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Not much is known about the beginning of the world. Why was it here? Why was it bountiful? When did the first of our ancestors begin to appear? The questions are endless, yet no answers arise. What we do know is the written history, what was recorded by our ancestors...

The first record was made 976,706 years ago. From this document we learned that the deities walked the surface of the planet and that they have always been, and always will be the powers that define the world. The ones with supreme power, the ones who rule over us all. Their might was unquestionable, and each had more intelligence than the sum of every mortal mind. Despite all of their might, they were neither cruel nor tyrannical. They left the land to our ancestors, and did their best to keep out of earthly affairs. Even Earthmother Mercedes was rarely seen. Though disputes had arisen before in this world, hundreds of millenia passed before our world knew true suffering.

265,365 years ago the first true bastions of mortal power began to take root. Kingdoms sprung up, class systems began to be enforced. There came to be rich men, and under them the poor and hungry. The lands grew full of strife for years and years. It was not until the Age of Ruin that mortals would realize the true worth of wealth. Even then, there was oppression.

256,890 years ago, the hungry jaws of Dagred swallowed the world in war, shaking the boundaries between the Deities and Xervelia. The deities stepped down from their otherwordly sanctums and involved themselves, taking sides as they saw fit. Their powers raged without restraint across the world. Aurora was shackled by the wrath of Dagred, and her peace reached only the dead. Ferdinand and Gorsphen wrestled one another to the dirt, afflicting the kingdoms with crushing economic disaster and never-ending sieges. Jabunda monopolized on the mortal races' suffering, spurning the starved peasants and desperate nobles to acts of murder, and looting, while they betrayed their own blood. The once peaceful Mercedes watched as the land, water and sky was scourged through destruction, and turned the very world against the mortal pestilence that had plunged Xervelia into destruction. The seas rose up and washed entire kingdoms from the rocks. The trees and grass devoured men with ravenous hunger as the sky unleashed the winds of extinction. Pyrnax cackled with glee as he danced among the wreckage of the world, bathing in blood and basking in flame. All the while, Odetta remained hidden, and tasted the greatest harvest of Death the world had ever seen. She now governed the world, and was its mightiest deity.

By 256,029, most everyone was dead, the land was destroyed, and the deities saw their own arrogance and shame mixed amongst the corpses that filled the world. To show penitence and tribute, 7 Lords made a pact with the seven Deities but Pyrnax, who would bless no Lord and no kingdom. It was decided that those Lords would champion their patron/matron deity through their mortal works. From this pact sprung seven kingdoms, and prosperity flowed once again. This took 4,000 years. Life continued on, and the mortal races once more claimed dominion of the world.

In the 187,967th year, the 7th kingdom of Laphos, blessed kingdom of Ferdinand, broke its pact. The populace had abandoned their patron deity, growing fat and lazy from the bounty of so many traveling merchant fleets carried into Laphos by Ferdinand's guiding hand. The God of Travel abandoned them. The caravans ended. The ships stopped coming to port. Every soul that sought to leave the city, and every soul that sought to enter, vanished without a trace. Starvation seized the city, and in a matter of weeks those who had dishonored their benefactor withered away. The city disappeared from the maps, and even from the beaches it was built upon. This served as a lesson to all others, and faith in the Wandering God had never been stronger.

Then, 146,504 years ago, The gods disappeared from the land. To each of their Kingdoms they left a message that would travel through generations. "We have done all we can. You are well, and do not need us anymore. We shall only return once we are needed again. Never forget us, and always worship those you believe in. We are watching."

67,885 years ago, Dagred's kingdom of Gar had grown powerful, more-so than all other kingdoms alone. Just as Dagred had overpowered the Lady of Peace so long ago, Gar attacked Aurora's kingdom of Harphoth, and it was a massacre truly worth of the God of War. The chain of events that began with the fall of Harphoth heralded in The Age of Ruin, and the end of not only the 7 Kingdoms, but all of the world. Death, Chaos and War walked freely across the planet.

The deities returned to Xervelia after 100,000 years of silent slumber. They expected to find a world of peace and prosperity, and instead found a blood-soaked earth not so different from the world before. Rage compelled Mercedes to once again raze the Kingdoms of Mortals and leave nothing, but Ferdinand, Gorphsen and Aurora intervened. Pyrnax and Jabunda slipped away to revel in the The Age of Ruin, as Dagred marched to join his zealous faithful in Subjugating a world that, in his mind, would only prosper in the grip of his adamantine fists. As each Kingdom burned under the banners of Gar's blood drunk soldiers, The Earthmother and her three companions found four mortal souls whose hearts and spirits burned with the unbroken mark of their ancestors' pacts.

Mercedes gazed upon a Wild Man who shunned the corruption of Human ambition to live among the noble beasts of the forest. Gorphsen spied a Knight who had crafted his fame and fortune with his bare hands, a hammer and anvil. At the same time, Aurora and Ferdinand's eyes fell upon two star crossed lovers, whose love soared higher than the Heavens and traveled farther and faster than any steed... and whose soft, glowing faces spoke of a peace unknown in all of the world. These four were a testament to what the world was, and what it could be again... and drawing upon all of their power, each God and Goddess blessed their champions with a piece of their being, and the strength to save the world.

Odetta had other plans... She disappeared, and instead went to Farcros, the Mad King of Gar. Combining a piece of her still black heart with Dagred's relentless blessing, Farcros' might grew to such heights that it stole the light from the sky. With terrible power, the Mad King's war grew worse, massacre became genocide, and Odetta's power eclipsed all other deities. The dead rose from their mass graves; the soil turned black and the blight of undeath sanks its talons into Xervelia. The boundaries between life and death, light and dark, sanity and madness vanished.

As the Champions of Aurora, Mercedes, Ferdinand and Gorphsen began to rally the few sane mortals together, Pyrnax's silver tongue turned Dagred against Odetta, and Jabunda against Dagred. Consumed by her delusions of ultimate power, the Goddess of Death set her undead legions against Gar's armies as Jabunda's own powers caused Farcro's once loyal soldiers against one another in Envy, Pride, Greed, and Wrath while they trampled those who fell to Sloth, Lust and Gluttony. The whole of reality was plunged into Chaos... and suddenly The Mistress of Death was no longer Xervelia's mightiest deity.

While Dagred's back was turned, Pyrnax drugged the God of War's drinking horn with the essence of Chaos. The wrathful God drank deep and no longer knew restraint, tactics, strategy or prudence. The Four Champions rode to Gar to battle Farcro's armies, only to witness their end at the hands of Odetta. Drunk with power and the deceitful words of Pyrnax, she did not turn her all powerful eyes to the Four Champions. Instead, she sought to make herself a new Kingdom - a Citadel taller than the mountain peaks and greater than 200 castles. As she obsessed over this monument to her omnipotence, the Four Champions marched into Gar unnoticed, while the few guards remaining in the city ate themselves to death at Jabunda's invitation.

66,608 years ago, the last battle ensued. The Four Champions against The Mad King Farcros, possessed by the Dark Heart of Odetta and Chosen Lord of The God of War. The battle cracked Gar's keep in two, leveled every building and toppled every tower. Ferdinand's Champion fell in the onslaught, but only after pinning Farcros to his Iron Throne with his patron's hunting spear. There, in the midst of true prayers to the Givers of Hope, Prosperity and Life, Farcros was slain. Thousands of miles away, Odetta's shrieks split mountains as she realized she had been deceived. She arrived too late; only in time to watch Aurora's Champion, once a simple Healer, eat Farcros' half of Odetta's Black Heart. In Odetta's realm of Death, there was more peace than in all of the world, and in that world of death her beloved now rested... Fearless in the face of death, Aurora's Champion denounced the Half-Hearted Goddess, and without the power to resist the combined might of her own power and that of Aurora, the once mighty Goddess was severed from her divinity. Aurora's champion took on the essence of death... but Odetta's power had grown so vast and uncontainable that she could only absorb half of it. The rest spread unabated, the land withered, and much of the world became a macabre shadow of what it used to be. Such atrocious sights had never been seen before... but it was a price far less than total extinction.

Intent on fixing the destruction she had loosed on the world, Aurora's champion traveled to Odetta's colossal Citadel, and it became a sanctuary for all the world's wandering dead and bodiless spirits, now trapped in a world without a place for the dead. The other two heroes gathered the survivors of the Mortal Races, and set out to build the world once again.

Today, not but a few kingdoms stand. The ghosts of all the dead The world is watched over by the deities, though they fear that if they intrude upon the land, a repeat of the last war will befall the world and they will not have the strength to stop it. Instead, they bless what they will, and watch over all. The continents remain, broken but blooming with mysteries mystical and sinister influence. What will the future bring? It is anybody's guess.