General History of Lestaria
In the beginning, the solar system had no name. None of the planets did, with only one of them being capable of bearing any life. This planet, as it evolved, originally lacked any of the magic that it would later possess. Other than a unique state in which a small spot on one of the continents held a brief intersection with the spiritual dimension for unknown reasons, there was no way for people to encounter these types of powers. In a sense, its very early development up until civilizations began developing to 2000 B.C. technology levels can be comparable to Earth. However, that was the point in which things began to deviate.
Through an unknown force, a blessing would be granted to humanity that allowed the world to discover the limitless potential of magic and the soul, unlike what any world has ever seen. That blessing would arrive around 4500 P.C. In that era, the only planet discovered was Amieres, the largest one of the solar system. It teemed with life, life that eventually took on sentience, then civilization. With civilization, however, came conflict -- war. Among many smaller nations, villages, and even traveling bands, there were several major nations fighting for control of a continent. The three biggest were called Celtinen, Jaspes, and Andva. Among these, Jaspes was the largest in the conflict, constantly putting the pressure on the two other nations to mobilize as much as possible to defend their borders, not to mention the battles that happened between the two of them. These conflicts were dubbed the Tria Wars.
This story starts in a city in Andva, called Cristoven. In this city, they were subject to a program by the military where young children were taken from homes and drafted while they could still be trained into competent fighters. While many received some compensation, housing, and freedom upon turning 18 (with the expectation they stay a soldier) for the most part, this was very little. It was a program spearheaded to weaponize the children of impoverished families, and was seen as a cruel method of population management -- after having their children taken, families were much less likely to have more.
One of these children, through the fortunate and cruel twists of fate, happened to be one of the most important people in history.
Erna Dee Belmonte was taken away from her family when she was five. She was shafted into a barrack where children her age were subjected to intense training, and eventually, fighting at the border. It wasn’t until the age of 26, after years of battle that she met someone who changed the monotony of her life.
A woman named Kavrethi Lavie had made waves in Cristoven, due to some experimental research she’d done into ways to give Andva the upper hand in their long war. She claimed to have gone to another world filled with endless forests and strange creatures of shadow. She had retrieved some of them, along with bringing back a massive bounty of strange magenta crystals that seemed to teem with energy. However, she struggled to pinpoint how to utilize this energy, and spent days huddled in her personal study to observe the crystals. Not to mention, although she had physical proof of her discoveries, she was unable to follow the way she found to the realm she visited, nor could she even remember how she did it in the first place, which made some think that she had created a scam. Nevertheless, the creatures of shadow that resembled small balls of concentrated, pure black dust were seen as a new species of animal at the time, and were given away to wealthy families for money that Kavrethi could use to further fund her research.
Although the city officials doubted the benefits of her work, they had Erna be a personal guard at her home to protect from spies. The two of them seemed to have grown close, as by all accounts, Kavrethi passed from natural causes a year later and left her research and money to Erna in her will.
From here, many remember Erna’s story like a folk tale. She was able to unlock the potential of what is now known as the Soul Stones, using one to grant herself immortality. It was then that she betrayed her home country and went on the run, managing to use her new power to break into the Jaspes’s capital city’s place, where a lone queen named Sunny Farathei ruled after the death of her parents over a decade ago.
There, she convinced the young queen to step down and put and end to this war in exchange for granting her the same immortality-- it is said that Erna also met her third confidant, Bella Kaviarno, sometime before this, although there are no official accounts regarding the woman’s past, other than having invented a working prototype of the lightbulb.
The three of them were the first to harness the power of eternal life, although Erna was able to use the stones with Sunny’s assistance to ‘awaken’ one’s soul to the ability to use magic. This new power spread in a chain reaction, which sparked great upheaval among the nations and caused a complete collapse in authority as people knew it.
It took hundreds of years to recover from the resulting anarchy, but after Erna’s research allowed Bella and Sunny to attain greater power, along with careful distribution of the soul stone’s immortality granting abilities, a rudimentary nation was established named Lestaria, with a leadership called the Delta Six in control. The first members were Bella, Sunny, Menace, Nemi, Tilea, and Fiel. All of them were immortal beings, and while positions changed over the centuries, the main purpose of the Delta Six was to preside over the Eternal Council. Due to their extremely long lifespans, they serve to keep records of laws and decisions, and to make sure the actions of the present take heed of the mistakes of the past.
The Eternal Council was once a general term for the entire governing body of Lestaria. It applied to combat forces, to research and development, to law and enforcement, general decision making and everything in between. Of course, various branches existed to manage each of the different aspects of the Eternal Council, but they were considered to be part of the same general organization at the root of it all. It wasn't until a new phenomenon took place that broke up the Eternal Council into the Guardian Councils we know today, all due to one change that required them to better manage the rising populations: planetary colonization.
Using newly developed technology, other planets in the solar system were able to be stabilized and turned into habitable locations, to different extents. The first planet to be deemed habitable was Maia, and Saturni was established as the capital city. It is primarily a planet filled with vast seas, and there’s not as much landmass as one would expect, but many people settled there due to the teeming oceans and cool weather.
The second was Guares, which turned into a massive center of agriculture that continues to feed the Lestaria Empire to this day. The third was Vevienne, which had extreme climates and was mainly seen as a good place to build factories and manufacturing plants. The fourth, Javen, has an abundance of lush, tropical lands and the least dangerous weather patterns out of all the planets, which makes it an excellent tourist destination. The last planet, Boneli, was seen as relatively unremarkable until 2569, when a series of sudden volcano emergencies made it an extremely dangerous place to live. Despite its inhospitable weather, many bubble colonies have emerged nearly a thousand years after it was vacated due to a lack of space on other planets.
These six planets: Amieres, Maia, Guares, Vevienne, Javen, and Boneil make up the Lestaria Empire. P.C. stands for Pre-Completion, and marks when the empire was finally completed with all six planets. It was shortly after that the structure of the Delta Six changed, so that each member was responsible for the management of one of the planets. In the current year of 5564, the Delta Six has changed immensely.
Sunny looks after Maia, although the increasing struggle to maintain Maia as a hospitable planet has called for movements to remove it as an official colony altogether. Menace looks after Amieres, due to his power and his age, being the oldest immortal being left besides the original three of Sunny, Bella, and Erna.
Nemi now looks after Guares, but the other three members have changed over the years. Delia looks after Javen, King looks after Vevienne, and Westlocks looks after Boneil. All three of these members are immortals, although younger ones. Fiel stepped down to assist Menace in looking after Amieres, while Tilea stepped away in order to handle the growing tensions between humans and spirits personally. Bella is the only one to have stepped down for unknown reasons, shortly after the end of the Pre-Completion era.
In the modern age, the issues most prevalent to people is population growth, as an inefficiency with resources and space have caused more and more of a starvation and homelessness issue for those that cannot afford to work. A high crime rate is also an issue that’s been around for a while due to the ease of access to magic. In addition, the rapid development of technology has caused concerns over people’s privacy, although many people are distracted by that through the rise in different and more engaging mediums of entertainment. The history of old has lost value, in comparison to the worries of the future. Even among the Delta Six, who exist to learn from history, seem to have forgotten what they built the Lestaria Empire for.
Waxing Era - Roughly 4000 P.C to 3400
Waning Era - 3400 to Present (5564)