Colonies

The first Nielda to set foot on Tara, did so without the attention of an enthralled public. In fact, that now time-lost indivdual did it at the same time as nine other specially trained soldiers. It was only after data was collected, and the first settlement established that the public was notified at all.

Ten colonies were established in as many years. Tara was the first, named the World of Emerald Isles for it's, well, green islands. It was there that the Nielda first encontered night. And it's multitude of moons first brought to light the Lycanthropy that had been incubating within the population. Mages, seeing the decline of their hold within society, quickly pronounced it a magical issue and developed a strict mental regimen to maintain control for all but the most severe outbreaks. The monthly triple full moon of Tara would be one of those rare occasions.

The task of the guards, the long peace of the empire, and colonization efforts.

The heir of the Junlaerd was a much wiser, more stable man than his Grandfather. Under his reign many laws were established, and the Imperial Guards were tasked with driving out the demon worshiping cults, which had flourished under the Junlaerd, along with the numerous dark powers these cults had drawn to the empire. These Dark Powers came to be refered to as 'Shaditha' for the Nieldic word meaning darkness, and have been roughly translated to common( In the rare cases were Nieldic is translated at all) as 'shade'. The striking similarity is not lost on the Nielda or on those humans who are aware of such things, though the origins are often misunderstood by the later.

For a thousand years, the empire prospered and as one emperor passed on and a new one took his place the population grew. The military traditions of the Nieldic race fell idle, and their skill in trade and love for efficiency grew. But with neither disease nor war to hinder the growth of the population; Scientists and engineers were forced to work tirelessly to solve, or prevent, the imminent threats of starvation and overpopulation.

Until one day, the answer to their problems landed on forty million unsuspecting people.
simultaneously postponing the inevitable overpopulation, and opening a brand new world of interesting and noticeably brittle-boned people to the Nielda.

A team of the best scientists, engineers, and magicians was assembled to find out how the newcomers came to arrive in the middle of the crater where a large city had once stood. The few human survivors, later discovered to be a lost part of an exploration mission, made attempts to either communicate or defend themselves; depending primarily on how the person relating the account thinks he can pass off frantic arm waving and traumatic blood-loss. Few actual records were recovered, fewer survivors. In a stroke of luck, the interstellar drive was in tact enough to be reverse engineered; and enough of the ships crew survived to translate a basic dictionary, and be recorded for syntax and pronunciation. Tragically, or Fortuitously again depending on the story teller, none of the survivors survived the combination of highly infectious disease's and lack of properly sanitized medical facilities which existed on Danielland(a condition that has yet to abate).

After a series of rather barbaric, and simplistic, launch tests, the Nielda managed to launch their first Space station, and from it, launch their first interstellar spacecraft. Only a decade after their initial discovery of anything at all above the sky; they were establishing their first colony.

appearance change

I felt like it. I just wish I had an artist, or at least something to break up the text walls.
If it was a girl, who was also interested in me, that would be particularly nice.
-sigh-

The Lay of the Junlaerd; or 'Empire'

It should be noted upfront that no-one, not even most Nieldic villains, condones the actions of the self-declared 'Junlaerd'.

The Junlaerd was born the youngest son of the king of the relatively small city state of Danielland. The name alone should tell you how this story ends. However, rather than an inspiring tale of perseverance, wisdom, and divine intervention; the tale of the Junlaerd is one of the lowest moments in Nieldic history. As a child the Junlaerd was teased for having a name that was easily confused with a few rather courser terms in Nieldic, Especially by his siblings, particularly his sister, the heir apparent. He vowed at an early age to do what ever could be done to prove himself the best of all of them. And so at the eve of his 16Th birthday, the day on which a Nielda is considered an adult, he was approached by a powerful being from another plane of existence, now known to be the demon Ekidan. The being offered him endless power and eternal life; on a single condition. Ten souls were to be delivered up to the being on the Junlaerd's birthday. Without a second thought the Junlaerd excepted the demons offer and pledged the lives of his own siblings as the first payment.

With the demon's power and craftiness at his behest, the Junlaerd lay low one city state after another finally establishing Danielland as one of the leading states of the world. At his wedding, arranged for purely diplomatic reasons to the daughter of a fearful neighbor king, he boldly invited every nation of the world to bask in his glory. None dared to deny his request outright.

But one state, a northern kingdom renowned for it's strong fortifications, ravenous wolf riders, and powerful mages, but revered for it's foresight, wisdom, and love for learning and study, turned back after arriving in the capital city. Claiming illness, Prince A'tai of the ruling Stone clan turned back to deliver a warning to his people of a dark power he sensed within the Junlaerd's palace. Rushing to his father and his siblings he warned them and advised that they train an army and send envoys to the other nations to warn them against the pending threat. But all in vain.

Ekidan was not the fool previous demonic visitors to the world had been. He saw through the Prince's 'illness' and alerted the Junlaerd. Having declared at his wedding feast a new 'Daniellandish Empire' he made it his first act to declare war on the prideful lords of Stone. He sent forth the full might of his armies to crush his new found rivals. After thirty years of harsh sieges and devastating field battles, the Junlaerd's armies were defeated; unable to breach the thick walls of the northern power, or to out-maneuver their swift wolf riders.

It was only after forty years of continued conquest the Junlaerd would return his gaze to the Fortresses of his Rival, the now King A'tai. This time the Junlaerd invested in engineers, inventors, and chemists; searching for a means to even the odds against the wolf riders and to bring down the great walls of the stone kingdom. Success was had quickly to both problems. A new crossbow, designed to fire a great speed with minimal training allowed his massed infantry to gain an edge against the wolf riders; while an ancient Nieldic alchemist's formula allowed him the firepower needed to breech even the strongest walls. With these new advances in technology the numerically superior troops of the Daniellandish empire overran the kingdom of stone, led by the Junlaerd himself, now at the rather remarkable age 273(old even for a Nielda). In the end he struck the final blow against King A'tai, last of the free kings of the Nielda, and slaughtered his family in battle and by bounty. And with this final victory he declared his reign over all Nielda, under an eternal Daniellandish empire; every year claiming his ten souls.

But what kind of story would this be if the good guys just died and left a planet under the eternal reign of a crazed mad man and his increasingly powerful demon buddy?

One of the daughters of King A'tai, Diersel of the bloodied fang, escaped the emperor's slaughter. After weeks of fleeing the Junlaerd's hunters she threw herself at the mercy of a local farmer. She quickly became amazed to discover that this was not simply a farmer but a former priest, himself in hiding from the demon's machinations. No longer fleeing the two settled down and raised a family, teaching them of the Junlaerd's evils. Alas, after seventy years in hiding Diersel and her family were found, and she and her husband slain at the Junlaerd's orders. Their children, sent away when their parents had realized that they had been discovered, plotted to destroy the Junlaerd using the knowledge that their parents had collected.

One of them, the eldest daughter, was selected to do the deed. As the fairest among them, indeed one of the fairest of all the empire, they knew that she would be able to join the ten virgins regularly brought to the Junlaerd on his birthday. However without knowing what fate would await her within the palace, she would be forced to operate on her own judgement beyond the front gates; so the siblings granted their sister every blessing and enchantment that they could imagine(and unwittingly a few they couldn't). With what can only be considered divine providence, it was not necessary to plan further. The Junlaerd awaited his sacrifices at a fountain within the palace gardens. Dismissing his guards he quickly dispatched of the least attractive of the girls, while incanting the summons for Ekidan. Realizing what was about to happen, the daughter of Diersal struck down the other 8 girls with a flurry of spell craft, before casting a spell of binding upon the fountain, trapping the Junlaerd, the demon, and herself within it.

It took only four minutes for the Imperial guards to realize what had happened. Seeing the flash of magic and the absence of their liege lord, along with the dark surge of the fleeing demon; they decided to publicly announce that the Junlaerd's heart had failed him at last, and to bring together the previously unheard of councils of nobles and of commanders together to select an heir from among the Junlaerd's grand children(his children having all long died of old age).

It was also noticed by the guards that the so-called 'fountain of the demon' bestowed upon those who bathed in it's waters an increased aptitude for magic. Calling upon those within their order with knowledge of such things, the Imperial guard found the power of the fountain to be benign to harmless at worst. It became tradition from that time on for a guardsman to bathe in the fountain at the time of his promotion.

Danielland

I mentioned before that the name is grammatically incorrect. The general consensus is that the first emperor was both an awful person and quite narcissistic. However, in spite of the fact that the Nielda must regularly point out how poorly named the planet, and empire, were; the name has stuck.

Danielland is a swampy planet. The almost perfectly uniform climate and weather are caused by the planet's unique placement within its' system. The Danieland system is a binary star system with a single planet. Unlike many binary star systems the planet is placed at the center of system with the stars orbiting it directly across from each other. The planet is dryer and rocky at the poles, but otherwise covered in shallow water and trees.

This star placement has made Danielland a world with no night. As one sun sets the other rises. The other result of the star placement is that the world is almost impossible to spot on a navicomputer, or through any gravity based detection system.

Another result of the lack of night, or moons, was the inncubation of the condition known as Lycanthropy; in laymans terms, Werewolfism. Because nothing could cause a Lycanthrope to be revealed save a failed attempt to kill, the condition went unchecked for years.


Danielland has a rather less than diverse ecosystem. It has several thousand varieties of insects, a few hundred varieties of amphibian, about three hundred types of reptiles, and about forty varieties of mammals. The reptiles consist primarily of small alligators and large turtles, with a smattering of iguana and gecko like animals. The mammals consist of squirrels, a few varieties of cats; ranging in size from a small tiger to a large house cat, and four varieties of canine; one roughly the size of a horse and the other three having wool like fur. All of the canines are found in the rocky polar regions.

Due to the nature of their homeworld the Nielda, with few exceptions, used primarily canals for travel. And in spite of a hierarchical society, never encountered cavalry in battle until after establishing intergalactic travel.

Nielda

What better place to start an introduction to my creation than with the most integral part of it, the Nielda themselves.

The Nielda are externally nearly indistinguishable from humans. The only possible indications are a greater density, and average height. However, under the skin are a few crucial differences. The first, and more obvious, one is their skeleton. Their skeleton is comprised primarily of an element that they refer to as 'kraje'(krah-ge). Kraje has a number of interesting properties, including a physical strength equivalent to steel, as well as several magical traits. The second biological difference is their blood, which in an ongoing fit of non-inspiration they continue to simply call blood. The most fascinating part of Nieldic blood is that it is actually not a part of the Nielda at all. It is a single cell organism that has a symbiotic relationship with the Nielda, serving the Nielda in much the same manner as the blood of other races; with the added benefit of defending itself against foreign intruders(i.e. germs, dirt, other lifeforms) violently, causing as a side effect an immunity to vampirism (though for reasons to be later explained not Lycanthropy). In fact, it is considered the 19Th most corrosive substance in the universe. It has no effect on inanimate objects, and makes an excellent, although morbid, cleaning agent.

Psychologically the Nielda are best explained by looking at the origin of their culture. Originating in the shallow swamps of the grammatically incorrect planet Danielland(will be explained later); the Nielda evolved a hunter-gatherer culture. Rather than convert to agriculture and develop society from that point as most species would, the Nielda split into a twin culture of peaceful farmers and hunter-raiders. At the date reckoned as 1/1/0 of the Nieldic calender, A tribe of raiders, recognizing the decreasing herd sizes and the cost of raiding, approached a nearby farming village and offered their protection from other tribes of raiding. They did so in what has become known as 'Nieldic flair'. Rather than simply sending an emissary and requesting a parlay with the farmers, they lay in wait for another, smaller, tribe of raiders and wiped them out as they began looting the village. By proving their military superiority over other local tribes they were able to gain a position of dominance in negotiations and establish themselves as being nobles, rather than mere mercenaries.

The violence shown in the raiding has become considered one of the Nielda's traits, as has the melodramatic 'Nieldic flair'. For these reasons many 'civilized nations' avoid dealing with Nieldic powers, with the knowledge that the Nielda will not hesitate to allow, or cause, the destruction of others simply to make a point. Many Nieldic observers and historians will swiftly point out that even if you chose not to involve yourself, you will inevitably be hated for your perceived display of pride, a trait which the Nielda thoroughly enjoy exploiting.

The true nature displayed by the Nielda by these early events is a people who are willing to do whatever is necessary to survive, and will do it in as memorable a way as possible. The Nielda love stories, but they love true stories even more. And so they have a culture unwittingly built around entertaining and teaching future generations of Nielda.

Before I conclude this I feel like this would be a good point to mention Nieldic women. The Nielda are a race with nearly 3/1 male-female ratio. This has lead to several odd phenomenon. The first is that Nielda pass surnames, family wealth, and most hereditary positions down through the daughters of the family; this in spite of a rather male dominated society. The second is that most Nieldic heroes are women; most Nieldic historians attribute this to some sort of divine balancing act. As most other races are ruled, dominated, and championed by men; the Nielda, generally acknowledged as the universe's dominant race, are championed by women who are generally superior to the male champions of the other mortal races.

A new direction

I know it has been a while since I last updated; as I have been told on multiple occasions recently.

So I've decided to go in a somewhat different direction. Rather than posting a bunch of stuff about how I feel on a given day, or what kind of crazy stuff is happening; I'm going to begin attempting to log the happenings within what I like to refer to as 'the Nieldic Expanded Megaverse'.

Because this is a very considerable amount of what I think about, and has been for several years now, I'm going to have to ask you all to point out as soon as possible whenever I say something and you need an explanation. please refrain from making comments about any beliefs, morals, or related topics; this is an exercise in Role Play(RP) and a means by which I explore various possibilities, not necessarily an indication of what I believe. Also, no praise, It distracts me, inflates my ego, and is generally unproductive.

Edit:
I'll be trying to make daily additions, but I may forget some days.