Radewim

The word Radewim stands for the dry land found on this planet called Radewol by the oldest writings. Modern science calls it Terra or Earth, which are words that originally meant soil or ground, and there are still places in Radewim that speak languages other than its official language, Tuvord, but history tells us that terminology is not important.

Descriptive terms can change as quickly as teenager slang, and much faster than the land, which is spread around the Inner Sea and only covers a smart percentage of the world's total surface area when compared to the ocean, leaving the majority of the planet to the monsters in the ocean's depths.

Today in 1126 ADS, after many thousands of years interacting with the other intelligent life forms, human civilization holds near complete dominion over the dry lands. Humans were historically dispersed throughout Radewim, thriving along the major waterways and the Inner Sea coast. Some fought with their neighbors and some lived in peace, but as the scattered humans united the periods of warfare intensified in scope and results.

Half this planet's self aware species have vanished. First the gremit were driven to extinction by an alliance of humans and elves, and then, already weakened from endless wars, the gefen, zetel, and mirfin were ruined by the dragons in 0 ADS, with "ADS" short for After the Dragon Storm.

The elves would fall some four hundred years later, betrayed by the humans, and thereafter the human nations mostly fought amongst themselves, perfecting over centuries the science of majery until the Unification Wars ended in 786 ADS, and the United Empire of Radewim was born.

With its majin assisted armies, the UER pushed aside the remaining species, first the dwarves in modern Shira, then the foglen throughout the western lands near Cilen, and finally the shrey fen that previously controlled a quarter of Radewim's total land area, including the setting of this story.

In 786 the human nations unified into the United Empire of Radewim (UER), and by 914 had driven the dragons back to the Dragef Wall, their stronghold mountain ridge close to the south pole, where the large dragons known as dragef still live today.

After the Shrey Fen Conquest, the sole remaining threat to the UER were the dragons, and after two smaller dragon storms and millions of deaths, that war continues in 1126 ADS. The battles lines have shifted far to the south, to a line of mountains defended by the giant dragons, the dragef. We call it the Dragef Wall, and it marks the edge of the known world.

Our scientists can only guess at what lies beyond and underneath the clouds hanging over the south pole that defy every method of inspection, even those devised to observe from the heavens. Unable to breach the Dragef Wall, humans extended their territory into orbit, building a network of space stations and unmanned satellites.

There too the dragons hold their borders, controlling the moon's far side and every planet within the solar system more distant from the sun than Radewol. Centuries of continuous technological advancement have not broken humanity's stalemate with its greatest enemy. The UER's armies of 1126 go no further south than those of 914, leading some scholars to theorize that our specie has passed its zenith, while others maintain final victory is within reach.

In practical terms, the radiation along the Dragef Wall means humans cannot live within hundreds of miles of it, or for hundreds of years from 1126 ADS, and while the dragons may have a wasteland at the edge of the south pole, elsewhere humanity reigns supreme over the remnants of other species, and on the remains of species gone.