History of the Aurlûnor Velande

The Aurlûnor Velande has a very long and complex history- perhaps one of the most so of all the nations in Rathnir. This article summarizes both the lore history and the in-game history of the Velande in greater detail than the nation's main page.

Geologic History
The prehistoric landscape of southwestern Syltor over 250 million years ago was once very swampy, as indicated by extensive mudstone and coal deposits located around the region. These swamps were home to various large vertebrates, most of which are of currently unknown taxonomy. Colloquially and historically referred to as "dragons" (or at least "dragon bones"), the various behemoths of this ancient era have been assumed to be large amphibians, reptiles, something intermediate between the two, or the remains of the dragons known throughout Aurlûnoran mythology. Today their remains are most commonly found in the deserts of Sharla and Erume provinces, as well as in the coal mines of Nir. It is through the coal swamps that much of the iron and coal mined today across the Velande was formed.

Between 240 and 205 million years ago a period of mountain-building known as the Sokalian Orogeny, named after the old Takumakken name for Helemar, occurred from what is now south Vorosan up through the north of the country into Norfthorn. This mountain range would be known as the Melwende Shan. A large piece of subducted and partially molten crust is hypothesized to have been thrust upward from the mantle, forcing the mountains upward. It also displaced significant amounts of its own molten mass and existing magma, which was forced upward into the faults in the fractured rock that comprised the newly-formed mountains.

The displaced magma created the vast number of igneous plutons of varying composition- allowing for diorite, andesite, and granite to form under the Melwende Shan in close proximity. This variety of stone is used in building today. It also created an impermeable barrier between the water-saturated upper rock and soil of the Nir swamps and the old mudstone beneath, known as the Nir Aquifuge. This allowed the city of Helemar to become a mining town despite being located in a low-lying swamp.

Eventually the Melwende Shan would be worn down through nearly 200 million years of weathering, creating a small band of floodplains that extended the coastline into the Lothranis Sea. The prevailing climate was very cool and dry, and the mountains formed a rain shadow over the western half of the country. The east, however, had vast floodplains that extended to the northern shores of the Great Southern Ocean and Phagosian Sea. By the end of the erosion of the mountains though, the climate shifted, drying out the east and turning the west into the humid climate it bears today.

The Fornois Ranges (Fornoisian: les Monts de Fornois), subdivided into the Northern Mountains (Monts del Nors), Morning Mountains (Monts del Mornan) and Mount Drelgaon (Mont Drelgaon), located in the provinces of Alvada and Veassda, are regarded as the last standing remains of the Melwende Shan. The dry climate persisted there longer, and as a result that region is more montane than the former southern stretch of the Melwende Shan.

Prehistoric Settlement
The first human cultures known to archaeology and folk history in the Aurlûnor Velande are the guren- literally meaning "ancient people" in the Aurlûnoren language. Their oldest artifacts are dated roughly to 74,500 years ago, and a strong tradition is maintained throughout the incredibly long time these cultures existed. Originally foragers, the guren would later develop agriculture in the regions favorable to the cultivation of cereal crops around 11,000 years ago. They grew mostly millet and wheat, supplementing this diet with farmed or foraged vegetables and fruit and with hunted meat. Coastal and swamp-dwelling guren villages also fished extensively.

The Dawou culture was an ancient pre-civilized human culture inhabiting what is now Imperial province. Dawou migrants would introduce agriculture eastwards, and new ethnic groups- the Fai, Nû, and Yi'yen- would spawn as a result of these migrations and cultural exchange between they and the native foragers. Though initially tribal chiefdoms, they slowly coalesced into true states during the bronze age.

At the same time as the guren agricultural revolution, elves began to migrate from the west of Syltor, settling in modern day Tacua province. The Elven Migration Period, as it is known, lasted for over two millennia and saw the introduction of rice agriculture to Syltor, and the further migration of elves into the deserts. The desert dwellers would become the Dune Elves of Ashura, and the Tacuan elves would found the city and later kingdom of Ardol on the shores of the Lothranis Sea.

Areas left mostly uninhabited by elves and humans alike became home to the various tribes of Kumiho who would settle in the Hampo region, on the Lothranis' eastern shore. The strip of subtropical forest between the sea and desert would prove valuable to both the indigenous Kumiho civilization and later the imperial interests of Almador and Aurlûnor alike.

The Kingdom of Almador
king maxion and shit idk

lots of humies died

The Warlord Period
almador goes *glass shatter sound effect*

Rise of the Velande
[basically all of the lore before the in-game founding]

Contemporary History
gamers gaming.

if you can't tell I got bored writing and this stuff is WIP right now. ly <3