Era 7: The Resurgence, c7000-c8000

At the start of the 8th millenium, a major discovery was made in the city of Cytania. The story goes that a young boy was exploring the ruins at the centre of the city with some friends when he stumbled across a small hole in the ground. After being dared by his friends, he risked climbing inside, only to suddenly disappear from sight.   The other children, petrified, fled the scene, only to later confess to family that the boy was lost, and potentially still stranded in the ruins. They led a team of citizens from the local community back to where they had last heard the boy's cries, only to find he was still alive and well.   After an excavation of the hole, it was discovered he had fallen into a vast, underground cavern containing a collosal horde of ancient manuscripts and books. In fact, it was these very books which had broken his fall.   For much of the last thousand years, much of the advances in societies across the continent of Edane had been lost. The knowledge contained within sparked a rapid resurgence in the nations across the continent, with the city of Cytania being the torchbearer of these advances.   Superstition and fear had led most of the city centres to fall to ruin. This era saw many of them return to use. Mass excavations were made of ruins across the continent. Rival leaders attempted to outdo one another with their restoration of the great relics of the past. Knowledge and a belief in the greatness of the future became a common viewpoint of the period. For the first time since the era of the absolutists, people believed that it could be possible for new knowledge to be discovered and that a brighter future lay ahead.   The development of a printing press in the city of Rinascere led to the rapid spread of these ideas across the continent.   This is not to say that this did not come without a degree of fear and scepticism. It became common for people to preach about repeating the mistakes of the past, that this knowledge was buried for a reason, that the downfall of their ancestors had been due to their hunger for knowledge and their aspirations to rise to be gods themselves.   Nowhere was this mentality adopted more violently than in Nordrest. They were the first nation to unify, under a brutal leader from the western isles, in 7032. He waged war against his own people, arguing that any who stood against him were traitors to the people of the north who deserved to be one people. He claimed descent from the original settlers who landed on the west coast, aiming to undo the mistakes made by those who had separated from his family and moved further in land.   The two nations that had made up Nordrest under the era of the absolutists were particularly fearful of any attempts to repeat the same mistakes. The dynasty of King Hybris was used as a morality tale that had become increasingly embellished over the years. Many believed that The Bleed had arisen within his family due to his fascination in the dark magics of the west. It is true that the disease had been brutal, tearing through his entire family and wiping out all but the last ruler of his line. That king was left hideously disfigured by the disease and became known as the Blackened King, due to the huge black scars that adorned his face after surviving the disease. He had died in 5648.   Styling himself the Ice King, this new leader occupied the whole of the Kingdom and ruthlessly put down any resistance. The capital of the city was moved to the west and Nordrest began a period of growth and expansion.   This was ultimately to be brought to an end by the noble familiies themselves. Used to the democratic ways that ships were run, a group of nobles sought to introduce a similar system across the country. When the king called his armies together for another campaign, the nobles recruited any of the roaming mercenaries for hire across the nation. Each one, loyal only to his local lord, the nobles settled in and around the campfires, awaiting the signal. When the order was given, as one, the mercenaries murdered any and all supporters of the king.   The king himself was murdered by a group of the nobles, all who had gathered together in his tent. The massacre was absolute. Not a serving boy or kitchen maid escaped who worked for the king. The armies then marched back to Nordrest to seize power, led by one appointed from among the nobles known as the High Arkon.   A brutal civil war followed, and 50 years of violence saw a string of High Arkon's rise to the top position in the country, only to be executed. Revenge and honour led to many rival factions struggling to accept whoever took the top spot. An uneasy truce was eventually reached, when the decision was made to extend the vote for the High Arkon to all citizens who would be willing to journey to Nordrest to cast their stone. This is how the name of king came to be reviled in the north, and democracy prevailed.   In an attempt to combat the brutality of the years of the Bleed, most new nations developed a strict code of honour and respect. Designed to harness the bestial urges of man that had been unleashed, it was believed that this code of conduct would allow the knowledge of the ancients to be put to 'proper' use, not abused as it had been by their 'barbarian' ancestors.   As such, the nations of Edane quickly resurfaced, let by 'enlightened' leaders, rather than the ignorant sinners of the past, caught in greed and avarice. Now, any new building projects were not seen as vanity projects to celebrate an individual, but designed as thoughtful, useful facilities to benefit all within each realm.   The travelling mercenaries of the era of the Bleed became an increasingly important part of this new society. Whereas previously they had been seen as wandering guns for hire, designed to protect the local people, increasingly they were hired by the wealthy to act as bodyguards and enforcers - collecting taxes and quelling rebellion on their land.   In Cytania, ever a city that prioritised trade and the arts, these mercenaries became the strongarms of the merchant guilds, enforcing taxes on goods and services and defending the interests of their employers. A string of very astute first ladies, the ruling leaders of the city states of the Fortunari, led to the beginnings of a very close relationship between the merchant families and government. A complex system of favours and patronage developed that meant the constant competition between the merchants was tempered and managed by the whims of the first lady. Beneath the veneer of polite society, the competition was vicious as each rival merchant sought to permanently outdo the competition. Rivalry across the southern city states led to an ever increasing desire to exploit new markets.   In the east, the Zhdanese became fascinated with the knowledge from the old world, but were in an envious position of sitting across two worlds. Combining the knowledge of the eastern Ansharan world with the explosion of rediscovered knowledge in Edane, they developed a 'House of Wisdom' that sought to unify all aspects of this knowledge - merging the new, scientific ideas with the metaphysical.   This began to drive a wedge between the more progressive Zhdanese mainland and the area north of the Backborn, controlled by the Order of the Crimson Blade. They sought to protect the traditions and the religious practices of the Hizbrann, and resisted all attempts to merge the Edane cultures with the Zhdanese. Controlling the major trade routes through the Golden Pass, their increasingly beligerant approach to trade and the exchange of culture was one of the major motivators in the nations of Edane finding alternative routes to the lucrative trade with the east.   What became apparrent across the continent was that the avarice of the wealthy and the desire to maintain their positions of power had not disappeared due to The Bleed. Local yeomen, who had been able to maintain their land and inheritence became increasingly important in local communities, driving a wedge between them and their less wealthy fellow villagers.   An increase in rural poverty was driving an increasing number into towns and cities, leading to a fear of further outbreak of disease. This movement was driven by a stagnating economic climate. The declining trade outside of the continent led to inflation across Edane, forcing many of those previously above the subsistence line to be forced into poverty and moving around the country looking for work.