Hello Jonathan,

  Just wanted to thank you for throwing your research project my way. I have found some inconsistencies that I don't think line up with what is considered factual history.

  While I know that it is not my task to determine what mortals consider right and factual, this region in particular means a lot to myself and my patreons, so I believe that making some minor corrections where you have followed a path of deception is in order.

  The Scribe

  Many historians have, over time, attempted to piece together the history of A’kastin. Much of it still remains unclear, but here is some of what is certain:

  One of the first records and descriptions of A’kastin was made by the wizard Arkham Blooddroplet, said to be part of the Brotherhood of Blood, around the year 3560 according to elven chronology. In his journals, A’kastin is described as follows:

  

  “This realm is a strangely indeterminate place. There is something that draws me here, but I do not know what. Ewen is strong here, almost as strong as in Letho.”

   Not sure where you are getting these dates from, but they are at best a wild guess. Furthermore, I wouldn't take any estimate of time from an elf. That is just common sense.

  At that time, A’kastin was not yet a kingdom, but a land without borders, ruled by various tribes, each controlling their own part of it. A’kastin was first united as a kingdom by the human Mikael One-Hand in 4357. Mikael One-Hand came from one of the respected merchant families who had fled Northland as the then-mortal Raffael Moordet gradually seized power.

   Fun fact, I was almost sacrificed to that bastard when I was still mortal. I still can't believe that he was in A'kastin.

  Mikael One-Hand writes:

  

  “My dear Jasmin. I have now found a land that I will make great. I have now found the land that shall be ours. Together we shall rule and become a power the Emperor will acknowledge.”

  Mikael One-Hand sought to make A’kastin a mighty kingdom that would take part in a larger trade alliance. Kelllwan’s strong presence in the kingdom goes all the way back to this time, when Mikael One-Hand allowed Kelllwan priests under Northland’s banner to establish a holy site in the middle of A’kastin. Here Mikael One-Hand had his soldiers blessed.

   There is something really iffy about the timeline here. For one, you have yet to mention King Marcus, and you haven't even talked about the rule of Orlek. Believe it or not that ork was the first official god, so I know that Kelllwan couldn't have been supporting Mikael One-Hand. That being said, I actually found some evidence that Mikael was the founder of the town later known as Marcusburg, so your sources aren't just making things up. I think that you might have gotten some information that was modified by the Inquisition.

  He found great amounts of metal in the ground and began logging operations, selling large quantities to Northland. Dwarves came to the kingdom to work in the mines, while the council of Mek grew more and more hostile.

   You are refering to the ancient mines of A'kastin. I have seen them myself, and I believe I know who build them, and it wasn't Mikael One-Hand. However, the entity respondsible is not interested in getting the credit, so we can easily redact history in this instant.

  In the year 4382 the kingdom’s progress ended abruptly when Mikael One-Hand was killed by the assassin Longknife. Who actually stood behind the assassination remains unknown, for when Mikael’s soldiers found his hideout, Longknife was lying dead. It was later established that he had been poisoned.

   I am calling bull on this one. This is clearly just untrue. I find the same information that Mikael was assassinated, but Longknife wasn't alive at this point in time. As far as I can tell, the one standing to gain from this would be the Empire, so I think you can once again thank the Imperial propaganda machine for this misinformation.

  This plunged the kingdom into turbulent times. Many tried to seize power:

  The dwarves attempted to make A’kastin an outpost for their realms in Life’s End.

  The elves of Mek moved the border between the two kingdoms further north, bringing more of A’kastin’s forests under their realm.

  A group of power-hungry nobles gathered their forces and invaded A’kastin.

  It was at this time that a new hero appeared among A'kastin's people. The country installed the reverent King Marcus of A’kastin as their leader. Marcus, unlike many earlier rulers, was loved by the people and accomplished several great and remarkable feats, including the founding of a group of elite warriors known as “the Kursakers”. King Marcus thus sent soldiers out to find suitable boys. These boys would not take part in normal labour but would be trained solely for war. They ranked above ordinary citizens and earned good wages. It was also this army that ensured any attack from the empire was crushed.

  King Marcus was also the first to fight the cunning and intelligent Hrothgar. Hrothgar worshipped the spirits in “The Grove of the Dead,” where he had long performed mysterious and dark rituals.

  That same year, Hrothgar succeeded in stripping all magic-users in A’kastin of their powers within “The Grove of the Dead,” later known as the Collapse of Magic.

   I think I get what you are saying here, but first of all, any source that describes Hrothgar as cunning and intelligent is not reliable. Also it was not Hrothgar who managed strip all spell casters of their magic. Rather it was at this point that the inventor of magic was killed, and since everything was working through him, his death meant the collapse of all magic for quite some time.

  Hrothgar had devised a cunning plan to have Ranziel elevated to godhood. Ranziel was a twisted and power-hungry wizard who had gathered a few but strong followers. King Marcus succeeded in defeating Hrothgar, the first in A’kastin’s history to do so. Ranziel’s followers were likewise vanquished, and no one knows what became of him.

  This created partial peace in the kingdom, though unrest still existed in its outskirts after Marcus’s rise to power. One of the greatest threats during King Marcus’s reign was the attack on Marcusstadt by the orks. The battle was fierce, and the leader of the orks known as Orlek, seemed extraordinarily powerful. Thus, even with the help of the Scribe, the city barely managed to find off the attack. King Marcus chose to negotiate with the orks, and their leader became the first General of the Kursakers.

  King Marcus’ rule, however, came to a sudden end. The sequence of events remains quite obscure. It is said that a curse had been laid upon Marcus’s life, forcing him to leave the kingdom to seek a powerful magic that could free him from the curse binding his life to a so-called “candle of life.” That meant that when the candle burned out, the person whose soul is bound to it would die. Marcus himself writes in his memoirs:

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  

  “[...] That Hothgar should have his revenge was unthinkable to me. But I now leave the land and leave behind only the little knowledge I have of my archenemy. Hothgar is mighty, but his weakness is a crystal. As long as the crystal exists Hothgar will not die, but if the crystal is destroyed, he will once again become mortal.”

  Marcus died shortly after leaving the land, and his body was brought back to Marcusstadt, where he was buried.

   Again, not sure where you are getting this information from, and while more of it is corret, it seems to be talking up Hrothgar quite a bit. I can say for a fact that the shaman hasn't dared go face to face with neither me nor my patreons.

  In the following years, the leader of the Kursakers rose to power, Orlek. In the years leading up to King Marcus' pilgrimage, the general had ensured that most of the Kursakers were orks. Many opposed the idea of an orlek leading this elite army, but in battle, Orlek was the mightiest.

  During the inauguration ceremony, Orlek walked up to Manfred III, a noble who claimed ancestry to Mikael One-Hand and the prospective ruler, and cleaved him in half. He then took the crown and killed all who defied his new rule. Thus began the darkest chapter in A’kastin’s history: the time under Orlek.

  Orlek continued to enforce his power through the Kursakers and made sure the squad leader was someone he could trust. The ork Kummon became squad leader. Orlek steadily moved the border between A’kastin and Mek further and further south. Several times, the elves attempted to invade A’kastin in retaliation, but the Kursakers were an elite unit the elves could not stand against.

  Instead, the elves attempted an assassination. This succeeded thanks to the assassin Longknife, plunging A’kastin into a new crisis. Kummon, leader of the Kursakers, tried to seize power but was killed in internal fighting. Kummon’s successor, Tross, never attempted to take actual power but remained a significant force.

  You gotta read your own texts before sending them my way. You have Longknife dying twice at around 200 years apart. One of these is clearly not true, and don't go blaming the Archdemon of the Night on this one.

  Because of the orks’ liberal attitude toward writing down history, no objective sources are known describing what happened afterwards. The first scrolls mentioning A’kastin appear again when Northland enters the kingdom, in the year 4608.

  The drow attacked Life’s End and left their caves to cast eternal darkness over Kalish. A portal was created in A’kastin bearing the power of runes. The drows gathered great forces in A’kastin to conquer the kingdom and opened the portal to let one of Daikia’s children out of the caves. This creature, named an Ilsher, attacked Marcusstadt alongside the drows.

  Several full moons earlier, the forgotten god had gathered a group of faithful followers in the realm, including a high priest and several clerics, sensing that Daikia was plotting against the other gods.

   THEY DID NOT! I was the one who gathered all those priests and clerics. I believe the high priest you are refering to here, is actually me. This was my first major task as the Scribe. So I will not let my patreon take credit for this. Yes, Jasper, I know you will get knowledge of anything I write down, and I am calling you out! Stop constantly disappearing!

  The Ilsher, the drows, and other dark beings succeeded in taking the city, and for the first time, humans had to abandon their safe homes and become nomads. Afterwards, the Ilsher left A’kastin, and the queen of the dark elves took control of the kingdom. Little is known from this period, and what we do know comes from the dark elves themselves. According to them, this was the best era in A’kastin’s history, where all prospered, and the world was once again in balance.

   This is outright false. They did not take the city, we fought back the Ilsher, and we gave the drow Queen a seat on the council.

  During the following years, A'kastin itself was fairly static. In the year 4833, we see a direct descendant of King Marcus, Queen Selma, take control of the land. While she reigned with a noble hand, it was under her watch that the dragons raised the elf Esselaia to godhood. It is said that as a gift to her kin, Esselaia granted her people a vision. A vision that one day Fire, Chaos, and Evil would walk upon Kalish, bringing about its downfall. For centuries, elven scholars studied in an attempt to prevent this danger when the day came. But time passed without incident. The vision became legend, which in turn became a myth told to children, and eventually it was forgotten.

  But the year 5342 became the Year of Darkness, and the elves’ ominous vision came true.

  A merchant desired, above all else, more power and greater wealth than anyone else alive. This desire grew day by day, corrupting him until he finally made a pact with a demon. The demon tricked the merchant and took his body. Through dark magic, the demon deceived holy men of Kelllwan, Daikia, Ewen, and Esselaia into granting their blessings and permissions for a Demon Lord, Ballator, to walk upon Kalish once more through a great ritual.

  Ballator is no ordinary Demon Lord, but rather the son of the Archdemon of Hatred. Ballator’s power was immense, and all living beings feared him.

  Like all demons, Ballator lived only to create death and chaos. Ballator desired to become the mightiest being and thus aimed to kill all the gods. In the kingdom of A’kastin he stepped unpon the mortal realm, the sky turned blood red, the sun darkened, and tendrils of living shadow moved across the heavens. Everything fell silent, the birds of the forest took flight, only to fall dead to the ground moments later.

   This is accurate.

  How long this lasted, no one can say for certain, for it was neither day nor night again, the gods and all their servants lost their powers, as their Energy did not replenish.

  But after what felt like months, a voice was heard from the deepest abyss. It called forth magic. Wizards could discern a few words in the incantation, magical words of power that should not exist, such as travel, sphere, death, and demon. The spell was repeated four times, and each time a door formed from a dark substance that killed all life around it. Thousands of demons would appear from these portals, flooding into the realm and slaying everything in their way.

  In an attempt to save the world, the gods granted the Red Ilsher Orlek's axe, which had been stuck in the tree of life. But even with this and the help of druids, priests, warriors, and citizens of A’kastin, they all failed. Ballator had won the battle, and his strength seemed impossible to match.

  As Ballator walked upon the world, legends say that he was struck down by a beam of pure divine energy from the powers beyond. Some say that it was the forgotten god who killed his mortal form, sending him back to the sphere of demons. All we know is that something killed the greatest threat to Kalish without taking credit for it.

   This might be true. All I can say is that I did not interfere here. I tried to take Ballator myself, but was crushed pretty hard.

  A high priestess among the drow saw Esselaia's vision as well, and with this knowledge, she ordered all drows away from the surface and down into the deepest caves and tunnels. With powerful magic, the entrances were sealed and guarded by the Ilshers, and the drows lived many years isolated from all other races and from the ravaging demons.

  Meanwhile, battles raged on the surface between mortals and demons. Thousands of demons surged into A’kastin and murdered everything in their path. Within minutes, Marcusstadt was a vast pool of blood with no survivors. Within months, the chaos reached Northland. There, Northland’s army awaited. Many thousands of able-bodied men stood ready to give their lives for Kalish’s survival. The war raged for many years.

  While it has been some time since this battle, I still remember it well. I had planned to find my successor during this time, but the world was simply not stable enough to have the Scribe be dormant for a couple of hundred years.

  Then in the year 5742 a messiah of Kelllwan was born. His name was Refulsit Lux. He was born without a father, and many believe that either Kelllwan himself or the forgotten god was his sire. With his and Northland’s strength, the demons were driven back, and in 5762 the demon portal was closed.

  This was 300 years ago, and thanks to the Empire's tireless efforts, the kingdom of A'kastin is starting to resemble its old self.