I collected the following history of Ralios for the Freeform booklet to Rise of Ralios, together with a few Arkati church outlines and character outlines. I have tried to include some more recent insights and revelations, otherwise this stuff might be known from the Rise of Ralios booklet.
My main sources are the Genertela Box, the Mythos and History from Cults of Terror, Uz Lore from Troll Pak, Dorastor - Land of Doom, the Broken Council Guidebook, the University of Sog City Council Guide, and snippets from the Jonstown Compendium both in Troll Gods and in RuneQuest Companion.
Details of the earlier history of Ralios are currently (Feb 1998) under discussion again, so some things might change.
The land of Ralios is situated in the middle of the Western and Central Genertelan regions. However, nigh impassable mountain ranges seal off the land towards the Northwest (Fronela), Northeast (Peloria), and most of the Southwest (Maniria). To the southwest, along the Tanier River valley, it opens into Seshnela, with which it shares much of its history and culture.
Before the Darkness, all of Ralios was covered by the Great Western Forest, which extended well into Seshnela and around the Nidan Mountains to the Top of the World Mountain in Peloria. Aldryami ruled their strongholds around the Great Trees, children of Flamal who is said to have rooted at Hrelar Amali, most sacred spot of all of Ralios.
There at Hrelar Amali the great spirits of that land ventured to consult the greater spirits assembled there, around the Fountain of Life, Flamal, the Primal Tree. At one occasion a new spirit named Raven appeared there and shared a secret with the great spirits assembling there. With this secret the great spirits created their first children, in their likeness, and so the ancient beasts came into being, and soon populated the Primal Forest: Galanin's horses, Basmol's lions, Bemor's cattle, Kivitt's elephants, and many more. Later, Raven brought another secret, and from the ancient beasts and their great spirits came the humans, brothers to the beasts in spirit and posture. Thus the son of Galanin was fiery and forceful Eneral, who competed with the majestic children of Basmol or the strong and solid children of Bemor.
This was an era of comparable peace, and so the aldryami tolerated the beast-men who shared the woods with them, like they still do in distant Fronela. The greatest peoples to dominate parts of the land were the Basmoli lion people of the lower Tanier River and the southern hills, the Galanini horse people of the Lake Felster region, and the Bemori of the Doskior River region.
When the Storm Age brought the great glacier south to Brithos, the natives were forced to abandon most of their ancestral lands of the Kingdom of Logic, and refugees settled on the coasts of Seshnela, carried there on the Waertagi city ships. Although their leader, Malkion, had spread his creed of "atheism" among the folk of Logic, they were friendly to the children of that land and their goddess. Their farmers shared their techniques with the natives of the forested land, and around the cities of Malkonwal and Neleoswal the colony of Logic thrived under the guidance of Malkion the Founder, despite the ravages of the Gods War.
But then things worsened: Zorak Zoran slew Flamal, and most life went to sleep deep within the earth. The sun dimmed, then disappeared. Death walked afar, and nothing was secure.
Malkion was forced on a quest to save his people from the horrors of the Darkness. While he succeeded in attaining Solace of the Body and thus lessened the fears of his beset people, marauding hordes of Krjalki and hungry beastmen scoured the Seshnegi colonies, and constant attrition wore down even the perfect warriors of Horal. Cities had to be abandoned after the crops had been spoiled or plundered, and were left in ruins after hungry hordes shattered everything in search for a crumb of food.
The Great Forest of the inland had been ravaged, too. Most trees had gone into the Long Winter's Sleep, and the few remaining awake were harsh and forbidding. Humans and beasts drew closer together, relying on each other for survival. One kind hunted another for food, and only when Hunter tamed Death into a useful tool the genocidal slaughter found an end. It was during this Age of hardship that the Basmoli moved to the coasts and the sons of Eneral died in defense of their peoples and horses. Yet their descendants persevered through the Gray Age and kept up the oath of Eneral.
The Tanier River valley has been a crossroads of human history ever since the Dawn. At the Dawn, the Basmoli tribe had entered the coastal region around the Tanier River mouth, where they pushed back the tattered forces King Froalar, a direct descendant of Malkion's son Talar, forcing them to their last line of defense on the western shore of Seshnela. Prince Hrestol, Froalar's son, searched for a remedy for his mother Xemela who had sacrificed herself to protect her people. In doing so he broke every law Malkion had set in earlier, happier times, but in the end he rescued his mother's soul from oblivion into Solace, and with his closest friends he introduced the new caste of knights as the defenders of Malkion's law. The Basmoli were pushed back, but in doing so Hrestol had killed the daughter of Seshna Likita, serpent goddess of the land, whom Froalar then had to marry to ensure the welfare of his people and the survival of his son. Thus he was exiled, and the Serpent Kings took over Seshnela, and destroyed the Basmoli Empire at the mouth of the Tanier River, and conquered much of the land up to the joining of the Nidan River. However, their line died out a century later, and over religious quarreling the Seshnegi lost most of their land to a new power.
Around Lake Felster the many tribes of the sons of Eneral had dominated. Their northernmost nation, the Vustrians, had been forced to give up their horse brothers in order to survive the Darkness, and instead had turned to stormy Humath, the bearer of Death, to ensure their survival. They shared the hostile highlands of northern Ralios with the lesser Hsunchen people who lacked the strength or numbers to profit from the fertile lowlands occupied by the horse-riding Galanini.
These had gathered around Hrelar Amali, and inspired by the ancient magic of that place had formed a Confederation under their greatest leader, King Dan. This hero had seized the opportunity and reclaimed the Tanier Valley and even advanced to Gilboch and Jorestl's Forests when the Serpent Kings' bloodline had begun to crumble.
In the 132nd year after the Dawn the Dangan Confederacy was approached by magicians from the East, ambassadors of the so-called World Council of Friends, who brought a message of unnatural communion with monsters, which the priests of Hrelar Amali had to turn down even though their aldryami neighbours of Tarinwood had vouched for the foreigners. Only after much intercession the Tarinwood aldryami could mediate a peaceful settlement of this contact.
The eastern magicians had contacted the eastern people before, and some of their ideas spread through the less civilized north of Ralios. The Vustrians in particular were anxious to find a replacement for their lost affinity to Galanin's first children, and they accepted the teachings of Orlanth, Storm Brother of Umath and King of Gods in the East. When the Council settled Dorastor just north of the Rockwood Mountains in the Northeast, they soon discovered Elephant Pass and attempted to enter Ralios from the north. This brought them into the sacred territory of the Kivitti elephant people, though, who resisted any intrusion with their immense strength and defeated their expeditionary force with ease. They continued to do so until the Council summoned inhuman aid of trolls and dragonewts against whom not even the mighty Kivitti could prevail. In the year of the Sun 204, four years after their capital had been moved to Dorastor, they cleared the Elephant Pass and secured it with a great castle consturcted by their dwarfs. The Pass became known after the builder of that castle, Kartolin.
While the highland tribes at first greeted the renewed contact with the fellow Orlanthi of southern Peloria, they soon began to change their mind when the Council sent settlers through the pass to populate their river valleys and to claim much of their meagre resources. This led first to resentment, then outright war. The highlanders recognized that they had a common cause with the Hsunchen people around them, and their alliance against the intruders proved stable for the entire conflict. Most notable among their Hsunchen allies were the Zebra people of Zebra Wood, west of Karia, whose Zebra heir at one point even led their joined forces.
The dragonewt allies of the Council who had been prominent in the battle of 204 remained in Ralios to protect the settlers from raids of the highland tribes. In 210 they settled a grand nest in Ormsland, a region inhabited by lesser draconic creatures of old.
However, this conflict between the Vustrian Enerali and the Council caused the other Enerali tribes to reconsider their relations to the Council. Their ancient rivalry with the "renegade" Vustrians made the Galanini accept the Council bid for friendship. Also, when the Council sought mercenaries to fight the demonic horsebreaking warlords of Peloria, many Galanini mustered to fight the evil under the banners of the Council. Their presence at the Battle of Argentium Thri'ile, in the Pelorian land Darjiin, was essential in liberating Dara Happa and bringing peace on the northern border of the Council, and the Galanini mercenaries gained rich rewards.
However, in 255 a new force arose in Ralios, as a leader named Dari began to unite all the Galanini. While he continued to harrass the highland dwellers, he also sought to expand his area of influence, and in 265 led an army against the troll lands of Halikiv, ancient foes of the horse people.
The trolls of Halikiv turned to the Council for aid, and the Only Old One sent ancient Charmilla to mediate. Backed by the power of the Council, she managed to convince Dari to leave the East Wilderness alone. Dari promised never to make war upon them, and turned his attentions west instead, to the atheist lands of Tanisor and Seshnela. He conquered Tanisor in 294 and would have conquered Seshnela, too, had not the Prince of Seshnela assassinated him in 307. With his death the alliance crumbled, but Tanisor remained in the hands of Enerali rulers.
The Galanini ways changed a lot during Dari's reign. He accepted several of the superior magical ways of the Council and even accepted some of them to Hrelar Amali, where they erected temples to their favourite deities, called by later chronists Orlanth and Magasta. However, in the tides of war one Seshnegi raid managed to strike through to the sacred city and destroyed the ancient temples there.
The wars against the highland Ralians raged for the entire period, and even though the Council had brought inhuman allies, their forces ended the war only in 320 at the Battle of Zebra Wood, where they surrounded the highlander leaders and forced them to surrender and accept the Council's terms.
Dari's influence on the lowland Ralians had created a yearning for unity, and by 355 the Second Dari Alliance had formed, and joined the Council under the leadership of Maklaman Ironsword.
In the Hsunchen lands of Ormsland a new power arose when King Gita Flatsnout united the reptile Hsunchen of that region and led them into joining the Council.
As the God Project of Dorastor approached completion, the Council was torn by dissent about the minutiae of that project. In the end, the Kingdom of Night, protesting against the Dara Happan influence in the project, withdrew from the Council with its troll, human and dragonewt allies of Dragon Pass and Kethaela.
Then in 375 the Perfect God was born. The Sun stopped in the sky, and for a while Time was put aside. The newborn godling quickly assumed his power, and when the dissenting trolls summoned the Black Eater to counter his bright power, he sent out powerful curses against the races of the trolls and dragonewts. In a magical battle the dragonewts were saved by a True Dragon, but Kyger Litor was wounded, and the troll race has suffered from the curse ever since.
The Council retaliated agains the desertion of Dragon Pass with Dara Happan forces, captured the Inhuman King, besieged the troll strongholds and suppressed the Heortlings. As a result, the Ralian Council members won in importance, and they basked in the favour of the Bright God.
[Actually, there might have grown dissent beween settlers from the Central Lands and Korioni lowlanders as well, since Humakth is the cult of Maklaman Ironblade. Add competence quarreling with Lokamayadon...]
The secrets Nysalor soon revealed sent a new wave of missionaries across the world. In Tanisor the Malkionized population was won back to the ways of the Council by the Bright One's message of acceptance, and they became fervent propagators of Nysalor's faith in Seshnela. However, being far from the benevolent radiance, they overstepped themselves and started to convert people they had healed from a strange plague which had spread in the Western Lands. At one point, a force from Brithos landed in Arolanit to push back the missionaries. Although the immortal warriors returned to their island home after they had succeeded in cleansing Arolanit but suffered a defeat in Seshnela at the hands of the Tanisoran magic, one fanatical warrior remained behind with his closest companions and joined King Gerlant Flamesword, the King of Seshnela.
Arkat had been reared by the elves of Brithos before he was returned to the Brithini, where he served in the caste of his grandfather and became one of the dreaded Horali warriors who spend their immortal lives practicing the arts of war. In fighting the Tanisoran army, led by vampires, he discovered that he had a lifetime foe in the enemy god who allowed this abomination to exist. Arkat named his foe Gbaji, the Deceiver. Arkat studied the arts of chivalry and wizardry to become a Grand Knight of Seshnela, a goal he achieved in the astonishing short time of one year. Armed with this new knowledge, he led the chivalry of Seshnela and the wizards of Arolanit into a crusade against the Tanisoran Vampire kings. Less than 25 years after the birth of Nysalor his westernmost outpost fell to the crusaders of Arkat, who returned the soulless ways of Tanisor back to the way of Malkion.
Once started, Arkat quickly continued his crusade into the Council lands of Ralios. Here he met the full resistance of the Council, though - the Dara Happan general Derigonus Pistol summoned all forces at his command, and so Telmori wolfrunners and dragonewt mercenaries stood by the native converted Hsunchen and some of the Galanini to defend their cities. The crusade developed into a long war of attrition and replacements, and the early fervour of the Seshnegi knights diminished considerably with every year Arkat spent warring in Ralios. Instead, he filled his ranks with volunteers from the highland tribes, and later also converts from the riverine people, as he slowly pushed back the forces of Dorastor.
Finally, Arkat managed to slay Derigonus Pistol and to liberate all lands this side of the Rockwood Mountains, except the wolf castle in Telmoria and Kartolin Castle. Several times Arkat struck against this gateway to the heart of Nysalor's empire, but every time he was repelled, and the final time his soul was caught and imprisoned in a Dara Happan hell. There he was found and rescued by Harmast Barefoot, a hero from occupied Dragon Pass who had ventured west with six companions to find the liberator for his people. Arkat consolidated the Ralian lands and set former companions tired of the fighting as its protectors while he underwent an initiation into the barbarian cult of Humakth, the foremost war god of the Vustrian hill barbarians.
Arkat gathered a new host and invaded Slontos in order to take the other route into Nysalor's stronghold, but again his advance was stopped by the armies of Nysalor. Leaving the main body of his army fighting the war to a standstill, Arkat commandeered a f leet and shipped a small host of choice companions to Kethaela. There he quickly found allies from Heortling rebels and trolls breaking the ongoing siege around their strongholds.
With these new allies Arkat swept aside the defences of Gbaji's minions, and after liberating Kerofinela he gathered a new army to invade the Central lands of Gbaji. However, in their desperation the enemy Empire mustered ancient chaos still lingering in the world from the Gods War. While Arkat had gathered some experience in dealing with these monsters - among others he slew the Scarlet Bat Demon mustered by his enemies - he was impressed by the ability of his troll allies to stand and fight where even the best of his human allies broke and fled. After repeated setbacks in Peloria Arkat underwent a ritual of transformation, and with his companions he reemerged as a troll. In this new shape he led an army into Dorastor - a land now afoul with rampant chaos - while his human allies invaded the last remaining human ally of Gbaji, the Dara Happan Empire.
Even before his transformation his Heortling allies had become distrustful of Arkat, and so they set out to find another liberator. Once again they fared west, and they returned with Talor, the Laughing Warrior. Talor summoned Orlanthi help from Ralios to crush the Telmori allies of Gbaji, at first in Ralios, then across the High Llama Pass in Fronela. Driving the minions of Gbaji before him, Talor and his companions arrived in Dorastor together with Arkat, and they witnessed Arkat's final battle in the City of Miracles. When Arkat returned from that duel, he brought the shattered remains of Gbaji to dispose of them with his allies. Talor took his Ralian and Heortling Orlanthi followers back to his native land of Akem, where they settled in the land of Oranor right north of Erontree Forest. Arkat gathered his boon companions around him, cursed the land of Dorastor and all it stood for, and returned to Ralios, leaving the liberated lands of the east under the able guidance of his troll allies, the Only Old One and the Queens of Dagori Inkarth and the Elder Wilds. In Ralios he unified the peoples in his Empire of Peace, which he ruled from a simple stead in the hills of Ralios.
One of Arkat's first acts was to grant the land of Guhan, a hilly region which the Arolanit sorcerers had blasted in the war against the Vampire Kingdom of Tanisor, to his troll allies. Dark trolls and trollkin from Halikiv and further east migrated en masse to settle among the ragged Uzgor Peaks. Under his guidance the magics of all the religions Arkat had encountered and experienced during his wars were taught to the most trustworthy.
This tradition continued even after Arkat was apotheosized around 500 ST and his descendants ruled the Dark Empire. However, among the Seshnegi colonies a jealous group of magicians had begun to usurp all magics they could in their search for the knowable truth about the Invisible God. These God Learners stole the secrets of heroquesting from Arkat's heirs and began to quest for their own aggrandizement.
In the everlasting conflict between Seshnela and Safelster the Seshnegi kept the upper hand for the first century of the Second Age. The Stygian Empire was satisfied, or busy, keeping the Enerali and former Councilic countries working together and feeding the trolls of both Guhan and Halikiv, while Nralar the Old ruled in Seshnela uncontestedly. The region of Tanisor formed buffer states, the largest of these being the Kingdom of Nomia. When the Seshnegi king died, and no clear successor could establish himself, the power vacuum in Seshnela made the ancient duchies and principalities look outside for support. Tanisor returned under the influence of the Dark Empire, whereas the God Learners helped establish the Middle Sea trade empire upon the coastal regions of both Seshnela and Slontos.
The Jrusteli trader agents controlled a lot of the area bordering upon the Stygian Empire, and they prepared the ground for the Return-to-Rightness crusaders which struck Genertela in the eighth century with fire, swords, and a terrible new faith in their version of Malkionism. After they had subdued all coastal regions they finally marched upon the Dark Empire.
The fighting was unbalanced, since their magicians had raided the magical secrets of the Stygians for years, giving them countermeasures to any proven magical or mundane tactic of the Empire. Even worse, their disregard for the proper conduct in the Heroplanes gave them new powers which could harm entire pantheons supporting the Stygians. The Emperors still fought bravely, as was to be expected from descendants of Arkat, and died heroically along with their empire.
What followed was the common result of a crusade: the faith of the losers was persecuted and forbidden, the adherants were forcibly converted to the victors' faith. The leaders of the crusaders installed themselves as lordlings over ancient cities and started to squabble among each other, throwing away the wealth of the land. Ambitious God Learner monks experimented with those natives left unconverted, and adapted the facts to prove their theories.
Thus, even the humans inhabiting backwater Ralios experienced the hard hand of the Jrusteli. Only when the entire world revolted against their abuses the Jrusteli began to lose their hold on Ralios, but only gradually. Disasters like the Ice Summer of 925 weakened them greatly, but their minions remained in power for some time, until the sinking of Seshnela flooded all the Tanier Valley up to Lake Felster in 1049. The Three Rivals Goraint, Mabodinarne and Valastar put aside their rivalry to raid what was left by the flood of Seshnela and conquered it for a while, but when their rivalry broke through again their unity was lost, and all of the region was embroiled in war. They did reinstall their respective versions of Stygianism, though, along with many other brands of this long-lost religion - the shards left by the God Learners.
The force which stepped out of the confusion of these wars around 1120 was the Kingdom of Jorstland, so named after its founder. Through their alliance with the trolls of Guhan, the kings of Jorstland managed to make Tanisor a province of their realm, though a recalcitrant one. The Stygian faiths were strong in all the former God Learner lands.
When the kings of Jorstland failed to protect the Tanisorans from the incessant raids from Guhan, they alienated their human subjects. When they finally took measures to restrict the trolls, they alienated them, too, leading to the peculiar and short-lived alliance between the knights of Pasos, the wizards of Arolanit and the trolls of Guhan which freed Tanisor to lead its own civil wars without Jorstland interference after the liberation wars between 1180 and 1190. The liberated lands took upon themselves the "purified" Malkioni religion left by the Jrusteli again, and an age of chivalry dominated Seshnela.
By 1200 Jorstland had become the leading power in eastern Ralios, too, and acted as a protector of the surrounding human nations. This role brought the kingdom into conflict with the trolls of Halikiv, who claimed the eastern lands of Ralios as their hunting grounds. For more than a century the fights between Jorstland and Halikiv remained undecisive, but when a Jorsting leader named Retter the Stalker began to recruit trollkin from Halikiv the trolls were weakened and had to withdraw. The liberated lands became a part of Jorstland as the Duchy of Delela and were given to Retter after his victory of 1366 in which he destroyed the Halikiv troll nobility. However, only five years later his king had him assassinated when he spoke and conspired against a decisive campaign to reconquer Tanisor. While the king got his war, he did not get the support of all his eastern lords, who preferred to concentrate their strength on their own cities. As a result, the planned decisive blow became a long and grinding campaign, in which both the king of Tanisor and his Jorstland counterpart were plagued by defecting subject nobles, troll raids from Guhan, and enemy campaigns.
The humans in the hilly uplands of Ralios found themselves in the domain and protection of non-humans, elder races of all kinds, but varying kindness. They survived by adaption to the changed circumstances rather than by reliance on the increasingly weakened kingdom of Jorstland.
By 1400 both the kingdoms of Tanisor and Jorstland had fragmented into a multitude of small states, and any former unity had been lost. Tanisor was the first to recover when Bailifes the Hammer, Duke of Rindland, embraced the newly spawned Rokari sect and proselytized it in a crusade which conquered all of Tanisor and vast areas of lowland Ralios. However, the spirit of the crusade died with Bailifes, and the conquered territories soon returned to their old self-rule. The kingdom of Seshnela kept invading Ralios for the entire period, with varying success. Whereas Ulianus III managed to reunite all of the lands of Bailifes, his grandson Vikard of the Tourneys lost all the Ralian properties.
Recent Ralian history has seen the fall of mighty houses and realms, such as the counts of Jorglaban (hereditary rulers of Tinaros) and the city-state of Partania who had quarreled for supremacy upon Lake Felster.