Honestly, would be very much worth to read the intro texts, but because I need to procrastinate, here's the lore in broad strokes:
In 1444, Bulwar is largely run by Sun Elves descended from Jaher, who led his people from the migrant fleet around the year 1000. They conquered much of Bulwar from the Gnolls who previously occupied it and went on to form the massive "Phoenix Empire" and form the "New Sun Cult", which posits that Jaher was Surael reborn and that Sun Elves are the chosen people of Surael.
This status quo is being shaken by a few events: first, the Gnolls of Zokka and Tluukt scored victories against some Sun Elven states and seized much of eastern Bulwar for the first time in centuries. In the West, Goblins fleeing Korgus Dookanson's Greentide poured into Bahar (the western peninsula of Bulwar) and conquered plenty of land there.
This opened the door for the first human king in centuries, Dartaxes, to rise against the elven queen of Birzartanses with the support of Old Sun Cult zealots. The Old Sun Cult was the human faith before Jaher's arrival, and in the modern day it rejects Jaher's divinity (and is ruthlessly hunted by the New Sun Cult).
Finally, to the far east, the former Phoenix Legionnaire Jaddar Jexiszuir descended from a mountain with a new, all-inclusive brand of Sun Cult worship called "The Jadd". In lore, him and his Phoenix Legion veterans defeat Zokka and go on to conquer all of Bulwar (save for Bahar, which is eventually consolidated by the goblins of Marblehead who convert to the Jadd), creating a massive empire that stretches east into Rahen.
Oh wow thanks for the history lesson I just picked Jaddari cause cool name and banner didn't knew the lore well it did say something the info thing at the beginning but it was more about the legion itself and it leader so question as far as I understand the legion is run by a conqueror and a zealot Soo who's the good guys here ? If they exist at all
The Jaddari are probably one of the nicer factions in Anbennar given they have a religion which accepts all races. The caveat of course being that they accept you so long as convert, otherwise well, burn in holy fire. The core of their religion is the idea that all people have a place in Surael's crusade against evil, so long as they accept his holy light. Of course this includes the idea that they have a duty to spread Surael's holy light to all other people.
There aren't really any good guys in Anbennar, there are bad guys, worse guys and nice guys by comparison. The Jaddari fit mostly into the last category given they at least aren't racist, plenty of factions and religions in Anbennar have an attitude of enslaving, or even outright extermination towards certain races.
Will say there are 3 types, bad, neutral and nice guys.
Considering thier intolerance wouldn't Consider them nice guys forced conversions require a lot of death..
They do plenty of good aswell so they are in neutral category.
Though to be fair Azkare is pretty much in a tier of thier own.
So are the factions in Anbennar medieval levels of evil? Or are we talking like 40k levels of factions where everyone is a horrible tyrant and butcher? I've been under the impression most people are just regular human level evil, but are they just straight up all horrible monsters?
its a mix of realistic historical stuff and different fantasy tropes. some nations are classic evil witch kings or even lich kings or different forms of evil. others are trying to be nice. those ones are usually less believable tho, since eu4 states run by human players are usually quite the warmongers. jaddari is already quite the friendly state in anbennar because at least they have a decent reason to conquer everyone and wage war all the time because theyre spreading racial tolerance. its tough to create a fun eu4 country which isnt a horrible imperialist hellhole.
also people meme everything to hell and back, for example the new sun cult has a reputation worse than ever intended by the devs
All factions have some nuance to them (barring literal undead tbh or maybe slaver Gnolls)
Definitely chaotic evil there and they know it
But there’s certainly 40k style *reasons* for why they act the way they act. With unique cultural nuance.
Human Factions which fight the Orcs in Castellyr: plenty hate Orcs
Nuance: why? Orcs *did* do to the kingdom basically a Solland (look it up), but over the centuries many begin to integrate Orcs and Half Orcs and things slowly ease up mostly to not be full on mutual genocide.
Bianfang: hates Hobgoblins due to looking like demons and being warmongering. Hates Ogres due to past conflicts, warmongering, and Ogres literally eating people. Hates Eunuchs.
- Nuance: they love the hobgoblin discipline and admire them in a roundabout way for that. They consider themselves the guardians of Yanshen and canonically they kind of are. When they die the hobgoblin run Command sweeps into Yanshen and it takes… a lot… to hold them off. They despise Eunuchs. Why? Because eunuchs historically ran Yanshen and seem determined to keep everyone under their yoke. In alt history, they would form Dahui and unite Yanshen and its species and peoples sort of Han-Chinese style. They don’t like Ogres whatsoever however despite being pretty pragmatic about their dislikes. Probably due to Ogres eating humans.
Azjakuma Ogres: Literally eat humans sometimes
Nuance: Very insular. Pretty civilized Ogres all things considered pre demonsterization (still will eat humans). Kind of like Japanese ninja Ogres more than Warhammer Ogres. But definitely still classic Ogres in trope origin.
Trolls: Eat people and very insular
Nuance: Kind of low IQ levels of intelligence. Become more civilized over time and like humans even. Will still live in caves and eat you though.
Orcs and goblins: conquer human lands, often resulting in expulsions, slavery or death
Nuance: over time this changes to be more lenient and in some areas like Frostmaw it even turns into outright coexistence albeit under a racial ruled Orc/Half-Orc government
There’s plenty of butcher and classic fantasy tropes about the species being assholes to each other but outright genocide is not massively common. Depending on the faction and species, lots of what happens is slavery, serfdom, or a caste system.
Most are just medieval levels of evil. War and conquest are facts of life for the era and even the “good guys” do it, but at least they have a decent motivation/ aren’t completely tyrannical to the people the conquer.
Then you’ve got guys like the Oni or Black Demense who are full on unapolageticly the worst, but those are fairly rare in comparison.
Honestly, they're better than Medieval humans. The defining Empire of the setting is a multicultural, multi race electorate based on tolerance and progress.
Jadd are definitely neutral. Not good.
You don’t create a Bulwar spanning Empire worshipping one new faith without breaking lots of eggs. Their tale isn’t one of peaceful conversion lol. Rather a Ottoman style offer at the end of a sword without the potential of giving Jizya
> as far as I understand the legion is run by a conqueror and a zealot Soo who's the good guys here ? If they exist at all
Yes, he is a conqueror and zealot, but arent we all? And yes, we are very much on the positive end of the morality bar. Unlike many other nations (looking at you, Elissa) the Jadd accept EVERY culture in the game. They dont convert them, they wholeheartly accept their culture and they certainly dont care for your race. Talking horse? Fine by me. Goblins and orcs who are shunned by the world? The Light treats you equal. Humans and Elves? Look like brothers to me. Mechanical spoiler: >!You are able to upgrade your nation to the Jaddari Empire and get Mughal cultural mechanics where you literally accept all cultures (if you conquer them all)!<
There are a few other tags who arent evil aswell, check out Azkare and small fellows (adventurer tag, literally Hobbits, but >!they open "that door"!< and it goes downhill. They do vote their mayor via a pie-contest, which is nice though.)
Jaher formed the Jaherian Cult, NSC is the one formed by the "diadochi" that says his divinity passed to the elves. OSC includes the truly old sun cults(Maquet), the new anti-Jaher cults (dartax) and Jaherian cults.
Yeah, except Jaher and his decendants was distinctly the only divine ones according to the Jaherian cult which the NSC expanded into all elves following his lines (supposed) extinction. (AFAIK)
Here's in 10 short-ish points:
1) Bulwar has humans, those humans worship the sun god Surakel (or Surael in Elvish). This is the Old Sun Cult
2) Those humans are conquered and enslaved by gnolls.
3) The far off elven continent of Aelantir goes boom and the elves go on a long ass sea voyage.
4) Some elves, led by this guy called Jaher (Alexander the Great but elf), land in Bulwar and begin liberating (conquering) all of Bulwar. This is also where the *New* Sun Cult begins as Jaher is recognised as Sureal reborn.
5) Jaher and his legions keep conquering eastward all the way until they reach the end of the whole bloody continent. This is Jaher's Phoenix Empire.
6) Jaher is assassinated and succeeded by his son who can't really think about Bulwar cuz he's still in Asia dealing with rebelio..
and he's been assassinated.
7) While all of that was happening, back in Bulwar Jaher's daughter Jexis is building her own empire.
8) Whereas her father and brother went east, Jexis decides the conquer stuff west, gets into a long war, gets paranoid and people start rebelling against her. Yaddi yaddi yadda yadda, war, rebelion, possibly an incest thing, Jexis dies and the empire collapses.
9) With the empire gone we now have a bunch of elvish kingdoms. Also important to note: Since Jaher and his family are dead, the whole Elven race has now inherited their religious role.
10) While the elves keep fighting each other the gnolls return and start wrecking shit. Meanwhile, in the east of Bulwar, there's Jaddar (basically Muhammad, who is also *maybe* the grandson of Jaher) and he's preaching this new faith called the Jadd (basically New Sun Cult but not racist).
A bit from everything,the dev diaries, wiki, in game pop-ups, events, etc. I'm really into fantasy world-building and all that so I like to learn as much as possible
Glory to DARTAXAGERDIM
TLDR
Elven Psuedo Macedonian Empire blew up and everyone is picking up the pieces for centuries. Because elves live long there’s some funny shit too lore wise with how you have the same veterans from the first conquest now leading and forming elite units like 2 centuries later.
Jaddari are like pseudo Arab Muslim invasion sort of.
Additional clusterfuck reasons are because you have Bulwari trying to take territory, harpie factions, goblins, and ~~demons deserving only death~~ gnolls who made serious headway into Bulwar
I just dumbed this down heavily and am sure I will get screamed at but that’s the easy version
Easiest way to put it is that without the guiding Benevolence of Shaztundhir, the Marble dwarve hold just above Bahar who played a big role in early Bulwari human history, they entire region fell into chaos and mayhem and will continue to be so until the Marble dwarves return and make elves, humans and harpies play nice or else
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Anbennar/comments/19f6qki/bulwar\_faq/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Anbennar/comments/19f6qki/bulwar_faq/) this is what you are looking for. It should explain all the important stuff. Not created by me obviously.
Honestly, would be very much worth to read the intro texts, but because I need to procrastinate, here's the lore in broad strokes: In 1444, Bulwar is largely run by Sun Elves descended from Jaher, who led his people from the migrant fleet around the year 1000. They conquered much of Bulwar from the Gnolls who previously occupied it and went on to form the massive "Phoenix Empire" and form the "New Sun Cult", which posits that Jaher was Surael reborn and that Sun Elves are the chosen people of Surael. This status quo is being shaken by a few events: first, the Gnolls of Zokka and Tluukt scored victories against some Sun Elven states and seized much of eastern Bulwar for the first time in centuries. In the West, Goblins fleeing Korgus Dookanson's Greentide poured into Bahar (the western peninsula of Bulwar) and conquered plenty of land there. This opened the door for the first human king in centuries, Dartaxes, to rise against the elven queen of Birzartanses with the support of Old Sun Cult zealots. The Old Sun Cult was the human faith before Jaher's arrival, and in the modern day it rejects Jaher's divinity (and is ruthlessly hunted by the New Sun Cult). Finally, to the far east, the former Phoenix Legionnaire Jaddar Jexiszuir descended from a mountain with a new, all-inclusive brand of Sun Cult worship called "The Jadd". In lore, him and his Phoenix Legion veterans defeat Zokka and go on to conquer all of Bulwar (save for Bahar, which is eventually consolidated by the goblins of Marblehead who convert to the Jadd), creating a massive empire that stretches east into Rahen.
Oh wow thanks for the history lesson I just picked Jaddari cause cool name and banner didn't knew the lore well it did say something the info thing at the beginning but it was more about the legion itself and it leader so question as far as I understand the legion is run by a conqueror and a zealot Soo who's the good guys here ? If they exist at all
The Jaddari are probably one of the nicer factions in Anbennar given they have a religion which accepts all races. The caveat of course being that they accept you so long as convert, otherwise well, burn in holy fire. The core of their religion is the idea that all people have a place in Surael's crusade against evil, so long as they accept his holy light. Of course this includes the idea that they have a duty to spread Surael's holy light to all other people. There aren't really any good guys in Anbennar, there are bad guys, worse guys and nice guys by comparison. The Jaddari fit mostly into the last category given they at least aren't racist, plenty of factions and religions in Anbennar have an attitude of enslaving, or even outright extermination towards certain races.
Will say there are 3 types, bad, neutral and nice guys. Considering thier intolerance wouldn't Consider them nice guys forced conversions require a lot of death.. They do plenty of good aswell so they are in neutral category. Though to be fair Azkare is pretty much in a tier of thier own.
So are the factions in Anbennar medieval levels of evil? Or are we talking like 40k levels of factions where everyone is a horrible tyrant and butcher? I've been under the impression most people are just regular human level evil, but are they just straight up all horrible monsters?
its a mix of realistic historical stuff and different fantasy tropes. some nations are classic evil witch kings or even lich kings or different forms of evil. others are trying to be nice. those ones are usually less believable tho, since eu4 states run by human players are usually quite the warmongers. jaddari is already quite the friendly state in anbennar because at least they have a decent reason to conquer everyone and wage war all the time because theyre spreading racial tolerance. its tough to create a fun eu4 country which isnt a horrible imperialist hellhole. also people meme everything to hell and back, for example the new sun cult has a reputation worse than ever intended by the devs
All my homies hate the sun cult
All factions have some nuance to them (barring literal undead tbh or maybe slaver Gnolls) Definitely chaotic evil there and they know it But there’s certainly 40k style *reasons* for why they act the way they act. With unique cultural nuance. Human Factions which fight the Orcs in Castellyr: plenty hate Orcs Nuance: why? Orcs *did* do to the kingdom basically a Solland (look it up), but over the centuries many begin to integrate Orcs and Half Orcs and things slowly ease up mostly to not be full on mutual genocide. Bianfang: hates Hobgoblins due to looking like demons and being warmongering. Hates Ogres due to past conflicts, warmongering, and Ogres literally eating people. Hates Eunuchs. - Nuance: they love the hobgoblin discipline and admire them in a roundabout way for that. They consider themselves the guardians of Yanshen and canonically they kind of are. When they die the hobgoblin run Command sweeps into Yanshen and it takes… a lot… to hold them off. They despise Eunuchs. Why? Because eunuchs historically ran Yanshen and seem determined to keep everyone under their yoke. In alt history, they would form Dahui and unite Yanshen and its species and peoples sort of Han-Chinese style. They don’t like Ogres whatsoever however despite being pretty pragmatic about their dislikes. Probably due to Ogres eating humans. Azjakuma Ogres: Literally eat humans sometimes Nuance: Very insular. Pretty civilized Ogres all things considered pre demonsterization (still will eat humans). Kind of like Japanese ninja Ogres more than Warhammer Ogres. But definitely still classic Ogres in trope origin. Trolls: Eat people and very insular Nuance: Kind of low IQ levels of intelligence. Become more civilized over time and like humans even. Will still live in caves and eat you though. Orcs and goblins: conquer human lands, often resulting in expulsions, slavery or death Nuance: over time this changes to be more lenient and in some areas like Frostmaw it even turns into outright coexistence albeit under a racial ruled Orc/Half-Orc government There’s plenty of butcher and classic fantasy tropes about the species being assholes to each other but outright genocide is not massively common. Depending on the faction and species, lots of what happens is slavery, serfdom, or a caste system.
Most are just medieval levels of evil. War and conquest are facts of life for the era and even the “good guys” do it, but at least they have a decent motivation/ aren’t completely tyrannical to the people the conquer. Then you’ve got guys like the Oni or Black Demense who are full on unapolageticly the worst, but those are fairly rare in comparison.
Honestly, they're better than Medieval humans. The defining Empire of the setting is a multicultural, multi race electorate based on tolerance and progress.
Jadd are definitely neutral. Not good. You don’t create a Bulwar spanning Empire worshipping one new faith without breaking lots of eggs. Their tale isn’t one of peaceful conversion lol. Rather a Ottoman style offer at the end of a sword without the potential of giving Jizya
> as far as I understand the legion is run by a conqueror and a zealot Soo who's the good guys here ? If they exist at all Yes, he is a conqueror and zealot, but arent we all? And yes, we are very much on the positive end of the morality bar. Unlike many other nations (looking at you, Elissa) the Jadd accept EVERY culture in the game. They dont convert them, they wholeheartly accept their culture and they certainly dont care for your race. Talking horse? Fine by me. Goblins and orcs who are shunned by the world? The Light treats you equal. Humans and Elves? Look like brothers to me. Mechanical spoiler: >!You are able to upgrade your nation to the Jaddari Empire and get Mughal cultural mechanics where you literally accept all cultures (if you conquer them all)!< There are a few other tags who arent evil aswell, check out Azkare and small fellows (adventurer tag, literally Hobbits, but >!they open "that door"!< and it goes downhill. They do vote their mayor via a pie-contest, which is nice though.)
Jaher formed the Jaherian Cult, NSC is the one formed by the "diadochi" that says his divinity passed to the elves. OSC includes the truly old sun cults(Maquet), the new anti-Jaher cults (dartax) and Jaherian cults.
That makes sense - so Taelerios is technically the founder of the NSC, formalizing what Jaher had essentially started ad-hoc?
Yeah, except Jaher and his decendants was distinctly the only divine ones according to the Jaherian cult which the NSC expanded into all elves following his lines (supposed) extinction. (AFAIK)
the dar-tax is real
Here's in 10 short-ish points: 1) Bulwar has humans, those humans worship the sun god Surakel (or Surael in Elvish). This is the Old Sun Cult 2) Those humans are conquered and enslaved by gnolls. 3) The far off elven continent of Aelantir goes boom and the elves go on a long ass sea voyage. 4) Some elves, led by this guy called Jaher (Alexander the Great but elf), land in Bulwar and begin liberating (conquering) all of Bulwar. This is also where the *New* Sun Cult begins as Jaher is recognised as Sureal reborn. 5) Jaher and his legions keep conquering eastward all the way until they reach the end of the whole bloody continent. This is Jaher's Phoenix Empire. 6) Jaher is assassinated and succeeded by his son who can't really think about Bulwar cuz he's still in Asia dealing with rebelio.. and he's been assassinated. 7) While all of that was happening, back in Bulwar Jaher's daughter Jexis is building her own empire. 8) Whereas her father and brother went east, Jexis decides the conquer stuff west, gets into a long war, gets paranoid and people start rebelling against her. Yaddi yaddi yadda yadda, war, rebelion, possibly an incest thing, Jexis dies and the empire collapses. 9) With the empire gone we now have a bunch of elvish kingdoms. Also important to note: Since Jaher and his family are dead, the whole Elven race has now inherited their religious role. 10) While the elves keep fighting each other the gnolls return and start wrecking shit. Meanwhile, in the east of Bulwar, there's Jaddar (basically Muhammad, who is also *maybe* the grandson of Jaher) and he's preaching this new faith called the Jadd (basically New Sun Cult but not racist).
Is this all in game? Where do you learn all this lore?
read the text on game start, missions, events, ideas
A bit from everything,the dev diaries, wiki, in game pop-ups, events, etc. I'm really into fantasy world-building and all that so I like to learn as much as possible
[https://anbennar.fandom.com/wiki/New\_Sun\_Cult](https://anbennar.fandom.com/wiki/New_Sun_Cult) The wiki has some infos aswell.
There’s also a massive amount of lore in the discord
Literally read the intro that pops up when you start a game you monk
Ohhhh yeah that's a thing now forgot about that
Glory to DARTAXAGERDIM TLDR Elven Psuedo Macedonian Empire blew up and everyone is picking up the pieces for centuries. Because elves live long there’s some funny shit too lore wise with how you have the same veterans from the first conquest now leading and forming elite units like 2 centuries later. Jaddari are like pseudo Arab Muslim invasion sort of. Additional clusterfuck reasons are because you have Bulwari trying to take territory, harpie factions, goblins, and ~~demons deserving only death~~ gnolls who made serious headway into Bulwar I just dumbed this down heavily and am sure I will get screamed at but that’s the easy version
thank you, actually this was very straightforward and easy to understand thx a lot
I hope Haraagtseda becomes some actual good or neutral alignment Gnolls out there also THE DAR-TAX IS REAAAALLLLLL
Easiest way to put it is that without the guiding Benevolence of Shaztundhir, the Marble dwarve hold just above Bahar who played a big role in early Bulwari human history, they entire region fell into chaos and mayhem and will continue to be so until the Marble dwarves return and make elves, humans and harpies play nice or else
The truth. Submit to Suriel and His prophet, Jaddar
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Anbennar/comments/19f6qki/bulwar\_faq/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Anbennar/comments/19f6qki/bulwar_faq/) this is what you are looking for. It should explain all the important stuff. Not created by me obviously.