In times past, the Holy Empire of Ermor conquered most of the known world, forcing the C'tissian lizardmen and numerous human tribes which dotted the world under its heel, and under one God. There were a few locations the Empire never took, but that was more due to lack of interest over a few more pagans in strategically unimportant locations rather than their strength. It was in these times that the Augur Elders of the Empire predicted the fall of the Empire.
But it never came. With time, their predictions were forgotten.
During the years of peace brought by the Ermorian Empire, not only did the homelands of the Empire become wealthy beyond belief and the Holy Capital of Eldregate become a place which struck all who visited it with awe, but the peoples subjugated by the Empire flourished. Great cities were built across the lands to both show the might of the Empire and to act as capitals of semi-autonomic entities. While some within the halls of Eldregate saw this as an alarming development, as this meant that the Empire's Senate and various other administrative departments had to share power with local leaders, nothing was done to halt this. There was no need to, and as it brought forth differences in magical focus, it was more often seen as a positive development.
But as time progressed, the Empire started to become corrupt. Many of the Censors, who were supposed to uphold the laws of the Empire, became more interested in their own endeavors rather than their duties. Arch Censors, of which there could only be one at any given time, became progressively worse. Even the by then-priest mages of Ermor were not unaffected: Magic relating to death became an increasingly common object of research. In their search for more power, a dozen of the Augur Elders of that day, now calling themselves Grand Thaumaturgs, as their power and stature had only increased since the times of the Empire's rise to prominence, they turned to the Sauromancers of the C'tissian lizardmen. They learned many of their terrible, dark secrets - but they wanted more.
In their arrogance, the Grand Thaumaturgs stole many unholy scrolls and books of dark rites from their C'tissian hosts. They thought themselves better than the lizardmen. They thought they would succeed in what the Sauromancers had sought after for countless years. Or what they thought the Sauromancers had sought for.
They wanted immortality. No, they would not settle for anything less but godhood.
Once they returned to Eldregate, they put their sinister plans into motion. Knowing that Eldregate itself was still the greatest source of holy energy in the world even with their unholy practices and the corruption which ran deep within the Empire itself, they devised a plan to utilize that energy for their own evil purposes. They believed that they could create the most potent unholy enchantment ever seen by any creature, living or dead, and control it for their own needs. To go forth and force Death give them the power they sought.
When the appointed night came, the twelve men began their work. They formed an almost invisible, magical unicursal hexagram around the great city, with four of them standing in the middle of it, and two at each of the northernmost and southernmost points of the hexagram. Once in position, they began their unholy incantations, each reciting their own particular lines.
At first, everything seemed to be going well from all they could tell. The twelve felt empowered by the ritual - as though energy was flowing into them at an increasing rate. What the energy was, or where it was coming from, they could not tell. Nor that they cared. But as minutes passed and they continued their incantations, things began to seem... Wrong. The gentle night wind had ended. Everything had become dead silent. Yet they continued, as this was what they indeed wanted. They took all the signs as that their dark ritual was indeed working.
How wrong had they been.
In one cataclysmic event, the twelve perished and Death was released upon the heartlands of Ermor. The Holy Capital of Eldregate became corrupted. All that had been holy now turned unholy. The dead within the many crypts of the now-corrupt city became restless, rising from their final resting places, preparing to wage war against the living. If it had not been for the swift actions of the relatively few Grand Thaumaturgs and the much weaker Thaumaturgs who still were true to the old Empire's ways, all life would have been wiped out from the land, creating a dark and twisted parody of the Holy Empire.
In the following days, the remainder of the Ermorian priest mages created a Death Cult to slow down, if not halt, Death indefinitely. But the damage had been done: The Holy Empire was no more, and what was left was too weak to retain its hold over the Imperial territories. After several failed discussions with the leaders of what used to be semi-autonomous territories of the Empire, it was quite obvious that several new national entities had emerged: The feudal theocracy of Marignon, run by its Inquisitorial Church, the kingdom of Ulm, which only trusts the force of steel, the sacral kindgom of C'tis and the Emerald Empire of Pythium, which, much to the chagrin of the leaders of the remnant Ermor, claimed to be the only true heir of the now-defunct Holy Empire.
--
In the years after the Ermorian Cataclysm and its successful evasion, the newly established nations fought over the lands left by the Holy Empire. The Broken Empire, as the Ermorian remnant had come to be called by the other nations, held now only a relatively sizeable portion of the western continent, with Marignon and C'tis encroaching much deeper to the land mass than the Ermorians would like. But given their dire situation, and much of the time of the leaders of the Broken Empire used simply to avert further disaster, they could not do much to actually stop what they saw as an invasion. Quite a few of ancient Ermorian fortresses, most of them abandoned due to necessity, had been taken over by the forces of both Marignon and C'tis. Luckily for the Broken Empire, however, C'tis was so far to the north that it did not really pose a tangible threat to the remains of the Empire.
But the Marignonians saw it more as a crusade than just an unprovoked invasion or a land grab. There were a few reasons, in fact: The undead which the Ermorians now commanded were seen as an abomination, not to mention that Ermorian cultists had become an increasingly great a threat. They knew that Ermor was the source of all this darkness, and the faithful of Marignon would be on the forefront to fight it. They would push back the undead and force them back whence they came!
But as they got closer to Eldregate, the more and more organized the resistance became. At first it had only been weak undead with local militia here and there, but by the time they had entered the forest which came after the second river which they had crossed, their progress had stopped entirely. Only weeks after their march to the woods they had begun being forced back, for the first time in their entire war effort. Not only were they outnumbered, but their supply lines had become too long to support their army. It was obvious that the overzealous nature of the Marignonians had gotten the best of them, and now they were paying the price.
In the end, the Marignonians managed to hold their ground in the fortress just north of the northmost river they had to cross on their way towards Eldregate, and the Ermorian forces withdrew. The Church of Marignon would have to rethink its war strategy before trying to push into the lands of Ermor again.
--
Two years after their push into the lands of Ermor, and the complete collapse of Marignon's relations with the Broken Empire, strange reports reached the Church from the fortress the nation held closest to Eldregate. Darkness as though the night itself during the light of day had begun to spread from its general direction, and it was spreading all over the land to the south at an alarming rate.
Could it be...?
Shortly after this report had come in, a message came from the C'tissian Sauromancers. It was indeed ominous, for the C'tissians and the Church of Marignon had not had any contact with each other for longer than Marignon had not had contact with Ermor.
In it was written: "The Fall is complete. Death reigns."
Indeed, the greatest war ever since the conquests of the Holy Empire was just days away.
((OOC: Behold, the REIMAGINING OF ERMOR! With the new forums, I have chosen to restart this nation from the time of the great war between the living and the dead, which will hopefully take a lot longer than the last time. This time all bets are off as any side can potentially win. For a rudimentary map of the Ermorian lands, click here. I will work on it more, but that's it for now. C'tis is in the northern stretch, Marignon is in the bit of land to the south as is Ulm, although Ulm controls also the southern parts of the continent to the east. Pythium controls most of the continent to the east. There's also a currently unknown force in the northwestern part of the western continent. There's a number of all kinds of critters all across the place as well as all kinds of malevolent cults and shamanistic tribes.
This place is one of high fantasy, so magic is abundant and thrown around a whole lot. As the title says, anyone can take part no matter what technology level, but with certain restrictions: No spaceborne fleets can find the planet this takes place in. Only way to enter is through a number of portals that can be open pretty much anywhere, and they are large enough for people to enter, not for a Death Star. MT nations can join by having some kind of "lost in the seas" effect if thus wanted, as I don't think that modern technology will be all that much better than the magic that's thrown around here. Other fantasy nations can take part by whatever method they want.
EDIT: Note that this doesn't mean you have to take part as your nation as a whole. In fact, smaller groups are preferable (like dozen people at most), although if you can explain to me why you need that army you might be allowed to bring one.))
