Among the Dark Ashes
The ashen hecini, the bright lumedali and the forgotten tenebrim, all parts of the bent beasts; the twisted beauties; the elven folk. The repetition of three-in-one is seen in all.
Created by the twisting energies of the Vitiate these elven folk where once orcish yugscha, living on the varied planes of the once-one lands of EA. One of these twisted orc folk we named the ashborn, the hecini. Warped and wicked, oddly featured bearing ashen, gray and brown, skin with skinny and crooked frames and long, bent ears. Their eyes glow with a mystic purple that some say give a glimpse into The Pale. Their twisted cousins are the pale trolls that spread through the shadows of the land.
Earthen Song and Darkened Skies
When the hardened and magically trained yugscha that lived in the harsh ashen deserts of anon Edomir where twisted during the Vitiate they heard a song of the very earth ring in their ears. While it drove some mad, others understood it as a holy truth creating the first house, the House of Song. As the newly formed elves tasted the ash in their mouth as they sang the holy tunes, they knew to call themselves hecini. They kept their orcish runes, but knowing the Song, slightly changed their speech creating a language to call their own. Just as the dwarves create magic apparatuses through the rythm of time, the hecini weave their mystical magick by tuning into the rythm of the very titanic form we reside upon; the song of moving earth; the rumble of Her unrest.
The long years of the Vititate made the many volcanoes of Edomir fill the skies with thick clouds, denying the hecini both sun, stars and all moons except one. The enigmatic Kaalaa, the dark moon of The Pale, its unlight can even today only be seen through the volcanic clouds of the edomirian ashen plains. This dark, heavenly body was all the ashen ones saw as their nomadic tribes traveled across the fields of fire, filling their minds with bleak thoughts and philosophies. Riding upon the six-legged horses of Kankrewhan, singing their song and bringing back some semblance of structure to their broken world, came tension between self-proclaimed leaders, and the ashborn split into several houses of power.
The Four Houses of an Ashen Empire
The houses became four and upset the order of the cosmos, something the hecini cared little for as the heavens never had shown their beauty to them. These houses spread over the edomirian plains and met occasionally to trade and share knowledge, it wasn’t until the end of the Vititate that they settled into the empire history best know them for. To stabilize the power of the four houses, they were each given a sphere of influence:
House Esdohn. A house of warriors and horsemasters, wearers of armor made out of fierce beetles, their crest that of a scarab with the horn of a kankrewhan horse. They are the guardians, wardens of the traveling cities and soldiers of the ashen army. Their leaders are generals of the highest order, invaluable strategists to the edomirian empire’s miltary might.
House Monogo. A house of politicians and lawmakers, rulers of the simple people, their crest that of a scale to emphasize their charge to keep not only the people but the houses in check. While house Esdohn expanded the empire, house Monogo stayed back to watch over the masses.
House Dumokan. A house of priests and oracles, song-listeners that sing the holy words to the believers, their crest that of Weleht, a giant, fiery volcano at the center of the edomirian plains. The hecini do not worship in temples, but meet in large tents filled with volcanic smoke or out in the fields during the rumblings of the earth. House Dumokan was formed from the first house, the House of Song, the centerpiece of hecinian faith.
House Hesilow. A house of mystics and seers, masters of peering into The Pale under the dark moon, their crest that of the all-seeing eye representing Kaalaa and her window into the darkened domain of shadow. Those that belong to the Hesilow are often seen as strange but a necessity, as they produced great result enhancing house Esdohns’ strength and endurance in battle. But the house was also met with scrutiny and fear as they control the very darkness of the world.
The Great Fall from Total Domination
After nearly a thousand years of dominion over the broken lands, the rebels of the arroman people disrupted the iron grip the hecini had long held. At the same time civil war broke out within the edomirian empire when the practise of new magick created an imbalance between houses. Some years later, the pact made between the Tirs and the golden dragon-god Va’al brought the now weakened edomirian empire to its knees in the north, further damaged the power dynamic of the four houses. As the hecini where pushed back to their volcanic lands they instead turned on themselves, the once-great empire crumbling completely.
The four houses newer recovered and are still today at odds with one another, still doing trade and wander together at times, conflicts often break out and end with blood. But many hecini dream the imperial vision of bringing the Song to all people; letting the land roar with rythm; funneling the destruction Her broken form can gift the land.