THE FALLEN LORD

The great comet had returned to the eastern sky ; heralding its dark prophecy.

The Leveler, destruction made flesh, had returned in the form of Balor, a fearsome warrior who wielded phenomenal powers. Balor had made unholy alliances with many an evil race, and with the aid of his resurrected generals, The Fallen Lords, laid siege to the great Cath Bruig empire.

Battles went unabated for years, but eventually the Cath Bruig empire had retreated to their city of Muirthemne. With cataclysmic magics, Balor utterly destroyed the legendary city ; ending almost three thousand years of its reign.

Balor's evil eyes then turned to the cities of the Province, west of the Cloudspine. Their dark forces swept into Covenant and utterly devastated the city. The human armies recoiled from the attack. If not for the leadership of the Nine ; powerful sorcerers called Avatara ; Balor's army would have stood unchallenged.

The Nine forged an alliance with the Fir'Bolg and the Dwarven races to aid their cause, and the army of Light was formed. This rag-tag army was all that stood against the Fallen Lords and their legions of undead.

Uncovered from the bowels of a dark mountain, something was found to turn the tide of the war. A severed head was found ; a head that retained its life and knowledge. It knew many things forgotten by modern man. It claimed to be an old adversary of Balor, and would aid the Light in defeating him.

Aided by the erudite knowledge from the head, one of the Nine defeated the Fallen Lord Shiver as her armies were poised to destroy Madrigal. The Total Codex was recovered from the ruins of Covenant, just where the head said it would be.

As the winter months rolled on, battles ensued at the snowy passes of the Cloudspine. It was then learned that the Trow had been freed from their molten prisons and marched with Balor. As the volcano Tharsis erupted, news of the leader of the Nine, Alric, had been captured by Balor and his forces decimated.

As three of the Nine entered Forest Heart to ask for aid from the Forest Giants there, the Fallen Lord Soulblighter imprisoned their army into a magical artifact named "The Tain." The army escaped, destroying the Tain, at the cost of all but one Avatara.

A small band of heroes ventured into the barrier and rescued Alric. He told them that the Head had betrayed them. Back in the Province, the Head had begun a civil-war which was bloodily ended at the price of many lives.

Alric, again in leadership of the Nine, planned a desperate attack. Marching the remaining legion across the Barrier and into the Dire Marsh, Alric meant to bring the battle to Balor, stationed in the Trow city of Rhi'anon. With two Fallen Lords arrayed against them, the legion managed to slay the Watcher with magical arrows and marched into the Trow lands.

The arrayed armies of the Light and Dark stood ready to battle. From the Tain was retrieved a Myrkridian standard, which Alric raised upon the battlefield. Balor, enraged at the ancient slight, appeared in person to destroy the legion. But this was all according to Alric's plan. With the power of an Eblis stone, Alric immobilized Balor just long enough for his head to be cleaved from his body.

Balor's head was raced to a World Knot, where a small force took the thing to the Great Devoid. Evading Soulblighter's forces, the head was thrown into the Great Devoid, ending the life of Balor and the soul of the Leveler.

Against all hope, the army of the Light had won the war.

SOULBLIGHTER

Sixty years after the Great War, the cities of the Province were rebuilt and few remember the horrors of that epic battle. Alric was now king, ruling from his throne in Madrigal.

But, in the shadows lurked Balor's lieutenant, Soulblighter. Vowing to complete what Balor had started, Soulblighter secretly gained many followers with the promise of dark knowledge. These followers began to use their newly learned necromantic powers to raise an army of dead within the Province itself.

A small group of soldiers foiled a local baron's dark schemes, and in turn uncovered Soulblighter's deadly plan. He was looking for the Summoner ; a man prophesized to release the Myrkridia into the world once again.

As this news reached Alric, he quickly gathered forces to defend their nation against Soulblighter's fiendish designs. The city of Tyr had fallen, and the reports say that the force was lead by Shiver, a Fallen Lord thought killed in the Great War. As Alric and his force left for the city of Tandem, they saw to their horror that Soulblighter had been successful in finding the Summoner and unleashing the Myrkridia. In a hopeless battle, they retreated, as the terrible force marched to Madrigal.

To battle Soulblighter, Alric hoped to find the Fallen Lord the Deceiver who had been buried under the ice at the Stair of Grief. Alric hoped that the Deceiver would aid him in his new plans to stop the tide of evil. A small force made their way through the snowy pass, found and revived the Deceiver, who indeed vowed to aid the army of Light, bringing with him the aid of the Warlocks of Scholomance.

Shiver, Soulblighter, and the Myrkridia, continued their rampage in the Province, as Alric moved his army across the Cloudspine and into the ruins of Muirthemne. There he announced his intent to restore the Cath Bruig Empire to its former glory, with himself as Emperor. The army did indeed retrieve the Ibis crown and Alric was crowned as the new Emperor of the Cath Bruig. The penance for the Journeymen was over, and they threw off their heavy robes in favor of the heavy armor and dual swords of the Heron Guard of old. Muirthemne was renamed to its ancient title: Llancarfan.

The Deceiver led his troop into the Forest Heart, looking for a shard of the destroyed Tain. Upon finding one, they entered the Tain itself. There they confronted the Summoner and put an end to his malevolent magics. On their return, the army was captured by Soulblighter's forces. But it was all according to the Deceiver's plans; having escaped their cells, the troop soon overran the encampment. In the Struggle, the Deceiver had killed one of Soulblighter's ravens, preventing him from taking flight ever again.

Alric returned to the Province and led an army to confront Soulblighter near Silvermines. There Shiver and her army met the legion and bloody conflict erupted. Alric sent the Deceiver and a group of heroes to track down Shiver and put an end to her. In the clash that followed, the Fallen Lords squared off against one another, and in the end both were slain by the other's magics.

Soulblighter fled Alric's pursuing armies, making his way into the bowels of Mount Tharsis. There he began a dark ritual that would sunder the Cloudspine and shatter the very world. In the last moments, Alric and the legion met the fiend and put an end to his deadly spell. The mountain was destroyed and Soulblighter with it. Alric, now Emperor of the Cath Bruig, moved the capital to Madrigal and once again began the long process of rebuilding.

THE FUTURE

Of Balor's Fallen Lords only two remain, though their whereabouts are unknown.

Many sages and scholars look towards the future with uncertainty. The cycle of Light and Dark, which change the face of the world, has been broken. As Connacht brought an end to the evils of the Wind Age, so was Balor to bring an end to the glory of the Wolf Age. And yet, in this new age, the Light has remained triumphant.

Many believe that with the destruction of the Leveler, mankind can now forge its own path on the anvil of fate.

But the future is never certain.

the ancient history of Myth...

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