"I've grown weak as you grow cold, together once the world to hold." (Anon)

Many centuries ago, the snowkittens were the only inhabitants of the country of Aredria, known then as Audaina. There was little or no technology among the snowkittens - they relied on their abilities and powers to build their homes, and provide heat, food and shelter, as well as entertainment - and there were no leaders, no government, no status. The snowkittens relied totally on the natural order and this served them very well for a very long time.

While the technology of Audaina advanced no further (though they did make incredible and complex clockwork toys and other devices, a craft almost entirely lost now) the technology of a few other countries eventually began to develop at a keen pace. Within time, a large group of people struck out from their homelands using this new technology, with the intention of making a new home for themselves - a place that they could own and rule themselves. These people called themselves the Aredrians. Their technology allowed them to cross the oceans of Venuvia at a considerable speed, far faster than they ever expected. When the snowkittens first saw the huge silver ships arrive on the coasts of Audaina, there was some confusion and wariness, but they welcomed the Aredrians to their country and were happy for them to stay.

Some Aredrians were equally happy to share the land and accept the hospitality of the snowkittens. Others were less impressed. They had been assured that Audaina was completely uninhabited, and that the land would be entirely theirs - a new country which the travelers could occupy and govern as they chose. Details of what happened next are sketchy at best, but a very subtle takeover began and with the snowkittens unwilling or unable to use their powers for violent means, they seemed at a loss to prevent it happening. It wasn't long before an Aredrian government had been formed, and they began, as most do, with an idealistic vision.

This, as is often the case, became twisted by greed. They demanded the country should be renamed Aredria, and that it would be against the law to call it by its original name, Audaina. Laws were created for all manner of things - laws were something the snowkittens had never needed before and this was something they bitterly resented. They had relied on the natural order, which meant the people had always obeyed one single law - that of respect for the other people. Their entire world had changed in just a few decades, but this was nothing compared to what would happen next.

An increasingly corrupt government decided the whole of Aredria should be theirs by right. The snowkittens had effectively been forced north and kept away from the rest of the country, but the government wanted the land they now occupied as well. After all, there was money and vast resources to be obtained from that land, and the snowkittens were in the way. While they couldn't authorise the killing of the snowkittens, they could of course twist the rules so that if such a thing happened, they could turn a blind eye, or drastically reduce the sentencing for such a crime.

At this point the snowkittens had no choice but to fight back, to save each other and the Aredrians who had allied themselves with the snowkittens. For a time there was seemingly madness across Aredria. Technology and weaponry against the snowkitten's magic may have seemed an unfair fight, but the snowkittens knew the land extremely well and how to use it against their enemies, and their magic was a powerful force.

In time the snowkittens forced a deadlock and shortly after the government was overthrown and disbanded. A considerable number of Aredrians left the country in disgrace or disgust. Those who remained were Aredrians who truly wanted to share the land with the snowkittens and make the place somewhere they could call home. With no government, the country returned to its natural order and all elements of status were removed. Almost all…

With the snowkitten's consent, a few things remained. They felt it was now necessary to retain a mayor for the walled city that had been built when the Aredrians first arrived, which would later become known as Phoenixbrook. Additionally, the Aredrians kept their religious leaders. Whereas the snowkittens didn't have leaders for their own beliefs, they decided that agreeing to things such as this would lead to much greater integration.

Over the following decades, the two races effectively merged and so, snowkittens and the newcomers alike were all known as Aredrians. The clever combination of snowkitten magic and Aredrian technology - already powerful elements in their own right - led to even more phenomenal technological advances, in turn leading to the creation of increasingly advanced means of travel, entertainment, and the design of what were, at that time, strange and unusual buildings unique to Aredria. Everyone benefited enormously from the integration, and all was well.

Until the 1800s.

It began as a quiet rumble. A small group of people, ancestors of the Aredrians forced away from the country when the takeover finally failed, started an underground organisation abroad, planning to finish the job their ancestors had begun many decades earlier. The group, predominately felines, became known as the Elysia, led by a particularly nasty piece of work known as Alder. Initially the group comprised of just him and four other henchmen, known as Arren, Ayla, Attra and Ashden. These were not, surprisingly perhaps, their real names. Even they did not know each other's real names. And the choice of a name that in all five cases began with the same letter was deliberate though nobody ever found out the exact reason for this. It was believed to be symbolic but beyond that it always remained a mystery.

Word spread quickly and other ancestors (with what they considered a grave injustice to correct) found their way into the Elysia. Alder used anything he could to bludgeon his own twisted sense of righteousness into his four henchmen, and to the others who he regarded as his "ground troops." Essentially, it was the snowkittens that he needed well and truly out of the way before anything else could be accomplished. So every suspicion about the snowkitten's powers, motives and abilities, every prejudice he could summon up about their traditions, customs, their festivals, music, even their clothes and the special symbolic shape of their gravestones - everything was used as ammunition to make it clear just how much Alder regarded the snowkittens to be an enemy and a threat. Anything that would justify his plans to remove them by whatever means necessary.

If the Elysia were as stupid as their 'policies' sounded, they would have been little more than an annoyance to the snowkittens and the other Aredrians. But Alder and his four trusted officers were extremely clever and subtle, and built up a worldwide network of contacts, including several within Aredria itself. All waiting for the right time…

It was widely known that even against a small number of snowkittens, the Elysia stood no chance of succeeding. Against the entire race, any attack would have been suicide;simple as that, regardless of the technology they had in their possession. The Elysia were not magical beings. They did not have the advantage of any unusual powers whatsoever.

And yet, in 1845, the Elysia rose up and slaughtered almost every snowkitten in Aredria.

Eyewitnesses from back then said that the Elysia did indeed suffer huge losses as well. Despite the snowkitten's insistence not to get involved, the ordinary Aredrian population helped fight back too, and this also accounted for a fair percentage of Elysian deaths. What was more disturbing is that the witnesses claimed the Elysia fought with magic, on a scale never seen before. And while Alder's "ground troops" fell like any mortal, Alder and his four main officers seemed utterly invincible. No amount of weaponry or defensive magic had any effect on them. They relentlessly tore the country and its inhabitants apart, with nothing to stand in their way.

The surviving snowkittens fled to the ancient walled city of Phoenixbrook, though from what they had seen, even the great city gates would be like putting a sheet of paper in front of Alder and his followers.

That much proved to be true, but once the Elysia had entered the town, they got no further. Nobody knew for sure how it happened or for that matter what happened, but it was rumoured that the city itself fought back against the invasion. Alder and his four officers had simply stopped as if transfixed once they reached the marketplace fountain, looking towards the river. None of the city's inhabitants, hiding for their lives, dared say or do anything or reveal themselves. They just watched and waited. A few brief minutes later, the Elysia left the city and fled Aredria altogether, by boat. If the city did fight back, it must have done so by showing them something, but only the Elysia knew what that was. Whatever, it had been enough to drive them out of the country, for now.

There was nothing to celebrate. The damage was done. The snowkitten race had been decimated and less than a hundred remained, out of countless thousands. Aredria took many, many years to piece itself back together, and though many of the towns and cities were better and more spectacular than before once they had been rebuilt, history would never forget the terrible events that had led up to their recreation.

The Elysia were not seen or heard of again for over a hundred and fifty years. News that they had begun to reform reached Aredria in the 1990s, but they did not actually resurface until 2021. A leaner, more streamlined, cleverer and far more deadly organisation, it defied belief that all these years later, the five main leaders of the Elysia were still Alder and his officers…