Tudenan

Appearance
Tall and beautiful by most standards, the Tudenan are an elegant yet efficient race originating in the northeast quadrant of Eldham, although it is believed that they share an ancestor race with the Niedine.

They posess long, well groomed hair in colours ranging from red, brown, blonde and white, although their aesthetic, hedonistic nature means that they are not uncommonly seen with unnatural hair colours.

Upon their foreheads they posess either horns or small antlers, they almost always posess a muscular build, and are known for their legendary ability to revel and celebrate at every possible opportunity. In the old Kingdom of the Tudenan before they were wiped out, their capital city had an entire district specifically for this purpose, holding daily parades, drunken brawls, and tavern events for all to join. Upon near-death, a Tudenan has the ability to hibernate, forming a cocoon of ivory around themselves until healed or ready to return.

After their near-extinction and eons-long slumber at the hands of the Foraith however, their culture lost much of its hedonistic qualities, becoming very cautious when communicating with outsiders.

they posess red blood, skin as pale as snow, eyes of almost any colour, and teeth sharp like a canine.

Their voices are rythmic, each word being enunciated as if it were a lyric in a solemn poem, their accents slow and deliberate yet eloquent and gripping. it is said that their voices are so penetrating to the ears that they can even touch the hearts of wild animals, calming or enraging them with ease.

Early history
A sister race of the Niedine, the Tudenan are believed to have originated in the central northern region of Rathnir before travelling all the way to the eastern pangaea where they settled and developed. Many thousands of years before the first Niedine began to spread as an empire, the Tudenan had already formed a kingdom spanning as far as the eye could see in all directions. They were always aware of attacks from all directions due to a watchtower network across their kingdom, which made every single region know what direction danger was coming from and allowed them to muster forces before an attack even began.

The middle Tudenan Kingdom period
The period historically referred to as the middle Tudenan Kingdom period is the space of time beginning at the peak of Tudenan expansion until their eventual decline.

After the Tudenan Kingdom reached it's peak size of twenty two cities spread sparsely across Eldham. But as their resources wore thin decadence was still rife within every city, but none as bad as the capital, where the military and political leader had become lazy and disconnected from everyday folk.

the first sign of collapse came when Tudenan started to disappear. First it was vagabonds, then villages, then cities. Only when six whole cities had been abandoned did the Tudenan high king try to find the root of the problem, but at this point it was too late.

The First Foraith War
When High king Manafax investigated the disappearances, he came across a startling descovery; they were not alone in the world, for their Northernmost city (which would later become Tsarsgard) had been ravaged and then completely erased by a strange and deeply religious race known as the Foraith. These Foraith had removed everything except for a few scattered artefacts which they seemingly ignored oit of what could only have been fear at thir immense power.

Manafax rallied his entire army and charged northward, blasting apart the Foraith horde in a decisive victory. Despite his inflated ego at this however, his young prince Aerobous back at the capital was fighting off a horde over ten times the size of his father's, with nothing but a few servants, golems and a pack of wolves to defend him. Barely escaping alive, the prince had to retreat into the Underrealm, a subterranean network of caves and tunnels believed by the Tudenan to exist on a plane separate from our own.

After returning home to the capital, Manafax 's tired army was slaughtered by the remains of former citizens, reanimated as ghoulish undead to fight on behalf of the Foraith. After eight days of warfare, the Tudenan were finally "victorious", although they had lost all but five of their cities in this war, along with over two million citizens. After High King Manafax succumbed to his wounds, Aerobous was coronated as high king and began the restoration of the kingdom.

the Second Foraith War/War in Heaven
three hundred years after the First Foraith War, High King Aerobous had transformed the kingdom into a formidable force, creating carnthropy, a disease to fight against the undead, along with The Lightning Stone, an artefact so powerful that it bestowed command of the sea and skies to all who touched it. After moving the capital to the Underrealm, Aerobous believed the people would be safe. When the Foraith reappeared, they found themselves fighting a more capable enemy, a new Tudenan Kingdom, supported by its benefactor gods; the pantheon of Denan. With these two ancient forces locked in combat on roughly equal footing, a war of attrition began, lasting nearly two thousand years. The final battle came abruptly, when Culaine, Leader of the carnthropic army was slain and reanimated, making his way towards the High King, who at that time was defending the Lightning Stone from Crace, God and Creator of the Foraith. Catching him by surprise, Culaine rammed his waraxe through Robot's back, sending him into his ivory cocoon immediately. When all was thought to be lost, it turned out that the Foraith would cause their own downfall. Believing himself victorious, Crace activated the stone in the belief that it would grant him dominion over the sea and sky. The stone rejected him, weakening his grasp on the minds of the Foraith, freeing some of them, and destroyed his physical body. Then, the stone all but eradicated the countless hordes of Foraith in a storm that enveloped much of the Pangaea and dragged all but its peaks below the waves. The endangered Tudenan unanimously entered their ivory cocoons, and the last Foraith still loyal to Crace labored away at the entrance to the Underrealm, sealing it with their calcified, Blackstone bodies, waiting for a salvation that would never come.

The Dawn Period
Not long after the final battle, the earliest empires began to form in Rathnir and Eldham. The remaining Foraith withered and devolved over eons until they were eventually destroyed by the earliest settlers of the region from Rathnir and elsewhere. As civilisation spread across the world, the Tudenan slumbered, great historic events such as the Gold wars completely unbeknownst to them.

Present Day
Soon after the early Tsarindom of Auralich formed on the re-emerging island at the entrance to the Underrealm, the Tudenan began to wake up. While surprised to see all manner of primitives now developed to a similar level as they had done, nothing could have prepared them for the existence of a civilised Foraith help in leading the nation.

After many struggles, including the death of the Tsarin, a returned Aerobous was chosen as a successor, and has led peacefully within the Tsarindom ever since, always keeping one eye focused on the Underrealm that lies below.