Chapter One - origins of the conflict
In the far far far East of Delta evil forces of Tiberius the Proud were preparing to put an end to the civilised Western lands ruled by a wise King Fortyfour. Eastern oceans were not enough for them, they wanted the whole Delta to be drowned in darkness of their empire built on torment of local tribes.
The history of these lands (ocean 75 mainly) is not a nice tale must warn you....This God forgotten ocean gave the name for one of its first kingdoms - The Forgotten. Lack of any kind of civil law, only barbarian tribes fighting each other, the terrible dark magic rituals celebrated there were enough reason for the western civilisations to forget about this wild part of Delta. When finally big part of local population was united under rule of their new master, things started to change - first leading structures appeared. This new kingdom named itself The Forgotten.
However there was another tribe in ocean 75 - The Phoenix. These people corrupted by old gods, were known for their greed and dark rituals. The true origins of their name has little to do with attributes of the fire spirit. Phoenix - noble creature - represents everything that these tribes deny. The name Phoenix comes from rather ugly history... You see, when most people think of a TFP headdress, the first image that comes to mind is a full phoenix-feather warbonnet. Like this typical TFP warrior:
The most probable version says that ocean 75 was once a home for these beautiful and mystical birds. First people who settled there were obsessed with its colorful plumage and a tail of gold and scarlet. Their primitive desire to collect shiny things pushed them to violate the nests of these sacred creatures. Phoenix birds during "spiritual" and "transcendental" dark magic rituals were being killed and sucrifised in the name of some primitive gods. These barbiarians believed that drinking golden birds blood will make them half-gods on earth... That blood only corrupted their souls and stunnned minds, making of them servants of their new god - Tiberius the Proud, the one whose feet has never stood on a battlefield but his primitive manipulations were all he needed to control already corrupted tribe members.
The slaughter of the mistical creatures led to corruption of all tribes performing these dark rituals. Once corrupted, they became greed and couldnt think of anything else than drowning the rest of the world in blood...
The golden phoenix feathers were highly revered by these peaople and would only be awarded to the warrior that performed the bravest of all war deeds - War chiefs leading their men to battles, without fear of death.
On the above pictures we see typical TFP warriors charging DoA cities with only one purpose - to die for their master Tibs. Jumping into the void is the only purpose of their lifes, in death they seek catharsis...
Thats the source of the unbreakable ("proud") attitude, higly valued among them. After such a sucrifice (like the one pictued above) an elaborate ceremony for crowning warriors with feather headdresses would be held in which some warriors would even be painted by blood red in honor of their acts.
The forgotten merged with Phoenix tribes in their evil crusade against the civilised cultures of west. They wanted more and more lands, servants and shinies. The vision of a total domination pushed these tribes to conquer everyone around with any measures acceptable. Betrayals, lies, bullying, backstabbing... everything was in TFP arsenal. Corrupted minds couldnt any more distinguish light from darkness - seeking "glory", understood as bloodshed, they were pushing more oceans into the void...
Local weak kingdoms out of fear subordinated their new masters, however Disciples of Ares standing on guard of light and western civilisations was doing what it could to stop Eastern hordes from changing their land into another lost and forgotten by gods ocean....
Stay tuned - 2 chapter with some great illustrations coming very soon