The Halflings Reawaken
The era of the Halflings was plagued with upheaval. Fortunately for the Halflings, the Dwarves experienced most of it.
At the beginning of this millennium, God decided it was time to populate the new world with an old race. To this end, He reawakened the Halflings, who expanded throughout The Mortal Realm, building small burrows and setting up villages.
In Durand?l, King Alarazdanal died. His son, G?l, took the Fell Hammer. The Dwarven warlord Khugraug, however, thought G?l was too young and weak to hold Durand?l. He gathered all his Dwarven followers and assaulted the throne.
He challenged G?l in his throne room as his troops attacked the Guard. Young G?l would have been done for but for the might of the Fell Hammer. He withered under the fury of Khugraug?s assault.
Just when G?l looked ready to fall, loyalist forces arrived and rescued him. Khugraug and his men fled to more friendly areas of Durand?l.
Thus began a terrible civil war. Khugraug begged Bamon for aid and the devil sent a legion of demon wives and husbands to marry the followers of Khugraug. These unholy unions gave birth to the first of the cambion races . . . the orcs. Khugraug and his people must have done little but reproduce over the years, because a half century later they?d given birth to an army.
Soon the tide turned. Within a few years, the war ended. Khugraug took up the Fell Hammer and Durand?l fell.
But Durand?l wasn?t the only Dwarven kingdom in trouble.
The dragons hated associating with one another, and yet time after time one draconian side or the other forced their enemies to unite for war. This caused tremendous stress to their independent souls and the dragons had taken to gnawing upon the bones of the earth when hibernating between battles. It had now been more than a millennium since the first En?r?z and the mountains of the world were undermined by a tremendous labyrinth known as the Warren.
While each maze wove through a single mountain range, some tunnels connected one to another. The Fallen Dwarves managed to make their way through the Warrens and into Gabad-Dag?l. There, they hatched a plan.
They used abilities they perverted from captured Elves to create a terrible magical plague. This plague effected the minds and hearts of all the Dwarves, changing the personalities and morales of everyone in the kingdom, seemingly at random.
Chaos ensued. Dwarf killed Dwarf. The kingdom of Gabad-Dag?l fell to ruins. The Royal Guard butchered their own king, Nathal.
Gabad-Dag?l fell from greatness.
As Gabad-Dag?l plunged into chaos and Dwarf fought orc in Durand?l, the Halflings had their first encounters with the Elves. These were peaceful. The Elves liked these quiet little folk. They traded knowledge of magic and cooking. They traded doctrine as well and the Halflings converted to worship through the Savior, although they realized the Elves had it wrong. The Halfling Prophet Nikdin was the real Savior.
Meanwhile, shortly after the fall of Durand?l, Urnon rose to power in Gabad-Dag?l through charisma and diplomacy. He was moderate in all things and had the unique ability to make others more moderate as well.
Through hard work and dedication, Urnon re-forged Gabad-Dag?l. Through diplomacy and sheer force of will, he held it together. He trained his son Kh?m to follow him, but Kh?m was not as skilled as Urnon, and Urnon feared that when he died, Gabad-Dag?l, with its multitude of moral codes, would revert to chaos.
On his deathbed, Urnon prayed to Ziruk-Nurak, who?d always guided him. He prayed for protection for his son and the deliverance of his people. Ziruk-Nurak answered his prayers. As Urnon passed away, all the Dwarves reverted to their original personalities and values.
As life in the Dwarven kingdom stabilized, the Dwarves began looking outside their kingdom. Although they?d moved to the west to avoid contact with others, Elves, Gnomes, and Halflings had begun to colonize the west as well.
And so Gabad-Dag?l began open commerce with other races. Kh?m served as a good king, and after his death, was succeeded by his son, Nagl?r. Nagl?r reinforced this trade and everyone prospered.
But the evil dragons began to raid the caravans, and as time passed, the terror that they spread grew. Soon, everyone quaked under the raids of these dragons, and trade all but stopped.
And so a single hero named Gul?r set out to stop these raids. Gul?r explored the mountains and discovered that one dragon organized all this, Belkunib?r.
And so Gul?r sought out the greatest of all evil dragons. Bearding the dragon in his lair, he attacked. By the end of the battle, Gul?r stood by strength of will alone, and as Belkunib?r fell, Gul?r had just enough time to realize that he had won. Then he too, died.
As this age ended, things looked up for the good people of the world. Trade prospered. The evil dragons reverted to their isolationist ways and, without organization, no longer threatened entire kingdoms. Things moved at an easy, leisurely pace.
Then the Humans awoke, and everything changed.
The Humans Reawaken
God looked down upon the world and decided that it was ready. It had found peace among the current mortals, but it needed a catalyst to keep things moving. Already, as much time had passed on The Mortal Realm as the entire time in Heaven, and events crept forward.
And so God reawakened the Humans. They possessed a short life span and a corresponding drive. They were impetuous and the needed change. God released them upon The Mortal Realm.
They bred like rabbits.
Meanwhile, in the Elven kingdom of Glarduin, an Elf named Assra was born to the royal family. She was a vain and egoistical creature, the epitome of the Elven deadly sin, but she managed to hide this fact from her father, Erthon. She was aided by the distraction of the first raids of Human barbarians, stealing supplies and the knowledge of forging metals.
After the death of Erthon, Assra began receiving dreams. In these dreams, a lord of Hell came to her and offered her beauty beyond her imagination. The dreams became increasingly frequent, and in them the lord granted her this wish. She began looking forward to these dreams, and before long, she became addicted to them.
Then the lord of Hell appeared to her while she woke. She knew in her heart the lord was evil and refused him over and over again, but the dreams kept coming, and her will weakened. Finally she relented, selling her soul to the Devil Lord Murash.
He answered her wishes beyond her wildest dreams. Murash gave her beauty so intense, so complete, that every soul who looked upon her became mesmerized. Soon she?d enslaved nearly everyone in her nation.
Murash demanded sacrifices . . . horrible, terrible sacrifices. Assra managed to convince her people to perform them and it wasn?t long before most of the Elven nation unknowingly worshiped Murash.
But not all of her people had fallen under her spell, and those who realized what was happening fled Glarduin. They escaped to the Kingdom of the Elves, as well as the Elven lands of Celegurth, Maelion and Aranniel. These nations sent envoys to Glarduin, attempting to open negotiation. They were sacrificed at the altars of Murash.
There was a decade of deliberation among the Elven kingdoms. When Assra?s followers began to gain converts in the neighboring kingdoms, they decided it was time to act.
The four neighboring Elven kings: Merwen, Laerethiach, Argenwen, and Aramir met behind closed doors. When they emerged ten days later, they wore the trappings of war.
The war was bloody, lasting twenty years. Because the Elves were unaccustomed to warfare, and there were no longer any Dwarves in the far east to train them, the war had many starts and fits.
After the twenty years, the alliance of Elves won. They gathered all of Assra?s remaining followers and assembled them in the greatest temple of Perion. Then the high priests prayed.
And the heavens opened up and Saint Perion descended to The Mortal Realm. He was sheathed in mighty armor, dressed for war as he had never been in life. He banished them from The Mortal Realm.
Murash secretly intercepted the exiles, her new clutch of Fallen Elves, as they shifted away from Belkan?th. She sent them back, shielded from Perion?s view, into the Warrens.
The Elves, with all their internal troubles, paid little attention to the Humans. The Humans, however, had contacted the Gnomes and stolen books of magic from the Elves. They began restoring their knowledge of sorcery and became masters in their own right.
A mage named Karil rose up among the Humans. He was a malevolent man, and for the first time in post-Sundering history, a person of great evil researched new forms of magic.
He learned how to use magic to effect the life forces of others. He began experimenting with the dead and soon he managed to contact the Nopheratus, which filled him with fell knowledge and soon he?d raised The Mortal Realm?s first skeletons and zombies. The plague of Heaven had come to earth.
He studied more of the paths of necromancy than any other mage in history and eventually crossed the threshold into lichdom. It is said that he became a lich of such power that he achieved an apotheosis of sorts, becoming a Demon Lord in (un)life.
The Humans had left their first mark upon the world.
Shortly after Karil became the first lich (within the first couple hundred years), a Fallen Elf named Zinril took to the surface. He waged a guerilla war against the Elves. Killing was the only thing he cherished.
In his travels, he came upon Karil. They were both intrigued by the prospect of the other. Karil saw a powerful underground force with which to ally. Zinril found there were evils on the surface with which he could deal.
Through this alliance, Karil the lich came into contact with the Fallen Elves even as his apprentices spread his teachings among the Humans. He gave the Fallen Elves knowledge of the Nopheratus.
By this time, the Humans had gained great power. They colonized most of the contiguous lands of The Mortal Realm and had scattered kingdoms in almost every locale. They warred amongst themselves.
The Humans slowly drew lines based on morality, not race, but no Humans were designated as ?Fallen.? Evil Humans were merely evil and they didn?t need an earthshattering event to draw them into separate camps.
The good Human nations looked about and realized that they had more in common with the Elves than with the evil Human nations. Diplomats and envoys were dispatched to the Elven kingdoms.
The going was slow at first. The Elves barely remembered Heavenly Humans from legend. Many Human delegates died of old age before the Elves realized that the brief Human life span made quick negotiations necessary. Soon the Elves and the Humans allied. Human and Elven mages taught one-another. Humans converted to worship of God through the Savior, but they realized that the other races had it wrong, Angenus the Human Prophet was the real Savior.
Meanwhile, the Human woman Frierea had been born in the east. She was a shape shifter, like many of her people. She would wear the skins of wolves, and she would become a wolf. She would run through lonely glaciers all night long.
She began to spend more and more time in wolf form. Hunting, stalking, killing. She began to enjoy it more and more. She drifted from the spiritual purity of the act and began to glory in the bloodshed. Then one day, she threw off the trappings of magic, and began turning into a wolf under her own power, the first werewolf.
Thus the curse of lycanthropy came to the world. The Humans had made their mark, yet again.
This age was not only marked by Humans bringing evil into the world. Saint Monique was also born in this age. She revolutionized child birthing, and by the time she passed away, the world was a better place for her having lived in it.
