Introduction
A Brief History of Zephyr
The first of the Four Kingdoms of the Wind, Zephyr was founded in the seventeenth century since the arrival of Man on the Planet. According to legend, the first king—the very God of the West Wind himself—ruled for over three hundred years before mysteriously disappearing, leaving the nation in the hands of his faithful chamberlain. From that chamberlain sprang a dynasty that continued unbroken for over a thousand years.
Never one to ignore its allies in their hour of need, Zephyr did not hesitate to answer the call for aid when its neighbor Notos was faced with an invasion from the dreaded Darklands, sacrificing many brave fighting men in the exchange. Though the Zephyrian forces drove out the invaders, Notos was left in shambles without a king to rule it or an army to defend it. To guard the broken kingdom from future attacks and to foster reconstruction, Zephyr made Notos its protectorate.
In the decades of relative peace that followed, the people were content to settle into a comfortable stagnation, changing little from one generation to the next. Then Solon VI rose to the throne and he sought to change all that. He dispatched missions to make contact with distant lands, repealed old laws of persecution, and even went so far as to wed the Xotikan Queen Relinia as the first gesture in an effort to unite humans and non-humans on the Continent. He faced opposition from all corners. Passions flared, dissension spread and conflicts erupted. Yet in spite of these great challenges, the King persevered in his ideals. He would need that fortitude in the dark days ahead.
It came suddenly, like a nightmare. Every oracle in the Continent foresaw a new invasion from the Chaos Dominion, one that would sweep through Notos and take Zephyr as well. Armed with this knowledge, the forces of Zephyr gathered for a preemptive strike on the accursed Darklands. Though 'victory or death' is a common slogan for soldiers marching off to war, the Zephyrians' rallying cry was just 'victory', for their death would only allow the Darkness to overcome their homeland and quite possibly the entire world.