Two thousand years ago, the continent of Certau was in ruin. Blights, famine and conflict left the lands ruined and covered in ash and blood. Its people, starving and shattered. Nation fought nation; tribe fought tribe. No one was innocent; only an inconvenience that stood in their way of control, power and wealth.
During this time, a man rose up to rule them all. He began to make speeches that made him a target for the ruling powers but despite their efforts to silence him, they only made his voice carry farther. His words bore deep into the minds and souls of those who had no hope, no future. He became the physical embodiment of hope to those that had none. The more that saw him as a messiah, the more the cruel leaders became and began slaughtering his followers. What none of them realized at the time just what their actions would lead to.
An army of his dedicated followers formed up and what began as a campaign to protect his followers that relocated to towns under his control quickly turned into a campaign of destruction. The armies that spent generations fighting one another fell one by one. Survivors of these brutal battles had two options, join him or die. Under his rule as a military dictator, his ranks swelled by how generous he was to those that joined him when they were earlier just fighting him.
The wounded were treated with great care, not casted out unlike most other forces. In a matter of years, the human empires in central Certau were defeated and unified. The age of strife and blood shedding seemed to soon end. As if to mirror this newfound hope, blights ended and the land recovered. The people rejoiced at these miracles and proclaimed him someone sent from the gods.
As he grew older, his mind changed. He feared his coming death and sought all sorts of ways to prolong his life and if possible, stop death from claiming him. It is unclear how he found a way but he became immortal; under the stipulation that as long as people of all kind shall worship him, then he shall become immortal. Perhaps even, a god and under this proclamation, the age of strife began anew but if possible, even more terrible than any that came before it.
Whether god or demon, his armies swarmed north, quickly conquering the last of the human kingdoms and their people again faced two choices. Worship their conqueror as a god or be exiled to the north, where they face certain death in the sands and blistering heat of the great desert. ‘No non-believer’s blood shall stain the land of the god’s people’ proclaimed the immortal leader as he renamed the land which he has conquered; Penar Providence. Penar in legend was a man whose strength and courage once ruled all of Certau thousands of years ago and upon his death, through his deeds, ascended to become a god. The immortal leader proclaimed himself the second coming of Emperor Penar and announced that all of Certau shall be his.
His strengthened armies stormed south, defeating all who stood in his way. The various clans of elves who spent millenniums fighting over a region of mountains they held as sacred united as a nation but they only prolonged their inevitable defeat and the short lived Elventu soon disappeared.
In legend, the Bestanians are those who many eons ago, when man was starting to rise, discarded their human forms and chose animal forms. The two most prolific being the feline human hybrids Felani and the canine human hybrids Dogma fought the Penars but soon each other and their nation fell.
The ogre, goblin and their various overmaster Orc clans in the nations of Serbia and Maryatu have heard of the Penars campaigns and became split between two main groups. Those that were for this human emperor and the others wishing to continue along their traditional path. By the time the Penars themselves arrived, the sudden influx quickly ended the brief civil war and the Penars campaign saw rapid progress.
Long holding out, the warrior people of Dalentia and their industrious Dwarven allies in the Mountain Providence and the Kingdoms of Ryur and Amur fell one by one.
The winter Elves and fairies living in Hygleden and the Dwarves of Arnan could not hold back the tide. This left Narantia; a place named for various prophecies among the people foretold that in their darkest days, a new nation will rise and withstand the evil that shall beset Certau. That was not the case and after a long struggle, fell.
The refugees and those that still not chose to worship their new conquer spent a year being marched north and let loose in the Great Desert where they are to die. Those that did die along the way were cremated, denied the rights of a proper burial.
Even the nationless Centaurs who chose the nomadic life and the Ends of the Great Forest who did not submit to their overlord were rounded up and sent north.
With the fall of Narantai, his task was complete. He ruled all of Certau and through violence, he crushed all who stood in his way and with him as a living god, oversaw an end of conflict, an end of struggle, an end of the old ways.
Through science and magic, the blights that plagued the land were never seen again. Irrigation saw crop harvests in abundance and pest controls successfully controlled. But not all was as it seemed.
Any who did not worship him were punished severely and were burnt at the stakes for heresy. Magic users who did not practice magic for the benefit of the nation were stripped of their magic through means that are best untold.
The freedoms and rights were stripped away. All literature was censured and the people indoctrinated into believing that their God-Emperor is all knowing and all powerful and that he alone can bring peace to all corners of the world.
A navy was built up and missionaries were sent out to spread the ways and tales of their living god emperor when something happened; something that will shape the events of generations to come.
The Great Desert as it turns out, is not only vast but home to nomadic tribes who saw the beginnings of his reign and chose to avoid all contact as possible. They helped guide the exiles and managed to keep alive as many of the Ents as they could. The Dwarves, the Elves, once split amongst High Elves, Wood Elves, Dark Elves and Winter Elves are now a single community, living alongside the Beastmen and the once Tribal Orcs who became civilized and share their lands with the Fairies and Centaurs. Even the dragons that had to flee here are at peace with the exiles.
The land was home to a species not seen before, Giants. It was these giants who stood as tall as two men, who welcomed the exiles and lived amongst them. Furious that the exiles are alive, the emperor decided that the only course now is to annihilate them completely.
