The current political situation with brief explanation of origins.
The Black Death[]
The Black Death that started from Valencia took away a large portion of the population from both continents. No one was spared from the plague that rotted the flesh black. People became wary of each other and stopped visiting each other. Those who were believed to be infected were stranded outside the castles.
As people were even forced to abandon their own children due to the plague, titles such as royalty, nobility, or men of cloth lost any meaning. They were banished with the others who have been infected and all of their belongings were burned along with their rotting corpse. The plague had disappeared as suddenly as it had come but not without leaving its mark. The lower class realized that even royalty spilled the same blood as them and they lost faith in Elion as their prayers for salvation had gone unanswered.
The surviving nobility of each nation frantically looked for a scapegoat. They gathered in Calpheon and decided to retain order by putting the blame on the distant desert nation, Valencia. The priests of Elion declared the disaster a result of the Valencian heretics meddling with Black Stone alchemy and the kings instigated a war under the pretense of controlling the Black Desert, which had the largest known reserves of Black Stone.
Furthermore, as the lower-class began to realize the value of their labor, large wages were promised to compensate. An alliance was formed and the long bloodshed against Valencia has begun.
The First Calpheon-Valencia War[]
The blackened corpses of Valencians made it clear that the plague didn’t hold back for anyone. Priests were ridiculed for their proclamations against the heretics and their status within the Elion church was started to be considered a product of luck. But the war raged on regardless as there was no better reason for war than hatred which the war itself provided plenty of.
Mediah grew more prosperous with each expedition. They had been making a living with trade due to being located at the center of the continent and accumulated more wealth through supplying the alliance’s expeditions. Starting with swords they went on to sell guns and cannons. Large mines were developed to meet the increasing demand.
They also had the power of knowledge. The Valencians needed Black Stones for cooking and surviving the cold desert nights while the alliance, knowing this, started to haul out massive amounts of Black Stones from the desert with each expedition as if they intended to pick the Black Desert clean.
The Medians noticed this and told the alliance that they needed Black Stone for melting metals and making gunpowder. Upon hearing the news, the Calpheon alliance was only too happy to give them away in exchange for settling part of their expedition expenses. Both Calpheon and Valencia were unaware of the true value of Black Stones.
While the Medians stockpiled Black Stones at a very cheap price, a city emerged within
their borders and walls were built around them.
The individual to gain most fame through the war was Imur Nesser, king of Valencia. He was first called a demon who brought disaster but the accusations were soon replaced with stories of his heroics where he managed to humiliate the alliance by beating them at unfavorable odds. Even with several attempts within Valencia to overthrow him, the Calpheon alliance never
even reached the walls of Valencia.
This grueling conflict lasted for 30 years until a sandstorm buried Calpheon’s king Dahad Seric
and most of his troops under the Black Desert.
Natural Disasters[]
Sandstorms were only the beginning.
While the sandstorm that buried the expedition moved on to the villages around the desert, tidal waves engulfed seaside towns and the boats docked within.
Highlands were ravaged by heavy rain and the map was changed by raging hurricanes. The tropical regions beyond the desert suffered from drought as the dried up landscape started to show visible cracks. If the plague changed the people, the natural disasters changed the world as they knew it.
The Nagas were pushed out of the Serendian swamps by the Fogans, and other Barbarian tribes settled in the southern parts of Mediah. While the expeditions took a toll on each nation’s defenses, the savages took the opportunity to migrate towards the less ravaged in-land regions. The pillaging started soon after.
With no means of communication between the natives and settlers, the ensuing chaos only got worse. Each side had gone on with no exchange for a long time and were now forced together as their borders were crumbled due to external circumstances. Even if there was a way to communicate how much good would it have done when both side’s interest was a matter of survival?
The natives and the barbarian settlers came to live on the same land and the Calpheon alliance along with its expedition became a thing of the past.
Second Calpheon-Valencia Campaign[]
Keplan, Heidel, and Olvia established trade with Valencia through Mediah
for they had no other choice if they were to refill their coffers that were dried up during the expeditions. It was not long before the King of Calpheon allowed trade guilds to trade with Valencia despite the protests from Elion priests.
The caravans that reached Mediah saw that it was no longer the same place they knew ten years ago. Although the southern regions fell to the savages, the north was lined with several layers of fortifications. The soldiers stationed on these walls looked self-assured with their guns and cannons. The city was bustling with activity and filled with chimneys along with various devices that were never seen before.
The Calpheon merchant guild tried to find out how Mediah was able to obtain this burst of development but nothing could be found within Mediah itself. Yet they found a lead in the Black Desert. Valencian soldiers were keeping a tight watch over the desert and it was unreasonable for them to keep such a high level of security if what was in the desert were merely fuel for lighting stoves. The Black Stones Calpheon managed to smuggle out were sent to their alchemists. It was not long before they realized why Mediah’s firepower was greater than theirs. The stories, spun up by Elion priests, of the magical properties of Black Stones turned out to be not far from the truth. Keplan, Heidel, and Olvia caught on to this as well.
Each nation went on their way to acquire their own supply of Black Stones. Keplan was the first to find a vein in their mountains but it contained too much impurities for them to used beyond simple combustion. Yet Media went on its way to buy these at a high price. The Black Stones from Keplan could yet be used for melting metal for they burned at higher temperature for a longer time than coal. Media needed the additional supply because Valencia outlawed Black Stone trade after the war.
The next stock was found in the swamps of Serendia. A couple of black pebbles that a young naga was holding turned out to be Black Stones. The Black Stones from the swamp were so pure that Media merchants went on to make their way through the swamps to see for themselves.
These turn of events made Calpheon nervous. No matter how hard they searched, they couldn’t find any Black Stones within their kingdom. It was evident that they will lose their place as the leading power of the continent and become a second-rate nation if they couldn’t obtain a supply of Black Stones for themselves. They wanted the Black Stones from Serendia, but the problem was the lower-class. Plague, war, and disaster thinned their numbers and those remaining were exhausted from the constant pillaging from the savages. To send them back in to war as soldiers would require a huge sum of money as wages.
So the young king of Calpheon, Guy Seric, went out to raise war funds. He convinced the priests that the war was a chance to reclaim the former glory of Elion and he promised the merchant guilds that he would allow them to raise their own armies to compete with the Median guilds.
The war for Black Stones began and this time it was a war for greed.