REALMS OF ETERNUM

FROM CHAOS, ORDER

There wasn’t always Dragons in the Valley, generations ago these rolling hills and all the lands of Tarchura that stretch out to the Hyumic Sea were covered in lifeless buildings that filled the spaces between incredible towers of stone and iron extending far above the skyline, reaching for Sol himself. As the villages grew in to cities and the cities combined in to megacities, their walls climbed higher and the land between them shrunk. People that were living on top of one another lost their connection with each other and with the magic of nature.

However, a small amount of extremely powerful people had maintained their knowledge of the arcane, alchemy and the spirits. They ruled from the shadows, but they lived in constant fear of their own demise, thus they obsessed over extending their time in the Realm by any means necessary. It was from these twisted combinations of dark Magics and an inversion of Alchemy that the first new Dragon was created.

It is said that the Dragon named herself, breathing in for the first time she syphoned the life energy and consciousness from her creators. Their minds and bodies became warped and corrupted, and with this breath she spoke “LEMURA”. Her creators became her slaves, her Beasts of the Abyss, Lemura grew quickly and with each metropolis she conquered her power became more irresistible. In a desperate attempt to destroy Lemura the rulers of the Seven Nations sought the knowledge of the few remaining Mages, all of which were unwilling to create a weapon that could kill her as the sacrifice would be too great to bear…Except one.

A High-ranking Cleric of the Order of Sol promised to help forge a weapon that may be able to rid the Realm of Lemura but in return the Lands of Tarchura would be his to rule. The Emperor of Tarchura agreed, in order to save his people, he would give up his Throne. The Cleric lured a great number of worshipers to his temple and locked the gates before denouncing Sol as a betrayer and false Idol and burning the worshipers alive. After those last screams could be heard to fade, the Cleric preformed a dark ritual transmuting the remains into a wicked relic infused with sorrow and despair.

With the wicked relics power a weapon was created, a device of untold destruction. At the Beginning of winter, The Seven Nations of the Realm sent a fleet of airships to Tarchura at the heart of the fleet was a Tarchurian airship, piloted by the former Emporer. With the Clerics device loaded and Lemura laying waste to the fleet, the Tarchurian Emporer flew straight in to the jaws of the Dragon and detonated the device.

The explosion that followed could be seen from the four corners of the realm, the remaining people in the city below were incinerated along with the surrounding villages and the entire fleet of airships. Lemura absorbed such a vast amount of energy that it threatened to tear her apart from within, with beams of pure energy radiating from her eyes and mouth she flew in to the sea. It was in the waters below that Lemura converted this power in to new life, she had begun to reproduce, and after a few years she gave birth to her first two children. Her son was named Themisten her daughter, Erisyn.

In the Years that Lemura was thought to be dead, the Cleric pronounced himself Grand Emperor of Tarchura. He abolished all regional knight’s orders, stripped local lords and ladies of their titles, and reinstated slavery for the first time in centuries. He began to have great monuments and cities built in his name, demolished all the temples and places of worship and claimed all farmland as property of the Empire. His soldiers, The Order of the Branded were tasked with collecting and burning all books of worship, alchemy and natural magic. The people’s memory of Lemura and the destruction she wrought on the capitals was still fresh in their minds so they did not resist.

For the first years of their lives Themisten and Erisyn grew in the underside, the place below. Themisten was ordered and calculating, he had inherited his mother’s ability to absorb the essence of other creatures and so like her, grew quickly but was soon overtaken in size and brute strength by his sister. Erisyn took after her mother’s chaotic side and had her gift for creating fire, she had to feed, not on energy but on flesh. Themisten desired control, Erisyn desired Fear and respect. Lemura calmed after the birth of her children, she had split her power between them though was still far superior to either in strength and intellect.

Once the young Dragons had mastered the tunnels and vast caverns of the underside they grew restless, they began to beg their mother to return to the surface and let them conquer their own lands. Lemura told her children that, in order to prove they were ready to ascend to the surface they must first bring her the heart of the sea. It was a flawless pearl, protected by a great serpent that lives in the ruins of a sunken city, and without hesitation the pair set off toward the city at the bottom of the sea.

Rumors had grown amongst the villages of Tarchura, rumors of a band of travelling adventurers, a group of fabled warriors destroying the Grand Emperors monuments, humiliating his soldiers and fomenting insurrection in the heart of the oppressed. In actual fact the famed heroes were no more than four friends on a quest for a good time, though they were skilled warriors. Their humiliation of the Emperors soldiers was usually due to the friends having to clumsily fight their way out of a sure jail sentence or execution on account of making fun of a well to do sympathizer or a bar fight gone wrong. Their destruction of a monument was often by way of an accident such as seeing who can stay on the village bull longest or trying to free a bear from the travelling circus. Why try and free a bear? well that’s simple they called them selves The Bear Clan and fancied it for their mascot.

News of The Bear Clan had reached a regional general of The Order of the Branded, the General thought it would be worth a great reward should he capture or kill these criminals and present them to his majesty the Grand Emperor. He ordered his men to scour the surrounding villages for news of these renegades and when he heard they were seen in the village of Plumberholdt on the previous night he sent a brigade ahead of him to secure the area. The General arrived in Plumberholdt to see many of his men scattered on the ground unconscious and the remaining soldiers in a standoff with three men and one woman. As the sun set, the sky was blood red, and as the general sneered at one of the men’s remarks about his weak chin, a winged shadow blackened the sky.