Age of Iron

The story so far...

 

The story starts fourty years ago on the continent of Evir to the south-east of the central Aslane continent.  There a tribe of Hyur discovered a mysterious crystal shard, a shard of an ancient and forgotten god called Sho'vothar.  The crystal shard changed the tribe of hyur forever, transforming their tribal chief into a Dark Lord, and his tribe into his Dark Council.  They would then build a dark citadel above the shard, the shard serving as its heart, and then the call went out to monsters and dark creatures that lived on Evir, and they came in droves, orcs, goblins, giants, gnolls, ogres, trolls, and many other evil creatures.  The Dark Lord and his Dark Council would then make quiet preparations to conquer the continents of Aslane  and  Odera.

 

Twenty years ago, the Dark Armies of Evir invaded Odera, overwhelming their defenses quickly, forcing the people of Odera to flee to Aslane.  It took the Dark Armies ten years to conquer and subjugate Odera before finally turning their evil gaze towards Aslane.  Thanks to the Oderan refugees, the armies of Aslane had had ten years to prepare, unfortunately, only a few nations believed the refugees and made preparations, the rest refused to believe the stories, so they made no preparations or readied their defenses.  No one could have imagined just how accurate the refugees had been.

 

A year later, the Dark Armies invaded Aslane, hitting the nations along the south-western coast that had believed themselves safe from the invading monsters.  Few people managed to flee to safety, most fleeing to the distant northern nation of Dieveth,  the northernmost territory occupied by the Nord, and very defensible due to the mountain ranges that comprised most of Dieveth.  The Dark Armies continued to carve a path of destruction, sparing no one , and those that fled  only told of the atrocities committed by the dark armies.   Most of the hyur and elven kingdoms were smashed by the dark armies, their villages, towns and cities laid to ruin as those that could fled in the wake of the destruction.

 

Then the Dark Armies barreled its way through the Draconis Kingdom, bypassing their capital city of  Athenya, the city being too heavily defended to waste resources on yet.  They then smashed into the armies of Daerlon, but pushed back the famed Daerlon cavalry all the way back to their capital city of Damas, Jewel of the South and laid waste to over half of the city.  Confident that the Daerlonians were no longer a threat, the Dark Armies turned their gaze to the north, to the single pass that led into the mineral rich interior of the Dievethian Confederacy.  The Dark Armies knew that to penetrate the interior of the Dievethian's lands, they would first have to deal with the port city of Northgate, and then their capital city of Ptolus.

 

The Dark Armies knew that dealing with Ptolus would be difficult, so they sacked the city of Northgate first, which had been evacuated while the Dark Armies fought the Daerlonians.  Upon finding nothing of value within Northgate, they burned the city and used dark magics to devastate the land around Northgate.  They then marched on Ptolus, confident that they would be able to breach the walls and conquer the city.  Unfortunately, Ptolus was where the Dark Armies were nearly annihilated.  Unlike other nations which had tried to only defend themselves, the Dievethians had decided that the best defense was offense, and had made the preparations while the Dark Armies dealt with Daerlon.  As the monsters made their way north from Northgate, they were slammed into from the left and right flanks by Dievethian and Dwarven heavy infantry, the dwarves deciding to aid the Dievethians, and thousands of dwarves had joined the dievethian armies as they marched.  As the dark armies were regrouping their formations, they were slammed into from the front by a combined army of Dievethians and other soldiers that had fled the destruction of their nations and had come to Ptolus.  Just as the dark armies were preparing to regroup from that attack, they were slammed into from the rear by the Draconis heavy cavalry, as well as what remained of the Daerlon cavalry.  Forced to fight against so many enemies, the Dark Armies collapsed and fled across the sea to Odera.

 

That might have been the end of it, and the battered nations did not pursue the enemy, their forces had suffered heavy casualties on the battlefields.  However, the Dark Forces were far from finished, and were preparing their next assault, which even the city of Ptolus would not be able to hold against.  It was at that time that a young hyur from the Kingdom of Datia, a small northern kingdom that had been too far out of the way for the Dark Armies to bother with, came upon an ancient tomb, and inside was the body of an ancient warrior-king who had fallen in battle.  The spirit of that warrior-king, who had ruled over the once prosperous and powerful Silverin Kingdom during its formative years, had been aware of the battles and knew of the evil that lay within Evir, for it had been that same evil that had destroyed the Silverin Kingdom from within centuries ago.  The warrior-king bequethed his sword and armor to the young man, sensing the purity and strong sense of justice in his heart, the armor magically changing to match the young mans fiery spirit within.  When he emerged, he found that a company of paladins, sensing the power within the tomb, had arrived, and upon seeing him wearing the armor and the sword, known in legend as the Sword of the Phoenix, declared him their liege, and called him the Phoenix King.

 

With a band of such loyal paladins at his side, the newly christened Phoenix King sent out a call across Aslane from his base in what remained of Northgate after they arrived and began making preparations to head for Odera.  Slowly at first, mercenaries and adventurer's answered the call, and then they poured in until finally, the Phoenix King had an army at his command unlike any seen before.  While the nations could not send military support, they could and did send supplies, weapons, and armor to the Phoenix Army as it was called.  Then came the day for them to launch, and they did, a mighty fleet that left the ruins of Northgate and headed for Odera.  When the Phoenix army landed, they found death and destruction everywhere, for the Dark Armies had not taken care of the lands, and the Phoenix King and his companions knew that it would be a long time before Odera recovered.  The Phoenix Army then began to smash through each and every fortress and encampment in their path.  They fury and rage at the atrocities of the Dark Armies driving them forward until finally in the third year, the last orc was driven from Odera, their dark fortresses burning down.  The Phoenix Army had suffered casualties of their own, but they were light, and the dead were attended to as the Phoenix King and his companions, now known as the Band of the Phoenix, made plans for the invasion of Evir, to take the war to the heart of the Dark Lord's empire.

 

When the invasion happened, the Phoenix Army met heavy resistance on the northern shores of Evir, a land that had been known to be foul and dark even before the Dark Armies had formed.  Despite the casualties, all of the Phoenix Army knew that if they did not defeat the Dark Lord, he would simply regroup and attack again.  For seven years the Phoenix Army battled the Dark Armies on Evir until finally, they reached the Black Citadel itself.  The Phoenix Army then made one last push, and shattered what remained of the Dark Armies and entered the Black Citadel itself.  There they battled the Dark Council's own army, comprised of the corrupted warriors of their former tribe, the mages and priests meanwhile began to fight the Dark Council itself, buying time for the Phoenix King and the Band of the Phoenix, the company of paladins that had first sworn allegience to him, to get into the throne room.  There they confronted the Dark Lord and his personal guards, and the final battle began.  While the Band of the Phoenix battled the guards, the Phoenix King battled the Dark Lord alone, a battle that would forever be immortalized in history.  When the Dark Lord landed a fatal blow on the Phoenix King, the Band of the Phoenix, who had dealt with the guards, thought it was over and prepared to launch themselves at the Dark Lord when the Phoenix King, fighting through the pain of the sword through his gut took the Dark Lords head from his shoulders.  When the Dark Lord fell lifeless to the ground, the sword was pulled from the Phoenix King, who with his last breath, set a spell of destruction on the Black Citadel and a curse on Evir.  The Phoenix King was then carried from Evir by the Band of the Phoenix and accompanied by the Phoenix Army, their numbers greatly reduced back to Aslane.  There, they were met by the Dievethian King and his army, which had recovered greatly during the past ten years.  The Dievethian King then approached the Band of the Phoenix and proclaimed that the Phoenix King would be given all honors, and buried with the highest honors beside the bodies of the great Nord heroes of the past in the Valley of Heroes, and the Band of the Phoenix wept at the honor and proclaimed that they would stand watch over the tomb for the rest of their lives, as would their descendants as a final show of respect to the hero that had defeated the Dark Lord and his Dark Armies.  And on that day, the Age of Silver ended and the Age of Iron began.

 

Ten years have passed since the fall of the Dark Lord and the death of the Phoenix King, now referred to as the Phoenix to honor him.  Aslane has prospered since the war ended, and the people have begun rebuilding.  The Daerlon Empire has rebuilt their capital city, while the Dievethians have rebuilt the key seaport of Northgate, though thanks to the Dark Armies, it now looks far different.  The Draconis Kingdom has repaired the damage to their farmlands, and new farming villages and towns have emerged in the past ten years.  The hyur and elven kingdoms that were destroyed in the war have yet to be rebuilt as their lands have been occupied by monsters and other dark creatures, instead, living as part of the nations that survived the war.  The continent of Odera has slowly been recovering, where once only death and devastation had marred the land, new jungles and plains have covered the lands.  On the continent of Evir, evil still remains as the Shard of Sho'vothar was never destroyed, though is now sealed in the rubble of the Black Citadel.  The undead now roam Evir, ever wandering, seeking something, but what, no one knows.

 

The Age of Iron is a time of adventurers as they ply their trade across the lands, taking quests and generally making the land safer, the new Adventurer's Guild, with its headquarters in Ptolus and its many branches, providing new goods and services to the adventurers.  Despite the peace and prosperity won by the Phoenix King and the Phoenix Army, there are those that can't help but sense the growing darkness.  Some think that it is in Evir, but others think that the growing darkness is centered in the newly discovered continent of Iabis, but whatever the case, there will be heroes that will always stand against the darkness.