Prologue
Little can be said about the mage Keth than that he issued from the provincial borough of Torsyl. He grew up roughly, under the watch of a local blacksmith, and discovered his dominance in the Arts of Magery purely by chance.
At the time of his steep climb to power, the only free places in the fragmented continent of The Rings were said to be the Hemorian islands to the West, but those were plagued by irate dragons and barbarians who would slaughter their own kin for the compulsive lustre of gold.
Now the last of the bygone empires, Rethag is ruled by the politicians and courtiers who bowed under the rising grip of the deceitful King Einer and the Forgotten.
Under their apparent guidance, the proud cities were subjugated under barbaric slaughter and thralldom. The untameable highlands became little more than rocky crags and places of dim, eerie silence; the treasuries ransacked and, steadily, the sickness of a forgottten evil spread through the land.
First the proud Kings of Cothar bowed to Einer’s Kingship. Then the Great Armies looked to the East; swiftly after that the wild cities of the Estburg were annexed. Hundreds of proud millenia-old states were looted, and left to rot, to suffocate in their distress.
And so it has remained since TA.
Since True Ascension.
But enough on the past. Musing on history disturbs the soul from the basic comforts of food and sleep. Those who seek fortune must not look regressively, but glance forward to the inevitable marching of time and the constant tides of providence.
