The Fey'li Empire: Origins (World Guide, Nation) (Patreon)

The modern interstellar Fey’li Empire has its roots in a nation who’s history began some ten thousand years ago on the world now known as Fey’lin. At the time, the world’s people called it Ai’en, and it was home to numerous and sometimes quite disparate local tribes, feudal states, and even a few small nations. It was at this time that the Feyla tribe first rose to prominence among the foothills of a collection of villages in the southern foothills of the Niurri mountains.

Three distinct groups of natives made their home around the Niurri. There were the leopard fey’li of the Kansha tribe who lived in the woodlands surrounding the Niurri foothills. There were the tiger fey’li of the Feyla tribe who lived in the foothills proper. Then there were the snow leopard Miyalli tribe who lived up in the mountain valleys. Little is known about the early relationships between these groups, but by the year 4780BIR, they had joined together into a single grand tribe which effectively ruled over a large swath of the mountains, foothills, and even the vast fertile plains which spread down to the Eastern Sea.

One by one, the other tribes of the island continent of Saia would be absorbed into the grand tribe. This was a peaceful process, driven by the desire for prosperity and the lure of the strange magical powers wielded by the priestesses of the mother goddess, Ai’iy. By the year 4430BIR, the grand tribe would include all of Saia’s people.

Among the people of Saia, the Feyla family seemed to be among the most magically inclined. They could heal wounds. Cure sickness. Enact strange and wonderful transformations. They could even open portals between places… and worlds.

Even as Ai’en remained divided, the people of Saia were colonizing other worlds. As they did, they came into contact with many exotic new peoples. The diminutive dwai, the elf-eared ashiri, and many, many others. Vast wealth and prosperity would flow into Saia as a result of all this, and the Feyla family would come to rule over the budding interstellar nation by mutual consent. But, despite all of the benefits, this expansion beyond Ai’en would soon have terrifying consequences.

Drawn by the transdimensional variances caused by fey’li magic, the von’kir would arrive at Ai’en in the year 4066BIR, and attempt to establish themselves among the people of Saia. Thousands of curious and often quite willing subjects would have deeply intimate encounters with the alien’s shriveling magics before they were confronted by the powers of the priestesses. They were forced to flee the world, though they did leave behind several still functional shriveling artifacts that would become the focus of secretive ceremonies intended to expose new priestesses to the alien powers so that they could better recognize and combat them.

Later in that same year, the key’vin’ta would arrive, drawn by the presence of their deadly von’kir rivals. Ruled by the Key’von family, they key’vin’ta sought to enslave all sapient peoples. Their bodies were to be used for labor, when needed, and their souls used to power their ‘purple slime magic’. They were guided to the fey’li colony of Shey’sa by enslaved mitanni, an act which would result in more than one conflict much later in the Empire’s history. For some unknown reason, the key’vin’ta refused to recognize the feline fey’li as being sapient in the same way as other races, and used those they acquired as ‘intelligent pets’ for the most part, rather than expending them in their usual fashions.

It is currently speculated that the key’vin’ta failure to engage with, and attempt to enslave the whole of the fey’li people was a result of their deep displeasure at discovering a ‘lesser people’ with access to ‘magics’ that didn’t seem to require intermediary substances, and which they had no intrinsic ability to sense or understand. Rather than press into the unknown, they maintained relatively passive contact, obtaining often quite willing fey’li pets when they could. This state lasted for roughly twelve hundred years, before the key’vin’ta extinction event in the year 3874BIR ended their efforts to conquer all and sundry.

For roughly eight hundred years, a power vacuum existed among the sapient races which had once been under key’vin’ta sway. Many went their own way, and some, like the mitanni, weren’t given much choice about it. Others gravitated toward the fey’li, even as the other fey’li tribes of Ai’en began to gravitate toward the nation of Saia and the Feyla family who ruled it.

For the next several millennia, the fey’li and their many interstellar friends would slowly bond together into a cohesive nation. Magical powers soon retreated to the temples, replaced by powerful technologies that, had they been available at the time, could have easily brushed such threats as the key’vin’ta aside. Other powers, such as the spacefaring von’kir were another matter, and as the uniting peoples spread out, constant reminders of such threats abounded.

Historians generally describe this period as one of good people coming together in peace, while simultaneously driving darkness outward before them using any means available and necessary. There was considerable conflict, and many outright wars as the densest locales of known space formed a civilized core around the world ruled by the Feyla family. By this time, it had come to be called Fey’lin by almost everyone but its native people. It was a capital in all but name, a world that everyone looked to for both guidance and the will to resist the evils that constantly nipped at the edges of civilization.

The Fey’li Empire as we know it would be forged in the years 4-0BIR, during the terrifying war with the kez’ro’ki. These mysterious, faceless aliens were the produce of ancient key’vin’ta manipulation. They brought their reign of terror to helpless colonies using von’kir spacefaring technology, and had modified that technology in ways that made shriveling look positively wonderful in comparison.

In the year 3BIR, a formal treaty of alliance among the many core peoples was signed, and with it came a united military force to oppose the kez’ro’ki invasion. At its heart was the powerful, but technologically quite inadequate fey’li navy. Despite all best efforts, by the year 1BIR it seemed as if nothing could be done to stop the kez’ro’ki at the frontiers, or even prevent them from enslaving the whole of the core.

Fey’li magic would now find its way back out of the temples, and on to the interstellar battlefield. The portal magic that had once taken people between worlds were now deployed to turn kez’ro’ki weapons against their users. During the Battle of the Rift, a game of ‘catch’ was played by priestesses deployed upon the allied warships and the kez’ro’ki fleet. Warheads would be caught up by portals and cast into the interior of kez’ro’ki warships. Allied casualties were high, but almost nothing was left of the kez’ro’ki fleet.

The few kez’ro’ki survivors who were able to escape brought back world of the ‘new’ transdimensional powers deployed by the allies. An orderly retreat and consolidation of power was attempted. The allies would conduct a counterattack in the strategic Maria system, once home to the long extinct Key’vin’ta Empire. Using more refined tactics, the allies destroyed the entire kez’ro’ki force present, and the remainder of the invasion force fled the frontiers of core space, never to be seen again.

In the year 0BIR, the alliance would elect to become a single nation under the rule of the core’s collective saviors, the Feyla family of Fey’lin. With the ascension of Nai’ai Kaorie Feyla as Empress of the Fey’li Empire, a new age would dawn for the civilized peoples of the core. It was an age of expansion. An age of maturation. And it was an age that still continues to this very day.