The Chronicles of Mythguard - A Newly Revised Version

Prolouge

''It began long ago; The Eldär, First of the Archangels, created the world in his image. First it was dirt, and he raised them to become the mountains and lowered them to be the valleys. Next was water, and so the seas flowed in the valleys and lakes formed in the mountains, with rivers to connect them across the far-reaching land. Greenery filled it next, and soon the animals including the legendary dragons. Next in his image were the First Ones; four men, four women, one pair for each race of the yet unnamed planet.

The first pair were the dwarves, short and stocky with beards braided and colored, and the couple asked the Eldär to gift them with all the mountains of the planet. It was so, and in the years to follow the dwarves became numerous and powerful, dwelling deep within the world and forging the finest of weapons and armor.

The next couple were the Elves. Slender and beautiful, with almond eyes and pointed ears, they asked the Eldär to gift them the forests. This too was so, and the elves became honorable and traditional, with kimonos and katanas and armor of silks and leathers in the colors of the rainbow.

The third couple were giants of people, built of sinew with eyes a cold blue and golden blonde hair that reached their shoulders. From them they asked the Eldär for the glaciers in the North. He granted them this wish, thus becoming the Northmen, warriors of unequal strength and size and carrying axes the size of claymores that are far too heavy for a normal man to bear.

And last came the human couple, fair-skinned with hazel eyes. The Eldär wondered what they would ask for, smiling as his children came forth.

''The world,'' they said, with innocent eyes gazing upon such a great being.

''My children,'' he said with a voice that rumbled, ''I will give you the plains, so that you may grow as numerous and free as you'd like and never face hunger.''

With this they were contempt, and they multiplied as the Eldär had said. But it came a time when the Eldär said to the races that he must leave, for the Mother had called him and he was her champion. Worried, the people cried out for him not to go, but he soothed his children and said with a voice soft as a newborn.

''My children, I shall weep, and from my tears will be life. They will protect you from the Father and his son, the Steward. I will return as soon as I can.''

And so he wept thirteen tears, one for each of his brothers and sisters and himself who had created life somewhere in the Multiverse. In one final act the Eldär shielded the world from the horrendous thing called magic, something the Father dealt greatly in.

From that day the world kept to the Eldär's image, and the Tears blessed all the newborn children with a mark. Those whose marks dulled would live normal lives, but those whose marks glowed would become something greater. Eventually only human male children could bear the glowing mark, and from them came the Rune Lords. They resided in the great city of Mythguard, largest of all cities at that time. Their alabaster white tower stood near the newly erected keep that eyed its way far over the ocean, and it stands today, although a shadow of its former self after what transpired no more than three centuries ago.

In the time of the Eldär, when he had begun creating the world, he could not defend it completely. The Father's corruption had set in upon the West, making part of Moraltaine a land of fire and magma. And so the Eldär constructed an obsidian wall, halting the spread of the evil disease. Yet it did not stop the Eldär's human children from becoming curious what lay on the other side many years later. Those three centuries ago, a group of very foolish idiots clambered over the wall to peer into the fiery land, hence its name the Firelands. They were safe on the Wall, yet a few continued to go into it. And they went deeper, further, farther into the Firelands. They had continued their trek far into the Firelands until they came upon a pitch black castle on the top of a rocky hill. Rather than do the wise thing and turn back, they ventured deeper forth and entered that very castle. They were the first vampires, and the beginning of our nightmares.

Back on the other side of the Wall, the four races traded resources with very little quarrel. Yet for an unknown reason, on the same day those men had been turned into Firelanders, the human population of Mythguard began a pogrom against the Elves and the dragons, slaughtering them mercilessly. The Elves fled to their forests, slowly being found, tortured then killed while the dragons were wiped to extinction. The rage of humans slowly subsided. To this day, the human and elven races have a deep hatred towards each other.

The relations between the Northmen and humans had always been on a tightrope, but after the pogrom the North had a newfound respect for us, although we were no closer to being allies than before. The dwarves however loved us for it, thanking the humans for removing an unwanted filth that long plagued them.

Thus is a brief history of Moraltaine, and the beginning of our story.''