The ancient history of Madarch was carried on by those who left the island of Madarch long, long ago, and underwent many changes. Now returning to the island, it is hard to put together the pieces of what the original legend was, and what matches the modern version of the legend. Most religions of the world do not accept the mythological notions of the legend, believing their own to be true instead, and many historians do not even agree with the actual historicity of the legend, but nonetheless the ancient legend has been a protected tradition, the last connective tissue between modern Sengl and their ancient homeland of Madarch.
In the earliest times, before there was water, land and sky, there were only bubbles suspended in an endless dark sea. The fish who lived in the sea found these bubbles to be the most beautiful things, and would swim around them in fascination for eternity.
One day, two fish found one bubble out of countless others in the vast emptiness, and they called it their own. The Sunfish, who glows a dazzling orange, and who radiates heat. The Moonfish, who glows a cool blue, and who emanates cold. They were the most beautiful fish in the sea, and had found the most precious bubble of them all, which made all the other fish jealous of them.
The bubbles were the source of all beauty in the sea, and they were everywhere. Though they were an unthinkable distance from each other, in the infinite space of the sea no matter where you looked there would be bubbles somewhere out in the distance, glowing with the light of the fish observing them.
The fish and the bubbles were not the only things in the sea though. There was another kind, a rare and mysterious kind that seemed to come from nowhere. One of these rare creatures was named Igyd. Igyd did not glow like the fish, and could not swim like them either. One day as Igyd helplessly sank through the sea, it saw the brilliant lights below it, swiftly approaching. By pure chance, Igyd fell right into the precious bubble.
Floating on the inside where there was no water, Igyd couldn’t breathe, so it made a helmet for itself made of water, a sphere inside a sphere. After a while, Igyd wanted to speak to the Sunfish and Moonfish, so that Igyd wouldn’t be lonely. So Igyd made itself a body out of rocks, shaping itself as a sphere inside a sphere inside a sphere. Through the careful motions of orbiting spheres, Igyd said hello to the Sunfish and Moonfish. The Sunfish and Moonfish told Igyd that it has made their bubble even more beautiful. Igyd was overwhelmed with praise, and made it its mission to create the most beautiful bubble in the entire empty ocean.
Igyd broke its rocky body apart with volcanoes, making itself into a hot core for the world and making continents and islands on the surface of the water. Some pieces of rock flew out into the sky and hung there, and would float on forever. The Sunfish and Moonfish liked this, but wanted colours vibrant enough to match their own. Igyd covered the world in a tapestry of colour; white snow; green grass; orange desert; purple fungi; red lava; brown marshes, and beautiful blends of all these things. The Sunfish and Moonfish greatly liked this, and praised Igyd more. They said that the only thing that could make their bubble more beautiful would be life to inhabit it.
On a small island isolated in the middle of the largest sea, Igyd made more life. It mixed earth, water, plants, fungi, and lava together into the shape that it wanted. Igyd was so excited with its creations that it clapped and thunder broke through the sky to strike the elemental dolls. At this, they came to life and crawled, slowly learning how to walk and sing. The Sunfish and Moonfish were elated and called Igyd the god of this world. Igyd now had the responsibility to keep all of the living things healthy.
For eons they all lived without need or struggle, until one day another chance event happened. Out in the endless sea, there was a noise from far away, so loud that it carried through eternity. Many bubbles and their fish were destroyed, the once busy black emptiness only held a fraction of its light. The most beautiful bubble in the sea was spared immediate destruction, but a large crack was left through the sky. Drops of the empty water from beyond the bubble began to leak in and stain parts of the world.
Igyd had to protect the world, so it went to the crack and pushed itself into it, healing the fracture and leaving its body behind to fall back down to the isolated island, dead. The Sunfish and Moonfish were so distressed with the death of Igyd that they swam around the world in a fury. The Sunfish’s intense heat would make a ring of desert far to the north, and the Moonfish’s frigid cold would freeze all the land and oceans in a ring far to the south. When they calmed down and continued their usual orbit, they realised what they had done and promised to never stray from their course again to not cause a disaster like that again.
The living things down below were stuck on their island in the habitable band around the world, left with their god’s body. Without Igyd to create edible food and drinkable water for them, they had nothing left to eat except their creator. When they did, their forms were changed in new, uncontrollable ways with new powers and abilities.
Those who ate the flesh became a Sengl, a weak creature but united by a psychic link that bound them all together, called Brightness. Those that drank the blood became an Anghenfil, monstrous and powerful things with a wide range of abilities, though usually unable to form societies with each other. Those that ate the brain became a Wyrm, the most intelligent and powerful beings, who were given immortality. Finally, those that ate the excrement became animals, completely dull and passionless creatures that exist to serve as food for the others.
The Sengl and the Anghenfilod fought each other endlessly, the Sengl protecting themselves in large groups, camps, villages and eventually cities while the Anghenfilod were spread across the rest of the island. The Wyrms, distasteful of fighting, flew up to the floating islands above the world and never came down. The island was no longer Ewfforia, and was renamed Madarch.
After centuries of Sengl living in fear of the Anghenfilod, seven meteors fell from the sky to seven far reaches of Madarch. When Sengl investigated these meteors, they found people with the traits of both Sengl and Wyrm. These people performed amazing miracles of magic, the first of its kind among Sengl. With these great powers they defeated many anghenfilod and paved the way for Sengl life.
Through Brightness the news spread about these seven mysterious individuals, but when the Wyrm-Sengl discovered the other's existence they were made angry. These were seven sisters, and hated each other more than anything. Each announced that each Sengl must join them under their leadership so that they can be protected from anghenfilod, and so that they may fight against their sisters. Sengl, not able to deny their vast magical power, rallied under seven new queendoms for their protection. In this was the first dimming of Brightness.
No longer were all Sengl connected, only those with allegiances to the same queendom could use Brightness between each other. The seven sister queens were Orgone, Thales, Nemeton, Iosis, Elfenreigen, Antimarix, and Agiyari.
Agiyari performed healing miracles of unimaginable strength and preached the revival of Igyd through the combined will of all Sengl to wish it back into existence. She developed a strict method of societal structure, all lives in her queendom revolved around her whims. In return, she performed miracles to heal her people of disease and injuries. Her magic was taught to just a select few who spread her power further. Her belief and temples spread all throughout Madarch, though her sisters called her a liar and heretic. Soon, it was unavoidable, and the belief that Agiyari’s own will could bring Igyd back was everywhere in some amount.
Antimarix had a hypnotic power of influence, and a drive for industry, powering great quarries and developing iron for her armies to wield as weapons and for crafting strong tools. To control the flow of resources in her favour, she invented a system of trade where the value of labour was directed to the benefit of the individual. The flow of wealth was more focused towards her this way. Society was divided into those who live to own and those who lived to be owned. The other queendoms were jealous of Antimarix’s wealth, and did not consider the suffering her people went through to acquire it.
Orgone was obsessed with bringing out the hidden potential of Madarch, and claimed that beneath the ground there was a power that would make her queendom superior to all others. The promise was sold on her people, who had seen a taste of Orgone’s extreme intellect. Soon, this hidden power was discovered. It was called Michor energy, unique to Madarch, and had many useful properties. It could heat metal to a melting point, move horse-less carts all on their own, and even power deadly explosives that could be fired from longbows. The secrets of this hidden power were kept tight within Orgone’s queendom, as much as the other Wyrm sisters tried.
Thales categorised the world into distinct forms that matter could take, called elements. Each element had special properties associated with it. Magic was the rarest element though it permeated everything, as it was very difficult to manipulate. Thales dedicated her life and society to the study and usage of magic, and a grand academy was built to further focus this study for the betterment of Thales’ people as well as an advantage over her sisters that kept her queendom safe from conquest.
Nemeton discovered a form of energy that did not come from the ground or from a magical field, but from Sengl themselves. It was the energy of the spirit, where the belief and faith in a good world was so amplified by Brightness that it became real. She discovered this energy could be harvested and used to wield great magical powers. To foster the greatest diversity of faith, she fought against Anghenfilod to allow her Sengl to live safely with nature, whose many mysteries and beautiful things would be an endless inspiration for finding hidden meanings and patterns of truth.
Iosis went mad after being made into a Wyrm-Sengl hybrid, and became obsessed with her own lifespan after considering the question: If the Wyrm are immortal, if one is half-Wyrm, is one only half-immortal? How long is half of forever? The question bothered her to no end, she was convinced that when her time in a Sengl’s lifespan was up there would be a critical point where that question would be answered, and she feared her destruction. She experimented on her Sengl subjects in the liminal space between life and death, in the process discovering powerful medicine and honing methods of healing magic. She discovered a process to extend life by hybridising Sengl and Anghenfilod together, but the process left the Brightness of the Sengl diminished, and she feared the effects it would have on herself.
Elfenreigen was a necromancer who commanded an army of the dead to keep her living Sengl safe from all threats. She allowed her people to live at their leisure, they may do as they please, as long as they obeyed her single rule- They must construct their cities only at certain places. This rule was easy enough to follow, and her people flourished in a grand and rich society.
Madarch had two smaller sister islands, Cap and Cosun, and while most of the Wyrm sisters built their queendoms in the mainland, Agiyari and Antimarix settled on these islands instead out of fear for an all-out war between the sisters. The islands would be an excellent defensible position to build up power alone and wait for the other sisters to weaken each other.
The end of this era of relative peace came to an end when Elfenreigen’s secret plan finally made itself clear. The construction of the cities was so deliberate so as to create a shape from above, if one were to draw a line between each city and its neighbour it would form Elfenreigen’s own ritualistic circle, large enough to draw in all the magic from the world contained in the shape. The ritual was activated without warning, the burst of magic from Elfenreigen’s queendom was enough to drop the acorns from trees halfway across the island. At that moment every single Sengl in Elfenreigen’s queendom died a sudden and painless death. When the blast dissipated, all that remained was a rip in the world in the ruins of Elfenreigen’s palace. She was the first to step through into her new world. The army of the dead and the ritual sacrifices rose again and followed Elfenreigen through the portal. As the last of them entered, the portal closed.
All of her wealth and resources left behind, the Wyrm sisters of Madarch leapt at the chance to seize it for themselves. As soon as their armies entered the ruins of the central city, the portal opened again. An entire population of living Sengl returned, and called themselves Sthe Arasth. They had lived on the other side of the portal in another plane of reality itself for 500 years, although only a single sway had passed.
While in the other plane, an entity named Sibrydaf that called itself an Anhysbys told the leader of the Sthe Arasth, Sthed-Igyd, about the true structure of reality. Reality, Sibrydaf says, is in the shape of a clover, four leaves surrounding a central node which is where we all reside, called Parth Perthynas. As the leaves draw up nutrients through the centre, they also provide energy to it. Two of these leaves, Dros Deyrnas and O Dan Deyrnas, are in crisis and must be balanced if Parth Perthynas is to remain healthy. The Wyrm sisters’ conquest of Madarch will throw the “leaves” out of balance and destroy reality.
Agiyari and Antimarix had heard the news about the Sthe Arasth, and their decision to stay out of Elfenreigen’s mess had proved crucial in their survival. The armies of Sengl who were approached by the Sthe Arasth turned against their former Wyrm masters as a united Sengl nation, sweeping through the Wyrm’s territories on the mainland and liberating the people within, spreading the world of the Clover truth along the way. Their Brightness was restored in the process.
Before the Sengl could storm Iosis’ laboratory, Antimarix entered under the guise that she was meeting with Iosis to discuss how to defend against the Sengl. Iosis revealed the Antimarix that she had discovered a process she called “genetics” that she had been utilising to create Anghenfil-Sengl hybrids with long life, but that she could also use it to turn Sengl into living, obedient weapons. Using a technique that caused rapid bodily mutations upon introduction of new genes, the Brightness in the Sengl portion of the body would be completely broken and thus made malleable to her demands. After hearing all she wanted to know, Antimarix attacked her, forcing her down and using an orbitoclast to insert Anghenfil genes into Iosis’ body. The rapid mutative process transformed Iosis’ body into a Wyrm-Sengl-Anghenfil chimaera, reducing her mind to that of a feral, scared beast. Antimarix fled with all of Iosis’ written research into Brightness and how to destroy it.
The mutated Iosis rampaged, destroying her laboratory and eventually confronting the Sengl armies, where she slew many before Sthed-Igyd Itself stepped in to battle her. It was swallowed whole, but ripped her apart from the inside with spinning swords. That was the death of Iosis.
Meanwhile, Nemeton had gone into hiding. Her people did not initially accept the Clover truth, as their own strong beliefs conflicted with its designs. However, the evangelists of the Clover truth came to understand that there was no contradiction, that all the faiths and religions of Nemeton’s domain could fit within the Clover truth just fine, all of their powers of good residing in Dros Deyrnas, their powers of evil residing in O Dan Deyrnas, existence itself in the Teyrnas Ochr, and the mysteries of all that is still unknown in Tir Negythu. And so everyone came under the Clover truth’s umbrella.
At this moment, massive amounts of spiritual energy entered Sthed-Igyd and gave it even more incredible powers, enough to single-handedly capture Nemeton. She was burned alive in a construction of wicker shaped like a Wyrm. Sthed-Igyd’s mind was also expanded from the energy, and it once again received a revelation from Sibrydaf the Anhysbys. It was commanded and instructed in how to construct a religion, a single grand organisation to connect all Sengl in thought. This was the Revelation Perthynas, and Sthed-Igyd became not a name, but a title.
That night, as the Sthe Arasth continued to march on, Agiyari crept to the pile of ash that was Nemeton’s body. Her few scales were left behind from the fire. Agiyari took them and returned to her island. Crushing the scales in a mortar, she found they released the spiritual energy that Nemeton had stored in her body. This was harnessed and made into a fluid, which Agiyari distributed into the cisterns and aqueducts of her cities. She knew that Brightness was a spiritual power, and Nemeton’s energy had the ability to restore it. Nemeton was to release this energy into her people once she had the power, so that it would connect their Brightness to her alone. After a few days, Agiyari could feel the thoughts and emotions of every Sengl on the island.
Orgone had constructed a great and impregnable fortress to hold all of her people inside, away from the “invading” army. Her people were not allowed to know what was going on on the outside. To defend the fortress without any knowledge slipping through, she created an army of mechanical beings that used Michor energy to bring them to life. After a few months of unsuccessful fighting, the Sengl soon realised that the automatons had Brightness, and their fighting stopped. Now both the Sengl and automaton army descended onto Orgone's forge, freeing the other Sengl along the way. At the forge, Orgone revealed that she had been given a gift by her sister Thales; a small stone, that when swallowed and infused with Michor energy, would allow Orgone to change her weak Sengl body back into that of a Wyrm. No army could stop her in that shape, and before she could be captured she ate the stone and stuck Michor-conducting poles into her body. She began to transform before the Sthed-Igyd's very eyes into a Wyrm again, though her entire body was also turning into silver. Before she could roar in fear, she was frozen as a silver statue, though her eyes still looked frantically around the Sthed-Igyd's throne room for centuries to come.
Thales' academy put up little fight. She was found in the grand library, sitting on a throne and reading. She barely glanced up as the Sengl forces surrounded her, and the Sthed-Igyd approached with weapon in hand. She scowled, and snapped her fingers. Fire shot from her fingertips for only a split second before the grand library exploded, everything inside it burning and the walls and ceiling crumbling. In seconds, the rest of the entire academy, and the wealth of nearly all formal written knowledge on magic, was burned and lost as well. The Sthed-Igyd was the only survivor. Tunnels holding traces of burnt gunpowder were found beneath the academy, linking where each building used to stand.
The fight was finally over on the mainland, only Agiyari and Antimarix remained on their islands Cap and Cosun. From their fortified position, where no Sengl could get in or out, the war came to a stalemate. The Sengl capital of Madarch was officially named Seth. The former Wyrm territories were renamed as well: Marwolaeth for Elfenreigen, Egnii for Thales, Campwaith for Orgone, Coeden for Nemeton and Trin for Iosis.
Agiyari and Antimarix both knew that to continue to survive they would need to turn their people against the threat of the Clover church, which could spread to their islands in a moment and be unstoppable. Agiyari looked deep into the minds of all of her Sengl and found that there was an inherent bias towards what the Clovics referred to as Dros Deyrnas. Using this bias to her advantage, she adopted part of the Clover church as her own religion and called it the Basic Clover church, with her at the head which would break apart the Orthodox church from inside. Agiyari told her Sengl that she was a physical being from Dros Deyrnas, using her great miracles to prove it. She was accepted as a god to lead the Basic Clovic church, to rival the Sthed-Igyd.
Agiyari and Antimarix, unlike the other sisters, were quite close to each other and spoke like sisters rather than enemies. Agiyari told Antimarix about the inherent bias she discovered in Sengl. Antimarix used this information to create the Acid Clovic church, a denomination who used the knowledge of that bias to demand a counterbalancing act between Dros Deyrnas and Parth Perthynas, with Antimarix's actual goal being the destruction of Dros Deyrnas so that when the clover structure of reality rebalances, it would raise Parth Perthynas to be a new node of creation, with a new Parth Perthynas created as a central node so that she and all other living things could rule over it.
The Sthed-Igyd would not let this stand. There would be no dissent in the Clovic church by any Wyrm who only wanted to control Sengl. The Sthed-Igyd consulted with the Anhysbys Sibrydaf again, and was told that fighting with Agiyari and Antimarix would always result in its death. The only way to truly defeat the Wyrm sisters for good was a closely held secret to the Anhysbys, but the Sthed-Igyd would be instructed on the steps that it needs to take. The first step was to craft two pairs of needles out of a special metal called oneirite. When punctured in the head, it would cause the victim to fall asleep as long as the needle stayed, and give them horrible nightmares. A matching pair of needles, when inserted into another's head, would allow the two to share the nightmare. The Sthed-Igyd did not understand why, but did not need to, and obeyed the Anhysbys' orders.
The warpriests that were to fight Agiyari and Antimarix were equipped with special weapons that were blessed to strike down anything in their path with enhanced speed and efficiency. Wooden weapons wrapped in thorns worked against the forces of Agiyari, and silver that has been oiled and set aflame worked against the forces of Antimarix. With these special weapons, the warpriests were finally able to reach the land of Cap and Cosun, and worked their way through the countryside on route to the Wyrm sisters.
Their people rounded up, their production halted, and their lairs surrounded, Agiyari and Antimarix were forced into hiding somewhere deep underground. The war was considered won, the work to fix and restore the Brightness of their former subjects began.
When the threat of the Wyrms appeared to be in the past, Sibrydaf revealed to the Sthed-Igyd that the fight was far from over. There was still much more to be done to get rid of the Wyrms permanently. It told the Sthed-Igyd that it was a demi-Anhysbys, a successor to Igyd that will someday ascend to rule Parth Perthynas. Ascending to be Igyd was the best way to stop Agiyari and Antimarix, who even in a thousand years could still destroy everything on Madarch. In order to achieve this ascension, the Sthed-Igyd had to condemn all Sengl to a chaotic world of division and strife, to break down their Brightness so that it can be built up again as Igyd. The Sthed-Igyd simply had to survive this period.
The Sthed-Igyd rewarded important warpriests for their victory by naming them as noble houses, a few dozen of them who were given private tracts of land and captured wealth from the Wyrms. Reconstruction efforts were underway at Thales' academy, and it was given as a gift to the most prestigious of the noble houses, the House of Bloyd. The academy was renamed in the house's honour.
The Basic and Acid church presences in the mainland were outraged with the treatment of what they saw as legitimate denominations of the Orthodox Clover church. They began to create unrest in the Sengl capital of Seth, but were brutally beaten down by the city guards. The guards did not even notice their Brightness slipping away from them as they hurt fellow Sengl on orders alone. The Basic and Acid churches only became more popular in the underground.
The Sthed-Igyd visits the academy of Bloyd and speaks with some of the head researchers, introducing to them the theory of four “races” of Sengl- The Planetouched who are descended from the Sthe Arasth and have the influences of the other planes of reality in their bodies, the Untouched who do not have this influence, the Stheihaol, a diminutive form of Untouched, and the Chretyr who have the traits of animals. The theory spread fast among the Planetouched academics and nobility.
The iron mines of Marwolaeth were heavily expanded, forcing lower class Stheihaol to move and work the mines, as the tunnels were made at the Sthed-Igyd's order to be too small for a non-diminutive Sengl to comfortably fit inside. The mines were a harsh place to work, but the development of Michor-powered tools let the miners dig deep and find new minerals and ores. One of these minerals was a milky-white one that was called Gwynite. While it could be infused with Michor to emit cold light, the miners discovered that if one crushed and inhaled the mineral it would put you into a euphoric, age-regressed state for a few hours, and would also wipe the past 24 hours from your memory. The drug was called Gwyn Amygdala and it spread quickly among the miners that wished to have some moment of respite in their lives and to forget the hardships of the past day. Overdose could make the age-regression effect permanent.
Followers of the Acid church released captured anghenfilod inside a crowded market in Seth, sending a message by bird to the Sthed-Igyd that Antimarix would return and rise all Sengl to the level of gods. After the attack, three Acid churches were found in hidden locations nearby, already cleared out and abandoned. Hundreds died, and hundreds were arrested on suspicion of involvement.
At the same time, the Basic church was build sovereign settlements in the outskirts of cities all over the island. This was technically legal, but the Sthed-Igyd targeted them to destroy their buildings and arrest their inhabitants. The prisons were filling up fast with Basic and Acid churchgoers. It seemed like the return of Agiyari and Antimarix was imminent, and disaster would soon come. Ignoring Sibrydaf's command to wait and take advantage of the situation as it develops, it declares war against these dissenting denominations entirely, launching brutal campaigns to root them out of civilised Sengl society and raze their meeting places. However, the prisoner population quickly became so much of a problem that the Orthodox Sengl began to sympathise with them, and popular support for the war was plummeting. Soon, the Basic and Acid churches began to be able to fight back, taking entire towns under their control.
With the massive losses and the brutality at show, the noble houses broke away from the Orthodox Clover church and the Sthed-Igyd, seeing it as a wild and self-destructive despot. They became their own independent kingdoms utilising the land they already owned. This let them keep some safety from the Basic and Acid warpriests as well. Despite how chaotic everything looked, however, the Sthed-Igyd's plan was working. Even Sibrydaf had to commend it for the ability to turn things around. Instead of strengthening Brightness in Sengl by turning everyone against the Sthed-Igyd and the Orthodox church, Brightness was diminishing. Which kingdom you belong to, which denomination you belong to, if you are upper class or lower class, what race you are, the Sthed-Igyd had performed surgery on the Sengl population to divide them into pieces that would not be easily reconcilable even in its absence. Brightness was entirely destroyed.
Meanwhile, the Sthed-Igyd was personally training two assassins to take care of Agiyari and Antimarix using the oneirite needles. They were named Nhymor and Chwalu, and with their intense training they quickly found the hideout of Agiyari and Antimarix. They were poised to attack on the Sthed-Igyd's command. Sure enough, Agiyari and Antimarix returned to the surface to direct their creations against the Orthodox church. Nhymor and Chwalu were activated and they drove the needles into the Wyrm sisters' heads, putting them to sleep immediately and began to hurry back to the palace at Seth. Before the Sthed-Igyd would put the matching needles in its own head, there was one more measure that must be taken to secure a fragmented future for Sengl for as long as it needs to return. It took its spear and drove it into the ground with such force that the entire island split into six pieces. Before the pieces could drift away, the Sthed-Igyd went under the ground into a secret chamber beneath the palace and strung itself up with golden chains that would keep the pieces of the island close, but not connected anymore.
The war outside the palace was thrown into complete and utter chaos. The splitting of the island and the emboldening of anghenfilod made the island impossible to continue life on. All of the surviving Sengl knew that they had to leave the island quickly, to sail far away if they did not want to die with the island. This was the Outvoyage, the departure of all Sengl from the island that Igyd had so lovingly created for all living things unimaginable years ago. We would sail away, hoping to return some day.
While the Outvoyage is known to be a historical event, as well as the existence of the island fragments, golden chains, and the ruins of the city known as Seth, many other details of what we know of as the ancient legend are unknown or modified over the years. The Backvoyage gives Sengl the opportunity to learn again, the truth of what happened on Madarch. The Outvoyage itself was a fleet of thousands of ships, each containing up to hundreds of Sengl. Over time, the ships separated from each other, got lost, wrecked, starved to death, thirsted to death, killed each other, or were wiped out from disease. Of the thousands of ships that left Madarch, only a few dozen made it to the far continents of the world, a great many merhale away from each other and each suffering in their own ways. The groups that were lucky enough to survive would go on to repopulate, not knowing whether there were any other survivors, and would adapt to their environment. Over centuries, the environment shaped them into distinct varieties of Sengl. In the international pidgin they are the dwarves, elves, gnomes, goblins, halflings, humans, and orcs. Those groups split off into their own groups, creating even more varieties. Soon there were dozens of civilisations across the new world, but the history of Madarch mostly concerns just a few. Those are Byr, Sgript, Hosshal, Gwyrth, Stallislond, Diofyn and Formagrad. At some point in the past 50 years, explorers discovered the island of Madarch, recognising it for its chains as the island from the ancient legend. Within a few decades, the Union Parliament, a world government organisation with many member nations, had established a penal colony on Madarch, near the ruins of Seth, sending prisoners of all kinds to the island with the purpose of making the island habitable again through their sacrificial labour and adventuring. This is where we are today, the penal colony of Madarch, the first and only of its kind so far, 25 years in the making. Its history is still newborn, more is sure to come...
Madarch is still a young project, only 25 years since its founding. It is a penal colony established by the Union Parliament on the ancient Sengl homeland of Madarch, on the island frament called Seth where the ancient Sengl capital city used to be. It's too young yet to say anything interesting about its history, but with it being so isolated from the Farlands and its purpose being to make itself into a semi-independent government, there's sure to be many events to follow in the coming years.
These Sengl arrived at a great mountain range when they landed from the Outvoyage. Its vegetation and access to water was comfortable, but space was tight, so they began to dig into the mountains itself. Here they uncovered a great mysterious ruin of a far, far more ancient city. Near endless halls of doors, encased in seemingly unbreakable stone. These doors were locked, and no attempt to pick them with anything other than the proper key has been successful. However, the dwarves soon discovered small wells placed around the halls. When a dwarf stepped up to the well, a key fell from a miniscule chute. This key would unlock one of the doors. The first opening of the doors was exciting. Inside each room was a stockpile of materials, alcohol, honey, trinkets that would become valuable. Each room was like a storehouse of things left behind as if just for the dwarves. Only one key would be given for each dwarf, each key nearly unique to each other, although there was a pattern where the more similar the key, the closer the doors would be to each other. Those dwarves in close proximity to one another formed distinct clans and took up various responsibilities in the city. Slave labour became prevalent among dwarves that were born for the purpose of their clan plundering their door or dwarves who fall in the outskirts of the city and are thus clanless. On the backs of slaves, dwarven society expanded and developed further, spreading further into the entire mountain range and harnessing the outside of it. The dwarves eventually reconnected with the other Sengl, the first of which being Hosshal who had sent birds to scout long distances for other Sengl after Sgript gave them hope for the existence of other civilisations. Byr became a founding and core member of the Union Parliament.
When these Sengl found land after the Outvoyage, they were restricted to the peaks of mountains and dunes in the desert countryside. Wood, food and water were rare resources, but one thing that they had was the perfect view of the night sky. The physical altitude of their civilisation brought them closer to the Swigen than any other Sengl, and soon it began to affect them. Their bodies were elongated, besides their slim proportions their ears grew long and their eyes wider, giving them an alien look. Their life spans too were lengthened to absurd ages. The influence was not just physical. The elves were given visions from the Swigen, visions they claim come not from the atmosphere, the first sky, nor the second sky, the ocean outside the Swigen, but the third sky, a space beyond infinity where the fate of their lives is revealed. The elves and Sgript were meant to survive, despite their hardships. They were meant to thrive, and they were meant to read the sky to know exactly what must be done. And so they did, guided by the Swigen’s visions. From the peaks of the mountains, they could see the lights shining of the other Sengl in the world, hundreds of merhale away. So some were sent out, to meet the others. This was the first contact between Sengl after the Outvoyage, and their meeting sparked the cascade of re-connections between all of the disparate Sengl cultures who thought they alone survived. The elves that left had no luck spreading their beliefs and visions, but they kept arriving in faraway lands anyways and soon their kin were everywhere, although the children of these elves lost much of their fate-seeing ability. These would be the elf-descendents, the most common kind you’ll see in your everyday life. The elf-descendents formed connections and helped found the Union Parliament, though not a core member as they don't represent Sgript as much as just themselves as a world-wide population. Elf-descendants, being not uncommon in any other culture, end up being shipped out to Madarch. Some true elves have even been voluntarily sent to Madarch to be prisoners simply because their fate in the Third Sky said so.
These Sengl arrived from the Outvoyage in a vast, misty forest full of strange animals and even stranger plants. After settling a few towns, the true inhabitants of Hosshal forest made themselves clear to the Sengl; they had learned their language from the crows and had watched carefully from the beetles, and they called themselves Peris. The Peris taught the gnomes about mystical agriculture and husbandry, showing them how to grow plants to suit any need, and guide rapid evolution of animals. It was even taught to them how to grow gnomes themselves. The only condition was that it would only work in this forest, as it has been constructed by the Peris and its soil is like no other. Hosshal sparked the re-connection of the disparate Sengl civilisations when they decided to write letters and attach them to swifts which flew out over the vast distances to find other survivors of the Outvoyage. Even though their recipients could not read their writing, they knew it was a sign and sent their own messages back, eventually coordinating a meeting which would culminate in the founding of the Union Parliament. Initially, Hosshal was a founding and core member, but their disillusionment with Byr and Diofyn caused them to leave, although they chose not to join the Pakt Mira when it was established. Gnomes still do leave the forest-lands for one reason or another, a common reason being that they are curious of the world outside and leave to investigate, or that they are just fed up with the strangeness of gnomish society and wish to ground themselves elsewhere.
One group of Sengl was lucky enough to make it to the far shores of the world, but not unlucky enough to avoid a large wave of death due to scurvy. Just barely enough Sengl made it onto shore to continue repopulating, they were graciously met with a rain-forest full of citrus fruits. They attributed this boon to a god, but they soon found out that the rain-forest wasn't all so safe and bountiful. There were very dangerous creatures here that could easily stalk and kill them, so they learned over time how to duck and weave through the brush and the trees, how to live on the canopies above, and eventually how to build cities suspended above the canopy where rainwater could be collected easily, fruits could be harvested with ease, and lightning could be harnessed to light permanent fires that could be used by anyone in the city. The goblins only remaining enemies were the birds that could attack from above. Over time, goblins developed greenish skin to camouflage better against the green leaves below them, their eyes became sharper and accustomed to nocturnal schedules, and their teeth became sharp to be able to grab onto branches with. Compared to the rest of the world second only to the gnomes the goblins thrived, and it was the gnomes that eventually reconnected with the goblins via bird. The goblins were initially excited that there were other Sengl out there, and even discovered that the humans were not terribly far from the rain-forest. They joined the Union Parliament after its founding as a core member. This however would only begin hard times as Diofyn invaded to try and take the rain-forests fruit, furs, wood and water for themselves, and as Byr and Sgript turned a blind eye as Gwyrth was kicked out of the UP. Gwyrth fights Diofyn in their jungle to this day, and Diofyn sends goblin political prisoners to Madarch.
Uniquely, these Sengl didn't find land on a continent but actually discovered a large island just a bit further away. The island was arboreally sparse, and it got cold and rocky in the south, but the island was inhabited by very intelligent equine creatures called mori who had their own civilisation. They welcomed the holbytlan, and let them govern themselves or join this equine society. For a long time these two civilisations lived in peace, until the holbytlan saw themselves as running out of room, and began competing with the equines much to those humble horses' chagrin. The horses formed a council of warhorses to confront the holbytla ruler, who was forced to submit. For a while there was apparent peace, but the measures taken by the warhorses in their own society caused unrest which soon the holbytlan took advantage of, staging a revolution and setting up a government they could control. Soon holbytlan dominated the island culture, and the mori were subservient to the holbytlan. Sailors from Formagrad discovered the island and the terrible state that the equine were in, and helped the equine wage war against the holbytlan which they would win. Peace was established with a friendly holbytlan government, land was returned, and Formagrad's ideology was ripe to spread to the two civilisations which they enjoyed. The holbytlan and mori civilisations both are not members of the Union Parliament, occupying the Pakt Mira alongside Formagrad.
This group of Sengl actually stayed on Madarch for a while as it was falling apart, much of their rank was made up of noble houses who sent their armies to protect them as they gathered as much wealth as they could before sailing out. They just barely survived the voyage, and most of their fleets were destroyed entirely taking this wealth with it. The new population, settling in a fairly lush and temperate place with lots of room to expand, was so hungry to restore their wealth and status from Madarch that they almost ripped each other apart before realising that they needed to actually repopulate after the severe bottleneck. They did so and eventually tried re-establishing their noble houses, squabbling with each other with little armies over petty amounts of money and slivers of land. The sway and balance of power between these houses developed and shifted and eventually the noble houses became kingdoms of their own with their own identities. One of these kingdoms, Diofyn, would go on to be majorly successful in agriculture, military might, and early industry which made them the dominant culture among the humans. On the very same day that the other kingdoms swore loyalty to Diofyn, a swift sent by the gnomes of Hosshal discovered the royal palace. The king of Diofyn and his navigators drew up plans for a meeting between Sengl civilisations, and sought to found and head a congress where the leaders of the whole world could meet. This would be the Union Parliament. Soon after, Diofyn discovered an easy route to reach Gwyrth, the goblin civilisations, and the king saw the fantastic resources and wealth that they had and wanted it for himself. Having Byr and many other non-core members by the hair through his control over the UP, he began invading Gwyrth for its wealth. This conflict still has not ended.
The Sengl who landed in the rocky, icy tundra of what they would call Danneth had it rougher than the elves. Liquid water was hard to come by, and most had to crunch ice to get water in their bodies. Fire was a precious resource, and the orcs came to understand its applications very well. A bit of grace touched the orcs as they discovered deep, rich veins of useful metals underneath the ground. They created strong tools and weapons great enough to hunt whales and large icebreaker ships to create sea routes between cities. Soon the orcs had the means to expand far outward, taking a “wide not tall” approach and adopting nomadic lifestyles. Orcs could soon be considered ten general territories, each led by a tsarkhan. The tsarkhans often fought with each other over rich land, animals, and other resources, though they cooperated after Sengl reconnected and they joined the Union Parliament as Danneth, a collective identity. Even though they cooperated diplomatically, at home their methods of providing for their armies and people still relied on looting and fighting over land, but soon the masses became dissatisfied with this way of life, seemingly fighting over nothing that could not be shared, and all ten tsarkhans were overthrown, their territory at the time immortalised and becoming ten nations that would form the republic of Formagrad, dedicated to an equitable, dynamic society. Now the people spoke their minds at the Union Parliament, they were disgusted by the slave state of Byr, the monarchies of Diofyn, and the haphazardness of Sgript and they abdicated from the Union Parliament, instead forming an opposition organisation with the goal of combating the Union Parliament, the Pakt Mira. They were initially the sole member, but were since joined by the holbytlan and mori people of Stallislond after liberating the mori from invaders. They now offer unconditional military support and aid to Gwyrth in their war against Diofyn, though Gwyrth has rejected petitions to join the Pakt Mira properly.