《Merridel: a History (The Story of Mending)》


 I: The Dawn of Merridel

    The Merridel of Old


    Twenty Summers shy of half a thousand years ago, there was a land known as Merridel. It bordered on a vast, sparkling sea to the West and South, endless polar wastelands to the North, and a great savannah ringed with mountains to the East, known as the Orcish Khanlands. It was between all these many places that Merridel was situated, and in it lived many peoples, of which the three most widespread were the Elves, of forested Arden and mountainous Nidahn, the Humans, of Middenland¡¯s rivers and valleys, and the Dwarves, of the endless dunes of Lothern.


    There was little in the way of contact between them, and indeed, in these ancient days, Merridel was not a place, but simply a name, its origins long since lost to time. City-states and small kingdoms dotted the landscape, carved out by those with the resources and drive to do so. A few, such as the town of Dove in the northern foothills of the Green-Teeth Mountains, were entirely isolated, existing only as a single city and going without much trade or contact. However, the majority of these cities had found themselves a part of a larger nation. Among the most prosperous of these nations(and notably, among the youngest) was the city-state of Runestone, which had been founded by Ardeni Elves fleeing their homeland some century and a half prior, and which sat atop the Crystalrock, a great plateau on a peninsula near the very westernmost edge of Merridel. Here, the fledgling dynasty of House Torien had ruled for some seventy years, replacing the previous Green Council with a proper monarchy, and bringing the inhabitants of the greater peninsula under their banners. Other civilizations of similar size and far older age existed, however. To the North, Nidahn had long been ruled by the imperial Kahn Dynasty, which supposedly once ruled over far more land. However, roughly four hundred years prior, a group of Southern Humans had come to Nidahn and colonized its Southern foothills. Such colonizers had come from Middenland, where an ancient religious tradition had long connected the towns and cities surrounding Beacon Lake. East of Middenland, two centuries after a bloody war, a line of Dwarven Gaeseains had ruled Lothern from their seat of power, Castellum, a huge city which sat on the shores of the largest oasis in Lothern. South of the Green-Teeth, a spiritualist order of Elves held great sway over the inhabitants of Arden, led by the Greenspeakers, ancient seers and shamans who traced their histories even into the deep past. Further to the West and North of Runestone lay the smallest of these kingdoms; the Harborlands of M?lona, where small, spritely men called Halflings fished the rivers and oceans of their homeland, under the rule of a line of fisher-queens. And yet, despite this bounty of cultures and of life, Merridel was sorely lacking unity, teeming with petty conflicts between peoples and prone to violence. Scars of old wars still lay in the earth, which had not healed for many centuries. But change was coming¡ªchange greater than any Merridelan could have ever imagined, and in only a few short years, these lands would be unrecognizable.


    The Shadow Plague


    It came from the East; a sickness like no other, infecting and consuming those exposed. But these victims did not die; no, they changed, their skin and their hair taking a shade blacker than coal and their eyes turning white as marble. When the transformation had been completed, the results were ruthless savages, who seemed to desire nothing less than absolute carnage. They became known as shadow men, or simply shadows, and the plague itself was known as the shadow plague. As it swept across Merridel, growing faster and faster, it seemed as though the world itself had come to an end. Every city that could battened down the hatches and quarantined themselves as best they were able, and in the depths of darkness, no one had any idea what to do.


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    Until, at once, they did. Hope would not come from Merridel, however, but indeed when something else emerged from the East¡ªsomeone else. She was called Heia Reyn, an Elven woman hailing from beyond even the Khanlands, and she had followed the shadow men from whatever dark pit they¡¯d crawled out of. With her she carried a blade, one that glowed with a molten white radiance like a star fallen from the heavens. Heia called the weapon Excalibur, the Sword of the Mist, and said that it had chosen her to ¡®keep Watch¡¯. To say the people of Merridel did not understand her would be an understatement, but they were grateful for her help all the same, for she was not alone. Not alone indeed; Heia Reyn flew to war upon the back of a proud, winged beast whose breath was starlight and claws were death. She called this creature a Dragon, originating from some faraway land, and the Dragon called itself by a singular name, spoken within the very minds of those it met: Moltera.


    Together, Heia and her Draconic partner turned back the tide of the shadow men, leading the peoples of Merridel as one army against the enemy and stemming their flow wherever they arose. Thanks to her leadership, the shadow men never reached past Beacon Lake. To the people of Merridel, Heia and Moltera were a godsent miracle; practically immortal guardians of the world itself against whatever darkness dared to threaten it. Within only a year the pair had pushed the shadow men back to the border between Lothern and the Eastern horizon, a large valley betwixt two  mountain ranges, where they fought one final battle against the shadow men. It was here that the dark queen of the shadow men, mastermind of the Shadow Plague, finally showed herself, a being Heia referred to as D¨®l Kav?ra, an Orcish phrase meaning darkest devil. When the queen entered the fray it was atop a colossal serpent, whose sibilant mind-speech was fear itself, striking down Merridel¡¯s armies with a crushing despair. Yet even this, it seemed, was no match for Heia Reyn, and on that final night she and Moltera charged to face the queen alone. The battle raged long into the night, but by the coming of the dawn, the shadow men were defeated. Heia slew their queen and her steed, and cast a great curse upon the surviving shadow men, afflicting them with a vulnerability to sunlight that would turn their skin to ash if left unchecked. With their leader gone and the shadow men beginning to smolder in the morning light, the army of shadows scattered, and as far as it can be presumed, every single one of them died there that day, burning to a crisp upon the grasslands of the far East. Since that day, the valley where the battle was won has been known as the Valley of the Dawn, and Heia, among many other titles, as the Dragon-Rider-Dawn-Bringer.


    The Life of Heia Reyn


    In the years to come, Heia would remain in Merridel, and accept a seemingly limitless number of accolades, from Dwarven knighthoods to Human anointments in the waters of Beacon Lake, all with what could only be described as great humility. Though she had by all means earned them all, she seemed entirely disinterested in flaunting them. Indeed, for Heia Reyn seemed only to have eyes for one reward: the blessing of the King of Runestone to marry his son, the prince Lumiel Torien, whom Heia had grown quite fond of during the Shadow War. The two were soon married, and for the remainder of their lives, Heia would work to secure a great unity, throughout Merridel, and go on to mother a child, heir to the new ruling House of Runestone. That child was called Hemaia, of the Molteran Dynasty, as the Toriens came to be called, in honor of Heia¡¯s noble friend. Decades later, when Heia finally died, peacefully in her bed, she was buried  not in ¨¦piros Royalis, the great royal crypts of Runestone, but beneath a small temple in the Valley of the Dawn, so that she might continue her Watch forever. Moltera would keep her own Watch over her lifelong friend¡¯s grave, one which would last decades until, finally the great Dragon faded into memory, too.

 II: The Founding, and the Heian Era

    The Treaty of Founding


    In the years that followed the Shadow War, and before her death, Heia Reyn was a force for great change throughout the land. The unity that Merridel¡¯s many regions had experienced during the war was one which few could ever have imagined to be possible, and Heia, it seemed, was keen on ensuring it continued. To her, ties between the lands of Merridel had to be made to ensure that, should an event as terrible as the Shadow Plague occur again, the world would be able to defend itself. Her Watch would not last forever, and she believed that it was her duty to ensure others might take up her mantle after she had gone. And so it was Heia who brought together the rulers of the land to the city of Runestone, where they met under a late afternoon sun to discuss an agreement. Among their ranks was Jai Qen Kahn, ruler of Nidahn and so-called Diamond Empress of Kalu; Lord Brandon Suntower and Shepherdess Emilia Auring, respectively the political and religious leaders of Middenland¡¯s Beacon Lake; Gaesain Conor Rhonai, second of his name and ruler of Lotherran Castellum; Greenspeaker Shiara Kyani and her fellows from Arden¡¯s city of Frey; Lord Jace Luther, lord-governor of Ironbeck and ruler of the Human-conquered part of Nidahn; and lastly Queen Willow Seu, Fisher-Queen of the lands of M?lona. The group was joined by Lucios Torien, King of Runestone, and collectively this group became known as the Grand Dynasties, with the exception of the Greenspeakers, who did not pass their power by blood but by careful selection. With Heia¡¯s guidance, they wrote and signed a great pact known today as the Treaty of Founding, establishing Merridel as a sovereign nation made up of six realms: Nidahn(which combined the Northern and Southern halves), M?lona, Lothern, Arden, the Runestone Peninsula, and Middenland. These realms were to be ruled jointly by the leaders of each. The years to follow were thusly counted from the moment of the signing onward, and were known as After Shadow, or AS. A common language was also agreed upon, and the Human tongue was selected, owing to its commonality across the realms of Merridel. With the metric of measuring time established, so too was a formal calendar, which began on the first day of Spring and ended with the final day of Winter.


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    The Heian Era


    In the coming years, so Merridel was, a land whose great peace had been forged in fire and shadow, and tempered in the light of Heia Moltera. When, sixty or so years after the war, Heia was gone, Merridel carried on without her, honoring her memory as best they could. As the years went by, and living memory of Heia, her partner, and the Sword of the Mists that the Dragonrider had wielded began to slip out of the world, Heia¡¯s story gradually became more legend than history. Merridel had, in a way, grown out of the need for Heia as its figurehead, though of course the legendary Dragonrider was ever-honored in the traditions of the people the world over. In the first century after her death, Merridel experienced a period known today as the Heian Era, in which it is said that Merridel¡¯s unity was stronger than steel. During this time, such great feats as the great roads which to this day interconnect all of Merridel were constructed, accomplished from 97-128 AS through the joint efforts of Queen Heiana Moltera(also known as the Architect) and King Conor III Rhonai(sometimes referred to as the Cobblestone King). It was these roads that allowed Merridel to create a very strong economy, able to feed and provide for the vast majority of its populace. Other achievements followed suit, such as the charting of the waters South of Runestone in 172-174 AS(an effort led by the so-called Navigator, Princess but non-heir Heita Moltera), which allowed ships to far more easily make their way around to the resource-rich Copper Sea East of Arden. During the Heian Era, Merridel became strong indeed, its six nations flourishing. It was as though Merridel itself sought to honor Heia¡¯s memory. But as that memory became more and more distant, and thus less and less accurate, so too disappeared much of Heia¡¯s wisdom, and gradually, the unity that she had sought to create began to break down.

 III: The Diamond War

    The Death of Gendai Winter


    On the evening of the thirty-ninth of Spring, 221 AS, Lord Gendai Winter of Yensan, Nidahn, was murdered on his balcony. He was stabbed twice through the heart and once through the back of his neck by an assassin¡¯s dagger, each puncture made with uncanny precision. Before anyone knew of the patriarch¡¯s fate, he was dead, drowned in his own blood and his skull fractured in two from its impact with the flagstone floor. Gendai had been Lord of his House for some sixty years; an uncommonly long time for any house, let alone in Nidahn, a land known for its political plots. In the later years of his life, though by all accounts a good ruler, Gendai had become a highly progressive man, one known to push boundaries.In the eyes of his neighbors, he had begun to far overstep his bounds, and at the time it was assumed that, in all likelihood, he had been killed for it. The culprit was never caught, and so such theories were allowed free reign to spread as far as they liked; of course, we now know that Jacobi Luther, Lady Mayor of Ironbeck, was to blame, though this is itself less relevant to the actual events of the Diamond War. Regardless, in the wake of Gendai¡¯s death, his title passed to the hands of his young daughter, Lioka Winter, who had always been a controversial subject.


    Lioka Winter and Her Friend


    Lioka Winter¡¯s upbringing had been troubled, to say the least. Lioka was distant, a far cry from the customs of the people she had been born to. She was barely a noble, some said, though such individuals took care to keep their words out of Gendai¡¯s ears, for Gendai was fiercely protective of his daughter, and she of him. It was this love between father and daughter that compelled Gendai to allow his daughter¡¯s many escapades, and indeed, the girl was rarely seen in her House¡¯s manor, let alone within Yensan; her time was better spent, she felt, beyond the walls of the city. There, her life was anything but troubled, in fact she seemed to find it quite joyous, as she spent day after day exploring, playing, singing and hunting, and always by the side of her nigh-constant companion, a bastard girl called Niana Di.


    The two of them had met in a small village south of Yensan called Matinh, and since their meeting, it was said, they had shared a closer bond than sisters. In fact, once, when Lioka had caught a fever, it was believed that Niana was regularly allowed inside the manor to provide the young heiress with comfort. Many speculated about the two girls¡¯ bond, wondering whether or not their relationship went deeper than simple friendship, a prospect that, at the time and considering the relative distaste for same-sex relationships of the Nidahnese, would have been incredibly damaging to the reputation of House Winter if true. Gendai himself paid no mind to such rumors, dealing with their threat to his reputation simply by ignoring them as one would a mildly annoying gnat. So it was for many years; a kind of awkward, willful ignorance of the fact that Lioka even existed, one that persisted until Gendai had passed, and shattered the instant his daughter took charge. Because, within mere months, Lioka¡¯s name would be known far and wide, and would in fact be quite impossible to ignore.


    Lioka as Lady Mayor


    Lioka¡¯s rule, like the girl herself, was distant. She acted and spoke sparingly, preferring to go up and into the mountains to meditate and grieve, with Niana by her side, of course. Indeed, since her father had died and Lioka found herself spending much of her time in the manor, Niana had seemed to become a permanent resident; Lioka made no appearance to the people of Yensan in which Niana was not in her immediate vicinity. For the following two months, all was quiet in Yensan; Gendai¡¯s unfinished political work was left to the ministers by Lioka¡¯s orders while the newly-named Lady Mayor herself was almost entirely absent. It is believed that, for a period of about two weeks roughly a month after Gendai¡¯s death, Lioka was quite literally absent. During that time, no recorded sightings of Niana or Lioka exist; it was, at the time, entirely unclear as to where they had gone.


    When she finally reappeared, she had changed. Whether her grief had finally broken her or a sickness had seized her mind, Lioka was quite certain of one thing: the perpetrators of her father¡¯s death was none other than the royal Kahn Dynasty of Kalu. It seemed that in this belief, she had the Fates themselves at her side, for she returned to Yensan with the words of a Moonseer, whose fingers could weave moonlight into prophecy. Where she had found a Moonseer, and how she had received its wisdom, was unclear, but the scroll was, indeed, etched with the mark only the Moonseers knew how to create. To Lioka, the Moonseer¡¯s words were a call to war against the sitting ruler of Kalu: Jhi Tao Kahn, Empress on the Diamond Throne of Nidahn. The prophecy in question went like this:


    A war in the North, a name lost in snow;


    A traitor on the throne, a tomb far below.


    A promise to the Ice, a feast for the crows;


    A child left to fate, a truth yet unknown.


    In these words, particularly those of the second line, Lioka found certainty of Jhi Tao¡¯s guilt. Who else, she argued, could be the traitor on the throne, if not one who had betrayed the sacrosanct laws of the land so grievously as to kill the Lord of House Winter? To Lioka there was no other valid answer, and with this new knowledge on repeat in her thoughts, she began in secret to prepare for war with the Kahns, to topple the traitor on the throne in vengeance for her father. She planned not to march on the city through the great Tem Yi Pass that connected the cities of Nidahn, but to take her forces north, through a dangerous route that cut briefly through the Arctic North, the uncharted polar wastelands North of Nidahn where few have ever tread and fewer have ever survived. However, as no known civilization occupied the lands far North of Merridel, taking such a route would allow Lioka¡¯s forces to attack undetected from above Kalu, coming down the slope of the Lai Xeng Valley, which sat in the shadow of the great mountain known as Muna, and where Kalu was situated. The city would be blindsided, and the element both of surprise and of the high ground would be Lioka¡¯s and Lioka¡¯s alone. With Kalu¡¯s defenses entirely engaged with the attack from the Arctic, a second force, smaller and disguised as a trade convoy, would cut off Kalu¡¯s only escape through the Tem Yi pass, closing the city in and effectively sealing their fate. If all went to plan, Lioka was sure of Kalu¡¯s demise, and that she would easily be able to bring her father the justice he so deserved. By the time the Summer Solstice had come and gone, the match was out, and Lioka Winter was about to strike it.


    The Siege of Lai Xeng


    Lioka launched her attack, at the head of her army with Niana by her side, and over the next week her army marched North. Though some seventy men were lost to the elements, it was nothing crippling, and by week¡¯s end Lioka had arrived at the crest of the Lai Xeng Valley. The first of many long nights filled with fire and steel began, as the Winters rained fiery projectiles launched from catapults into the city and the Kahns scrambled to mount a defense. At first, the Kahns seemed determined to hold out against the siege, and to stop the Winters in their tracks, but by the end of the first night things seemed to change¡ªinexplicably, the Kahns¡¯ defenses seemed to soften, and over the course of the next few days the Winters had crushed the city¡¯s outer defenses and broken through the walls. There, Lioka believed, the Kahns could be routed and crushed.


    But the Kahns had planned exactly this¡ªthey had turned the siege around on their attackers, forcing them to expend valuable resources breaking down the city¡¯s walls, all the while lying in wait to collapse upon the Winters the moment they entered the city. And indeed, when by nightfall on the fourth day of the attack the Winters played their opening hand, the Kahns revealed the doves up their sleeve.


    The armies of Kalu attacked without mercy, their charge led by none other than Jhi Tao herself. She fought like a Demon, wielding the heirloom of the Kahn Dynasty: Jokai, the Diamond Edge. A Kalunese qopet16, dating back to the First Kahn Dynasty over a thousand years ago, Jokai possessed a blade made from a sheet of pure, sharpened diamond, supernaturally hard to destroy through old world magic. Though its exact powers have never been clear, it is generally agreed upon that the blade bestows its wielder with the power to control ice and snow. Lioka had expected the blade to make an appearance, but she had not guessed that Jhi Tao, a woman of what she believed to be such cowardice as to assassinate her father, would risk her life in such a way to wield it on the front lines. As the events of the following hours would prove, this was an error of unthinkable magnitude, as Jhi Tao would, almost single-handedly, rout the initial ground attack on the city. Despite the obvious bias in records on both sides of the conflict, all known accounts agree that Jhi Tao summoned up her own personal lightning storm, which caught the Winter soldiers by surprise and sent nearly all of them to an early grave.


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    When the Winter forces finally began to respond, preparing to continue their aerial death-rain, Jhi Tao called her forces back, and it is believed that this was the only reason she did not march straight up the mountain and behead Lioka herself. No; instead, Lioka doubled her efforts, keeping up a night-and-day rotating shift and firing into the city to no end. Firebombs rained down from above like meteors, leveling and burning to the ground huge swathes of the city. Though once again Jhi Tao was nowhere to be seen, Lioka seemed not to care; her wrath, some Winter soldiers report, was a means to punish the Diamond Empress for her resistance. For three days, this assault on the city continued, until finally, on the third day of the second siege, the nonstop assault abated, and Lioka sent a messenger to the city, offering a parley between Lioka and Jhi Tao. The offer stipulated that the two parties were to come alone, and that Jhi Tao was not to bring the Diamond Edge. According to the testimony of Ser Garth Cress, an aging Human knight who had served at House Winter¡¯s will for the last twenty years and who was quite close to Lioka, having taught her to ride horses when she was younger, Lioka expressed a desire to know why Jhi Tao had killed her father. Many of Lioka¡¯s advisers, Ser Garth included, were against the idea, but Lioka was set on the plan deader than a doornail. And so the messenger was received, and for the remainder of the night both sides held their breath as they awaited the Empress¡¯s reply.


    At dawn the next day, Jhi Tao agreed, and sent the messenger back with a brief message of her own. Her exact words are recorded in the history books, remembered by all who were present and lived to tell the tale:


    ¡°Hear my vow to all the Storms, girl: if you attempt to harm me, or to deceive me, I will throw you off my Mountain and watch you shatter like glass before I go.¡±


    At noon that day, Lioka and Niana made their way up the Mountain to meet with the Diamond Empress to parley. Many who were present at the time reported that Lioka had found it surprising that Jhi Tao would agree to the meeting, but had been adamant that the rules of the parley be respected. And so together, the pair climbed the mountain, and presumably met with Jhi Tao, though what was said has never been ascertained. All that is known is that, when hours past nightfall she returned, Lioka¡¯s rage knew no bounds. For much of that night she stewed, with Niana by her side in her tent, while a blizzard howled outside.


    The Battle in the Blizzard


    Though records are scarce to nonexistent for what happened following the parley, at some point during the night, a battle within Kalu¡¯s walls began. An almighty charge of House Winter¡¯s soldiers entered the city, under the cover of heavy snowfall, and in response came the Kahns¡¯ own forces. It is entirely unclear what came to pass during these hours spent shrouded in the blizzard, but when the crash of steel against steel finally began to abate, what remained was ruin. Kalu had fallen entirely during the night, and Jhi Tao, along with her husband the Diamond Emperor Yokao Kahn, and the remainder of the Kahn family were gone. Many of their bodies, including those of Jhi Tao and her children Jess Kahn and Jan Zhi Kahn, were found, but many others were not. Critically, Yokao was missing, as were several other members of the extended Kahn family, including most of Yokao¡¯s family, Jin Pu Kahn, the mother of Jhi Tao, and Jhi¡¯s own brother, along with his daughter. These missing bodies have never been recovered, though it¡¯s assumed some were simply buried too deep in the heavy snow, which would only be further piled on in the coming months. It¡¯s also relatively unlikely that considering the conditions any Kahns would have made it out alive, as no potential survivors have ever emerged, though some strange circumstances did occur during rangings north of Muna in later years. Ultimately, whether confirmed dead or simply missing, House Kahn was entirely extinguished that night. There was also the matter of the sword Jokai which was also never recovered, a fact that confounds the mythkeepers of Merridel to this day, considering that the blade is enchanted to return to the diamond throne in the Kahn palace should a crescent moon rise and Jokai is not in the hands of a Kahn. This does seem to lend credence to the idea that at least a few Kahns remain in the world, but again, it¡¯s unclear why they wouldn¡¯t return to their ancestral homeland and reclaim their throne. To this day, the fate of the Diamond Edge remains unknown.


    Lioka Winter herself was found to be in critical condition, according to the testimony of one private Aita Dehn, who saw her being carried by a group of soldiers to the physicians¡¯ tent. Though she received the best available care, the young matriarch was announced dead at high noon the day following the battle. Following this, Niana Di by a signed order of Lioka was given the position of acting Lady Mayor, charged with ruling and protecting Yensan in the absence of any surviving members of House Winter. From these events, we can indeed presume that in fact Lioka Winter died by wounds of an unknown nature, sustained during the battle, while under the care of her physicians. With her vanished one of the most culturally-important objects in all of Nidahn, along with the entirety of House Kahn, expunging the Nidahnese Grand Orderly from the world forever.


    Aftermath, and the Closure


    Following the Battle of Kalu, the Winter forces retreated to Yensan, where Niana was soon to take power. The period in which she ruled Yensan lasted a mere two months, and during this time she was regarded as a very unusual ruler. She was not overly grand or extravagant¡ªand in fact it is estimated that a mere .3% of the city¡¯s collected taxes went toward her own expenses¡ªnor was she particularly austere, as best can be told. She was not on the whole particularly present; she, though more frequently than Lioka had, appeared once or twice a week to the populace, announcing minor edicts¡ªthe sort of thing one might call quality of life changes. She spoke nothing of Lioka¡¯s war against House Kahn, and indeed nothing of Lioka herself; she had entirely closed herself off from the subject. It is believed today that Niana had fallen into a deep depression in the wake of Lioka¡¯s death, and could not bear to engage too much in the world around her; the well-known tradesman and resident of Yensan, Luqo Weyao(who many viewed as a town elder) said when asked about the situation that ¡°the girl is trapped inside her thoughts, and so it seems, wishes to remain so.¡±


    During her brief rule, things felt very much as though they were liable to come undone at any moment; as thanks to a series of dangerous summer storms, word of the Battle of Kalu had yet to reach south of Nidahn. As a result, in these two short months all of Yensan would hold their breath as they waited upon the metaphorical pin to drop. Finally, news of the battle reached South to Runestone, and from there word quickly spread to the other Grand Dynasites. After convening briefly in Beacon Lake, the four remaining Houses agreed that Niana Di, whose rule had been authorized by a known seditionist guilty beyond doubt of crimes against House Kahn, was to be stripped of her authority. Yensan was to be placed under the care of the Xenpings, a Yensani lesser noble family of merchants, who sold much of the raw materials such as stone and sulfur that Nidahn was known for. Meanwhile, the diamond throne of Kalu was left untouched, and the city at the base of Muna was abandoned. The position of Grand Orderly went to House Luther of Ironbeck, a city known for its iron mines and its profitable relationship with the steelworkers in the Dwarven city of Dalway, and with the loss of Houses Winter and Kahn, it was the most powerful noble family in Nidahn. A mere month later, Niana Di would end her own life, opting to join Lioka according to the letter sent to her parents shortly after her demotion. Today, this letter has acquired something of a famed historical status, being called the Closure, as a true, final end to the war. In it, Niana apologized for what had happened and expressed that she would have tried to pull Lioka ¡®back from the edge¡¯, had she recognized earlier how her lifelong friend¡¯s mind was falling apart. She quite famously cursed the name of the Moonseer who had given Lioka her prophecy and galvanized the war effort; finally naming the exact individual as Dunyun Rai, personal Moonseer of House Luther. In the closing of the letter, Niana spoke about the love that she and Lioka had shared for their entire lives, wishing more than anything that the two had simply left Yensan forever and spent the remainder of their lives together, far away from the mountains of Nidahn.


    And thus the events that had spanned most of 221 AS, which came to be called the Diamond War, came to a close, and albeit not with great ease House Luther came to sit upon the highest seat of power in the land. They were, of course, far less respected than House Kahn, which had over the course of two separate dynasties ruled Kalu and Nidahn for over a thousand years, dating back even into the period known as the deep past, of which very little is known. It has remained as such to this day, and though the War long since past, the people of Nidahn have never forgotten what they lost when, on one Spring night in Yensan, Lord Gendai Winter was stabbed to death on his balcony.

 IV: The Rise of Jacobi Luther

    Twilight of the Heian Era


    Though the period which succeeded the Heian Era has no date of origin set in stone, it is agreed by most scholars that the time we now know as the Middle Era began around the same time that the Diamond Wars came to a close. It had been an uneventful last couple of years, relatively speaking, with the exception of the odd plague here and there in the latter half of the 210s. However, it seemed that with the end of the Diamond Wars came a streak of misfortune, one that would plague Merridel, and all its inhabitants, for the next fifty-odd years. It was many years after the end of the Diamond War and the edicts issued by the southern Grand Dynasties in its wake that the agent of this misfortune would finally be revealed. She went by the name of Jacobi Luther, of Ironbeck, matriarch of her House and newly-crowned High Queen of Nidahn. Later in her life and after her death, she would also go by a different name. It was one which had been bestowed upon her by the people of Nidahn who so hated her, and it remains one used to this very day: Queen Fool.


    The Disastrous Life of Jacobi Luther


    Though Jacobi Luther would be remembered most for her actions as Queen of Nidahn, it is important to understand that her accrued reputation was not formed when she took the throne, but rather expanded. Indeed; Jacboi¡¯s life was nothing if not storied, to say the least. She was born in the year 192 AS, and though she had reportedly lived a normal childhood for a Nidahnese noble, it was in her adolescence that the ego which would come to dominate her adult life, and for which she would be known, began to blossom. Considering the lack of information about her earlier years(one which is not entirely uncommon amongst Merridelan nobility), it is difficult to tell what, if anything, prompted this egotism, but it resulted in an obsession with her physical appearance, and an overwhelming impulse to prevent others from ¡®challenging¡¯ it. During her schooling, Jacobi became something of a scourge on her peers, playing sadistic ¡®pranks¡¯ or otherwise harassing them; this was directed usually at those who she deemed to be the most attractive in comparison to herself. Such harrassment ranged from simple insults all the way to incidents involving pig¡¯s blood and even one particular ¡®prank¡¯ which involved a small amount of Dwarven black powder, which nearly went off(if unintentionally) and came exceedingly close to killing Jacobi¡¯s target. Invariably, Jacobi would accept no blame whatsoever when confronted; she would simply claim those coming forward about her actions ¡®had it in for her¡¯.  Her peers would even come to call her Iqimura, a Nidahnese phrase translating loosely to little devil, as the severity of her bullying continued to grow.


    This became increasingly difficult for Jacobi¡¯s mother and father, Jon and Yenya Luther, as time went on and Jacobi¡¯s behavior refused to abate; she had become a fully-fledged threat to their reputation. Eventually in 209 AS she would be expelled by the headmaster of Ironbeck¡¯s School For Noble Youth, a man called Toma Huen, who must have known the danger implicit in expelling the heir of House Luther and yet was so exhausted by the young heiress that he simply ignored it. Luckily enough for the poor man, Jacobi¡¯s parents were entirely too focused on dealing with their daughter, and no vengeance against the Headmaster ever came to pass. Following this, Jon Luther would attempt to homeschool his daughter himself, while Yenya took on many of his responsibilities as Lord Mayor for what they both hoped would be a brief period. While Jon¡¯s tutelage was less fraught with catastrophe, it did not on the whole appear to help Jacobi very much. In the time since her expulsion, it seemed that the girl had developed a deeply-felt bitterness toward her former headmaster, her parents, and just about the entire world. And so she buried herself, not in her studies as Jon Luther had hoped, but within her own mind. For the next three years of her life, the silence her parents had once pleaded for became Jacobi¡¯s routine; she spoke little and disengaged entirely with the world, preferring to spend most of her time in her room. It was believed strongly at the time and remains so to this day that she was gravely ill; not in the body, but the mind.


    A Meeting at the Ball


    This state of affairs went on until one Midsummer¡¯s Eve Ball hosted by the Luthers, in the year 212 AS. It was then that Jacobi met a boy slightly less than one year her junior by the name of Tanu, the secondborn heir of a noble family called House Limahn, which was subordinate to the Luthers, but within their immediate circle of influence. The two became fast friends, as both were relative loners; neither particularly cared for their families, and Tanu, Jacobi seemed to feel, posed no threat to her view of herself. Indeed, he seemed to strengthen it.


    Though they parted on the night of the Midsummer Ball as friends, and not anything more, that would indeed soon change. With House Limahn so close to the sphere of influence of House Luther, the two were bound to find one another at any gathering of significance, and so they did, spending the long hours of such gatherings just out of sight, talking and laughing the night away. It seemed that in Tanu, Jacobi had found comfort, a kind of balance, that she most certainly had not possessed prior; for many years their relationship was viewed as entirely good-natured, and it came as no surprise to anyone when Tanu requested the blessing of Jon Luther to marry his daughter. The two were wed in 214 AS, on a Midsummer¡¯s Eve night, and with their marriage set in stone, it was hoped that Jacobi¡¯s reputation of malice and vanity could finally be done away with. For a time, it indeed was, and Jacobi acted the part of the perfect heir.  In 217 AS, Jacobi would even become pregnant, later that year giving birth to a child, a girl called Jana Luther. But as we now know, this period was exactly that¡ªan act; a farce put on to allow Jacobi time to prepare a scheme of immense complexity, one which would ravage Nidahn, and place herself upon its throne.


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    The Wet Lung


    In the Winter of 219 AS, two years prior to the events of the Diamond War, Ironbeck was beset by a fever known today as the Annelly Wet Lung. The plague had originated in Annelly, a Lotherian city on the banks of the Grand Castelian River, and was particularly cruel to its victims, causing a gradual buildup of fluid in the lungs that would eventually result in asphyxiation if not outright lung failure. The plague had been spreading throughout Northern Lothern for much of that year, and in the latter months of the year it had begun to make its way into Nidahn. Two months prior, the plague had taken its toll on Yensan, and infected even Lioka Winter, then-heir to her House¡ªthough of course she would be among the lucky few to survive the plague.


    Of all the cities that had been hit by the Wet Lung, Ironbeck was perhaps the most affected, with some thirty-two thousand of the city¡¯s estimated population of one hundred and sixty-five thousand perishing during the plague¡¯s two-month rampage. Among those slain were the city¡¯s reigning Lord and Lady Mayor, Jon and Yenya Luther. Although they had not appeared to fall ill, they were found by their daughter on the fiftieth of Winter, having passed beside one another in their bed. A later examination by the city coroner would reveal that they indeed died of the Wet Lung, as their lungs were filled to the brim with the telltale fluid, though the coroner in question remarked on the strangeness of the lack of previous symptoms.


    Regardless of the nature of the two nobles¡¯ deaths, Jacobi Luther was their only remaining heir, her unborn brother having perished along with Yenya. Her ascendance to the seat of Lady Mayor to Tanu¡¯s Lord was swift, though any action taken by the newly-crowned matriarch was anything but. Jacobi, it was said, was beside herself with grief, sequestered alone within the family manor and refusing to see anyone¡ªit is also believed this was an attempt to prevent herself from becoming infected, which, if true, was successful. It was her husband Tanu who would act in her stead, working to manage the Wet Lung for the remainder of its stay in Ironbeck. By all accounts, Tanu, while not an overly social man, did more than his part during the three or so months that Jacobi remained in isolation. Among the most famous and effective of the many edicts he issued with a mind to stop the plague was a forcible quarantine of the entire city, intended to prevent the spread of the Wet Lung entirely. It was a plan taking advantage of the fact that, with the harvest having come and gone only a month or so ago, most if not all families had stockpiled well for the Winter, and so would be able to survive the quarantine for a time. Though this was not true of all Ironbeckers, and some two to three thousand died of starvation during the quarantine(with another estimated five thousand perishing of the plague itself, locked within their homes), the plan was deemed a success, when, by the time the new year had come and gone, with it had gone the Wet Lung.


    Even in this victory, Tanu refused to allow the city¡¯s trade routes to open for another two months, a decision which many believe was instrumental in preventing the Wet Lung from spreading to Wendale, to the East, or Greenstead, to the South. Many other cities would go on to follow his lead, and Castellum, where the plague had not yet reached, famously preemptively closed its borders. As far as history can tell, the Annelly Wet Lung died out in Ironbeck and its immediate hinterlands; the last known case of the exact disease was recorded a year later, claiming the life of a Dwarven steelsmith in Dalway by the name of Coulter O¡¯Farrow.


    The Calm Before the Storm


    Some three weeks following the reopening of Ironbeck¡¯s borders, and nearly three months into the year of 220 AS, Jacobi Luther emerged from her family manor and went to appear before her people. It drew a vast portion of the city¡¯s inhabitants, all of whom were anxious to see what sort of ruler the fabled Iqimura would be. Their answer, at the time, was perfectly benign; during her speech, Jacobi merely praised her husband for his efforts and vowed to undo the damage the Wet Lung had done to Ironbeck and its economy. For the first year of her reign, Jacobi would do exactly that; her actions were entirely as might be expected of a newly-made Lady Mayor. She met with other nobles, establishing that she would, indeed, continue to keep House Luther¡¯s side of its many trade bargains, most importantly those made with Dalway. For this first year, Jacobi Luther was a very busy woman, traveling throughout Nidahn for such meetings as well as hosting events within her own walls. The memory of the Iquimura was then as distant as it would ever be.


    Even through the death of Gendai Winter and the events of the Diamond War thereafter, Jacobi carried on with business as usual in Ironbeck, expressing shared grief for Lioka Winter after the passing of her father and offering condolences. As we now know, however, this letter contained far more than condolences, and was likely sent with the opposite of good intentions. Though this missive indeed expressed such condolences, it also offered Lioka a place to stay in Ironbeck, should she feel the need to be away from Yensan for a while, as well as the counsel of a Moonseer. Such an invitation would be difficult to refuse for anyone, let alone a scared, grieving, new-crowned matriarch, and so of course Lioka agreed, journeying to Ironbeck with nothing so much as a word to anyone about it. There, she stayed in guest quarters within the Luther manor, and received the counsel of Dunyun Rai, one of only six Moonseers in Nidahn at the time and personal adviser of House Luther. From this meeting Lioka received the infamous prophecy that sparked the Diamond War, exactly, as most now believe, as Jacobi had hoped she would. Through the testimony of Miss Rai following Jacobi¡¯s eventual death, it would be revealed that her orders were to, quote, ¡°Give the girl someone to blame.¡±


    And so Lioka did¡ªshe blamed Jhi Tao, the traitor on the throne, she was sure the prophecy had meant. She marched on Muna, fighting and dying for her conviction, but ultimately, even if she had survived, the justice she sought would never have come. Because, as all of Merridel would come to know by the end of her reign, the true traitor on the throne was none other than Jacobi Luther.