The moment the universe came into being, so did two wills, two pure forces that stood in both opposition and balance. After a period of time inconceivable to mortal minds, these two wills eventually substantiated. They incarnated as Honas, representing life and order, and Lutos, representing diszorder and extinction.

Driven by instinct, Honas had made countless life-supporting planets out of the chaos and fog of the cosmos, the conditions for life being the very elements which constitute life itself. Esperia is but one of myriad worlds created. In this world, two further incarnations of pure will were born, to represent life and death in Esperia. These two incarnations gradually became personified as the two primary gods: Dura and Annih.

Not soon after, Esperia's first higher beings appeared. These included some lesser deities and the draconids, and were followed by mortal beings, among which are counted humans and dwarves. Life and death in Esperia were the domains of Dura and Annih, who ensured that all living things traversed the wheel of life in orderly rotation. The lesser deities attended to their own divine duties too, helping to keep the world of Esperia revolving. Around the same time, in order to quell natural disasters on Esperia triggered by the disorder of chaotic elements, Dura created the first five Elemental Guardians at the Bastion of the Elements, the place whence Honas had fashioned Esperia. She decreed them agents of nature's will, and charged them to harmonize nature with elemental balance.

Over an incomprehensible expanse of time, Lutos had caught a glimpse of the fundamental nature of the universe. He gradually deepened his insight into the laws and limitations of life and the universe. Thus it was that he discovered the universal principle of "Entropy Increase", that is, a state of moving ever farther from order towards chaos. Although life in the universe possesses some ability to resist this entropy, its inevitability dictated that all life was merely on the irreversible path to extinction. The same holds true for the entire universe. Such an enormous ecosystem is also fated to become a mere void, devoid of any cycle of life and death. Lutos, believing he had seen the very essence of the universe, deemed the disorder he embodied to be the universe's ultimate and everlasting form, whilst everything created by Honas was utterly meaningless. Thus, Lutos decided to accelerate the inevitable entropy, and hasten the arrival of the ultimate void.

Honas discovered Lutos' intentions and, fearing his actions will destroy the cosmic balance and cause endless disasters, chose to stand in opposition. Using the primordial matter of the universe as his material, he created the "Astral Key", an artifact able to condense and transmute the holder's power into a dimension separate from the material world. While using the artifact significantly drains the holder's power, Honas nonetheless subsequently sealed Lutos in this detached dimension.

Despite being sealed in another dimension, Lutos still possessed the power to project his will into the material realm to influence and interfere with living creatures. Intelligent entities in the material world possess an innate destructive impulse from birth, a chaotic urge to destroy order and return to the void state that preceded existence. This instinct is the very epitome of the chaos and disorder projected upon them by Lutos. From mortals to gods, this inherent impulse in all intelligent creatures manifests as Hypogeans, who display a strong natural propensity for destruction. The more chaotic and disorderly the world, the more powerful and numerous they become. Originally Esperia, under the solicitude of the gods, was a place of order. Thus, remote antiquity saw scant few Hypogeans, and even then they were lesser demons manifested by mortal thoughts, graced with but poor intellect and barely any grasp of language. They would typically lie dormant in the dark and dismal nooks and crannies of the world like nocturnal animals, occasionally attacking unlucky lone mortals or isolated settlements. As such, they were never considered an urgent threat. Other planets, however, where the balance of order was disrupted and malice and spite prevailed, were infested with Hypogeans. Once these planets had been completely wrecked, they suffered a kind of death and became corrupted into pure dark matter. Lutos would then absorb this into his dimension, assimilating it within him to bolster his power. Thus, this dimension is also known as the "Void Realm" or the "Celestial Cemetery". Lutos grew increasingly powerful by absorbing the power of annihilated worlds, yet was still unable to break the shackles binding him to the Void Realm. He understood one thing with terrible, crystal clarity: pivotal to his escape was the Astral Key, still held firmly in Honas' grasp.

Having expended a massive amount of divine energy, Honas was on the verge of sublimating back to pure will, and a long, dreamless slumber was beckoning. Fearing that he would not be able to protect the Key whilst he slept, and that it may fall into Lutos' hands, Honas decided to hide it on one of the countless planets he had created. He finally settled on Esperia, appointing Dura the guardian of the Key and gifting her the remaining primordial matter. So it was that Honas the Creator finally slipped into a deep sleep, and henceforth only Dura knew the whereabouts of the Astral Key.

Although no trace of the Astral Key was to be found, Lutos had no intention of abandoning the search. He projected a surge of condensed power to manifest a powerful and sophisticated intelligence into the material world—Reclaimers. In the eyes of mortals and other lower intelligent creatures, the Reclaimers are ineffable beings whose very existence cannot be comprehended by reason. While they float amidst time's torrent, they stand detached from and outside of causality. Lutos dispatched Reclaimers to every nebula as vanguards, tasked with finding and recovering the Astral Key.

A Reclaimer by the name of Uemiss descended on the world of Esperia with his minions in tow, arriving in a savage land called Altor. The gods of Esperia, far away atop their mountain home on the continent of Hathor, did not rush to act against this sudden intruder, choosing instead to covertly observe his movements and intentions. Through soft susurrations, Uemiss sought to impart certain forbidden knowledge unto the indigenous populace of Altor. After listening to the maddening mutterings, most humans could not endure the information contained within such inter-dimensional messages. They lost their sanity and plunged into lunacy and meltdown. Only a few survived, but those who did acquired some fragmentary knowledge. Prior to this, humanity had existed in a benighted and barbaric state, unable to challenge nature. Disease, disaster, and man-eating beasts were their mortal enemies. Such base ignorance had also hindered the development of civilization but, with the knowledge gained from Uemiss, these humans of Altor not only eradicated hunger and disease, but also built a glorious prehistoric civilization. They began calling themselves the Helme, worshipping Uemiss as their one true god, and building temples and altars dedicated to his devotion. Uemiss thus sought the faith of mortals, as he wished to compete with the Esperian gods and usurp their power, siphoning it away until he alone remained in the pantheon. The power of the gods is fueled by mortal faith, and as Uemiss leeched it away from them, their strength ebbed even further. Relying on his own formidable power and the devotion of the Helme, Uemiss sought to take the fight to the gods of other lands across the sea.

When the gods realized Uemiss' true intentions, they resolved to defend their divine authority and waged war against him. After several probing skirmishes, a decisive battle was finally fought on Altor. The climactic showdown ended in bitter victory for the gods, as many of their cohort lay slain in the chaos of combat. Despite the heavy toll thus exacted, the gods would still not yet celebrate the end of Uemiss. His power was so overwhelming that the gods could not destroy him outright, and could only force him to retreat into depths of the ocean instead. Trapped by the gods, Uemiss put up a desperate fight, striking so mighty a blow that he tore the very territory of Altor asunder. Down he dragged full half the land, down into the ocean deep with him, down to become the watery shelter of he and his cursed minions. Many Helme people lost in the catastrophe, their tiny flame of civilization extinguished and forgotten to the annals of time, never to grow into a searing blaze. Uemiss collapsed into slumber under the care of his lackeys, to conserve and recharge what remained of his energy. The gods, mourning their own losses and heavy casualties, were powerless to prevent Uemiss' escape. Thus each side licked their own wounds, but both parties knew that eventually there had to be a ferocious, fateful battle between them.

The few Helme survivors who remained attempted to rebuild their homeland on the remaining half of Altor, but there was no escaping the wrath of the gods. The gods banished them to the savage wilderness of the jungle, forcing them to return to their original primitive existence, reduced once again to untamed barbarism. Hoping to avoid any future conflict, the gods sought also to eradicate the very existence of the Helme people from all historical records. They destroyed every document with even the slightest mention of them, wiping this historical period's slate clean. Thus, when remnants of that ancient civilization of Altor were unearthed by archaeologists and explorers of later generations, they became unsolved enigmas of that prehistoric era. Despite the genocide, a handful of indigenous Helme descendants have retained their faith in Uemiss through the oral tradition. They resolutely believe that their true god will one day walk once more on the land, knocking the "false gods" across the sea from atop their mountains, dragging them all down together into the endless deep.

Before Uemiss descended on Esperia, Dura had advocated for imparting divine knowledge to humans. As the embodiment of pure vital will, Dura was struck with pity and compassion for mortal suffering. She held that the knowledge of the gods could help them weather calamities both natural and of their own making. However, her views gained no traction among the other gods. After the epic struggle against Uemiss, however, the gods realized that the Helme had been too easily manipulated through simple kindness. It dawned on them that without the edification of divine knowledge, mortals would stray from the path of rectitude. So it was that concord was reached, and the gods granted Dura's request to enlighten mortals. This agreement carried one condition, however, which limited the dissemination of divine knowledge to the continent of Hathor. The inhabitants of Altor, including the descendants of the Helme, would be forever denied. Thus, Dura began to reveal the secrets of magic to the humans of Hathor. To aid them in their mastery of the arcane, she even taught them the Divine Script and the Dragon Tongue. Henceforth, she came to be known by the mortals of Hathor as the "Bountiful Flame Giver".

Once the mortals of Hathor had mastered the intricate enigmas of magical knowledge, civilization advanced rapidly. In less than two millennia, mankind entered an extraordinary epoch of magic, the most glorious period in recorded history, which later became known as "The Era of Man-Gods". Such was the abundance of magical knowledge at that time, that future generations could merely envy at the lost wisdom. Truly elite mages could manipulate even the void, fashioning and molding the incorporeal to fabricate the reality they desired. In this golden age, there was no need for back-breaking labor, as magical, animated golems shouldered wearisome tasks like farming and weaving. Countless schools of magic blossomed and vied with each other: astral, elemental, dimensional, runic, sorcery... Humans toiled night and day to plumb and exploit the potential of all facets of magical knowledge. Magic granted humanity the tools to oppose the inherent cruelty of nature, but this in turn fostered arrogance and hubris in mortals. Humanity lost its fear of the gods, instead reveling in and becoming intoxicated by power. Using their magic, humanity built magnificent edifices that soared high into the clouds. They seemed to compete, challenge, and ultimately claim sovereignty over the gods' sacred mountains and the divinities themselves. Human sailed magic-powered, storied airships high above sublime palaces, impertinently boasted to the divine of their mortal accomplishments. Even the mighty dragons, heretofore inferior in power only to the gods, were tamed with magic, becoming subservient tools of humanity. The gods themselves had never before harnessed or controlled the powerful dragons, and this show of force left none in doubt as to mortal intent to supplant the gods.

Dura foresaw a catastrophe and, desperate to prevent it, began preparing a secret plan. She brought forth the "primordial matter" bequeathed to her by Honas and sought out Ansiel, the celestial crafter. She bade him consume the material in forging a clock, and personally imbue it with vitality. Dura disclosed to Ansiel that this clock would be the key to saving countless worlds in the future.

Mortal hubris eventually angered the gods, while simultaneously rendering it impossible for them to draw power from human faith. Coming to regard humanity as a threat, they held counsel to determine how best to counter the growing risk. So it was that Annih, the God of Death, conceived his dark scheme to fragment humanity. He saw mankind's inherent nature as rapacious, insatiable, greedy... and desperate for magical immortality. Thus, the wily deity proposed to exploit human avarice, and make mankind sow the seeds of its own demise. Annih dissembled to teach humans a taboo art known as "mortal alchemy", high magic able to fuse the Invigorating Essence of other living beings with the mortal frame. Guileful Annih assured humans that eternal existence would be theirs—once they had fused with the proper Invigorating Essence and undergone transformation. Divine immortality was within their reach. Yet, behind this cunning ruse, Annih's true intention was to stir a deadly schism among the human race. Dura's voice was raised in strident opposition to Annih, but to no avail. Most other deities stood with the God of Death, fearful of the perceived imminent human threat. Dissenting Dura was ultimately forced to concede, and agreed to Annih's plan. Humans thence hastened to master mortal alchemy, and promptly put it into practice. Compassion and morality were the first victims, forfeited as elite mages began to abduct civilians for their mortal alchemy experiments. These zealous mages would extract the Invigorating Essence of other animals and fuse it with the bodies of their captives. Dramatic transformation was the reward for those thus imbued, their bodies developing the characteristics of the infused animals. These beings came to be known as the "Ya", and a constant stream of different, twisted forms was born through these arcane experiments. It is an unhappy truth that part of human nature is to spurn the "other". In the eyes of humanity these Ya, suddenly springing from the very ether, were nothing but outlandish freaks. They sparked panic in the populace, with exclusion and oppression the response. Records even tell of riots breaking out due to the mere presence of a Ya in the community. Mankind was thus incapable of bearing the ill results of their own actions, so the contemporary ruling class, the elite mages, issued an edict. They ordered a slice of barren land, far removed human civilization, be opened up and given to the Ya. This supposed resettlement was little more than exile, and left the Ya in an even more miserable predicament. The savage, inhospitable land of their banishment is today known as the Scorched Expanse. There they were left to fend for themselves in a hostile, unpredictable region, scant in resources but rich in deadly wildlife.

The most barren land of Esperia, the Scorched Expanse is virtually lifeless, and harsh environment makes growing crops a futile fantasy. The Ya found themselves constantly on the brink of starvation and struggling to survive. Salvation came from Dura, the Goddess of Life, in the form of torrential downpours which created a huge oasis in the arid desert. The fertile oasis, known by later generations as Dura's Gift, is located in the western part of the Scorched Expanse. Rich in lush vegetation and abundant water supplies, it lies in stark contrast to the rest of the barren, arid Expanse, as though heaven and hell were adjacent. The Ya viewed this miracle from thin air as grace and favor from the spirit of nature, or the divine mother—later Maulers who worshipped these concepts would all be referring in reality to Dura, the Goddess of Life. The Ya made Dura's Gift their home, able at last to hunt their fill and enjoy a blessed life. To show their gratitude, the Ya constructed a temple to Dura, with the day of completion a time of great joy. The Ya held a grand sacrifice, which posterity would later know as the first ever "Festival of Abundance."

Mortal alchemy was a ruse that Annih created to fool the blasphemers. No matter how the mages strived, their yearned-for results continued to elude them. Their alchemical experiments grotesquely transformed countless civilians into Ya, yet still they continued as if possessed, and refused to stop the madness. Eventually, the tyranny of the mages could no longer be born and inevitable, bitter conflict bubbled up. Those Ya who had been subjected to the most inhumane treatment at the hands of the humans rebelled, renounced humanity and incited bloody war. The first battle was fought in the Reutz plain, and thus came to be known as the "Battle of Reutz". Suspicion also began to dismantle the human race from the inside-out, as division and discord ran rampant through society. The elite mages' obsession with mortal alchemy had made them greedy and distrustful, and each desperately coveted the fruits of mortal alchemy for themselves. At the same time, malicious speculation was rife, as they cursed one another with the vilest words and believed others were intentionally concealing their discoveries. Eventually, led by the elite mages, humanity was riven into a dozen city-states. This was truly humanity's nadir, the darkest and most unendurable period. Thus, when the Ya brought war against humanity, the human forces led by these elite mages did not band together or act in unity, but instead looked on coldly, indifferently, aloof from their fellow humans. Some would even try to profit from the conflict. This led to a chain reaction, as the human forces fell, too, into turbulent civil strife, known in later times as the "Cinder War". Annih's goal was achieved, and the time had come for mortals to reap the bitter fruit that they themselves had sown.

The war between the Ya and humans raged, yet not all Ya were committed to the brutal conflict. Due to the fusion of Invigorating Essence from distinct species, different Ya and their descendants therefore possessed physical characteristics and temperaments unique to each fused species. Typically, those fused with Invigorating Essence from predatory animals were courageous and fiercely aggressive, while those fused with herbivorous creatures were gentle, friendly and non-confrontational. The latter were reluctant to make an enemy of humanity, eager instead to simply find a place of peace in a world upended by war. Guided by an oracle of Dura, these Ya embarked on a treacherous journey out of the Scorched Expanse, trekking all the way to the far east over mountains and rivers. This historic migration would come to be known simply as "The Exodus" by future Wilder kin. After a gruelling journey lasting over a hundred days, the Ya finally arrived at the place Wydas had once visited in his dream. There they encountered Dura, disguised as a doe, and discovered the Dark Forest, brought into being through her divine power. These Ya have made a home in the Dark Forest from that day forth. To ensure they had the means to protect themselves, should the need arise, Dura also imbued their bloodlines with the very power of nature itself. This gave them an intrinsic affinity to fundamental elements and the wilds, allowing them to easily harness and manipulate natural magic. To show their appreciation for the divine blessings they received, these Ya began to call themselves the Wilders. To help the Wilders overcome the trauma of war, and stay removed from any further fighting, Dura wrought a barrier of natural magic around the Dark Forest. This was a barrier of thick mist, a miasma infested with phantasms and illusions that never waned. Any living being without the imbued Wilder bloodline attempting to penetrate the mist would be confounded by the magic and become hopelessly lost.

The Wilders were not the only ones to suffer in the war. Some Dwarves, who had originally lived alongside humans, also endured immense hardship. Humans abused their talent for creation, forcing them to work tirelessly to create killing machines for their war effort. The stalwart dwarves could not bear such exploitation and humiliation, eventually following in the footsteps of the Ya and rebelling. They travelled south in droves, breaking through the encircling human army's blockade and arriving at the foot of the polar mountains, there to lay down new roots. Not only did the Dwarves manage to survive in that bitter, frozen wasteland, they even flourished, building strong fortresses that employed steam technology and defending their new homes with powerful gunpowder firearms.

While the later Wilders left to escape the scourge of war, others of the Ya remained behind in the Scorched Expanse. Their war with the humans continued, irreconcilable hatred fuelling vicious lethal battles. They spurned the Ya that fled as weak cowards, viewing those who stayed to wage war to the bitter end as true warriors worthy of respect. Believing they shared some kind of savage kinship, they banded together. Calling themselves the Maulers, they swore a blood oath to fight humanity to their last breath. This establishment of the Maulers marked a further escalation of the "Cinder War".

The life consciousness that Dura had infused into the Heavenly Vision awakened. One of its hands transformed into a vessel to bear the weight of that consciousness, to which Dura gave the name Orthros.

In the distant cosmos, far removed from the world of Esperia, there was a group of celestial bodies known as the Zohra Nebula. Suffering countless years of Hypogean attacks, this nebula was eventually suffused, saturated and suffocated by their presence, transforming into dark matter and being swallowed by the Void Realm. Moments before it was entirely devoured, the Zohra Nebula's will to survive catalyzed two gods: Morael and Audrae. This mammoth celestial mutation triggered a violent chain reaction throughout the universe, eclipsing the stars and darkening the sky. The natural world of Esperia did not escape the impact either, as many abnormal natural disasters struck around the globe during that time. The Wilders, being so directly connected to nature, realized that a powerful extraterrestrial force was interfering with the order of the entire universe. Thus, to observe this force, the Wilders established "The Star Gazers".

As the war continued to escalate, ever more mortals were dragged into the immense conflict. No section of the entire continent was spared the calamitous flames of war. Cataclysmic magic was used with reckless abandon, inducing unmitigated catastrophes and devastating the once brilliant mortal civilization. The most infamous incident of this period is the "Bellvale Disaster". At the time, Bellvale was one of the many divided city-states, the leader of which, Quaedam, conducted a colossal magic ritual in an attempt to annihilate all the neighboring enemy forces in one decisive blow. He generated a monstrous sandstorm, the sheer scale of which blotted out the very sun, intending to bury his enemies and wipe them from the face of the earth. However, he lost control of the magic in the middle of the ritual, and the rogue sandstorm inexorably turned back to Bellvale. Overnight, the once prosperous Bellvale was submerged in choking yellow sand and reduced to a lifeless desert. It would later become known as the Savage Wastes. As an elite mage, Quaedam survived the disaster itself by virtue of his formidable magical prowess. However, the effort had left him utterly exhausted, so he was unable to even whisper a defensive spell when the enemy mages and soldiers came for him. While they condemned him to death with alacrity, still they tortured him miserably for months on end, prolonging his inevitable demise in the most excruciating fashion. The twin agonies of both physical and mental suffering filled Quaedam's soul with unimaginable resentment, and laid the seeds of his future rule over the world of the dead.

The "Cinder War" between mortals raged for over four centuries, but never could any one side claim true victory. As each party in the conflict consumed all their resources, they were left unable to afford even one more campaign, and ultimately sued for peace. The protracted war had wrought irreparable damage to the world of mortals: for the centuries the war raged, mortals who had mastered magic had indiscriminately blasted destructive spells without restraint. Devastation had been wreaked upon land ravaged by magic. Cities were engulfed by floods, ancient forests turned to ash, and those wondrous edifices of which mankind was once so proud were ignominiously toppled. Before long, nowhere in Hathor was left unscathed by these apocalyptic scenes. A heavy toll was inflicted by war on the elite mages. As their number declined, the magic they mastered began to be forgotten. Eventually, the Divine Script and the Dragon Tongue were all but erased from humanity's collective knowledge. This once glorious magical civilization, though not yet truly fallen, was implacably decaying and declining. Dragons, too, were further casualties of war. Ridden aloft by mages in combat, they had been driven close to extinction. The few that remained sought refuge, hiding in underground caverns and deep forests, as embarked on a long hibernation. Dragons are advanced beings, able to go without rest for extended periods of time. However, once they settle in to sleep, they can lie dormant for centuries. And it came to pass that a celestial spirit named Tasi was born from the slumber of the dragons, becoming the guardian of the Dreamworld and drifting through the dreams of all Esperia’s living beings.

Following the Cinder War, the surviving humans were faced with the shattered remnants of their ruined world. They began to repent, confessing in penitence their arrogant abuse of magic and flagrant impiety. They prayed for forgiveness from the gods, and it was Dura alone who answered their pleas. Using her divine power, Dura rejuvenated the lifeless land, making parched farmland fertile once more and safeguarding the remaining mortals' survival. These vestiges of humanity were grateful for Dura's selflessness and forgiveness of past transgressions. Some especially devout believers scavenged bricks and tiles from the devastation and built a rudimentary sanctuary to worship Dura—this became the very first Lightbearer Temple.

Despite the conclusion of the centuries-long Cinder War, no respite was forthcoming for the humans, as a new catastrophe was looming. As people were enlightened to the real nature of the fraudulent mortal alchemy, they began to revile the God of Death's insidious treachery. Already envious of Dura, Annih's bitter jealousy could not be contained when he saw how he was spurned, yet she was embraced. His malice bubbled and boiled over, until at last his toxic negativity manifested itself through his divine power as a torrent of Hypogeans. Those substantiated by this primary deity of Esperia were far more potent than those manifested through the petty evils and ills of mere mortals. Driven by an innate lust for carnage, these higher-order Hypogeans assembled the lower ones, previously scattered across the length and breadth of Esperia. In a single night, all of Esperia was overrun by a vast army of Hypogeans. Humanity, still traumatized, reeling from four solid centuries of war, faced yet another calamity. Is it any wonder that they fell apart in utter disarray, unable to mount any sort of defense against the rampaging Hypogeans? Some humans chose a policy of appeasement, seeking to avoid conflict entirely, while others treacherously turned their backs on their fellow humans and became complicit with the enemy. Under the lightning advance of the Hypogeans, key locations quickly fell one after the other.

However, there were still those who refused to sit by and meekly wait for death. Ancelot, a young warrior, was thus elected by the faithful of the Lightbearer Temple and entrusted with a sacred mission. A born leader, charming and charismatic, he succeeded in reuniting humanity and established a new order: the Lightbearer Empire. The fractured human race rose once more, united under one banner. This fledgling empire, forged through crisis, staggered but held fast as it was born from the ashes of a broken world.

Following the founding of the Lightbearer Empire, Ancelot resisted the passive, defensive attitude formerly taken in the face of the Hypogean threat. Instead, he seized the initiative to attack and launched a grand offensive. He formed the Guardians of Dawn, an imperial force dedicated to defeating the Hypogeans, and appointed his former comrade, Zaphrael, as their Commander. Some years later, Zaphrael's outstanding accomplishments in the Hypogean War, and his saving of one of the gods when they were in serious danger, were recognized by the divinities and he himself was thus deified. Before taking his place in the pantheon, Zaphrael relinquished command of the Guardians of Dawn to his lieutenant, Kheiss Rayne.

The Hypogeans had completely ravaged all of Esperia, even going so far as to contaminate the Scorched Expanse itself. Facing their brutal assault, the bellicose Maulers ceded not even an inch, but prepared to resist. Under the command of the Grand Chief and the Blood Claw, the Maulers quickly rallied a formidable force, and launched a regional war against the Hypogeans.

Despite hitherto being shielded from the worst horrors of war by the Dark Forest, some of the wiser Wilders were nonetheless concerned. These astute ones, known later as the Oak Sages, were adamant that if the Hypogeans were permitted to continue wreaking havoc, eventually even their Dark Forest would be crushed by their demonic hordes. The Wilders could lose everything they had so painstakingly strived for, so the wise ones began to exhort their people to proactively expel the Hypogeans. However, their pacifist nature meant that most Wilders were reluctant to involve themselves in war, having long since become accustomed to living quiet, peaceful lives. Moreover, their ancestors had come to this forest precisely in order to avoid war—why in Dura's name would they now choose to abandon their hard-won paradise, and voluntarily seek out such chaos and destruction? The pleas of the sages fell largely on deaf ears, however, and pacifism remained the will of the Wilders. Thus it remained, until the Wilders learned that Dura herself was leading the other mortal races on the front lines of the fight against the Hypogeans. Suddenly, no one could pretend that this was not a life or death struggle for the entire continent, one the Wilders would be unable to avoid forever. And so it was that the Wilders united as one around the sages, ending a centuries-old tribal society and becoming an allied force. With an army made up from members of every tribe, they departed their Dark Forest home and marched for the front lines of war.

War raged between mortals and Hypogeans for several years. Many times it seemed the Hypogeans were close to rout, but each time they rallied. It dawned on Dura that the evil present in the hearts of all living beings not only begot but also fed and nourished the Hypogeans. They could therefore never be truly defeated, so long as malice and evil still existed in mortal hearts. To completely eliminate the Hypogean threat, they must be hermetically sealed within an isolated space, completely cut off from the material world. Discerning this truth, Dura formulated a plan: she would use the Astral Key, bequeathed to her by Honas, to create a dimensional rift and seal the Hypogeans within it. However, this presented a dilemma: using the Astral Key would alert Uemiss, fathoms deep under the sea. Yet, should the Hypogeans be permitted to wreak havoc, Esperia would be overrun. Eventually, polluted and dead, it would be dragged into the Void Realm. Dura finally decided that using the Astral Key to seal away the Hypogeans was the lesser of two evils. Thus resolved, considered how best to enact her idea. However, her plan could not be completed by the gods alone, and she needed mortal assistance. Dura planned to concentrate the scattered Hypogean forces into one location and, once amassed, create a dimensional rift in which to seal them away. The mortal armies were essential to success, as they were needed to present a united front and drive back the Hypogeans into one place. Through oracles, Dura communicated this plan to the clergy of the Lightbearer Temple, the elders of the Temple of the Seers and the Oak Sages of the Wilder Council. Under the combined call of these disparate, esteemed figures, the mortals agreed to assemble and fight together as one.

Dura had chosen a location at the foot of the mountains as the place to create the dimensional rift. However, the route along which the Lightbearer army would drive the Hypogeans lay through Dwarven territory. In order to ensure the plan's success, Ancelot himself traveled to the Dwarven territory, there to secretly meet with the Dwarf King. Candidly discussing the situation, Ancelot expressed his desire to form an alliance with the Dwarves. Such an alliance would support the Lightbearer Empire's operation with both troops and geographical advantages. After several long days of tough negotiation, the Dwarf King finally acquiesced to Ancelot's request, and an accord was drawn up between the two parties. To thank the Dwarves for their aid, Ancelot swore that if ever the Empire's assistance was needed, his descendants and the entire Empire would be honor-bound to ensure it was given.

After years of united warfare, the mortal races of Esperia were finally able to drive the Hypogeans to the foot of the mountains. However, the cunning demons saw their chance to strike at the very summit and attempt to capture the divine palaces of the gods. The Hypogeans massed a formidable force to assault the peaks in a frantic onslaught. They swarmed like locusts up into the mountains, scaling the craggy cliffs, bounding and lunging desperately for the summit. However, their actions angered the divinity who watched over the mountains—the Frozen Mother herself, Alna. From the top of the mountains she bellowed in rage, her divine wrath triggering an earth-shaking avalanche. A monstrous torrent of snow cascaded down the mountains, slamming into and burying the unprepared Hypogeans. Watching the scene unfold before them, the Hypogean forces were intimidated and discouraged, and abruptly abandoned their plan to seize the mountains. However, Alna's outburst of uncontainable fury also generated a long-lasting, freezing wave which swept across the whole land. This ushered in Esperia's first winter, bringing cascades of pale snow which shrouded the land in frigid blankets of white. Mortals, never before experiencing snow or ice, felt they were witnessing nothing short of a miracle, and knelt down to worship and pray to the mountains.

After the Hypogeans' plan to seize the mountains was foiled, the combined mortal forces redoubled their efforts to concentrate the enemy. Knowing that the moment of truth was at hand, Dura poured her divine power into the Astral Key. She created a dimensional rift at the foot of the mountains, a realm that would later be known as "The Barred Gate". Writhing hordes of Hypogeans were sucked into the rift, there to be imprisoned forever, eternally unable to return to Esperia. A scant few Hypogeans did manage to avoid this fate, but they who remained in the world would pose little threat. And so it was that the several tumultuous decades of the First Hypogean War finally came to an end.

During the First Hypogean War, many humans succumbed to the lure of Hypogean power. They willingly sided with the foe, even going so far as to help them slaughter their fellow humans. When the war finally ended, humanity tried these traitors as war criminals. While a few were executed through military tribunals, most were exiled to the Empire's inhospitable frontier by the Lightbearer Temple. These exiles had a mark of sin further inflicted upon them, as the temple clergy wielded an incandescent iron with Divine Light to brand their foreheads. This scar, this mark of sin, could never be expunged. The mark was even etched into their very blood and veins, as any offspring would also be born bearing the mark on their foreheads. Thus these exiles and their descendants came to be forever known as the "Sin-Bearers".

Ancelot was honored by the gods for his many crucial victories and great accomplishments in the First Hypogean War. Furthermore, due to many gods having fallen during the War, the halls of the divine palaces echoed emptier than they had been for centuries. Those deities who remained were eager to fill those empty thrones with new blood, and so wished to anoint Ancelot with the mantle of godhood. However, Ancelot felt unable to leave his people. Despite the end of the war, the Empire still lay ruined and smouldering, in need of reconstruction. In light of this, he rejected their invitation and declined divinity.

Creating the Barred Gate had consumed most of Dura's divine energy, leaving her exhausted like Honas before her. It also transpired that, at the very moment the Barred Gate opened, Uemiss, still slumbering soundly deep beneath the ocean, sensed the intense dimensional disturbance. He conjectured that the Astral Key lay somewhere in Esperia but, as he had still not fully recovered, he was therefore unable to emerge onto land and resume his search. The frail Dura feared her days were numbered, and was certain that should she fall, Uemiss would slither back from the depths of the sea and seize the Astral Key. Desperate to protect the Key from Uemiss' grasp, Dura expended the last of her divine power. With the aid of Ansiel, the gods' smith, she sundered the Key into seven artifacts, which were thence scattered far and wide among the mortals. Only Dura and Ansiel were privy to this act, and so the whereabouts of the Astral Key once again fell into obscurity. Dura then divulged her mysterious prophecy to the world, before departing from the mountain peaks.

Dura knew she was on the verge of death even as she descended from the mountains. She made her way to a secluded valley deep within the Dark Forest, where she hoped to depart the world in peace and tranquility. Some Wilder folk took it upon themselves to watch over the valley, preventing anyone from drawing near and ensuring Dura could spend her final moments in stillness and serenity. After a period of peace in that valley, Dura, the Goddess of Life, the Mortal Savior, finally passed away. But before breathing her last, Dura entrusted her plans to Ansiel, the celestial craftsman. In the same year, the now aging and frail Ancelot fell gravely ill. Hearing this, the gods once again invited him to accept divinity and join their ranks. Once again, Ancelot refused. He was not ashamed to be a mortal ruler, with all that entailed. He would leave the world with no regrets, no sorrow, and no remorse, and believed it unnecessary to extend his life by becoming a god himself. And so it was that, in the quiet of a winter night, warmed by the fire in his chambers, Ancelot the Great left this earth.

At the beginning of the Era of the Waning Sun, mortals were still traumatized in the aftermath of the Cinder War. Many were resistant to magic, fearing it would destroy the world. In particular, the Lightbearer Temple explicitly decreed that the study of magic was forbidden. Those mages who wished to continue their arcane research could only do so in utmost secrecy, as they struggled to preserve what magical knowledge remained. Over the following centuries, the trauma gradually faded from memory. As once-painful wounds eventually heal and are forgotten, so tolerance of magic gradually returned, and the discipline was revived. However, most magical knowledge had been lost in catastrophic Cinder War. Coupled with centuries of interruption in transmission and teaching, mankind's grasp of magic had become extremely attenuated. The Divine Script and the Dragon Tongue had been long forgotten by the masses and, when faced with such profound and obscure incantations, mages could only hazard a guess at their composition through subjective conjecture and speculation. The art of magic was truly at a nadir, a far cry from its thriving and glorious zenith. A group of mages thus established the Order of the Sun, in the hope of collating and sharing magical knowledge. A more ambitious goal moved them, too: to revive that glorious magical civilization of antiquity, and enter another Era of Man-Gods. The name "The Order of the Sun" itself embodies and conveys their deepest wish—even if the beauty of the twilight sun cannot compete with that which blazes at noon, they will continue to watch over its waning light in the faith that one day it will rise, blazing, once again.

Annih, the god of death, had renounced his divinity after being consumed by envy, before vanishing without a trace. The world of the dead had therefore been left unsupervised, and now some of the departed souls who had previously been deep in their eternal slumber were beginning to stir. One after another awakened, each filled with remembrance of the world of the living and a longing to return. Among them was Quaedam, the elite mage who was tortured to death following the Bellvale Disaster. Quaedam made use of his vast arcane knowledge, preserved even in death, intending to first comprehend and then interfere with the laws of the world of the dead. The sheer force of the resentment he bore prior to his death augmented his power in this realm, and eventually epiphany struck. He ascertained how to penetrate the threshold between life and death, and succeeded in returning, undead, to the world of the living. Once restored in this form to the mortal realm, he began his research into the necromantic arts.

Although the Wilders avoided involvement with the outside world, they too required information in order to stay apprised of global affairs. To this end, they established a special intelligence organization, the Whisperers of the Wind, composed of uniquely talented Wilders. Born with unusually sensitive faculties, their senses were extremely acute, and their bond with nature was especially deep. Through only the ebbs and flows of wind currents were they able to sense the minute rhythms of nature, capable of picking out voices and sounds carried from afar. As long as the wind blows, all sound will eventually reach the waiting ears of the wind whisperers, even if they be ten thousand miles distant. As such, although they live deep in seclusion, the wind whisperers possess considerable understanding of the wider world without ever setting foot outside their jungle home. Wind whisperers are even able to communicate with each other over long distances, solely through the medium of wind. This unique network of windborne intelligence is also far more efficient—and secure—than conventional methods such as messages.

After a century of studying the dark art of necromancy, Quaedam had uncovered even more about the laws governing the world of the dead, even gaining the power to harness the grievances of the deceased for his own ends. The power of resentment that pervaded the world of the dead like a bitter miasma was entirely at his disposal. He forged a pact with those Graveborn in the world of the dead who yearned for rebirth, simultaneously satisfying their wishes while turning them obedient to his every whim. Quaedam was gradually assuming control of the world of the dead, filling the power vacuum in the wake of Annih's abdication. He had absolute authority over the souls that dwelt therein, and became known to these deceased denizens as the Rot Reaper. Meanwhile, Quaedam was also spreading knowledge of necromancy across the mortal realm. A few mortals took to studying necromancy's secrets, and began using the forbidden knowledge to revive those who had died. Those resurrected by necromancy are no longer bound by the bonds of life and death, no longer respect the laws of nature, but are almost immortal. Yet the spirits of the undead are bursting with deep, indelible resentment, which robs them of restraint and compels them to attack all living creatures. Let us not forget too, the cohort of Hypogeans still roaming Esperia following the conclusion of the First Hypogean War. While few in number and posing little threat, their fundamental nature still drove them to evil deeds. Their existence led to the emergence of specialists, martial hunters who stalked and eradicated Graveborn, Hypogeans and other dark creatures across all of Esperia. Earning a commission for their trouble, soon their activities spread to every corner of the land, and they became known as the Bounty Hunters. This was a profession not without considerable attendant danger so, in order to share both information and risk, the Bounty Hunters banded together to form the organization known officially as the Renegade Brotherhood.

As belief in necromancy, dark magic and even Hypogean worship festered and grew, many mortals strayed from the teachings of the Divine Light. As people abandoned the Lightbearer Temple, their authority was gradually undermined. In order to reinforce their Divine authority, the Temple adopted a zero-tolerance approach toward all things it considered heretical. Thus the Heresy Inquisition was established, a secret organization within the Temple tasked with tracking down, arresting and punishing those tainted by dark arts and heretical beliefs. The Inquisition is made up of Protectors of Souls and Blademaster Nuns, who practice strict self-discipline, chastity and humility, and live ascetic lives of complete restraint. They also act as fixers for the Lightbearer Temple, able and willing to get their hands dirty.

The Renegade Brotherhood and the Heresy Inquisition launched a massive suppression campaign against all Graveborn and necromancers. This led Quaedam to realize that the Graveborn were still not powerful enough to truly compete with the living. Thus, circumstances dictated that keeping a low profile and falling dormant until opportunity arose was the best option. And so it was that Quaedam established the "Eldritch Council", summoning three of his inner circle as Council Elders, aiming to rein in the behavior of the Graveborn and necromancers. The Eldritch Council is a mysterious organization, unknown to the outside world and feared by the Graveborn. They are something of a thorn in Thoran's side. Although the Council stays hidden behind the scenes, it exercises tremendous authority. It acts as the representative of Quaedam, the Rot Reaper, covertly influencing the affairs of the Graveborn.

The Lenu people, who inhabited the western regions of Hathor, were originally fierce, martial, and nomadic. They resolved all disputes or grievances through force and, in this respect at least, the Lenu were similar to their neighbors, the Maulers. Later, the various tribes of the Lenu became unified through the war. They built immense fortresses surrounded by strong walls, thus establishing the Kingdom of Bantus.

Although the Lenu people took steps on the path towards civilization after the establishment of their kingdom, their warlike nature was still very much deeply rooted. The whole country had an inextricable relationship with death, which was reflected in the customs and beliefs of the people who dwelt therein. Death was almost an obsession, permeating every aspect of society. The Lenu worshipped death, and believed that perishing in battle was the ultimate honor, while death by natural causes was an unthinkable shame. This misinterpretation of and abnormal value placed on death influenced Bantus in many ways. For example, while the ruling class saw fit to educate their subjects, it was an education steeped solely in war, battle and bloodshed. Since its very inception, the kingdom had incessantly waged antagonistic war with the outside world, with military expansion the founding principle of the nation. In order to motivate the population to willingly and gleefully participate in war, their rulers preached this belief of glory in death, thereby further fueling their bellicose nature. The whole country was kept under harsh, ruthless military control, with practically every industry devoted to preparing for war. There were no limits, no taboos, only increasingly favorable ways to promote war. To gain any and all edges in battle, the military not just stepped but leaped over the boundaries of morality and ethics, using inhumane weapons and magic with reckless abandon and utter disregard. It was therefore inevitable that the abhorrent study and implementation of necromancy would become the rule, rather than the exception, within Bantus. This was just the opportunity for which Lord Quaedam, the Rot Reaper, had been waiting. For centuries, he had patiently watched the Lenu from the shadows, charting their evolution from disparate bloodthirsty nomads into a fearsome, coherent kingdom. When they began to experiment with necromancy, he activated his countless sleeper agents—those necromancers, preaching the doctrine of death, who had already infiltrated the kingdom. They permeated all levels of Bantus society, patiently biding their time and waiting for the signal. Bantus, already possessed of a fixation with death, easily became a haven for the spread of necromancy, which proliferated across the land with breathtaking speed. Bantus even established a special academy for the study of necromancy, the School of the Dead, thus marking the moment that Quaedam's power truly overwhelmed Bantus.

Not all citizens of Bantus turned a blind eye to sinister direction in which the kingdom was heading. While there had been no dearth of insightful leaders, none had the courage or will to affect change until Thoran took the throne. He was a true visionary, who realized the negative effects that his country's aberrant policies and customs were having on his people. He understood that only by ceasing the constant warfare, and showing some benevolence to his people, could he guarantee the survival of his kingdom. He therefore advocated for implementing a series of substantial societal reforms. He promoted a peaceful foreign policy, committing to reconciling with neighboring kingdoms and ending feuds that had lasted for generations. By actively avoiding external conflicts, military spending dramatically dropped, which in turn lessened the tax burden on the citizens. But the real reason he was adored by his people was that his policies allowed so many soldiers, who had otherwise expected to die on a bloody battlefield, far from home, to return to their families. At the same time, Thoran acknowledged the malign influence that necromancy had over his people, and banned it completely from the kingdom. The people of Bantus, rendered numb for so long, finally felt a spark of renewed hope for themselves and their kingdom.

Thoran could not have been blind to the fact that such comprehensive reforms, affecting as they did the interests of many individuals, would come with significant threat. The hawkish aristocracy, constantly advocating war; the merchants who profiteered on the back of the bloodshed and carnage; and of course the necromancers, who felt the dominion of their dark art was creeping closer every day—all these groups regarding Thoran as the enemy. As tensions and dissatisfied grumblings grew, a cabal of the ruling class began plotting Thoran's removal. Secretly supporting and funding Thoran's own brother Edwin, they staged a coup during a court banquet. Thoran was struck down in the chaos, as was his loyal bodyguard, Grezhul, who perished protecting his beloved king. As he was lingering in the limbo between life and death, Quaedam's voice seemed to ring in Grezhul's ears. Hearing of a way to avenge his king, Grezhul formed a pact with Quaedam, being hence reborn a murderous Graveborn knight. Rising up, he slew every rebel present, including the conniving usurper Edwin himself, before taking his leave of the palace with his king's lifeless corpse. In truth, all of this had been carefully planned by Quaedam. His next step was to leverage Grezhul's patriotism against him, convincing him that the people needed their king and inducing him to resurrect Thoran through necromancy. So it was that Thoran, benevolent in life, was overcome with resentment by his betrayal and rebirth and became the vengeful and suspicious Fallen King. His noble soul, forever corrupted, has served Quaedam faithfully ever since.

The bloody court coup had completely eliminated the kingdom's last chance of survival. As both the king and his traitorous brother perished in the pandemonium, Bantus quickly plunged into leaderless chaos. With no clear ruler to replace Thoran, vicious infighting between the remaining political factions commenced over the vacant throne. Intestine conflict was not all, however, and foreign trouble quickly followed. Sensing weakness, neighboring kingdoms seized the opportunity to invade from all sides and advance upon the capital, seeking to carve up this once unconquerable kingdom. With no unified force to stop them, their armies slowly made their way toward the capital. The entire empire was fragmented. The kingdom was broken, and the people's renewed spark of hope was brutally snuffed out when they learned of their beloved king's demise, and transformation into Graveborn. The people were in no doubt as to the fate of their kingdom, and could merely brace for the impending end. This was also part of Quaedam's plans, as he comprehended deeply the fragility of the human spirit. He knew that when faced with disaster, or in extreme fear, despair or helplessness, mortals lose their reason and turn toward the supernatural for succor and comfort. This was the perfect time for wickedness to make inroads into the human heart. Quaedam's followers began to publicly preach their doctrine of death and nihilism, further spreading forlorn fatalism among the desperate populace. With nowhere else to turn, the people reverted to their worship of death and eternal nothingness. Gradually, more and more people began to openly worship Quaedam. In the years of ongoing civil unrest that followed, the rulers of Bantus changed several times, and political factions were frequently reshuffled. Facing frequent foreign invasion, the kingdom's generals, who had long ago lost their backbone, were reluctant to fight. Continuous defeats in battle and overwhelming foreign forces broke the kingdom's military, and the invaders prevailed in reaching the walls of the capital. Bantus was on the brink of collapse. The desperate masses, driven into madness, were ready to welcome death and accept Lord Quaedam's promised rebirth. Meanwhile, the scant few who had yet to lose their sanity could but pray helplessly to the absent gods. Just as the foreign army was about to breach the capital, Thoran, the Fallen King, reappeared. Having wandered in exile for many years, he had returned with a terrifying legion of Graveborn at his back, furiously charging at the enemy. While the foreign forces lacked not for strength, they were but flesh and blood mortals, for whose hearts the sight of so many undead before them were filled with unrestrained horror. Even more terrible was the fact that the Graveborn were nigh unkillable—wounds that would have felled a mortal had no discernible effect on their relentless advance. Terrified and demoralized, the invaders were quickly broken. From the wall tops the kingdom's surviving mortals looked upon their Graveborn saviors, and their reverence for necromancy and undead was forever secured. Throwing wide the city gates, they rushed out to join in the wanton slaughter of their would-be conquerors. With the invaders thus routed and expelled, the Fallen King Thoran once again ascended to the throne. But it was the name of Quaedam he ruled, and forced all surviving mortals to make a pact of undeath with his master. Before long, only Graveborn remained. The once human kingdom of Bantus had become a nation of the undead, permeated by evil and forever fallen to the shadows.

After taking over the capital of Bantus, Thoran established undead rule, centered on the Court of Terror. This was the site of the former Council Chamber, where previous Bantus rulers had attended to their affairs of state. Since claiming Bantus in the name of the Fallen King, Thoran was once again ruling from the Palace's Council Chamber. But one thing now is very different from the past: Thoran no longer leads with kindness and compassion, but instead rules with a cold, iron fist. He is nothing but an undead despot, cruel and tyrannical on behalf of himself and his master Quaedam's so-called "lasting peace". As if demarcating between his two periods on the throne, Thoran renamed his halls of his governance the Court of Terror. The Court of Terror was comprised of a number of scheming, sinister Graveborn counsellors, who assisted Thoran in his madness and despotic rule. Should any Graveborn dare defy him, they would find themselves promptly dispatched to the Black Prison, a terrible place of torture and agony, where their souls would suffer unspeakable torment. With the establishment of the Court of Terror and the Black Prison, Thoran's grip on power was thus further consolidated and amplified. Not only did he desire dominion over all undead, but even turned his dread gaze on the Lightbearer Empire. Taking counsel from the wise and talented strategists at the Court of Terror, Thoran thus began planning an invasion of the Lightbearer Empire. He wanted nothing more than to transform the shining Empire into another barren land of undead, grievous souls.

Rebellion was brewing due to Thoran's tyranny. In order to escape his oppressive regime, a number of aggrieved Graveborn fled the capital for the isolated Island of the Banished. Those settled on the island, claiming it as their place of refuge, called themselves the Tainted. Unlike the Graveborn who desired and pursued everlasting life, the Tainted regarded their undead state as a terrible curse. Desperate for a way to finally rest in peace, they searched tirelessly for a means to reverse their loathed curse.

Gaining a foothold in the wasted remnants of the Kingdom of Bantus allowed the Graveborn to become a serious rival power to the Lightbearer Empire. The year 1102 was a pivotal year in which, at Quaedam's behest, Thoran commanded Grezhul to lead an exploratory attack on the Lightbearers. The assault would take place at the Black Woods, one of the Lightbearer Empire's more remote, border territories. The garrison stationed there was completely unable to withstand the Graveborn advance and was overrun in short order. Retreating, they requested aid from other garrisons in nearby towns and cities, which quickly mobilized their troops and enlisted additional young, strong locals to provide border support. It was at this time that a skilled surgeon named Niru was conscripted into the army as a field medic, whose forced contact with the undead led to a shift in his perceptions of life and death. Locked in a bitter stalemate, the Lightbearers dispatched a cadre of clerics skilled in wielding the power of the Divine Light to reinforce the front lines. The Divine Light, inherently antithetical to all undead beings, is their natural nemesis, so the addition of these clerics managed to break the impasse and tip the scales in the Lightbearer's favor. The Graveborn army was forced to withdraw in defeat from the Black Woods. This failure, however, made Thoran realize that the cost of conquering the Lightbearer Empire by force alone was too steep. Thus, he decided on a different approach—to covertly infiltrate and spread the doctrine of necromancy throughout Lightbearer lands.

The infamous pirate captain Hodgkin thought to pilfer a Graveborn relic from the Screaming Gulf. En route to the port, however, a bizarre accident occurred which wrecked his ship and sent him sinking to the ocean floor. The audacious nature of this buccaneering soul intrigued Quaedam, who chose to resurrect Hodgkin. Quaedam tasked him with assembling a Graveborn armada, the Dead Tide Fleet, and gave Hodgkin a terrifying war galleon made from grimy white bones. This ship, the "Bone Ark", was to be the navy flagship. Escorted by a convoy of Graveborn known as the "Sinister Siren", Hodgson took to sailing the seas, pillaging and plundering, slaying sailors and sinking ships as he watched from the prow of the Bone Ark. Defeated enemy mariners would be transformed into Graveborn and incorporated, along with their vessels, into Hodgkin's undead Fleet. The Dead Tide Fleet continued to grow, and became a truly terrifying undead maritime force.

The years were kind to the Order of the Sun, which enjoyed steady growth and cultivated many outstanding mages. Of these, there was one—Oden—who happened to be the current imperial Archmage. Oden became Archmage not just by dint of being diligent and industrious, but also through his unbridled thirst for knowledge. He was particularly passionate about discovering and exploring undiscovered aspects of magic, and became especially obsessed with researching dimensional magic. He was convinced that there were countless other worlds besides the material, and sought to gain new magical insights from those other worlds. One day, purely by chance, Oden stumbled upon the Void Realm, in which he glimpsed a reality he had never known existed. He not only lost himself in his pursuit of some ineffable truth, but even submitted and pledged fealty to the great being within the Void Realm. Although the Void Realm is almost entirely isolated from the material world, Oden discovered a liminal zone between the two, which he named the "Margin". This was a realm formed by the dark matter that lingers on after a dead planet has been devoured by the Void Realm. Oden discovered the means of siphoning a constant flow of destructive energy from the Margin to harness for his own ends. However, his use of this prohibited power did not escape the Lightbearers' notice, and the Heresy Inquisition deemed it as an act of flagrant disobedience. A contingent of Blademaster Nuns was therefore dispatched to track down, seize and execute the heretic. Oden's demise was a critical juncture, whereby the mages of the Order of the Sun came to truly grasp the Heresy Inquisition's loathing and utter intolerance for black magic, as well as their power and reach. The mages thus decided to take their research underground, concealing their continued operations from the prying eyes of the Temple. They formed a secret cabal that came to be known as the Secret Society of the Crow. The Society is sworn to the highest level of secrecy among the Order of the Sun, and as such the Order does not even publicly acknowledge its existence. The identities of the Society's core members are known to only a handful of people; they are truly like a murder of crows, invisible in the darkness of night, fleeting and enigmatic. There has been an ongoing secret, internal, investigation into the Society too: the Heresy Inquisition hopes to find proof of their research into dark magic and a full list of its members, thus enabling them to completely dismantle it. However, the imperial family has been secretly funding and supporting the Society's research. As the Temple's divine authority has long overridden imperial edict, so the imperial family hopes to leverage the conflict between the Order of the Sun, particularly the Secret Society of the Crow, and the Lightbearer Temple as a check against the Temple's hold.

The Dwarves who dwelt beneath the mountains dispatched an exploratory expedition to survey the continent of Altor. Upon their arrival, they dubbed this rich, fertile and unexplored land the New World. The pioneers engineered facilities for mining mineral resources, collecting thermal energy from volcanoes, and manufacturing. The indigenous descendants of the Helme, who had lived on the continent for generations, regarded this Dwarven incursion as an aggressive act of territorial encroachment. It wasn't long before armed skirmishes broke out between the two sides. The conflict ended in a Pyrrhic victory for the indigenous forces, who were ultimately unable to fully expel the Dwarves from their land. Eventually, a policy of divide and rule was adopted, with the two sides each settling into and administering territory on either side of the Havoc Volcano.

The western coast of the Scorched Expanse originally held but a few small, rustic fishing villages, mainly engaged in fishing and hunting. However, with the subsequent establishment of Crystal Sands Harbor and a series of free trade policies implemented by local clan leaders, Mutt'Heer Town, the largest desert coastal city of the Maulers, flourished. Merchants from all over the world would converge there, and the core industries shifted from fishing and pearl farming to commerce and maritime trade. The Mauler residents of Mutt'Heer became more hospitable and business-minded than those who remained in the Scorched Expanse. The city boasted the largest Crimson Arena in the world, a tradition with a long history among the Maulers. While some hold that the Crimson Arena embodies the essence of the Mauler spirit, aggressive and martial, others see it as simply astonishingly violent, rampant with unrestrained bloodshed and unimaginable cruelty. Here, the weak can be eliminated from the gene pool, while the mighty can bask in the honor that comes with the crowd's cheers and adoration. For those who would aspire to leadership, this baptism in blood is a very public display of strength, wits, and brutality. With many Maulers desirous of demonstrating their martial prowess and winning glory, there is seldom a lack of contenders who seek to prove themselves in this bloody arena. The Crimson Arena in Mutt'Heer was the first launch seasonal operations and, through canny commercialization, the top gladiators were soon hailed as stars. A complete commercial chain sprang up around the activity of the Crimson Arena, including shopping, entertainment and gambling.

The Lightbearer Empire's territory is vast, and many places either grow in stature and acclaim or diminish over time. As well as Rustport to the north, there is also the famous city of Sankast, which lies on the Gold Coast in the south. Owing to its vast and sophisticated industry, Sankast quickly rose to prominence. The Empire decided to locate its royal port there, and also established a huge shipyard for building the imperial navy, the Thousand Sail Fleet. As trade flourished, Sankast gradually eclipsed Rustport, the former principal trading port in the Empire. Goods no longer flowed through Rustport, instead entering the Empire via the royal port at Sankast. Rustport's industry was severely impacted, leaving only sporadic, uncertain trade.

The decline of Rustport led to large-scale unemployment among those who relied on trade and shipping for their livelihood. Countless sailors and dock workers all lost their jobs, and many were forced into piracy and looting. Goods obtained via these unsavory means, as well as captives seized in the process, would be transported back to Rustport for trade or sale. After decades of strong growth, Rustport's black market thrived: no matter prisoners, contraband or even more illicit items, all could be found on Rustport's black market. This underground commercial success generated phenomenal wealth for Rustport, helping to halt the city's decline and lift it back up to prosperity. Rustport eventually secured its place as the Empire's second largest port city. However, this prosperity was built on vice. With so much illegal trade, it was inevitable that myriad shady organizations and criminal gangs would spring up in Rustport. One such body was the underground alchemist organization, "Ouroboros". They became an economic powerhouse in the city, regularly purchasing raw alchemical materials and selling forbidden potions through the black market for considerable profit. In a few short years, the alchemists of the Ouroboros have generated sizable profits, and the organization has grown rapidly. Additionally, pirate crews such as the "Sea Devils" have set up their on-shore trade hub in Rustport, while simultaneously recruiting would-be sailors in the vicinity. These gangs would pay hefty taxes annually to the Governor of Rustport, and this civic-minded contribution had a lucky side effect of ensuring that their illegal activities would be overlooked. In turn, the Governor of Rustport would pay a portion of their income to the Imperial Palace, which ensuring helped guarantee long-term autonomy for Rustport. The Empire's tolerance and complicity further helped Rustport grow into a breeding ground for vice and corruption.

Ever since they came into being at the beginning of creation, the Elemental Guardians had been devoted to preserving the natural order. These Guardians, born from nature, thither return at the end of their lives, reduced to fundamental elemental molecules. Once they return to nature, a new Elemental Guardian is born to assume their duties. Thus it was from his predecessor, Udea, that Khazard took up the mantle of protecting the ocean. He was as devoted and dutiful to his role as Elemental Guardian as any, until the fateful day when he succumbed to the maddening whispers of Uemiss. The insidious murmurings cracked and broke Khazard's faith, which eventually collapsed entirely and left him a corrupt husk. Thus fallen, Khazard was transformed into a Hypogean by Uemiss, who posted him at the Barred Gate to await the day it opened once more. Following the spiritual loss of Khazard, his successor, Seirus, was brought into the world in a huge tsunami.

Although human alchemical secrets have existed since antiquity, it was only around 1600 that real developments in the field occurred. This progress was made possible due to recent technological development, as well as the steady accumulation of knowledge in pharmaceutical science and mineralogy. These fruits of human alchemical research gradually flowed into the School of the Dead, previously devoted to the study and improvement of necromancy, in the Bantus Wasteland. The evolution of alchemy also allowed a new alchemical sect to emerge, the "Metamorphs". Their aim was to synthesize necromancy with various forms of alchemy and mechanical engineering, and use it to biochemically augment and transform the undead.

Of all the Maulers, the Grand Chief possesses ultimate authority. Should disputes arise over water, pastures, hunting grounds or other resources, the Grand Chief acts as both mediator and final arbiter. However, one such ruling left a warlord named Zamuhan disgruntled and resentful, vehemently disagreeing with the decision. Zamuhan led his men to where the Grand Chief resided on Chieftain's Peak, intending to seize power in a violent coup. After a vicious skirmish, the attackers were eventually repelled by the Grand Chief's bodyguards, the "Blood Guard". Zanuhan led the remaining rebels into exile, turning to banditry and becoming known as the "Quicksand Claws". This motley group of outlaws were armed and organized with the efficiency of a conventional army, and were secretly financed by the Lightbearer Empire.

Makneok, the Grand Chief at the time, was on an excursion when he was killed in an elaborately orchestrated assassination. The instigators of this plot, various military families headed by Lightbearer aristocrats, had managed to pay off assassins within the Quicksand Claws. They also created the ideal circumstances in which to successfully carry out the assassination. Their aim was to increase civil conflict within the Maulers, reaping the benefits of their internal bickering and infighting whilst simultaneously reducing their threat to the Empire's border defenses. As expected, the death of the Grand Chief created a power vacuum and set off a brutal chain reaction. Internal divisions between Mauler clans deepened and fractured, with decades of civil war the result. Furthermore, the leader of the Blood Guard was devastated by his failure to protect the Grand Chief. He never recovered from the shame of his perceived negligence, and died two years later.

The infamous Rustport was constantly embroiled in the commotion between rising and falling powers. Those who managed to seize control and wield authority would be abruptly wiped out by the next gang, desperate to make a name for themselves in the constant power struggle. As a fledgling gang, the Whispers managed to rise with greater celerity than any other in Rustport's history. The gang was jointly founded by a pair of orphans, Sonja and Nara. They would initially recruit orphans like themselves, gradually attracting and assimilating them into the gang. By doing so, they were able to stake out their turf in the Rustport slums. As they grew in strength, Sonja and Nara began to utilize violent takeover methods to annex other gangs and further expand their territory. After a little over a decade, the Whispers had become the largest criminal organization in Rustport, and maintained firm control over black market trade.

As a nomadic clan in the bountiful oasis of Dura's Gift, the Centaurs were constantly on a search for water and grass for their existence. However, ever since the previous Grand Chief had been assassinated, clashes between Mauler clans over natural resources were increasing, and the survival of the Centaurs was in doubt. During one of their mass migrations, the Centaurs came into conflict with the brutal Bearfolk. The Centaurs, long oppressed by other clans, fought back under the direction of the clan leader's son, Golus, eventually defeating the Bearfolk forces and slaying their leader. The Centaurs gained considerable renown from this battle, while the supposedly "invincible" Bearfolk were disgraced. Other clans took advantage of this opportunity to carve up the Bearfolk's territory, and the status of the Bearfolk in the Maulers' eyes was irrevocably tarnished.

The Renegade Brotherhood's bounty hunters have always hunted dark creatures of evil, as this was their fundamental reason for existing. They habitually traveled alone but, when unavoidable, would concede to fight in small groups of not more than five. Prowling the darkest corners of the world, where the common folk dared not tread, they sought their demonic prey. When a target presented too great a danger for any one person to handle, they would acquiesce to team up with other hunters, combining their efforts to take it down. This was one such year, and one such contract, in which the Renegade Brotherhood launched a coordinated operation. The mark was a notorious necromancer known for his child sacrifices, and given the moniker of "the Bonesmith" by the bounty hunters. They launched a surprise attack on the Bonesmith's lair and, while they managed to severely wound him, the wily necromancer somehow still escaped the group of highly seasoned hunters. The hunters rescued many captive children from the Bonesmith's lair, and chose two of them to become apprentice hunters—Raine and Fawkes. That same year, a remote village on the Imperial border was sacked by bandits, resulting in Isabella's latent psychic abilities awakening as a result of the trauma.

On the outskirts of a barren town in the west of the Lightbearer Empire, there lay a sprawling estate known as the Violet Orphanage. However, this was a guise presented to the outside world. In truth, it was a top secret training facility, run by the Secret Society of the Crow, where children with special "talents" were cultivated. Acquired through adoption, sale or other means, the orphans taken in by the Society were naturally psychic, or possessed of acute sensitivity to dark magic. The Society thus aimed to augment their natural talents and train them in dark magic. These children were raised purely as instruments of magic, mere tools, and suffered the most inhumane training imaginable. One day, while rambling with her sister Silvina, Isabella's innate psychic abilities were discovered by a scout from the Society. She was therefore immediately abducted by the Society and sent to the Violet Orphanage, far away from her sister Silvina. There came a night when Silvina decided to secretly infiltrate the orphanage. She found Isabella and, with the help of a girl called simply "Number 063", was able to flee together with her sister. Number 063 helped thwart the pursuing guards but, during the struggle, lost control of her powerful black magic, subsequently razing half the orphanage to the ground. The Secret Society of the Crow's emergency response protocol was swift and effective. Work was carried out to cover up and remove all traces of the accident, while the remaining orphans were speedily relocated to other sites. This ensured that the instruments of the Heresy Inquisition, quickly dispatched to investigate, would find no trace of foul play. This was also the year in which Isabella and Silvina found their way to the Imperial Capital, and were adopted by Baron Vedan.

Anoki, son of the former leader of the Blood Guard, had vowed to avenge his father's shame. He continued tenaciously investigating the assassination of the Grand Chief, while assembling his scattered Blood Guard comrades. One day, at the farthest reaches of the Scorched Expanse, he befriended a fellow Falcon, Skriath. It was he who made Anoki realize that there was more to the assassination than first met the eye. Anoki and the Blood Guards were impressed with Skriath's foresight and wisdom, which also offered them renewed hope for the revival of the Maulers. With the Blood Guards' support, Skriath was thus appointed Grand Chief pro tempore, whose first act was to quell the civil strife among the Maulers. This was also the year in which Thane and Baden enlisted in the army at the same time, and were assigned to the same barracks for training.

After defeat in the Battle of the Black Woods over five centuries previously, Thoran had turned to doctrinal infiltration of the Lightbearer Empire. However, the large-scale spread of necromancy would prove difficult, given the common people's strength of faith in the Divine Light, and the Inquisition's active suppression of all forms of heresy. However, despite these challenges, the doctrine of necromancy still managed to find limited favor within the nobility. Some nobles, such as Vedan, sought immortality through necromancy, and thus became a covert supporter of the practice. He engaged in secret dealings with the Court of Terror, providing them with intelligence about the Empire in exchange for occult Graveborn knowledge. The Court of Terror was loathe to expend its entire nation's power in a war with the Lightbearers, but so long as the Lightbearer Temple existed, the spread of necromancy would be hindered. Thus, the Court planned to use others as surrogates, pawns to gain entry to the Lightbearer Empire. They were well aware that there was no love lost between the Lightbearers and the Maulers, with a catalogue of feuds and a long history of conflict leading to irreconcilable hostility. Since the assassination of the previous Grand Chief, the Maulers had also been embroiled in a long, chaotic period of civil unrest. Such fragmentation and internal strife significantly weakened the Mauler forces, while the Lightbearers grew ever stronger. The Court of Terror wished to terminate this status quo and diminish the Lightbearers. So it was that, at the behest of the Court of Terror, Baron Vedan agreed to send his adopted daughter Silvina to assassinate Marquis Rayne. The Rayne family was regarded as a cornerstone of the Lightbearer Empire, with a long and noble history of commanding the Empire's expeditionary force, the Guardians of Dawn. Marquis Rayne's assassination would have dealt the Empire's military a significant blow. However, the plot not only failed, but Silvina was severely wounded by the Marquis' personal guards and ended up bleeding to death. Despite this failure, the Court of Terror did not cease scheming. They wished to intensify the hatred between the Maulers and the Lightbearers, with the aim of instigating all-out war. When this led to both sides being depleted, exhausted and weakened, the Graveborn could thence seize the opportunity to swoop in. The Court continued to view the Rayne household as a priority. Baden, the most highly regarded of the younger Raynes, was currently on active duty in the military. At the same time, those nobles who were secretly colluding with the Court of Terror, and who supported the doctrine of necromancy, had long since infiltrated every rank of the military. One such conspirator happened to be Baden's superior officer. One day, Baden and his team were dispatched by this officer to carry out reconnaissance against the Maulers. However, unbeknownst to Baden and his team, the so-called reconnaissance mission was a trap orchestrated by the officer, a one way journey to the afterlife. Blissfully unaware of the plot, Baden's team duly headed to the reconnaissance location, where they gradually approached a Mauler ambush site. The astute Baden soon noticed that something was amiss, however, and advised his party to withdraw immediately. Unfortunately, his impetuous comrade Thane had advanced too rashly, allowing the enemy Maulers to encircle them. Thane's arm was severed by the enemy in the fierce battle, while Baden himself was killed as he heroically covered the team's retreat. Baden's demise merely exacerbated the bitter hatred between the Rayne household and the Maulers, and sowed the seeds for all-out war between the Lightbearer Empire and the Maulers.

Losing his arm forced Thane to retire from active military duty. During his convalescence, he became convinced that there was more to his comrade Baden's death than met the eye. He secretly initiated an investigation and, after some digging, realized that there was an elusive, insidious force presence in the Empire that was intent on harming the House of Rayne. Filled with unease and wracked with remorse for his late friend, Thane traveled to the Rayne's estate and offered his services as a steward. This position allowed him to secretly watch over and offer protection to the Raynes. In the same year Skriath, the newly appointed Grand Chief of the Maulers, tasked his Blood Guard with quelling the civil unrest amongst the many Mauler clans. However, few of the clan warlords were sufficiently impressed by this new Grand Chief so, despite the surface cessation of in-fighting, grievances between clans remained unresolved. The resultant stability was therefore incredibly fragile, with conflict constantly at risk of breaking out once more. Skiath knew that truly uniting the Maulers required a common enemy and this was, undoubtedly, the Lightbearer Empire, with their continuing exploitation of the Mauler unrest. Skriath thus convened the warlords of each clan and appealed to them to set aside their differences, in light of the proposed benefits. So it was that the Mauler clans united once again, and began their preparations for a full-scale war.

The House of Rayne's loathing of the Maulers reached breaking point after Baden's death. The King granted permission for the Raynes to avenge Baden by launching an aggressive assault against the Maulers with their Guardians of Dawn. Every able-bodied Rayne male was deployed, armed to the teeth, and marched alongside the Guardians of Dawn towards Mauler territory. However, they did not expect a foe no longer comprised of divided, ragtag savages, and were instead confronted by a united force, led by a new, far-sighted and wise Grand Chief. As this was transpiring, the nobles of the Empire who were colluding with the Court of Terror took the initiative to approach Skriath and inform him of the Guardians of Dawn's forces and planned attack route. When the Guardians of Dawn strode confidently into Mauler territory, they were met by an entirely unforeseen battle, the ferocity of which was unprecedented. The Mauler preparations had been more than sufficient, and they possessed not just a surfeit of supplies and equipment, but also detailed inside knowledge of the Guardians of Dawn's movements. The Maulers had a distinct advantage, and the Guardians of Dawn suffered heavy casualties in the surprise attack. Marquis Rayne and all his sons fell in the disastrous battle, and almost half of the Guardians of Dawn were lost, including many outstanding men such as Izold. Shockwaves reverberated throughout the Empire when the news, that every man of the House of Rayne had been slaughtered, reached the capital. Grand Chief Skriath subsequently used the pretext of the Empire's previous acts of border incursions to declare all-out war. Suddenly the Empire was forced onto a defensive footing, with the Imperial Garrison barely holding the border against the Mauler onslaught. It was during this time of crisis that Hogan, the general of the border forces, rose to the challenge and found fame for his achievements in defending the Empire.

Even after every male of the House of Rayne had been slain in battle, the Imperial nobles colluding with the Court of Terror still planned to eliminate every remaining member of the bloodline. The young, the old, women, children—all were now targeted, with assassins deployed to infiltrate Rayne Manor and exterminate them. However, the assassins did not anticipate the presence of such a skilled warrior as Thane, who single-handedly foiled the elaborate assassination attempt. It is no surprise that this was also the year when an almost inexhaustible volume of hate was being constantly generated by the full-scale war between the Lightbearers and the Maulers. This pervasive miasma of animosity resonated with the Hypogeans sealed deep within the Barred Gate, and the negativity served to augment their power and weaken the bonds of the Barred Gate. Tasi, the Guardian of Dreams, beheld an omen of the pervading evil within the Dreamworld, and manifested in corporeal form within the material world to inform the Wilder, Arden, of impending disaster. Arden, heeding the warning, thereby established the Dusk Patrollers, to guard against the return of the Hypogeans. At the same time, Arden sent envoys to both the Lightbearer Empire and the Maulers, warning them of the looming threat. However, entangled in warfare and blinded by their myopic hatred, the two sides failed to undertake sufficient preventative measures. Arden, together with the Wilder Council, therefore devised a contingency plan: should any Hypogean escape the Barred Gate, they would be eliminated by the Wilder's secret weapon—the Shrine of the Elements. In order to keep track of the situation at the Barred Gate, the Whisperers of the Wind also sent a contingent of Wind Whisperers to monitor the area and maintain constant communication with the Council.

After almost two years of brutal, total warfare, the conflict ended in near-defeat for the Lightbearers. The Maulers held the upper hand but, seemingly on the verge of victory, Skriath made a surprising decision: he called a truce. Skriath, possessed of keen perception, had long been aware of the Court of Terror, pulling strings from behind the scenes. Ever since the Court's lackeys had disclosed the Guardians of Dawn's details to him two years ago, he had been subtly investigating the Court and its capabilities. He understood that, compared to the humans, the resentment-fueled Graveborn were the real enemy and, if war was allowed to rage unabated, the Maulers would ultimately be cornered and wiped out. The Lightbearer Empire and the Maulers concluded a series of peace treaties, including granting comparatively egalitarian trade conditions to Mutt'Heer and promoting greater maritime trade between the two parties. With such beneficial trade conditions, Mutt'Heer entered a period of growing prosperity.

As Dura's power was not equal to Honas', so the Barred Gate she created was not as strong or stable as the Void Realm. Cognizant of this, the Hypogeans of Esperia had been persistent in their efforts to break the seal. After the conflict between the Lightbearers and the Maulers erupted, Esperia was inundated with a miasma of negative emotions—despair, loathing, hatred, pain. The density and power of such negativity permeated deep into the Barred Gate, and served to strengthen the imprisoned Hypogeans. Despite the attenuation of the forces keeping the Barred Gate sealed, the gods themselves had continued to watch over and guard the Gate diligently from atop their mountain domain. The corrupted Khazard has been waiting patiently but eagerly for this very moment to arrive and, believing the time to act was upon them, he reached out to Uemiss, deep in the abyss. Sensing his chance to finally return the Hypogeans back to Esperia, Uemiss ordered his underwater minions up and out, onto the dry land above the waves. The Elemental Guardian of the Ocean, Seirus, was the first to sense the intimidating threat bubbling up from beneath the waves. Together with his comrade Gorvo, he initially managed to resist several waves of aggression from the depths but, as Uemiss deployed ever more of his minions to take to the land, Seirus and Gorvo found themselves outnumbered and overwhelmed. Eventually, they were forced to supplicate the gods for help, most of whom descended from their mountain dwelling to offer their aid in repelling Uemiss' minions. As the deities turned their attention and their efforts on Altor, the forces guarding the Barred Gate became commensurately weaker. The imprisoned Hypogeans sensed a pivotal opportunity was at hand and, with Khazard's aid, they smashed through the Barred Gate. As the divine forces were scattered, divided between the two continents, so too were their concentration and focus, and thus they were caught off guard by the sudden appearance of legion Hypogeans. Facing now a two-pronged attack, beset on one side by Hypogeans, and on the other by Uemiss' assault, the gods once again endured heavy losses. Before Dura fell, she had forged a pact with the gods to ensure they guarded well the Barred Gate. Now, with the return of the Hypogeans, the gods had broken their divine vow, and were subsequently diminished, reduced to demigods. The massive energy fluctuation caused by the Barred Gate's collapse not only tore apart the gods' polar mountain home, but also decimated the vast Frozen Prairie deep beneath the mountains. The Dwarven fortress, Maldan, was also decimated, wiped out of existence in the blink of an eye. The Wind Whisperers, still carefully monitoring the Barred Gate, sprung immediately into action and communicated the unfolding emergency to the Wilder Council. The Council Elders, under no illusion as to the severity of the situation, decided to trigger their contingency plan. They activated the Shrine of the Elements, hoping to bombard the Barred Gate with an elemental flow and seal it once again with the energy of nature elements. However, when the raging elemental turbulence collided with the void energy of the Barred Gate, they unexpectedly lost control. The collision had sparked off an unforeseen chain reaction, which distorted the very space-time of Esperia. Dimensional rifts were torn open in the distortion created by the mangled energies, open portals through which entered void visitors from other worlds.