There are always two versions of history: the one we wanted to engrave in our memories, printed on paper and taught in temples and schools. And then there’s the one we’ve tried to make disappear, which survives hidden only on old parchment, in the depths of past ruins and in the memories of heretics in hiding. True history is no more the erased one than the official one; it’s always in flux, somewhere in between.

Excerpt from Encyclopedia Magna, by Haerran Sabucius Littera Opiterneptis

 

The History of Loss

The further back we go, the less Lossyans know about the reality and details of their shared history, which has been rewritten by the survivors, the victors in general. The first historians and archaeologists have barely begun to explore the traces and facts of the past.

The only sources of information are written chronicles and archives, and oral accounts, often legendary. Over fifteen hundred years of destruction and war have rendered past chronicles blurred, erroneous or full of holes.

So the big question is: are there any Lossyans who know the true history of their world? Yes, a few, even if their knowledge is patchy. Can they reveal it? Not without creating a serious stir. Is it so different from official history? Yes, for everything before Year 0 AC, and the reality would undoubtedly cause terrible damage to Concilian civilization.

Inset: The following calendar is based on the Church of the Council calendar, which notes Year 1 AC as the first year after the Council (AC)

1-Before Winter

The Lossyans came from the stars. Everyone knows it, including those who doubted it, and there’s no one left, even among the most tribal and isolated peoples, to think otherwise. The fact that earthlings regularly find themselves lost on Loss has a lot to do with it. However, the way in which Lossyans are told how they arrived, and why, differs widely from people to people, and from belief to belief. And even the Church of the Council says nothing on the subject; simply revealing that, as with all the religions and gods of Loss, this decision was graciously accepted by the Council Above All, then silent and discreetly attentive overseer, who let the gods of each people take their flock to Loss.

All the known populations of Loss appeared around the Seas of Separation, with access to the ocean. It was a difficult, dark and legendary time. It was during this period that the first Loss animals were domesticated, including the symbiont, the creature that many Lossyans carry on their person. It was also towards the end of these first ages that Loss-metal was discovered. But long before its use and properties were understood, it was for its interaction with the Loss Singers that it was researched.

• -2500 to 500 BC: foundation of the first Lossyan colonies, scattered around the Seas of Separation and beyond. First lossyan animals domesticated.
• -525: appearance of shamans, domestication of symbionts.
• -470: first Loss Singers.
• -450: foundation of the first known city-states in the Eteocle plains region.
• -410: foundation of Antiva.
• -360: foundation of Parcia.
• -240: Discovery of loss-metal.
• -217: Foundation of the Circle of Magi (the Apolloneïos) in Antiva.
• -165: first official mentoring of Loss Singers by shamanic congregations.
• -104: first Singer of Loss appointed Glaive (incarnation and defender) of a Eteoclian deity.

2-The Age of the Magicians

Several great states and empires were eventually founded, as men explored and learned to adapt to a universe that was terribly dangerous and hostile, but rich and abundant in resources. Among the first great cities of the era, Parcia, Antiva and Noïqomos soon stood out. Today, nothing remains of these cities, their civilization or their history.

In a relatively short space of time, the Loss Singers, possessors of the ability to resonate with loss-metal and perform wonders, became a weapon and a new political power, a mystical then quasi-divine force.

This was the era of the Magicians and the Gods: within a few decades, the Loss Singers were seen as the children, the messengers, the bearers of the divine image, who had come to Loss to protect, dominate and guide mankind. Soon, it was the Loss Singers, rare though they were even then, who ruled over the peoples of Loss.

• -94: Beginning of the Magician Era
• -82: the main city-states are de facto dominated by a caste of Loss Singers: the Glaives.
• -64: first schism among shamans. Brief civil war in Noïqomos.
• -48: second schism of the shamans. Extermination of the Eteocles megafauna by the Loss Singers. Many shamans take refuge in the Dragon Snows.
• -31 to 0: Divine Wars

Two cities at the center of two great states, between the Plains of Eteocles and the south of the Hegemony, waged an all-out war dominated by their Loss Singers. Antiva, to the north, was home to the Apolloneïos, the largest and most influential gathering of Loss Singers. To the south lay Parcia, at the head of a coalition of states, whose champion, and military leader of the coalition armies, Orchys Athysmante of Parcia, was considered the incarnation of Athena.

Legend has it that exhaustion gripped all the cities devastated by the conflict, and that Antiva and her allies never gave in. Orchys Athysmante of Parcia then betrayed the gods themselves. She offered her soul to the Underworld and learned the Song of the Abyss in return. Antiva suffered the full force of the Song of the Abyss and was razed to the ground in one fell swoop. An immense crater engulfed not only the city, but also Orchys and its armies, and the entire region for a hundred miles.

The destruction of Antiva provoked the most uncontrollable terror. Slaves, men and women were sacrificed en masse to the gods, entire communities imploded, isolated or committed suicide, and cities were abandoned overnight. The chaos lasted until 28 BC.

• -19: Orchys Athysmante is appointed Glaive of Athena and takes over the leadership of the Parcia Coalition.
• -3: Celestial Battle
• 0: Destruction of Antiva, Long Winter

3-The birth of the Council

If the Lossyans had any doubt that the gods themselves had been betrayed, and that their wrath was falling upon the world, they had none at all when the Long Winter began, lasting six years: winter lasted more than six months at year. The sky was almost never uncovered, and summer disappeared. In the second year, famines began, along with epidemics. The war had not ceased, nor its ravages, but now it was a matter of survival.

No matter how much the Lossyans begged their gods, spring did not return for another six years, annihilating cities and entire peoples thrown onto the roads of a hostile world where predators starved, too. It was a dark era, which put an end to all reign of magic, and of the Singers. They were cursed and hated, and the few survivors did not live long in a universe that had banished them. It was in this world of lost landmarks, a year before the end of winter, that the first prophets of the Council Above All appeared.

• 1 AC (After the Council): reference date of the Council calendar.
• 6: End of the Long Winter
• 11 to 28: Great Purge

The news was out that the Long Winter and the many other destructions were the work of the Loss Singers. The Lossyans quickly came to regard the Singers as demons. They hunted them down, destroying them, their allies, their loved ones, their families and finally anyone suspected of being a Singer. Loss sank into a fratricidal war and a witch-hunt that ravaged even the shamans. This period is known as the Great Purge, a name that still makes Lossyans shudder.

• 41: the Church’s Dogmas are written for the first time.
• 62: the faith of the Council spreads throughout the northern coast of the Seas of Separation.
• 72: first legions of ordinatorii to defend the Church.
• 97: Anqimenès declares itself capital of the Hegemony and Holy City of the Council.
• 98: Asharon dies without choosing a successor; meetings of the First Synod, from which emerge the modern hierarchy of the Church and three prophets with equal powers.

4-The expansion of the Hegemony

The Church of the Council took advantage of the dilapidated state of the peoples of Loss to establish its authority through its organization and its reassuring, effective stability; it was the right tool, in the right place – Anqimenes really needed it – and at the right time; just as the first prophets of the Council had claimed.

It wasn’t easy. The Council totally challenged the old beliefs, codes and faith of the Lossyans. What’s more, its dogmas preached neither love nor peace, but a philosophy akin to legism, which can be summed up as: “order by force and authority”.

Year in, year out, as cities, ports and temples were rebuilt, the Council spread its influence and a model of modern, efficient civilization. This was not without its share of wars, massacres and tragedies on all sides. But the Council’s prophets were always protected by their invisible, mortal guardians, the Thanataires.

In the centuries that followed, great military campaigns began, in which the Ordinatorii spread their Church by faith and force. Slavery was transformed from a simple custom into a sacralized art. Primarily created to bring the Loss Singers under control, it spread everywhere in its known form: High Art.

The Church’s hard-line patriarchal model spread, as did its Dogmas, which became a code of law. The Church converts a large part of the Seas of Separation; willingly or by force.

• 114: first written treatise on High Art, whose technique spreads.
• 135: second Synod, declaration of heretical shamans. The first to be hunted down are the Svatnaz.
• 201: start of the first conflict between the Hegemony and the Dragensmanns.
• 209 to 219: Ember War

Conflict between the Hegemony and the Dragensmanns, who protect their shamans. Destruction of many Dragensmann clans, but the war ends in a status quo.

• 231: Anqimenès declares itself part oHegemony.
• 325: First levitation ships invented by Imareth.
• 361 to 372: Eteocles War

The Church declares Nashera and its allied cities heretics after a religious incident. Nashera agrees to submit to the religion of the Divine Council, but against all odds, the Hegemony declares war on Nashera anyway.

• 363: renewed conflicts between Dragensmann clans supporting Nashera, and the Hegemony.
• 368: The Ruby Throne embraces the faith of the Divine Council. The Hemlaris are quickly converted.
• 380: Hemlaris draws up the first complete map of the Seas of Separation.
• 394: Levitating ship technology becomes widespread.
• 412: Religious split in Anqimenes leading to a civil war that ends in bloodshed after the assassination of Peregaïus, one of the Church’s prophets. Partial withdrawal of the Hegemony from the southern borders of Eteocles.
• 422: first impulse cannons, appearance of levitation engines for construction.

5-The Apostate War

In their conquest of the Eteoclean Plains provinces, the Ordinatorii pushed the heretic barbarians known as the Jemmais to the southwest, to the edge of the Rift around 380 BC. This inferno soon acquired the reputation of being the only refuge for those wishing to escape the Church of the Council. Later, Athémaïs, Erebeïm and the Fringes proved more accessible to refugees.

In Jemmaï-he’Jil, the Jemmaïs refounded a close-knit tribal nation in arid, inhospitable lands. Adapting to their new homeland hardened them even more than they had been, while welcoming refugees from the exactions of the Church. But the Church, backed by the Hegemony, which believes it has a comfortable hold on the immense territory of the Eteocles Plains, wants to destroy once and for all the heresy that thrives in the Rift and violently resists conversion.

The first crusade is launched: six legions from the Church, six from the Hegemony, and three from the cities of Eteocles. Almost 80,000 soldiers to crush the Jemmaïs.

• 449 to 556: First Crusade

The 15 legions on the march required almost double the number of escorts and supplies, and the quartermaster’s office was unable to keep up, as southern Eteocles, plagued by civil unrest, was unable to supply such a mass, despite a sizeable naval fleet. This serious and essential problem was to be the source of the War Without End or Borders.

• 449: the Church declares the Jemmaïs heretics and launches a crusade led by the Hegemony.
• 452: some fifteen legions head south from Eteocles. First conflicts with passing cities and communities unable or unwilling to provide the Crusade with supplies.
• 455: Battle of High-Wall.
• 458: Battle of Scarla. The Jemmaïs deploy the first known impulse muskets and units of War Loss Singers.
• 464 to 549: War Without End or Borders (or War of the Apostates)

The Jemmaïs and their recent refugee allies, known as the Apostates, took advantage of the tension heightened by the Crusade’s exactions on the Eteoclean Plains with remarkable political finesse. With the help of the Eteoclean aristocracy and intellectual elite, they had no trouble convincing the city-states under the yoke of the Hegemonians, who were literally pillaging them, to form a coalition. And they brought with them their men, their weapons, their experience of guerrilla warfare and another, even more terrible weapon: the Loss Singers. The war practically lasted a century.

• 466: Battle of the Four Rivers: three Hegemonian and Eteoclian legions are crushed in the forests of Darmos by troops of Dragensmanns and Foresters, aided by herds of animals under shamanic influence.
• 473: Battle of Ceramide Strait: first known naval air battle with levitating ships.
• 480: the pulse rifle is introduced into most armies.
• 513: Second Battle of Scarla: the siege of the city, which had become a wall of trenches stretching for almost 200 km, made no progress. First wave of exiles settle in Athémaïs.
• 530: Informal truces in southern Eteocles, punctuated by uprisings and minor conflicts, several years of famine force armies on all sides to reduce their numbers and campaigns.
• 545: The crusade against the Apostates resumes, with a naval air fleet breaking the lines of Scarla’s wall. The conflict escalates in violence and barbarity.
• 547 to 553: First outbreak of Rage

The Rage appears at High-Wall and spreads at lightning speed. Only symbiote-bearing Lossyans are spared, but they have to fight against the Enraged, who turn into crazed, murderous hordes. The disease will decimate the whole of Eteocle, the Hegemony, devastate the Forester people, then the whole of the southern Dragon Snows, reaching Imareth and finally Terancha and the San’eshe archipelagos. It took several decades for the affected peoples to recover, and it is estimated that around 15% of the population of the Seas of Separation died.

• 551: Widespread chaos on all the plains of Eteocles, as the Foresters and Dragensmanns also come under attack from the Rage and cease their raids. The Rage spreads throughout the Hegemony, even killing the Prophet Acturus.
• 556: disappearance of the Apostates, who break away from the Jemmaïs.

The wars of empires

Hemlaris, also known as the Empire of the Ruby Throne, quickly became the Hegemony’s only major competitor, hindering its expansion and vying for control of the Gennema Marches. The Hegemony did not miss the opportunity to launch a new war when the Emperor had the Divine Mandate validated, a treaty designating all emperors as direct legatees of the Council’s divine authority. A heresy whose timing was perfect to launch a crusade.

Faced with the legions of the Hegemony, those of Hemlaris, though vastly inferior in numbers, proved even more motivated and fanatical. A Warrior of the Emperor never surrenders; the very notion of defeat without death is unknown to him. But they’re cunning, and the mobile combat tactics of these cavalry units largely compensated for their numerical and material inferiority. What should have been an easy war became a series of bloody conflicts driven by a growing mutual hatred that nothing could quell.

• 560: maritime conflicts between the Hegemony and Hemlaris for control of trade routes along the eastern coasts of the Seas of Separation.
• 571: first treatise on astronomy by Ankeserios, known as Le Messin, who drew up a heliocentric theory of the solar system.
• 584: creation of the Lincis, symbionts of slaves.
• 595: the Hegemony strengthens its territorial positions in the Marches.
• 601: dubious death of the Prophet Anatin. His replacement, Electus, convinces his confreres to declare Hemlaris heretical by virtue of his faith in the Divine Mandate. Call to crusade.
• 603 to 604: First crusade against Hemlaris

The first crusade ends at the battle of Haïcan with a massacre in front of the Emperor’s Warriors led by outstanding tactician generals. The Hegemony took the measure of the formidable effectiveness of its adversary’s modern combat techniques.

• 621 to 628: Second crusade against Hemlaris

Assisted by Eteoclian troops, the second crusade ended up bogged down in skirmish battles, with the Hegemony finally losing control when the Gennemons rebelled and drove them back. Hemlaris annexes the southern Gennema Marches.

• 638: invention of black powder, immediately declared heretical. But its formula is widespread, even within the Church.
• 651: invention of linotorci at Nashera, which spread throughout the Hegemony.
• 662 to 677: Third Crusade against Hemlaris

A powerful fleet directly attacks the Empire of the Ruby Throne, supported by a naval air fleet. Hemlaris troops are repulsed by well-protected, mobile Ordinatorii, supported by levitating ships and pulse cannons employed in a line of barrage. Cymiad is occupied and plundered before a Hemlaris sea and land counter-offensive supported by Teranchen and Imareth mercenary fleets forces the Crusade to retreat.

• 677 to 685: Hegemonic civil wars

Tensions between the Church and the city-states of the Hegemony, exhausted by incessant warfare, explode into violent revolt; several local legions turn against the Church. The civil war in the Hegemony ends after the unexplained death of two prophets, including Electus’ heir. Many see this as a strong religious sign.

• 712: the Merchants’ Guild spreads High Art techniques to civil society and begins to take control of the slave market throughout the southern Seas of Separation.
• 735: Night of Fire. A cloud of meteors bombards an area stretching from the Gulf of Eteocles to the High Marches, causing chaos, destruction and panic, followed by two years of poor harvests and famine.
• 745: Expansion of wind and water power in Athémaïs, thanks to the inventor Mulhad of Saniro.
• 770: The Church orders Hemlaris to renounce the Divine Mandate heresy. In response , the Emperor has some of the Church authorities in Cymiad expelled and executed.
• 771 to 782: Fourth Crusade against Hemlaris

The crusade took time to gather. Athémaïs and Terancha refused to take part, while Imareth sent a few ships as a formality. The conflict quickly turned into a war of maritime harassment. The Hegemony finally abandons the port of Hang-Boda. End of the Fourth Crusade, but naval raids and battles continue for the next twenty years.

• 802: Church Synod, numerous calls for unity and peace, but rejected by the Prophets. Dogmas revised and tightened.
• 829 to 841: Pirate War

Melisaren and allies from the southern Plains of Eteocles launch a naval war to put an end to looting and piracy by Imareth, which ends the war by paying very heavy tribute to Melisaren and her allies, but will plunder Nashera’s shipping routes for years to come. Mélisaren and her allies turn a blind eye. Nashera and Allenys go to war with Imareth to put an end to the plundering of their trade routes. 25 years of naval battles and relentless port sieges follow. The Merchants’ Guild intervenes to bring about a peace agreement between Imareth and its adversaries, short-circuiting the Hegemony’s alliance plan with Nashera to invade the island.

• 832: Dragensvard almost falls to legions transported by levitating ship and escorted by the first Behemoths. The assault is cut short by a counter-attack from dragens-riders, but losses are terrible.
• 889: Discovery of titanium.
• 902 to 910: Fifth Hemlaris Crusade.

The Fifth Hemlaris Crusade got off to a sluggish start, but gathered a substantial force. However, neither Terancha, Imareth nor Athémaïs wanted to take part, under pressure from the Merchants’ Guild. The same goes for part of the United Cities and all of southern Etéocle. The entire Gulf of Haïcan and its city-states are occupied. Massive looting and destruction, explosion of the slave trade in the largest mass capture in Loss history.

• 905: the Church renounces declaring heretical the city-states that refuse to participate in the Crusade, with the exception of Armanth and Khoïenomos.

6-The Rise of Armanth

Around 460 BC, a small group of refugees settled on the marshy lagoon of a turbulent river, the Argas. They founded a small local trading port, mainly for driftwood. Armanth was born. The Merchants’ Guild was looking for a town to settle in, far from the conflicts that were bogging down between the clans of the Terancha seas and Allenys and its United Cities. They came to invest and used their network of caravans and sea routes to concentrate their slave-trading activities on Armanth, where they wrested the monopoly from the Church and became the hub of the trade today.

From 650 BC onwards, Armanth was the main destination for persecuted immigrants, before becoming a haven for intellectuals, freethinkers and women fleeing the Church. It was repeatedly besieged by its Athemaïs neighbors and even looted several times, before being considered one of their city-states, which brought it a welcome wealth. Despite these setbacks, nothing slowed Armanth’s growth, and its influence spread throughout the southern Seas of Separation.

• 912: discovery of the Labyrinth under Armanth. In the years that followed, an explosion of technological advances and the first discoveries of the Loss dynamo. Armanth begins to launch missions to explore the ruins of the Ancients.
• 915 to 915: Sixth crusade against Hemlaris

After the Battle of Guaning, many of the troops involved withdraw from the Crusade. Hemlaris has deployed its own behemoths, cavalry and heavy artillery units in a battle in which the Emperor’s Warriors laugh at their own losses.

• 927: foundation of the Enclave. Exploitation of the San’eshe jungles, not without difficulty.
• 937: Armanth becomes the official capital of Athémaïs.
• 941: death of the Emperor of Hemlaris, with no male heir of ruling age. For the first time in its history, the Empire of the Ruby Throne has an empress.
• 946 to 963: Seventh Crusade against Hemlaris

Coup d’état by the Church after the seventh attempt to assassinate the Empress. It fails when two Church legions betray her and form the Guard of the Divine Mandate, pledging allegiance to the Ruby Throne. A coordinated invasion by Hemlaris troops, supported by Gennemons and Teranchen fleets, liberates the entire Gulf of Haïcan occupied by the Hegemony. Resumption of the war and declaration of the Seventh Crusade

• 948: the largest troop movement in history leads to a massive invasion and the capture of Cymiad in less than six months, but at unimaginable human and material costs.
• 952: The Crusade War turns into a series of moving battles on land and sea. The Hegemony is forced to abandon Cymiad, while casualties mount.
• 954 to 955: Battle of Feri

The United Cities that had responded to the Crusade collapse into civil war. Following the liberation of Cymiad, briefly occupied by the Hegemony, a coalition fleet comprising almost all the states south of the Seas of Separation attacks the coastal cities surrounding the Hegemony. A naval battle off Equerius involved nearly 2,000 ships of all sizes. Massive destruction, looting and burning on all coasts.

• 962: Armanth surpasses half a million inhabitants and prospers in a situation of generalized war.
• 956: Battles of the 6 flags

Between Anqimenès and Equerius take place seven days of moving battle between all the Hegemonian armies, the troops of the Hemlaris and the Gennemons, and the mercenary Dragensmanns supported by mercenary fleets from Imareth, Teranchens and Athémaïs. Rumors have it that three Jemmais behemoths were even sighted.

• 967: peace treaties signed between the Hegemony and Hemlaris. The Empire of the Ruby Throne accepts highly disadvantageous trade contracts to pay off its debt to Armanth.
• 970: the United Cities once again agree to a lasting peace and alliance after twenty years of civil war.
• 973: Armanth’s Ordinatorii prisoners are returned to the Hegemony, which agrees to sign a peace agreement.
• 980 : Current date.

7-What happens next?

What’s next is up to you. The present chronology ends a few years before the start of the novels, which are considered Alternative History, not “canon”. The chronology of the novels begins in 990 AC.

But a few events are obvious: tensions between the two empires, and the Church and the Hemlaris Heresy have become an ancestral and blind hatred. Armanth, though far less powerful militarily, is gaining influence to such a degree that it will eventually supplant Anqimenès’ authority over the Seas of Separation. At some point, the Hegemony will conclude that to invade and subdue Hemlaris, Armanth must be totally destroyed. And it has the means: all it needs to do is rearm and train its troops.

In the meantime, the Athémaïs is trying to explore and expand the world map, by land and sea. To the south, beyond the Desert of the Fringes, there are even more deserts, barring the continent. But there are other unknown peoples, and that’s really not good news. On the Hemlaris side, the same is true of the Nevertsguïkhana mountains, where other peoples also live.

Finally, the Dragensmanns and their exploration of unknown lands beyond the Mares Avisen will face the secrets of the Ancients, far more dangerous than anything the Lossyans have ever faced. And meet a strange possible ally: the Apostates, who have been silently building their own world for 500 years.

Finally, terribly isolated, the Hegemony has only conquest for its expansion. And that’s all it knows. But who knows why the Church, too, wants to conquer the whole world? Is it a question of faith? Or something else?