User:Erilaz

= Pati = Eight planet to its sun, Pati is part of the

Korbaal's Time
The majesty of human civilization had been at its height, when the demons of Korbaal emptied the known world.

Preliminary Contact
In the prime of the second golden age of Ecrea, just when it seemed certain that the “eternal hierarchy” would never fail, they appeared in the north. Small in number at first, the stuff of legends dismissed by local authorities, and with sudden, unstoppable veracity, they multiplied. The stuff of nightmares, they were described as great beastly men, with teeth like that of wolves, and giant in stature. In their warbands and tribes they worshipped a satan named Korbaal, and came to be known as the Baal, the man-eaters. For they preyed largely on human flesh.

Armies were sent against them to destroy them, and typically they succeeded, staving off the threat for some time. But nobody wins for long.

Without being able to completely wipe them out, more reports of attacks within Ecrean borders came, and more armies were sent to put down warbands which, if left untreated, would turn into hordes.

With superior organization, strategy, and armaments, Imperial Legions crushed the demon presence in every sector, even as more reports came from regions where there had been none previously. Soon the military had turned into more of an Empire-wide garrison, stretched thin in defending the people, who spent their nights wide awake in terror at the monsters that lurked in the countryside.

What would once be thought of as an act of insanity became necessary, and the vast majority of the frontier legions were pulled off the line to put down the infestation. While there were hundreds of thousands of barbarians streaming through the borders, they were at least human, and fleeing from their mutual enemy.

Then the horde came.

Invasion
Having apparently feasted on the men of the north to such an extant as to have gathered an enormous population, tens of thousands of Baal came south, following the refugees from the emptied lands, and over the next decade or so, they experienced what the gods call biotic potential, feasting on what was to them the cornucopia of densely-populated imperial lands.

Hunting and fighting humans for sport as well as food, they had no problem dying in battle, which terrified the disorganized imperial armies which attempted to gather to put them down. A military anarchy ensued where generals of the Empire cut their losses and attempted to save their own armies or local populations.

While some victories were achieved and hope appeared to remain for some time, the vast majority of the armies and cities of the great Ecrean Empire were slaughtered and consumed in a feeding frenzy.

Aftermath
A few of these armies did manage to shepherd portions of the royal family into the far west, across the now Ecrean Isthmus. Recruiting local populations by warning them of demons, together they built an enormous fortification spanning the neck of the Isthmus, and over the following several years continued to upgrade it, until the horde came in earnest.

According to western histories over a hundred and fifty thousand Baal skulls were collected in the ensuing battle. While some small bands did manage to sneak through during this chaotic period, they would be hunted and starved continuously, never gaining a proper foothold. Thus, the Ecrean legacy in the far west survived.

The rest of the known world, however, flowed with rivers of blood as an estimated 100 million people were preyed upon by the rapidly expanding Baal population. When finally, there were almost no humans left to eat, the Baal grew hungry, and turned on each other.

In the following cannibalistic anarchy, the Baal population itself fell to be even lower than the humans as those few who’d survived and eaten all their brethren starved in the empty world. For the most part, only those few who were able to learn to hunt delicately or herd livestock managed to live on.

What was left in the aftermath was an empty world. Tiny communities of humans existed in isolation, as well as Baal who’d learned from their lifestyles. However, these humans had managed to maintain the basic technologies of countryside Ecrean life, and once they realized the Baal seemed to have vanished entirely, they rushed to take the world. Over the following centuries, warlords and petty kingdoms ruled, while the population rapidly increased under a human biotic potential event.

Pravaca Ascent
In the time after the emptying of the world, between the reigns of old Ecrea and new Ijtal, a family of great kings unified the scattered warlords of their world and slowed centuries of pure hatred. They were the Pravaca kings, who lay the groundwork for the great empire to come.

Revival
In the following period of revival countless new kingdoms and cultures emerged as the largely emptied lands were gradually filled by various groups from within and without. Having retained much of their basic technology and lifestyles and presented with equally as ripe a land as the old empire had found, human cities emerged quickly.

The Baal did not grow very much during this period, with only the more pacified herders remaining among them. Life was difficult for them, as the number of animals necessary was large and they had few of the more advanced techniques of humans, such as dogs, and fences. Few hunted humans, as doing so would lead to their own being hunted down. Those that did tended to form some notable bands, but nothing too large for the broader community and coordination of humans to take care of. With a much lower human population density than before, no large Baal hordes were able to form like they had. As well as that, they still ate each other often when encountering each other. They tended to live short and relatively brutal lives, as their hermeticism and shepherding roles did not change the culture or temperament they’d been created with. Slowly, however, their numbers began to recover.

As populations grew to support true society, Humans and Baal warred incessantly with each other and between themselves. With larger human population came more Baal warriorship, typically venerating the old god Korbaal the Creator. Still generally unable to grow as rapidly and violently as they had in the past, a growing portion of the Baal became oppressed and feared guerilla groups that migrated through the country, using various tactics to stay hidden while still preying on human, as their god commanded.

Arrival
In the west, a new branch of the old Ecrean faith had formed within the surviving empire. This new ideology claimed a direct contact between an individual and God, opposing the longstanding Ecrean tradition which claimed that the state was the intermediary between God and the People. Living within an empire whose legitimacy they undermined with their faith, they were oppressed, and many looked east into the supposedly empty lands beyond the Line.

At first when they arrived, they were no more than refugees, and typically became serfs to the well-established local warlords. As more and more of the Ecreans immigrated however, their presence began to make up a notable portion of the population, and many of those arriving were much wealthier, and much more well armed than their predecessors.

Generally, the arriving Ecreans and the local Aiolan Lords would work together to slay Baal they found in the area, however that was the extent of their cooperation. Most of the time they would compete in a religious struggle, with the zealous monotheist immigrants attempting to convert the polytheistic and ancestor-worshipping locals, and also generally in a struggle for culture and the power of the local Lords.

From that struggle came to power a family with very unique methods and ideas, but who managed to unify most of Aiola. The Pravaca’s were a wealthy Ecrean family who quickly integrated and made allies among the locals. After a couple generations and becoming Ecrean-descent, they adopted a new method of warfare. After capturing a small band of Baal, the Lord of the family decided to offer them shelter, food, and protection, if they train and serve him in a special unit of his retinue. From then on their Baal army grew, but they needed more income to feed it, so they expanded their territory.