Everything begins in blood.
Eight years ago, the revolution swept through Illr like wildfire. Oppressed and hunted, the monster clans rose up to join with the peasant populace who had, until then, been worked literally to death and beyond by the ruling class of mages. The revolution was swift, brutal. Judgment day for tyranny; a savage end to centuries of lawful injustice. Out of the chaos of a rebellion, there came order. A new law rose above the rubble, a new path singularly shining and binding together the paths of men and monsters alike in the pursuit of a better life.
Within four years, the new law of Illr had become strong indeed. Its population had multiplied, its cities flourished, and its industry boomed. Was it not time, then, to bring their justice elsewhere? On every border, Illr was met with the injustice of mankind. Monsters of every ilk were hunted and killed to assuage the fears of blindly hysterical populations. On every border, the people of Illr saw nothing but mindless slaughter. It had to stop.
Illr's conquest began as a crusade; it started a mighty quest to right the wrongs of the world.
Whatever it began as, and whatever they told (and still tell) their people, it became a mad war for empire. Several nations have fallen to their might, and never once had their armies returned home to lay down their swords.
Seven years passed before their armies burst through the Lykan borders. There were no warning raids, no threats, no demands- only the sudden appearance of the armies of Illr, so numerous that the red-uniformed ranks of their soldiers blackened the hills all the way to the horizon. And beyond the soldiers, a pillar of smoke blackened the sky as well.
Lyka’s approach with monsters was similar to the old, cast-off ways of Illr: weeding them out as one would a virulent plague, stamping out every straggling remainder of their populations with a righteous zealousness; Lyka in antiquity had been formed of humans fleeing the great Race Wars of old, when Balor and Minotaur were mortal enemies and their great battles carelessly razed the homes and lives of men as if they were no more than lines in the sand.
Almgeirr is one of the last cities that Illr has not taken. It is a safe, quiet cold-water port on Lyka's western coast... or was, until the famine put a lean, angry hunger in people's faces. With the war going sour as it is, the trade that once supported the town has dropped to a trickle, and people are making even less than the meager income they'd had before. The city's Guard is stretched too lean to cover the influx of refugees from other areas of Lyka, and with less and less news coming from the capital- and no news at all coming from areas overtaken by Illr- the town's administrators are more than worried. They're ready to jump ship. Every day, the town grows closer to the edge of erupting into chaos. With the native monster population growing bolder by the day, and mercenaries setting up camp just a breath away from the gates, what’s to become of the little city by the sea?
Almgeirr, the last true Lykan foothold, is the next step for Illr.