Athrova is one half of two inextricably linked firmaments, the inside of two half-spheres that surround a common sky. Apollyon, Athrova's twin, lies beyond the sky, across from the sun, Sol.
They are immersed in an inky black tar-like substance; the primordial Chaos from which all life originated. Athrova was cleansed of Chaos by the Archangels long ago (we'll get to that), but Apollyon remains completely shrouded by the Goop. great wording, yes
The sun sits between these two hemispheres. Stars cling to the sun in the day, but across the day the sun's light gradually weakens and becomes the moon, and the stars flock away from it until the absolute dead of night, where the stars nestle in their places in the Runelands at the edge of Athrova.
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I know that this isn't the most elegant or beautiful way to describe this, but here's a table:
| Time | What does the sky look like? |
|---|---|
| Midnight (Runehour) | The stars rest in the Runelands. A gentle band of starlight is dimly visible on the far horizon. The moon, according to the time of year, shines with residual light. In the summer, the moon glows bright overhead. In the dead of winter, right before Ignis, the moon is completely dark. |
| Dawn | The stars, one by one in faint rays of white light, shoot back to the sun, leaving a faint trail visible for a couple seconds. Depending on the time of year, Dawn lasts anywhere from a couple of hours to a full day without full light. |
| Day | Depending on the month, up to 15 hours long the day after Ignis. |
| Twilight | The stars begin to drift away from the sun in recognizable patterns, typically 4-5 at a time. The constellations drift towards the Runelands, always keeping the same House. During the later months, twilight will begin before dawn is finished, and the stars will mingle together; the sky during twilight in these months will look similar to how our own would during a meteor shower. |
The Stars are often studied as minor angels recognizable by their constellations, and most are named. Their resting places in the Runelands are kept guarded and upkept by the Seerbolg.
History arrives with the archangels, Luch and Aria. How'd they get here? Where'd they come from? iunno. When they arrive, they wage war upon Chaos, beating it back over centuries until eventually, finally, Athrova is reclaimed. The Astiri are present in Athrova before the angels arrive, but when they do arrive, they have children with the minor angels, and these children eventually become the human race. The original main-land Astiri die off, but a faction that lives on Strosskr, isolated by the harsh geography, remain until present day. All humans can trace some small lineage to angels.
After Chaos was beat back from the lands, the Archangels established an empire in what is now Foit around a massive miles-high geyser called the Lock. After a schism that modern scholars don't understand, Luch and Aria split from one another and left their empire -- some say it was bloody, some say it was peaceful. Luch established an empire in the west called Tehrn, and Aria established one in the east called Vasta. These empires, through direct lineage, are still ruled by their heirs today.
The ruins of the ancient empire, filled with divinity and latent power, twisted the plants and animals surrounding the Lock, forming Foit into the deadly and magical jungle that it is today. Yet many powerful artifacts still remain in the jungle, buried in temples overgrown with vines and cracked by tree roots. Explorers often venture into these lands seeking power and rarely return. Even the most powerful modern theurgy can't create items with even a fraction of the power of those from the age of stars.
After centuries of ruling Athrova, the archangels and their courts left their empires without explanation and journeyed to a relatively non-populous site at the geographic center of the world southwest of Vasta. There, they performed some unknown rite or ritual and became pure starlight, leaving the world and traveling to Sol, where they presumably still reside. They left behind a massive crater at the site of their exodus. This crater is a lake of pure divinity, all of the remaining power that Luch and Aria had left the world. It is called the Djudikka. The power of the raw divinity animates nearly anything that comes close. The lake is inhabited by small golems, rocks that were given life by the raw power of divinity.
The humans, abandoned by the archangels, descended fairly immediately into wars of expansion. Tehrn was particularly vicious in its expansion, annihilating countries that surrounded it. Vasta and Tehrn clashed brutally, although they were kept separate by Foit, which neither dared send land troops through.
Eventually, a band of disparate countries formed an alliance and eventually a third empire in order to face the massive and greedy threats from the east and west. This empire was called Meretes, and they managed to remain independent for hundreds of years as a bulwark against the massive empires. Although Meretes appeared united, however, the power within it certainly were not, and internal power struggles (abetted by intervention from Tehrn and Vasta both) boiled over into the bloodiest and deadliest war in Athrova's history. Millions perished in the civil war, civilian and military alike, until finally after nearly fifty years of brutal struggle, peace was brokered by an old nation, Relos. Relos had originally been one of the founding countries of Meretes, and now they were the cause of its dissolution. Borders were hastily drawn up, and four new countries rose from the ashes of Meretes: Relos, Kifty, Ikunohon, and Irevond.
Although the archangels had purged Chaos from Athrova, it remained hidden within the earth, in caverns and shadows across the land in the form of chaos seeds. These chaos seeds, when exposed to a living creature, would snap onto the creature and pilfer its flesh, horrifically mutating it into a viral seed factory. Whole cities were destroyed by incursions, and the only effective solution appeared to be fire. Evacuations were performed, land sectioned off, and cities burned. After decades of traveling to these sites and learning from these incursions, an uhani named Xanthus discovered that chaos seeds could be overcome by willpower, and someone with sufficient force and control of will could swallow a chaos seed without mutating, conferring a massive amount of raw power and becoming a Chaote. These Chaotes proved valuable weapons against Chaos, capable of absorbing it and containing it safely without resorting to massive controlled fires.
Xanthus was the first with this power, but he understood well the potential of spreading this power. He founded Alcheim and brokered treaties across Athrova that would allow trained teams of 4-5 (including at least one chaote) to station across the world, responding to incursions before they could swallow up villages or cities. Now, Alchemian venators hunt down chaos in all its forms across the world.