THE AGE OF THE EMPIRE

YE: Years of the Empire

1-10 YE: The Elves Arrive in the North

The Elves were not on the continent of Evrosia when history began. They came from across the ocean, from a place not known to man, making the journey across the northern ice floes. By that time, they were already divided into the two nations of elves. The Sidhe Elves were led by their king, Vanimaro, and the Frost Elves by their own council.

8-100 YE: The Elves and Marauders Battle

When they arrived in the north of the Land, the elves found the Marauders, men, already firmly entrenched in the northern forests. Wanting to claim the land for their own, and not seeing the men as worthy of their respect, they began a bitter war against the Marauders in the snow-covered north. Many elves and men died, but neither side could prevail.

Eventually, a peace was made between the Frost Elves and the Marauders - but the Sidhe would have no part in it. They deserted their one-time allies the Frost Elves, and traveled around the shores of the Iceswept Bay, settling in the uninhabited regions to the east of the Marauders. Their capital was Mount Stormkeep, located in the depths of the forest.

80-130 YE: The Lavinian Empire begins to Expand

The Lavinian people had lived for long as just one people among many. However, in 80 YE, a new Emperor, Primus Maximus the Imperator, seized power, and he demanded expansion, which the Lavinian people thirsted for anyway. He immediately turned Lavinium into the dominant city on the plains of Lavinia and Ceresia, and by 90 YE he had concluded an alliance with the Nemidians, to their mutual benefit.

The Lavinian Legion attempted to expand southward, but there they were quickly blocked by the Aiyira. In the west, there were the mountains of the Orcei Gladiatores, and in the north, the Arendian forests. The Lavinians desired all of these lands, but they could not yet take them. Their one attempt, an invasion of the Sidhe forests, proved disastrous.

In 115 YE, led by the Emperor himself, they marched into the northern forests unopposed. Some way in, they encountered a Sidhe village, and attacked it, soon defeating it. Several similar 'battles' followed. The Sidhe, in retaliation for these terrible losses, sent raiding parties to the enemy camps, and discovered the one weakness that could destroy the Lavinian legions, and killed Primus Maximus. In sorrow and confusion, the Lavinians retreated, and never again set foot in Sidhe forests for fear of losing their men.

When Primus Maximus was killed in 116 YE, he was deified, and considered a model for all subsequent emperors. However, those immediately succeeding him did not follow in his footsteps, but spent sixty years securing their hold on the territory Maximus himself had captured.

170-190 YE: The Lavinians Destroy the Western Orcs

The Lavinians did not attempt another war for territory until 170 YE, when they invaded the Western Mountains for two purposes - to claim the land for Lavinia, and the remove the Orcish menace that had threatened them from there for quite a while. The Lavinians succeeded in both, and by 190 YE, the orcish race was nearly wiped out, Lavinia had control of the Western Mountains, and any orcs still alive were captured and used as gladiators in the merciless Lavinian coliseums.

200-400 YE: The Aiyira and Lavinians Struggle for Control

Encouraged by the easy victory in the Western Mountains, the Lavinians marched their armies south to the lands of the Aiyira. However, they quickly suffered a loss, in the battle of the Mountain Pass. The Lavinians did not give up, but continued their slow attack. The war continued sporadically for several centuries.

Then, in 380 YE, a new emperor of Lavinia, Tiberius Maximus, was crowned. Impatient with the slow pace of the Aiyiran war, he pulled troops from the Western Mountains and sent them to the warfront. This quickly proved to be a wise move, as the larger Lavinian army soon triumphed over the Aiyirans. In 384 YE, the Aiyira capital was sacked by Lavinia, and the Empire was unopposed on the western half of the continent. However, Tiberius's abandonment of the Western Mountains proved, in the end, disastrous for Lavinia, although the effects of the move were not to be felt for several centuries.

This is not to say that the Aiyira were destroyed. They were merely made a vassal state to the Empire, one kept firmly under the thumb of the empire. Revolts were common, and the Aiyira were a thorn in the Empire's side for centuries, but the nation was no longer a rival on a level plane with Lavinia.

302-310 YE: The Fight for Arendia and the Alliance of Eran

In 302 YE, the Lavinians attempted to expand their ever growing Empire by attacking the horse clans of the Arendian Plains. This campaign suceeded, for there was no Arendian nation at this point, only scattered, nomadic clans, who would as often fight amongst themselves as combat an invading army. There was, however, one hope for the Arendians, a new leader called Eran who unites his people under one banner by slaying a powerful dragon. He made a final stand in the north of Arendia against the massive Lavinian army, but there was no actual fighting.

The Lavinians, impressed by this show of incredible courage and honour, approached the Arendians with a peace treaty, called the Alliance of Eran, which allowed the Lavinians to call upon them for aid in wars at any time. In exchange, the Arendians would be allowed to exist as a seperate and independent country. This would prove to be a fruitful alliance.

400-800 YE: The Golden Age of Lavinium

This was the height of the Lavinian Empire's power. No nations rivaled it, and it controlled almost all of the continent. It even held some sway over the forestlands, as the newly risen Arendian nation has allied itself with the Lavinians, providing both more fighters and a bulwark against a possible Marauder invasion. In 650 YE, to strengthen this control, some Lavinian settlers traveled north of Arendia, to the small plains in between the Marauder and the Sidhe forests, and founded the province of Silvia.

Indeed, in this time, there were few important military conflicts to speak of. It was called the Golden Age of Lavinium. The legionnaires in the Lavinian army were used only to put down orcish slave revolts, and even those sometimes went unopposed. The orcs would simply flee to the Western Mountains, where they posed no threat, for their numbers had been so decreased.

It was, perhaps, this life of ease that led to the ease of the Marauder conquest centuries later.

800-890 YE: Marauder Raids on Silvia and Arendia

When the Lavinians gave up control of the Western Mountains, they also gave up control of the Orcs, and the only location where they could train troops in battle effectively. As the Lavinians lost prestige among the populace, and skill in battle, the Marauders and the Western Orcs grew less frightened, and began making more and more raids on Lavinian soil. Some attempts were made to stop this, but in 870 YE the Lavinian Empire essentially accepted them as a fact of life when it made a treaty with the marauders.

This pact said that the Marauders could raid Lavinian settlements as long as they did not kill too many men, and as long as they did not retaliate if the raid was destroyed. In return, the Lavinians agreed to only kill Marauder warriors when attacked, and not to kill Marauder nobles, but to capture them or force them to retreat.

890-900 YE: Silvia Falls to the Marauders

The Lavinians probably realized that their empire was crumbling around them, but they did nothing to prevent it, and even hastened its fall with the Marauder Treaty. Around 890 YE, the Marauder house of Wylflings, with the aid of the Frost Elves, broke the treaty - though they claimed the Silvians broke it, and they were simply retaliating - and launched a full-fledged invasion of Silvia. They quickly defeated the Lavinian force protecting it, and forced its tribune, Caius Regilius, to flee. In desperation, Caius tried to involve the Sidhe in the war, since both Lavinia and the Sidhe hated the Marauders, but his attempts failed when the one Sidhe lord friendly to him, Leithan, was killed. Caius was forced to return to Lavinia in disgrace, in 892 YE.

Because the Legion was short on skilled officers, Caius was returned to the front in 894 YE. He tried to retake Silvia, but managed only to defend the Pass of Arendia for six years. At that time, the Marauders defeated him and took the mountains of Arendia.

910-930 YE: The Battle for Lavinia is Lost

When the Marauders defeated Caius Regilius in the Pass of Arendia, they did not immediately invade, but slowly resettled Silvia with marauders and claimed the Mountains of Arendia as their own. Then, in 920 YE, led by the king Alfric, they began gathering troops in the Mountains.

The Arendians, realizing that the final battle was to come, and that it would take place on Arendian soil, sent word to Lavinia for aid. All of the nations under Lavinian protection came to the battle.

The final battle took place in 928 YE. The Marauders, with their Frost Elven allies, fought against the Arendians, Lavinians, and Nemidians in pitched battle. The war raged for five days, but in the end, the Marauders were victorious.

945-955 YE: Lavinium Falls

In the 25 years after the Battle of Arendia, Lavinia had been overrun by wandering Marauder bands. However, in all that time, Lavinium held, and so, at least in theory, the Empire survived. That changed in 950 YE, when a Marauder tribe led by Alfhelm the Wise beseiged the city. The city survived for five years, but in the end it fell, and the last Imperator, Quirinius Maximus, was beheaded by a Marauder axe.

In the year 951 YE, seeing that Alfhelm's army was all away south in Lavinia, the Sidhe Elves, led by Vaniyera, successor of Leitha, prepared to take their revenge upon the Marauders. They used a devious tactic while the war raged on to capture the Marauder lands and expell their women and children. After this, the Marauders continued the war, but had no home to return to. Some went back to the forests to prepare for war against the Sidhe, and some continued the attack on Lavinia. Thus ended the Second Age, the Age of the Empire.

Continue to the Age of the Knight...