1 Prologue

The thing you must understand about Joaristi is like all great empires, it rose from the ashes of a fallen one. On top of blood wrenched battlefields rose palaces and homes. The bones of the fallen were swept aside for libraries and towns. There was no recorded beginning to the world, as most would expect no formal ending. Amongst the wildlife, the raging Balg sea, and the endless jungle of the unknown, came the first being. She was a woman birthed from nature, its magic and sanctity in the forest rooted in her like the 1000 foot elm trees scattered across the continent. The woman was engulfed in this energy and developed a way to harness it. It is believed she was the first witch.

However, this use of pure power from the elements did not come without its limitations and ultimately, its price. All parts of nature strive for equilibrium, for balance, and when this balance was altered with the drain of its energy, it is told that the ground formed a being that would balance out the first witch, a being of simple nature and no harnessed energy. A human. So is the story told, passed down through generations. It was not long till the earth was saturated with both witches and humans. In the time before Joaristi, the world was divided, keeping witches and humans apart. Fear, was the catalyst that helped the divide grow. Humans, feeling threatened by the lack of mystical abilities, started hunting witches for sport in mass groups, finding weakness and limitations in their power.

Doing this they formed the belief that this was somehow purifying the world. Many of the powerful families would mark the killing of a witch as a rite of passage into adulthood, flaying and placing the corpse on top of the walls of their great houses, a symbol of power over the powerful. The witches retreated to the southern half of the continent and several islands scattered around the world. They fled not of fear but of wisdom killing humans would shift natures balance, and have consequences . They built grand cities rich in magic and money, citizens thrived and rarely tempted fate by crossing the border that divided the human lands of Coerquin from their magical counterparts.

For a time there was a stalemate of sorts, both parties trying to prevent a inevitable war. Idealists at the time longed for peace and cohabitation, however, these outspoken ideas could result in charges of treason in both kingdoms. Those who believed in the inevitable peace were labeled and banished from either side, only to find refuge in the outskirts, an unclaimed barren territory outside of both kingdoms. They soon discovered a whole civilization within the outskirts. The people were a mix of traitor defectors and children unlucky enough to have one human parent and one witch parent. These children were revered as impure and possessed untapped power. The power from the witch line flowed through their veins, and the blood of humans allowed them to fool nature, producing magic without balance, without control. Most children were absorbed by this power and soon died before reaching their 10th birthday. They were often abandoned by mothers, in fear of retribution .It was a century before the withering kingdoms realized such children were possible and what they could mean in war times. The Humans and witch kingdoms disposed of them when found, fearing they would be weaponized before their untimely end. It was another century until Joaristi was formed, through centuries of war. It was and idealist nation, were all co inhabited.

After the formation clans intermixed and intermarriage became more common. Most humans forgetting any distant witch heritage . Some children born to witch parents had no abilities due to generations of intermarriage. It wasn't until the 50 years after the establishment of the library of free thought that scholars discovered the genetic component to magic heritability. Magic is an extremely recessive gene. With parents of diverse heritage, it is very unlikely to be passed down to a child after the 2nd generation. Joaristi thrived for many years embracing the new civilization. It should be noted that some very old families secretly refuted the change, closing borders and isolating themselves from the rest of the world. For some, the idea of change, was more frighting than death