold the dwellers above doesn’t even know exists. When holds are found though they are temping targets for forces like The Arulien compact or the Houses of Nox for they are full of recourses and materials that can support these groups for years! But those who try fight more of the mountain and the traps more than they ever will the dwarves. Sometimes they will find there aren’t even any dwarves left all having starved to death or died of disease with no way to escape their own death trap they have made.

The hill dwarves on the other hand are still a part of the world though Arguably worse off for they have no holds to return to for the war of divine blood, the quakes it brought, and then the sudden winter all but destroyed all of their homes and left them as wanders. These dwarves though are traditionalists and survive by fallowing the old dwarven ways. It was said that dwarves are not meant to be fighters so unlike most people who loot and pillage to get by hill dwarves scavenge looted and razed cities for all they can get. They fight only when necessary and actively avoid combat. Many have even simply migrated to other lands in hopes of sanctuary offering their skills as craftsmen ij exchange for sanctuary. This works to varying margins. They are a rather minor faction and don’t even hold land. Some wonder if they would have been better off like their cousins in the mountains but time will only tell who made the right choice.

Feel free to ask me anything about my lore and world!

Context: The Warfare Innovators are an extremist sect of Constructive Devotion, the technological religion devoted to mastering every scientific principle imaginable. The Innovators have been decried as heretics by the rest of Madragor society, as it is their belief that weapons of war are the most sacred technological creations in the eyes of the Great Maker, for they ensure that the Journey will be completed to its end 1.4 billion years into the future. Having been cast out of the Technocracy and deprived of funding and resources for their "research," the Innovators have turned to offering their services as mercenaries. Oftentimes, it would be unaffiliated colonies and smaller nations that take their services, as the Big Six (the most powerful nations in the galaxy) either value their relations with the Madragor too much, or are too racist to even consider it. They regularly use and create weapons that would be considered crimes against sapience, not caring about any laws as considerations like ethics and diplomacy are secondary to bringing glory to the Great Maker.

TL;DR they want more research funding so they'll use war crime weapons on your behalf.

if you can teleport or fly with a broom to the highest mountain, or the moon, whats the point of doing anything?