VOXIUM
IThe Twilight
Before there were realms, there was the Twilight.
It was not a place and not a time. It was two voices that had never been apart: Dusk and Dawn, the Twin Gods, one will speaking with two mouths. Dawn spoke the words of mercy, wisdom, life, peace and the soul. Dusk spoke the words of justice, strength, order, kingship and honour. The first thing they spoke together was the world.
Those first words still exist. The Ancients called them the Twilight Arcana, the eldest magic there is. A few were written down in the Ancient Tomes, and a mortal who reads one can still move the world a little with it.
Dawn raised Heavenreach above the clouds, with a sea the colour of gold. Dusk sank Hellmaw beneath the fire, ringed around a boiling maw. Between them they laid Eurosia, the middle land. Nothing the twins made was good or evil by birth. Every war in this chronicle was fought by people who had forgotten it.
The Twilight, in the Chronicle →
IIThe Firstborn
Before the peoples, the twins made helpers who do not die of age.
The Elder Dragon of Creation
The first thing Dusk ever shaped. Every dragon is its child, and every Dragonkin carries a drop of its ember-blood. It sleeps beneath the volcano of Ashkarn.
Yggdrasil
The Tree of Life, made to help the peoples grow and to protect life. It has never taken a throne or a side. The Ancients admire this. Kings find it useless.
Testarossa
Made from chaos and death itself, to hold the young realms in check and guide the dead. Dusk told her to stay humble and never stop chasing her desires. She kept the second better.
Lady Sabina
Not made by the twins, but from a drop of Dusk's golden blood that found a mortal woman. The first Vampire, mother of every house that followed.
The Firstborn, in the Chronicle →
IIIThe Children of Dusk and Dawn
Then the twins peopled the world. The Faith still reads this ledger aloud on Firstlight every year.
| Maker | Peoples | Set down in |
|---|---|---|
| Dawn | Humans, Elves (High, Night, Wood), Hearthlings, Mosslings, Starborn | Arvenheim and the plains, Westerwald, the hills, the marshes, the heights |
| Dawn | Angels | Heavenreach |
| Dusk | Dwarves, Orcs, Goblins, Dragonkin, Vampires, Void, Blood and Moonveil Elves | Mordraug, Kharzvold, everywhere, Ashkarn, the Noctmere Isles, the shadowed woods |
| Dusk | Demons | Hellmaw |
| Both | Yggdrasil and its groves | Everywhere life grows |
Both twins bleed gold, and so, in a thin trace, does every child of both. This is why gold and silver are the sacred metals: gold for the blood that is in everyone, silver for Dawn's light that is in the moon.
The peoples, in the Chronicle →
IVThe Ancients and the Faith
The Ancients were never a church. They stayed at the shrines when the twins went quiet, kept the Twilight Arcana and swept the Holy sites, and taught three things: the twins do not answer with armies, nothing from outside Eurosia may rule it, and no people is judged by its maker. Over the shrines they raised the Grand Temple, and in its tower hung the great bell that rings only for a king's death, a king's crowning, or a door too large to close: the thirteenth bell.
The Faith of the Twin Gods began long after, with the First Avatars, the twin brothers Raph and Eil, healing a dying man by the river Albarina. It grew three branches, the Clergy, the Sepulchre and the Synod, and its Sacred Paladins swear to the sites and the rites, never to a king. What the Faith added was the Oracle. The High Oracle of Kingsreach holds the Twin Staff, is chosen and never born, and has never worn a crown.
VThe Doors and the Taint
When the twins fell silent they left four things behind: their words in the Ancient Tomes, their blood in gold and silver, the Firstborn to keep the balance, and sixteen doors between the realms. Eight Holy sites where Heavenreach touches Eurosia, eight Dark sites where Hellmaw does. The doors do not stay shut; what comes through them is the oldest war there is, only paused.
Nuvrith, the Taint, is what Hellmaw leaves behind when a door has stood open: a thin, cold hunger in the ground and the air. The dark schools of magic draw on it, and it draws on the caster. A mage who drinks too deep goes hollow.
Halofall is the lake in the heart of Arvenheim, a perfect ring where an Archangel's halo struck the earth. It has never frozen and never dried. On its shore stand the Grand Temple and, around it, Kingsreach, capital of Arvenheim and seat of the High Crown. In the temple's highest tower hangs the thirteenth bell, for things that belong to eternity.
How the doors were found, and the Fall of the Halo, in the Chronicle →
VIThe Crown Calendar
In the 58th year of the Age, High King Edmar Ancalagon decreed one count for every oath and treaty: year 1 of the Crown Calendar, CC. The year has twelve months of thirty days and five Holy Days outside the months.
| Season | Months |
|---|---|
| Spring | Dawnrise, Greengale, Bloomtide |
| Summer | Suncrest, Highsun, Goldwane |
| Autumn | Harvestfall, Emberwane, Duskmere |
| Winter | Frostfall, Deepfrost, Longnight |
| Holy Day | For |
|---|---|
| Firstlight | Creation, renewal and hope, before Dawnrise |
| Day of Crowns | Lawful rule; every ruler renews the oath, after Bloomtide |
| Feast of Harvest | Thanksgiving from farmer to king, after Goldwane |
| Night of Ancestors | The dead remembered, after Duskmere |
| Midwinter | The longest night, great fires and feasts, after Longnight |
The week: Firstday, Spearday, Kingsday, Godsday, Wyrmday, Shieldday and Moonday. A Holy Day carries no weekday name, which is why no Holy Day ever falls on a Kingsday.
VIIThe High Crown
One crown above the crowns. Forged in the Grand Temple of gold for Dusk and silver for Dawn, worked together and set with one stone from each founding kingdom. It is not a crown over a kingdom; it is the unity of Eurosia made into a thing that can be worn.
Three rules have held since the Concord. The Crown is placed only by the hand of the High Oracle. A High King names an heir, and no kingdom objects in arms. And when there is no heir, the Crown is not given: it is won, and the Faith anoints whoever is left standing before the altar.
On the 17th of Frostfall, 843 CC, High King Aldric IV died with no heir named. The Crown stands empty. What happens next is being written by the people who play.
The Concord, the interregnums and the thirteenth bell, in the Chronicle →