"This is something few ask me about. Most people want to know the here and now." Auntie Emma smiles warmly at you. "Because you are seeking knowledge of the past, I must send you to another place that will answer your questions better than an old woman's rambling. Seek out the mysterious place called - www.cardea-rpg.com. There you will find answers."
The Elder
Days
As is recorded elsewhere in history, the world came to be.
A place watched over by Gods and Goddesses, Light and Darkness, Order and Chaos.
To this world came mortals, bringing with them their wondrous technology and
constructions. Mighty cities they built, and about the land they went claiming
this area and that as their own domains. As they met, so did conflict arise, and
as it was on the earth, so too was there disorder in heaven.
As Tarkun-Alteron, The Creator, turned to the detail of the Great Work so did the Gods struggle amongst themselves for supremacy, and upon the face of the Realm did the mortals echo that celestial conflict.
Back and forth the length and breadth of Cardea did war rage. Lands were laid waste and ravaged by constant turmoil and battle. Heros rose and fell, their names forgotten by all but the keepers of fragmented histories. Guilds came to be and were cast aside, their skills becoming lost arts, some still waiting to be uncovered. Droves of worshippers streamed gladly to their doom in the name of what they considered right and holy, or through desire for personal power and glory.
From this great tumult one power arose, fiercer and more terrifying than the others, for his was the realm of Darkness, and his followers worked much ill in the land. They spread pestilence and corruption far and wide,slaying those who dared speak out against the power of their realm, Nineveh.
Slowly, but surely, the dread shadow of Ashalon, God of Darkness, swept across the land, and all were plunged into a realm of despair and bitterness that many thought, and indeed still think, shall never end.
Recent
History
The greatest bastion of light, The Knights, dedicated to
their Lord and God, Janus, have been driven nearly to extinction. Their swords
no longer blaze so brightly against the ever encroaching night. Their noble
leader, his arm failing, the sword, Brightdawn, becoming heavy in his
grasp.
By contrast, the fell city of Nineveh grows ever stronger. It's evil seeping into every pore of the land, even reaching into the far northern plains to the City of Freedom, Maine. Awful creatures born of darkest nightmares stalk the land, and many now obey the will of the Shadowed Emperor, Azrael of the Iron Hand. This dark champions will is enslaved to the Power of Ashalon, the Adversary, and as such his heart is filled with naught but the blackest and vilest dreams of carnage.
The war seems to be near it's end. Yet perhaps, maybe, there is yet a chance for Cardea. Some distant hope, beckoning onwards, like a beacon.
Perhaps that hope comes from within the peaceful, wooded groves of the vast forests of Cardea. For therein another great power has awakened, and a more fearsome champion of the world there may not be. For as the taint of corruption claws the heart from Nature, so does Nature respond. Avenlora, Nature Incarnate, the Goddess of Sky and Sea, Land and Beast, has called to her the faithful, and there in Arboria a great council has formed to make a last and desperate stand against the evil that looms over them.
There Galahad, Aliya of The Druids, Revelation the Seer, and Natalie of Arboria together plan their defence, as the night creeps towards them in a dark tide of depravity.
And so the stage is set...
Ashordin
After the age of the DarkFall, whence
came Ashalon to the world, there did arise a great city in the hills of the
South, called Utaal. It is said that the hand of Untergrax lay behind it's
construction and that his chaotic will could be perceived in the bizaare and
twisted architecture of this sprawling centre of populace. There can be no
doubt, however, that it's ruler was one gone truly insane.
His name was Ashordin, and it is said of him that he knew all of the magics under the skies. Both light and dark. Ever he sought deeper and darker secrets, pushing even into the realms of the Gods and in misguidance he strove to achieve an ascension that would ever elude him. His frustration drove him to the brink of the well of madness and with a final stroke, a dark and terrible story, he plummeted into the waiting mire.
The world could be his, he surmised, if not the heavens above. He would take from the Gods that which they called their own, he would commit the ultimate crime.
He would steal the World.
Using all of the powers at his disposal, no small might, he wove a great spell, calling upon the very mists of creation to be his ally. In one fell swoop he began to tear the land from the world of which it was part piece by piece, sending the mists to drag more and more of it into his grasp.
Dismayed by this act of madness the people of the land rose up and went with blade and flame to the gates of Utaal. There, a great battle was fought, culminating with the destruction of Ashordin, and the halting of his dread spell...
But not it's undoing.
Besides the now smoking
ruins of his capitol, Ashordin had dragged three other
great cities into his
private realm - Nineveh, Arboria and Maine. There they remain to this day, the
Mists of Creation bounding them about and shielding them
from the world to
which they should rightfully belong.
It is said that groups of brave mortals, as happenstances allow, may oft times find ways to force back parts of Ashordins spell, and part the mists in places bringing more of the old world into The Realm, for only by completing Ashordins spell may the world of Cardea be whole once again.
Though it is said also that
Ashordin himself still stalks the land, waiting to wreak dread vengenace on
those who defy him, and to aid those who seek to finish
the dweomer he began
so long ago.
Thus it is, gentle reader, that the land in which we live is called still the Realm of Ashordin, and also why our calendar is measured from that dark day.
The
Liths
It came to pass that even as the knight were betrayed by
the soulless Asmodai, and the Rangers rose in swift response under the command
of Ter, Wolf of the Westwood, that there came to the land a new shadow, a new
enemy.
At the ruined gates of Utaal appeared seven mighty liths of stone, quiet and cold they stood. Many came to wonder at them and ponder their meaning but even as the first of them flared into life they held no answer.
As the days passed, the liths flared into magical life, one by one, glowing with an ancient eldritch power not felt since the first war. The people gathered to them and wondered what secrets they held. A voice was heard across the land, threatening of the coming of the dread beast called The Leviathan, and people came to believe that the Liths heralded it's imminent arrival.
Fearing for their existence, the myriad folk of Cardea banded together in unlikely and unstable alliance. Both Light and Darkness stood for a brief time united against the approach of Chaos, but even then, treachery was abroad within their ranks....
A religious schism arising in the Thieves Guild was the first of the signs, as Kai, the Shadow Walker, sought to purify his guilds membership, casting out any who would not bow down before his Dark God, Ashalon. Their, in the midst of the conflict, whispered the voice of Untergrax, God of Chaos, and given cause to flee the ranks of the Thieves, swearing terrible retribution.
Now word reaches me that such division is beginning to surface in the other guilds of the land, and a traveller held rumour of seeing the very shade of Ashordin himself abroad in the land, although confirmation is hard to find.
Should this prove true, we have much to fear, for the ascendancy of Utaal, and perhaps even the release of the Leviathan, may draw near.