If the elves had it rough so did the dwarves. It began with the downfall of the disappearance of Kendelbreu’s wealth, forbidden caves’ fortress, uprising of the Kobolds, devastation of Skyholm and finally the most recent, the loss of their king. Was it just ill fate or something else? Both dwarf NPCs and players alike wanted to know.
One and a half years ago (VR time) the dwarves of air kingdom thought they alone could crush the kobolds. Initially, to avoid involving outsiders in their affairs, the late King of the dwarves provided five thousand soldiers and nearly 2000 bull riders (dwarvf’s equivalent to horse riders) to take on the Kobolds. It was more than three times the number of soldiers previously sent to wipe out the kobolds. Alas, their overconfidence and ignorance was their biggest mistake.
It was no longer a war between dwarves and kobolds but rather dwarves and every monster present in the cave. Needless to say, the dwarves suffered a humiliating defeat. Their arrogant march into the forbidden caves, in an attempt to retake it, left them only with losses. Of the 7,000 only 2,000 soldiers were left alive and those left alive were mostly injured. Their arrogant attack only aggravated the situation further; the fight was now brought to the door steps of the Northern City.
Ultimately, in a last ditch effort to save the city, the Northern City’s location was revealed to the world and outsider were allowed inside on the condition to provide protection. It wasn’t a bad barter for players in Air Kingdom, hundreds flocked to Northern City offering their services in lieu of promised war spoils. But even that didn’t help. The kobolds were really alone anymore and this meant more intelligent monsters providing coordination and support. There were crawlers which would fall from the ceilings and swoop up players / dwarves devouring their innards. There were also great worms hiding beneath the soft earth. Hence players refused to leave the stone bed of the city and monsters didn’t dare tread on it. To sum up, neither party had an edge over the other. Both were locked in a fatal stalemate. A slight shift in power would be enough to upset the balance.
That upset came when the king of the dwarves for the air kingdom passed away. The kobold’s and other monsters renewed their attacks on the Northern City and players began bailing out on the city. They could no longer risk their lives on the line without any reward. However, the dwarven society in the Air Kingdom was in state of paralysis. With no king to make important decisions the hands of the royalty were tied down in politics and war generals were asked to manage defences with what they could get by with. The succession of the king took precedence over everything.
How could the dwarvern politicians be so narrow-minded about picking a king?
The answer lay not in their race but rather the history of this Versailles Continent and the unification of warring factions to form the four great kingdoms. The four great kingdoms, Air, Earth, Fire and Water were represented by one elemental king. However, politically so to speak, this king only represented the collective interest of the Air affinity users. Races within each of these four mighty kingdoms were however represented by their respective kings. These sub kings or Kings of races were selected on basis of their historical traditions; monarchy, democracy, or any other method.
The elves were governed by their four councils of the wise and four monarchs (based on 4 primary elements). The council could be divided into two categories; domestic (the ones in majority) and outsiders (minority). To maintain cordial relationships with other elemental elves, each affinity of elf sent a small delegation to represent their affinity’s interest to the other’s council. Hence, each council was represented by all four elements and governed the elvish interest in each of the four kingdoms. The outsiders never interfered (on paper) with the domestic council’s internal affairs. They were more like ambassodars who advised on diplomatic matters. Each of the elvish monarchs would represent their respective affinities.
The humans were governed by their greed. Hence, they found it most difficult to agree upon a single leader within the Air Kingdom. Instead they were governed by local kings or warlords and the race as a whole in Air kingdom was represented through a senate.
The only two races whose political system was vastly different from the previously mentioned were the orcs and the dwarves. The orcs did not have much of a political system. At best what they had were village chiefs. They did not have a single leader or senate or council to represent their political or elemental interest unanimously. Nor did they meddle in anyone’s affairs. They couldn’t be described as friendly…but they certainly weren’t bandit like war mongerers either. The orcs of Elementarem Vim were very different from what one has seen in Royal Road. They did not pry on weak humans nor did they pester the elves. Picking on the weak would only bring the orc shame. Instead, they loved to fight the strong monsters and Elementarem Vim had plenty of strong monsters for them to fight.
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The dwarves were the next race which had a very ideologically different political system. They were the only race which could put aside their elemental differences for something greater…their love for stone and blacksmithing. The best crafted items were prepared in teams of different elemental dwarves. Hence, the entire dwarf race across four kingdoms was united in a sense of passion and purpose. The dwarves were divided into 13 clans. Each clan had equal representation in all four kingdoms. To represent dwarvern interest in all matters (affinity related or not), a king was elected from the 13 clans.
Each races representatives in the four kingdom’s would elect an elemental king. Why and who came up with such a cumbersome idea? It was to end the era of warring factions. Earlier, there were hundreds of smaller warring nations. It didn’t matter which affinity you came from but rather which nation. Wars would often break out on petty reasons (you stole my bread knife! WARRR!!). In an attempt to end such meaningless conflict and protect the dying population of races (monsters don’t discriminate based on their victim’s affinity)…(this is the part most players find weird when reading the history)…the four mythological Gods desceneded fromt the heavens and divided the continent in four parts before returning to their adobe.
Since it happened, hundreds of years ago, most NPCs believe that it wasn’t divine intervention rather wisdom born from the fruitless and futile wars. When two fire tribes fought say over land, some earth users would intervene last minute when both sides were weakened and take the land for themselves. When such occurances happened many times, the warring nations finally learnt to put aside their differences and united under an elemental banner. When they noticed how effective such an alliance was and that the spoils of war were greater than before…a united elemental front was born. Those alliances grew bigger and bigger, till they evolved to the present state of four kingdoms… or at least that’s what the historians believe and they are at serious odds with the religious version of the history of 4 kingdoms. All players and NPC’s knew that god existed (some like Lee Jun, had experienced this) however the historians did not believe that God’s could actually materialize and would bother intervening over such petty reasons. Furthermore, there was historical paper evidence of proving without doubt the existence united element front.
Whatever the true history maybe, the crux of the situation was that dwarves needed to elect a king immediately. The matter was most important since the dwarves were the only race with the same person representing their dwarvish interest to all four elemental kingdoms. Without a dwarven king to represent their interest…the elves could pass a resolution banning entry of different affinity dwarves into the kingdom (The elves often tried doing that, it gave them pleasure to no ends troubling the dwarves). The human senate and dwarf pact was very limited. Since, humans would easily forget all vows and easily and cave into lust and greed. The dwarves had a saying, if a queen of the elvish race were to reveal her legs, then thousands of humans would fall. The dwarvish opinion of both elves and humans was very low…Thus, the election of a dwarven king took precedence over everything.
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Authors Note:
1. This is a rather short chapter. But bear with me. I promise more politically content heavy material! Kidding, I just like history and politics. I also dislike it when LMS skips through history or just begins talking about it without really giving a proper introduction / background. So for the time being, I wanted to place a in a little filler before we get to the main course.
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Connect to Royal Road – Elementarem Vim next Chapter?YesNo
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