User:Qmasterflex86/Project Dwi 01
OOC Note: The contents of this page and all subpages are not in-game canon. This may appropriately be considered a work of fiction within the Battlemaster universe. This page and all subpages are intended for personal entertainment only. I have no knowledge about any lore of any invasions on Beluaterra (Except that there are monsters, undead, daimons, and they have some sort of enmity against each other), and I do not have any knowledge of any lore about the Zuma Coalition (Except that there are daimons and that the Zuma are kind of like Aztecs), any and all similarities are purely coincidental. This is an original work, and I have tried to convey that with the material that I have. While it might not be successful, I will make edits along the way if I see anything that is overused. You can help me by pointing out things that are too similar to things you have seen before in this page's talk page. I certainly have not intended to be derivative, but with stuff like monsters and undead fairly standard fantasy fare, it sometimes is difficult to keep track of just what idiosyncratic flavors added aren't so unique.
A Parted Dwilight
Overview
Dwilight, the wild, untamed continent, filled with roaming packs of ravenous beasts, plagued by the relentless undead who find no rest, and occupied in dark foreboding recesses by shadowy and mysterious daimons, saw a storm when those powers, once so chaotic, no longer floated loosely along the currents of fate.
The wild beasts gained awareness of their lives, their surroundings. Filled with new feelings and a strange sense of the vastness of the land and their relative smallness in comparison, the newly conscious monsters began joining together with fellow beasts. Many spread across the wilderness, seeking the farthest corners of Dwilight to discover just how large the land truly was. Some sought to understand the workings of themselves and their surroundings, dedicating themselves to the study of the natural world, and the workings of their own bodies. Others who gained a sense of possession lusted after the prospects of having all the fields bountiful in prey and open range to themselves. United under their common identities as the young progeny of Dwilight, the monsters, whether explorers, or researchers, or conquerors, moved as coherent gatherings across Dwilight, seeking new lands, and encountering strange and horrifying enemies.
Long ago in a lost age, men indeed ruled Dwilight, though such men were much different than those now alive. Yet even in the ancient past, men's hearts were no different than they are now, and the many vices of humanity, the many sins plaguing mortals, sent the many kingdoms into ruin, with the empty halls of great cities like Darfix, Golden Farrow, and Giask, as monuments to a era faded into oblivion. But not all the kingdoms were lost to time, for some endured by means unknown both to those who encountered their restless unceasing remains, and to their own tormented souls. Their souls were preserved for many eons past their deaths, though their bodies were long scattered into the earth. With their enigmatic powers, they learned at length how to manipulate the very earth to which their bodies had returned, to form new bodies of bloodless flesh. As the undying regained their abilities to walk among the living of Dwilight, they looked towards their old kingdoms, some fallen into decay, and others more alarmingly occupied by vile creatures they knew in their time as savage beasts.
There were men of old, who may have been contemporaries of the ones who ruled over the great ancient kingdoms. These men inhabited the barren wastelands of the western coast, around the Volcano Nightscree. Whether by their own design or by those greater than they, mysterious and powerful beings were summoned to the mortal lands of Dwilight from some other world. The daimons they were called, and they were varied in form, from those who appeared much akin to those who summoned them to their world, to formless shadows of darkness, to towering behemoths engulfed in flames. Their goals were incomprehensible to all but themselves, their fury unstoppable, and their bodies indestructible through any means known to the mortal world of Dwilight. Given the unknowable nature of the daimons, at times Dwilight was beset by surges in storms of fire and death, and other times forgot there ever existed such beings at all.
When the spellcasters who once held dominion over the entire span of reality fell to their own arrogance and abuse, many were forever erased from existence, and very few true masters of reality survived. The very few survivors who learned from their mistakes, once the many planes of reality returned to equilibrium, formed an unbreakable pact among themselves and in contract to the very collective of reality. Never again would any being gain the means to master the bare essence of the worlds, to avoid the risk of destroying all that exists, as the Masters were so close to achieving. But the Masters did not seal away all their knowledge and lore, for they taught the very few who displayed the proper skills and mindset, both the aptitude and the responsibility, to inherit an infinitesimal amount of merely the surface of their powers. In the mortal world of Dwilight, such a group existed as protectors of the balance of the world. Their teachers had left them the ways to banish the terrifying beings from other worlds, and to bring forth pure light to put eternally to rest the undying. Armed with their scrolls and the ability to bind the magic around them into these vessels of paper and script, the protectors of balance feared neither daimon nor undead. But their gravest enemies were those of living flesh, for against the monsters and their fellow man, the protectors of balance had nothing but their blades, their skills, and their valor.
With the passage of time, with many wars and hunts, the land was torn asunder, the fields scorched and trampled, the very life of the earth drained. The four powers on Dwilight at length withdrew to their respective borders where they were strongest. The monsters hid in the dark woods of Odona, Thysan, and Nark, forming their own cities in Rettleville and Twainville, where they bred and grew to a fearsome yet concealed force. The undead once more lost their hold on their many kingdoms save for the cursed dark city of Unterstrom and its haunted woods where they swelled their ranks with the souls of the dead and strengthened their hold on the undying curse. The daimons remained in the barrens with their summoners who came to be known as the Zuma, spreading their darkness over the Ruins of Walfurgisnacht to Overroot and Underroot where they watched over the mortals for ages to come. The protectors of balance retreated to the lofty mountains of Balance's Retreat where they honed their skills for the day their powers would be required again.
In the West, the monsters gained numbers and power, but where once they thought to roam freely through the plentiful plains, now they were reduced to living in fear of the Zuma's powerful guardians. While the daimons furthered their incomprehensible plans, the Zuma could only wonder at the hidden maw in the forests to their south, and the distant enemies in the east.
In the East, the undead knew of the wizards who lived in the mountains, who could smite their unholy forms with purest light from the heavens. Yet they plotted and waited their time, time of which they had an unlimited amount, for the time when they would return to reclaim and restore, once and for all, the lands of the kingdoms they wrought. The protectors of balance saw with concern the increasing threat to the great balance of the world, present in the unnaturally persisting souls of the undead who would break the world's very rules on the divisions between life and death, and the alien daimons whose strange ways and odd but indiscriminately violent and destructive magic threatened the well-being of the mortal world.
In time, this was all forgotten. The monsters degenerated to their savage ways, the undead were washed away by unrelenting changes of the world, the daimons retreated into their mysterious silence, and the protectors of balance vanished believing the balance was restored. But the spark of sentience never truly dies, and in these descendants of the monsters, there are hidden knowledge and passions, such as would lead those of mortal flesh and blood. The curse that bound the undead never to have rest was ever present, and though the undead loomed as no more than faint shadows, their memories would never decay, and once their powers returned, they would move once more to reclaim what they think to be rightfully theirs. The daimons were summoned onto the mortal plane once more, or perhaps they never truly departed, and whatever their motives might be, they would be governed by their whim, or by some unknown directive. And those who swore to protect the balance always watched, even if they did not act, such that they were always preparing for the day that their arcane rituals of banishment and holy light would be required once more to protect the mortal world from the strains imposed to reality by the unnatural powers of the daimons and undead.
Awakening
A young cub comes of age in a strange new land. A family seeks to make sense of their lives.
Reclamation
The great kings of ancient times recall their former glory. Though all have a desire to reclaim their kingdoms, even the eternally bound dead have intrigues in their courts.
Tribal Unity
Behind the dark veil and intense flames of the daimons there are those of living flesh, born not of fire but of the earth. In an age of uncertainty several leaders emerged to unite the tribes of men.
Legacy
To inherit the cause of the Masters of old is no easy task. Not all are prepared for the requirements of such a burden.
