Part 63: SUPPLEMENTARY UPDATE: The Guardia Hall of History.

SUPPLEMENTARY UPDATE: The Guardia Hall of History.

So, because the last update was long enough already, I left out the contents of Hall of History. This update shall remedy that.



"Not long after dark magic became known to the public, it became a target for vehement followers of Arcadius, who feared its ability to subvert nature's laws.
Despite the opposition, dark magic flourished over the centuries. In the Second Age, mages learned to adapt it towards more specific goals.

This led to specialized courses of study under the umbrella of dark magic. Necromancy focused exclusively on returning the dead to life.
Shadow magic was about concealing the user and became a favourite of spies and bandits."



"The Necromancer's Guild was at the peak of its power during the Third Age, and its leaderm Thaniel Mortrus, urged the group to wage war against Arcadius.
Leading the opposition to the dark mages was the Solendian Knighthood, and the battles raged across Solest for decades.

Strategic use of magic proved to be a huge obstacle for the knighthood, as their members were forbidden to use it themselves.
General Mephesto and other leaders began to learn magic in secret, defying the knighthood's leadership but also turning the tide in the war.

The final battle of the war took place at the dwarven city of Grenthas. Both Mephesto and Mortrus were killed, but the guild was defeated.
The city of Grenthas was destroyed, scattering the dwarves across Solest. They continue to wander, while the guild hid themselves for centuries.

Eventually, they changed their name from the "Necromancer's Guild" to the less specific "Midnight Guild" in an ongoing effort to rehabilitate their image."



"Dark magic played a minor role in the Solendian Civil War which ultimately destroyed the longstanding organization.
It started with Volrath Blacksteele, the rogue knight who returned Thaniel Mortrus to life as a lich named Thanatos. Thanatos in turn revived Mephesto, attempting to enslave his old foe.
In the end, their old conflict played out once more and Thanatos lost. Blacksteele was betrayed by his advisor and his rebellion failed.

Stephen Farmast, who claimed to be Volrath's successor, allied himself with the legendary Elissa Brightwey in another war against the knights.
Brightwey's skeleton creations remain the most advanced in the history of necromancy. However, they did not save her from defeat.

When the Solendian Knighthood fell, necromancers were confident their time to rise had come. However, the Gallian Knighthood proved to be a greater foe.
Neceromancers went underground for most of the empire's reign, but a rare instance of diplomacy on the part of Gallia gave them a new objective.

The Treaty of Thanatos made the necromancers responsible for managing areas far from Gallia's reach, and they could conduct their business without fear of attacks from the empire's troops.
The role dark magic and necromancy will play in the Post-Gallia world remains to be seen."



"As the Solendian Knighthood became more well known over the generations, their exclusion of women proved to be more and more controversial.
Numerous women in Solendus publicly demonstrated against the rule, but the knighthood's Board of Elders remained steadfast.

Volrath Blacksteele's rebellion attracted many aspiring female warriors, and criticized the knighthood's exclusion of women (and other races) often.
During the time of the Solendian Civil War, Elder Lord Oswel's daughter Sylvia drew attention for her unique attempts to join the knighthood.

Though restricted from formal knighthood, she lived on a base and went about her business in full armor and behaved the same way a male knight would.
This impressed Dalton Kajarian and Gwyneth Matare, who invited her to join their independent group working with Mephesto to mitigate the conflict.

Sylvia Oswel ultimately died in the battle against Blacksteele's army. Kajarian and Matare would eventually name their daughter after her.
We briefly saw young Sylvia in Stoic's flashback to when Mephesto introduced him to Dalton and Gwyneth."



"Vincent Gallius and other early leaders of Gallia were determined to avoid the mistakes that tore the Solendians apart, with the obvious exception of extending membership to people of other races. Women, however, were invited from the very beginning of the knighthood and they joined in droves.

Since magic was also allowed and encouraged, female mages also had the opportunity to rise within the ranks of Gallia's army.

The highest available position for a female mage was that of First Sorceress. Holding the title at the time of Gallia's fall was Colter Hart."



"Theories about the reclusive nature of dragons vary wildly, but their consistent tendency to avoid the other races has given rise to numerous myths and legends.

Since seeing a dragon is considered a rare and momentous event, several legends have emerged which claim that those who see dragons are rewarded.
Dragons come in several colors with different abilities, so the alleged benefit to the view was different for each type.

Seeing a red dragon wa a testament to the strength of the person who had seen it, while seeing a green dragon symbolized a person's intellect.

Blue dragons were seen as symbols of wisdom and understanding, which would be slowly passed on to those who had seen it."



"The major races of Solest did not consider griffins among their ranks, characterizing them as wild animals akin to wolves or deer.

However, it was only in recent centuries that the hugely intelligent creatures became more understood among the other peoples of the world.
After spending time within any society, griffins are able to understand the language of its inhabitants, though they can not respond.

During Gallia's reign, griffins stunned the world again by mastering transformative magic, and disguising themselves as humans.
Since the end of the empire, this has all but ceased, perhaps ilustrating that the power to change into a human was a necessity and nothing more."



Another joke (the same one even!) hardly anyone that doesn't know Volrath IRL would get if they hadn't watched the Clean Slate videos.

"Galdar and his brother Zarr were raised by their considerably wealthy parents, but their family's comfortable status angered some of Karzai's people.

The De-Naren family began a feud with the Raldos, a fmaily of humans who routinely harassed the family, even after Galdar's parents passed on.
Tensions reached a boiling point one night in a bar when Galdar was attacked. A powerful punch from the minotaur instantly killed one of the attackers.
One of the Raldo brothers was a lieutenant of the Wyvern Fang Cult. Had the Forbidden Spell of Rebirth cast on him too.

Galdar was exiled from Karzai for five years and moved in with his grandfather, Arius De-Naren, an elderly minotaur who lived in seclusion.
Gallia eventually found the small home and Arius was killed. Galdar eventually traveled to Guardia, and never forgot the lessons his grandfather taught."



"Among the first humans to settle on the Isle of Alge were a group of fire mages who believed the area's native ice elementals contributed to the extreme cold.
The group took it upon themselves to wage war on the ice elementals, ostensibly to create a more moderate climate for their fellow settlers.

Several members of the Floah family, whose ancestry went back to humanity's first ice mages, rallied behind the ice elementals.
But the ranks of the fire mages grew over time, eventually nothing could save the elementals or the humans defended them.

The weather did not improve in Boreal. It got much colder, to the point where a "curse" has been speculated by the locals."

Britsus' Konne's book on the Wyvern Fang Cult is here too, but Cade doesn't read it, since he can just speak to Britsus instead.





BOOK: As the Gallian military struggled to create a foothold in the barren deserts east of Rellenia, the city of Coromant emerged and flourished over time.
Under the close watch of the Gallians, the city was populated exclusively by humans while people of other races remained hidden in the wild.

After the Empire fell, Gallians who remained in Coromant struggled to establish control over the area, but their efforts were futile.
Various tribes each felt they had a claim to the city, and in time the battles destroyed the entire place.

Hundreds were killed and the area was notorious for violence for decades afterwards."



I don't know... I already know a lot about this jerk. Oh wait, this chapter looks interesting.

BOOK: "Some research and interviews have led to a contingent of historians who are convinced that Lysander was on his way to abandoning Gallian ideals.
Shortly after returning from a lengthy mission, Lysander uncovered the murder of Marcus Gallius by Warrick De Cafer, and took control of the council himself.

Not long after that, Lynnia Barca was violently murdered in her home by High Guard Ariel D'Eleficent. Lysander was led to believe the rebels were to blame.

According to many sources, he became distant and depressed, and seemed to hold the welfare of the city's people above commitment to Arcadius.
Had he survived, it seems unclear what path he would have taken. Those who still support Gallia often express distaste for this interpretation."
Curiously, Ketsu seems to believe it. But he does seem to have been brainwashed by a dear friend of Lysander's who may have wanted the facts kept straight!



"The period after the Rain of Fire was characterized by a remarkably peaceful and cooperative atmosphere among the different races.
Many humans still mourned the fall of the Solendian Knighthood centuries earlier and felt that humans needed to reclaim a place as Solest's dominant race.

But to other humans uplifted by the unity that followed the disaster, starting another exclusive knighthood sounded like moving backwards in time.
However, this all changed when Vincent Gallius announced that Arcadius had appeared to him and told him the other races must be destroyed."
This is either something Volrath forgot or changed his mind about, but in his own videos he says that Vincent Gallius was just a broken, depressed man who had lost his family in the Rain of Fire... and wasn't like... an actually genocidal racist. His racism was more about trying to recreate the greatness of the Solendian Knighthood by only allowing humans into the Gallian Knighthood. Going by Volraths own words in his videos, the Actually-Commit-Genocide thing came in a bit further down the line after Vincent. Maybe people just believe a Gallian propaganda version of the story now?

"Humans feared a second Rain of Fire was imminent. It never came, and the new Gallian Knighthood took the credit."



"Arcadius and Perditia are said to be brother and sister, and collaborated in the creation of Solest. Each created races of their own to watch over.
The siblings existed in harmony until the day they realized that their creations could die. Perditia was incensed, and sought to give her creations immortality.

She introduced dark magic to Solest, and surprisingly, humans were the ones who expressed the most interest and became the first necromancers.
This outraged Arcadius, who believed that the cycle of life and death was an essential part of balance in Solest. This led to the birth of holy magic.

The two schools of magic have existed in opposition ever since, but few still remember that the roots of the dispute lie in the philosophy of death."
Something to bring up here, since there hasn't really been a good moment to bring it up ever, is that way back in Arc III, one of the monastery teachers said that according to the old stories, Arcadius has always been a hands-off sort of deity.
The same was NOT said to be true of Perditia, and she allegedly used to meddle in mortal affairs quite frequently until 'a few decades before the Rain of Fire' and has been quiet ever since.

Elissa Brightwey's appearance on Solest was a few decades before the Rain of Fire too. And the Gallian propaganda version of the Blacksteele Rebellion (as recounted in Clean Slate) is rather than trying to summon part of Perditia's power, Volrath had in fact been trying to summon Perditia herself to Solest.



"The unique practice of summoning magic originated among the elves, whose connection to nature revealed to them an alternate world beyond Solest.

Neither the elves nor any other sorcerer has devised a way to visit this other world. Summoners mastered the skills of temporarily bringing inhabitants of the realm into Solest to assist them in battle. A summonder's effectiveness is measured by how many creatures can be commanded at once."
It hasn't come up in this game yet (it did in the Clean Slate updates), but both Seth and Ariel were/are also summoners.



"The current site where the Hall of History sits was originally City Hall when Guardia was first erected. This was where the council hid themselves from the citizens.

After Seth the dragoon discovered that the council was really made up of Gallian officials, he launched into a rebellion against the town.
This conflict culminated in a siege on the building which destroyed it. After Gallia was defeated, those who lived in Guardia sought a different identity for their home. it was decided that a new library would occupy this site to educate future generations."



"The rare phenomenom of "holy wings" is one of the most perplexing mysteries in the entire study of magic, a transformation experienced only by holy mages.

Though rarely seen, the instances of holy mages acquiring wings has been documented well by scholars over the centuries.
Some consistent elements can be discerned from the records - The wings always seemed to surface in a moment of severe trauma.

Those who emerged after discovering their wings often claimed to have greater knowledge of Arcadius and holy magic in general.
Their spells and overall strength would increase exponentially. The most recent winged holy mage is Dasani of Boreal."












Anyway. After the library you're probably ready to do the fairy quiz for a cookie of valor. There's not much else to say about the quiz besides that so I guess this is all till the next real update!



the end