Faenaria
Ancient origins
In ancient times, the nomadic Faenari ("the people of Fate"), ancestors of the present-day Roamers, settled in the arid lands south of modern Jarzon. Legends say that the Faenari originally sheltered from a desert storm in the oasis at the base of Mount Oritaun. The mountain's caverns were home to a tribe of vatazin known as the People of the Moon, who agreed to support the Faenari's efforts to settle and cultivate the surrounding lands as long as the humans respected the vatazin's claim to the mountain. The treaty was sealed with the marriage of a Faenari chieftain's son to a vatazin princess, setting a precedent for cooperation and intermarriage between the two peoples which lasted for hundreds of years.
The Golden Age of Austium
The capital city of Faenaria, Austium, was located next to the Jornoovian River several hundred miles south of Falzanoth (now known as the Leviathan's Teeth). Austium was renowned as a center of arts, culture, and learning, attracting artisans, merchants, and scholars from across the Old Kingdom. Faenari adepts learned secrets of visionary arcana from the vatazin of Mount Oritaun, some of which are still practiced today in the Roamer tradition of reading the cards of the Royal Road. The Austiar, ruling family of Austium, constructed a temple called the Oculon dedicated to the visionary arts, which drew pilgrims from across the known world.
Decline and schism
During the last days of the Old Kingdom, drastic inequality between the impoverished populace and the decadent ruling class of Austium led to social unrest and riots, which were brutally suppressed. After the assassination of the High Seer of Austium, a dissident prince named Karshenel fled the city with a collection of artifacts stolen from the Oculon. Karshenel and his followers became the core of the cultural group now known as the Roamers.
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