The Edict of 317

The Edict of 317 was a religious declaration from The Halcynosure that declared fairies, orcs, and gnolls to be evil and that it was the duty of humans to ensure they were killed, and if it were possible to kill them on sight.

While it named 3 species (and could be extended to more) the Edict primarily affected goblinoids (which it is generally believed 'orcs' refers to all of), as the segment on gnolls is pretty much forgotten and fairies and humans would probably never have gotten along well.

Human-Goblinoid Relations before The Edict
Goblinoids and humans fighting actually was about as common as human on human violence before the emergence of human civilisation, though it tended to be more violent once it did break out as there was little trade between the two and therefore limited incentive to see things return to normal. This began to change when humans founded larger groupings and allied themselves with Dwarves. The dwarven idea of goblinoids as evil started to spread to humans while the goblinoids started to see humans as an ally of the dwarves.

It was at this point Aruseus saved the dwarven king from a group of goblinoids and as such an alliance was sealed with the aim of driving the goblinoids out of Euphoria. This mass campaign can be seen as the first informal example of the edict, and certainly bread resentment amongst the goblinoids who were given a choice between moving back into The Plane of Beyond, a land many of them had never seen, or being slain, and often just the later. In an ultimate blow, Aruseus then demanded that the goblinoids in The Plane of Beyond be subject to his rule.

The goblinoids at this point had enough, and mounted a series of collective campaigns against him, but each one he defeated with his battle hardened soldiers who by this point had experience working together to attack goblinoids while the goblinoids had no experience working together since goblinoid civilisation had collapsed in an unrelated magical calamity. Eventually he was struck with an arrow which eventually killed him, but not before he had crossed all of goblinoid land.

Many goblinoids returned to their birthplaces in Euphoria, often running into violent conflict with the humans that lived there, and seeing this as an opportunity for just retribution against the humans that had driven them from their land. Human civilisation, rapidly collapsing and gripped with infighting, was unable to make a collective response to this.

Human-Fairy Relations before The Edict
Humans never got along well with fairies, largely because fairies are mischievous at best and therefore tend to interfere a lot with humans. Humans came to fear fairies and as such the normal response if fairies were found in an area was to up and leave. There were never any great campaigns against fairies, not least because very few people who were either strong, brave, or stupid enough to go out to fight them. There have been a few knights or wizards who took it upon themselves to reclaim lost towns from fairies, but these were largely individual affairs without any sponsorship from the state.

Any state lead campaign against fairies always ran into the stumbling block that they never posed a threat to any nation, unless such nation was small enough to consist of only a village. The closest that came is when fairies spring up around a strategic location - a town, port, castle, etc. - in which case the local noble generally mounted some form of attempt to drive them out.

Human-Gnolls Relations before The Edict
Not much is known about Human-Gnoll before The Edict

Gnolls
Gnolls are essentially forgotten about. The biggest question around gnolls and The Edict is why they were included at all.

Gnolls
The impact of gnolls was the opposite of that on fairies, humans went on ignoring them.

Modern Reception
Human opinion on the edict falls into 3 main camps. Firstly there are those who accept the edict as fact - something easy to do when you have seen your loved ones killed by orcs. Secondly there are those who know it to be untrue and view it as an impediment to a peaceable settlement and trade with orcs, a reasonably prevalent position in The North. And thirdly there are those who, as with the original edict, know it isn't true but benefit from it and as such have an interest in ensuring it stays in place.

There are a few people who don't know about The Edict but these are few and far between in Euphoria, as it is an element of every established religion. There are still a few who view it as a necessary evil, something untrue but good as it keeps the humans together. There are barely any of these.

The Dwarfs have their own informal version of the edict, and as such they see killing goblinoids as the natural thing to do - though they are a little confused about why humans need to write it down.

Elves are almost completely unaware of the edict. Those that do know about it find it very strange as elves and goblinoids very rarely fight - elves being isolationists and orcs being largely afraid of elves (the whole superior strength and senses and complex get spoken of a lot apparently). Elves view goblinoids as ugly and smelly but not 'evil'. Elves generally relate with sprites including fairies, and so humans poor relations with them is a sticking point and if humans actually wished to enforce the edict, it would probably result in a full blown war with the elves.

Vampire's opinions on the edict are very similar to the third group of humans. They know it is doing humanity harm in the long run, and that is why they support it. Vampires don't like goblinoids for their own reasons - they are generally less submissive than humans for one.

Goblinoids are generally unaware of the existence of the edict specifically but they do know that humans will generally attack them even if unprovoked.

Amongst gods, the evil gods see it as a wonderful thing. The lawful good gods have just kind of forgotten about it, if it is brought up they generally um and ah about keeping humanity on one side.

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