In the year of 323 Common Year of the King in the West, there came a delegation of cloaked elves from their realm in the Silverwood with a message of warning and regret for what was to come. If the western kingdoms of Eyre, Falmead, and Ren Cele did not unite under one ruler, they would fall. Neither elf nor dwarf had the numbers to stand alone. The kingdoms of men each listened with respect but they lacked the wisdom and farsight of the elves. Dark clouds that loomed in the distance were not in the eyes of man.
Far to the west, beyond the dusty Harridlands, in the desert of Cos, stands the walled city of Mathos. The Triumvirate of Wizards has ended in an arcane coup, for one of the three wizards has revealed the depths of her practice of the most profane arts of sorcery. Vekk the Unseen begins her reign as Witch-Queen and forms an alliance with TK, the queen of the harpies. Servants of Orcus begin moving southward from the Bitterroot mountains. Hordes of gnolls, orcs, trolls, and goblins crashed upon the mountain strongholds of the dwarves and flooded into the western kingdoms.
The witch-queen, powerful though she may be, could not hold the dark horde together for long. Much of the kingdoms of man were sacked and burned. The northern kingdom of Falmead was left battered with many citizens taking refuge in enclaves in the forested hills. The citizens of Ren Cele fared far worse, being squeezed by orcs from the north and the witch-queens forces to the south, their light was extinguished. Ancestral hatred of the dwarves drove the bulk of the dark horde towards the Five Kings mountain range. This left the slave armies of the Harridland pushed by the thralls of Mathos to defeat the kingdom of Eyre.
The ambitions of Vekk met with the reality of the situation as casualties piled up against the strong castles of southern Eyre. With the capital of Careen in flames, the remaining forces of Eyre rallied from a chain of strongholds beyond the Autumn river. The witch-queen, ensconced in her basalt tower in Mathos, overconfident, sent her wizard-general Kabros Gar to oversee campaign in Eyre. Loses on the battlefield, led the witch-queen to ask for greater help from her dark patron. Inherent in dark pacts like this came treachery specifically in the guise of her wizard-general. Kabros Gar entered into his own pact with Vekk’s dark patron, Orcus. This resulted in an unsuccessful assassinatioin attempt on the witch-queen and the death of the wizard-general Kabros Gar.
Time passes, no one has knowledge of Vekk’s fate. Armies disband in the field, deserting as anarchy becomes the new ruler…a century has passed since the cloaked elves brought their warning of the end of civilization in the west. Will the war come again? What of the witch-queen? Can a new age of man hope to grow out of the scorched earth of the past?
The tale is yet to be told.
Damn Elf Press 