Slightly more than two centuries ago, explorers from the island state of Lyonesse arrived on Agon. According to ancient legends, an advanced people from the west once visited Lyonesse, and those visitors had brought magnificent gifts, like the secrets of mathematics and writing.
Upon landing in Mercia, on Agon’s southeastern coast, the explorers from Lyonesse found only the ruins of the “prosperous and peaceful land” that their writings told about. Moss-grown structures and crumbled statues were all that remained of the culture that had sparked civilization on Lyonesse.
In its place, they found a simple people called the Imric, who had little technology, and lived in scattered villages ruled by tribal chieftains. The Mercians were dismayed by what they found, and upon returning to their home in the eastern ocean, they concluded that the fabled western civilization had fallen into chaos.
Only a few decades later, however, their own homeland was rocked by great upheavals.
For centuries, Lyonesse had been a theocracy, ruled by clerics of Morgaine, and protected by a class of warrior nobles. But countless costly wars against the chaos forces had made the theocracy unpopular, and many saw the priests as viciously single-minded in their pursuit of a society bathed in the light of Morgaine.
When the landed nobles of Lyonesse rose in revolt, they quickly gained the support of the general populace. Rampaging mobs plundered monasteries and chased the hated priests out of their communities. The instigating nobles chose a king from among their own ranks, and put him above the leaders of the church.
As she realised that Lyonesse was lost to the forces of chaos, Morgaine appeared before the leaders of her faith. She bid them build ships and set sail for the newly rediscovered land, where they would set up a holy land among the savages.
A famous knight and noble, Sir John, Duke of Malregard, led the exodus. After soundly defeating a hastily assembled army of Agon natives, he founded the capital of Sanguine, and declared himself the first king of a new kingdom, Mercia.
At first, Mercia only encompassed the lands immediately surrounding Sanguine. In the following years, however, King John and his sons, John II and Robert I, steadily expanded the kingdom. Though vastly outnumbered on countless occasions, their technological, organisational and tactical superiority gave the Mercians the upper hand. They also found it easy to play native chieftains against each other, patiently conquering the human lands on Agon piece by piece.
Seventy years after the invasion, the majority of human lands were in the hands of the Mercians. Finally, the remaining native chieftains were able to unite under a single High King, called Aur the Bold. After first winning several spectacular victories, Hugh was crushed by King Robert I at the battle of Dalriada. The remaining native chieftains now swore fealty to Robert, and their lands were put under the overlordship of Mercians.
The kingdom of Mercia finally stretched from the swamps of Morak to the wastes of Nagast. A majestic cathedral was built at the site of the final victory, and the king immediately started planning military campaigns against Mercia’s evil neighbours. But internal trouble would halt these initiatives before they came to fruition.
Meanwhile, in Lyonesse, the Morganic faith lay fatally wounded. Other gods rose to prominence, and in time the worship of the Lady faded. Several decades passed in relative peace and prosperity.
Then the volcanic forces, which had spawned the island, turned against it. With little warning, a large but long dormant volcano exploded, in a blast that blew half the island away, and covered the rest in lava and ashes. With a sudden blow, nature had annihilated the populous and prosperous land of Lyonesse. Today, ash-covered ruins on scattered islands are all that remains.
