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I Decided to do another profile, this one involving another of Ingracia’s largest Kingdoms, that being Gran-Vas.

Unlike many of the others, I’ve been writing and rewriting this one for the best part of two days, since I wanted to get it as close to being as balanced as I could, regarding its contents involving both history and world-building.

Aside from that and the last-minute preparations for this year’s Christmas event, I’ve also been playing Cuisineer a lot recently, and I’m openly prepared to call it, Tevi, Witch Spring: R and Sky: Children of the Light, my personal games of the year.

With that in mind, I had a lot of fun writing this, and I hope you all have a wonderful day.

Originally built and established several centuries ago as a Theocracy, Gran-Vas is thought of and referred to by some of its residents as one of Ingracia’s leading superpowers.

The main faith among the citadel-like city-state’s, guards, soldiers, mercenaries and Knights involves devotion to and reverence of Akrah, the patron deity of each, as well as the Goddess of Compassion, honour, courage, Mercy and virtue, with many of Gran-Vas’ best and brightest holding her in high regard, following many of her tenets from the day they become squires, apprentices or recruits, all the way until they are felled in battle or pass on by natural causes.

Many of the Kingdom’s, training facilities, both military and otherwise, double as churches or cathedrals, with the bare minimum for each being or having an Alter or similar place of worship, depending on the individual apprentice’s choice of faith. While Akrah may be the most commonly revered divinity in Gran-Vas, Iridia is considered by many to be equally as favoured, especially among the nation’s higher-ranked mages, scholars and chroniclers.

Aside from Iridia and Akrah’s involvement -their combined existence in gran-Vas commonly being portrayed by many scholars or artisans as a kind of friendly rivalry, more than anything else- Relka is thought of as the Kingdom’s third Native Goddess, usually being placed on equal terms with her fellow deities thanks largely in part due to the country’s booming economy as well as the infrastructure thereof. It isn’t uncommon to see likenesses or symbols pertaining to each deity to be placed near or at the centre of most Alters in gran vas, or for their iconography to be some of the more widely displayed throughout the many chapels, temples and cathedrals scattered throughout the kingdom’s landmarks and places of residence.

The training centres/cathedrals are often known to have a noticeably egalitarian mentality, in regards to both their administration and leadership, as well as in their barriers for entry. Anyone of any denomination, homeland race or sex -both Arexian and human, can apply, provided they are at least sixteen years of age, and have fully mastered basic weapon or thaumaturgic training. Upon enrolment, most of the students are put into groups of between four and eight, usually six, with many staying relatively the same throughout their entire learning experience, and with whom they form deeply-knit connections with- a few of them even lifelong.

Among the numerous subjects taught at the academies, the main focal points in regards to education are mathematics, history, languages, mana manipulation and control, unit formations, military tactics and various fighting styles depending on the weapon the student in question happens to use or favour. For anyone with the intent of becoming leaders themselves, a number of academies offer courses involving several tiers of Hieromancy, as well as further study in regards to Ingracia’s pantheons, the cultures, traditions, holidays and celebrations involving each of their many gods, and the history of both them and Ingracia as a whole, from certain perspectives.

Upon the Awakening of the World, Gran-Vas was among the first to quickly discover the changes brought onto many of the world’s inhabitants by an incident known as the World-Quake, as dubbed by scholars who remember the earthquake-like phenomenon that shook the world as the incident took place. Minutes after the quake subsided, the soldiers positioned at Frangrem’s main gate were both met and alarmed by the sight of their brothers and sisters-in-arms, who now bore striking resemblance to the varying entities from myth, legend and ages long-since past, now wielding far greater power, both physical and magical, than even the highest-rank warriors or Archmages could hope to imagine.

Upon closer examination, the newly-changed soldiers were revealed to have been met by a worrying amount of what Gran-Vas’s court mages referred to as ‘Primordial Mana’, speculating that it had been dormant somewhere within Ingracia’s thaumasphere or its core, and that it had either been accumulating like water behind a failing dam, or more likely, the container itself had ‘leaked slightly’ for lack of much better wording.

Regardless of the how and why, it was stated outright, with no hyperbole, that each of them were fortunate to have made it out alive and relatively unscathed, without anything severe having occurred to directly impair their capability. As hours turned to days however, many of gran-vas’ other citizens began to change in alarmingly similar ways, before the incident began spreading world-wide and resulting in a large percentage of the Ingracian populace becoming Arexians, sharing their name with their historical, debatably mythological namesake.

Within a week, Archbishop Gunther and the other leading figureheads across Ingracia convened in the throne under the mountain in Kellebrir, immediately getting to work putting new laws, rules, benefits and such into place for their newly-changed subjects and citizenry, enacting them as soon as the summit had finished. Along with being given the best restitution available for their numerous changes, and the duress it caused many of Ingracia’s residents, as best Gunther and the others were able, they were effectively put on equal terms with the still-human populace that hadn’t been altered in any way by the World Quake and who remained seemingly immune to its side-effects.

Among the many benefits given to Ingracia’s new Arexian inhabitants was freedom of faith, one bequeathed to them by Gunther, the Archbishop having openly reasoned with the other Kings and lords that while their physical bodies might have been heavily altered, the rest of them remained largely the same - their brand new powers and abilities notwithstanding.

This, coupled with freedom of movement between kingdoms, and a number of other benefits, allowed for a somewhat relatively peaceful integration or reintegration of many of Ingracia’s inhabitants, with a scant few edge cases and exceptions choosing to put distance between themselves and their fellow countrymen, for fear of discrimination or prejudice, as well as concern for accidentally causing yet more incidents with their new, not yet fully learnt about or understood abilities, magical and physical alike. Many of those who remained put themselves to work as guards and soldiers, or scholars and mages, their goals being to maintain the safety and wellbeing of their fellow man, and to better understand how and why they function, and how they came to be made into their current state of being, respectively.

Regarding the World Quake itself, those unlucky enough to not be able to survive the effects and changes with their sanity and humanity intact were all-but forcibly changed in a far more drastic means, the primordial mana coursing through their circuits breaking them down entirely and rebuilding them back up into creatures known as Gri-Mir, the name translating from Proto-Ingracian as ‘Shapeless Devils’.

They are, as some of Ingracia’s scholars would say, ‘each a nation unto themselves’, with each being notably distinct, and none of them being like any of the others, regardless of when and where they are found. Upon first emerging, they swiftly came in droves, appearing out of seemingly nowhere and immediately preying on who or whatever happened to be closest, be it fauna, livestock, or even one of Ingracia’s many inhabitants, Arexian or otherwise.

Their appearance caused a row among a large contingent of Ingracia’s aristocracy, who demanded that something be done to quell the monsters now rampaging through their homes, to which many academies, cathedrals and barracks were tasked with training soldiers -human an Arexian, to be able to fight back against the seemingly demonic menace.

Since the Awakening of the World, Several hundred years have come and gone, and in that time, the Gri-Mir have been pushed far enough beyond the outer fringes of the Borral Mountains that a semblance of peace could be established, and Gran-Vas has grown into what many began calling a global superpower, one that boasts an incredible military force, coupled with an equally, if unsurprisingly open-minded religious doctrine.

Though the Arexians of myth and legend had been almost forgotten by the time of the World-Quake, their legacy had not been forgotten- if anything it had been renewed. Ordinary adventurers took up arms alongside soldiers, mercenaries, knights and vagabonds of all kinds, against the Gri-Mír and began pushing them farther and farther away, the ones who remained close to home being called ‘Venators’, and anyone tasked with quell the threat of the Shapeless Devils being referred to as ‘Sentinels’.

Generation by generation as they were able to steadily push the creatures back, the metaphysical qualities of the newly-named Venators and Sentinels, what Archmages dubbed an ‘Item Crash’- the ability to transmute bodily energy into raw faith and use it in lieu of magic energy, is Iridia’s gift to mankind to fight back the darkness in her stead, and vanquish her enemies through her benevolent grace.

E Ka Lomai Ai-Lani-Atu~