<aside> 📜 Please note that this page is both an overview and a work in progress. It is meant to illustrate the overall arc of the nation’s history, and does not go into terribly much detail. If you want more details on particular events, you are encouraged to use Research Actions to get research reports on specific pieces of the nation’s history.
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In 511, the Miiradian Empire invades the western half of the Dale, conquering much of what is now Kelsgarth and SĂthenal. They build many fortresses, temples, and garrisons throughout the region they conquer. Any Daleans who are not Fae within the Empire’s holdings are forced to either leave (without any of their property) or become second-class citizens.
The Miiradians are driven out of the Dale in the 9th Century, when the War of Bloody Scythes sees the western half of the Dale erupt in rebellion and anti-imperial frenzy. Miiradian cities and garrisons are left to rot and fall into ruin, but due to their brutalist and sturdy stone construction many still exist in the modern day, peeking out from under sod and forest.
After the Bileborne Churning ends in 992, the Dale experiences a period of eccentricity on the part of the Princes who rule each of the Great Cities of the time. Vast mausoleums and crypts are built, stuffed full of treasure, traps, and bound undead, to hold the nobility’s corpses once they perish.
The Pale Castellans Period also sees the signing of the Oakwrought Accords in 1026, which institutes formal rules for the Ebb And Flow, after the horrific biological warfare used during the Shiverpox War devastates many of the Great Cities’ civilian populations.
The last of the Pale Castellans die off shortly after the Shiverpox War, giving rise to a millennia of more sedate and civilized warfare between the Princes, punctuated by the occasional attempt at invasion by Aurendale’s neighbors. The period gets its name from the fact that the Great Cities on the shores of the Blackwater gain the upper hand in the Ebb And Flow over the course of the millennia.
In 1958, Patricea Ironsides, a general from the now-dead City of Rootsford, uses her fame, the recent addition of a number of loyal mercenary companies to her forces, and the exhaustion of the just-finished Faebane Churning to broker a temporary pause to the Ebb And Flow, ushering in a short-lived period of peace, prosperity, and expansion to the Dale, which was eventually shattered by the Vauldan invasion.
In 1989, the Vauldan Empire begins another generational campaign of expansion, starting with the Harvester’s War as they conquer the eastern portion of the Dale in a year and then progress further over the next decade until they have conquered the entire Dalean territory. The Princes of the Dale are all deposed, and most are executed by the Imperial Service’s secret police.
During the next four centuries, which are known in Aurendale as the Imperial Period, the Empire tries and partially succeeds in converting Dalean culture into something more pliant and Vauldan in nature. The Vauldan governors, in an attempt to win over the Dalean population, end the practice of serfdom and indentured servitude, which makes the first century or so of the Empire’s rule remarkably peaceful and free of rebellion. The Empire builds significant amounts of infrastructure to consolidate control over their new territory, much of which has lasted into the present day.
While the Dale benefits economically during the Imperial Period from the Vauldan Golden Age, over time the Empire becomes more and more extractive, the taxes and rents placed upon Daleans growing more onerous every year. As Daleans begin to grow restive at the increased economic burdens placed upon them, the Vauldans clamp down militarily; eventually this causes enough backlash and hatred amongst the population that a Dalean archmage is driven to madness and carves out the heart of the Vauldan ruling class in the Dale.
In 2487 a necromancer calling himself the Gravedust Lord began the Gravewight Uprising, rapidly slaying the Vauldan governors of the Dale and eventually forcing the Legions to retreat back across the Empire’s original border with Aurendale. The self-crowned Gravedust King took control of the nation, replacing the Empire’s extractive and heavy-handed rule with his own form of tyranny, ruling with an iron fist and raising the dead to serve him and keep the living in line.
Eventually, the Daleans had enough of the horrors inflicted by the Gravedust King and his minions, and the Twelve Cities which still stood revolted against him, distracting his armies and buying time for a band of heroes known as the Shining Swords to carve their way through the palace guard. They slew the lich, and found and shattered his phylactery. In his last moments, though, the undead king laughed, saying that the Swords had not seen the last of him. Many feared that he would return, reviving in time as liches are said to do, but his remains still rest within the warded cells build to contain him and prevent his resurrection.
Upon the lich’s destruction, the Twelve Great Cities came together and forged the Gravedust Pact, creating the Aurendale Federation out of their formerly independent principalities so that no foreign foes might be able to take advantage of their disunity ever again. They rechristened the Shining Swords as the Tombsguard, charging them with guarding the Gravedust King’s remains and preventing him from rising ever again. The lich king’s former castle became the Graveskeep; due to its centrality in the new nation’s heartland and the enforced neutrality of the new Tombsguard who were sworn to protect it, the castle and its surrounding town also became the seat of the Federation’s newly-formed national government.