THE WORLD OF STEEL & BLOOD

THE FORSAKEN LANDS AND ITS PEOPLE

Beyond the Crimson Mountains in the far North of Dragos, lies a great mass of land, desolate and crawling with unholy beasts. Clouds of gray and black are said to hover over this vast land, as if the gods had declared it a forbidden place, where man is not welcomed, and monsters thrive.

The Land of Eternal Dark or simply the Forsaken Lands it was called, when Brandywine the Clever and his scouts came upon it, during the Expansion of the First Settlers.

According to legend, Brandywine and his scouts saw creatures dwelling beyond the Mountains of Crimson. They were the first to see Wolf-Men warriors with their weapons of bone and iron and a species of monsters to be seen were lizard-like hominids, akin to normal men and women that in time would be identified as "Dreadknots", boogeymen from ancient myths from the Old World of Argos.

It was never known as to how long these creatures have dwelled in that god-forsaken spit of land, but it is believed that their origins may have come from the blood magic practiced by the Forgotten Ones of Mystic's Point in the Summerlands. 

Evidence recovered from the ruins of the castle in the year 89 AD, suggests that Dreadknots and Wolf-Men may very well have been the first real denizens of the continent before it came to be known as Dragos and long before the Age of Dragons.

For eons, they thrived until they were driven out of their home by the first Dragons of the realm. Thus, they came to the Land of the Eternal Dark or the Forsaken Lands for short. And even when the Age of Dragons came to its end, the beasts of the Forsaken Lands remained in their homeland behind the Crimson Mountains, even as the First Settlers began to expand into all four corners of the realm.

While the majority of the Forsaken Lands' denizens remained, a rogue tribe of Wolf-Men snuck out and terrorized most of the Winterlands, killing livestock and humans as well.

Eventually, the Northerners drove the fell creatures away from their homes and straight into the bowels of Dragonclaw Forest and there, they became mortal enemies of the Forresters of Ironfort.

According to the testimony of an unnamed member of the Ice Claws, the nomadic warrior tribes of the Winterlands found refuge beyond the Crimson Mountains and into the Forsaken Lands. The first tribe being the Skullcrushers. Then, the Lone Swords and the Ice Claws joined with them in the Forsaken Lands.

The Dreadknots and the Wolf-Men did not desire humans in their land, so conflict followed.

It is not known as to how long these factions went to war with each other, but one thing is certain: they put aside their quarrels and united as the "Death Horde" when the Conquest began.

It is never known how, but a single human warrior came to the Forsaken Lands of his own accord and convinced the denizens there to follow him into battle against the noble houses of Dragos, in return for the realm itself, for it was rightly theirs, centuries ago, before the Age of Dragons and the Age of Man. The Skullcrushers, the Lone Swords and the Ice Claws were also convinced to join, as they were rallied with the promise living in peace and without the "pompous lords and ladies" interferring with their way of life.

And thus, the Death Horde was born and so was the man, whose name will forever be etched in the pages of our history for all time and in infamy, Sargon the Destroyer.

Blackmoor and Winterheart were the first to fall to the power of the Horde. The masters of those castles were slaughtered, leaving their heirs to be the ones to acknowledge the Horde as the masters of the realm and Sargon as king.

In no time afterwards, the other Northern houses were crushed and forced to submit to the Horde.

The Steinwicks, the Roths, the Garretts and the Halloranns were the next to fall when the Horde crossed into the Goldlands. The Redwines and the Grovers saw their end in the wake of Ironshield's capture and in the wheat fields miles from Summertown, they met their demise by the thousands of arrows shot upon them. So many arrows were shot into the arm that it was enough to blot out the sun.