Sarevok
Lord of the Underworld
Hello one, hello all, and welcome to my little corner of the site. I'm not so good at introductions so I'll keep this as brief as I can.
First of all, a little bit about me to keep in mind.
1) I tend to write quite long, detailed posts. For that reason expect me to post less frequently, but post with a lot of detail and characterisation. Don’t expect daily posts, and definitely don’t expect multiple posts a day, however I will strive to post every other day or every 2-3 days at worst.
2) Although I do enjoy a good romantic subplot, I’m keen to stress that I do not do romance for the sake of romance, and it is not going to be the main focus of the plot. I’m here for the heroic and fantastical roleplay and the tales of heroic derring-do. If a romance subplot should form from that great, but it needs to make sense in the context of the roleplay and the characters. Do not expect me to force in a ham-fisted romance arc if it doesn’t make sense.
3) If a romance should develop, it will go to “fade to black”. I am not comfortable writing detailed or gratuitous posts of that nature.
4) If, like me, you thrive on heroic and fantastical tales similar to what you would find in a novel or movie then I think we’re going to get on just fine. That said I would expect a role play partner who’s focus and enthusiasm to be on collaborative storytelling and world-building. I’m hoping to find someone willing to go to that level of detail.
5) If it’s not working out just tell me rather than dropping it — I’m more than understanding when it comes down to that and I am also happy to pledge that same honesty. Communication is always the key to a roleplay working and as long as we are that then I see no reason why this can’t be seen through to a conclusion.
Hopefully that hasn't scared anyone off, and if you are still here, and are in your mid-twenties or older then I'd love to hear from you.
Now, to the plots themselves. I'm all about original plots and original characters, no fandoms as I'd rather work collaboratively with someone on world and character building, that's the sort of thing that makes me tick as a writer and role-player. The below are all outlines of plot ideas. If there's anything in there you like the sound of then please PM me and we can start to discuss characters and specific plot points.
When the end came, we were not ready. But then, how could any of us predict what was to come on that fateful day? It began when the sky itself split open with an eruption of inky blackness that obscured the sun beneath its black embrace. At first we all thought it was an eclipse of the sun and moon. The truth of it though soon became quickly apparent, that this was no eclipse — this was a rift that had opened up a gate into the netherworld.
First came the bodiless spirits, dreadful keening spectral beings who’s terrible song caused those who listened to it to go mad. Stripped of humanity, these men and women who were once human turned into mindless feral beings, tearing those who stood in their path limb from limb and devouring them.
This in itself would have been bad enough, yet worse was to come.
Those who died that night would not stay dead. Almost as if the black rift had the ability to deny souls their passage to the next life, the dead rose once more as decaying rotten husks that once lived. Inflicted with an insatiable hunger, their only need was to feed on the blood on those few that remained alive. A single scratch from their rotten fingernails would cause their victims to decay slowly from within, until finally they died in excruciating agony before rising as a living corpse.
That was not the end of it. As the rift boiled again, spitting forth a vast horde of twisted, nightmarish creatures, I knew.....we all did, that this was the end of all things. Against this, humanity could not stand.
We lost contact with the world at large as our own country fell.
It was not until long afterwards that I realised our own hubris had brought us to this point — yet by then it was too late.
~
A first hand account of the rifts arrival, recorded in an ancient journal now lost in the ruins of civilisation.
It has been thousands of years since the coming of the rift. In that time, the world before this Age of Eternal Night has become nothing more than a faint and ghostly memory, spoken of in nothing more than whispered stories spoke of over a covered campfire. Now, the bodiless dead and the shambling corpses have claimed the remnants of this world as their own. And while there are still some isolated pockets of people cowering within the shadows of broken stone buildings, civilisation has long since disappeared, torn apart between the claws and screams of the dead.
The living are a sad and pathetic lot, reduced to nothing more than scurrying around like rats concerned with nothing than their continued survival. The broken world is bleak, it is cruel and it is brutal.
Yet, for a collection of poor, desperate souls, their lot is about to change. Forced from safety by a catastrophic event, they are forced to flee for their survival chased by the living dead and the dead living. In their hands they come into possession of a strange item that may, just may, possess the means to close the rift once and for all. This item makes them hunted, not just by the dead but the living also, possession of such an artifact by those with more nefarious thoughts would be terrible indeed.
And, beyond all of them, the true architect of the cataclysm watches them with covetous eyes.....
Here we are, at the edge of the world,
Here we stand, deep in a frozen wonderland,
This icy tapestry, it sings to us,
It tells us here we are, we are alive,
And at the edge of the world, we shall live, and we shall love,
Welcome to Byhaven, a small frontier town that lies at the edge of the known world. Not just against the goblins and the orcs that make this desolate frontier their home, but against the harshest of conditions these hardy folk not just survive, but thrive in this place of neverending winter. In these most desolate of lands, the brave men and women of all races that make up the small villages dotted across the landscape make their living, and each day they survive is testament to their courage and hardiness.
You are children of these frontiersmen and women. You are the next generation, and here in Byhaven you have never known anything but the chill, frozen winds of the north, and the eternal snows of this perpetually frozen hinterland. Yours is not a bad life, anything but. Despite the adverse conditions, yours is a life of idyllic, yet hardworking peace. Sheltered from the worst excesses of the frontier by the forest on one side, and the river on the other side, the town itself is a friendly, welcoming one.
It is not the sort of place that you would choose to leave voluntarily, yet even now, events elsewhere spiral out of control. Fate will soon play its hand, and you will be caught up in events that are far beyond your control -- soon you and your friends will be forced to leave your sheltered home and thrust out into this harsh, frozen world beyond -- where each day will be a fight against the elements themselves for survival. And when mother nature itself is against you -- let alone the twisted, misshapen monstrosities that make their home in this far-reaching corner of the world, what chance do you have?
Far, far under the snow, trapped in its prison of ice, a dark presence begins to stir. Consciousness comes to it slowly, as this being wakens from its slumber. And it remembers. It remembers shadowy echoes of a world left long behind, another age when mortalkind wielded mighty magicks and fearsome powers unremembered now. Those times are long gone, and humanity now is nothing but an empty, soulless fragment of what it once was. It moves, and as it does tendrils of rot and decay probe outwards from its wakening mass.
Soon, the bringer of the dark will walk the world once more, and the world will tremble at its coming.
Legends tell of a lost city that lies shrouded at the edge of consciousness itself. This lost realm of mirrors and shadows blinks into existence once every thousand years, forming into shape and substance where it was once both formless and ethereal for three days and three nights.
For three days and three nights this city of no name appears, allowing those clever and resourceful enough to find its shadowy walkways the ability to enter its dark and ethereal passageways. There is nobody alive who has ever seen the inside of this city, yet written records from a time before speak of a place where the laws of time and physics do not apply. They speak of a bizarre and twisted realm of floating castles and labyrinthine upside down streets. Time does not exist in this place, seconds and minutes forever hanging frozen inside a realm that defies reality — a realm of both dreams and nightmares.
Yet this city that lies at the heart of yesterday holds something unspeakably dark inside of it. The city is alive, in its own way, and it reaches out to ensnare certain unlucky souls to be caught inside of its shadowy embrace. These poor unfortunates are absorbed into this city of dreams and nightmares, never to be seen again.
You are a band of experienced adventurers. In your career you have seen many many things both good and bad. The job that you took on was a simple one, to escort a merchant caravan safely through the mountain passes to its destination.
Little do you, or anyone, realise that it has been almost a thousand years to the day when a nameless city that lay at the heart of yesterday was last summoned to the world. The time is soon upon us again, and the dark city has already begun to call to its chosen victims.
Soon the city will be here, and all trails lead to its shadowy depths and the dark truth that lies inside of it....
First of all, a little bit about me to keep in mind.
1) I tend to write quite long, detailed posts. For that reason expect me to post less frequently, but post with a lot of detail and characterisation. Don’t expect daily posts, and definitely don’t expect multiple posts a day, however I will strive to post every other day or every 2-3 days at worst.
2) Although I do enjoy a good romantic subplot, I’m keen to stress that I do not do romance for the sake of romance, and it is not going to be the main focus of the plot. I’m here for the heroic and fantastical roleplay and the tales of heroic derring-do. If a romance subplot should form from that great, but it needs to make sense in the context of the roleplay and the characters. Do not expect me to force in a ham-fisted romance arc if it doesn’t make sense.
3) If a romance should develop, it will go to “fade to black”. I am not comfortable writing detailed or gratuitous posts of that nature.
4) If, like me, you thrive on heroic and fantastical tales similar to what you would find in a novel or movie then I think we’re going to get on just fine. That said I would expect a role play partner who’s focus and enthusiasm to be on collaborative storytelling and world-building. I’m hoping to find someone willing to go to that level of detail.
5) If it’s not working out just tell me rather than dropping it — I’m more than understanding when it comes down to that and I am also happy to pledge that same honesty. Communication is always the key to a roleplay working and as long as we are that then I see no reason why this can’t be seen through to a conclusion.
Hopefully that hasn't scared anyone off, and if you are still here, and are in your mid-twenties or older then I'd love to hear from you.
Now, to the plots themselves. I'm all about original plots and original characters, no fandoms as I'd rather work collaboratively with someone on world and character building, that's the sort of thing that makes me tick as a writer and role-player. The below are all outlines of plot ideas. If there's anything in there you like the sound of then please PM me and we can start to discuss characters and specific plot points.
When the end came, we were not ready. But then, how could any of us predict what was to come on that fateful day? It began when the sky itself split open with an eruption of inky blackness that obscured the sun beneath its black embrace. At first we all thought it was an eclipse of the sun and moon. The truth of it though soon became quickly apparent, that this was no eclipse — this was a rift that had opened up a gate into the netherworld.
First came the bodiless spirits, dreadful keening spectral beings who’s terrible song caused those who listened to it to go mad. Stripped of humanity, these men and women who were once human turned into mindless feral beings, tearing those who stood in their path limb from limb and devouring them.
This in itself would have been bad enough, yet worse was to come.
Those who died that night would not stay dead. Almost as if the black rift had the ability to deny souls their passage to the next life, the dead rose once more as decaying rotten husks that once lived. Inflicted with an insatiable hunger, their only need was to feed on the blood on those few that remained alive. A single scratch from their rotten fingernails would cause their victims to decay slowly from within, until finally they died in excruciating agony before rising as a living corpse.
That was not the end of it. As the rift boiled again, spitting forth a vast horde of twisted, nightmarish creatures, I knew.....we all did, that this was the end of all things. Against this, humanity could not stand.
We lost contact with the world at large as our own country fell.
It was not until long afterwards that I realised our own hubris had brought us to this point — yet by then it was too late.
~
A first hand account of the rifts arrival, recorded in an ancient journal now lost in the ruins of civilisation.
It has been thousands of years since the coming of the rift. In that time, the world before this Age of Eternal Night has become nothing more than a faint and ghostly memory, spoken of in nothing more than whispered stories spoke of over a covered campfire. Now, the bodiless dead and the shambling corpses have claimed the remnants of this world as their own. And while there are still some isolated pockets of people cowering within the shadows of broken stone buildings, civilisation has long since disappeared, torn apart between the claws and screams of the dead.
The living are a sad and pathetic lot, reduced to nothing more than scurrying around like rats concerned with nothing than their continued survival. The broken world is bleak, it is cruel and it is brutal.
Yet, for a collection of poor, desperate souls, their lot is about to change. Forced from safety by a catastrophic event, they are forced to flee for their survival chased by the living dead and the dead living. In their hands they come into possession of a strange item that may, just may, possess the means to close the rift once and for all. This item makes them hunted, not just by the dead but the living also, possession of such an artifact by those with more nefarious thoughts would be terrible indeed.
And, beyond all of them, the true architect of the cataclysm watches them with covetous eyes.....
A millennia ago, mighty empires turned on each other in their hubris. Unleashing a scourge of terrible, terrible explosions, their omnipotent, god-like power turned not just civilisation, but humanity itself to ash. Almost overnight, the world was turned to rubble and cinders. Destroying each other in their own self-inflicted folly, the perpetrators of these terrible acts were scoured from memory, yet the ramifications of their foolishness engulfed every single living person in wave after wave of apocalyptic destruction.
Technology and civilised society collapsed in one fell stroke, and only anarchy remained intact.
And as a world that was once familiar and secure burned, only a handful of people survived the aftermath, fleeing underground. However, their bodies and souls were forever twisted amongst the unstoppable conflagration that swept across the surface like wildfire.
All of what was once before has disappeared into oblivion. Underground, reduced once more to primal savagery, the pitiful, shattered remnants of what was once a great and proud people tried to rebuild. From their twisted, mutated bodies came the dwarves, the elves, the gnomes and the halflings, alongside the heirs of humanity -- the last heirs to a lost world.
The years went by, one after the next, and the self-styled children of the underground forgot their origins. And although the deep underdark provides its own threats, the world above is broken and lost, concealed under a ceaseless cloud of poison that claimed the lives of anyone who dared to brave it. Ultimately deteriorating into illiterate, unlearned primitives, these savage peoples lost sight of everything that they once were.
Millions of years have passed. There are none left that remember the time before - the time when mortals walked the surface. Yet, within the murky depths of the underworld, there is a small flicker of light that still burns like the dying embers of a great fire, just waiting for someone to prod the flames back to life. Mortalkind has risen once more from their primitive forebears, and across the dark confines of the dark world they now live in, tiny, tiny pockets of communities have begun to spring up, out of necessity more than anything else.
These skeletal, formative societies have begun to impose some form of order amidst the anarchic "only the strong survive" way of life that came before.
Reaching out with tentative fingers, some of the more forward thinking communities have looked to establish rudimentary trade routes with each other. And although the world below remains a deadly, cutthroat place, there is something now that the world did not have before.
Hope.
With hope, there is perhaps one more thing the Children of the Underground can reach out to and hold. The redemption of their forebears.
Life underground is hard, almost impossibly so. Here, there is no literacy. There is no religion. Humanity turned away from the gods as they destroyed the land, and in turn, the gods abandoned them. There is no magic, and the art of reading and writing is a lost skill, never to return. Diseases are virulent, passing from one person to the next, often wiping out hundreds in the blink of an eye.
Outside of the scattered communities, there is no law or order, and death is almost certain for those who leave the protective confines of their homes. The outcast roam the tunnels, looking to murder anyone who passes by simply to gain enough food to live for another day. Yet, they are not the worst thing the foolish traveller needs to fear. Unspeakable, twisted monstrosities roam the darkness and the shadows. These mindless, misshapen horrors seek to feast on warm blood.
The Underworld is a dark, dark place, yet it is here, amidst the loneliness and the shadows that you make your home. It is not an easy life, it is a hard, brutal existence you live amongst other like-minded souls, but nevertheless you live and you breathe. You survive.
Yet things are about to change, and the fickle hand of fate is about to strike. Cast out from your home and your people, you are forced to flee into the dark.
But where will you go?
The shadows are not welcoming, and the darkness of the underworld means almost certain death. Your knowledge of the underground pathways is almost non-existent, and you do not know what lies out there in this broken and dark place. Nobody has been on the surface for thousands and thousands of years, and the quiet whispers that remain speak of a burned wasteland where the very air is poisonous to breathe. The surface world is said to be death itself. You will find no respite there.
In this realm of eternal twilight, as your dwindling food and water supplies begin to run out, you will quickly find that you have nothing and no one but each other to count on. Yet what chance do you, inexperienced and callow youths, have to survive?
Or could it be that you are all destined for something much, much greater than this, and that someone, or something very powerful, has surreptitiously set into motion events that will change the world forevermore.
You are all something very, very important. You are the Children of the Underground, you are the heirs of that which was lost long, long ago. And you will strive for something that the people of the world need more than they could ever know.
Redemption
Technology and civilised society collapsed in one fell stroke, and only anarchy remained intact.
And as a world that was once familiar and secure burned, only a handful of people survived the aftermath, fleeing underground. However, their bodies and souls were forever twisted amongst the unstoppable conflagration that swept across the surface like wildfire.
All of what was once before has disappeared into oblivion. Underground, reduced once more to primal savagery, the pitiful, shattered remnants of what was once a great and proud people tried to rebuild. From their twisted, mutated bodies came the dwarves, the elves, the gnomes and the halflings, alongside the heirs of humanity -- the last heirs to a lost world.
The years went by, one after the next, and the self-styled children of the underground forgot their origins. And although the deep underdark provides its own threats, the world above is broken and lost, concealed under a ceaseless cloud of poison that claimed the lives of anyone who dared to brave it. Ultimately deteriorating into illiterate, unlearned primitives, these savage peoples lost sight of everything that they once were.
Millions of years have passed. There are none left that remember the time before - the time when mortals walked the surface. Yet, within the murky depths of the underworld, there is a small flicker of light that still burns like the dying embers of a great fire, just waiting for someone to prod the flames back to life. Mortalkind has risen once more from their primitive forebears, and across the dark confines of the dark world they now live in, tiny, tiny pockets of communities have begun to spring up, out of necessity more than anything else.
These skeletal, formative societies have begun to impose some form of order amidst the anarchic "only the strong survive" way of life that came before.
Reaching out with tentative fingers, some of the more forward thinking communities have looked to establish rudimentary trade routes with each other. And although the world below remains a deadly, cutthroat place, there is something now that the world did not have before.
Hope.
With hope, there is perhaps one more thing the Children of the Underground can reach out to and hold. The redemption of their forebears.
Life underground is hard, almost impossibly so. Here, there is no literacy. There is no religion. Humanity turned away from the gods as they destroyed the land, and in turn, the gods abandoned them. There is no magic, and the art of reading and writing is a lost skill, never to return. Diseases are virulent, passing from one person to the next, often wiping out hundreds in the blink of an eye.
Outside of the scattered communities, there is no law or order, and death is almost certain for those who leave the protective confines of their homes. The outcast roam the tunnels, looking to murder anyone who passes by simply to gain enough food to live for another day. Yet, they are not the worst thing the foolish traveller needs to fear. Unspeakable, twisted monstrosities roam the darkness and the shadows. These mindless, misshapen horrors seek to feast on warm blood.
The Underworld is a dark, dark place, yet it is here, amidst the loneliness and the shadows that you make your home. It is not an easy life, it is a hard, brutal existence you live amongst other like-minded souls, but nevertheless you live and you breathe. You survive.
Yet things are about to change, and the fickle hand of fate is about to strike. Cast out from your home and your people, you are forced to flee into the dark.
But where will you go?
The shadows are not welcoming, and the darkness of the underworld means almost certain death. Your knowledge of the underground pathways is almost non-existent, and you do not know what lies out there in this broken and dark place. Nobody has been on the surface for thousands and thousands of years, and the quiet whispers that remain speak of a burned wasteland where the very air is poisonous to breathe. The surface world is said to be death itself. You will find no respite there.
In this realm of eternal twilight, as your dwindling food and water supplies begin to run out, you will quickly find that you have nothing and no one but each other to count on. Yet what chance do you, inexperienced and callow youths, have to survive?
Or could it be that you are all destined for something much, much greater than this, and that someone, or something very powerful, has surreptitiously set into motion events that will change the world forevermore.
You are all something very, very important. You are the Children of the Underground, you are the heirs of that which was lost long, long ago. And you will strive for something that the people of the world need more than they could ever know.
Redemption
In the ageless time before the dawn of history, there was a war in heaven. In desperation, the lords of light severed the black spirit of the dark god Izrador, casting him out of the celestial kingdom.
The gods succeeded in vanquishing their brother, but Izrador corrupted their magic and turned their victory against them. As the fallen gods spirit was severed from his physical form, so too was the celestial kingdom severed from all contact with the material realm. The lords of light discovered that they could no longer commune with their mortal children. This cataclysm shook the foundations of the world and came to be known as the Sundering.
The dark god fell to the earth, his foul essence staining the land with its evil shadow. Weakened and bodiless, Izrador retreated to the ice and cold of the far north. There he slumbered, slowly recovering his strength and dreaming of vengeance across aeons of time. Empires were built and crumbled to dust, races were born and died, and the Shadow in the North grew deeper and darker.
Three times the dark god rose, and threatened the nations of Aryth with iron and fire. The first time he was defeated by a proud host of elves, dwarves and Dornish men lead by Aradil the Witch Queen.
The second time, races of good held the Shadow off long enough for aid to come from an unlooked for ally. By the time of the third rising, the free peoples of Eredane were battered, bitter and distracted by their own infighting as well by the insidious corruption sown by the dark god’s spies over the years. Four of the land’s greatest heroes fell prey to his dark promises and betrayed their people, leading his hordes from the north, claiming their title – the Night Kings.
This time, the dark god won.
The dwarven clans were broken and retreated to their holdfasts deep within the earth. The elves withdrew into their fast and ancient forest, abandoning all to the Shadow. The Dorns, tamed by a power from across the sea in the Second Age were betrayed from within and fell swiftly.
One hundred years have passed since the Shadow fell. The elder races – those of a good heart and fey ancestry who have battled Izrador for millennia – are being systematically hunted down and exterminated. The great forest of Erethor has become an island of light in a darkening world, its elven keepers fighting a never-ending battle against besieging hordes of orcs, giants and goblinoids. The surviving dwarves clans have locked themselves in their mountain holdfasts, and the streets of once-proud subterranean cities have become meat grinders for the orcs who are sent in to root them out.
The lands of men are ruled with an iron fist by the minions of the Shadow. Cities lie in ruins, and the commoners in isolated towns lock the gates against the darkness each night. Literacy, magic and weapons are illegal, and ignorance spreads across the land like a terrible plague.
Into this world you arrive, heroes in a land that neither wants nor needs them.
No one race or culture has the might to stand against Izrador and his foul legates. The dwarves are valiant, but caged in their mountains. The elves are skilled, but have neither the numbers nor the resources to fight off the orc hordes forever. Yet there are some few who would join their knowledge and skills, the better to fight the Shadow that has fallen over both peoples. And those few are hunted.
You, inexperienced rebels in the fight against Izrador and his lieutenants, the deadly Night Kings, become the unintended recipients of a valuable prize, the unwilling charges of a deadly quest. The forces of the Shadow have uncovered a prize of their own, however and given it to one of their most devious champions. You must elude this tireless pursuer and reach sanctuary a continent away, lest you fall prey to the Crown of Shadows.
The first challenge is for you to learn to simply trust and depend on each other. Since you are in a land of Shadow, ruled by the orcs, you are strangers to each other and have no idea who could secretly be an agent of Izrador. Then, you must make your journey with little experience, minimal resources and no support, crossing dangerous lands occupied by enemy forces and in which you are strangers and proscribed outlaws. And above all else, you are racing against time, and one of the most cunning and dangerous adversaries you will ever meet – the being known only as the Hunter.
The gods succeeded in vanquishing their brother, but Izrador corrupted their magic and turned their victory against them. As the fallen gods spirit was severed from his physical form, so too was the celestial kingdom severed from all contact with the material realm. The lords of light discovered that they could no longer commune with their mortal children. This cataclysm shook the foundations of the world and came to be known as the Sundering.
The dark god fell to the earth, his foul essence staining the land with its evil shadow. Weakened and bodiless, Izrador retreated to the ice and cold of the far north. There he slumbered, slowly recovering his strength and dreaming of vengeance across aeons of time. Empires were built and crumbled to dust, races were born and died, and the Shadow in the North grew deeper and darker.
Three times the dark god rose, and threatened the nations of Aryth with iron and fire. The first time he was defeated by a proud host of elves, dwarves and Dornish men lead by Aradil the Witch Queen.
The second time, races of good held the Shadow off long enough for aid to come from an unlooked for ally. By the time of the third rising, the free peoples of Eredane were battered, bitter and distracted by their own infighting as well by the insidious corruption sown by the dark god’s spies over the years. Four of the land’s greatest heroes fell prey to his dark promises and betrayed their people, leading his hordes from the north, claiming their title – the Night Kings.
This time, the dark god won.
The dwarven clans were broken and retreated to their holdfasts deep within the earth. The elves withdrew into their fast and ancient forest, abandoning all to the Shadow. The Dorns, tamed by a power from across the sea in the Second Age were betrayed from within and fell swiftly.
One hundred years have passed since the Shadow fell. The elder races – those of a good heart and fey ancestry who have battled Izrador for millennia – are being systematically hunted down and exterminated. The great forest of Erethor has become an island of light in a darkening world, its elven keepers fighting a never-ending battle against besieging hordes of orcs, giants and goblinoids. The surviving dwarves clans have locked themselves in their mountain holdfasts, and the streets of once-proud subterranean cities have become meat grinders for the orcs who are sent in to root them out.
The lands of men are ruled with an iron fist by the minions of the Shadow. Cities lie in ruins, and the commoners in isolated towns lock the gates against the darkness each night. Literacy, magic and weapons are illegal, and ignorance spreads across the land like a terrible plague.
Into this world you arrive, heroes in a land that neither wants nor needs them.
No one race or culture has the might to stand against Izrador and his foul legates. The dwarves are valiant, but caged in their mountains. The elves are skilled, but have neither the numbers nor the resources to fight off the orc hordes forever. Yet there are some few who would join their knowledge and skills, the better to fight the Shadow that has fallen over both peoples. And those few are hunted.
You, inexperienced rebels in the fight against Izrador and his lieutenants, the deadly Night Kings, become the unintended recipients of a valuable prize, the unwilling charges of a deadly quest. The forces of the Shadow have uncovered a prize of their own, however and given it to one of their most devious champions. You must elude this tireless pursuer and reach sanctuary a continent away, lest you fall prey to the Crown of Shadows.
The first challenge is for you to learn to simply trust and depend on each other. Since you are in a land of Shadow, ruled by the orcs, you are strangers to each other and have no idea who could secretly be an agent of Izrador. Then, you must make your journey with little experience, minimal resources and no support, crossing dangerous lands occupied by enemy forces and in which you are strangers and proscribed outlaws. And above all else, you are racing against time, and one of the most cunning and dangerous adversaries you will ever meet – the being known only as the Hunter.
Here we are, at the edge of the world,
Here we stand, deep in a frozen wonderland,
This icy tapestry, it sings to us,
It tells us here we are, we are alive,
And at the edge of the world, we shall live, and we shall love,
Welcome to Byhaven, a small frontier town that lies at the edge of the known world. Not just against the goblins and the orcs that make this desolate frontier their home, but against the harshest of conditions these hardy folk not just survive, but thrive in this place of neverending winter. In these most desolate of lands, the brave men and women of all races that make up the small villages dotted across the landscape make their living, and each day they survive is testament to their courage and hardiness.
You are children of these frontiersmen and women. You are the next generation, and here in Byhaven you have never known anything but the chill, frozen winds of the north, and the eternal snows of this perpetually frozen hinterland. Yours is not a bad life, anything but. Despite the adverse conditions, yours is a life of idyllic, yet hardworking peace. Sheltered from the worst excesses of the frontier by the forest on one side, and the river on the other side, the town itself is a friendly, welcoming one.
It is not the sort of place that you would choose to leave voluntarily, yet even now, events elsewhere spiral out of control. Fate will soon play its hand, and you will be caught up in events that are far beyond your control -- soon you and your friends will be forced to leave your sheltered home and thrust out into this harsh, frozen world beyond -- where each day will be a fight against the elements themselves for survival. And when mother nature itself is against you -- let alone the twisted, misshapen monstrosities that make their home in this far-reaching corner of the world, what chance do you have?
-------------------------------------------------
Far, far under the snow, trapped in its prison of ice, a dark presence begins to stir. Consciousness comes to it slowly, as this being wakens from its slumber. And it remembers. It remembers shadowy echoes of a world left long behind, another age when mortalkind wielded mighty magicks and fearsome powers unremembered now. Those times are long gone, and humanity now is nothing but an empty, soulless fragment of what it once was. It moves, and as it does tendrils of rot and decay probe outwards from its wakening mass.
Soon, the bringer of the dark will walk the world once more, and the world will tremble at its coming.
From the sunless world,
Your mirror is black, only a copy stares back,
At a slave of brave new world,
By a carrion,
Lost in the maze,
The real and human feel,
Feast your eyes on the black mirror,
Feed the beast, join the gathering, tell a tale,
Feast of fears is drawing nearer,
Beyond the human horizon,
Something terrifying sleeps
Your mirror is black, only a copy stares back,
At a slave of brave new world,
By a carrion,
Lost in the maze,
The real and human feel,
Feast your eyes on the black mirror,
Feed the beast, join the gathering, tell a tale,
Feast of fears is drawing nearer,
Beyond the human horizon,
Something terrifying sleeps
Legends tell of a lost city that lies shrouded at the edge of consciousness itself. This lost realm of mirrors and shadows blinks into existence once every thousand years, forming into shape and substance where it was once both formless and ethereal for three days and three nights.
For three days and three nights this city of no name appears, allowing those clever and resourceful enough to find its shadowy walkways the ability to enter its dark and ethereal passageways. There is nobody alive who has ever seen the inside of this city, yet written records from a time before speak of a place where the laws of time and physics do not apply. They speak of a bizarre and twisted realm of floating castles and labyrinthine upside down streets. Time does not exist in this place, seconds and minutes forever hanging frozen inside a realm that defies reality — a realm of both dreams and nightmares.
Yet this city that lies at the heart of yesterday holds something unspeakably dark inside of it. The city is alive, in its own way, and it reaches out to ensnare certain unlucky souls to be caught inside of its shadowy embrace. These poor unfortunates are absorbed into this city of dreams and nightmares, never to be seen again.
***
You are a band of experienced adventurers. In your career you have seen many many things both good and bad. The job that you took on was a simple one, to escort a merchant caravan safely through the mountain passes to its destination.
Little do you, or anyone, realise that it has been almost a thousand years to the day when a nameless city that lay at the heart of yesterday was last summoned to the world. The time is soon upon us again, and the dark city has already begun to call to its chosen victims.
Soon the city will be here, and all trails lead to its shadowy depths and the dark truth that lies inside of it....
At the dawn of the Last Age, the world we live in now was born out of the destruction of the planet we once called Earth. As the missiles fell, as the nuclear blast destroyed all that was left of a dying world, a chosen few were selected to survive. These chosen were to lead us into a new age. They were the genesis of what would come to be known as Ansolera.
Many countless millennia onwards, it has all come full circle. Ansolera is slowly dying, and the chosen will lead a handful of survivors into the dawning of a new age -- the Final Age.
The most glorious Age of them all.
A millennia has passed since the Earth once known. The world of Ansolera is one that is barely recognisable from the one from before - this Earth spoken of in tall tales and legend.
The majority of the world's population is dead, victims of a virulent plague carried by the mutated wielders of the magic arts. Through the corruption of the magic, these carriers unleashed a deadly torrent of death and destruction upon the unsuspecting inhabitants of the world.
Magic is now illegal. Wielders of magic are hunted down and exterminated upon the first manifestation of their powers. This intolerance has extended to all users of magic. The wizards are no more, and their ancient keeps and towers torn down with the ignorance and hatred of so-called goodly folk who brand all users of magic as the same.
Far, far away, in the desolate North, a fell presence stirs. A terrible fragment of an ancient evil, one thought long lost and dead in the annals of time long gone by wakes once more..... Soon, its shadow will fall across the remnants of the land. Echoes of its power and terrible majesty have already been felt -- sightings have been seen of the dead rising again to walk the earth, mindless monstrosities infused by the dark essence of something incomprehensible. Far away from civilised lands, savage orcs gather under the banner of a warlord.
Soon the world will cry a river of blood.
Here, where this all began -- this is where it will all end. Echoes of a time long past, come back again.
For the chosen, blissfully unaware of what is unfolding around them in the world at large, sheltered within the safe and sleepy Edhel, life is about to change forever.
Shadows gather around Edhel, and a dark stranger rides towards the village.....
Many countless millennia onwards, it has all come full circle. Ansolera is slowly dying, and the chosen will lead a handful of survivors into the dawning of a new age -- the Final Age.
The most glorious Age of them all.
A millennia has passed since the Earth once known. The world of Ansolera is one that is barely recognisable from the one from before - this Earth spoken of in tall tales and legend.
The majority of the world's population is dead, victims of a virulent plague carried by the mutated wielders of the magic arts. Through the corruption of the magic, these carriers unleashed a deadly torrent of death and destruction upon the unsuspecting inhabitants of the world.
Magic is now illegal. Wielders of magic are hunted down and exterminated upon the first manifestation of their powers. This intolerance has extended to all users of magic. The wizards are no more, and their ancient keeps and towers torn down with the ignorance and hatred of so-called goodly folk who brand all users of magic as the same.
Far, far away, in the desolate North, a fell presence stirs. A terrible fragment of an ancient evil, one thought long lost and dead in the annals of time long gone by wakes once more..... Soon, its shadow will fall across the remnants of the land. Echoes of its power and terrible majesty have already been felt -- sightings have been seen of the dead rising again to walk the earth, mindless monstrosities infused by the dark essence of something incomprehensible. Far away from civilised lands, savage orcs gather under the banner of a warlord.
Soon the world will cry a river of blood.
Here, where this all began -- this is where it will all end. Echoes of a time long past, come back again.
For the chosen, blissfully unaware of what is unfolding around them in the world at large, sheltered within the safe and sleepy Edhel, life is about to change forever.
Shadows gather around Edhel, and a dark stranger rides towards the village.....
