1 Prologue
The History of Oscanda:
Thousands of years ago, a piece of the moon fell from the sky on a barren continent named Oscanda. The moonstone continued to gleam and outspread energy, flourishing the land. The barren continent became the land of life in no time.
The suddenly flourished barren land attracted the attention of the strong species on the planet. Though many were curious, only the majestic wolf shifters, the vigorous vampires, and the sagacious humans were brave enough to migrate. They flooded the continent and claimed their territories.
The northern mountains where it snowed all the time, were captured by the vampires. Their kingdom was named Bazova. The less disastrous southern farmlands were captured by the humans. Humans named their kingdom, Lanir. The central plains were captured by the wolf shifters and their kingdom was named Arand. Arand luckily became the land where the moonstone was. The wolf shifters found the gleaming stone in the middle of an oasis. It naturally made the wolf shifters the keepers of it. Wolf shifters worshipped and protected the moonstone and kept its existence a secret from other kingdoms.
Not for so long...
Curious of them all, the humans wanted to explore. They dug their way into the other two kingdoms, observing every step of the others. That's how they got to know about the moonstone. They also got to know that despite the stone's location, all the kingdoms were being protected by the divine energy gleaned from it. They wanted it so badly for the greater good of their kingdom. Since they were not strong enough physically to fight the shifters, they shared the news with the Bazovians.
The athletic of them all, the vampires, being immortals, found it interesting. They wanted excitement and power, thus they hopped into Arand.
Bazovians with the help of Lanirs sneaked into Arand. They killed the moonstone guards and uprooted the moonstone making its gleam disappear. The energy flow vanished from the ground.
The righteous of them all, the wolf shifters chose to forgive.
However, things got complicated when more and more illegal intruders were caught in Arand in the following years. It went to the point of irreversible enmity when a vampire attacked a wolf-shifter child. The judiciary that existed in that era held the vampire accountable for the incident. Nevertheless, similar incidents continued in both Lanir and Arand. The hungry vampires marked their prey, the lovelorn vampires marked the human women, and occasionally the wolf-shifter women, by force. The bond between Bazova and Lanir was broken. The targets were mostly children and women.
Since peace didn't work out, without any options, the Arand king finally declared war on Bazova.
Outnumbered by the shifters who possessed the almost same superpowers as them, the vampires had to flee their land. Most of the vampires escaped to the other continents and never showed interest in returning. The royals who loved their land so much fled and hid amongst the humans in Lanir using their human-like appearance. They couldn't mingle with the shifters since they possessed no shapeshifting abilities.
That's how Arand became the strongest of all three dominions, eliminating their only potential threat, the vampires. Bazova became the protectorate of Arand.
The Lanirs and the Arands amicably settled their disputes and lived peacefully on their lands after the war between Bazova and Arand.
Not for so long!!!
When the shifters found more human spies in their kingdom, they cut all the economic, and political ties with Lanir. Half of the Hangroove forest, the border between Lanir and Arand, was demilitarized in the agreement of the two kingdoms. The other half of Hargrooves was strongly protected by the shifters.
From that day onwards, even the demilitarized half of the Hargrooves became forbidden to humans.
The righteous wolf shifters loathed lawbreakers the most. Anyone who intrudes into their territory is the most unforgivable criminal to them. Thus, any human who enters the forest will be thrown back out of the woods, as a corpse.
So, it became inevitable for a Lanir to not enter the border forest no matter what. If a Lanir wants to die very badly they may enter the forest!
Years passed without any kind of communication between the two kingdoms.
History became legends. Legends became folklore. Folklores became myths. Myths were forgotten.
Hundreds of years later, still the Hargooves forest remained a mystery to most of the population in Lanir. This generation doesn't know what exists beyond this border forest. Tales were told that the forest was enchanted, and what lived beyond the border were monsters and beasts.
During this period, there was a famine that almost destroyed Lanir. During that hazardous time, the people who lived on the border chose to search for food in the Hangrooves. Those who entered the woods never returned. A few corpses were found in the farmland the next day, proving the idea of the inhuman, hideous beasts hiding beyond the Hangrooves.
These beasts knew no mercy. As strict and rigid as they are, they lacked humanity most of the time. Even the messengers who were forcibly sent to negotiate terms with the monsters returned as corpses.
From that day onwards, a serious enmity arose amongst the Lanirs towards the monsters who lived on the other side of the forest.
The Lanirs began to kill any creature that entered the Lanir ground from Hangrooves.
The Lanir monarch appointed officers to investigate Hangrooves. Also, the king with the guidance of the council of ministers started to devise strategies to kill the intruder beasts and at times to capture them for research purposes. They improved tactics based on folklore and trained the soldiers accordingly. These soldiers settled on the border to guard the border.
The Hangrooves border became the dream of many young hot-blooded warriors of Lanir. Still, the lives of those who tried to monster hunt ended in miserable ways.
Their adventures were limited to the border.
With time the Lanirs became exceptionally good in defense against the beasts but were still unable to cross the woods.
That's how the so-called border forest, is strictly guarded by the wolf shifters patrol, also known as Monsters in Lanir.
Thousands of years later... a lost girl entered the Hangrooves, restarting the story again and complicating things even more!
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The kingdoms:
01. The kingdom of Bazova:
A large landmass that was kept under the control of the less populated vampires. The vampire kingdom spread all over the Eastern ridges mountain. Due to the prolonged rivalry between the most powerful subspecies, the wolf shifters, and the vampires, Bazova was annihilated. The vampires had to flee their homes to survive. A few of the escaped vampires went into hiding in the Lanir, the human kingdom. The vampire royals are still being searched by the wolf shifters.
Bazova currently belongs to the Arands. It's not called Bazova anymore. Currently, it belonged to the Northern Arand governance.
02. The kingdom of Lanir:
The human kingdom. Comparatively the weakest of all the three kingdoms. The most populated kingdom to the present date. The human kingdom remained peaceful by going through so many sacrifices and treaties with the other two. The human spies studied the weaknesses of the shifters and the vampires and recorded them in books. When the shifters came to know this, they killed the spies and burned the books.
Still, a few spies escaped with their books.
After so many years, the facts in these books became folklore and were told throughout the Lanir kingdom.
When the beasts continued to attack the people in the Hangrooves, the king of the humans appointed the selected group of elites to learn defense from these old books. To protect the Lanirs at all costs, they developed strategies based on these books. This strengthened the kingdom very much.
But, no one alive in the Lanir ever saw these folklore beasts. So the young generation started to believe that there are no beasts in reality.
03. The kingdom of Arand:
The most powerful, organized, and the most secretive of all three kingdoms. The borders were strictly protected and anyone entering the border would have perished.
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Subjects:
Vampires feed on blood, no matter what blood it is. They are known to have superpowers like excellent strength, speed, senses, endurance, agility, immortality, and wall-crawling. Vampires are the most powerful in the new moon days.
Subgroups:
01. The royals: The pureblood vampires who can mark/ turn people into vampires.
02. The regulars: The humans changed into vampires (Wolf shifters cannot be changed into a vampire still they can be marked)
03. The resilents: The human-vampire kids.
Humans have no superpowers.
Subgroups:
01. Civilians: Commoners.
02. Hunters: The people who protected the borders from the beasts. They learned martial arts and followed the developed strategies.
03. Tamers: They manifest the power to control the beasts. Their crafts included the major part of enslaving the beasts. The powerful tamers created portions that could affect or kill the beasts in different ways. The tamers' tactics is to promise the beasts anything they wanted in exchange for being enslaved.
The wolf-shifters were known for their excellent strength, speed, senses, endurance, agility, healing, and shapeshifting abilities.
Subgroups:
01. Lefkos: The white wolves who govern the Nothern mountains.
02. Nkris: The grey wolves who protect the Border forest.
03. Kokkirocs: The red wolves who govern the Eastern plateaus.
04. Kafes: The brown wolves who govern the Western deserts
05. Mavros: The black wolves. Mavros is the royal clan that rules Arand. Mavros beta is considered equal to the other alphas. Mavros alpha wolf is always the king of Arand. They live in the central plains, which also could be considered the central oasis of Arand.
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Special traits:
Marking: The vampire venom of the royals can create illusions that could last for months. They also can emotionally indulge/ sexually arouse the prey on the new moon days as the venom could act like a drug. It is a bewitching technique used by them to hunt their prey/ to change a human into a vampire/ for reproduction. This is called marking.
Enslaving: The act of giving the power to control the mind to someone's self. The tamers bargain with vampires and enslave them in exchange for their needs. Enslaving cannot be undone like Marking. Yet, the death of the tamer could free the vampire.
The wolf shifters undergo similar phenomena as well. But that was mainly for their mates. They imprint their other half in three steps.
Enthralling: It means choosing and capturing the bride/ bridegroom. A similar process of marking but the effects affect the one who marks the other, unlike the vampires where the marked ones get affected. On the full moon days, the wolf which enthralled the other would go through severe bodily pain in the absence of their mate.
Engrossing: This is the next step which is also known as enslaving in vampire terms. The lone wolves/ vampires were controlled by the tamers using this method. This is a mind-controlling process. No shifters indulge themselves in this step unless there is a big reason. This process is extremely dangerous to both the vampires and the wolves since it is giving one's consciousness to the other. This is irreversible. Still, just like enslaving, the death of the mate could free the shifters.
The wolf shifters have a final step in this imprinting process nobody knows what the results would be. No known wolf shifters had gone that far. It is called engraving.
