This is the history of my world, from creation to present day. It still needs some work, but I thought I might post it here and get some suggestions.

Note: I don't have a name for the evil prince yet, so in the this history he is going by Prince Evil.

The History:

Long ago, Azéan, the God of all things, created Amerouk and everything in it, including the magic. He made it into two kingdoms, the North and the South. Zalor is a evil god, a trickster and theif. Azéan and Zalor have been fighting over control of the people since the beginning of time. Zalor tricks people into using their gifts for evil in order to assist him. When Azéan gifted the magic, he gave the power to chose which it was used for. Azéan is the god of freedom and justice, while if a gifted one gives into Zalor, he remains a slave to evil unless saved.
Azéoran is the appointed city where the king lives to keep peace over the world, and is powerfully gifted with magic in order to keep peace in the northern and southern territories and keep the balance off the magic. A gifted magician also feels special ties with nature, as it is his duty to keep Azéan’s creation protected. With this balance in place, Amerouk remained peaceful for several hundred years. Until one king, King Dakai Aramal of Azèoran, chose to turn his magic dark. He then became the most powerful dark magician ever to live, ignoring the call of nature to rule as a tyrant. He burned villages who would not submit to him, causing forest fires, destroying the creation. Certain animals became scarce and some died out for lack of habitat.
In the sixth year of his rein, a rebellion sparked in the people. People of the North and South worked together to overthrow their king. An entire year later, they were successful. The rebellion was made of mostly commoners and good magicians. One of the King’s previous advisers lead the rebellion. However, when the king died, a Curse of Zalor was cast upon the land. But before King Dakai died, he had two sons. Prince Evil and Prince Tavilon. Tav’s Mother took a fancy to him and started teaching him in the ways of the good magic before Dakai could corrupt him. Dakai did corrupt Prince Evil in order to take his place on the throne when he died. After the curse, Prince Evil arose to the throne and started a civil war, taking over his own land to gain control of the people and wipe out the good magic. He ruthlessly took his father’s place, and the magicians of Amerouk, weakened by the curse, are slowly losing. Prince Evil has be ruling for 3 years now, wiping out villages who will not submit.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Critique? Name ideas for Prince Evil? Any help is welcome!

I don't know, "Prince Evil" is kind of fun.

Sounds like some of the nastier kings of Israel and Judah! What is the nature of the curse, and why was it cast?

Oops. Forgot to explain the curse.

The curse was cast by King Dakai's death. In my post on magic, which is here: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=4576 it explains how a very powerful dark magician can control emotions and even cast a curse, although doing such in dangerous to the magician's health. Anyway, when the king died, he cursed the land in Amerouk by cursing the Southern Kingdom with happiness and the Northern Kingdom with gloom. Now, happiness may sound nice, but not when it takes away the ability to have other emotions. The curse's effect varies on different people, but since the magic stems on emotions and concentration, it therefore makes it harder to use the magic, enabling Prince Evil (Goodness, he really needs a name!) to gain control of Amerouk.
I hope that made sense/helped.

Very intriguing. I've never heard of anything quite like that. *is curious about the people cursed with happiness*

I would satisfy your curiosity, but I haven't entirely figured out how the happiness curse works. It's going to be interesting to write most of the people in my book as happy or sad. I'm trying to figure out a way to make it so that the very gifted magicians wouldn't be effected by the curse or something, that way my main characters don't have to be happy or sad. I may have to come up with some sort of special reason for that.

Those sound like good ideas, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Maybe the magicians who have the ties with nature are not effected by the curse? After all, only a handful have those ties. If it is the land that is cursed, then there might be some reason that because of their connections with the land they are not affected by it..... or would that make them more affected by the curse? Perhaps if the people are the cursed ones, then because of the connection with nature they are not affected? All in all, quite confusing and in need of some pondering. *ponders*

One thing I might do is when I figure out how these certain people are not cursed, I might add in that their immediate family members are not effected or very mildly effected. Do you think that sounds plausible? Or should the curse have some effect on everyone except the special magicians? (Who I still need to finish figuring out what makes them special.)

You're the author, and it's magic. You can write it with whatever rules you want. The key is to be consistent.

The first question I'd ask is... are you cursing the land ("nature"), or are you cursing the people? If you're cursing people directly, it would make sense for their inherent powers to define how the magic affects them. If you're cursing the land, then it is the people's relation to the land that would define how they are affected.

I think it's reasonable to say that a person's magical power can protect those close to them, to an extent. You just need to write it that way consistently.

Remember that you can also write clauses and other rules into the magic. Certain people might not be affected, or it depends on where they where, how old they were, or any number of other factors at the time the curse was cast. The bad guy could have also worked clauses into the curse to protect himself or people close to him from being affected, which would then apply to others.

I've decided I'm going to curse the land instead of the people, that way the ties with nature can protect some magicians.

Thank you for pointing that out, Phili. I decided that when the curse was cast, king Dakai did not make it apply to the royal Aramal family that way his son (Prince Evil) could rule without the curse hanging over him. But that also means that Prince Tavilon, the good prince, is not affected either. In fact, I wrote a whole other post about the curse, which is here.

Fantastic! I'd actually think that it would have gone the other way - if you're closely tied with nature, you'd be affected by nature's curse. So it's neat that it goes opposite.