Once there was a war, a war which shattered the peace of the land. A warlord, powerful in stature and might, broke the back of the land, submitting it to a cruel reign of rampant murder and high tithes. Women were treated as tools, to be bred or to be serving their male overlords.
A mighty army had been founded by the warlord, youth conscripted forcefully and converted to the warlord’s thought. Finally, after six magi banded together, aided by the loyal people of the land, the warlord was devastated, his mighty empire shattered, devolving within the lands which were granted to the wizards, whose reign would be unopposed, their magical might enforced by a system of protectors of the land. These heroes, for that was what they were, were responsible for banishing and defeating the monsters that roamed within the deep forests, within the dungeons of foregone ages, hoarding their riches and spoils. Soon, almost ten years after the warlord had been broken; the first Mage-War broke out, one of the magi, the one stewarding his kingdom of Revantska, desiring more land from his once-comrade in arms, a bloody war engaged.
As the mages started to ramp up their security, the heroes of the land being trained to work in regiment strength, the depredations of monsters seemed to be growing stronger. The heroes no longer seemed able to protect the land, the villages that sprung up every here and there, starting to get assailed more and more, the people crying out for help.
As the mages started their wars for dominance, their heroic personages having since become slightly more stern, their accrued power kept in check by the pact which they made, the people would have to bear their struggle.
To the west, two Mages held power, Zerandal the Wise, Elemental Master of Earth, shaper of a great rocky domain, with sparse covering of the land, soil well-workable by tools. His deeds were great, as the warlord’s reign had devastated a great deal of the land, thus his powers shaped it well, the peasantry pleased by the way with which he governed the land.
Rezalax the Bleak, Master of the power of Light, ruled another part of the expanse, an arid and desolate place, where only the sand and the sun seemed to be triumphant, having gotten the bad end of the deal of the separation of the lands, his naturally tense relationship with Zarandal causing ‘border disputes’.
To the North, the lands being lush and green, the Magician of Life itself Ashtara the Beautiful stewarding the lands with her lush magics seeping through the whole land, her body tethered to the land itself. Sickness and illness would not plague it, being one of the more passive members of their magocracy, the way with which she governed the people being with care, yet a zealous watch upon their actions, as any crime against nature would be punished severely.
To the East, there was a vast ocean, stretching from the north to the south, the terrains of the Magician of Life and the Lord of Air touched by the ocean, the dominion of Tendar, the Lord of Water, ruling his kingdom from the cities drifting upon the waves, made of ramshackle flotilla’s. His spire rose above the waves that battered the coast, his gaze upon the seas that he called his own.
Then to the south from the middle point of the world, there was an expanse, split by two forces. One part of the realm was a windswept tundra, held only by settlements of nomadic warriors, whose allegiance to the wizard was as important as their creed, honor dictating that it would be kept to the fullest, their allegiance to Jurrem the Silent kept, his mage-chains binding the floating citadel to the ground, as it rose above his subjects, the warriors hardy and well-trained, fending off the assault from the frozen expanse that stretched below, kept away by the mountain range to the west by Zarandal.
The frozen peaks and the hellish cold made it so that the only inhabitant that really was at home within those barren surroundings was Nezras, the Lady of Death. Her magical area of expertise was it to control the essence of death within every living being, to use them as puppets whenever they expired, the creatures of death owing her allegiance, if not by will, then by being subjugated. A huge spire seemed to rise from a craggy mountain, the flames on the walls lit by the dying embers of life which she created, her realm being a deathly cold one, strange vegetation rising up, with all sorts of undead horrors stalking the wastes.
The life-forces of the six wizards had been linked by their pact. Should one die, the power that that one possessed, would go to the others, made in the time when things were bleak, the warlord prepossessing of martial strength that bordered upon unfeasible, finally beaten by the six mages and destroyed utterly. There was not a child who did not know the story. Within the middle of the continent, there was a single neutral state, which was as a sort of meeting ground for the conflicting cultures. Of the lands that they governed, an understanding was made to never really invade that ‘middle ground’.
Until one decided to break the treaty, which is where this story starts.
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Forged
FantasyA warlord tore the realm apart. Six wizards, wise and just, brought him down. Now, they rule their domains and their rule goes unchallenged, a pact made by the six when they went up against the warlord, to share their power. Ten years of tenuous pea...
