Brief History of Gurab

I will do my best to summarize the history of our world. It will be very brief and ommit a lot of important people and events, but it should give you a cursory overview that would be useful in interacting with our people.

Rabadanjah Iskandranguz

Recorded history begins with the Age of Warriors. For three thousand years, our people were ruled by warrior kings who distrusted and shunned magic. Force of arms and personal might were paramount values and we believed the ones who died a glorious death in battle would depart for warrior heaven, where a new, improved body would be sown for them from the bodies of the ones that failed. However, over time the approach people had to magic would evolve. In the final thousand years, magic was no longer illegal and began to be practiced openly. At the end of the Age of Warriors, mages started to come to positions of power and even led some nations. Eventually, the society shifted away from warrior domination and mages ruled the world.

This is when the Age of Sorcerer Kings began. It lasted only about 1200 years, and for half of it, the Sorcerer Kings were stuck in a cold war, a state of mutually assured destruction. Over this time, magic was seen as the ultimate pursuit of power and grew in ways few remember today. We know the Sorcerer Kings learned how to create life from dust and how to turn the entire planet to dust. They erected massive monuments that supplied power to entire nations. Once they had the power to destroy worlds, they were locked in a struggle where everybody was afraid to use that power, fearing they’d fall prey to it as well. Unfortunately, someone eventually drew first blood.

Thus began a 300 year period of Mage Wars. Entire nations were leveled and new lands were raised from the seafloor. Mountains were thrown across the planet. Seas were drained to power engines of destruction. Unsatisfied with the level of destruction they were causing, Sorcerer Kings started redirected leylines, the very lifeblood of magic, towards their seats of power and towards their targets. The destruction this caused was unspeakable. With the very essence of magic torn asunder and scattered to the winds, not only did the Sorcerer Kings begin losing their power, all life started to wither and die. Despite all of this destruction, Mage Wars did not end with a bang, but with a whimper. The world simply died, and the Sorcerer Kings died with it.

The following 900-1000 years were known as the Desolation. As the world began dying around us, we were scrounging for ways to keep living. Anarchy ruled the world, as various warlords began to take over. This was when a few people began to practice magic by draining life energy from the creatures surrounding them. As this practice was only furthering the devastation of our world, it was shunned and marginalized, but desperate arcanists continued, nevertheless. Some even rose to power as warlords, but their rule was usually short-lived as they were seen as a throwback to the Mage Wars and were quickly toppled.

Nearly 1080 years ago a group of luminous begins called the Saviors arrived from the sky and preached salvation for our world. They taught us holy magic and brought order to civilization once again, starting a new age. We called it the Age of Saviors. They promised they will make our world better, but at the same time told us we were not ready for perfection yet. They left and prophesized that they will return in a thousand years and bring on the Rapture, taking the virtuous souls with them. As you might notice, their deadline has passed almost 80 years ago, and nothing happened.

Although we still believe we’re in the Age of Saviors, there was a lot of turmoil on our world. Some people believe that we got our math wrong, and must simply continue waiting for the Rapture. Some believe that we had our math right, but we were all unworthy, and thus they didn’t return. Even those split into two, some saying we must repent and then maybe they will come, and some saying it’s too late. Others believe the math was right, and the Saviors did come… invisibly. And anyone who died or disappeared 80 years ago was raptured. And all of us left were unworthy.

And yet, a lot of people are starting to doubt their faith. In spite of the healing and order the Saviors brought, our world didn’t get a lot better. We are still a desolate desert, scrounging to come by water and food. Thus, some people doubt the Saviors were ever right. But most people say they were good, but they failed to return and will never return. And we must face a future without them. And find our own way of saving this world.

Karnak’s Fate

Karnak angered me one last time, and this time he hit something I personally cared about. His child. No, it’s not a fatherly care, or any creepier sort of old man caring about a small child. Anyone following me should know that child of his, Nef, is special. Because he spent his entire life in the Nexus and couldn’t have children there, his biology was saturated with Nexus energies. So when finally had a child in this dimension, all these energies transferred and she spawned with unusual magical energy tied to her even before birth. We call instances like these “planetouched”. Being touched by the plane of such power as the Nexus… that gave her truly enormous power. She would teleport across space, time and universes at will, with nary a thought. I had to have that power. And that little pissant warrior decided to run away with his family because I was getting snarky with people.

Worlds of the Nether: Irden Reichs

The Irden are today one of the greatest powers in our sector of the galaxy, but every great power must begin somewhere. It may be hard to imagine their beginnings seeing their influence, but once, a long time ago, the dwarves that became the leaders of the Irden Reichs did not even dominate their homeworld of Zvargoff. Over 3500 years ago, it was a world of giants. All of the dominant races were various kinds of giants, from fleshy hill giants, through mountain and stone giants, through the sea giants dominating the seas, through ogres and ettins stalking the valleys, through fire giants dwelling underground and coming up to gather more slaves, up to the rare cloud giants. That last race was in that ancient era the definite overlords of Zvargoff, then known as Tyrinsal.

Worlds of the Nether: Tellus

My name is Baka Mizarus Erdogium, and I am the dracon represenatitve to the Gnadra Accords. Today it will be my pleasure to tell you about the history of the Dracon Imperium, and our homeworld, Tellus. It is a great honor, for we are relatively new among the interstellar community and yet we were rewarded with the lucrative position of a senior partner under the Accords. Nobody can deny our influence in certain sectors of space, and our military power. Many a pirate was lulled into a false sense of security when they found a lone dracon settlement and expected a few backwards farmers but instead found a society where every member had military training, and everyone knew what really mattered when it comes to building a society: discipline. We may still be few in number or not have many conquered or assimilated worlds, but every dracon is worth ten of other races. Statistically, of course.

Maiden Voyage of the ASJ Apexis

There it was, at long last, our first ship completed. I know people doubted my reasons for building it. Like, yeah, I know we have rifts that transport us to planets in an instant, but transport is only one thing a ship can be used for. One thing is defense. Pirates did not find us yet, but when they do, having a ship throwing arcane fire at them will be invaluable. Also, transport. Yes, I know what I just said, but our orders can sometimes be pretty big, and other than using half of my porters to push a giant box, we can now use the ship to move the whole thing more easily. Sure, it costs quite a bit, but I figure the opportunities it gives us outweigh the costs. For the past few weeks, we’ve been building the ship and preparing everything it needed.

Map of the Warcraft Galaxy – Update (NGC 6384)

The Belore System – Azeroth’s Solar System

Belore – The Sun

Most Azerothians know very little about their sun. To a grand majority, it’s only an object of worship, or a source of light, without putting much thought to what it actually is, at best coming up with “magic”. Contrary to that belief, there is very little magic involved with the Sun. It’s a typical yellow dwarf star in the middle of its life, differing little from most stars with life-bearing planets. Like most stars, it is in truth a ball of super-heaten hydrogen and helium, underoing thermonuclear reactions due to the pressure its own mass exacts on it. Some cultures believe the Sun to be a god, similar to Elune, but as most of those cultures also believe the Sun was born of Azeroth (and not the reverse, as it was in truth) few astronomers pay it any heed.

Azeroth’s Sun has no formal scientific name. Azerothians call it just “the Sun”. Astronomers on Azeroth have taken to using the elven name “Belore” which fittingly means still just “the Sun”.

Map of the Warcraft Galaxy (NGC 6384)

Worlds of the Nether: Svarloka

I am Karphat Preung, and I have the pleasure of introducing you to my world, Svarloka. I am very excited to represent Svarloka among a new group of arrivals. Since your people started appearing here a few months ago, many stories started crossing the Nether. Some say your world is “the First Ordering”. Some say it’s “the Last Light”, the final bastion standing against the Burning Legion. Well, when it comes to the latter legend, either that isn’t happening for centuries or someone failed to notice all of us here. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they did – if we can hide from the Burning Legion that well, we can hide from others. But do not fear, I see many opportunities for both our worlds – and for others as well. We are not as far apart as you might imagine.

Worlds of the Nether: Mesonyx

A long time ago, our world, Mesonyx was a lush, verdant world. We had plains, forests and oceans. Live thrived everywhere on the surface and many different races called it home, including dwarves and gnomes left behind by the Titans. We had many beautiful, large cities everywhere across the planet, from the spires of Thyle to the sprawling parks of Electris, to the famous dome of Ophyr. We had many monuments, including great pyramids which housed the greatest wonders of our technology. Most of our world shunned magic for being a harsh and unpredictable mistress and abandoned all gods to strive for independence from their whims. That was the Golden Age of Mesonyx, thousands of years ago, before the great Kalimdor was shattered. We were the most important world in our solar system, regardless of what the Titans thought. But it had to come to an end.