For many it was no surprise when the vitruvians’ experiment faltered, at least in the westron tetrachate, given the history of relations between the two dominant ruling classes. Ever since the dawn of creation, when the Primordial Concupiscence first moulted the Archon-Abscissions into the seedling realm, the forebears of the elves and the kaizo-kin had been at odds with each other. For while the kenotic-minded Abscissions, seeing the the newborn world created from a mere quarter of their former vessel’s infinite power, thought to make good of the start of their independence among the material plane, the henotic-minded Abscissions longed to return to the transcendental planes and be dissolved once more into the ocean of the Primordial Concupiscence’s immaterial flesh. From the side-lines the two pantheons of Abscissions watched as the phantom limbs of the Primordial Concupiscence bent and stretched and tangled themselves together in an innumerable myriad of phantom limbs that grew to shape the very earth of the realm. And as the earth took shape, only a brave quarter of the infinite souls that shone in the skies of the firmament above were roused by the beauty of creation and inspired to descend down towards the earths with a taste for Samsara in their hearts, and they became phantasiai in the dream of sleeping godhead of Primordial Concupiscence as they were kneaded and shaped into mortal men and fauna by the phantom limbs of the godhead's dream.

And gazing upon the beauty of material creation and fervor of all the earthern-souls as they partitioned themselves into jivatma and paramatma and became human, then the kenotic-minded Abscissions began to covet the good they saw within the material realms and resolved to descend into the world as well, styling themselves as gods as they came unto the people and fauna of the world and disseminated the plemoras of Wuxing and Waidan alchemy. Purporting themselves as gods to earthern-souls, the kenotic abscissions were adored by many and esteemed by most, and as such began to covet the praises of the humans as their own unfettered hubris grew. Soon mighty temples and grand ziggurats began to be erected at the behest of the kenotic “gods” by their disciples and the kenotic gods spirited away a quarter of the humans and consecrated them in their own image to serve the kenotic gods as concubines and serfs; and they called these consecrated men, “Elves.”

However, looking upon the actions of their kenotic cousins and despairing at the realization that the new self-styled gods had given the humans the knowledge of waidan and cultivation magics for the sake of playing king-maker and engaging their neophytes against each other in petty wars for the sake of bloodsport, the henotic-minded Abscissions deigned to descend upon the earths as well, styling themselves as the true gods and denouncing the divinity of their kenotic-minded cousins. Taking for themselves an equal portion of the remaining population of unchanged humans and disseminating to their new disciples the plemoras of ba-gua and neidan alchemy, the henotic gods dubbed their neophytes, “kaizo-kin,” as they set to work rearranging their human bodies in their own image instead for the sake of waging war against the kenotic gods and all their disciples in the name of glorious tandava.

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In the end, although the hubris of the self-styled gods did portend their demise, mankind persisted, and the world was left broken and scarred, yet intact. In the wake of the gods’ war the various decentralized sects of ethnically-kenotic elvish men and kaizo-kin waged war both against each other and among themselves, and were often forced to rely on human kings to act as intermediaries between their lands for the sake of trade and commerce. However, due to the humans’ naturally shorter lifespans compared to those of elven and kaizo kind human monarchs often preferred to arrange marriages between elves and kaizo-kin for their heirs in order to prevent a crisis of succession, as opposed to other humans. As a result, though the lands atop the phantom limbs of the all-but-forgotten Primordial Concupiscence, the original godhead, changed hands and names over the centuries as dynasties rose and fell and the races of men drew and redrew borders, in the end, there was only ever one great kingdom accredited to human-kind in the histories; the kingdom of Vitruvia.

After a series of costly external wars with its neighbors, the kingdom of Vitruvia was forced to split itself into western and eastern tetrachates for ease of bureaucratic administration. However, although the eastern tetrachate may have made out alright during the partitioning, the western tetrachate, which was notably more rural and boasted far more insular ethnic enclaves than its eastern counterpart, was constantly beset by both even more external wars along its borders as well as internal civil wars among the senators of provinces with notably large ethnic enclaves of elves and kaizo-kin. As a result, a myriad of budget cuts rendered the western senate unable to maintain the standing army necessary to defend their borders and the senate was forced to hire foedarati and private militias in the interim as a temporary solution while the economy stabilized enough for the department of the treasury to be able to pay back all of its promissory debts to the department of defense; a hope that would be dashed in the end, as the economy’s downward spiral only worsened, leading to a foedarati militia sacking the western capital, sounding the deathknell for the tetrachate as the coup forces, unlike all of the predominantly native-born coup armies before them, abdicated their suzerainty of the other provinces.