Chaos, Magic Spells, and the Crests

A Quick Summary of Chaos, Magic, & Crests
Magic and chaos are things that are not fully understood but are still used by the magical college Eramu and the mages that are sent out from it. In fact, anyone that uses magic is basically manipulating the chaos in the environment around them. Too much manipulation of chaos, aside from the chaos used in Eramu, will draw in creatures from the chaos dimension.

Chaos: A mysterious element appearing all over the world. When chaos converges, nature's laws will be disturbed, leading to the appearance of natural disasters and monsters alike. This is also called the chaos calamity effect.

Magic Spells: Mages, and a few other individuals, are able to manipulate the chaos environment around them to cast magic, miracles, and even heal wounds to some extent.

Crests: A seal that can suppress the chaos. People who uses these seals are typically lords. They bear the duty of protecting the human race from chaos. However, since crests may be given or surrendered, wars wage everywhere for its power or to create the Grancrest.

Chaos, Magic, & Crests In-depth As We Know It
For centuries, scholars from nearly every country would gather in Eramu or their respective capitals to study about where chaos comes from and what exactly it is. The answer has remained the same for the last eight decades; chaos is a phenomenon that had invaded Atalan, and is marked by an event so spectacular that the years to come would be marked by A.C.W (After Chaos War.) See the timeline for more specific details.

Chaos
Chaos is defined as an unnatural, unstable energy that comes from another dimension. This chaos has caused mutations and phenomenons around Atalan, such as the mutation of the halfings due to the chaos near the Shirelands or the mutation around the globe in general, in regards to elves and dwarves. When chaos converges or, in other words, clash together unexpectedly, a tear in dimensions happen for a brief moment of time. When such a tear happens, the chaos environment increases twice-fold, gathering chaos from around the atmosphere until the dimension rift naturally disperses and closes. During the short time frame, chaos beasts or elementals from another plane may accidentally be summoned into Atalan. The time frame usually lasts between a minute to five minutes naturally.

Magic
During 55 A.C.W, certain individuals have learned to live with the chaos, and, those near the Eramu Fields specifically, had been the first to learn how to manipulate the chaos to aid themselves. This is no easy task; it usually takes a decade to learn how to tame chaos and manipulate it without harming yourself. It is well worth the wait, however, as mages are highly regarded as one of the most, if not the most, valuable things a lord can attain. Mages can combat the chaos and can even choose to extend or close a chaos rift in certain situations. Mages may also manipulate chaos to create the phenomenon called magic, which may be used in several versatile ways.

Crests
A few centuries after magic was learned - 350 A.C.W - a noble called Leon would be struck near the fields of Eramu as a chaos rift formed directly on him due to very unlucky timing. Luckily enough, several mages sensed and were able to save the young man by closing the rift and sewing it upon his arm to prevent his death, as separating the chaos within him would had certainly killed him. Leon would be grateful, and would vow to destroy chaos. In the next two decades, Leon would learn to use the chaos and magic alike to discover a breakthrough; crests.

Lord Leon had found a way to gather the chaos around him and manipulate it like the mages that saved him did, to center it upon a point in his arm, near the wrist. Once Leon had done that, he used his willpower, determination, and his knowledge in magic to permanently trap the chaos and manipulated it in a way that the trapped chaos would actually repel the chaos around it.

As chaos is defined as an unnatural, unstable energy that comes from another dimension, crests are quite the opposite; crests are a man made, stabilized energy that comes from chaos itself.

Lord Leon would take his newfound creation and travel the world, combating chaos and reducing the chaos environment everywhere while teaching nobles and kings of how to create a crest, primarily using the 4th most common way as we know it today. Leon would die exactly 25 years after creating the first crest - 395 A.C.W - but not before telling the scholars of Eramu one thing; If we can create and gather enough crests, and merge them into one, it would create the Grancrest, a crest so powerful that it would either absorb or repel the entirety of the chaos atmosphere in Atalan. Lord Leon would regret dying so soon, as it was Lord Leon who was immortalized as a person who was the closest to creating the Grancrest.

After his death, kings and lords everywhere made it law and signed a treaty in Eramu to stop the chaos and work towards empowering the crests they were gifted from Lord Leon. Alas, in a little short of two centuries, 550 A.C.W, a new generation of kings and lords found it despicable to work with their rivals and sworn enemies, and swore to create the Grancrest themselves. They refused to let another, aside from themselves, to hold such a power. War tore apart the lands, creating the countries that we know it today. A century after that, in 670 A.C.W, an unsteady peace was brokered throughout the nations as two super factions were created.

These two super factions each swore to create the Grancrest through different means. Lords had found peace within the factions, and a new generation became lazy, inheriting their precursor's crests and gathering their wealth so that, when the Grancrest finally forms, they would be with an advantage over all the other nobles who sacrificed so much to make such a Grancrest.

One attempt was made at an everlasting peace; in 695 A.C.W, the two superfaction leaders decided to create a truce and have a wedding between their son and daughter. Alas, this wedding would end in a bloodbath as a demon lord, a chaos entity not seen since Lord Leon's time, appeared and killed the two dukes. An unsteady, if any, truce is now found.

Our current year is 700 A.C.W.