When Mur first called out to the dreaming people of the West, it was the Taur who answered.
Out of the forests they came, crawling, to hear his summons, lifting their faces to his pale light. His whispers woke them from the fairy dreams that kept them helpless, taught them how to burn the trees for warmth, how to fashion spears so that they might catch the animals, to wear their skins and eat their flesh.
Mur called louder, and those who heard him clearest rose up to serve him, receiving his touch. His chosen led the Taur to great encampments to protect them from the fairies. They taught the people how to ward their dwellings and how to sear their meat to end the dreaming.
Mur bellowed, and the Taur poured into the east, cutting and burning back the forests. Fearsome spirits moved among the people, inciting them to a great war against the fey people of the serpent, and rooted out the goblins and their masters.
The most faithful of Mur's followers reached the shores of the circle sea, a great basin of plenty. Mur was waiting for them, and he rejoiced at their strength and devotion, and rose up into the heavens to give them light.
There on the shores of the sea, the Taur settled and became populous, and the waves rang with songs in praise of him.
The Seree came then from the west, at first as explorers, then traders, and then, fleeing the fall of Rumea, as invaders.
Though they worshipped the dead, some had heard Mur's call, and they became strong in his light. They fought from afar, shooting arrows from horseback in the Rumean manner, and their kings raised forts of wood and stone.
The Taur fought them viciously, but the Seree soon learned to receive Mur's blessings. Jihan and Boroden fell in the first wars, and the heirs of the first invaders conquered all the way to the sea. Within a century they ruled the south, sapping the land and the people with levies and demands of tribute.
Though conquerers, they were few in number, and the Seree lords mixed their blood with their subjects and took to their customs. Although the Seree use of coinage became common, and their practice of writing spread, their traditional worship of the dead fell into obscurity.
On the shore of the circle sea, at the site of Mur's alightment, they built a great capital - Torin, a gleaming city of towers. At its heart, they built a great Temple, from where they sent out knighted priests to spread a uniform doctrine of Mur's teachings, that all might hear his voice.
The Mirese were led by a different star.
A hardy race with sea water for blood, they had learned to live in the barren expanses of Lizorl, etching a grim existence among the wind-blasted rocks. There they hid, living in rough domes of stone erected above the salty pools where they fished.
The most tenacious of them had dwelled in the mountains of Mori Patsir, where their blood mingled with the spirits of the place: gnomes and trolls, from whom they wrested the secrets of the earth.
They mastered the subtle substance of the world, learning how to raise castles to challenge the very mountain peaks, and to weave new truths from thought alone.
The Mirese came south in great ships, bearing hard steel and the cold flame of the mountains. They brought kings, also, to the middle lands of Rielle and Yobora, and hard laws to bind their new people.
The lords of Torin rose to war; armies were raised, and wicked enchantments were sewn. As the land gave up its riches, great castles and fortresses sprawled across the land, beyond anything seen even in ancient Rumea.
But even among the white-skinned Mirese, Mur's voice had been heard. Confronted by the true Temple, their resolve was broken, and the servants of Mur scattered the princes of the north, taking their steel and their lands.
For a time, a house of emperors ruled over the the greatest nation of men that the world had ever seen, stretching from the frozen peninsula to the southern wastes of Jihan. A citadel was built in Dolus, high enough to touch the vault of the sky, and the land of men pulsed with the will of its masters.
Man, however, had not escaped his beginnings, for fairy flowers still grew in the wilder places. While men grew proud in the light of Mur, the fairies had tunnelled deep into the earth, and there they had tapped the foulest root of the eldest of trees, and released its black sap into the waters.
The fey poison coursed through streams and rivers, springs and wells. The people of the north had known nothing of warding, nor of searing their meat, and as the years had passed the Dolus princes had forgotten these teachings also. In time, they began to dream again, and the will of man grew slack.
Fairy lights came to dance in the forests once more, and the night became thick with the howling of their beasts. Trees choked the roads, vines pulled down the old castle walls, and the great watch houses were lost or unreachable.
In the villages and towns, goblins stole through the streets to snatch sleeping the children from their beds.
The knights of Mur rode from their temples to reclaim their dominion in the name of their emperor, but their valor had waned. Greedy, impious barons rebelled, and wars divided the empire.
Mercenaries and outlaws ravaged the countryside, while the villages became encampments and towns became fortresses. Inside, the people cowered, taking comfort in what remained of the old rituals.
