Villagers

Villagers are an intelligent species originating from the province of Gavel, and they have lived in Gavel for an unknown amount of millenia. They have high magical potential, moreso than that of humans, however it often goes unrealized due to laziness.

Villagers are famous even in the Wynn Province for being greedy, prioritizing money over most other things, even considering humans as a source of cheap labor. They are so obsessed with emeralds that they exhausted almost every single emerald ore vein in the province, pushing them to look for more across the sea.

The Villagers seem to use a calendar based around Ages, with durations unknown. However, it is implied that ancient events such as the Gylia Cataclysm happened in the 5th Age, while the Gerts started appearing in the 6th Age.

The Gerts themselves are actually villagers who were mutated by Gylia's meteors, turning them into savages that resemble the Greenskins. This transformation started happening 1000 years after the Gylia Cataclysm, therefore, around 400 BP.

Unknown
At an unknown point, a Villager civilization that predates even the Skyraiders flourished in the Ahms Region, now the Sky Islands, which worshipped the Colossi, specifically, the Ahms Colossus.

Ancient Era
This era of Gavel's (and therefore, Villager's) history spans until the Gylia Cataclysm. This period is characterized by the fact that there are no remaining written records of it, as all written history from before the Gylia Cataclysm was somehow wiped out. Therefore, we only have physical records to rely on. It seems that in this period, an ancient civilization of Villagers inhabited the entirety of Gavel, from the Llevigar Plains to the Sky Islands. This civilization is most notable for the fact that they used rune magic, building rune-related things such as the Spider Ruins, the Tol Altar in the Sky Islands, and the Plains Guardian. They also created the Goliaths and possibly the Colossi as well. This civilization collapsed when, for study purposes, the runes Nii, Az and Ek were combined, causing a reaction that led to its demise, as well as the creation of the Forgery. The civilization left behind many ruins across all of Gavel, however, many of them were destroyed by the future Villagers as they sought to expand.

Post-Gylia Cataclysm Era
This era spans from the Gylia Cataclysm of 1400 BP up until the Fracturing and the arrival of the Decay Parasite, both happening in 0 AP. The Gylia Cataclysm consisted in the arrival of two meteors, the Purple meteor and the Blue meteor, onto Gavel, crash landing in the Gylia Plains and destroying a small Villager settlement. The meteors sunk deep below the ground and the crater they created was later filled with rainwater, creating Lake Gylia. . The Cataclysm rendered the region permanently unstable as Weirds started inhabiting it, created from the strong cosmic magic that radiates from the lake.

Roughly around 750 BP, a Villager by the name of Remikas crowned himself the First King of Gavel, starting a millenia-long rule of the province. The Kingdom expanded into the Llevigar Plains and slaughtered the orcs, crowning themselves as the "true rulers of Gavel".

In 400 BP, a man who was studying the Gylia meteors went insane from their influence, becoming the first Gert.

Decay Era
This era spans from the arrival of the Decay Parasite in 0 AP up until the modern day.

Other than the arrival of the Parasite, another important event happened in 0 AP: the Fracturing of the Ahms Region, caused by the Ahms Colossus, the region's protector. It went haywire for unknown reasons and divided the region in two parts: the Sky Islands and the Void. This event caused the collapse of the civilization that inhabited the Sky Islands at the time. Many of the Villagers who lived in the Ahms Region fell into the Void, and were granted immortality by the Void's strange properties. Here, they created the Void Village.

Around 573 AP, the Villagers started expanding in the Sky Islands. They were able to overpower the Skyraiders that already dominated the region and conquered Ahmsord, which at the time was a small Skyraider base.

In 750 AP, the civilians of Cinfras overthrew the monarchy, as they were tired of the royals ignoring their problems, such as famine and disease. However, the last king, Theden II, was already dead when the mob of protesters reached him. In place of a monarchy, a democracy was founded that still lives on to this day.

Around 800 AP, the Gerts started attacking Lexdale, which prompted the government to start a war against them: the Gerten War. At first, the Villagers were getting defeated time and time again by the Gerts who simply kept eating and reproducing. Then, a militia made up of the local farmers was founded, led by a man named Norler. Norler employed a new strategy against the Gerts, which consisted in the military launching rotting carcasses from airships for the Gerts to eat. This worked and many of the Gerts succumbed to disease, which allowed for the Villagers to push the Gerts all the way east into the Gylia Plains, containing them in their camp and founding the Gylia Watch to watch over the Gerts.

In 800 AP, the Decay Parasite burrowed deep into the ground and formed a nest north of Lexdale, starting the Decay. In 820 AP, the Villagers of Gelibord executed Dullahan the Elf as they believed he was the cause of the Decay. However, they were wrong, and when Dullahan was revived he seized control of the Gelibord Castle.

In 900 AP, as the Villagers were running out of emerald ore to excavate and the Decay was approaching Llevigar, they desperately set sail across the Ocean in hopes of finding land, although they believed that the Ocean was the corner of the world. However, they did find land: the Wynn Province. The Villagers created a settlement in Wynn called Maltic and founded an alliance with the humans of Wynn that went on to save the province.

Around 970 AP, a Villager company known as GavelExcavation moved their headquarters to Wynn, as the Power Crystals were found in the province. The company became WynnExcavation and set up several sites to find these Power Crystals. The leader of the organization was Amadel, who wanted the Crystals in order to "save the world" (although later his motive became to destroy all life, likely due to him becoming insane from the Crystals). The organization controlled many of Wynn's governments, from Troms to Almuj.

Notable Villagers

 * Remikas - The First King of Gavel. Not much else is known about him, but it's believed he lived around 750 BP.
 * Amadel - The leader of the organization known as WynnExcavation. He sought the Power Crystals to control the world.
 * Ragni's King - The king of Ragni, he seems to have ties with WynnExcavation. However, when he hears of the organization's destruction, he calls the player the "protector of Wynn".
 * The Scientist Brothers - The brothers Yahya, Nohno, Mehme and Sohso who worked for GavelExcavation and researched the meteors. However, they all went insane (except maybe for Sohso) due to the meteors' influence and became obsessed over different things. According to Mehme, Sohso travelled to Fruma.
 * Theden II - The last King of Gavel, deposed in 750 AP.
 * Dr. Urelix - Scientist who owns the iron golem factory that creates all the iron golems in the world, employing horrifying methods to produce them.
 * Caritat Family - A family who inhabited the Caritat Mansion, built atop the place where the Decay Parasite first burrowed into Gavel. Due to the dark influence that came from that place, all the members of the family went insane and died except for Atisun.
 * Kelight - A Villager who stands in front of the Temple of the Legends. He won't let you access the Temple until you defeat the Corrupter of Worlds.
 * Ariodo - A scientist who set up his lab in the Jungle. He did experiments on animals and plants, creating chimeras and even moving a Villager's soul into a mushroom.
 * Seaskipper Captain - The captain of the V.S.S. Seaskipper, which he uses to take the player on trips across the ocean.
 * General Lecade - The manager of the Kitrios Barracks. During the quest General's Orders, he is impersonated by an impostor that forces his troops and even the player to perform odd tasks around the barracks.

Gavel Province

 * Cinfras - The Villager capital. It's not known how old the city is but it may be one of the province's oldest, possibly even existing in Remikas' time. The city sits in the center of Gavel, between the Light Forest and the Canyon of the Lost.
 * Llevigar - Referred to by the Seaskipper Captain as "the royal city", implying it was built during the royal rule of Gavel. The city is the first thing anyone sees when they travel to Gavel from the Ocean. The city is built entirely out of quartz from the Karoc Quarry.
 * Olux - A city hit hard by the Decay. Many of its citizens regularly go missing as they get turned into iron golems in the golem factory. It sits in the middle of the Olux Swamp, to the north of Llevigar.
 * Gelibord - A city located in the middle of the Dark Forest. It too is struggling under the weight of the Decay, as well as some other problems such as the undead raised by the Lazarus Pit, the Lexdale Federal Prison which regularly takes citizens from the city, and the Dullahan's influence.
 * Thesead - A city built into the Canyon of the Lost, it mostly takes its energy from the nearby coal mine. The mayor of the city and the mayor of Eltom are/were in a romantic relationship, which resulted in them birthing a half-Villager, half-human son called Ardulf.
 * Ahmsord - Located in the middle of the Sky Islands, Ahmsord used to be a Skyraider settlement until the Villagers took it over. Ahmsord is also the site of a legendary battle that (allegedly) happened between Siegfried and a dragon that threatened to destroy the city. Siegfried won the fight but ended up losing his eye.

Ocean

 * Selchar - Known as the "heart of the sea", this island town acts as the bridge between Wynn and Gavel.

Wynn Province

 * Maltic - This town was founded by the Villagers when they came to Wynn in 900 AP. A witch resides in the town's well that kidnaps children, but doesn't harm them. The town is a symbol of the alliance between the Humans and the Villagers.

Relations with other Species

 * Humans: Despite having an alliance with them, Villagers consider humans to be inferior to them, as they consider them a source of cheap labor and even ban them from establishing settlements in Gavel, which is why Eltom is an illegal settlement.
 * Elves: Not much is known about the relations between Villagers and Elves, however elves have banned the Villagers from entering Aldorei . The Elves have also tried to get the villagers to worship Orphion, however this has failed. The Villagers have also banned the Elves from entering the Church Library in Cinfras, for reasons unknown.
 * Orcs: The Villagers and the Orcs are enemies, and it has gotten to the point where the Orcs conquered the Villager fortress of Leadin. However, some time ago the Villagers and the Orcs signed a ceasefire. This didn't stop Gregg'r, an orc leader, from stealing the Fire Axe of Llevigar, an axe in possession of the Villagers that harnesses runic magic, nor did it stop Elphaba and the player from reconquering an Orcish outpost close to Olux.
 * Gerts: The Villagers don't know that they're related to the Gerts. The Villagers keep watch over the Gerts to make sure that they don't step out of the Gert Camp or the other camps they've set up close to Lake Gylia. The Gerts are still extremely hostile to villagers and humans, however. Behind the scenes, villagers such as Jitak support a factory owned by Big Butch that kills Gerts for their meat. Most of Gavel's villagers eat Gert meat without knowing it.

Trivia

 * Many human NPCs such as the King of Troms and Twendle used to be villagers, but got changed in recent versions.
 * The hero of Gavel, Siegfried, actually died many years ago, but the Siegfried Organization, a Villager-owned company, keeps his image alive by employing actors. If they die or speak out against the organization, they're "disposed of" and thrown into the Monument to Siegfried.