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Why Did I Write So Much Backstory

Last week, Talia told the party that Azkemaletharius, the Heritage Keeper1, wished to speak with them. When the party agreed, she told Myaliastaricus to release them. The dragon immediately obeyed2, but reminded her to bring the party back. Slightly perplexed, the party followed Talia into a planar portal.

When they all arrived the Shadow Plane, Talia told the party that they would need to leave the Book of Creation with her while they spoke to Azkemaletharius. She promised to return it safely, and the party agreed to leave it behind. With that, Talia opened a new portal, and the party stepped through into parts unknown.

The party found themselves floating in an endless purple haze3. In front of them, they saw a shadow dragon observing their arrival. The dragon stood about fifteen feet tall, which is not especially large by dragon standards. He introduced himself as Azkemaletharius, and with little prelude, he told the party the true story of the creation of the world.

In the beginning, there were two gods: Bahamut, the Platinum Dragon, and Tiamat, the Chromatic Dragon. Bahamut's compassion and righteousness was only matched by Tiamat's cruelty and greed. These two deities were worshipped by the dragons that ruled a continent called Elysium. In this time, there were no humans, nor any of the other races that Kahl created, for he had not yet arrived at this world. There were only the dragons, along with many kinds of monsters that do not bear mentioning.

After a time, Kahl found his way to this world from somewhere beyond. At this time, Kahl was not the peaceful, benevolent deity the world knows him to be. Instead, he was an angry, simple-minded deity. With reservations, Bahamut and Tiamat allowed him to remain, and guided him as he began to shape his own creations. Bahamut, in particular, took an interest in teaching Kahl as he matured.

What follows bears a similarity to the story told in the Book of Creation. Kahl created the orcs first, with their brute strength and single-minded devotion to battle matching his own mindset. Over time, he grew more mature and more subtle, creating the dwarves and elves and other races that now inhabit the world. Humans were his final creation, a culmination of all that came before; blessed with the stubbornness of dwarves, the creativity of gnomes, the beauty of elves, the quick wit of halflings, the brutality of orcs, and a flexibility all their own. Azkemaletharius believes that Kahl intended humans to overthrow dragons and rule the world for themselves.

The proliferation of mortal races caused a great conflict among the dragons. Bahamut and his followers believed that the mortals should be allowed to grow and thrive, to form civilizations of their own. Tiamat and her followers believed that dragons should be the only creatures to rule, and that the mortals should be destroyed. This conflict led to the War of Dragons. Such destruction and chaos had never been seen in the world - and has never been seen since. In the end, Bahamut's followers won the war, and the mortals were allowed to live.

During the war, a group of seven powerful human mages searched desperately for a way to save humanity in case Tiamat won. When they ran out of other options, they performed a dark and terrible ritual to summon and bind a mighty demon lord4. They commanded the demon to tell them how to defeat the dragons, and it revealed an ancient secret that not even the dragons fully understood. The demon told them that the Book of Creation does not merely record the events of history. In fact, can be used to alter reality itself. Having discovered this, the mages stole the Book of Creation and fled Elysium before the dragons could discover and kill them.

The mages traveled across a vast ocean to Kilvas, which was under the control of orcs. There, they researched the Book intensively, trying to find a way to alter reality using the Book. However, their efforts were in vain; the magic of the artifact was too strong to be corrupted by even their combined power. The demon lord told the mages that it had the power they needed to alter the book; all they had to do was release some of their bindings to allow it to help them.

Faced with the potential extermination of their race, the mages were greatly tempted by the demon's offer. Soon, it became clear that there were two schools of thought. Five of the mages wanted to use the demon's power to alter the Book, while the other two were horrified at the idea. The argument turned into a battle, and the two dissenters were defeated. Out of respect, they were allowed to live, but were banished from Kilvas on pain of death.

Now unified in purpose, but still afraid of what might happen if they allowed a demon lord to rewrite Creation5, the five remaining mages created a plan. They weaved a powerful magical trap for the demon lord, knowing that he would have to lower his defenses to control the book. When they lowered their bindings and allowed the demon to use the Book, their trap activated, stripping the demon's power. Armed with the full might of a demon lord, they performed a ritual that altered the Book of Creation, rewriting reality. They decided to create a world where Kahl was the only deity, and mortals had always ruled the world. This event is known as the Sundering of Creation.

The Sundering of Creation created the Edge of the World, a barrier that defines the limits of the world. Elysium, and all its draconic inhabitants, was locked in stasis beyond that barrier. The only continents that remained were the three that still exist today. The Book's power removed even the knowledge that Elysium had ever existed. The continents were filled with mortals - both those who had come their on their own during the war, and those transported by the power of the Book. However, even with the demon's power, the mages did not achieve total control over the Book. The dragons that had already left Elysium continued to exist, though they slowly lost their memories of the time before the Sundering. Most troublesome were the Elder Dragons - dragons who were already ancient at the time of the Sundering, and who proved too powerful for even the Book to affect. Over time, however, the Elder Dragons drifted into seemingly endless slumber.

Having rewritten reality, the mages found that they still had access to the demon's power. They made plans to share their enhanced powers with their followers, and began designing the empire that humanity would form: the Moravian Empire. However, the newly christened Moravians neglected to consider Kahl. Kahl was outraged at the Moravians, though even Azkemaletharius does not know exactly what aroused his ire. Their demonic power prevented him from simply destroying them. Instead, he laid a terrible curse on the land of Kilvas, the place where they had performed their rituals: no Moravian would ever set foot on the island and survive. The Moravians fled to the northern continent, where they gathered followers and began building their empire.

This was more or less how the world became what it is today. However, a few weeks ago6, one of the Elder Dragons awoke from its endless slumber. This dragon was a Chosen of Tiamat, and it still remembered the time before the Sundering. It spoke of the ancient times to the dragons in the Spine of the World, arousing their anger at the Moravians. The followers of Bahamut were killed, exiled, or converted, and the dragons began preparations to bring about the will of Tiamat. Unfortunately for the party, the will of Tiamat meant the massacre and/or enslavement of all mortal races. Fortunately for the party, the dragons intended to start by destroying the Moravian Empire. This is what caused the dragons to go to war with the Moravian Empire.

Having explained all this, Azkemaletharius charged the party to fix the Book and restore his brethren. He suggested two options for doing so. First, if the party could convince an Elder Dragon to sacrifice its life to empower a ritual to restore the book, the ritual would probably be strong enough to work. Failing that, the party could travel to Elysium and find the Seed Crater where Kahl's divine fist first struck the world. The area is suffused with divine power, and the party may be able to use it to restore the Book. He also confirmed that the Temple of Truth is likely to have the original rituals used to alter the Book, and that knowing those rituals will likely help to restore it.

The party thanked Azkemaletharius and traveled back to Talia. She told them that she had found a hidden Moravian fortress in one of the mountains in the Spine of the World that they had protected against anyone being able to teleport into. However, she was still able to open a portal there, and suggested that stopping whatever they were planning was probably beneficial for us.

First, however, the party had business to attend to: looting abandoned dragon hoards. They explored the area around their cage and found a tunnel leading to the surface. Curious, they looked out and saw a massive dragon army entering battle against a similarly massive Moravian army in the foothills of the Spine of the World. The dragon army was led by a titanic red dragon measuring nearly a quarter of a mile long, which the party deduced was probably the Elder Dragon Azkemaletharius had told them about7.

The party also found a tunnel leading deeper into the mountain, which eventually led to a dragon's hoard. The hoard was guarded by a magically summoned angel that attacked the party, but they managed to defeat it. The battle was difficult, however, so the party rested for two hours afterwards. When they went outside to look at the progress of the battle, they found that a supernaturally powerful storm had blown up out of nowhere. The storm was strong enough that it prevented the dragons from flying8, allowing the Moravian army to swarm over them and horse ground battles. Even the Elder Dragon was fighting on the ground, and was being repeatedly struck by lightning while swarmed by hordes of Moravian soldiers - thousands of which it melted with its breath, but more always followed. The party returned to the Shadow Plane with Talia before they could determine who would win the battle, but they determined that both sides had at least suffered massive casualties.

Join us this week to kick some Moravian butt!

  1. When the party originally met Talia on the Shadow Plane, she told them she worked for a shadow dragon named Azkemaletharius, but that he was elsewhere.
  2. It's worth remembering that Myaliastaricus is about thirty feet tall, and over twice that long. Talia is not.
  3. Those with extensive planar knowledge would recognize the area as the Deep Astral, a distant and mysterious part of the Astral Plane that only few have ever seen. Unfortunately, no one like that is in the party, so it's a endless purple haze.
  4. Those with a passing knowledge of religion or planes know that demons (and devils) are real creatures that rule over a variety of unpleasant planes far removed from the Material Plane. They wage endless war on each other, and always seek to influence and corrupt the Material Plane. Fortunately, they cannot travel to the Material Plane unless summoned - usually by wizards with too much power and not enough good sense.
  5. That is actually one of the worst ideas that has ever been seriously contemplated in the entire history of the world.
  6. Some of the more observant members of the party noticed that this time roughly corresponds to the time when the supernatural storm destroyed the Fish Festival.
  7. Because the idea that there is another, even larger dragon is too terrifying to contemplate.
  8. That's not strictly true. Some dragons were flying by virtue of being caught in massive tornadoes.

Stupid Awards

Lorelai Antimony Pabst Maxwell Mortin Lord Khallus Everyone: Everyone Except Antimony
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