Belobog of the Architects

Within is the most familiar sight in Belobog's Administrative District: the Everwinter Monument. People passing by feel a distant yet warm gaze watching over them.

Thousands of years ago, Jarilo-VI had a climate like spring all year round and an enviable maritime environment.

Forests heavy with fruit, tides that brought warm damp air, fine wine flowing like a spring that could be drawn at any hour and drunk by anyone. The local residents were happy and full of vitality, and they built roads, cities, seaside villas and elegant palaces. An abundant life always seemed to begin with a cup of coffee at dawn and end with a glass of malt at dusk.

Later the Star Rail connected the world of Jarilo-VI, bringing interstellar trade and off world technology here.

At first, travelers from other worlds came in search of Geomarrow ore. These minerals, clear as crystal, hold the lifeblood that drives industry, and their amber colored light reflects the brilliance of Preservation. Later, travelers from other worlds came to settle here for good. Its bays, its greenery and its lively music suited any weary traveler looking for a place to return to. People believed that in time this humid planet would surely shine in the galaxy like any other brilliant star.

About a thousand years ago, a Stellaron crossed the sky and fell onto this world.

At once the fate of the whole planet plunged, like an absurd farce. Merciless legions of destruction poured down from the sky, and the fires of war filled the heavens without pause. The Architects raised city walls and battle lines, and statues a hundred meters tall stood towering beside dragon shaped colossal beasts. Soon after, the Eternal Freeze appeared suddenly without warning, and a freezing storm drowned everything without telling friend from foe, until the whole planet fell utterly silent… A vast invisible spatial barrier covered the city, like a candle held in the arms of a cold night, so that civilization could carry on from there.

Later, this city came to be called Belobog.

The Silvermane Guards of Belobog stand in the driving snow, drawn up in a single line, waiting for the invaders from outside. The will of the Guards is utterly firm, and the line of the Guards will absolutely never fall back.

Before the disaster came, the Architects had good plans in mind for Jarilo-VI.

The Architects imitated the power of Qlipoth and built machines capable of reshaping a planet. Hundreds of “Roots of Creation” breathed fire and roared everywhere, like giant gardeners tirelessly tending a desolate flower field. In only a few decades the ravines and hills had turned into plains and dense forests, and cities lay scattered along the coast.

After the omen of “destruction” fell upon them, the Architects sent every machine onto the battlefield and built the first “iron defense line”.

The soldiers of Destruction were like fireflies flying through fire, arriving in the wake of the Stellaron and leaving behind them the marks of suffering life. Machines once used to “create” now had to become weapons, swinging iron fists and charging into a battlefield that was never theirs. In the end the giants of the flower garden fell, like the tombstones of a civilization, marking the day by day collapse of the line.

On the day when there was no road back, the Guards gripped their weapons tightly, and behind them lay the only homeland still left.

The cold that fell upon them lay outside anyone's prediction. At the very moment when the monsters from beyond the sky and the soldiers at the front line clashed, snow filled the whole sky. In the chaos, Belobog became the only light in the world. To put it out, and to protect it, the two sides fell into an endless slaughter. The Guards roared the name of Alisa Rand, turned and marched deep into the driving snow, and never came back out.

Only when the blizzard stopped did the citizens of Belobog climb, trembling, to the top of the city to look out into the distance.

They witnessed the last “iron defense line”.