[center][h1]The White Company[/h1]
[i]Seven for seven; Light for Dark;
The drums are rolling. Stand and hark![/i]

[h2]Map of the Northern Lands[/h2]
[IMG]http://i62.tinypic.com/1sbacp.png[/IMG][/center]

[h2]Synopsis[/h2]

Elinor. Fair and beautiful she lies upon the banks of mighty Elebrant. Kingdom of legend. Kingdom of despair.

It is the Fourth Age and all things that have put forth life are now in peril. A Wizard-King rules in the cold North, and his heart is blacker than the night. Themunil, he was called of old, and men praised his justice and fairness. Stern and proud he sat on the Throne of Clouds, ruling over men and beasts. Upon his fair head sat the Elder Diadem and he held the White Scepter of Elinor in his unwavering hand.

Nearly a century ago, a darkness rose in the smoking mountains of Durbatur, near the roof of the world in the very far north. In the beginning, rumours spoke of a nameless menace turning snow into ash. Then, they had a name for it. Tamas, they called it - the Black Wind. It was a formless, brainless evil - seeping out from the very cracks of Creation. Mindless, it moved across the land, scorching air and earth alike, devouring life and turning everything into putrid ash and darkness as it spread.

Mighty Themunil rode out to meet the foe, and was met by misshapen creatures twisted by the mindlessness of Tamas. They were men, but twisted and turned beyond recognition into bestial fighters as mindless as the power that birthed them. The men called them Grulms and slayed them by the thousands. In the end, Themunil rode into the very Pit of Darkness with his seven faithful guards to face the faceless. The power of darkness fought with the might of light. For 18 days the duel raged while his seven guards formed a circle around him. At the end of it, Themunil seemed to have sealed the rent and denied the Dark Power entry into the world of men.

But so spent was he and his brethren that they lay there in the darkness, untouched by time or thought. Outside, the people grieved for their heroic king, sang his praise and returned to their homes. Themunil, to them, had passed on to legend. But within, the King and his men were trapped in an eternal slumber - the final counterstroke of the Darkness.

Now, long after memory has faded into myth, the king awakens. There in that boundless void, when all light left him, he had strayed too far and touched the very thing he had fought. At that moment, the mindless power had flowed into him, replacing the pulse of life with the beat of darkness. The mindless darkness now had a mind and a form. A terrible mind and a powerful form.

Now he reemerges as Gengorid - the King of the Night. Fair Elinor - that mighty kingdom which he once ruled and which forgot him - lies in his path and in his mind. For the world to kneel under his feet in eternal night, Elinor must fall and never rise again.

But hidden deep in the scroll room of the Hall of the Sun is a promise of hope. A few lines of prophecy speak of a hope in the coming darkness. But can these simple words point the path to victory against the coming darkness? Who shall stand against the march of the Wizard-King and his Dreadlords? Who shall lead the people from the eternal night into a new dawn?

[h2]Background[/h2]

[h3]History of the Northern Lands[/h3]

The Ancients believed that our entire continent was raised from the ocean by the Divine Mother in her deep sleep. The cultists of later times thought that we were inhabiting a giant turtle swimming in a great ocean. These days, people don't really worry about our origins. In fact, people don't much care for knowledge these days.

To put down the entire history of these lands will require a nimbler mind than mine. But sadly, unlike the men of old, I am not of strong will or mental acumen. And I am all you have to tell the tale.

Let me, therefore, begin my story from a familiar place - the Yung Riban. It is a phrase from the Old Tongue that men speak not in these dark days, and it means the Age of Rebirth. Or, the Period of Awakening depending on your translator. We count our years from this seminal period in our history. We are in 1233 YR - 1233 years after the awakening. Or so it goes.

The Awakening was a period of great upheaval in the Sinjarin Empire - that mighty behemoth that ruled all the lands with an iron fist for hundreds of years. The Sinjars were descendants of a fairer and taller race of men, and they ruled over the lesser men of the plains using an ancient magic that they called the Somar. They treasured the knowledge that gave them a mighty advantage and an equally mighty sense of entitlement. While there may have been truly god-like kings in the distant past, by the time of the Awakening they were a proud and haughty race, isolated, inbred and indulgent. While their race died out with their refusal to marry outside their clan, their knowledge slowly seeped out of their grasp and reached others. The men of the plains would not allow their oppression to continue.

For ten years the Empire remained in a state of upheaval, with bloody civil wars and peasant revolts bringing the might of the Sinjars crumbling down. As they disintegrated, other kingdoms arose. The magic of the Sinjars was little understood and quickly suppressed lest a similar history befall the peoples. The ones who practiced those arcane arts were cast down from society, held down as symbols of sinister oppression and grim reminders of a bloody past. Somarin they were no more. Narbin, they were called. Honourless.

[h3]Elinor[/h3]

Today, three kingdoms stand now where the Empire once stood. Elinor, Carmalan and Chiron. Of these, Elinor is by far the most powerful and rich. Its lands are watered by the plentiful Elebrant, or the White River as it is called in the Common Tongue these days. The tall peaks of Palantir break the harsh cold winds blowing in from the frigid plains of the north, making for very comfortable climes.

While the Sinjars were hated in their time and cast down as oppressors, it is an irony of fate that monarchs gain legitimacy by claiming Sinjar blood in their veins. But nowhere is this claim truer than in Elinor. The royal line of Elinor was founded by El'al'Bargond I who some people claim was born of an illegal union between a Sinjar noble and a peasant. But no proof is necessary when one looks upon the fair visages of the kings and queens of Elinor.

Of their greatest king Themunil, enough has already been said. Not many today realize that the darkness waiting to pounce on them is actually their old king come back. When Themunil was left for dead in the Pit of Darkness, the line of Bargond ended. And with that ended the remnant of Sinjar blood on the royal throne.

Currently, Elinor is ruled by Queen Teluvil. Due to the untimely death of her father, she became the youngest monarch in Elinoran history at the age of 21. While she has had to make many compromises to consolidate her shaky rule, she is now considered by many as a strong-willed queen who has come into her own.

The Elinorans are fair-skinned, with a heavy build and light-colored hair with usually grey eyes. Their capital city is the beautiful Anora, straddling the Elebrant. By and large, Elinorans are simple farmers, shepherds and blacksmiths and are not given to much philosophizing, unlike their eastern neighbours.

[h3]Carmalan[/h3]

Carmalan is an older kingdom and was one of the first to emerge from the chaos of the rebirth. For much of its history, Carmalan has been plagued by one revolt after another but somehow it seems to survive.

The ruling class of Carmalan is quite reminiscent of the Sinjars in their indulgence and in their beliefs. The Carmalanese nobles are known for their extravagant attires and ridiculously shaped beards.

Carmalan grows the most grain in the world, but frequent rebellions and droughts have made it impossible to maintain a steady trade, thus robbing them of their much needed gold.

[h3]Chiron[/h3]

Chiron is a union of three kingdoms that existed in the dry Pameer region of the west. Owing to strong familial ties among the ruling dynasties and cultural similarities among the peoples, the Union was achieved without bloodshed.

The Chironi lands are hard and rugged and dotted with hills. Much of the economy depends on the iron and silver mines in the north and Chironi steel is known across the world as the best steel.

The Chironi are the only people who have dealings with Dunmen of the south. Regular sea trade is carried out between the two peninsulas.

[h3]The Dunmen of the South[/h3]

Though not officially part of the Sinjarin Empire, the Dunmen of old paid tribute to the Emperor and recognized his overlordship in return for autonomy. When the Empire fell, the Dunmen immediately invaded the borders and extended their borders before proclaiming independence.

50 years ago, with the death of King Akir, the Dunland kingdom was split into two and ruled by his two sons, Nakur and Semma. These two are the Dundar and the Dunras, separated by the Pirash Strait. While intended to work like two arms of the same body, frequent frictions erupt between the two kingdoms.

The Dunmen are bronze-skinned and dark-haired and are known throughout the lands as fierce warriors. The grasslands in northern Dundar are prime breeding grounds of the best horses and these are Dundar’s chief export. Dun horses are valued for their speed and their beauty while Chironi horses are known for their sturdiness.

[h2]Somar – the magic of the Sinjars[/h2]

The word ‘somar’ can be loosely translated to ‘sweet word’ or ‘divine speech’. The Sinjars of old used it in an abstract sense to define the First Cause – the seed of life.

A Somarin is one who is able to hear this sweet word and use it to make new words. The phrases he evokes are called [i]som[/i], or spells. Each spell performs a specific task, such as producing a spout of fire or binding someone with invisible cords of air. By and large, the soms manipulated the four elements. But some harder soms affect a person’s mind as well.

During the time of the Sinjars, the Somarin were revered and held in close counsel by the lords. Their sense of racial purity did not extend to the Somarin who were always considered outside society.

When the Empire fell, the Somarin found themselves branded as accomplices. Many Somarin circles were disbanded and they either went into hiding or rejoined the new nobles under different guises. After the Great Narbin Hunt of 985, the surviving Somarin were forced to bind all soms to a vow. The vow was to never hurt a living thing. Since that time, antagonism towards the Somarin has greatly reduced. The queen of Elinor now has a Somarin advisor openly in her council, and this has caused no small amount of fear and anger among her neighbours.

[h3]The Prophecies of the Sun[/h3]

In the mountain-citadel of Dorun in the kingdom of Elinor sits the Hall of the Sun – a splendid monument to the sun built by the Sinjars thousands of years ago. Deep within this hall lies the scroll room which is only ever opened when the ruler comes visiting.

This scroll room houses the most remarkable text written by men – the Sol Oklanis, known in the Common Tongue as the Prophecies of the Sun. This is a collection of things that will come to be or that have come to pass, written years before they were realized. The authorship and the validity of this text is ever under doubt and many learned scholars have poured over it in secret, trying to understand it.

In light of recent events, one set of verses come readily to mind:

[i]Here comes the night with an open mouth;
Here come the riders charging from the south;
Here lies the passage of corpses;
Here come the thundering horses.
The dead sword will awaken; the fell bow will sing;
The third morning will darken; the blood bells will ring.
Seven for seven; Light for Dark;
The drums are rolling. Stand and hark![/i]

While translations have varied, the interpretations have not. All scholars agree that these verses speak of an impending doom from the north. The memory of the Black Wind is still strong in the minds of men, and they realize that the eternal night will rise in the north.

There is no consensus on the meaning of individual lines. The reference to the number seven is clear, however. Seven is the number of dreadlords under the command of the Lord of the Night. Thus the phrase ‘Seven for seven’ is seen as a battle of seven against seven. But who these ‘good’ seven are, no one can tell.

[h2]Character Application[/h2]

The RP begins in the capital of Elinor – Anora. It is a beautiful city of endless towers and canals arching over the Elebrant. The city was built during the the times of the Sinjars when men accomplished great things.

No matter who you choose to play, the character must be in Anora at the beginning of the RP. Thus, your character history must lead up to the day the RP starts.

[b]Character Sheet format[/b]
Name
Age
Gender
Physical Description (No pictures)
Personal history
Character traits (preferably as single-word adjectives such as ill-tempered, chivalrous etc.)
Skills
Note: If you wish to be a Somarin, please indicate that in the last line of your CS along with the level you want to start at. (1 – Beginner, 10 – God-like)

[b]Please post your CS in the OOC section here. If and when approved, you can repost it in the Characters section.[/b]