The Lumineth Realm-lords are what happens when a god resolves that his people will be better than they were. When the twin deities Teclis and Tyrion drew the stolen souls of aelfkind out of Slaanesh's belly, Teclis carried his share to Hysh, the Realm of Light, and remade them with reason, artistry and magic braided into their very being. The result outshone even his intent: across the Ten Paradises the Lumineth raised geomantic cities, libraries deep as oceans and towers that argued with the stars, the most brilliant civilization the Mortal Realms have ever produced.
Brilliance curdled into hubris. The Lumineth mined aetherquartz (crystallized light, ambition made mineral) and wore it as gemstones that let them think faster, feel deeper and cast further, while the land they stripped sickened beneath them. Nation vied with nation until rivalry became open war, a catastrophe their histories name only in the tones of confession: the Ocari Dara, the war within, the Spirefall. Cities of impossible beauty came down in avalanches of glass, the wounded realm screamed, and the psychic scar of it began to draw the notice of the very Dark Prince from whose gullet their souls had been pulled. Chaos never conquered the Ten Paradises; the Lumineth nearly managed it themselves.
Teclis despaired, and it was the land that answered. Guided by Celennar, the aelemental spirit of Hysh's greater moon, the Lumineth learned to kneel: to petition the souls of mountain, river, wind and zenith for a bond deeper than ownership. Those who complete the long communion become aelementiri, warriors who carry a shard of the living land into battle, while the Vanari citizen-hosts and the Scinari mage-caste now temper every gift with ritual restraint. The symbiosis is more than an alliance; it is a leash the Lumineth begged the land to hold, so that they might never again run mad with their own light.
Today the Great Nations march out from Hysh in blinding array (pike-walls of sunmetal, archers whose arrows are guided by light itself, temple-guard with stone in their souls) to burn Chaos, Death and disorder from the realms with surgical precision. Other peoples find them cold, condescending and unbearable, and they are; perfection is the only apology the Lumineth know how to make. Every flawless rank is a memorial to the Spirefall, every act of discipline another stone in the wall against their own worst nature. The Lumineth Realm-lords do not fight merely to win. They fight to prove, forever, that they will never again lose themselves.
Units
Alarith Spirit of the MountainBehemoth · MonsterThe soul of a mountain persuaded to walk: a colossal aelemental guardian whose hammer falls with the memory of the peak it once was.
Alarith StoneguardElite · InfantryWarriors of the mountain temples who have meditated with the peaks until stone entered their souls: slow to rouse, and impossible to move.
Alarith StonemageLeader · InfantryAn adept of the mountain temples who channels the slow, unbreakable strength of the peaks, hardening allies to stone and grinding foes beneath elemental weight.
Hurakan Spirit of the WindBehemoth · MonsterA colossal aelemental of the living gale, a serpentine spirit of wind and cloud that scours the battlefield with the fury of a mountain storm.
Hurakan WindchargersCavalry · CavalrySwift aelven horse-archers who ride the mountain winds, loosing perfect volleys as they wheel and never once slowing their impossible pace.
Scinari CathallarLeader · InfantryA sorrow-bearing aelven priestess who draws the despair of her people into herself and turns that anguish into a weapon against the enemy's very soul.
Vanari Auralan SentinelsBattleline · InfantryAuralan archers whose light-guided arrows arc over walls and armies to find marks no living eye can see.
Vanari Auralan WardensBattleline · InfantryThe pike-wall of the Great Nations: citizen-soldiers whose sunmetal spears ignite with channelled light and whose discipline is itself a form of prayer.
Vanari BladelordsElite · InfantrySword-saints sworn to the protection of the Scinari mage-caste, each stroke of their greatblades a form perfected over centuries.
Vanari DawnridersCavalry · CavalryNoble lancers of the Vanari on fearless purebred steeds: the judgment of the Great Nations, arriving at a gallop.
Vanari Lord-RegentLeader · CavalryA noble commander of the Vanari host, mounted and armoured in sunmetal, whose flawless generalship binds phalanx, cavalry, and mage into a single perfect stroke.
Vanari Starshard BallistaArtillery · War MachineAn elegant aelven war-engine that looses bolts of hardened light, its crew blinding whole regiments with searing starshard salvoes before the killing shot falls.
Characters
AvalenorThe Stoneheart KingA towering aelemental of living stone, the eldest of the mountain spirits, whose every step is an avalanche and whose patience has outlasted empires.
Ellania and EllathorThe Twin Prodigies of HyshTwin aelementiri prodigies, sister and brother, who together wield a rare harmony of magic and blade said to herald a new age for the Lumineth.
SevirethLord of the Seventh WindThe greatest of the wind aelementals, an ancient and untamed gale-spirit who scours whole battlefields clean with the roaring fury of the high storms.
TeclisMage of HyshThe god-mage who made the Lumineth and mourns what they did with his gift: creator, teacher and last resort of Hysh, borne to war beside Celennar, the spirit of the realm's greater moon.
The Light of EltharionThe GrimAn empty suit of rune-forged armour animated by the unbending will of a hero who died with the world-that-was: voiceless, faceless, and undefeated.
Subfactions
IliathaThe nation of unity, where aelven souls are born twinned and whole regiments move like one creature wearing many bodies. Iliatha's Vanari hosts are the most drilled in all Hysh, every pike and arrow falling in eerie unison. Their perfection has a price: when one twin dies, the other fights on with half a soul, and Iliatha forgets none of them.
SyarThe nation of makers, whose forges work sunmetal and aetherquartz into wargear that other Great Nations treat as relics. Syar answered the shame of the Spirefall with craft, hammering grief into beauty until its armies gleam like walking reliquaries. To carry a Syari blade is to carry an apology centuries in the polishing.
YmetricaThe mountain nation of Hysh, whose white peaks hold the greatest temples of the Alarith. Ymetrica prizes endurance over brilliance (near heresy among Lumineth), and its stone-bonded warriors are the anvil on which invasions of the Ten Paradises break. Even its Vanari fight like the mountain: last to move, and impossible to move through.
ZaitrecThe nation of mages, marked with the lunar rune of Celennar and favored by Teclis himself. In Zaitrec even the common soldiery study the aetheric arts, and its Scinari are the finest battle-mages of the Ten Paradises. The other nations mutter that Zaitrec shines a little too brightly; Zaitrec serenely agrees.
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