1 Kingdom of Circen

In a world plagued by wars and power struggles, there existed one entity that stood unrivaled. Its power was such that no neighboring continent, country or kingdom dared to offend. Its power was such that the entire continent ended up submitting to its rule and would prosper or decline with it.

This superpower was The Great Kingdom of Circen. It started out as a small kingdom in the year 1941, its population was made mostly of scientists, scholars, merchants and farmers who toiled day and night to make their Kingdom stand tall and proud. Its army was not immensely large, however the determination, bravery and unwavering will of its soldiers made up for the lack of manpower.

Its King, his majesty Aldrich Circen the first, led his troops valiantly to establish the very first stronghold of the Kingdom in the Valley of Rosen. The valley was flanked by two impossibly imposing peaks with a surface of sheer rock. It began as a small settlement with mostly tents and some minor construction while they toiled day and night to construct the first wall and the entrance and exit of the valley to defend from possible invaders. During a period of peace, the settlement expanded and became a gigantic city where trade boomed and visitors, more frequently than not, ended up settling down forever. There was a road that followed the central path of the valley and went from the North Gate all the way to the South Gate without any obstacles. King Circen refused to build a gigantic palace and instead built a large-scale cluster of villas centered around a life-size statue of himself atop his war steed.

Throughout the generations, the descendants of King Circen allowed this beautiful Kingdom to expand, waging wars for territory against the barbarians in the north, the witch tribes in the south and the nomadic warriors in the western desert, and pushing for more advanced technology to better the life of its citizens.

This beautiful image shattered when the 16th King of Circen took the throne in year 2718. Anthony Circen the 3rd, a scourge the likes of which the world of Temperies had never seen. A power hungry, greedy and lustful ruler. The taxes he imposed made the peasants suffer, the wars he waged made the army suffer, the laws he set segregated the population and brought a discriminatory spirit upon the upper-class citizens. They regarded the less wealthy as slaves that could only toil away on their lands to make them wealthier. This newly installed king decreed that the royal city will no longer be in the valley of Rosen as there was no palace fit for a king in that location. He squandered the kingdom's money to build an immense castle on the eastern plains of Dakara, leaving the Valley of Rosen to be a defense pass on the road to the new royal city of Anthus.

During the abominable King's rule in year 2763, the technology of the Kingdom made major breakthroughs in their energy research as they uncovered the presence of an unknown energy source in the atmosphere surrounding them. The discovery of this omnipresent energy dubbed Aether, allowed the military scientists and researchers to push for further breakthroughs in the weaponry and equipment of the kingdom's army, leading to the development of aether weaponry such as rifles, cannons and armored vehicles. The new era brought by this new technology allowed the Kingdom of Circen become the leader in manufacture and distribution or military supplies to other continents and kingdoms.

Fueled by greed and a lust for power, the King built forge cities to better equip his armies, develop new aether weaponry and forge wares for trade. With the increase in the demand for aether weaponry and armament, the forge cities slowly expanded and the air in the forge cities became so polluted that citizens could not live past the age of forty years. The population of the cities were dwindling fast due to the increasing death rate, as such all kinds of criminals and despicable beings were punished by being sent to work in the forge cities. Those cities slowly turned into lawless areas where crime reigned supreme and death loomed at every corner. Any child born in a forge city was bound to live a life of suffering and martyrdom unless they could find a way to travel or be sent to other cities. Forced to carry loads of metal to the forges, forced to learn how to operate machinery from a young age, deprived of their childhood and forced to struggle for their lives, they were children forsaken by the Kingdom.

Over time, due to the expansion of the forges, the cities became unbearably hot, the fumes from the forges caused a greenhouse effect and the temperature rose. The high crime rate combined with the extremely high death rate and the increasingly high temperatures led to those cities being labeled as Hell Gates, the largest of which was the city of Granden.

The city of Granden was the largest forge city of Circen covering an area of about fifty square miles with the central forge taking up more than thirty percent of it. Most of the structures were built out of dark colored stones called Teneb Stones to prevent the heat from affecting the people within the structures. The inner city was where the forges lied, giant pumps and bellows, gigantic fire pits, pipes and tubes of all kinds layered the area and the sounds of hammering could always be heard.

Further from the center of the city was the craftsmen quarters where all the people involved in forging lived, the area was quiet and made up of tall Teneb Stone constructions housing thousands of forging experts and designers of all sorts.

After the craftsmen quarters came the merchants' districts. The merchant district was the place to live if you were wealthy enough to afford the price of the houses there. The district was filled with villas and mansions of various sizes, each one more elegant and luxurious than the next. They housed wealthy merchants mostly, but also a few court officials and nobles who managed the city. Further away from the city center, on the outskirts of the city, was the farmers land where all the crops and livestock providing food to the city were.

People from Hell Gates were shunned and rejected by the population of other cities and towns. Due to the notoriety of forge cities as criminal havens, other cities feared accepting such citizens as they didn't know what sort of criminals or evil individuals these people could be. The citizens of those cities were lucky that these individuals from forge cities could easily be identified due to their darker skin tones, ill manners and raucous behavior, and hence avoided any contact with them.