Remnant, a lively world filled with light, both human and Faunus as well as all the animals and creatures that populated the planet, yet with life there was chaos and entropy. With these beings, the world soon saw civilization and with this structure came the Kingdoms of Man. The four Kingdoms were created by their lords in a successful attempt to bring order to their world of chaos.
Atlas, in the far icy North of the planet, was ruled by the white haired Schnees, their dynasty and power were vast as they swiftly built their walls and weapons of war to "persuade" their neighboring territories to swear loyalty or be destroyed. Atlas took control of their island swiftly with this method, and with more towns joining their Kingdom the more power they held. The Schnees held the Kingdom with an iron fist with their military might until oppression was all Atlas had ever known. Rich upper class citizens lived lavish lives provided to them on the backs of the underpaid commoner.
Vacuo, in the Western deserts, was led by the Kong dynasty, its people having adapted to the harsh desert, and quickly swept over the coastal regions of the desert. Once they had control of the coast, the Kongs forced other cities to join them or else perish in the desert sands. As the Kongs grew so did their power and their titles as well as their family. Soon the Kongs were fighting relatives for power, the Kongs, the Wukongs, the Sakongs, and the Bokongs all fought one another for the crown and for the heads of their respective families. After years of civil war between the family, in which the citizens of Vacuo watched on, the Wukongs reigned victorious and led Vacuo into a time of peace and prosperity in which the wealth was spread amongst the people and free trade routes between the landlocked towns and the ocean were opened to all.
Mistral, the Eastern Kingdom, was surrounded by mountains to the North and dense swamps to the West, South, and East. These barriers allowed the Kingdom within to prosper as the only source of fresh water and agricultural land for miles around. Mistral was peaceful and agrarian under the rule of the Arcs until it fell under the might of the Spartans, a traveling nomadic tribe lead by a warrior king bearing the last name Nikos. Mistral was defeated without much of a fight and the two groups joined as one Kingdom with a marriage between the warrior king's youngest son and the Arcs youngest daughter. Pyroes and Joan were fair rulers of Mistral once their parents died, each being balanced by the other in matters of the state as Pyroes held back his cruelty for his wife while his wife ensured that the policies were fair and just for all, ensuring that all crimes would be dealt with fairly while allowing her husband leniency with the worst of the criminals punishments. Mistral grew to be a Kingdom of prosperity, a paradise for its citizens and surrounding territory.
Vale, a Kingdom situated between a mountain range and the ocean, rose through the combined efforts of the people. The citizens of Vale built their walls together, fortified their borders with a common sense of survival, and created a council to rule over them. Three families were initially chosen to rule over Vale with its different branches of policies. The Xiao Longs controlled the army and military, the Roses upheld the agricultural districts, while the Belladonnas maintained the foreign policies. With these three families in control Vale prospered and found strength in unity with their neighboring towns and cities. Vale soon became a Kingdom in its own right and held power that could crush the mightiest of armies, though no such threat was ever needed to secure a trade agreement for the Belladonna's silver tongues easily struck bargains or settled on favorable arrangements with the surrounding territories.
However all the peace and prosperity of these four grandouse Kingdoms could never last.
Atlas grew greedy for power under the Schnees, their swift economic and militaristic advances causing a thirst for more. Atlas turned to the other Kingdoms as a source to build their influence and with their advantages the Kingdoms of Vacuo and Mistral of the realm had no choice but to either bend to Atlas's will or fade from existence as even they could not withstand an invasion from the mighty Kingdom of Atlas. While the Kingdoms of Vacuo and Mistral were swift to join the stronger Kingdom while the Kingdom of Vale resisted accompanying such an alliance, their council finding Atlas untrustworthy and treacherous. Vale was perhaps the only Kingdom that could ever truly fight Atlas in a fair fight, however due to Atlas's alliances with the two other Kingdoms of Vacuo and Mistral, Vale held very little chance to defeat Atlas in any war, a fact that irked the Xiao Longs to no end. However war erupted when a small Valish fishing boat was destroyed by Mistralian warships and soon the alliance of the three Kingdoms set their sight on Vale and its resistance. Vale, however, was able to fend off attacks against their Kingdom, their natural barriers and mighty army and navy defended their Kingdom against all invaders, yet they could never properly mount an offensive against any of their enemies, for as soon as the Valish Fleet left to attack, another Kingdom swooped in to destroy all that they had built. Due to their failure to conform and the long bloody nature of the war, Atlas placed an embargo on Vale, effectively declaring all that traded with Vale to be an enemy of the formidable alliance of Kingdoms and preventing most if not all trade with the once powerful Kingdom Vale until it fell into ruin and chaos, or so Atlas was content to think. The citizens of Vale and their council quickly grew to hate Atlas for its mistreatment of its allies and the poor working class citizens as well as the forced slavery upon the Faunus, a type of human that was born with animalistic traits. The Schnee's continued these rituals of slavery and segregation throughout their land as well as their allied territory. As time passed Vale regrew in strength through their alliances with their nearby territory as more and more towns, forts, and keeps began to despise the ruling of Atlas and kept loyal to the once mighty Kingdom. A hundred generations later and through a successful attack, the king of Atlas was wounded, albeit not fatally as the would-be Valish assassins would have hoped, and his eldest daughter, Weiss Schnee, would take the throne.
And so our story begins on a fateful day in which all would change, for better or for worse only time will tell.