A map of Ashan distributed with Heroes of Might and Magic V Deluxe Edition.
Ashan is a fictional fantasy world created by Ubisoft for their current and future games under the Might and Magic brand. It replaced the old Might and Magic universe, which consisted of many different worlds and was used by New World Computing until its dissolution. According to Ubisoft, it was done because the old continuity became hard to manage, and to avoid confusing newcomers.
In contrast with the old universe, which incorporated science fiction elements, Ashan is a pure fantasy world. The first game it was featured in was Heroes of Might and Magic V. It will be followed by the upcoming Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.
History
Ashan is a world where dragons are worshipped as deities. Actually, dragons played a vital role in creating the world as it is known.
Genesis
In the beginning, there was nothing but the eternal Void. The Void spawned the Cosmic Egg, which, upon hatching, released two Primordial Dragons — Asha, the Dragon of Order, and Urgash, the Dragon of Chaos. (While Asha is a dragon, she is known in many forms by different cults; for example, the Necromancers worship a spider goddess form of Asha.)
Asha created the Earth, Ashan, and the six Elemental Dragons, among them Elrath, the Dragon of Light, Sylath, the Dragon of Air, Sylanna, the Dragon of Earth, and Malassa, the Dragon of Darkness. They were worshipped by the mortal races of Ashan, while Urgash was the deity of the demon race.
Eventually, a war between the demons and the races of Ashan broke out. Sar-Elam, the first of the Wizards and the first mortal to reach Asha's conscience, sacrificed himself to seal the demons in an underground prison known as Sheogh. For his deeds, Sar-Elam became known as the Seventh Dragon, despite not actually being a dragon, and the year of his sacrifice started the modern calendar of Ashan, becoming known as the year 0 YSD, where YSD stands for "Year of the Seventh Dragon".
Almost at the same time as the Wizard faction, the Falcon Empire was founded by Falcon the Great; at that time, Sylath was its primary deity instead of Elrath, who is worshipped in its modern counterpart, the Holy Griffin Empire or Haven. This order lasted for about forty years, until the Wars of Fire in 28-40 YSD - the first demon incursion. Most of the Angels, servants of the Dragon of Light, perished in the wars, and the remaining ones took refuge in the Empire. Eventually, in 48 YSD, Emperor Brian Falcon gave absolute power to the Church of the Dragon of Light, renaming the realm "Holy Falcon Empire".
The elf race, which also suffered a lot in the Wars of Fire, retreated to the remains of their forests, burnt away by the demons, and started restoring their homeland - a process that took more than two centuries, eventually ending in 260 YSD, resulting in the creation of their kingdom of Irollan.
The year 62 YSD laid foundation Necromancers, who were originally one faction of the Wizards that seceded during the Schism of the Seven, a split between the followers of Sar-Elam; another faction went to the southern desert, where the Seven Cities, the first kingdom of Magic, was established. Necromancy itself, however, was not discovered until much later, namely 461 YSD. In this sense, the Necromancers are among the three younger political powers in Ashan, along with the dark elves and the orcs.
Later history
Shortly after experiments in necromancy began in the Seven Cities, the orcs - originally created by the Wizards to fight the demon army, but then enslaved - started a rebellion against their masters, which reached the borders of the Holy Falcon Empire. As a replacement for the orcs, the Wizards created several beast-people species, including minotaurs, centaurs and harpies.
External links
- Timeline of Ashan history (official site)