Bah I suck.... I was just gonna write a quick page or 2 back story but the ideas kept fleshing out in my mind and now i have 3 1/2 pages and I'm not really sure I'm any closer to finished with it than I was when I had a single paragraph.
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Edit:
Well I'm not having writers block per se so much as ideas are racing about in my skull so fast I can't seem to write. So I thought it might be interesting and maybe even useful to get some feedback on what I've written so far.
Oldest legend tells of a time when men and their deities had a much greater degree of contact than any time within true memory. A time when many were the gods that walked among men spreading thier heavenly blessing. And many were the devils that enslaved, slaughtered or twisted men to thier own mad ends. Most prominent among the magnanimous and charitable Ancients was the great Thoren and chiefest of the petty and crewel was Drak'Nar whom most now refer to as The Reaper of Souls as his name is a curse to utter aloud.
While it is true that The Ancients possessed power beyond the comprehension of the races of Aramir their hearts it seems were much the same so it was that when Thoren learned of Drak'Nar and his followers depravity and cruelty against the races of man that he had considered under his protection he was incensed and made haste to the lands over which Drak'Nar had made himself despot. To spite the incredible distance between their kingdoms it was mere hours walk for Thoren as when a god wishes it they can reach the horizon in a single step. Upon arrival he made no concessions to courtesy and simply took the straightest path to Drak'Nar's throne room tearing through the battlemented outer walls and then the gilded and elaborately decorated inner walls of the grand castle like so much flimsy gauze. He stood before Drak'Nar and berated him for his evils and defied him to attempt to defend his actions. Much as a village bully caught tormenting a larger child's smaller siblings he knew he could not justify his acts to Thoren nor win the argument by force and so simply became sullen. Seeing what he took to be remorse of a younger deity who had simply put no thought to his actions wicked as they had been Thoren demanded as a penance that Drak'Nar use his power to create a blessing upon the people whom he had so wickedly used and then leave the world of men never to return taking all his ilk with him. Drak'Nar sensing no alternative acceded to the demand. Thoren, his anger cooling departed for his own demesnes vowing to return with his allies upon the next moon to see that his will had been done.
Unfortunately for both Ancients and men Drak'nar was the darkest hearted and most remorseless of what we now call devils. So it was that once the immediate threat to himself was gone his anger began to seethe. What right did Thoren have to demand anything of him simply because he had self-substantiated a few eons earlier than himself? Just because he held a little more sway among the other Ancients? It was absurd that he should chastised and even punished for his treatment of these mortal men that he had made his playthings. But what could be done? The fact was that Thoren was more powerful both personally and in his strength of allies he knew he could not defy him. Then inspiration struck.
The next morn all of Drak'Nar's allies were gathered at his partially demolished castle. He explained the events that had transpired the previous day. Then he put to them the question; the answer to which forever altered the course of both fate for both the Ancients and the races of men. The question was weather they would accept the judgment and punishment of the self righteous Ancients who presumed authority over them. The answer was swift and unanimous, they cursed all those who would look upon them with disdain yet even still knew they counted too few to overpower the majority who sought to banish them. However in this Drak'Nar's depraved mind had already envisioned a solution. He explained that in his experimenting and toying with mortals he had found that each had a small amount of power within themselves. A laughably small fragment compared to even the least of the Ancients however man had something that the Ancients lacked. The ability to reproduce so that through the endless ages only a few hundred Ancients had ever self-substantiated, man reproduced like the mice of the field and numbered across the face of Aramir in the hundreds of thousands. The assembled Ancients scoffed saying that a human army even in the thousands could never be anything more than a nuisance to a single Ancient let alone hundreds of them. Drak'Nar raised his hand for silence and with a gesture quenched the light of the lamps that had lit the room. He produced from an elaborate black sheath that had been braced in the corner of the room a crewel looking blade that glowed with the dimmest of red malevolence. He explained that while all assembled knew that no force other than another Ancients amassed power could harm them this blade had been produced using only the most casual of efforts on his part and in truth all it's true power had come from a mere hundred mortal souls. He then drew the blade lightly across his own hand and let those assembled see the blood flow for the briefest moments before the wound closed. Seeing the impressed look upon the staring faces he made his proposal. He asked them to imagine what could be accomplished with this weapon if it housed a thousand times more howling enraged souls. This is the purpose for which you are gathered he explained. He promised to teach the technique for tormenting a soul into madness and then extracting it, for the purpose of filling his weapon with unimaginable destructive power so that when the fools came to see that the exodus had been completed he might spill their blood and extinguish their lives in a way and on a scale that had never been seen thier timeless history! The assembled mad devils cheered this notion for truly at that moment devils they had become.
And so it was that the devils carried out the greatest slaughter and atrocity ever known on the face of Aramir all unbeknownst to Thoren and those we now call gods. And so it was that the moon completed it's cycle and the gods lead by Thoren traveled to the lands under the control of the devils which were now destitute of mortal life. When passing a human city of fair size and sensing no presence they began to investigate and quickly discovered the corpses of all the residents mostly still in their homes, faces frozen in various masks of rage and agony. After that they made even greater haste to Drak'Nar's stronghold only to find in the valley just before the castle that his allies were already anticipating their arrival.
It was clear that the devils had disobeyed the judgement placed upon them and had infact intensified thier crimes against the mortals and now they stood in masse oposed to the the forces of the gods. Combat was inevitable however the gods knew they had the advantage in both numbers and sheer power, they would cast these insolent ones into their richly deserved exile by force and if they did not concede then they would cast them into the abyss of death. In an instant the two lines had closed distance on one another and the force of the combat between them both physical and ethereal sundered the earth and stone of the landscape and shattered mighty trees into kindling. Suddenly Thoren heard a cry of such agony as he had never heard escape an Ancients lips even in death and turned to see one of his men pierced through the heart from behind by a sword. Never had he seen a weapon of the kind man used break the body of one of his breatheran and the image appauled him. Worse however was that as the blade was withdrawn he could see clearly that the blade was wreathed in bloody red lightning that crackled with rage through a dark miasma that reeked of despair. Worse still was that speared on the tip he could just make out the essence of the now dead god being consumed by the dark blade of hatered and death. In just a moment it was entirely engulfed and the vile energy of the blade lept up more violently. The swords master Drak'Nar threw his head back and howeled with evil laughter. In that moment it was clear to Thoren what had happened to the lands inhabitants and what the nature of the weapon was. It was a hellish prison for a number of mortal souls that he shuddered to contemplate and in thier rage at being murdered and sealed within the blade they consumed whatever living essence they touched. Another of the gods still agape at the atrocity he had just seen was cut down in an instant by Drak'Nar and his essence was absorbed. Several gods now coordinated thier assults against Drak'Nar hoping to stop this most vile menace but thier combined power could not harm, restrain or ultimately even defent thier lives against the onslaught of the devil and his dark weapon.
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Well if that's half as decent as it seems to me I suppose I'm not ashamed to post it. I know the paragraphs need reformatting... I always have sucked at that and I know it's absurdly long. Especially considering I've yet to even touch on the setting or the most relevant details to what makes the world what it is in the time that the adventure takes place. Thanks for reading though and I appreciate your feedback.