The Lore of Aethro

The World of Aethro

A World Written in Fire & Consequence

Aethro is a world shaped not by the will of gods, but by the choices of those who live within it. It is a world that has burned before — consumed by catastrophic war four thousand years ago when magic was young, misunderstood, and weaponised by those who should have known better. From those ashes, a fragile peace was built. For three millennia it held, bound together by ancient treaties, mutual fear, and the shared memory of what fire can do to a world.

That peace is ending. The twin pillars of the known world — Kalismor and Kodaisdain — have turned their armies toward each other. Two witches of unknown origin whisper in royal courts. And the Mana Stones — fragments of a power that once broke the world — pulse with renewed urgency.

Whether history repeats itself is not yet determined. That story belongs to those who choose to live it.

Timeline at a Glance

The Chronicle of Ages

Key Organisations

Factions of the Known World

• The Iron Compact — Pryden's army, built over 75 years in the northern wastes.
• The Ironbound Guard — Elite protectors of the Palace of Iron, Kalis.
• The Inquisition of Iron — Pryden's mage hunters and secret police.
• The Whisper of Dawn — Underground resistance loyal to the Everdawn bloodline. Some believe Prince Kaelen still lives.
• The Umbral Veil — Vaelric's old spy network. Officially disbanded. Possibly still active.
• The Aetherium Cabal — Scattered mages driven underground by Pryden's Purge.
• The Legion of the Iron Mantle — Dainar Vorthas's elite defensive army in Kodaisdain.
• The Everforge Order — Ancient peacekeeping order of Kodaisdain.

Key Locations

Places of Note

• Kalis (formerly Aethwynd) — Capital of Kalismor under Pryden. Built atop the ruins of ancient Tulimsur.
• The Palace of Iron — Pryden's fortress-palace. Dungeons below, dread above.
• The Fields of Red Mercy — Where the Crimson Rebellion ended and House Mortis was first broken.
• The Northern Wastes — Where House Mortis spent 75 years in exile, quietly building an army.
• Celestium — Capital of Kodaisdain under Dainar Vorthas.
• The Celestial Archive — Kodaisdain's grand library. Where Dainar studies history out of fear, not curiosity.
• Tulimsur — Ancient city where the Mana Seed was first found ~4,000 years ago. Destroyed in the First Great War. Its ruins lie beneath Kalis.
• Courtlyn — Warmage city-state destroyed in the First Great War. Its location is lost to history.

Ancient History

The First Great War

The World Before the Burning

Eons ago, the world thrived in relative peace. The lands knew no great wars — only occasional trade disputes settled through diplomacy. Kingdoms rose and fell on the merits of their leaders' wisdom. This era, now called the Time Before the Burning, was an age of innocence: humanity had not yet glimpsed the terrible power slumbering beneath the world's surface. Most nations went about their lives in careful isolation, unaware that everything was about to change.

The Discovery at Tulimsur

In the ancient city of Tulimsur, scholars uncovered something that would forever alter the course of history — the Mana Seed. This crystalline artifact, pulsing with otherworldly energy, was not merely a stone but a living conduit to forces beyond mortal comprehension. Those who touched it felt power surge through them, granting abilities that defied the natural order. The only way to access magic was to be imbued by direct contact with the Seed. The process was irreversible, poorly understood, and experienced differently by each person affected. The Seed itself seemed to have a will of its own.

Courtlyn appeared publicly as enthusiastic supporters of shared magical knowledge. Behind closed doors they worked toward dominance. No one knew this at the time. The world's great ancestors embarked on what they believed was a noble journey of discovery — walking directly toward a war.

The World in Flames

When Tulimsur's leaders finally discovered Courtlyn's true intentions, it was too late. The First Great War was unlike any conflict before or since. Entire cities burned under magical firestorms. Rivers boiled. Forests turned to glass. Mountains crumbled. Ordinary soldiers were helpless against the imbued.

Legends speak of a final confrontation where the heroes of Tulimsur forced a decisive reckoning. In the chaos of that battle, the Mana Seed was shattered — broken into fragments that scattered across the world. These fragments cooled and crystallised into what would be called Mana Stones: smaller, less volatile, but still carrying the original Seed's immense power. Courtlyn was destroyed completely, its location lost forever. Millions perished.

Magic became feared and taboo. The Mana Stones were distributed across different kingdoms so that no single power could ever again wield absolute magical dominance.

The Age of Recovery

For nearly three millennia, the world slowly healed. Civilisations rose from the ashes with a profound wariness of magic. Two powers grew to dominate the known world: Kalismor, built on the ruins of ancient Tulimsur, and Kodaisdain, founded by survivors and refugees of fallen kingdoms. Together they formed the Golden Accord — a treaty of mutual defence and shared responsibility for the Mana Stones that became the cornerstone of civilisation.

Despite holding the Mana Stones, magic itself remained largely forbidden. Only royal houses and appointed guardians could access them. The memory of the First Great War — carried in songs, cautionary tales, and the buried ruins of entire cities — kept the fear of magic alive across every generation. It was a fragile peace. And like all fragile things, it would not last forever.

The House of Everdawn

The Everdawn Dynasty

The Birth of Vaelric Everdawn

Born under the celestial alignment known as the Everdawn — where the sun lingered on the horizon far longer than nature allowed — Vaelric Everdawn was destined for greatness before he drew his first breath. The alignment was read as a divine sign that this ruler would bridge night and day, darkness and light. From his earliest years he understood one thing above all others: the history of Kalismor was inseparable from the history of magic, and whoever controlled one would ultimately control the other.

The Crimson Rebellion (~79 Years Ago)

At age twenty-one, Vaelric ascended the throne following the assassination of his father — poisoned at a feast celebrating the Golden Accord's anniversary. The kingdom fractured immediately. Lord Draeven Mortis, the Blood Baron, launched the Crimson Rebellion, claiming Vaelric was too young and untested to rule.

Rather than meet the rebellion in open battle, Vaelric created The Umbral Veil — a spy network answering only to the crown. For three years he sowed discord within the rebellion from the inside, turning key figures against one another until the enemy was already destroyed before the final battle came. At The Fields of Red Mercy, House Mortis was broken. Lord Draeven was executed at dawn. Surviving members of House Mortis were stripped of their lands and exiled to the northern wastes.

The Arcane Pact (~70 Years Ago)

The rebellion had drained Kalismor's treasury and spirit. Vaelric turned to The Aetherium Cabal — mages long exiled from the kingdom — and brokered the controversial Arcane Pact, allowing controlled magic to return to Kalismor in exchange for the Cabal's service to the crown. Roads rebuilt in weeks. Bridges raised in months. Crops enhanced, diseases cured.

But prosperity came with whispers. The Everdawn Crown began to pulse faintly in the dark with energies not entirely of this world. Vaelric stopped aging as men should. He never fell ill. His strength never waned. He gave no explanation to anyone.

The Golden Age (~57–43 Years Ago)

For over a decade, Kalismor flourished beyond all expectation. The capital of Aethwynd became one of the great cities of the known world. Vaelric and Dainar Vorthas met annually, exchanged scholars and artists, and coordinated protection of smaller kingdoms together. It was the closest the world had come to true peace since the Time Before the Burning.

Prince Kaelen Everdawn, born into this golden age, was everything the kingdom had hoped for — charismatic, skilled in diplomacy and swordplay, genuinely compassionate toward common people. He was known to travel the kingdom in disguise to see his father's rule through ordinary eyes. He represented the future.

The Vanishing (~43 Years Ago)

On the eve of his eighteenth birthday, Prince Kaelen vanished without a trace. No signs of struggle. No secret passages used. Guards heard and saw nothing. His belongings were untouched. The window was closed from the inside. By morning, the heir to Kalismor was simply gone.

Vaelric never ceased searching. The Umbral Veil was deployed across the known world. Kaelen's chambers were sealed and left untouched, visited daily by Vaelric as if expecting his son's return at any moment. And in his grief, the warm and wise king became something colder — until even those who had once loved him began to fear him. What had begun as a golden age was slowly, quietly, becoming something else entirely.

The House of Mortis

The Rise of House Mortis & The Iron Reign

The Death of Vaelric (~25 Years Ago)

After nearly a century on the throne, Vaelric's story came to an end — though the exact circumstances remain disputed. The official account: he died peacefully in his sleep, found in Kaelen's sealed chambers where he had kept vigil, the Everdawn Crown cold and dark beside him. Others whisper he was never found dead at all — that he vanished as his son had vanished before him, and that the body in the Royal Sepulcher is a substitute.

What is known: with no heir and no clear succession, Kalismor fractured. Multiple claimants rose. And from the frozen northern wastes, something long exiled came home.

75 Years in Exile — The Mortis Generations

• Lord Draeven Mortis — executed at the Fields of Red Mercy by Vaelric's order
• Lord Hadrian Mortis II — spent his entire life in exile, planning the return
• Lord Pryden Mortis III — the one who finally came home

Three generations. One fortress-city built beyond Kalismor's borders. An army — The Iron Compact — recruited from exiles, criminals, and mercenaries. Wealth accumulated through piracy and black-market trading. Foreign alliances cultivated quietly. A doctrine of righteous vengeance nursed across every passing year.

The Night of Iron

Six months after Vaelric's death, Pryden struck. The Iron Compact marched through the northern gates while allies inside the city opened passages from within. All rival claimants were eliminated simultaneously — Lady Mira Everdawn-Thornevale beheaded in the throne room, General Blackmere killed at the palace gates, Archmage Lumineth hunted and his fate still unknown.

The Transformation of Kalismor

Aethwynd was renamed Kalis. Everdawn monuments torn down. Streets renamed. The old flag burned, replaced with a black iron crown on a blood-red field. Within days, all magic was declared illegal under penalty of death. The Arcane Pact was broken. Mages who refused to flee were publicly executed. Magical texts and artifacts burned. The Aetherium Cabal was scattered.

The kingdom's population fell from 250,000 under Vaelric to 172,000 — 40,000 dying in the coup and purges, 38,000 more fleeing across the borders. Few villages remain; Pryden saw no reason to protect territories he deemed unproductive. Thieves and assassins roam freely — not because he cannot stop them, but because he chooses not to. Chaos keeps commoners desperate and dependent.

The Present Day

The Second Great War Approaches

The golden age is a memory. The twin pillars of Aethro have turned toward each other. And in the candle-lit seclusion of two royal courts, something ancient and unknown has begun to whisper.

The Two Witches

They arrived unheralded — two women cloaked in the fabrics of the deep unknown, appearing before the courts of Kalismor and Kodaisdain simultaneously. No outsider should have known the secrets they spoke. The witch in Kalis told Pryden what he already wanted to believe: that Kodaisdain prepares to invade, that the Mana Stones could make him a god. The witch in Celestium told Dainar what his conscience feared most: that Pryden will consume the smaller kingdoms one by one, and cannot be appeased — only stopped.

Their dark knowledge was intoxicating. The ancient balance fractured. Ironclad alliances rusted into bitter suspicion. Armies began to amass at the frontiers. The skies bruised into unnatural hues of violet and ash. A single command was given. A volley of black-fletched arrows eclipsed the sun. The first blood soaked the earth.

The Second Great War is at hand. This is where your story begins.

The Known World

Nations & Powers

All records reflect the current state of the world at the opening of Chronicles of Kalismor.

Historical Nations

Powers of the Ancient World

Unanswered Questions

The Great Mysteries

These questions have no predetermined answers. What happens next is written by the players who choose to pursue them.