The Age of Ammouri: The Allfather had long since left laws to men by which to live. These laws had been lost in the passing of ages and men were beginning to doubt the need to follow them. Therefore the Allfather sent the angelic being Ambrosius Ammouri to establish an order of Knights among men who would know the law in their hearts and always keep it.
These Knights not only founded entire dynasties of rulers in every kingdom, but also patrolled the lands as rangers, the Edolunt Riders.
Their families gave rise to Clerics and Paladins of great renown and exploit. The hierarchy of priests (selvas) known as the Ammouric Soothfold treated all matters relating to dogma and religious observances as well as pronouncing edicts concerning lawful magic and condemnations on forbidden books.
The first monastic order arose during this time whose monastery was situated in the Dry Blood Sea where Gnotus the Dragon supposedly was buried a thousand years earlier.
Nevertheless, the Ammouric knights were men and thus some were drawn to into temptation, they were corrupted by the Nol Ghost and became Dark Knights, Dirgemen. The most famous was Synostochs, the Archknight of the Order of Dirge and leader of the Wormlords.
In this age the Atlanteans built the first empire, the Empire of Aideen, which lasted only seventy seven years.
Aideen was founded by one great ruler, Hermius the Conqueror, whose mother was not Atlantean, but an Oruscan. Hermius first slew the massive two-headed serpent which haunted the Serrian Way (the narrow road from the city Aideen to Tyrnopolis), by guile, not by strength at all, and thus won great renown and the magic golden snake-bow.
He then conquered all the slave-lands of the West and then traveled east across the Dry Blood Sea into Kalar as far as Setet.
Hermius also conquered Ashkehon, the land just north of the Valaghir mountains. This was his greatest feat, for it was an accursed place. Here was the fortress of the great demoness who ruled the Eclyptic Coils of Night from the previous age. At the coming of Hermius her astrologers had determined that she was in danger and awoke her from her death-sleep in the tombs.
Upon entering the eerie castle grounds, Hermius saw a man being brutally whipped. When he asked what the man had done, he was told that the prisoner had been a priest of a foriegn god who prophesied an end to the power of Ashkehon. Hermius commanded that the prisoner be released and his goods restored, lest he summon his army to march on the fortress.
All knew the overwhelming force of Hermius' advanced army, even the demoness, and his will was obeyed. The demoness hoped by her beauty to win over the Conqueror to her service.
In her awesome beauty she welcomed Hermius, who was unsuspecting, into her castle, the halls of which were also guarded by Atlantean mercenaries. Hermius was immediately taken by her and desired marriage. She consented on the condition that Hermius conquer all of Arraf including the holy city Vesulum, where the Ammouric priests reside, and bring to her the head of the Ammouric patriarch.
Hermius, unable to control his desire, consented and began to lead his army to Vesulum, and he brought the priest with him. On the way his army became lost in the desert and were in great danger, facing huge sand storms and lack of water. He prayed to his own gods but they did nothing. After time, the entire army was dying of thirst.
Hermius wondered how his army could be destroyed over such a common thing as water. The priest came to him and prophesied that he had offended God by seeking to destroy Vesulum, which is sacred, and that all his previous victories had been because of his talent, which was really a gift of God.
After his water was gone, Hermius' men brought the little amounts of water they had left and poured it into a bronze helmet and offered it to him. Hermius poured the water out on the ground, as if to teach his soldiers that he was their equal. When the priest saw this, he boldly rebuked Hermius, explaining that had he been truly a great souled man and known wisdom, he would have humbly accepted the gift, not in order to teach his men and gain their loyalty, but rather in the realization that the only through his survival, victories, and fame, his army would have a share in a certain kind of immortality, the only kind they knew. He further explained that his own life was meant to be one of service, for in no way was he equal to men who made sacrifices on his behalf, and they were not his servants anyway, but he was their servant. Had he the wisdom that the true unseen God gives, he would have known this.
At first Hermius rejected this humiliation and decided to die rather than submit to some unknown and unseen divinity. At some point however, the priest sacrifices his own life rescuing Hermius and his men. When he sees this, he resolves to learn more about the Ammouri and does not to sack Vesulum. The patriarch of Vesulum reveals to him the lore concerning the evil religion and Hermius is given the holy torch and flame of Ashkhar by which he might expel the demoness.
They also gave him a quiver of 12 sacred arrows each of which had one of the twelve sacred laws painted on the shaft in Aramic script. If the demoness fled from the shrine he would have to hunt her down.
Hermius returned to Ashkehon with the holy torch and flame of Ashkhar and joined in the procession of the utterances of the dead. Slipping away he entered into the lower chambers where she dwelt and using the light of sacred torch he was able to see through the false beauty of the demoness. Uttering the sacred words the flame increased in brightness and intensity and the evil spirit fled deeper into the underworlds.
Hermius followed and tracked her down into an underworld monastery where her evil monks dwelt. After a series of battles against them, he gained entrance to the diabolic shrine and and found her there in the form of a Naga, a half-snake woman with flaming hair. Using his magic golden snake bow which never misses, he struck the demoness with the twelve sacred arrows and her form and spirit crystalized, trapped inside an amulet: The Nagamaud Amulet.
This horrid treasure was wisked away by a surviving monk who fled the scene. Instead of that treasure, Hermius and his small band of adventurers found something much more valuable. Locked away in a trap-protected vault, was a wondrous and long lost folio, "The Golden Pages of The Wind" a collection of twelve poems on each of the sacred laws. The poems had been written by the Allfather himself in the First Age, when he still walked among men.
The book was brought to Vesulum, translated, and its identity discovered. The news changed everything. When the book was read aloud to people, an indwelling truth entered into their hearts and they were transformed, they became confident, truthful, and greatly increased in wisdom and hope for a blessed afterlife. Men also were bolder, no longer fearing that the pain of death was unbearable. They refused to offer sacrifices or support the wicked religion of the Eclyptic Coils of Night and destroyed many accursed shrines and towers, violently throwing down the hideous idols and imprisoning the diabolic priests who had enslaved them.
The entire east went into revolt and proclaimed Hermius as their new Emperor. Hermius decreed that the Ammouric Religion replace the Eclyptic Coils of Night as the new universal faith.
Hermius spread the Greco-Atlantan dialect as well as reading, writing, philosophy, and imperial administration across the face of the entire continent, save for Anshan and Sippar.
The Conqueror was also the last person recorded to have slain a giant (the ancient beastly fire giant was hiding out in the innumerable caves of Setet). Therefore he is also titled "Gigantonoctus".
Hermius also set up the colossal "Bronze Gates of Hermius", (they took several years to fashion) which were set up in the Pass of Dariel in the Valaghir Mountains to keep the dark armies of Ashkehon and Zabol out of the civil lands.
Hermius founded a great city on the east coast of the Sea of Shirvav, Hermopolis, a place of learning and culture for all the east, up until the time of the religion of the Veiled One and the Empire of Kalar, at the end of the third age, when it was abandoned. Now, though its buildings still stand, it is ruled by the theives of Xasbur and other underworld elements.
Hermius refused however to be titled a god or his memory to in any way be worshipped, setting an example for the subsequent Emperors of Regulum (not always followed).
During his return to the West he quested for treasure in the Isle of the Harpies on the Sea of Ymmin and his army was utterly destroyed by unknown terrors. The death of Hermius and the loss of his army heralded the end of an age.
The rumoured treasure of Hermius, taken from conquered lands which his army hid somewhere in the canyons of Cathon, was sealed with him in his tomb, for it was considered too great for any one man to possess. Many have quested for this treasure but all have failed. The Canyon is commonly called the Canyon of Hermius.
After Hermius the Atlanteans attempted to reinvigorate the empire of Aideen. Believing themselves to be of the noblest human bloodline, they submitted all the citizens of the empire to hard labor building great and luxurious palaces, fortresses, and resorts.
No longer remembering noble Hermius, they declared themselves as immortal masters of the earth. Soon, only those of Atlantean blood were allowed to gain rank in the legions. The Maceonids of Aquilar resented this impiety and rebeled against them. In the battle of Lists and Battle for enjoyment which followed, only one Aquilaran returned home upon his horse in shame.
Though they were victorious in battle, they found ruling the lands about the Intermundian Seas very troublesome. At some point they departed in a huge fleet and sailed off to return to Atlantis. They found no glorious land awaiting them, but only the waves lapping upon the sea. Some say that at this time the Atlanteans, seized with rage at their loss and humiliation, became bloodthirsty.
The Atlanteans returned to the Illystrian Continent by another route and came to the east, finding a mountainous land near Kalar. This they called Atalur and crowned themselves a king. They built huge fortresses and waged many wars, desiring to rid intermundia of all non-Atlantean blood.
The mages and wizards of Nystol waxed powerful in these years on account of the increase in knowledge from the voyages of Aetholus, emperor Bamusk II, and others. Also, the philosophic modes of Ptoleus and Rhistogorst held sway and kept magic from being misused.
The Atlanteans alone posed a threat to the peaceful peoples. After several great atrocities and several failed attempts at negotiation, the Ammouric monarchies agreed to hand over prosecution of the war to the wizards of Nystol. The wizards used advanced means of communication to command and coordinate the civil armies in the seige of Atalur and so vigorously defeated the Atlantean host.
Atalur agreed to terms and forfeit their king. Their ambitious princedoms never fully reformed and they still are known for conspiracies and dark dealings.
Only century and a half after men were released from the hold of the demons by Hermius and "The Golden Pages of The Wind", society began to forget what horrid powers who once had enslaved their spirits. The Ammouric priests claim that the Atlantean physical enslavement, as workers, was partially to blame. Under the Atlantean laws of Hermius, no one could be forbidden to worship the true God. Men did not understand that they still had innate dignity, even living as physical slaves or fighting in bloody wars, because their spirits were still free to follow divine law.
Little by little the great Ammouric monarchies were overthrown by petty rivalries, conspiracies, and sins. Some say this was because of aggressive Ataluran meddling in foreign affairs. Soon only a few kingdoms remained faithful, chief among them Ulthor.
No longer afraid of the valiant powers of men, orcs began raiding south into human lands. The Kingdom of Ulthor put up a valiant defence in the Wars of the Spear, much of which is recounted in the Bladetongue Saga. Finally, massive walls were built in the north, The Orc Wall, closing off the realm of the Nol Ghost.
The error-religion of Bah Ukah and the worship of the Veiled One took hold of the East during this time. In reality this religion had developed out of the Eclyptic Coils of Night, the demon cult from the previous age, for the demoness entrapped in the Amulet of Nagamaud still commanded the loyalties of her own twisted cult of those who worshiped her alone. The closed empire of Kalar grew in prominence and threat, but their sultans also kept the Nol Ghost from coming across the Valaghir mountains.
Only a brief time of learning in the east occurred during the short reign of Bamusk II. Exploratory expeditions of Aetholus of Nystol and Emperor Bamusk II around the Intermundia discovered many lands and kingdoms previously unknown.
Enter the weird study of Mercurius Yod,seer of the Third Age
