The Beginning
The Continent of Sothoros (The Southern Realm). A land whose legacy is written and ends in blood. Little is known about Sothoros in the other continents. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Sothoros is a miserable place, bug infested jungle covered, humid and filled with every disease known to man. But it was not always like this, Thousands of years ago, before the long night. Sothoros was a very different place.
Sothoros was once a thriving continent with hundreds of millions of people. The people of the southern continent were very diverse in terms of skin colors, Ranging from dark skin of the summer islanders to a light tan, but never pale. Structures here were unlike eny in the world. They were literally able to take stones and fit them together without cutting them. Castles reached into the heavens like stone fists and roads that connected to every town, city, villaige and keep.
Few people know the entire geography of Sothoros. But those that lived there knew every detail. According to Sothoros is maller than Essos but not by much, the difference being only half a million square miles. The northern part of Sothoros is 3 million square miles of near impregnable jungle called the Azeron Basin, about a 1/7th of the continent.
Sothoros was divided into two parts by two natural barriers. The northern barrier is the Zamoros River, to the south is the trembling mountains. The Trembling mountains, named after the storms that constantly brewed over them, has a maze os passes and caves which the two nations use for land attacks. The two halves of the continent are as different as night and day. The East is named Eridon and the West is called Arnor.
Eridon, the East is the larger of the two in terms of landmass. It is fertile and heavily populated. Most of the Azeron is in Eridon. Yet it only makes up a small portion of the Eridon landmass about a fourth of the territory. With it's fertile soil and forests of fruit trees, the East is watered by numerous lakes and rivers. There is farmland and pastures can stretch for miles around. The Farms are run by farming villages. Eridonians effectionately call Eridon the Motherland
Arnor, the West is what the East is not, rocky, dry and barren. The West is actually an archipelago of numerous large islands with only a fifth of it's land territory connected to the mainland. The mainland divides the Basilisk Isles in the north from the Hydra Isles in the south. The Azeron makes up 1/3rd of the Arnorian mainland, the rest is dense barren desert. Collectively, Hydra Isles dwarf the Summer Isles, with the largest island Roon being twice the size of Jhala. Very little grows on the islands due to the harsh climate. But what the West lacked in fertility, they made up for in wealth. The Hydra Isles were teeming with all sorts of precious metals, while the Basilisk Isles burst with gems and minerals. The water's surrounding the islands were brimming with all manner of sealife, fish, crabs, seals, sharks, and whales. The people of Arnor call it the Fatherland.
Sothoros has known nothing but war since the beginning. In the Dawn Age, inumerable clans battled for supremacy over Sothoros. Out of these many. two Familes took it upon themselves to unite the continent. The Blackreyne Warlords of Arnor, and the Whitehall Chancellors of Eridon. Eventually these two families united the rallied many clans under their banners.
House Whitehall had the support of the knights, squires, farmers, herders, clergymen, scholars, artists and carpenters. In addition they also had the wealth of merchants, and nobles. House Blackreyne gained the alliegiance of the sailors, fishermen, miners, masons, smiths and huntsmen. Outcasts such as mercenaries, pirates, outlaws, smugglers, and whores sought refuge under the Blackreyne banners. The Blackreynes and their followers were called The Men of the West. While the Whitehalls and their followers were called Easterlings. The Blackreynes ruled the sea, but on land House Whitehall reigned supreme
In Westeros, feuding families were not uncommon, The Blackwood/Braken feud in the Riverlands and the Forrester/Whitehill feud in the North. But their's was nothing compared to the animosity between Blackreyne and Whitehall. Nobody really knows how their feud started. Most accouts tell of a Blackreyne Prince, running off with the eldest daughter of Chancellor Whitehall. The Whitehall say that she was abducted and raped. The Blackreynes insist that the prince was helping the daughter escape her overbearing family. Chancellor Whitehall demended the return of his dautghter, The Blackreynes replied, "Come and try to take our Queen." Regardless of what the truth was, the families became sworn enemies after that.
For thousands years the two families fought each other to a stalemate. Neither side truly gained an advantage over the other. Despite their grievances, commerce between the two was very much active. Seeing as both houses had something that the other wanted. The Whithalls needed gold and the Blackreynes needed food such as wheat, grain, flour, and corn. Sometimes a member of each family would marry in an attempt to unite them. But ultimately these unions failed to end the feud. Their bickering would come to an end when a powerful House came from the continent of Ulthos. This was House Galador.
The Galadors manage to bring the warring houses to heel and eventually the Blackreynes and Whitehalls vowed to serve the Galador kings loyally. They formed the Triumvirant with the Galadors in command. Under the rule of the benevolent House Galador, Sothoros thrived. Being their strongest bannermen, the Blackreynes and Whitehalls, often married their children with those of House Galador. Sometimes members of both families would act as stewards. While the tension between the families were tense, the Galador's were able to keep them in line.
The reason for House Galador was able to do this with ease was their pocession of great wizards and witches and the Great Eagles. The Great Eagles were gigantic in size. With a wingspan of 50 meters. These magnificent birds were the mounts of the Galadors. Despite their appearance, The great eagles were not meant to cower others into submission. But rather to protect them from an ever greater threat. These threats were the wild dragons and the dead.
The wild dragons as the Sothorosi called them were actually Wyverns, close kin to dragons. Wyverns are smaller than dragons, and unlike their depictions had four legs instead of two. Although they cannot breath fire, they are more durable. They were fast, deadly, and fast breeders. They grew quickly numbering in the thousands. They came in many forms, Swamp Ones were strong but slow, Brindled Ones were fast and nimble, Brownbellies were small but what they lacked in size they made up for in sheer numbers. But the most dreaded of these creatures was the Shadow-Wings. The Largest and most powerful of the Wyverns, Shadow-wings were 100 feet long and black as the night. Stronger than Swamp ones and as nimble as a Brindled ones. All these creature were usually controlled by powerful necromancers.
Both houses feared the wyverns. The great eagles, though powerful were few numbering 206 at their peak. To assist eagles, the two families sought to create winged creatures of their own. Through expieraments and cross breeding. They manage to create a new breed into the world, The Sky Steed. Sky steeds are bigger than regular horses, no smaller than 20 hands when fully grown. The result of two different experaments was two different species, the Whitehall's Pegasus, and the Blackreyne's Thestral.
The age of peace ended after the Long Night. In the Long Night the Ice Demons invaded Sothoros. They came with, not only the dead, but golems made of ice and manage to subjugate the wyverns to do their bidding. The Triumvirant manage to win the war against the deamons, and slaughtered the necromancers. But this victory came with a terribler cost. King Harrian Galador lost his life along with his, brothers, sons, uncles and direct cousins. With the death of their king and his entire male line, Sothoros fell into turnoil.
Most of the great eagles were slain by the Wyverns of the necromancers. When the Galadors died out, all but six of the great eagles fled never to be seen again. The main problem was who would rule in the place of their liege lords. Not surprisingly, the Blackreynes and Whitehalls both made a claim to the throne.
Though the male line of House Galador was extinguished, the female line remained plentiful. His eldest daughter Kylie was married to Lord Boromir Blackreyne, while his second daughter Allanie, was married to Lord Malvous Whitehall. Kylie was the elder of the two sisters, she was buxom and beautiful, sensual and voluptuous. Kylie was willful and serious, with a mind as sharp as the arrows of her bow. Allanie was the youngest of Harrian's children. She was everything her sister was not, short and plump, yet pleasant and sweet. Her cheerful made her beloved around Sothoros. Unlike her elder sister, Allanie was caring and utterly selfless, giving much gold to the commoners and even visiting some of them. Aric Whitehall was her betrothed.
The situation in Sothoros worsened with the arrival of the reborn plague. When the Ice deamons rose the dead, many of those revived corpses were carrying an ancient fungus, When this fungus mixed with wyvern blood the result was a disease that could kill anyone with a single speck. It spread rapidly in area's where plant life was abundant. Because of this Eridon was the first to be hit by the plauge. Not surprisingly the nobility of Eridon had been the least affected and so had time to flee.
Desperate to escape the infection, the Sothori gathered their uninfected people to begin a great Exodus. Both families had refuge points in other parts of the world so they had a place to go should disaster strike.
Both Families had knowledge of Essos and Westeros, the history and what state of being. So when they left, they already had a plan in place. While House Whitehall made for the shadowlands. House Blackreyne chose the Iron Islands of Westeros.
Due to Arnor's status as an island nation, ships were plentiful. The Blackreynes loaded 12,000 ships with weapons, armour, food for the journey and 600,000 men women and children. The Whitehalls had a large city on the southern coast of Essos in the shadowlands. From this city they would start a new nation. The Whitehalls took their entire nobility as well as all their knights and whoever survived the plague. Though they hated each other, the plague had developed a sense of brotherhood between the two families. To help the Whitehalls, the Blackreynes donated 10,000 merchant vessels to their cause. The Eridonians left the homeland with 1,000,000 of their people.
Not everyone left with their liege lords. About one percent of the population refuse to leave the land that they had called home all their lives. "We were born here, we have lived here and so we shall die here." They declared. These people were known as the forsaken. The forsaken were not a doomed as most believed.
A small number of people found themselves immune to the plague. These immunes were changed by the plague, both physically and mentally. This change did not happen over night, it slowly developed over thousands of years. These changes included long arms, sloped foreheads, and brindled skin. The forsaken were now more gorilla-like in appearance unable to breed with other people. While a few manage to retain some form of sanity, slow witted but fierce fighters. Most forsaken became savage beyond the point of madness resorting to cannibalism and other obscenities. These Forsaken became the people that the world was famiiar with.
Over time the remnants of the Arnorian and Eridonian civilizations dissappeared, earthquakes and floods brought down their mighty structures while the Azeron Jungle ripped apart the rest. If one was able to go deep into Sothoros, they would find only unrecognizable ruins overgrown by vegitation. Thus ended the two mighty nations of the Southern Realm.