Faction overview: Basilea – a realm watched over by gods

The sky over the Golden Horn, the capital of Basilea, is rarely empty. Golden figures circle between the church spires – winged shapes in gleaming armour, so beautiful it's hard to look at them for long. The people of the city barely glance up. They're used to it. For nine hundred years they've lived in a country whose gods aren't something from a sermon, but next-door neighbours.

That explains a lot about the Basileans. Their piety, their confidence and their pride.

Part one: heir to the Republic

Mighty Primovantor

To understand Basilea, you have to start with what it used to be. And it used to be part of something far bigger.

The Grand Republic of Primovantor was the greatest civilisation humans ever built – and one of the greatest in all of Pannithor's history. At its height it covered a third of the known world, and in size, strength and splendour it matched elven Elvenholme and the mightiest dwarf holds. It was governed by an elected senate led by a High Consul. It was a land of high art and high learning, and its scholars counted the Celestians themselves among their friends.

People lived long lives in those days, and they were sharp of mind. They learned a great deal from the elves and gave a great deal back. From their mountain homeland of Primantor they brought one land after another into the Republic – as often by diplomacy as by the sword. The law treated every citizen the same, whether their country had joined of its own free will or been beaten in war. That was exactly why the Republic flourished. Anyone who fought for Primovantor did so by choice, defending a land they were proud to call their own.

The end of the glory

The God War laid waste to much of the Republic, and the splitting of the Celestians hit it harder than anywhere else. Then came the Time of Ice. And it was the High Consul of Primovantor who pushed hardest for Winter to be ended once and for all – sealing the fate of his own country in the process.

The War with Winter finished the Republic off. The ice ground the provinces north of the Dragon's Teeth mountains into clay, and the sea swallowed the rich lands to the south. Valandor, shielding Basilea, turned aside whatever he could, yet huge stretches of the old empire still vanished beneath the waters of the newborn Infant Sea. Some say it was a mercy of sorts. Primovantor had grown bloated and divided by then, and the Great Flood simply wiped it off the map.

Only the eastern part survived – Basilea. So did two twin cities perched high on rocky ridges the waves couldn't reach: Primantor, and Antanavor, the City of the Golden Horn – today's Golden Horn. Primantor still stands as a monument to the follies of a forgotten age. It's mostly ruins now, with trees growing along its wide boulevards and inhabited corners that feel more like villages scattered among the rubble. The Golden Horn, on the other hand, became the heart of humanity's rebirth.

Alone against everyone

The first centuries after the Flood were a nightmare for humankind. The dwarfs went underground, determined never again to get involved in anyone else's business. The elves broke apart into the remnants of their former realms and cared more about their own survival than the fate of the lesser races. Even the Shining Ones, the broken remains of humanity's old patrons, had become fickle and unreliable.

Humans were on their own. They fought the creatures of the Abyss, hordes of orcs and goblins, the wild peoples of the steppe. Time and again they stood on the edge of extinction, and they survived through sheer stubbornness. One ruler of the Golden Horn after another tried to hold their people together against threats from every side – and only just managed it.

Part two: an oath of blood

The diary from Antovar

A diary kept by Hegemon Bolisean survives from those times. Its last entries come from the campaign that ended at Antovar.

On the forty-seventh day the army broke camp at dawn. The rain had turned the roads to mush, but the soldiers were singing. At the village of Larroway three companies of paladins joined them – "impressive fellows", the Hegemon noted. Twenty-three battalions stood under arms, not counting the cavalry of the Sisterhood. Bolisean let the men light fires and cook soup, and spent the day in prayer and writing letters home. In the evening, reports of fighting in the rearguard reached him. He refused to believe them.

The next day the army marched for eleven hours. It forded a wide, shallow river whose water ran black. The men fell silent. Forty fell ill and three died. Nobody sang that day. At Antovar there was hardly any firewood, the sky churned with darkness, and the rain came down harder than the Hegemon had ever seen. At night, the rats kept everyone awake.

Before dawn on the forty-ninth day, the orcs struck. A charge of riders on gores, hidden by the noise of the storm, broke the line – only the knights drove it back. The soldiers cheered, but Bolisean knew it had been nothing more than a probe. How could orcs have come this far south, and in such numbers? he asked in his diary.

From then on it only got worse. Every charge hit harder than the last. Trolls appeared among the endless ranks of orcs, "and worse". The Sisters didn't come back. The Hegemon led an attack on the enemy's left flank himself, but the orcs stopped it and struck back at his right. After two days the army was down to half its strength, and the battalion commanders looked like ghosts of themselves. "They look to me now, as I look to the Shining Ones," Bolisean wrote by the light of a guttering candle.

The last entry is short. The scouts report the enemy on every side. The riders he sends out never return. There's no hope of supplies or relief. The army won't survive another charge.

"I hear the drums again..."

The oath

What happened next passed into legend.

The Hegemon's army was exhausted, surrounded and cut off by a far larger orc horde. His bodyguard lay trampled into the mud, his sword had snapped, and another charge was thundering towards him. Bolisean sank to his knees, threw back his head and roared at the lightning-split sky. He begged the Shining Ones to come down and save him and his people. In return he offered them his eternal, heartfelt loyalty – his own and that of his whole people – as the true gods of humanity.

Whether the fickle Shining Ones just happened to be in a good mood, or whether something in his cry moved them, nobody knows. Before Bolisean stood the spirit of Domivar himself – son of Mescator, the hero who cast the Wicked Ones down into the Abyss at the end of the God War. The spirit asked the Hegemon to repeat his oath and seal it with his own blood in the sacred ground where he knelt. Bolisean didn't hesitate for a moment. He sliced open his palm on the jagged end of his broken sword, and a few drops of blood soaked into the wet mud.

The answer came at once. The rain stopped with a crack, as if the sky itself had split open, and a blinding flash of lightning washed over everything. When the soldiers' eyes adjusted to the grey light again, they saw thousands of Elohi above them – the winged warriors who guard the Shining Ones. The orcs faltered. Then they died. The magnificent, terrible beings fell upon them with a fury that not even orcish savagery could match.

The pact had been sealed in blood. On that bloody field, at the edge of the lands the men of the Golden Horn defended, the realm of Basilea was born, and Bolisean became the first Hegemon of a new human empire. Since that day Basilea has been humanity's last shining bastion, the centre of human power and learning, and the keeper of the traditions of Primovantor, in whose shadow it still lives.

Part three: the Hegemony today

Gods on Mount Kolosu

The Shining Ones – the noble aspects of the old Celestians that survive to this day – live at the top of Mount Kolosu. It's an impossibly tall pillar of rock, and from there the gods watch over the Hegemony. They rarely appear in person. Usually they send an avatar or an emissary, and when the need is great enough, their servants come to the aid of Basilea's armies.

A few temples to the long-gone Celestians still stand in Basilea, but the worship of the Shining Ones is the very fabric of daily life. The Hegemon is both king and high priest. Only he can appeal to the gods directly.

A country whose gods show up in the flesh can hardly help being pious. And it's hard for it not to be arrogant – pride comes easily when you have powers like that at your back. The Golden Horn is full of churches, and the faith holds enormous worldly power as well. Basileans know full well that the Hegemony has survived the last nine hundred years thanks to the protection of the Shining Ones, and they won't be forgetting it any time soon.

The richest of the kingdoms of men

Basilea is a land where time has stood still. Conservative and paralysed by ritual – and yet something of Primovantor's old glory still shines through. Its cities are the largest, its princes the richest and its mages the most powerful of all the human kingdoms. Nowhere else in the world will you find so many colleges of magic.

The wealth comes from its position. Trade routes run through Basilea – the Copper Road, for one, linking the Ardovikian Plain with the Hegemony – and the smaller states around it live under its protection. It will never match the sheer scale and majesty of old Primovantor, but it's one of the wealthiest countries in Mantica, and perhaps in all of Pannithor.

The shadow beneath the gold

Basilea has its dark side, too.

Free thinking is frowned upon, and the culture has stayed frozen in the same shape for centuries. Every so often a panic about agents of the Wicked Ones sweeps the country – and then the guilty and the innocent alike die in mass drownings in the Cleansing Pools. Merely suggesting that Valandor and the most terrible of the Abyss's lords, Ba'el, are inseparably bound together is punishable by death here.

Nor does the Hegemon rule unopposed. Blood feuds are all too common, fuelled by honour and a religious zeal that nothing can put out.

And at the top of their stone pillar, the Shining Ones watch, and mostly stay silent. Some call them the protectors of humanity. Others call them capricious immortals who play with the lives of lesser beings.

The neighbours

Basilea considers itself the one true guardian of Primovantor's legacy. Not everyone agrees.

The Primovantia peninsula, the ruins of the Republic's old homeland, is now a patchwork of squabbling city states. At times Basilea has ruled almost the whole peninsula and the lands west of it; at other times, next to nothing. Its main weapon here is gold: bribes and gifts draw the wavering cities under the Hegemon's wing, and when that fails, gold pays for mercenary armies. Truth be told, what's left of Primovantor has little to offer. It's poor, and bandits roam among the ruins of its mountain keeps.

Further west lies the League of Rhordia, which also claims to be the Republic's heir – and a truer one politically and culturally, it says, because it hasn't been "corrupted" by this newfangled devotion to the Shining Ones. Where Basilea relies on the fickle favour of the gods and their heavenly hosts, Rhordia puts its trust in science, reason and gunpowder. It lacks Basilean haughtiness, which is why it gets on far better with halflings and dwarfs.

To the east are the dwarfs themselves – and relations with them are at their lowest point in a very long time. King Golloch is building an empire that already reaches almost to the walls of Basilea. His nephew Rordin has retaken the old dwarf capital of Dolgarth, worryingly close to Basilean lands, and as High Guardian of the West has turned it into Golloch's shield against the Hegemony. The Basileans watch with growing unease. Not every dwarf is an enemy, though: three free clans live in the Golden Horn, and from their quarter of the city – bursting at the seams with refugees these days – they remain invaluable allies and advisers on all matters Golloch.

And from the north, the orcs never stop pushing.

Part four: the Hegemon's armies

Men-at-arms

Basilea is rich, so its infantry goes to war in the best armour and with the best weapons money can buy. The men-at-arms are the backbone of its forces: the largest and best-trained standing army in Mantica, legions thousands strong, paid for out of the Hegemon's bottomless treasury.

Most carry the koliskos – a broad-bladed spear in use since the days of the Republic – and a simple but effective sword called the daga. They're protected by scale mail, plate and large winged shields, often bearing the sun of Basilea. The army fights on every border at once, so the legions are full of veterans who've faced the worst creatures Mantica has to offer, from chimeras to horrors they'd rather not talk about.

The war with the Abyss and its fast-moving creatures has taught the Basileans to value the sword over the bow, but they do have shooters. Mostly crossbowmen – because against demons there's rarely time for a second shot. The garrisons also keep arbalests, heavy crossbows on mounts. They're not much use against demons, but their bolts punch through armour – and that's priceless when Golloch's heavily armoured warriors are on the other side.

The paladins

The paladins are Basilea in a nutshell, in peace and in war. Holy men devoted entirely to the Shining Ones, they spend their days in meditation and prayer, caring for the sick and the poor, teaching, and preserving and spreading ancient knowledge. Until battle calls.

The first order was founded three hundred years ago by Oredorus the Pure. Since then the paladins have grown so powerful that they rival the men-at-arms legions as Basilea's main military force. Today, chapters of Oredorians are spread across the whole Hegemony, each ready for war at a moment's notice.

Paladins on foot fight in heavy, ornate plate with a hefty two-handed sword called a sparthion. Others ride to battle on armoured chargers, with shield and long lance – their charges have turned the tide of more than one battle. Each chapter is led by a high paladin: warrior, strategist and monk all in one. The mightiest of them ride dragons – mythical beasts bent to their will. That's how strong the faith of Basilea is.

Right behind the high paladin come the chaplains, blessed above the other brothers and wielding stronger magic than the rest of the order. And between the rank-and-file brethren and the leaders of the chapter stand the defenders – warriors who stand out even among the elite. Each chapter has only a dozen, and sends them into battle only in the darkest hour. They have one remarkable trait: if the war they've been sent to fight is unjust, the blessing of the Shining Ones quickly drains from them, and the defenders leave the field before they bring the wrath of the gods down on themselves. It's a rather effective check on any Hegemon who turns out to be too bloodthirsty or unstable. The paladins are, quite literally, the gods' favourites.

The Sisterhood

Monasteries of many orders are scattered across the Basilean countryside. Some of them – for reasons known only to themselves – take in women only. The sisters keep well away from the beaten track and from the Hegemon's iron hand, but they're sworn to the Shining Ones, and so to the defence of all of Basilea.

Their convents are remote, so the sisters have to defend themselves and train their bodies as hard as their souls. In times of need they lend their warriors to nearby garrisons. Most give up armour for speed and fight as light infantry, light cavalry, scouts and infiltrators. Their favourite weapons are heavy flails and glaives – a curved version of the koliskos. Few stay at war for long; most fight out of necessity or duty and soon return to their quiet lives. The handful who fight without pause are the elite, and they're the ones who train the new acolytes on the front line.

The sisters from the mountainous province of Tarkis are famous as the best scouts and archers in Basilea. The army is very keen to have them, but it doesn't get much say in the matter – they go wherever the Shining Ones lead them.

Tarkis is also home to the forests of Gur and the Gur panthers, whose borders the sisters guard closely. Only a strictly limited number of cubs may be taken from the forest, so that this treasure is never lost. Raised by dedicated handlers, a panther grows almost as big as a horse. With a sister on its back, as lancer light cavalry or pulling a fast chariot, it's even more dangerous. A sister and her panther are a pair for life – they go through training together and fight together. If one of them dies, the other will never find a new partner.

Each convent is led by an abbess – almost always strict and uncompromising. She is obeyed without a murmur, because anyone who has seen her fight knows how completely she's devoted to the gods. With a heavy flail or a curved glaive, she brings the light of the Shining Ones to those who have no faith.

The Hegemon's people

In Basilea, faith counts for as much as strength and generalship, so armies are led by zealous followers of the Shining Ones and the Hegemon. Most of them don't belong to any military organisation – they're appointed by whoever holds power in the capital.

The most powerful force under the Hegemon's direct command is the Palace Guard, made up entirely of ogres in heavy plate. They rarely leave the palace walls – and only on the Hegemon's express order. There are painfully few of them, so they march out only when things are truly dire. Each suit of armour is engraved with the deeds of all its previous wearers, and when another one dies, his name is added too. In ogre culture that's a kind of immortality, so it's no wonder so many young ogres dream of joining the Guard. Ogres who travel south for pay usually head back north one day, when it's time to have children. The Basileans, however, have found a way to make sure some of them never feel that urge.

Priests follow the army, perfectly able to defend themselves and usually doing so while singing the praises of their gods. When an army sets out on a great crusade, the priests march in step with the infantry – invited or not. Many armies are led by Dictators, the voices of the Basilean faith: generals drawn from the priesthood, the Sisterhood, the paladins or even the ordinary men-at-arms. They tend to be older men with a rather pompous manner. They're not usually great warriors, but without them the Basilean legions would never find their way to victory.

In recent decades, war wizards have become an ever more common sight on the battlefield. To Basileans, magic is part of every walk of life, war included. War wizards command fire and weather, and their spells have proved especially effective against the creatures of the Abyss.

Only the bravest and most virtuous young acolytes are given the honour of carrying Basilea's holy icons into battle – golden statues of saintly heroes and heroines, or the banners of famous regiments.

Angels and phoenixes

The Elohi are the angels of the gods and Basilea's mightiest warriors, sent down from the top of Kolosu to defend the land the Shining Ones have chosen as their own. They're beautiful beyond mortal understanding, tall and flawless. Wings grow from their shoulders, and their bodies are clad in gleaming armour of unknown metals. Their swords and spears recall the terrible weapons of the God War. In battle they're all but unstoppable – as terrible in a fight as they are gentle and merciful outside one. Each is worth dozens of men.

The mightiest of them are the ur-elohi, shining beacons of good who guide the armies of Basilea and its allies from on high. Legends are told about them. Kurilia, the Phoenix Maiden, led the charge against the demons at Baraskoi. Beraphael finished off the undead monstrosity known as the Gorelord with a single blow of his shining spear. Time and again, the ur-elohi have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.

The symbol of Basilea is the phoenix – a sign of rebirth, holy fire and blazing fury. The mages of the Hegemony summon these half-magical birds to fight. Phoenixes are huge birds of prey, part flame and part feather. Nobody knows for certain how they came to be – legend says they were born from the sacred flames of Fulgria, the goddess of fire, whose favourite creatures they are. They're noble beings: they serve only the pure of heart, they can speak, and they can't stand the sight of evil.

Part five: heroes and legends

You can't cut fire with a sword

In the God War, the Celestian Fotia split into two beings: a Shining One who kept the name Fotia, and a Wicked One called Prykagia. They fought many wars against each other, and their final clash came in the Time of Ice, on the Ardovikian Plain.

Prykagia had got hold of an artefact of magical ice – deadly to both of them, since both were beings of fire – and meant to use it to finish off her brighter half. Fotia's mortal followers fought at her side, among them her high priestess, Irdima. Fotia cared deeply for her people and did everything she could to shield them. Prykagia saw that as a weakness. She feinted a blow at Irdima, and when Fotia threw herself in the way, Prykagia cut her in half – exactly as she had planned. Then she vanished in a flash of light to celebrate her victory somewhere else. Fotia's followers fled in terror.

Only Irdima stayed on the battlefield. She cradled the two halves of her goddess's body and wept. And then, through her words of love and her desperate prayers, a miracle happened: neither half died. One – the vengeful, warlike side of fire, the kind that sears a wound shut – was reborn as the ur-elohi Jullius, the Dragon of Heaven. The other – the fire that nurtures, renews and cleanses – returned as the ur-elohi Samacris, Mother of Phoenixes.

So Fotia was reborn as the Dragon and the Phoenix. Apart, each is weaker than she once was; together, they're stronger. Their story is told as a parable of passion and of a love that can't be destroyed, and in Basilea people say "you can't cut fire with a sword" when they mean two lovers can't be parted. Samacris lends her phoenixes to more than just Basilea, by the way – they fight alongside the Salamanders too, with almost gleeful enthusiasm.

Gnaeus Sallustis

Grand Master of the Basilean paladins. Seeing him on the battlefield is a bad omen for Basilea's enemies, because no army he has led has ever lost. Gnaeus rides a gigantic Basilean lion called Nakir and cuts his way through the enemy ranks towards a single goal: the general on the other side.

Even as a novice he showed remarkable talent and a piety beyond his years. He was sent on his initiation quest at the age of fourteen – nobody younger had ever been sent. He was sworn in as a brother straight away, and became a full paladin when he came back from the quest riding a young lion. Today he's the model of everything a paladin should be: deeply devout, terrifying in battle and a cunning tactician.

Danor and the spirit of Valandor

The Order of the Ardent Light, an order of mages in the Golden Horn, traces its history back – like many orders in Basilea – to the legendary Valandor the Great. It accepts only those whose ancestors fought at his side. Danor resisted becoming an apprentice for a long time, but once he finally joined the order he proved an exceptionally gifted student.

Everything changed with his expedition to the ruins of Du'Lan. Danor went there in pursuit of Mortibris – a necromancer who had once been a pupil of the Order of the Ardent Light himself, before turning to darkness and hunting for the fabled Tome of Valandor. Mortibris meant to use it to free Ba'el, whom Valandor had imprisoned long ago in a labyrinth beneath the ruins of Du'Lan. He was stopped by a small band of heroes chosen by the Council of Rulers of Basilea. In the ruins, Danor met the still-living spirit of Valandor. Since then he seems to understand something about the great war between good and evil that others can't see – and in the direst need he can call Valandor's spirit onto the battlefield. He says little about what he went through there. He walks his own path now, following a destiny nobody else can see.

Ecquitar of Tarisios

Nova Ardovikio is one of the most remote and sprawling provinces of Basilea, a gateway to the Young Kingdoms, the Successor Kingdoms and the feudal lands of old Primovantor. At its heart lies the merchant city of Tarisios – well protected by the Hegemony. Against mortal enemies.

One harsh winter, when the snow had cut off many of the surrounding villages, the nightmares began. First in the countryside, then in the city itself. People dreamed of shadow beasts, ghostly hounds and, worst of all, many-eyed tentacled things hanging silently in the dark. The Hegemon's paladins realised something was wrong, and at first they suspected the magic of the Abyss. Meanwhile the villages, farms and watchtowers went dark one after another, like candles being snuffed out. Riders turned back before walls of unnatural, inky fog – if they came back at all.

One night the shadow came from every side at once: seeping up out of the ground, rolling down from the Copper Hills, creeping out from among the trees of Galahir. Everyone who looked at it recognised the monsters from their own dreams, and every sob of fear made the shadow army grow. Even so, the garrison commander, High Paladin Ecquitar, led the city guard out beyond the walls. The Nightstalkers tore the defenders apart until only the paladins and the sisters were left – a ring of light in an endless darkness.

Ecquitar noticed that with every step he took forward the creatures grew weaker, and with every prayer one of the shadows flickered as if it might go out. He understood that against these beings the only sure weapon was courage. He ordered his paladins to form a ring of steel around the sisters, and the sisters to stop fighting and sing the praises of the Elohi. The paladins fell one by one, and in the end the ghostly fangs reached the sisters too. But they showed no fear. They kept singing.

And they were heard. An angelic host swept over Tarisios, bright as the dawn. In its light the soldiers found their courage again, and the townsfolk grabbed axes and torches and rushed out to help. Weapons that had passed through the shadows without a trace now bit deep. Ecquitar fought his way to the very heart of the horde, to the thing from the void, which whispered his deepest fears to him and turned into things he wished he could unsee. It caught him with talons of pure darkness – and still he struck once more. The creature screamed so loudly that the shadows began to scatter. By dawn there was no trace of the enemy.

For Ecquitar, though, it was only the beginning. Something had changed in him during that fight. He could feel a darkness inside himself, a seed of evil and fear eating away at his faith. He knew it. And out of shame, he told no one...

Part six: new borders

The Brothermark

North of Basilea, facing the Abyss, the Brotherhood stood for centuries – a people who kept the Eternal Watch over the heart of evil, generation after generation. Basilea treated it coldly, even with disdain, and "misunderstandings" were now and then settled on the battlefield. But the nearness of the Abyss was a strong enough reason for both countries to avoid open war.

When the Abyss last spewed out its demon legions, the Brotherhood took the first blow, and after the flooding of the Abyss there was little left of its lands and fortresses. Basilean politicians were quick to court the surviving Exemplars, the Brotherhood's leaders. They offered to rebuild the Brotherhood's fortresses – after all, the quenching of the Abyss might only be temporary. The price was that the Brotherhood wouldn't so much ally with the Hegemony as become part of it.

Some of the knights reluctantly agreed. That's how the Order of the Brothermark came to be, granted land on the border with Tragar now known as the Brothermark. Just over half its strength is made up of paladin chapters and men-at-arms garrisons from the provinces of Nova Ardovakio and Solios. The former Brotherhood knights became paladins or sergeants in the legions. A few Brotherhood traditions survived, but nobody is in any doubt about where the real power lies. The Order of the Abyssal Hunt, on the other hand, kept a good deal of independence – its knights specialise in hunting down great monsters, and the Basilean high command recognised their skills. Today the pennants of the Order of the Brothermark fly over the towers of St. Victor Dupont, standing guard against the forces of evil.

That guard is needed. Legions of Riftforged orcs recently struck the Brothermark with a force the Basileans hadn't seen in over a hundred years. Two fortresses of the Brotherhood Watchline have already fallen, and the orcs have proved impossible to dislodge.

For now

Basilea has no shortage of enemies. In the province of Cortia, and south as far as Amuklai, the ratkin Brood Mother Cryza has spread terror. Necromancers gather in the catacombs beneath the Hegemony's many-storied cities, and secret bands of paladins venture into the ruins of old Primovantor to hunt them down. There are rumours, too, that one of the Liche-Kings, long thought a myth, has returned – and has turned his gaze on his old enemies in Basilea.

And yet Basilea endures. Its armies alone would let it last for centuries as one of the great powers of Pannithor. Add the hosts of the Shining Ones – Elohi marching beside the soldiers, living embodiments of divine fury, each worth dozens of men – and the reign of the Golden Horn seems eternal. It's no wonder Basilea is as arrogant as it is devout. There's simply no power in the world that can match it.

For now.