From the collected Histories of Argenium, fourth edition by Emissary Tindall
In the year 671, Ulwick the Cunning lead a band of humans from the eastern reaches of the lands of men and westward towards the uncharted forests, where the only living things were the trees and the beasts. After five years of travel and hardship, Ulwick stumbled across a great river, with waters as bright as stars and as blue as sapphires. And beyond that river lay a great vale that stretched for miles and miles. Miles of fields and an ocean of trees filled the great vale, with streams of ore that trickled through the land, as though they were tears of the earth itself.
Ulwick crossed into the vale with his people prepared to claim the lands for their own. But upon reaching the other side of the bountiful river, they found that their lands were not their own. The vale was inhabited by grotesque creatures that bore the bodies of men, but with hideous faces, covered in fur and fang. Vicious and savage, the beasts attacked Ulwick's people for months before Ulwick sought out a weapon for which to destroy the creatures. Upon discovering by happenstance the toxicity of the plant aconitum towards the creatures, Ulwick began to cultivate the plant for his people. The followers of Ulwick, now armed with poisons, oils and other salves capable of killing the creatures, began to win significant victories against their foes.
By the year 684, the creatures had been pushed back to the westernmost reaches of the vale, driven to endangerment by the humans. Ulwick was praised a hero and lived anther fifty years before dying of wounds sustained during an excursion to the north of the vale.
In the centuries to follow the discovery of the vale, the children of Ulwick grew prosperous and powerful; they established the town of Beacon Hills in the year 923, which grew in size, status and influence as the decades passed. Before the town was founded, the humans of the Vale lived through two further resistances from the creatures. Both were incapacitated early and with ease.
In the year 1074, the City of Beacon Hills had reached a population of over sixty-thousand with fifteen-thousand inhabitants living around the vale in the towns of Whittenden, Brightblooms, Cold Barrow and Stone Quays. It was in this year that the creatures were given name, and that their power was truly known. The leader of the surviving creatures, a magnificent beast who called himself Lykaon, ordered the abduction of hundreds of countrymen and children from around the city of Beacon Hills. Once abducted, the hostages were given the bite and unleashed back within the population centers. Like a plague, the curse spread, infecting thousands upon thousands of humans. The Argent leader at the time, Andros, proved to be too ineffectual to deal with the creatures. His oldest son, Aloysius, took control after Andros was assassinated defending the city from one of Lykaon's skirmishes. Desperate for an answer to his problem, Aloysius prayed to the Gods for salvation and marshaled the surviving humans to wage war against the creatures, named Lycans for their association with Lykaon. Aloysius bravery, tactical prowess, and sheer numbers allowed for the destruction of the majority of the Lycan numbers.
Lykaon, losing every battle and many of his followers by the week, sought the aid of the ancient order of Emissaries, men from the West who served the Lycans for a millennia. The Emissaries agreed to aid Lykaon in eliminating the men who had fought so savagely against the Lycans. But Lykaon had a short memory and a trusting heart, for his massacres of the human race had insulted the proud Emissaries. In retaliation for his abuses of power and his upsetting of the fragile balance of power within the vale, the Emissaries taught the Aloysius the secrets of the Lycans, from their strengths and their weaknesses.
Aloysius, armed with the newfound knowledge of the lunar cycle, Mountain Ash and pack dynamics began to slay the Lycans in staggering numbers. In a last ditch effort to dispel the humans of the vale, Lykaon staged a massive assault on the city of Beacon Hills. Aloysius was there and far prepared to deal with him. It was at this final battle that the Emissaries revealed their treachery and turned the battle from an even fight into a crushing victory. Lykaon's top beta, Lupa attempted to flee with her people as they had in the past, only to find a wall of Mountain Ash miles long standing before the Western reaches of the Vale. Aloysius captured thousands of Lycans and trapped them within cages of Mountain Ash.
Aloysius did not want to merely exterminate the Lycan people, but he wished to make them pay for the deaths of every human they had harmed. In a fit of determined discipline, Aloysius planted two separate groves around the Mountain Ash cages of the post-war internment camp. One was short and held back by a gate of pure silver, coated daily in liquefied Aconite. The second stretched for miles around said camp, where Aconite was allowed to grow in toxic doses between the trees. Aloysius intentionally left behind a large mass of land for which fields could be planted. As a final piece, Aloysius had his Masons construct a gigantic wall between the outer eastern section of the Mountain Ash grove, allowing for entrance to and from the grove for humans, but only entrance for Alpha Lycans. Betas and Omegas could leave, but the great masters of the packs were helpless within the Grove. Aloysius then formed a a whole branch of soldiers dedicated to the warding of captive Lycans and pursuit of fugitive Lycans.
The grove was then christened Lykaon as a reminder to all Lycans of their place in human society, and Aloysius lived for a great seventy years, after which his daughter, Esther took his place as the reigning Monarch of Argenium. Esther was far more shrewd than her father, eschewing the penal system of the Lycans in favor of servitude. Lycans were forced to work the fields within the borders of the grove, and many Lycan children were taken and bred into servants for the upper class of Beacon Hills.
In the year 1293, one such Beta named Talia felt a surge of power, Talia's alpha father had passed away and she received his gift through being his oldest child. Talia kept her power hidden for nearly two decades before she was discovered to be an Alpha. She used her power as one of the few Alphas outside of Lykaon to organize an uprising of betas. The current head of the Argent family, Alexander Argent, deftly crushed Talia's resistance and had her locked away within Lykaon. Talia's children, Derek and Laura were taken from her and kept as hostages within the Argent household. Talia remained stoic and refused to cause trouble if her children went unharmed. That year, 1312, saw the last great rebellion of Lycans within the Kingdom of Argenium.
Externally, a new threat arose in the year 1316, when the vicious Prometheus and a unity of packs invaded the Vale to free their brethren and slay the Argent family. During this war, Alexander Argent and his sons were killed, forcing his niece, Victoria Argent, last scion of the branch of Aloyisus, to take command and oust Prometheus and his followers. Victoria, like her forebear, sought the aid of the Emissaries to defeat the rogue Lycans. The Emissaries agreed, but only under the condition that they be given a proper place within the Kingdom. With the aid of these individuals, Victoria tricked the unknowing Prometheus into two separate traps: In the first, his children and the children of his alphas were given quarter with the Emissary Deaton. In the second, The Emissary Morrell gathered the Alphas for a secret meeting between themselves and her own Order of the Vale. Prometheus' Emissary Bacari warned against the idea, but Prometheus blindly believed in the loyalty of the Emissaries.
At the meeting, Morrell gave the signal and had the alphas slaughtered by dozens of marksmen wielding aconite tipped arrows. Before the meeting occurred, Deaton brought the children within the inner grove, where they transformed into Alphas. The oldest, a young man by the name of Deucalion, swore vengeance upon the house of Argent until his dying breath.
For the next two decades, only minor events marked the history of Argenium, where the rule of the Queen was firm, but just and the land thrived once again unburdened by the inflammation of war. Only now tensions brew beneath the surface, not only in the hearts of wolves, but also within men.
UPDATED: Some changes in this intro that I incorporated as I mapped out the setting of the story.
-Population changes added. Much more reasonable than over 200k worth of individuals
-Argenium is the territory, Beacon Hills is its' capital city.
-Argenium is a Kingdom, its' rulers are Monarchs (As opposed to the Ducal system I had in place)
-Beacon Hills founded in 923 as opposed to 1023, allowing for a more natural population increase.
-town of Stone Quays (pronounced keys) added
-Emissaries originated in the West as opposed to the East.
Slight changes to present a more realistic story alongside a better setup for the story. I am currently working on the first chapter and should have that up once I have more free time on my hands. Until then, enjoy! ;)