Prologue
Once, Elderwyn was a jewel of the mortal plane—a continent of soaring white spires and golden fields united under the banner of the Lord Emperor, Ravyn Asterwood...
For decades, his wisdom and power acted as the mortar between the stones of the different races...
...Under his guidance, the races of men, elves and dwarves flourished together in a golden age of peace and prosperity...
But even the greatest of rulers are mortal.When Asterwood died, the mortar crumbled...
...The crown was lost, and the land bled...
...A great civil war, known as the War of the Sighs, erupted; carving the once Great Empire into bitter factions...
...Struggling for power and control, the mortal race of men fought each other, giving rise to three separate states: the Kingdom of Aethelgard, the Military-State of Vanguardia and the Trade Nation of Lumeria...
...Disheartened by the conflict, the Mountain Dwarves retreated to their underground kingdoms in the Karakzhul Mountains, leaving their surface dwelling brethren, the Dwarves of the Iron Fist Republic, to fend for themselves and branding them as traitors...
...Sensing a greater peril at hand, the perceptive Elves left the other races and built their own alliance, the Verdant Pact. The Forest and High Elves of the Silvan Reach and the Highland Spires decided to settle their differences and prepared themselves for what is to come...
...As the Continent bled and burned from the war, An ancient darkness that was sealed in the Ever-Shrouded North slowly crept into the land...
...The first of the Shadow-Rifts, a tear in the fabric of the realm’s reality, began to appear, bringing with it monstrous and nightmarish creatures of dread and darkness...
...the Shadowborn....
...Leaderless and exhausted, the divided nations tried to contain the threat as best as it could... But the tides kept growing in number and soon the realm will be overrun by the darkness that consumes the souls and the flesh of living...
As the fear of the Shadowborn grew, so did a legend spread across the flickering campfires and taverns across the land...
It was said that the great Emperor did not leave his line ended...
...That somewhere, hidden in the common folk or tucked away in a forgotten monastery, the heir to his bloodline and to the throne of the Empire lives on...
...An orphaned child whose destiny is connected to the very fate of Elderwyn...
...to bring hope and light to a dying realm...
...or open a path leading it closer to its impending destruction...
“When the Seven stars fall and the grey tide rises,
The scion of the wood shall return to claim the crown of ash.”
— A passage from the Sibyll Records
