Imperia

Until around twenty thousand years ago, legends tell that gods lived on Lostria and governed the world. They considered all living creatures as their toys and humans could get great rewards by following their commands. However, due to the passing of time, not a lot can be found about this era and the reason why the gods disappeared is unknown to mankind. Only some ruins and their relics attest that there was a time where powerful beings ruled the world.

Following the disappearance of the gods, humans thought they would be free, but most of the relics disappeared with them. Moreover, their favorite creature, the dragons, were free from their masters. The humans of that time had nothing to face those creatures which grew stronger and stronger as time passed. Those dragons rapidly became the masters of Lostria and humans had to live in hiding. Hopefully, dragons aren't monsters that kill everything at sight. After fifteen thousand years, two dragons became so large that the world didn't have enough resources for both of them. A fight emerged from this and the great cataclysm occurred. Both dragons died, like a multitude of other creatures. Some humans survived and noticed there was no more dragons.

After the cataclysm, mana leaks from the depth of earth and magical creatures begin to appear. Humans from across the continent were free to conquer the desolate lands and finally started to develop without opposition. Multiple cultures emerged and opinions diverged. Humans started to wage war among themself, whatever it was for survival, for greed or for ideology.

At Some point, ruins from the age of gods were discovered with some relics in it. Those relics contain powerful magic spells and a frenzy to collect them filled the continent. Things became chaotic and war became a normal occurrence for the next five centuries. However, most relics require to be reloaded at a mana vein and a high density of mana can be toxic to human beings.

A group of people grew tired of this stupidity and started the great conquest. They managed to capture all the territories of the continent and collected all the relics. Once their quest successfully completed, the human empire was founded and a lot of rules to avoid future generations to divide were established.

Since the funding of the empire, science has been the main focus of humanity. Torka began the city of science, a place where all the researchers of the empire shared their findings and helped each other to make new breakthroughs. However, in the year 165 of the imperial calendar, a disaster occurred. Due to unknown reasons, the whole area suddenly disappeared in a gigantic luminous light, leaving behind it a gargantuan hole. It is suspected that an experiment directly connected to the mana vein got out of control and used too much energy, vaporizing everything in a radius of more than 200 km. For safety measures, the direct use of mana veins got banned and researchers need a special authorisation as well as a very detailed and secured procedure if they need a large source of mana. A memorial was built in the vicinity of the crater which is now filled with water and called the Lake of Torka.

Among all the relics discovered by the empire, there is one with the ability to fuse anything, but this relic needs a complementary device to specify how the fusion should work. The idea to use this relic to improve the abilities of humans was obvious, but doing it revealed itself to be more difficult than planned. Without the control device, the fusions are somewhat random and difficult to predict. The scientists didn't give up, with a lot of trial and error, it was in 265 that they finally made a species that seemed stable and almost human. It's still not exactly what they wanted, but the new species was quite interesting and had the property to multiply by itself. But after more analysis, they discovered that this creature is strongly influenced by its power and so considered a failure as a potential human evolution. However, they are still useful and were given the name epotykias. The empire was quite fond of this obedient species with the look of tall and beautiful women. Since the spirit given to an epotykia greatly influences her behavior, a special selection is made and all epotykias have to receive one as soon as their soul stone is formed, making them almost perfect slaves.

With the passing of time and bad management, some epotykias grew in the wild, receiving natural spirit. It wasn't a real problem at first and the epotykias with a wild spirit had their appearance slightly modified in addition to being able to use magic. At some point, it was even more wanted to have epotykias with elemental spirits instead of the docile ones without power. But some of them didn't accept their situation and banded together to wage a war for their independence. They started this war in 483 and with their power it was difficult to face them. The empire could sacrifice a lot of humans to eradicate them, but the emperor of the time decided to let the epotykias leave the empire and live in the cold northern lands. It was in 521 that the epotykias won their freedom and founded their queendom. Since that time, the human empire and the epotykia queendom had numerous small conflicts and peace was never an option for them.

If there is one creature that instigates fear in the heart of humans, it is the dragons. Even after their extinction five thousand years earlier with the great cataclysm, they still have a strong impact in the minds of people. Those legendary creatures ruled the world, could become bigger than mountains and had strong magical power. It was in 592 that dragons were spotted on the south-west isles. This news created a wave of panic and everyone fled the vicinity. A scouting party was dispatched to know if it was really dragons and know more about them. The creatures were clearly dragons and a whole family came on the isles. Luckily, the dragons found their place on the isles and don't plan to move on the mainland for now. The existence of dragons close to the empire isn't appreciated by the people and an army was dispatched on the coast to deal with any dragon that tried to reach the land. It was only in rare occurrence that a dragon leaves the isles and it was generally a weakened one, after a territorial fight. Even like that, it was a huge sacrifice to kill it. With better understanding of the way dragons live and analysis of the defeated dragons, the army was tasked to manage the population of dragons to avoid them having territorial issues and to hunt some dragons for their very concentrated mana energy. The humans don't hesitate to sacrifice some soldiers to kill larger dragons and preventing them to grow to a point that could threaten the empire.

With time, humans have a better understanding of the relics and use them to improve their society as well as increase their military strength. Multiple laboratories exist across the empire that make research on new relics and some of them are isolated in hidden places for safety measures. The most important discovery that gave a great boost in modern magic-technology is the mana battery. They were invented in 988 and, with them, no more need to connect to the mana veins to have energy. Those batteries are condensed mana, forming crystals in sturdy containers on which any magic tool can be connected to receive its energy in a perfectly controlled way. With them, magic tools can be used anywhere in the empire with a better safety. It only requires the battery to be reloaded from time to time. They are initially used in the army and rapidly used in the daily life of the citizens with lamps, vehicles and a lot more. As time passes, more and more tools use mana batteries and the reload factory starts to be lacking. The need to find new mana sources is needed and expeditions try to find new mana veins while researchers are looking for other ways to get mana. They found they can get mana from magical creatures, but even if the process can be considered horrifying, it is a need for the Empire. New factories are built to apply this new way of getting mana. They work by compressing the mana of creatures with a lot of mana like the dragons, which are the best for a better quality.

A great festival across the continent took place for the millennium of the empire. A lot of new projects for the next millennium grew in the mind of mankind wanting to make the empire even better and bigger. The epotykias took the opportunity of the weakenned security to invade and destroy some laboratories and other facilities.

Resources on the continent became scarce and the need to find news sources became a necessity. To do so, they need to find new lands. With more resources and more lands, they can overpower the epotykias before the end of the next millennium. They send an expedition to conquer the west continent where the dragons originate from. But after some years, the survivors of the expedition came back in failure. The empire didn’t give up and developed new technology based on the needs for the next expedition. This time, with stronger and adapted equipment, two expeditions were sent. One to the dragon land and another to the south continent.