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In the darkest corners of the kingdom, the Necromancer creeps. Turning their hands to dark, illegal, demonic magic, these accursed souls reside on the very border between life and death. They spend their days alone with the ghosts of the recently deceased, spirits who whisper their rotten secrets to any ear that takes an interest in them, sometimes divulging more than they should. Necromancers use the knowledge they gain to augment the power they reap from the souls of the dead; knowing the circumstances of a death, they proceed to torment those who were involved, whether it is focussing on loved ones or enemies of the deceased, drawing strength from the fear and horror that these pseudo-hauntings inspire.

Their power is not infinite, however. The Necromancer cannot summon a human soul to flesh forever, and the pursuit of the secret of immortality has cost many a Necromancer dearly. Often living alone wherever shadows dwell, Necromancers must frequently test their powers on themselves; bringing a dead frog back from the abyss is far easier than the same feat would be on a humanoid. A great many Necromancers die at their own corrupt hand, and of those that survive, most suffer an unshakeable bond to the afterlife and the corpses that litter the floor around them, preventing them from ever leaving the demonic circle in which they cast their experiments. A Necromancer who can push through this and emerge the other side unscathed is one of the most feared magi in the entire kingdom, for once they have conquered the pull of death, little else can hope to stop them.

An ultimate aim of many Necromancers’ pursuit of dark magic is to build an army of the undead, resurrecting the same soldiers again, and again, and again, until they overwhelm their enemies through sheer unkillable force. Necromancers are not picky; they will just as soon turn a slain Barbarian against its people as they would funnel the power of a Priest to keep them safe. A Necromancer surrounded by the death of the powerful is formidable indeed; but the brevity of their control, weakened as they split their focus amongst multiple targets, seriously undermines the potential for the Necromancer to construct a truly dangerous force.

One of the only times that such a despicable feat was possible was during the battle of the Great Rift. The screaming of the dead, piercing the ears of the Necromancers at such sheer volume and number, forced them into action. Emerging from their nooks and crannies, the Necromancers converged at the Rift, channelling their power and sparking life amongst the thousands of bodies that lay strewn across the ground. It was a terrifying sight; the jerky movements of the recently deceased as they bore down on the creatures, falling to bloodied blows, but standing back up, struck fear into the heart of the gods themselves. Never had the gods seen mere mortals tamper with the balance of death on such a scale! But the Necromancers could not endure the fight for long; though they surpassed all of their own expectations, the burden of reanimating corpse after corpse finally took its toll, and those that did not retreat from exhaustion fell under the strain, bodies twitching limply as their life force seeped away.



By the time he made his Royal Decree, it was difficult for Aurorus to track down the Necromancers. They had slithered back to their hiding places; their short time amongst the living had convinced them that things were better the way they were before. Residing once again amongst the cracks of society, Aurorus had no idea how many Necromancers practiced the dark art, nor did he really know where to find them; he only knew that they were a dangerous threat, not only to the gods, but also to his own kingship. What if they united again, and came at him with full force? He didn’t stop to consider how unlikely that would be.

When a Necromancer was eventually discovered, it was more by luck than anything. A team of Royal Guards would be sweeping an area, and stumble upon their filthy huts, or unconver the marks of a demonic circle on the ground. Some of the Necromancers, tied to the afterlife as they were, could not run very far. Those that were free attempted to run, but not used to the need to escape pursuit, were quickly caught and arrested.

You were one of the first Necromancers caught by the Royal Guard, mostly due to your own incompetence. Though you are a confident wielder of unholy magics, you are less capable when it comes to alchemy. Having tested a potent new poison on yourself, you ended up rooted to the spot with paralysis when the Royal Guards came across you. Unable to flee, you were escorted to the dungeons and thrown into a dank cell. The King came down to survey the prisoners one morning, and you seized your chance – you told the King that you would resurrect his dead fiancé if he let you free. His eyes darkened. After a moment, he told you that he had something else in mind.

It had been a long and arduous journey. Shunned by its travelling party, the ragged figure had been forced to follow some distance behind. It would give them the Plague, they said. It was clear that they did not trust it. Yet, entirely unaccustomed to the company of other living beings, it had welcomed the chance to spend most of its nights alone.

But of course, the thing that you have to understand is that it was never truly alone. The figure – hunched, slender, faceless – was always surrounded by the soft hum of the Rift Void, a place beyond comprehension for most mortals. It spoke to itself constantly. Stranger yet, it considered itself not a single being but a multitude of forces, stitching together life with death with undeath. On nights of a frost moon, it would trace its fingers across ancient runes in the air, leaving a faint haze where the Rift was disturbed. On days of humid and oppressive heat, it would spread its venom wherever it trod, choking the life and colour from the surrounding nature. The air itself was stale with rank decay.

Then, one day, not long after they had arrived at their destination, it heard the murmurs of the dead. Their message echoed in its ears.

It was next.

It had no eyes to give its secrets away. Yet it somehow acted differently, now. Whereas before it had remained beneath the ground until it was called upon, the air seemed so hot and heavy. It had to go topside.

This was a mistake.

It had only been in the city at night before. Never had it reared its head during the daytime. It had not expected the hordes of people that it encountered; and they had not expected it. At first the people fled. But soon, they hunted. They hunted for this monster that wore a mask of skin, this monster whose very presence corrupted the earth around it. Unable to fight back alone, it tried to call on the spirits, to offer them flesh once more. But they did not listen.

Instead, they watched their former master die. As its wretched soul floated down amongst the vengeful departed, the whole of Llaranastra heard the dead creature’s chilling scream.

Surrounded by the colossal Midmal Mountains, The Shade is so named since the sun very rarely reaches it; only brief glimmers of light filter through to illuminate the way forwards. The Shade divides the Kingdom in two, the Capital and major sea ports to the South and the frontier and woodland communities to the North; the danger of crossing The Shade has exacerbated already cool relations between the two. The only alternatives to the direct route through the Midmal Mountains are the long, expensive and exhausting tracks leading around them. Most of the Southern Malurians never step foot in the Northern Lands, and the reverse is equally true.

To move outside of the faded glow of the sun is a death sentence in The Shade. In the near-constant darkness, a multitude of inhuman creatures lurk, ready to drain those that encroach upon them of their vitality. The thick shadows snuff any torches or flames that might ward off the darkness; the only hope is to stay within the slender beams of light. Devices have been designed to predict where the sun will land; a contraption of metal and glass that the sun shines through, the shifting rays projecting onto an estimated map, allowing the user plan their journey, for example. Yet these devices can be very inaccurate; no one has a full map of the lay of the land beneath the darkness, and it is rumoured that it too changes in response to the light. Weather is another problem, though many crossers will consult a sage or witch doctor before crossing to determine when the best time to attempt it is. But even with all of these precautions, crossing The Shade is inadvisable, and there are few who will make it to the other side.

For those who deem the crossing important enough – generally merchants for whom the route between the Midmal Mountains is the most direct trade road – an alternative exists: the Shadewalkers, mysterious magi that call the darkness of The Shade their home. Often the Shadewalkers will prowl the outer reaches of their domain, helping those that want to cross The Shade in return for food, money and pleasures of the flesh. The most successful families of Shadewalkers have arranged repeated deals with merchants which keeps them in good supply of all three of these things. They know the Shade, and are capable of guiding those that do not through its few sunlit passages. Even if the sun was suddenly obscured, the beasts of The Shade were little match for the black magic of the Shadewalkers, who drew their power from the very darkness itself.



There are conflicting stories about the Shadewalkers’ origin; many of those on the outside believe that they are demons, birthed from deep within the shadows, sent by the dark god Gogith to spy on humankind. Others speculate that the Shadewalkers are ghosts of those who have died in The Shade, returning to ensure that no one else suffers their fate. The Shadewalkers themselves do not speak to outsiders of their history; they alone know that it is through prayer to Gogith that their powers arise, and that it is life in The Shade that compounds such powers. For to pray is not enough; one must be committed to a life of darkness to sustain the stress that Gogith’s magic offers. Indeed, those born inside The Shade are blessed in Gogith’s name, and each successive generation grows in strength, as their bloodline is hardened by the shadows.

Parents would frequently threaten their children with tales of the Shadewalkers, and more often than not, they too believed the stories that they told. But whilst it was true that the Shadewalkers embaraced the black magic granted to them by their god, and whilst it was true that they were more at home in the darkness than the daytime, they were not, at their core, an evil people.

Well, not as far as they were concerned, at least. To the Shadewalkers, evil was a sacrifice of the true self; masking desire and basic compulsions under a veneer of civility and moral standards is a corruption of that which we feel most deeply in our souls. The Shade offers them the place to act as they wish, without the sneers of the rest of the Kingdom. Some have been known to hunt out the Shadewalkers in an attempt to join their community, though it is not clear how successful these attempts have ever been.



When the Great Rift opened, many creatures appeared in The Shade. At first they were held back by the Shadewalkers with relative ease, confronting them on their own turf. Yet the dark magic called upon by the Shadewalkers, once their greatest weapon, was eventually their downfall. They had been betrayed by their god Gogith; the very shadows began to fight back, taking on monstrous forms that feasted on their every spell. The Shadewalkers slowly choked under this insurmountable weight of darkness. Those that survived later swore that they saw the god himself dancing about gleefully as the bodies fell.



There was no way that Aurorus could arrest the Shadewalkers; not only could he not send his troops into The Shade and expect a result, but they were integral to the economy of the Kingdom. And so, he devised a plan; he sent word to the Shadewalkers that he would be destroying the Midmal Mountains, flooding the area with light and destroying their way of life – unless their strongest mage would stand before him and agree to do his duty for the King.

As he signed the letter, the King’s fingers shook. It was a huge risk he was taking.

Would they respond?

When the King sent word of his plans to destroy the Midmal Mountains, you were incited with rage. As a Fifth Generation adult Shadewalker, you were by far the strongest of those living in The Shade, but without your home, you would be powerless, and have nowhere to live in the way that your god demanded. The King had demanded that you stand before him and do his bidding in order to save your home, but you could see that he feared you, and you knew that he would eventually decide to destroy the mountains anyway. You listened to his demand; a team were being sent North to Llaranastra, last home of the heroes, to kill those that had fled the King’s latest crusade, and he wanted to send you with them. It sounded as though he was worried they would try to overthrow him – well, let them! Without the paranoid King on the throne, your home would be far safer. And so you decided to set off to see if what he feared was true; before you gave the King an answer, you swept your cape and disappeared into the darkness.

You reach into the shadows, and retrieve a fistful of darkness. It curls around your fingers, runs up your arm, begins to sweep across your whole body. But you shake your head. It is not for you. Not tonight.

You sent your shadows out to do your bidding and protect a man that you felt you could trust. Alas, even Gogith’s dark blessing is frail here, far away from the thick and heavy darkness of The Shade, and your good deed has left you utterly defenceless. You feel weaker every second. You decide to set off outside, to sit beneath the moonlight and let the fingers of the shadows energise you, hoping to rekindle that connection that you felt with the ebony swathes on your first night in the city.

In the hallway outside your room, a familiar figure greets you. You nod your recognition, and make to move past; but the figure slams a hand into the wall.

“I cannot let you leave.”

You realise what this means moments too late. Your body slumps to the floor, the light drains from your eyes, your curse falls silent on your lips.

You are welcomed into eternal shadow.

His journey had been one of quiet discomfort. Never one to complain about his problems, he had suffered in silence, losing a small part of himself with every step that he took, but pushing on nevertheless. His very home was at stake, and the lives of all of those who lived under his protection. He would not let them down.

But too long spent in the daylight had weakened him, until he felt no more than a mere mortal, a worthless husk of flesh and bone. Reaching the city, he was filled with despair. But come dusk, he steeled his resolve, and drank the shadows. He extinguished his own hopes of survival, snuffing the light that lived inside of him, and replaced it with utter darkness. He embraced the eclipse within himself, turning his own demons into power, a power that he hoped could save his people. He felt Gogith's hand suffocating him, and he strained against his impulse to fight back. He knew then that he would die. His god was going to kill him, because he was weak. He did not have the strength to survive in this city, nor the strength to kill or the strength to protect. The blackness overwhelmed him.

The blind darkness was lifted. His eyes opened slowly, and he felt himself throb painfully with renewed strength. Though he was not nearly as powerful as he had once been, he felt the familiar whisper of the dark silken shadows swirling around him. They awaited his command.

This was a revelation. He thought that the people of The Shade could not exist outside of its cold, cool fingers of shadow. But here he was - far to the North - and he still felt the dark power running through his veins. Could Gogith's blessing be extended to all who sought it, whether they stand beneath moon or mountain? Or was he chosen, gifted power in the light to serve his god and save his race? He did not know. But there was one thing that he was sure about: he would use this strength to gather an army against the King, overturn his corrupt regime, and free his people from the fear of destruction.




It was a young girl, carrying a bucket of fresh water to the tavern master, who first saw him.

A dark mess of tattered robes, sticky thick blood seeping out of his broken body, one hand clutching at nothing. His black eyes were turned skywards, shining in the daylight, but dull with death. He was surrounded with shattered fragments of glass, and high above him, a broken window confessed to the crime. But this was no accident, no suicide. This was murder.

The girl was stunned for a moment. The bucket clattered onto the ground, the water pouring out and mingling with the blood. The girl's eyes slowly drifted downwards, to where the blood was beginning to stain her shoes.

She released a howling scream.

The Brotherhood of the Light were the most dominant religious order in the Kingdom, united as they were under the banner of Lioar, their guiding god. The Monarchy itself worshipped Lioar as its primary deity, because Lioar was supposed to represent justice and protection, truth and honour. Although each of the three surviving gods had a church within Yallum, the city of the Royal Court, Lioar’s was the most impressive, a structure built entirely out of white marble and glass. A great shining beacon stood atop its roof, allowing pilgrims to find their way to it with ease, even at their darkest hour.

The Brotherhood allowed no member to perform another violent act, and so were irrevocably estranged from the Templars who shared their god. Once, far it the past, it is supposed that the Templars and the Brotherhood had belonged to the same Holy Family, marching as one into battle. For though the Brotherhood were pacifists, their faith invested them with the power to heal almost any wound, and prevent even the most fatal of blows. Indeed, their protective abilities extend to the many churches built in Lioar’s honour, which have stood firm under the assault of weather and siege for thousands of years.

The Brotherhood is the paragon of a meritocracy. Those who worship Lioar, but offer little else, remain no more than acolytes. It is up to each member to take it upon themselves and find their own way of contributing, whether that be through helping those in need, volunteering at various healing centres, building churches, spreading the word of Lioar, or a whole host of other good deeds. As an acolyte distinguishes himself, he is gradually allowed to lead sermons and ceremonies within the church, eventually rising to the level of Priest, High Priest, and Archpriest. The leaders of the Brotherhood are the White Council, whose members frequently move between their seats there and their position as an Archpriest.



When the Great Rift opened, the Brotherhood of Light did not take up weapons, for that would have been acting against their whole belief system. Nor did they move against Lioar; the White Council determined that his participation in the war was either a test for his supporters, or a move intended to protect him from the attacks of his fellow gods. That said, they did lay their healing hands upon the wounded that fell during the battles. But the creatures of the Rift proved too strong, breaking past the fighters and tearing into the priests who stood at the rear. Lioar did not come to save them, and much of the Brotherhood fell with no means of defending themselves.

When The Order pushed the creatures back into the Pale Rift, the remaining members of the White Council went with them. It is said that their assistance was crucial; though The Order were strong, they were mortal, after all. One Council member, Archpriest Morgan, remained behind to organise the relief effort, but with most of the Brotherhood dead, it was not particularly effective.

Convinced that Lioar’s true anger had been directed at the Templars, the Brotherhood of Light persisted with its activities after the Rift had been closed. It was with a heavy heart that Aurorus ordered his Royal Guards to arrest the passive priests; many had led sermons from within the very church where he first learnt about the gods. But he couldn’t allow petty feelings of remorse divert him from his path; to do so would be to put the entire Kingdom in jeopardy.

It wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.

You are a mid-tier High Priest, with hopes of attaining a seat on the White Council one day. When King Aurorus began to entice some members of The Brotherhood of Light to abandon their prayerbooks, you remained behind at the church, following the example of your Archpriest, who outright refused to give in to Aurorus’ threats and promises. The King’s response was to send his Royal Guards to attack the Church. They did so without much enthusiasm, and it was clear that they felt uncomfortable turning against the Brotherhood. And so, when one of the Royal Guards came across you, you took your chance to flee. You have no doubt that he could have buried his blade in your back as you passed, but fortunately, he did not.

Gathering your prayer beads in your hands, you feel the power of Lioar surging through your whole body. But you cannot use that power selfishly for yourself; you must share it out with others as befits the Brotherhood of Light. You have found someone who you feel deserves your protection, and move quietly through the streets to find him.



Something is terribly wrong – you can feel the darkness in the air, the stench of murder and violence, choking out whatever faint light survives in a faithful worshipper’s trembling fingers. You tuck your prayer beads into your silk robe, and hurry down the steps of the greystone building you are residing in. Your suspicions are confirmed by a high-pitched scream of fright...

He did not fight back.

There were vicious rumours being spread about the quiet, unassuming man dressed in white. It did not help matters that the Brotherhood of Light was unwelcome across the Malruian borders. Centuries ago, they had conducted a campaign to bring the Light to those who they felt walked in shadow. It had not gone well.

The Northern Kingdoms had been disunited in those days, little more than a sparse collection of small townships and greedy individuals. But what they lacked in formal strategy, they more than made up for in ferocity. The priests had been chased from town to town by soldiers for whom violence was a way of life: the pampered priesthood's confounding words were no match for the certainty of battle-tested steel.

Those old hatreds were still alive today. The Northern citizens had treated this man with little patience, and even less respect. They said that his was a path of grand delusion, and laughed at the suggestion that his god would receive him into glorious light upon his death. With such attitudes already prevalent within the walls of Llaranastra, it was easy for the Malurians to be blinded to his good will. They banded around him, brandishing their hot anger and lust for bloody justice. He forgave them all silently, saying a prayer for himself. He knew he would not escape alive, but also knew that he would be leaving this world for a better place, somewhere where he could live out his days without fear or anger.

He gave them his final words aloud. He was ready.

You hear a voice whispering in your ear.

"Follow me," it says.

"Am I not yet dead?" you ask.

"You are dead. But there is still much to be done. Come. The Glory of Lioar awaits!"

There is no glamorous brotherhood of assassins in Malura; but there is a hierarchy. Those that need money will often offer their services, but most will get caught before killing their target. Few people put their faith in novice or rookie assassins, but those that get rewarded with a surprisingly competent killer save themselves a lot of money. For this reason, inexperienced assassins tend to work for poorer people with petty rivalries, whose targets are not well guarded – the sort of job that doesn’t even count as an assassination. It is little more than hiring a thug to rough up the competition – though, of course, a little more fatal.

But for those who have the spare cash, or those who require something very special, every town has its vigilante. These masterful Assassins do not linger in one place for long, constantly moving from hiding place to hiding place, but always remaining within the same city limits. After all, knowing the environment is half of the battle; which guards like to sleep during their watch, which torches tend to extinguish in a strong wind, which shadows stretch the furthest from street to street. Contacting an assassin can be tricky; most spend their days taking on regular jobs, working as labourers or shopkeepers, drinking in the inn or paying a visit to the brothel. For all intents and purposes they are normal citizens of the township. But each assassin has his own contact method; it might be a red sash tied to the waist of the interested party, or a blue hat hooked over a chair in the inn; the buyer might be asked to stroll three times around a fountain anti-clockwise, or request a particular denomination of coin when purchasing a particular item from a particular shop. Some of the methods are, of course, completely false – no more than the product of wild rumours run amok. And the call will rarely be answered immediately; it should not be surprising that guards looking to pin a murder or ten on an assassin might attempt to contact the rogue themselves. The very best of assassins scout out their client before they scout out their victim.

Assassins’ methods of killing can be as varied as the assassins themselves. Some prefer poison, some prefer hidden blades, and some prefer to make a spectacle of the whole thing. Many consider themselves refined killers, better than the thuggish brutes who clobber with clubs and fists, but they are not immune to the pull of gold and certainly can get caught by what they would consider the slow and stupid guards. One on one, the assassin must rely on speed and subterfuge to outsmart or outpace his opponent; generally slender and sprightly, the assassin can’t withstand too many direct attacks.



When the Great Rift opened, it did not affect the assassins all that much. There were a small number of opportunistic merchants and the like who wanted to kill off their competition whilst everyone was distracted, but few assassins felt the need to go to the front. And since no one really sung of assassins’ exploits, it wasn’t as if the gods themselves had an issue with the killers.

So too, when Aurorus declared his decree on heroes, the assassins were unaffected, not least of all because no one knew their real identities. Thugs and criminals carrying swords or cudgels were often arrested after being searched for unauthorised weaponry, but the clever assassins themselves concealed their arms.

Indeed, when the time came to send warriors to Llaranastra, some people even said that they saw the King pacing around a fountain with a red sash tied to his waist...

By day, you are a humble teacher of numbers. But by night, you are a sly, quick, and cunning young man who makes his money by taking the lives of others. Your love for coin is matched only by your lust for fine women and warm wine. You live, work and kill in Llaranastra, and much of the money that you claim as bounty for your assassinations is spent in the city’s shady brothels and inns. Recently, you’ve noticed that there have been a lot of people dying. You wonder to yourself whether there might be another assassin moving into town...You decide to investigate these deaths, before you lose all of your business to a rival!

Dusk settles on Llaranastra, and you suddenly feel more alive, taking to the shadowy streets of this great walled city. You are accustomed to the lay of the land here, treading softly from one dark corner to another, flattening yourself up against the buildings to avoid the eyes the night. You have in your hand a potent toxin that you have spent years crafting - and you intend to make use of it.



You rest easy tonight, in this city that you call home. You realise now that the deaths you have seen are not the work of a master assassin, threatening to take your place, but the result of some pseudo-political crusade against refugees from the South. Well, you don’t know how to feel about that; are they fleeing oppression or justice? You can’t be sure. You decide to let the whole thing blow over.

That changes when you realise that one of the bastards has stolen from you. You wake in the morning, reach into your pocket, and discover your blade is missing. You retrace your steps, searching the foreign quarter, looking for the missing weapon. If it were to fall into the wrong hands, you could be ruined. Part-way through your search, you hear a piercing scream...

Once more, you slither through the sidestreets of Llaranastra, searching for the dagger. It seems you will have to make do without for tonight.

"Never mind that," you hiss to yourself. You still have your poisons, and you can still administer it, albeit less effectively. A good job too - you are determined to put a halt to the chaos that has lain in the wake of these forsaken Malurians' infighting since the day they arrived. Wherever they tread, they cause a scene, which is bad for business. Every rich merchant in the city has upped their guards! Why, just today, an incited crowd of them beat a priest to death! Sure, sure, you were part of that crowd, but a man can't let his appetite for violence rust or he'll risk losing his edge.

You dismiss these wandering thoughts, and take to the shadows, directed now towards one purpose.



Fortune smiles on you tonight! You have just found your dagger, discarded amongst the rubble of a building in ruins. You had almost heard the glimmering steel on the air, the faint whistle of your weapon calling out to its rightful owner. You gathered it up, dusted it down, and slipped it in your pocket.

Feeling invincible, you stalk through the crowds with a wicked smile lighting your soul. At every turn, you see a potential assassination. There, a guard turns his back for just too long; there, a man places his goblet on a table behind him whilst entertaining a beautiful young lady; there, a merchant is working underneath a canopy that could quite easily break and fall. The urge to strike out at random is creeping into the darkest corners of your mind...

With these thoughts in mind, you barely see the gauntlet careening towards your face. It strikes you squarely in the jaw. You reel from the pain, as an antlered figure roars at you violently. You scurry to your feet and career down a sidestreet, but the hulking steel monster gives chase: fortunately, you are faster, but unfortunately, you twist your ankle in your haste. You escape the soldier easily enough. Yet you will be unable to get much further tonight.

Streaming through the windows of a small brick building, the morning sun dries the ink on thirty crisp parchments. Children sit in rows. Some are attentive, some gaze out into nothingness, whilst others whisper tales behind their hands. Their writing is uneven, messy, and hurried, but they seem content. Striding to and fro before them is a slender young man, a teacher of numbers, who instructs them in how to count, bargain and save their coppers - a valuable lesson for the urchins who have had to learn to rely on themselves. This man provides his classes for free, to all those who would learn. And there are many: this is but one class amongst numerous he will see today. Perhaps this work takes its toll on him - there is a dark rim beneath his eyes, and he clearly has slept very little - but the fluidity with which he moves about the classroom suggests that he is barely affected by this, as though he is a regular creature of the night. Posing a question now, he stops moving, to cock an ear.

While the students struggle with the numbers, he suddenly thinks back to his own youth, a time in his life that he had suppressed for so long. He remembers faintly the night he killed his deranged drunkard father: that was his first assassination. Shortly after, he fled the kingdom of Maluria with his mother. She did not make it to Llaranastra alive: he told the travelling party that the cold smothered her, but really, it had been his fault. In a moment of weakness, he had confided in her about his patricide. The shock and horror had bitten right through her pure heart.

A shout comes from the doorway, bringing him back to the present. Thirty-one heads turn in unison.

Silhouetted against a blazing light stands a man dressed entirely in white armour. Something glimmers in his hand.

"For the Light!" he shouts, making a circular gesture with his hand. Within seconds, he is upon the young teacher.

The teacher dodges the first strike of the intruders weapon, a vicious downwards sweep that would have cleaved him in half. Children are screaming. Involuntarily, his eyes dart to the children, his mouth opening to shout that they flee. The intruder presses forwards with the pommel of his weapon. The teacher spins away just in time. His leg buckles beneath him. In that instant, he is beheaded.




Many will mourn the passing of this teacher, but most will forget him. They never truly knew him, and he had no friends, no family.

Such is the life and death of an Assassin, after all.

The pain never comes.

Just as the sword slashes clean through your neck, you are surrounded by light.

Then it is extinguished, and you fall, downwards, downwards, into death.

Into

nothingness.

Hidden in a magical tower, standing amidst the waves of the Tunturu Seas, surrounded by deadly sharp rocks, the Seared Scrolls were guarded by powerful beings that transcended the limits of human potential; the Red Wizards of Enku.

The Seared Scrolls mysteriously arrived one day in a monastery dedicated to the worship of Enku, god of the Maurauding Chaos; legend tells that it was designed to punish or test the faith of his disciples, for none could glance upon its runes without succumbing to the burning fire that erupted inside of them. The only one who seized control of the immense power of the scrolls was a humble priest called Hao’jin. He was immediately declared The Chosen One, and heralded as the envoy of Enku sent to walk amongst man. But the only spark inside of him was that of the flame; Enku was silent. Hounded for a message that he could not relay, Hao’jin fled the monastery where he had grown up, seeking a safe haven where he could relax and pray without a hundred eager brothers breathing down his neck.

The message came, eventually.

Hao’jin snuck back into the monastery six years after leaving it. He smirked at the statues and paintings that had immortalised his story – it was supposed that Enku had turned Hao’jin’s body to ash and reincarnated him as his right man in the Rift. They couldn’t imagine that their saviour would have abandoned them.

No one since Hao’jin ahd attempted to read the Seared Scrolls. They were kept locked away behind thick metal bars, the complex security system enough to deter even the most persistent thief.

But they did nothing against Hao’jin, whose red-hot palms melted the bars easily, allowing him to push his way through and reclaim the scrolls. The first stage of Enku’s plan was complete.

The second part was just as simple; before he left the monastery, Hao’jim summoned up a fiery inferno, incinerating the priesthood in one fell swoop. The ashes blew far on the wind, scattering all over the Kingdom. Those upon whom the ash settled shuddered, as though they had been touched by Enku himself; they slowly began to suffer strange compulsions, drawn towards a central point, and these urges increased in intensity, until they became unbearable. Ten years after Hao’jin obliterated his former home, he received his first student.

As the years passed, more and more people sought him out, converging on the tower he had spent over half a decade building. The rocks separated the committed and the strong from the curious and the week; the seas doused any flames that grew too wild. Hao’jin taught his students well; without the clergy’s pressure, he thrived, gradually exposing them to the Seared Scrolls and sharing his secrets. In time, the Red Wizards were all masters of the flame.



Enku’s involvement in the Battle of the Great Rift was no reflection of his relationship with the Red Wizards; he was simply a chaotic and mischevious god, who fought just because he could. When the Red Wizards set the other gods’ lesser minions ablaze, he congratulated them manically, before chasing them away with flames of his own. The real problem for the Red Wizards, however, were the Rift creatures known as Depth Stalkers. Monsters of the Rift’s deep seas, they swarmed the tower, attacking it in great number and almost bringing it to the ground. The threat to the Sacred Scrolls was too serious to pass off as a chaotic god’s wild behaviour; Hao’jin, so long unaccustomed to following another’s commands, put his pride aside, and walked into the Great Rift along with The Order. The rest of the Red Wizards were tasked with defending and rebuilding the tower, and above all else, keeping the scrolls safe.



Aurorus was fully aware of the Tower; though the Red Wizards rarely stepped outside of its confines, and were very much academics on the surface, he could not risk that they were doing more than learning and praying to Enku. What if they were actively preparing a challenge to the throne – or worse yet, to the gods themselves? He did not trust Enku would deal with them until it was too late, and then the whole kingdom would again be in danger!

The Red Wizards had been slowly wilting away without Hao’jin’s guidance – the newer students were much less stable and confident in their abilities. When the Royal Guard launched their unexpected assaults on the Tower, the fragmented response of the remaining Red Wizards was not enough to repel them.

You are a student of the Red Tower, a highly able and intelligent young man with a burning passion for power. When the King’s men assaulted your sanctum, you saw your allies falling around you, the glinting steel of the Royal Guards approaching, a window facing a sheer 30ft drop to the sea below – and took your chance. Diving underwater was painful, both from the impact and the water itself dousing the fire within you, but you survived, washing up on the shores of the Northern Kingdom. It wasn’t long until you reached Llaranastra...

You remove your robes and settle into bed, summoning a protective circle of flame as a matter of routine. The scattered embers surround you while you sleep, allowing you to rest easy in the knowledge that any intruder would end up horribly burnt, leaving them as easy pickings the following day...

...The following morning, you wonder aloud if the heat somehow drives people away – it seems that so far, not a single person has dared to cross you and your . You receive an unexpected reply from the misty morning – a scream from the streets behind you...

So far, you have kept mostly to yourself. These foreign lands do not agree with you, and removed from your studies, you feel somewhat lost. The books offered you a shield against the world, an armour to encase your awkward social ability. The heaving crowds of this populous city - quite frankly - set your teeth on edge. You retired to your bedchambers, willing the world to leave you in peace.

Well, the world doesn’t always listen to our prayers. The flames surrounding your room tonight have been extinguished. Someone - or something - has crept upon you during the night. You awake with a startle, the name of the trespasser burning at the forefront of your mind: .

Your flames are weakened. You stumble into the daylight, feeling nauseous and empty. It seems you won’t be getting that peace after all.

He hadn't even wanted to come to Llaranastra.

The young man, dressed in thick red robes, had just wanted to be somewhere safe. Somewhere where he could remain undisturbed and continue with his work. Every book in the vast library of the Red Tower had been lost during its sacking, and he was trying to rewrite the seminal texts of his studies. The ultimate aim was to recreate the Scorched Scrolls: he knew not whether such a feat was even possible, but he had to try. The magical scrolls magnified power and streamlined latent abilities: sent down from above, they were the ultimate test for a Red Magi, and were the true source of the magi's transgression of human limitations.

The Elders of Enku had hoped that he would eventually take the lead on training up new recruits, and rekindle the sense of power that had once burned so brightly in their tower. Pah, so much for that! But he nevertheless desired to preserve his order's history and techniques: he, as was the case with all who followed in Enku's wake, believed that once we have passed from this world, our body slowly disintegrates and floats as ash across the surface of the planet, sparking a tiny ember of magical ability within the very young. Who knew - maybe the murder of every other wizard was in fact a cleansing, and would lead to a newer sect rising, like a phoenix, from the smouldering remains of the old. And maybe, like Hao'jin before him, the new magi would come to him. He had to be prepared for just such an outcome.

But others in this bustling city had noticed his reservations. They mistook his studiousness for secrecy. When they pressed him for an answer - why was he so reluctant to talk about what he was doing in his dingy room at night? why did he tend to withhold comment on the goings on of the city? who was he, really? - he simply shook his head and walked away. Well, he had turned from their suspicions for the last time.

The crowd cornered him in a dark alley. His eyes darted left and right, looking for an escape route that didn't exist. He began to sweat, the claustrophobia burning hotter than any flame. The crowd advanced. He knew what they were capable of. Well, he still had his red magic, he could still -

The heavens conspired against him. At that moment, the clouds burst asunder, and a heavy rain started to beat down on the city. His flame was extinguished; the pain sent him into a howling rage, convulsing and frothing at the mouth with agony.

They had suspected him because he refused to speak up, but the screeches and cries he now made were unbearable. It chilled the very bone, scraping against the ear and sending hot vibrations throughout the body. The noises grew louder and louder.

When they killed him, it was to silence him forever.

Many years ago, there was an uprising against the throne. The Nielwarrens, an overly prosperous and incredibly wealthy noble family, wardens of the North of Malura and overseers of Linport, Malura’s busiest shipping town, attempted to lead an army against the king. It was a brutal civil war, with the rebels sending a triple-pronged attack through the mountains and to either side. Thousands of lives were lost. But whereas the Nielwarrens’ army was motivated by the weight of the purse, the king’s guard fought with a sense of duty and honour; and though the Nielwarrens made it all the way to the steps of Yallum, they could not penetrate the walled city. They had lost a good many of their men to the treacherous swamps to the North of Yallum, and could not assault the steep steps which led to the inner city and the throne of the king. The rebellious army was pushed back, until they reached the Midmal mountains; some fled into the Shade, whilst others – wise as they were to the dangers of the darkness – opted to surrender. But the Nielwarrens were too proud; the remaining family members dove deep into the Midmal mountains.

No one knows how they got lost; the Mines went only a short way into the mountainside at that time. Some claim that the walls must have moved, and trapped the family in the labyrinthine catacombs hidden behind the rocks. The tunnels have now, of course, been charted – stretching for miles, they were decorated with bones of creatures both known and unknown. It is not clear if these decorations existed before the Nielwarrens stumbled in, or whether it was the Nielwarrens themselves who placed them there.

But what is clear is that they were not the first creatures to move through the underground darkness.

The Nielwarrens were attacked by a creature – or group of creatures – who have never been seen on the surface, and have only been glimpsed underground. There are those who claim that the creatures died with the first bite of the Nielwarrens, that human flesh was poisonous to the creatures and the sightings beneath the ground have been tricks of the light or fantasies of the imagination. But the creatures undoubtedly have existed, for how else would the Nielwarrens have become the monsters that eventually left the mountains over one hundred years later?

Skin pale, teeth sharpened, hair long and wild, eyes red and glowing – but most importantly, senses and movements which were superhuman. The Nielwarrens never again produced offspring, but their line lives on today; something under the ground turned them into undying creatures of death and decay.

The Nielwarrens were not monsters, however. They still dressed, talked, and acted like humans. But they shied away from the surface, and preferred to live beneath the ground. Though they may not have become the Kings and Queens of Malura, they were certainly the Lords of the Midmal Mountains. The mines only stretched as far as the Nielwarrens would allow, and anything taken away for use would be taxed – ores and minerals were taken away in return for fine food and clothes. Occasionally, the Nielwarrens would throw outrageous orgies, deep underground, with invitations extended to only the select few.

But they also held a darker secret. Miners often went missing once or twice a month; sometimes they returned, shaken and confused, and sometimes they were never seen again. It was whispered that the Nielwarrens were draining their life force to remain young and beautiful. This has never been proven conclusively one way or the other.



When Aurorus felt his throne slipping away, his advisors warned him of the Nielwarrens. It was possible that they would rise up against him if he showed any weaknesses. He considered his options, and decided that something bold had to be done.

You are one of the eldest Nielwarrens, an ancient old man and patriarch of the family, who nevertheless continued move with the energy of youth. Old rages flared when you heard of Salarenzo’s passing and the appointment of his son as King – the young Prince wasn’t half the man his father was, it was an insult to the Kingdom! When Aurorus’ decree was issued, you realised how weak the King truly was. You’d also heard rumours that a force was amassing against him to the North, in a walled city called Llaranastra. If you could just help them to tip the King off the throne, your family could rise up and snatch it away before anyone had even realised you were even involved...

You tug on your rich velvet cloths, licking your lips with the tip of your tongue while you study the heartbeats of those all around you. This city is a feast. You see plenty of strong, muscular men and agile, sleek women, inviting you to their chambers, dark whorehouses, decorated with gold and silk. You decide that tonight, you will taste the delights of Northern cuisine...

Later that night, having taken your fill, you wander back amongst the refugees. Of course, they try to hide the fact that they hail from South of the Border, but there is no fooling your nose. You suddenly yearn for something familiar, and slip into a few select taverns, taking your chances on the sleeping bodies of some of Maluria’s finest. You care not whether they are here to kill or aid you – you only care for strong lifeblood, something to sustain you over the coming days and nights...

A night’s visits done, you lay down to rest as the sun rises. You need very little sleep. An hour or so later, you jolt awake to the sound of a scream, and the smell of blood...

Ah, the carefree life of an immortal man. You revel in the lifeblood of another, a red mist of lust clouding everything you do. In a rash moment of primal impulse, you commission three male prostitutes to satisfy your needs.

The night is yet young. You slither around, silent as a Cave Snake. The heat of the living throbs all around you, making you sweat with anticipation. You yearn in your loins, but you must contain yourself. There is more important work afoot tonight.

You embrace the night’s darkness, hunting your prey with precision. By morning’s greeting, you are satiated.

You feel stronger each day: consuming the life essence of the strong all around you has imbued you with a power beyond your imagination. Mining folk were all well and good for survival, but this - this was truly living! Yesterday, you had bathed in a soul of pure red flame, its embers still flickering in the night's darkness now, before its wielder had been cut down in plain sight of the city watch. They had done nothing - NOTHING! - because of the power they felt emanating from the crowd, emanating, you were sure, from you.

Well, tonight, you have new plans: you will feast on a powerful barbarian, a banquet of blood that will - you dare whisper to yourself - culminate in your ascention as a god! You will make the change from undying to unkillable! True immortality awaits!

Perhaps you are half crazed. You care not. You care now only for power. You track down your target, and sup of his blood. His life energy will soon work its way through your system and fill your body with the power it holds. Godhood is mere hours away!

Still hungry, you leap upon the first fool who wanders into a dark alleyway in which you lay, waiting in ambush.

The hot sting of alcohol courses through his veins, dulling your senses. Perhaps that is why you drank too deeply. Perhaps that is why you didn't hear your assailant until he was already staring at you partaking of your feast. Perhaps that is why he managed to crush your skull.

You flee. You leap from street to street, head ablaze with pain. This can't be happening - you are the lord of the Midmal Mountains! You are the rightful king of Maluria! You are a god!

You collapse on the floor. You notice that your legs have disintegrated behind you, faint wisps of your aged life floating up into the sky. The wind licks at your face, and that too begins to crumble.

The flames that flicker around you - a reminder of your strength - whisper the name

The barbarian tribes of Southern Malura, brutish warriors who carved out an existence on the barren Plains and sandy shores of Rook’s Coast, had arrived by boat some four hundred years ago. They once called an outlying island, known to Malurians as Whalestone, their home, before a tsunami threatened to wipe them out of existence. A few hundred barbarians made it into boats, crossing the Malurian Ocean and landing at Rook’s Coast; they proceeded to rampage through the coastal fishing villages, setting up their own civilization amongst the dunes and harassing any that dared come too close.

Though the Barbarians were a warfaring peoples, they still had a set of spiritual, religious beliefs. The witchdoctors known as Mystics were an integral part of Barbarian life, and indeed, Jinhu had employed a Mystic as his second in command since taking over the barbaric throne. The Mystics advised that they had been forced to flee Whalestone because they were not yet ready to face the god whose coming the tsunami foretold.

That Barbarian god was Huroa, the Bringer of Warfare. Some say his coming was brought about in a moment of ecstasy during the sexual encounter between the sky and the land; others say he lives in the whistles of the winds; still others talk of a great wave crossing the ocean, within which Huroa plots his next war. The stories vary in content but one thing remains consistent; the place of the Mystic as mouthpiece of the god.

When the Great Rift tore the sky in two, the Mystics knew that it would not end well. And yet, they would not advise the Warlord to remain in place, nor would they attempt to redirect the Immortals. To do so would be to spit on the face of their culture, and to turn away from the god who had made them strong. The Mystics collected their battlestaves and war wands, and set out alongside the Immortal army to face their death.

Jinhu himself, now nearly five hundred years old, stood amongst the ranks of The Order, fighting back the horrors with the very weapons that Urbantus had taught him to forge all those years ago. But in the aftermath of the battle, the barbarian tribes were left scattered and without a clear leader. Their golden age as the most renowned warrior force had come to a faltering end. Once the blood had dried, the barbarians as a whole were left as little more than a series of disconnected farming villages. Some tribes fell back into their old ways, harassing the Kingdom’s citizens that came too close, but many simply lived out their lives in relative peace and quiet.



The Mystics, reading the seasons and the weather, learned that Huroa had sent the Great Rift to test the barbarians’ resolve and capabilities in the face of insurmountable enemy forces. They knew nothing of the reasons offered concerning Lioar or Gogith, and if they had, they would have laughed. Huroa was not concerned with the petty matters of man – as long as his people were fighting, what did he care who drew the most attention? He became strong as they became strong, and to curtail their fighting spirit was to slice his right hand clean off. The Barbarians re-armed themselves; they would continue to fight.

The Mystics could see a great red cloud on the horizon; blood would be spilt, and alliances would be drawn. The future of the Barbarian people hung in the balance; it looked as though very few of them would survive. It would be down to a couple of great warriors – swordsmen and spellcasters equally – to push through to the other end of the coming troubles. They had fled once before, and the Barbarians were not a people to be called cowards again. The Mystics steeled themselves. It would do no good to interfere here; let the danger strip the people of their weaknesses, let those who were not strong enough fall to the blades of whatever was waiting around the corner. Only the best would persevere, and only the best would survive. Many Mystics knew that they were not prepared for combat; but that it only took one or two strong warriors to defeat an army of inferiors.

When the Royal Guard attacked, the Barbarians fought back.

You listened to the whispers of nature, and understood: the Royal Guards were coming to destroy your village, and it would be up to you to prepare the people for battle. You felt a sense of purpose that you had never experienced before; as though the outcome of the skirmish with the guards had been predetermined. Guided by your strategies, the village repelled the oncoming soldiers long enough to meet up with the larger body of the tribe. What happened next was out of your control, and you invisibly slipped away, leaving the guards far behind. You could feel that something much more important lay somewhere ahead...somewhere to the North.

This city is baffling. You're not used to so many people - your village was a small, humble place. But the whispers of nature are guiding you now, and they tell you to have patience. Fine, you say to yourself, you will wait; but you are not going to do so without protection. You decide to use a little black magic...



Before you can set upon the final mystical ritual, a tall dark soldier smashes through your door, brandishing a black sword and wearing a horned helm. The soldier rams their forearm into your throat, pushing you against the wall and placing the point of their blade just beneath your jaw. You close your eyes, ready for death; but the pain never comes. The soldier spits on the floor, then releases the pressure on your throat. You slide to the floor as the hulking great soldier turns away with a flourish and leaves you, a quivering wreck on the floor.

You spend the rest of the night shaking in the corner, worrying that the demonic warrior might be back. But you are suddenly snapped out of it when you hear a scream. Beneath the shrill cry is the voice of your purpose...

Your frustration at the interruption of your ritual last night maybe contributed to you breaking focus tonight. You had discovered a location that would enable you to perform your task without fear of being found, and were hurrying there as hastily as your short, stocky legs could carry you. On the way, you must have dropped the scroll you began the process with yesterday, for when you reached into your pocket, you found only the folds of your thick cloth.

Sighing deeply, you retrieved a new scroll and set about your task. Black candles, spiralling smoke, and mystical runes carved into mud and stone alike - you summon a cloak of smoke all about your person, a living cloud that yearns for living matter. You satiate its hunger: a mouse, caught just hours ago, is dropped into the fingers of shifting darkness. The process is a long one, but worthwhile: anyone who draws near will be sucked inwards, and justice will be exacted upon them. The smoke shifts, accepting the offering. A mouse falls to the floor, tiny skeleton glistening with blood.

Another night follows another death. You have forseen all in shapes concealed behind shadows: if only they were clearer! You rue your immaturity, and wish the gods had gifted you the sight of your ancestors.

Nevertheless, you prepare yourself for the grand ritual. If the future is to be shrouded in mystery, so too will you be.

Yet, again, the moonlit night has a different idea. The great horned soldier has decided to pay you a second visit. The brute knocks your door aside, sweeps up the burning candles, and crushes them in a single hand, a slender wisp of smoke emerging from a clenched gauntlet: there will be no spells cast tonight.

Come daybreak, you curse his name, but a great emptiness dwells inside. Fear has burrowed inside you, and not from the visit last night: something far worse is afoot.

Things were becoming tense in Llaranastra.

As the body count grew, the Malurians camped within the city walls began to leave the safety of their taverns less frequently. They shied away behind heavy oak doors, keeping to the shadows of isolation; or stayed only in well-lit public places which they perceived as a sanctuary from the plague of violence that had swept the city. But even here, the streets stank of putrid blood and decaying flesh. The gravediggers had long ago given up trying to stem the tide, and now, bodies were left to decompose in the streets. The bustle of the market was replaced by the chittering of rats and ravens, feasting on the day's dead and dying.

One person in particular felt ill at ease in the metropolis. Dressed in a tattered and ragged cloak, a deep shade of midnight and decorated with glittering runes, the hunched figure walked trance-like between the trees, as though searching for some invisible prayer to guide his way. Beneath a peaked cowl, his hair fell in long braids, thick twists of grey flecked with white, knotted with a delicate grass ribbon at the bottom. They rustled as he walked, and swayed silently as he paused at each tree, laying a hand upon the bark and muttering under his breath.

But there were few trees here, in a city made from stone and fire, a far cry from the soil and grass of his homeland.

As he began the cycle again, people began to murmur under their breath. They wondered why he spent his days moving between the same trees, why he was touching the bark, who he was trying to commune with; there was talk of dark and forbidden magical arts, and the suspicion grew rapidly. There were those who claimed that the hunched man was preparing some kind of ritual, walking a precise summoning circle between the trees in order to contain the demon he hoped to draw from the Pale Void. Others claimed his ravaged appearance was just one of many that he could utilise; should he wish to blend in slaughter innocent civilians, he could do so and never be identified.

Perhaps accounting for their popularity, these rumours were largely true; he was preparing for a ritual, and he could take on different forms should he so choose. But the ritual was not to summon a demon, nor was his hunched stature an illusion of form. He rarely hid his disabilities in the Plainstribe, where his ability to overcome the shackles of his physique brought him higher esteem than any of the able-bodied barbarians. More to the point, the ritual was purely cognitive: the old man knew that he was dying and that if he did not watch out, his time was drawing increasingly closer. The old man sighed: a year ago, he had been ready for the changes that would inevitably come as he continued to defend younger men - or, as was more frequent, as they defended you. Now, though, he believed that he had a purpose in this city, and was determined to outlive his time in order to see his purpose fulfilled.

He thought that by looking to the future, he could outmanoeuvre the threads of Fate.

He was very, very wrong.

As the ritual drew to an end, he saw only blood. He did not know what his purpose was in this city where nature was his only ally, but he did know that his time was upon him. The embers of the great oak tree that had stood guardian of the Llaranastrian crypts fluttered on the wind, blown by the same wind that had sighed for the Mystic's coming death. As they frenziedly caved his skull in, they did not even notice that he came to them willingly, believing that the will of nature finds a way in all ways, and that it must have been his purpose to die on this day...

A strange humming noise surrounds you. It seems to originate from the sleek white mist that has suddenly descended from the skies to envelop the landscape. You reach out to touch one of the slender threads of fog, but your hands do not move.

You look down and see the whole world spread out beneath your feet. You realise that you have passed from the realm of mortals, but before you can embrace your death, you have one final message to whisper on the winds...



Your energies finally disperse, and you become a thousand blossoms of white smoke, drifting through the void and mingling with the great whorl of nature. You will return to this world: when Huroa rides the waves of nature across all the lands and skies, you will surge alongside him, as all of your people coalesce into his weapon and his shield.

But until then...

Every kingdom has its petty thief underclass; those that cling to the edges of society and break, steal and con their way through life. Malura was no different; some of its cities – especially the port towns – did have problems with pickpocketing and looting. Mostly, though, the thieves stole no more than they needed to live, since very few had the contacts to sell stolen goods and turn a real profit.

Thieves in Malura were not treated harshly. Salarenzo had understood that these were simply people who had no other way to survive; true, they could have joined the Royal Guard if they could steal a sword to practice with, or indeed leave their dank homes behind them in search of adventure. But the relatively quieter life of a nimble pickpocket appealed to the majority of the impoverished more than the violent possibility of death out in the field. Salarenzo wasn’t going to conscript them against their will, and he didn’t care for the legions of dungeons that some of the other kingdoms maintained in order to keep society clean of its roguish elements. Shopkeepers and merchants, of course, were less happy about this, but they were often compensated for lost produce. In a way, letting the thieves roam free was a kind of charity from the king, but not such an open gesture that the people of the kingdom complained about it.



But amongst the underclasses, things were not so easy-going.

Stronger, older, tougher thieves would often steal from the youngest; thuggish brutes who had come together to raid a farm for the night’s dinner would stab each other in the back to stay fed for an extra day; it was a very tough life, even without the law chasing you.

But some younger vagabonds were gifted. They had agility, stamina, intelligence – they ran circles around the thuggish elements and, sometimes, decided to take on something more.

Some of these self-proclaimed master thieves set off across the kingdom to loot the big wide world of its possessions – battling monsters on the way like a veteran hero. Though they were not as strong or tough as a warrior, and though they possessed no magical abilities, the rogues were fast and tireless, capable of using their rudimentary weapons to slice and dice their way out of danger. Some others ran away to sea and a life of piracy on the Malurian Ocean, assailing ships and merchants bringing foreign goods to shore. Some used their wealth to buy brothels or gambling houses, some bribed their way into more fortune, and some actually paid themselves out of poverty and into a stable life. But the truly masterful vagabonds, those who had not betrayed their roguish way of life, remained in the grimy streets, where they plotted their next, bigger, better heist.

Indeed, some vagabonds broke into noble houses, stealing family artefacts and heirlooms, not for the profit – though they did make a handsome amount – but for the challenge. The more well guarded the loot, the more rewarding swiping it out from under the noses of the guards would be.

Well, one pair of sibling thieves had their eyes on the greatest heist of all.

They would steal the King’s crown.



Though it was never publicly acknowledged, the pair managed to get to the gates of Yallum with Aurorus’ crown. It was only due to the recently introduced on the spot checks, intended to uncover heroes in hiding, that they were caught by the guards. They were promptly arrested and brought to the castle, the guards throwing the siblings roughly to the floor at the feet of the King.

“Very impressive work.”

The King turned the crown over in his hands, and put a finger on his lower lip. It was obvious that he was thinking deeply about a concerning matter. His eyes narrowed, and he motioned for the pair to be allowed to stand. “I could use someone like you.”

The King’s royal Advisor spluttered and whispered into the King’s ear, but Aurorus snarled and held up his hand. “Enough! I have seen talent in this young pair and I am not going to turn it away lightly. I have a proposal...”

You stood before the King, caught red-handed with his stolen crown in your possession. But he seemed amused – excited even. He told you that he had a proposal: he would lock one of you in his dungeon, while the other was to travel to Llaranastra and kill off any heroes that they found there. When you returned, he promised to pardon you both for your thievery. As a sign of good faith, he was willing to let you decide which would remain in chains and which would go to fight; you were chosen as the one to remain behind. Overhearing the King tell his Advisor that he would have you both confined to the dungeons on your sibling’s return, however, you worked on your escape, stealing the keys from the guard and fleeing in the black of the night; you would go to Llaranastra, try to find your brother, and convince him to return home. If you had to face the King’s men there, then so be it.

You wandered the streets of Llaranastra aimlessly. This city was bigger than any you'd seen before. It was overwhelming, and worse still, you've yet to uncover even a single sign of your brother since you turned up at the city gates. Over the course of today, however, you think you might have gained your first break. You've seen two people you think look somehow...familiar. You decide to slip a sneaky hand into one's pocket, and see what comes out...



You slip your hand into a pocket, and then as fast as a whore’s virginity, you are gone. Scrambling atop a roof, you sit down to study your prize; an ornate dagger, with a slender blade and small hilt. It takes you a moment to realise that it is an dagger.

You shudder at the thought of being caught with this in your possession, and decide to return it at the next possible opportunity. You sit in the crook of a rooftop chimney, staying far away from the probing eyes and fingers of those who would discover you, and drift off into a hazy sleep. The next day, you spot the same man walking down a narrow side street. You decide to follow him, when your attention is grabbed by a squealing scream some small distance to the East...

You feel energised from the rush of battle, the blood pounding in your ears as you dash from sidestreet to sidestreet, snatching glimpses of the guards and citizens between the buildings. Your world is ablaze and you don't want to rest for a single minute.

Just like old times, you suddenly have the urge to prove your superiority over those around you by stealing from under their very noses. You think you've seen someone who would make an easy target, and set off, quick as a silver skyflash, to cause havoc - forgetting, if only for tonight, the reason for your stint in these foreign lands...



Filled with energy, you deftly slip a hand in the pocket of a passing man; he walks with a shuffling gait, hurrying into the falling dusk, shrouded in tattered cloaks weaved with strange runes. Spiralling away, you are a ghost in the crowd, skipping amongst Llaranastra’s citizens with infinite glee.

Finding a secluded spot, you sit down to analyse your takings. It seems to be some sort of scroll that you’ve never seen the likes of before. You tap it with your finger, and the intricate foreign lettering that moments ago graced the surface of the parchment dissolves entirely, the scroll turning to dust and smoke, falling apart in your fingers. You remember hearing inn-rumours of a merchant philanthropist who approached a village of Plainstribe Barbarians, intending to take the instruments of reading and writing to civilize the savages. His supposedly “civilised” tools were confounded by the paradoxical nature of the , who crafted their darkest secrets on magical papers with the help of their long-forgotten magicks. Unless the figure you passed was a thief like yourself - and judging from his awkward strides, you found that unlikely - you realised that you’d found just such a Mystic, far, far from his home.

You have worn yourself ragged these last few days. Your fingers are numb, and you still have found no sign of your brother. Tonight, you will recuperate. Perhaps the morrow will bring you better tidings...

...Alas, it brings only the dank stench of fear.

You sullenly trudge through the crowded streets of Llaranastra. You have been here for what seems like an age, but you have yet to find a single sign of your brother. Dejected, you cast your thieving ways aside. You half-heartedly raise a hand to a passer-by, but you lose the will and let your hand fall.

That's when you see him.

Your brother, slipping behind a tavern not far from here!

You call out, an excited ring to your voice. He doesn't hear you, but you are off at once, darting amongst the throng of people on their way to who-cares-where, wheeling around traders carrying baskets and urns, sliding over crates left discarded in the street. You catch another glimpse of your brother as you round the corner - he is not far, surely he can hear you? But no, you must catch up, and you decide to take a short cut across the roof of a nearby building. You scramble to the top and within seconds you can see your brother heading down a narrow alleyway. Bounding across the tiles, you fling yourself at a hanging signpost, flip yourself down, and land with a soft crouch before him.

He gasps. You look upon him and recoil in disgust.

Half of his face has been charred. Where once you could see your own reflection is now only grisled flesh hanging in low drooping folds. His bright blue eye is dull and lifeless. The skull beneath his hood is barren and black. His mouth twists open in a permanent snarl.

He turns, shields his face, and mutters; "Run."

"What-?" you stammer, edging closer, holding out your hand to comfort him.

"Run!" he roars, pushing you roughly away. You stumble backwards. That's when you hear it.

Your brother spits a curse at the ground. "It's too late. You are doomed. Goodbye, sweet sister."

"I don't understand," you say quietly. "What's happening?"

But your brother only shakes his head and turns away.

It is the last thing you see as stars explode before your eyes and the world goes black.

She had only wanted to find and rescue her brother from his misguided path. Everything else, well, that came secondary. If she became rich or dethroned a tyrant along the way, well hey, that was just happy profit. But so far, she had failed to achieve anything. The only person she had found who might have known where her brother was had ended up dead before she could ask a single question of him. Of course, she had to keep a low profile - it wouldn't do to attract too much attention and wind up dead herself. But she cursed the fact that each and every night, though she had uncovered some interesting facts, it was nothing more than she already knew. Malurians were here, seeking refuge from a mad king. Whether they were trying to eke out an existence as outsiders in a guarded city, or put together a rebellion to retake their place in a homeland that had rejected them, these people were all the same: none could help her.

Her luck was about to change.

She spotted a familiar face - her own, sharing the same eyes and hair, but older, stubbled, and half-hidden beneath a dark hood. She could not see the whole, but she was certain - it was him! Her brother! She called out, raced after him, pushed others aside in her haste, as he stole down dark and deserted backstreets, alleyways where not even the rats would tread. Despite her swiftness, he seemed to stay always ahead of her: she growled in frustration, clambered high onto the rooftops, and dropped silently before him.

He had not been alone.

As the sun rose, that was where they found her body, her hair matted with blood, her bright blue eyes now vacant, staring upwards into an unforgiving sky.



Later that same afternoon, another body was found, a bottle of uncorked poison gripped tightly in the hand. Foam dribbled down the lightly stubbled cheeks and chin. Half of the face was burned away, but a bright blue eye still stared out of an open socket.

The Templars are a group of holy warriors who are well known throughout the Kingdom, and were perhaps the only force that could have rivalled the barbarian tribes at their height of power. Fanatics of their faith, the Templars travelled from city to city spreading the holy word, vanquishing the monstrous abominations that stood in their way, dedicating every bloodied blow to Lioar, the god of Light, and the protector of the holy path.

But the life of a Templar is much more than being a white knight in shining armour. They have to give themselves utterly to the cause; there is no space for connection with anyone in their life but Lioar. It is very lonely, and the isolation has driven many Templars insane. Unable to walk the holy path any longer, they become Blasphemers, heretics and betrayers of the way of the Templar. A large part of the Templar activity is hunting down the Blasphemers, and punishing them for their sins against Lioar. Though they once fought side-by-side, the Templars retain no emotional connection with their former allies that might stay their righteous blades.

Because of the intense strain the Templar lifestyle puts on its acolytes, the higher up the hierarchy one looks, the more unstable the Templars become. The line between speaking in tongues and speaking in gibberish is a thin one, and some orders that have been carried out in the name of Lioar could qualify as having either at their origin. Fifty years ago, every Templar in the Kingdom converged at the behest of the Grand Paladin Lomazar, and all were tasked with building a church that could be seen from the highest mountain ranges of the Embolus Tundra. Needless to say, such a task was nigh on impossible; the view from the mountains was constantly obscured by heavy white snowclouds. Nevertheless, the Templars accepted their task unquestioningly, and proceeded to deforest the entire area. What was once a lush woodland soon became a wasteland housing a half-built church; Lomazar died before its completion, and the new Grand Paladin corrected his predecessors words – each person should make of their heart so large a church that Lioar could see their faith even if he were stood atop the distant Embolus mountains; the message was to be taken metaphorically, and construction on the church ceased.



When the Great Rift opened up, the Templars were understandably confused. Hadn’t they been doing the work of their god for him? Spreading his word, even where it fell on deaf ears, was surely what he had wanted? But no, Lioar was concerned that the Templars were getting more attention for their feats and exploits than he himself, that their fleeting presence was corrupting his influence in the very world he helped to create. That was not right. They had to be punished.

The Templars would not rise up against Lioar in the battle of the Great Rift; instead they withdrew and humbly hung up their arms. They turned to prayer, rejecting adventuring forever. From here on out, the Templars would be a cloistered order, reading and transcribing the feats that Lioar himself had performed when he once walked the earth.

But Lioar massacred them all.

He appeared to them, clothed in a light so bright that their blood vessels burst. He spoke to them in a voice so penetrating that their bones shattered into pieces. He submerged them in an aura of such wrathful vengeance that their flesh was incinerated, bursting into white flames and dripping to the floor.

The Templars were no more.



But perhaps the madness of Lomazar was cosmically inspired after all. A humble Priest of Lioar, making his way through the wastelands on a pilgrimage, happened across the half-finished church on the one year anniversary of the Templar’s massacre. He recalled the story of the holy warriors, and as he turned to leave, noticed a chest, buried beneath years of leaves and grime. Inside the chest were Lomazar’s own sacred armaments. He reached a hand out to touch the cool white metal, and suddenly his body crumpled. He felt the spirit of the old Grand Paladin possess him; and in that brief instant, the Templars were reborn. The ex-priest crusaded across the lands, gathering disciples and followers to inaugurate into the order as he went.

When the King declared the Templars an illegal order, some of the holy warriors turned their weapons over without argument; though their order was sacred to them, obedience was one of the virtues that they preached. Those that protested or tried to reason with the king were promptly arrested. Others, however, fought back, many dying to allow their brethren the chance to flee to the walled city of Llaranastra, where they thought they would be safe.

You were a high-ranking Templar, and felt it was your responsibility to try to salvage the tattered remains of the Order. But when the King announced that the Templar’s were an illegal force, the urge to obey his edict was unbearable. You’ve lost count of how many attempts you started walking with the intent of surrendering your sword and shield to his guards. But something nagged at you, and you turned away at the last minute, every time. When you saw what happened to those that dithered, you finally decided it would be better to be free and disobedient than rot somewhere in a cell whilst clinging to the hem of the King’s robe.

Another glorious day for the legion of Templars! A fresh demon lies slain, and you entire body is filled with the Lioar's Hope! You decide that tonight, you will follow this path of blood as far as it will take you; you kneel and begin to pray for guidance.



You hear the words of your god thundering through your ears; it is almost too much to bear. You lower your head to the floor, clench your hands together, grind your teeth. The armour you wear weighs heavily down upon you, you feel you are sinking into the ground, your legs buckle, you sprawl out, convulsing with pain. The voice, the voice is a bright white hot silence, being etched onto your brain. Blood trickles down your face as your eyes begin to bleed. You feel your soul beginning to break –

– when all of a sudden, the pain stops, and you are left with a single word: .

You lie there, shuddering, for the rest of the night. You do not sleep – how could you even bear the thought of dreaming tonight? No. You remain vigilant. You have found someone, who your god deigns to be an innocent. Your duty to the Light has not yet been fulfilled until the scourge of evil has been eradicated.

Hours later, you hear a scream. It is enough to move you to your feet. You recite one last prayer, and head off into the morning light.

You feel somehow more prepared tonight: the ordeals of last night, coupled with the death of a servant of the Light, have steeled you to overcome the pain that direct communication with your god exposes you to.

You were a fool to think it would be easier tonight.

The pain brings you to your knees within seconds. Your ears burst from the pain, and the world goes silent around you. Saliva seeps from your lips, as you lose control of your body. Your legs are slick with urine, your ribs crack in intricate patterns, your tongue swells in your mouth. It is worse than ever before. And all you feel, impaling your soul, is one word: .

With this thought in mind, you fall unconscious.

Day breaks, and you crawl to your feet. You know that to commune with your god again will kill you. You look into the sun’s virgin light, and thank Lioar for all she has done.

Exhausted, torn, and utterly alone.

The voice of your god has left you. Having slain an innocent, you know that you have been abandoned. The blood that stains your blade chokes the light from your view. You toss the white steel aside and pace the room like a man caged.

Eventually, you sit, dejected, and where once you might have prayed, can only whimper in sadness.

Every day is exhaustive. It is a constant fight to remain within the Light. You'd heard of Templar brothers who had given in to their insanity, let the madness take them over their every waking moment, and blasphemed against all that is good and true in this world.

Is this what was happening to you?

You couldn't say. All you know is that each night is stalked by nightmares more twisted than the last, a barbaric parade of violent impulse or perverse lust.

Without your God to guide you...how much longer can you survive?

The madness was becoming unbearable. This once proud warrior was now no more than a tarnished and tattered husk. His pallid flesh hung in loose folds from his hollow cheekbones, his vacant white eyes set in sunken grey sockets. Framing this haunted face was his wild and greasy hair, falling in long clumps about him. Beneath his cracked and dented armour, filthy and pungent rags could be glimpsed. People walked past quickly, seeing his insanity and worrying that his condition was contagious.

He spent his days muttering silent prayers to a god whose name no one recognised. Nor did he recognise the figures who moved around him. They appeared to be no more than shadows dancing behind a mist so thick that it threatened to choke him.

But there were those who remembered his face. Behind the rabid and twisted mask he now wore, you could faintly make out the face of the faithful Templar who had first arrived in the walled city. But they also recalled that he had slaughtered an innocent soul, a humble teacher of numbers. Well, if he was capable of that, who was to say what more he may have done? The rust-coloured blood that flecked his white blade and platemail had not escaped the Malurian's notice...

Then again, it was unclear whether he'd have been able to inflict any great harm upon another person, or if he'd have been more dangerous to himself. In the end, when his suffering was mercifully brought to an end, it was in fact unintentional.

Lurching sideways in the darkness, the Templar stumbled straight into the barrel-like chest of another warrior. He raised his eyes slowly in apology, and screamed. The face was one he had seen before in his dreams, come back to haunt him. He reached for his sword, to banish the nightmarish horror that stood before him, and was immediately knocked backwards by the reflex defensive blow of a veteran fighter. It wasn't supposed to be fatal: but frail from insomnia and psychosis, the Templar stumbled. His arms pinwheeled, he looked up to the sky, heard a whisper through the clouds, and let it all go.

As blood oozed out of his mangled white helmet, this warrior of light finally flickered out and faded...

The Alua Vanquishers tower above other men, great hulking soldiers in dark steel armour, ready to cleave bodies in two at the bidding of their master. Indeed, the Alua is an organisation of mercenaries for hire, who protect the interests of whoever pays them the most gold. Their training ground, the Alua Keep, is the stuff of legends. Based in the northern mountain range of the Sixteen Claws, trainees are taught how to fight as one man armies, ready to assault enemy forces or protect a single target.

At one time, this service was commonly used by the noble elites who had not yet grasped the skill of swordplay, and needed a little more help getting from place to place unmolested. But, at one point in their blood-soaked history, the Vanquishers were used as pawns in the game of interfamilial rivalries, and things grew out of hand – two Vanquishers facing off against one another was not something the Alua condoned. The battle wreaked havoc as the very streets became a warzone, stalls and storefronts smashed as the broad sweeping blades clashed with dark steel shields. Eventually one Vanquisher pinned the other; but he refused to kill his brother, ignoring direct commands from the nobleman who had hired him.

“We do not kill our own kind.”

Enraged at this disobedience, the nobleman sprung upon his Vanquisher, pulling a knife from within his robes. The flimsy weapon could do very little, and the Alua instinctively responded to the threat. The nobleman died instantly, and the Vanquisher was arrested for murder.

After this, the Alua fell out of favour. No one wanted to hire a giant that wouldn’t obey them. Not even the struggling merchants were comfortable bringing an Alua on their journeys across bandit-infested roads in fear that the mercenaries would turn on them!

Though they continued training, their numbers dwindled. They stopped recruiting – not that there were many soldiers eager to sign up – and slowly faded out of memory.



When the Great Rift opened, however, the Alua made a comeback. They sent swathes of their soldiers out alongside the regular armies of the King, stood beside mages and monks, and battered every monster that came within their sight. The swirling blades and charging shields were a sight to behold; each Vanquisher could destroy groups of ten, fifteen, even twenty monsters at a time with a well timed swing of their huge weapons. It was a truly deadly dance.

When the most twisted demons stepped out from the Pale Void, the Vanquishers were the only warrior to remain unshaken; they stood firm and ran towards their foes, full of courage and lust for violence. After all, many of the Alua worshipped Gogith, the Living Shadow, who taught that instincts – however animalistic or primal – must be embraced above all else. Those that sought Gogith’s guidance in battle were run through with a desire for destruction and bloodshed, seeking murderous thrills to prove that they themselves still breathe.

Of course, as the greater demons poured out, the Alua fell.

But the Alua had not been rash. Though they had sent many of their experienced warriors into the fray, a significant number had been kept behind. Salarenzo acknowledged the great skill and sacrifice of the Alua, and proposed a deal to those who still lived; rather than surviving on scraps taken from the monsters plaguing the towns to the North – as they had been doing for decades – the King offered the Alua a royal contract; they would fight as elite generals in the Royal Guard, they would support the king’s barons in defence of their own townships, and most importantly, the top Alua generals would serve as the King’s personal guardians. In return, they would be kept well funded, and could begin to expand their order once more.



And so it came to pass that when Aurorus passed his decree, he had the Alua at his disposal. But he was concerned; he knew that a Vanquisher had disobeyed his master once before, with dire consequences. He had to pick carefully; would the Vanquisher do his bidding, or would he be betrayed?

The barbarian tribes of Southern Malura, brutish warriors who carved out an existence on the barren Plains and sandy shores of Rook’s Coast, had arrived by boat some four hundred years ago. They once called an outlying island, known to Malurians as Whalestone, their home, before a tsunami threatened to wipe them out of existence. A few hundred barbarians made it into boats, crossing the Malurian Ocean and landing at Rook’s Coast; they proceeded to rampage through the coastal fishing villages, setting up their own civilization amongst the dunes and harassing any that dared come too close.

However, the monarchy and scattered barbarian tribes co-existed peacefully enough since the reign of Salarenzo’s great-grandfather, Urbantus, who took the throne some two hundred and fifty years ago. Urbantus was a diplomat with a silver tongue, and had managed to organise a truce with the barbarian’s Great Warlord, Jihnu. It hadn’t been easy; the two rulers had engaged in combat, much to the displeasure of the king’s advisors. But, surprising all in attendance, Urbantus bested the barbarian, a mortal blow for a culture built on warfare. In truth, it was the King’s superior weapons and armour, thick white-gold plate forged in the royal smithy, that had given him the inevitable edge.

“Give. Now.”

The King knew that to refuse would be to ruin any chance of alliance. And yet he also knew he had something that the barbarian wanted. He couldn’t just hand it over without getting anything in return. And so he offered a deal; “I will show you how to make your own; but in return, you must respect our position at the head of this Kingdom and allow our citizens and merchants free passage through your lands.”

Though he was wild, violent and short-tempered, the Warlord knew that he had been defeated, and had little choice than to submit to the King, entering into a truce that has held ever since.



When the Great Rift opened, the barbarians sent their Immortals to fight alongside the rest of the kingdom’s forces. Battle-tested and ready, the barbarian warriors were the most revered soldiers across all the lands of Malura. To hold the title of Immortal, a barbarian warrior must have fought in over one hundred battles, skirmishes or duels, having never lost once; testament to their power and longevity, the barbarians had nearly a thousand such warriors.

But faced with the demons of the Pale Void, they failed to live up to their name; falling in great numbers, the civilized world and the barbarians bled as one.

Jinhu himself, now nearly five hundred years old, stood amongst the ranks of The Order, fighting back the horrors with the very weapons that Urbantus had taught him to forge all those years ago. But in the aftermath of the battle, the barbarian tribes were left scattered and without a clear leader. Their golden age as the most renowned warrior force had come to a faltering end; with no one to unite them, fighting erupted on a small scale across all the Plains, each rookie warrior vying for that most glorious position at the head of all tribes. Soon, however, very few warriors were left standing, and once the blood had dried, the barbarians as a whole were left as little more than a series of disconnected farming villages. Some tribes fell back into their old ways, harassing the Kingdom’s citizens that came too close, but many simply lived out their lives in relative peace and quiet.



But, true to their nature, the barbarians were the first to pick up their weapons and go out on the hunt once more. Their god was Huroa, the Bringer of Warfare, after all. The barbarian mystics, reading the seasons and the weather, did not believe that the Great Rift opened as a vengeful act of god; they thought it was a challenge sent by Huroa to test them, a challenge that they had failed. It seemed natural that they would begin to satiate his desire for destruction once more by seeking out further violence. Still disunited, they never managed to regain their former glory, but without a doubt the Plains were amongst the safest places in the whole Kingdom. Once the barbarians returned their weapons to their hands, very few monsters survived to stalk the lands.

And so it was with a great sense of dread that the Royal Guards handed over the decree. Unsurprisingly, the barbarians fought back; they had respected the rule of the Kingdom because for a long time they had no reason not to. But now, this was an abomination against their god! Yet the Royal Guard swept through each village, overwhelming the barbarians through sheer number; Aurorus had expected resistance, and dispatched a great number of his men accordingly. Some of the barbarians fell into chains, but many fell into their graves. The barbarians were not really the sort of people to be taken to the jails in any other way.

You are a sixth Puktu Immortal; a warrior who has conquered six different tribes, and now sits as their leader. Many believed that you would eventually rise to fill the space left by Warlord Jinhu if your campaign continued, but you were stopped in place when hordes of royal guards invaded your village. You managed to fight them off, and in doing so defend your honour and your people. But although you are a brave and competent warrior, you’re not stupid; knowing the guards would be back tenfold, you set off North, hoping to survive for as long as you could on your hunting skills alone. Last night, you arrived in Llaranastra, scaled the wall, and dropped silently down into the backstreets.

Something feels...strange.
You put your hand on your stomach. You can feel it vibrating softly. The throbs grow more and more intense, until -
You try to croak out a curse in your native tongue - but no sound comes out.
You choke on the word, your eyes bulge, you slam your fist into a wall.
All to no avail.

A strong and resilient warrior knows the value of rest, and you are both in equal measure. The moment you arrive at your lodgings, you make straight for your room and the sweet breath of oblivion. Let those who would flutter beneath the moonlight like duskmoths have their fun and games. You will recuperate from the day’s activities and begin anew on the morrow...

...But your rest is disturbed by the sound of a scream. You rise, giddy, weaker than you were before. Something is wrong.

You roar with rage as the world swims before your eyes, a weakness that you have never before felt leaving a deep ache within your limbs. You stumble, faltering at the doorway to your abode. Just last night you had thought that a sleeping Immortal was as dangerous as an armed one, but now, you’re not so sure. Light-headed, you clamber upon the bed, and drift off to a tormented sleep.

The next day you rise with the sun, and a warm sensation of strength passes through your rugged body. It seems you have regained your place amongst the ranks of the Immortals, becoming once again a warrior ready to face anything that the world might throw at you.

These Northern folk and their strange customs - women weep and children cry in the night at the sight of blood. They carry away the dead and conceal them in great stone tents. They willingly cut their hair short and lie with just one woman. All of this confounds you, but nothing is as strange to you as the hot weakness you feel sweeping over your body again tonight.

The strength seeps from your body. You stumble sideways and crash into a stall, bringing it to the ground around you. You later wake in the same spot, an angry merchant clucking his nonsense language at you.

All of a sudden, his tongue falls silent. You do not know how to fear, but this northerner does, and you see the horror take hold - a terror whose source he does not recognise.

Well, perhaps you'll track the source. You're tired of feeling so weak, and vow to leave this dreadful place. The men at the gates had refused you once before - no Malurian would step beyond their watch until the murderous mess of the past few weeks had been sorted out - but you knew that if you brought them the killers' heads, the tune they sang might ring differently.

An uneventful night passes. You sharpen your handaxe by firelight, looking to the stars. You feel that soon, it will be too late to free your people from the mad tyrant King who demanded you all lay down your weapons. Throwing your small axe aside, you reach for the enormous great axe that saw you rise to the top of your tribe. You study your face in its rough surface. It is a face of a warrior, of a man who will never give in. You spit on the floor, on the King who has tried to defang you. You roar to yourself, for your will is too strong to be defeated! Not by him! Not by any man!

These thoughts of violence fresh in your head, you slam open the door to your tavern, wrenching it from its hinges. It is time to see what today will bring.

You were weary, resting from the toils of the day and all that had happened, when an antlered man appeared at your lodgings. He tries to shout in your face, to force his imposing presence upon you, but you are not frightened. No mere man of metal can dare terrify one such as you. You scream back, thumping your chest and send him scurrying on his way.

You wonder if this man was a pitiful retribution from your god. You curse his name. You don’t need them. You are a sixth puktu Plainstribe Immortal! You can strike out alone and defeat this world!

When you arise in the morrow, you are greeted by two menacing grins, and an antlered helm upon a pike.

These notes awakened a huge and irate man. He emerged with his battleaxe at the ready. He looked at these two men, so openly displaying their violent acts, and knew that it was they who stood against him in battle.

"HEAHEAUHEAHEA! I WILL DESTROY YOU BOTH!" he roared. "I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED!"

The monk thrust his staff, blood spraying outwards and covering the eyes of the great Barbarian fighter. He was not one to cower from a fight, but even he struggled to fight blind. He lowered his axe to wipe the sticky crimson substance from his eyes. At that moment, the Bard leapt into battle with daggers in each hand, piercing the huge barbarian's chest.

"HEAHEHAUEHAUE!" the barbarian manically shouted, blood pouring from the puncture-wounds. "I WILL NOT GO DOWN SO EASILY! THIS IS BUT A SCRATCH!"

The bard stumbled backwards in disbelief. He watched as the monk delivered two strikes with his palms to the unarmoured temple of the barbarian. The axe whistled downwards, just missing the shimmering form of the monk, who ducked and weaved and avoided every strike. Blood continued to trickle out from his body, but the barbarian fought on. It was as though...as though he truly were immortal!

But...it wasn't truly real, was it? The Bard recalled stories of such feats of strength, of men whose lives continued beyond their own death: decapitated, these men continued fighting still. He had always thought that they were stories of fantasy and myth - never had he suspected that they might actually be based in truth!

The barbarian roared once more and thundered towards them, raging like a bull on heat. But he was sluggish now, and his blow was easily evaded by the Bard. Sheathing his daggers, the bard reached for a black long sword, stolen from the Alua that they had dispatched the night before. He struggled to lift the blade, the pure weight of it straining his arms. A second axe strike whipped down at him, and the blow shattered the sword. A shard of black metal shot out and lodged itself in the barbarians throat. No longer could he roar, but still he fought on, gurgling and drowning in his own blood.

The monk delivered another blow, crushing his jaw, splitting his head horizontally, teeth flying everywhere. The barbarian swung his axe wildly. The monk looked into the red eyes of the Immortal, and thought he saw there the face of death itself. The axe struck a wall, sticking place. The barbarian tried to pull it out, but had not the strength. He could not let go of his weapon, even as the monk swept his staff swiftly, shattering the arm at the elbow. There was no more that the barbarian could do but sit there, grasping his weapon, as his life force drained out of him.

Even in death, they could not pry open his titan-like grip, and as his spirit joined his people in the sky beyond the sky, his hands held that waraxe for all of eternity...

Monks are a rare breed in the Kingdom. Turning away from all civilisation and order, the Monk is the prototypical hermit. But more than this, Monks are amongst the only people in the whole Kingdom who do not worship a god.

The Monks atheism allows them to concentrate solely on the natural world. They believe that the world was created through a chain reaction of cosmic energies, and that it only exists as a counter-balance to the chaos of the skies. Whilst the skies arbitrarily create and destroy matter at an unbelievable pace, the world gradually and purposefully expands. Unlike the believers of the gods, the Monks think that when we die, our soul does not transcend existence and reach a higher plane alongside the gods; rather, our body forms one with nature, which is slowly tipping the scales in favour of our world as it amasses more energy from the deceased. When the world possesses greater energies than the chaotic cosmos that birthed it, the skies will be wrenched from their positions, plummeting earthwards, crushing the planet and causing another series of chain reactions that will birth a new world. The Monks are the only ones who will be able to ride the waves of the skies to this new world, allowing them to pass the story of the birth of the world down the generations, until the next time, and so on, ad infinitum. The legends of the Monks claim that this is how they came to exist on this planet, and how they alone understand the secrets of the world.

Preparation for the end of this world and the start of the new one is understandably a daunting task. The Monks must steel their bodies and their minds, and spend much of their lives meditating and training themselves to endure harsh punishment. Their meditative state enables them to see the tipping of the equilibrium, and is often brought about by consuming the sweetened liquid of various plants found in the Irium forests. As such, the Monks habitat tends to be localised in this area. Their theories about the world rarely spread further than their own confines.



It should come as no surprise that the Great Rift was ambiguously received by the Monks. Initially, they celebrated the tearing of the sky as the ending of the world, as the scales finally being overturned. But when the world remained stable, their understanding was shaken. Untold amounts of bodies had been offered up during the war – why then had the world not collapsed inwards? One of the eldest Monks, Esiah the Timeless, suggested that this was a test, a challenge. If they could get inside the Void, they would be transported upwards to the Cosmos itself, where they could observe the destruction of the planet from afar.

As it stood, the Monks worked with the Order to fight back the slew of Rift demons. Many died along the way, but a significant number pushed through into the Rift itself. No one knows where they went when it shut – though they certainly did not get to witness the end of the world.



It is unclear how the legends of the Monks lived on after it seemed that all of them had perished or been sealed within the Void. It is rumoured that deep within Irium forest, the trees steal secrets; perhaps a traveller, losing his way, learnt of the legends in this way, and, convinced by their allure, set about preparing for the end. Maybe a few Monks, so isolated from the world, had no idea that the Rift Void had opened, and lived on, oblivious, for over a decade. Or perhaps Esiah had left some Monks behind, in case she had been wrong. However their legends survived, they remained a hidden and guarded secret for many years. Aurorus did not even know that they existed, until a drunken Monk stumbled into two Royal Guards combing through Irium Forest. At first, the Monk was arrested for his inappropriate behaviour, but soon, the new King figured out that he too was a hero.

This signalled the start of the hunt for all remaining Monks. Being atheists, they were the lowest of the low, as far as Aurorus was concerned; none that were caught were spared, and all were sentenced to death.

You learnt your craft in Irium Woods, spending most of your life in isolation after you had completed your initial training as a young child. As far as you know, you are the last remaining living Monk. Your siblings have been carted off to the King’s dungeons over the last few months as not only traitors to the King’s decree but as blasphemers to Lioar’s Light. None returned. When you too were taken away, things were not looking good for the Cosmic Message. And so when the King offered to spare your life in return for a simple favour, you had no choice in the matter; if you died, the legends died with you.

You sit down at night to muse upon the passing of the unholy mage who was sent to aid you. You suspect his death will have little impact on the King's demands. And so you set off, hoping to suffocate one of the Traitors who stands in your way, taking a quick detour to offer another the false hand of friendship. Perhaps this token gesture would prove useful in the future...



You wake early, as is your custom, and proceed to carefully peel a ripe poali fruit. You bite down into the sweet fleshy centre, and sit on the edge of your bed, chewing and cleansing your mind. When you have finished eating the fruit, you close your fist around its stone, crumbling it into dust. You wipe your hands on your white cloth robe, and head out of the door, towards the bustling city streets of Llaranastra's market district, when you hear a scream...

The fools. You led them to slaughter an innocent priest. He worshipped a false god, of course, but his soothing hands nevertheless possessed restorative powers that could have been your undoing. You felt a pang of guilt. Perhaps, had you evaded capture, you might have protected him from his fate. But things were as the Cosmos wished, and you had to be his executioner.

Putting these thoughts aside, you set off to pay a friend a visit, hoping once more to garner his trust. These feelings - guilt, friendship, sadness - invaded your thoughts. After setting up the last of your charms, you returned immediately to your bedchambers. Forsaking your sworn duty to the King - if only for one night - made you feel penance for the hollow space in your stomach that had been slowly filling with the Priest’s blood.

Tonight, your compatriot has annoyed you beyond measure. Whilst you have been out, risking your very life to serve your King, he has remained safely hidden away in his tavern room. Well, the skies take him! You refuse to stain your hands with blood tonight - especially the corrupt blood you have in mind to spill.

And just as well too: the day brings with it the stench of decay and death, and you are glad that it does not cling to you.

You meet with your associate. Tonight will be an important night. You have sent the young singer to meet with your fourth associate, a scout that the King sent ahead to gather information, some kind of thief you believe. This will be your first rendezvous with him: you hope that he does not disappoint, for you are starting to feel the pressure of eyes all around you. Do they suspect that beneath your placid veneer lies a killer? You must plan carefully, and take whatever tomorrow brings as best you can. The Cosmos are eternally in flux - what are the follies of man compared to them? You are ready to dive head first into both...

Your companion, the Bard, has done fairly well these last few nights, you suppose. But now he insists on writing some sort of song to commemorate your ordeal. He strums his lute and you glower at him, telling him that if he remains silent, you will see this through together: but should he play his little tune, you might just have to leave him for dead.

Leaving him with those chilling words, you set out into the night. You track down an antlered man, a hulk of metal. He seems somehow weaker than before, as though he has already accepted his oncoming defeat. You notice wryly that he has no shield, and so you attack: first, clattering him on the head, breaking his wrist, and then finally delivering the fatal strike directly to his heart.

You take his head as a grim trophy. You need not fear anymore: there is but one traitor left, and you will deal with him on the morrow...

His snapped spine hung limply from a gaping hole where his neck should have been, and the lowest part of the helmet was covered with blood, dripping in rivulets between the fingers of the man who held it upon a wooden staff, puddling on the floor. He was wearing a flowing white robe, his hair was shaved, and around his neck were a string of beads, signifying him as a Monk of the Cosmic Order. Beside him, reclining lazily and strumming a lute with a sardonic grin, was a man wearing a feathered hat and rough stubble upon his cheeks.

A huge and irate man emerged with his battleaxe at the ready. He looked at these two men, so openly displaying their violent acts, and knew that it was they who stood against him in battle.

"HEAHEAUHEAHEA! I WILL DESTROY YOU BOTH!" he roared. "I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED!"

The monk thrust his staff, blood spraying outwards and covering the eyes of the great Barbarian fighter. He was not one to cower from a fight, but even he struggled to fight blind. He lowered his axe to wipe the sticky crimson substance from his eyes. At that moment, the Bard leapt into battle with daggers in each hand, piercing the huge barbarian's chest.

"HEAHEHAUEHAUE!" the barbarian manically shouted, blood pouring from the puncture-wounds. "I WILL NOT GO DOWN SO EASILY! THIS IS BUT A SCRATCH!"

The bard stumbled backwards in disbelief. He watched as the monk delivered two strikes with his palms to the unarmoured temple of the barbarian. The axe whistled downwards, just missing the shimmering form of the monk, who ducked and weaved and avoided every strike. Blood continued to trickle out from his body, but the barbarian fought on. It was as though...as though he truly immortal!

But...it wasn't truly real, was it? The Bard recalled stories of such feats of strength, of men whose lives continued beyond their own death: decapitated, these men continued fighting still. He had always thought that they were stories of fantasy and myth - never had he suspected that they might actually be based in truth!

The barbarian roared once more and thundered towards them, raging like a bull on heat. But he was sluggish now, and his blow was easily evaded by the Bard. Sheathing his daggers, the bard reached for a black long sword, stolen from the Alua that they had dispatched the night before. He struggled to lift the blade, the pure weight of it straining his arms. A second axe strike whipped down at him, and the blow shattered the sword. A shard of black metal shot out and lodged itself in the barbarians throat. No longer could he roar, but still he fought on, gurgling and drowning in his own blood.

The monk delivered another blow, crushing his jaw, splitting his head horizontally, teeth flying everywhere. The barbarian swung his axe wildly. The monk looked into the red eyes of the Immortal, and thought he saw there the face of death itself. The axe struck a wall, sticking place. The barbarian tried to pull it out, but had not the strength. He could not let go of his weapon, even as the monk swept his staff swiftly, shattering the arm at the elbow. There was no more that the barbarian could do but sit there, grasping his weapon, as his life force drained out of him.

As for the Monk, he too was too cynical to return directly to King Aurorus. But he did strike out for Maluria, recruiting along the way a number of new followers to maintain his beliefs in the Cosmos. Having established a settlement in the allegedly haunted woods that bordered the two kingdoms, he made his way towards the King. He found the Kingdom a very different place from that which he left: the Brotherhood of Light was being led by a puppet of the King, and were executing all those who did not swear oaths to Lioar's Light. No one dared stand up against them: and how could they? No one who remained in the kingdom had the strength. All of those who might have made a stand had been killed or arrested. They run rampant through the countryside, in packs of eight or more, building ever larger churches to please the power-mad king. Before the Monk had even reached Aurorus, he was beheaded for blasphemy by a battalion of just such Priests.

The King had gotten what he wanted. His Kingdom was in ruin.

Bards were once very common throughout Malura. They were also a very varied people; some were heroes who had seen battle first-hand, and who had decided to recount their epic feats to those unable to face the battlefield, whilst others were spreaders of rumour and hearsay picked up in one town and embellished in another. Still more fabricated their tales, weaving together the most fantastic and exciting threads of drama in order to entertain their listeners and earn some gold.

Unsurprisingly, Bards tended to move around a lot; the same stories, even when drawn from an impressive repertoire, can begin to dull over time. Moving onto new cities offered the Bard a constant freshness and ever increasing opportunities to experience the world. A Bard telling of his or her own exploits naturally benefited from ever changing environments and the lack of commitment that this offered, whilst a story creator could gain inspiration from his time away from the city.

As might be expected from such a carefree life, Bards rarely allowed themselves attachment to one particular person or place. Most had as many lovers as they do fines at inns, tending as they did to slip out before paying their tabs in most cities they stayed at – although there always used to be a kind of honorary pact between the innkeepers and the entertainers, since the custom a good Bard could bring to an inn was often more valuable than the money for the room itself, usually justifying their sneaky and hasty exit.

Bards were not only masters of the spoken word, many were also gifted musicians, capable of memorising melodies after hearing them but once on a whole range of instruments. Their music had a subtle effect on those who heard it, seemingly speaking to the heart and toying with the emotions of the listener. A number of Bards were renowned for holding the handcuffs at bay with a well timed tune and a well crafted lie.



When the Great Rift opened, many Bards flocked to it; most had seen smaller rifts before, and some had even partaken in or witnessed their closing. Such battles always provided fantastic narrative material, and no Bard wanted to lose the edge other his competition by missing out.

None had quite expected the massacre that they witnessed in those early days of the skirmish. The monstrous creatures that burst out of the Pale Void maurauded through the assembled warriors, dealing out death and maiming those that were not fortunate enough to perish immediately. The beasts had no notion of the Bards as non-combatants, and those that had never fought before were overrun and swiftly killed. Those that had been adventurers in their youth or those who still carried a sword in one hand and a lute across their back managed to live a short while longer, but the unexpected strength of the first waves of beasts was simply too much.

Some of the Bards managed to escape, hide, or meet up with other fragmented groups of heroes, and some, who had had a longer journey, turned up after the slaughter of the first few days. It is by the determination of these few men and women that a coherent record of the battle remains; those heroes that survived often knew only their own particular series of fights, whilst the Bards could supply an overview of the whole war. They also helped to keep morale high, recounting the days victories, whilst their tales of the losses gave the warriors confidence that their deaths – should they come – would not be in vain, and their battle would not be forgotten.



But after the Great Rift closed, no one wanted to hear the Bards’ tales of heroic deeds – it was that sort of behaviour that had angered the gods in the first place. The Bards nearly slipped out of existence, and with them, the great stories of the past. Only one or two Bards continued to ply their trade, writing their stories down when no one would listen. Most others just played their instruments, though their music lacked the heart that had made it so special before.

When Aurorus took the throne, it was the Bards who received the harshest punishment. The court’s Royal Minstrel had first inspired Aurorus’ love for heroes, and he now felt that it was the Bards who bore the greatest responsibility for the gods’ hatred of men; after all, if anyone represented a culture of hero admiration, it was the Bard. They were stripped of their instruments, and those who protested had their tongues cut out.

After the King embarked upon his crusade against storytellers, you had to go into hiding. You managed to remain hidden from his probing fingers for quite some time, until a maid found the papers upon which you had written down the tales of your heroic deeds of the past. She reported you to the City Guards for a handsome reward, and you were ambushed that very same day. Aurorus wasn’t going to offer you a reprieve, but you begged for the chance to live. You told him how you would act as his propaganda chief, writing whatever lies he wanted the people to believe. He didn’t promise you your life, but he was willing to see what you could do.

You decide to take it easy tonight. You’re not accustomed to just sitting back and letting the world go on its way. Your fingers strum invisible instruments and your lips breathe unwritten ballads, but you remain firmly within the confines of the tavern, and the city thrives and throbs in the night’s lustful darkness.

When a scream cuts through the morning dew, you feign surprise, and push through the crowd for a closer look...

You recline lazily in your bed. The night is young and you can hear the merriment of the drunkards in the tavern below, but you dare not show your face. There are those who do not care for the sweet lyricism of your poetry, the sheer scale of your epics. But they will. You are waiting for the right time to strike - a moment so fine that your music will crackle like ice, an intricate weave of sounds shattering across the surface of silence.

Unlike many other travellers who pass through this cheap inn, you get a good night's sleep. You rise the next morning, fresh and ready to face the world. You have a feeling that today, you will find the material for a new tale...

Finally, you bestir yourself. The lute slung across your back is your shield. Your words are your weapons. Your footsteps are a purposeful tune, a melody played on the scales of destiny.

You spy your victim, head lowered over a tangled body, blood dripping from his lips.

'Lioar's Light,' you curse. Maybe this isn't such a good idea after all...

But the creature looks up, stares straight in your face, hisses, and attacks.

How a lowborn Bard was any match for the centuries old Nielwarren lord, you will never know. All you saw was the blur of your lute crashing into the face, strings snapping as the neck tore asunder. The next thing you saw, the Nielwarren lord was scurrying away on all fours. You gave pursuit, but he had disappeared.

You returned to your tavern, certain that you had not killed the ancient lord.

But the next morning, as horror rose all around you, the Nielwarren's bloodied remains soothed your anxiety. You were perhaps the only man who did not shudder at the great shadow of fear that swept the skies, for you alone recognised the unholy aura as that of the late Lord.

His spirit had passed to the Pale Void.

He was dead.

You feel the pressure building. The end is in sight for you. Just a few more verses remain to be added to the epic tale you are unravelling here, and you will have gained the favour of the king - or so you hope. You can't shake the memory of those piercing eyes as he sent you away: they seemed to promise death even on your success. You determine to remain in Llaranastra even after you have dispatched the last of the Traitors. The story will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams, but only if you are allowed to tell it. You ponder this for a moment, before meeting with the fourth member of your team, a scout the King had taken from the dungeons and dispatched ahead of you. You've not yet had the chance to discuss whatever information he has gathered, but tonight you will speak at length.

Or so you had thought.

When you arrived at the alleyway, a dirty little girl-thief was talking with him. You recognised her - she was one of the Malurians. Was this an ambush, or was the scout providing you with a fresh victim? You did not wait around to find out: lashing out, you caved in the skull of the young girl. She crumpled to the floor. When you turned to face the scout, he had vanished. All you could hear was the weeping of the wind...

These past few days have been, well...rather exciting! You get ahead of yourself, wanting to write your story already, to tell of your epic feats. What if you should not make it? Someone needs to know, to retell you into history for ages to come! But your companion firmly denies you the chance. You hold out your lute ready to strum a discordant melody, and stun him with your own soundwaves, but he is gone, a whisper of white silk in the night.

He returns later that night, carrying a grim trophy: the head of one of the last of the traitors. He throws it down at your feet.

“I did what you could not,” he says. “I have brought us sweet victory.”

His snapped spine hung limply from a gaping hole where his neck should have been, and the lowest part of the helmet was covered with blood, dripping in rivulets between the fingers of the man who held it upon a wooden staff, puddling on the floor. He was wearing a flowing white robe, his hair was shaved, and around his neck were a string of beads, signifying him as a Monk of the Cosmic Order. Beside him, reclining lazily and strumming a lute with a sardonic grin, was a man wearing a feathered hat and rough stubble upon his cheeks. He played a series of chilling notes, and with a solemn voice, began to sing:




These notes awakened a huge and irate man. He emerged with his battleaxe at the ready. He looked at these two men, so openly displaying their violent acts, and knew that it was they who stood against him in battle.

"HEAHEAUHEAHEA! I WILL DESTROY YOU BOTH!" he roared. "I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED!"

The monk thrust his staff, blood spraying outwards and covering the eyes of the great Barbarian fighter. He was not one to cower from a fight, but even he struggled to fight blind. He lowered his axe to wipe the sticky crimson substance from his eyes. At that moment, the Bard leapt into battle with daggers in each hand, piercing the huge barbarian's chest.

"HEAHEHAUEHAUE!" the barbarian manically shouted, blood pouring from the puncture-wounds. "I WILL NOT GO DOWN SO EASILY! THIS IS BUT A SCRATCH!"

The bard stumbled backwards in disbelief. He watched as the monk delivered two strikes with his palms to the unarmoured temple of the barbarian. The axe whistled downwards, just missing the shimmering form of the monk, who ducked and weaved and avoided every strike. Blood continued to trickle out from his body, but the barbarian fought on. It was as though...as though he truly immortal!

But...it wasn't truly real, was it? The Bard recalled stories of such feats of strength, of men whose lives continued beyond their own death: decapitated, these men continued fighting still. He had always thought that they were stories of fantasy and myth - never had he suspected that they might actually be based in truth!

The barbarian roared once more and thundered towards them, raging like a bull on heat. But he was sluggish now, and his blow was easily evaded by the Bard. Sheathing his daggers, the bard reached for a black long sword, stolen from the Alua that they had dispatched the night before. He struggled to lift the blade, the pure weight of it straining his arms. A second axe strike whipped down at him, and the blow shattered the sword. A shard of black metal shot out and lodged itself in the barbarians throat. No longer could he roar, but still he fought on, gurgling and drowning in his own blood.

The monk delivered another blow, crushing his jaw, splitting his head horizontally, teeth flying everywhere. The barbarian swung his axe wildly. The monk looked into the red eyes of the Immortal, and thought he saw there the face of death itself. The axe struck a wall, sticking place. The barbarian tried to pull it out, but had not the strength. He could not let go of his weapon, even as the monk swept his staff swiftly, shattering the arm at the elbow. There was no more that the barbarian could do but sit there, grasping his weapon, as his life force drained out of him.

The Bard never returned to the throneroom of King Aurorus to reclaim his "reward." He instead fled further North, spreading his lurid tales amongst the people of the Northern Kingdoms. After all, he remembered the glimmer of madness in the King's eyes on that day that felt an age ago: he knew that nothing but the cold arms of death awaited him in Maluria. He never remained in once place for very long, always fearing that the King would dispatch a second party to search and kill him. But this was a life that he had always known. Some twelve years later, he would die from a plague that infested a small farming town, but during those years, he had bedded many women and drank much ale. He had few regrets.