Setting Intro

The world of Alar is vast, and has a long and storied history, as any scholar might tell you. But ask ten different scholars, and you'll get ten different answers as to what that history is. Well, perhaps that's a bit hyperbolic, but the principle is the same. The people of Alar simply don't have a good grasp on history beyond a couple hundred years, due to an even commonly known as The Darkening, which will take some explaining.

However, life in the world today is relatively comfortable for most folk; Alar has troubles as it's always had, or at least as it seems to have always had, and folk go on. They mind their business, tend to their families, see to their work, and the sun rises and falls. It's a world of gods and goddess, and demons -- the latter of which have thankfully been sealed away from this world; it's world of magic and discovery -- always discovering what the demons stole.

On to the explainy bits: 206 years ago, by best estimates, the world of Alar, was engulfed by darkness. The Calamity, Lord of the Abyss, Oth'Amon ruled on the material plane. Bending all to his dark purposes.

Yet there was resistance. From this resistance, the First Spell was found and a connection forged with The Arcane! A form of magic made known to the mortal races of Alar, a magic without the taint of demonic influence -- The Profane. This singular event marks what is now called Dawnbreak, ending years of demonic subjugation.

The resulting Dawnbreak Campaign, was a war that spanned nearly ten years. A painstaking campaign for the fate of the people of Alar, but they were winning! With the help of The Arcane and newly freed gods, Alar had hope as they cornered the demons. However, demons, realizing they were losing, and being both cunning and ruthless, conceived of a scheme to make their passing from the material plane as painful as possible. So they began to target centers of knowledge, burning and destroying every bit of recorded history they could get their hands on. The demons also began to seek out and kill the longer lived peoples of Alar -- the Elves, dwarves, and gnomes, as their memories are historical record -- targeting them above any others. But it didn't seem like it would be enough: the mortals would win, the demons would be defeated, and inevitably there would be someone -- an elf, a dwarf, or a gnome, that would survive -- that was hidden and protected well enough -- to tell the tale of Alar's history. So the demons devised a foul ritual, wrought by Oth'Amon and his lieutenants personally, to confuse the memories of the long-lived folk. This Clouding of memories, as many now refer to it, confused, distorted, and erased the memories of elf, dwarf, and gnomish kind -- and it may have gone so far as to implant false memories, but no one can tell since no two stories of the same event match even a little.

And with Alar's history hanging by a thread, the armies of Alar sealed away Oth'Amon, beneath the Tower of Gath, and imprisoned his 13 lieutenants in it's halls. Thus ended the Age of Subjugation, and began a new age the Age of Magic. The years following the Dawnbreak Campaign were harrowing but hopeful. With little to know knowledge of what came before, the world was vast and wild, seemingly yet to be tamed. Demonspawn still roamed the world, left behind in their masters' flight. Demon worshipers slipped away, their authority revoked, to continue their deeds in secret. And suddenly there was the question of who got what land? Who would lead?

What followed in the early days of the Age of Magic, was strife. But slowly, nations formed out of tumultuous wars; the elves found their way back to ancestral homelands, that "called" to them; people from around the world, seemed to find their place and the world settled down, seemingly less afraid of the future for having made some modicum of their own history.

And though many organizations have sprung up around the Alar vowing to restore their lost history, or find a way to undo the loss of memory, and many brave souls venture out into the world to shine light where it hasn't been in an age, the shadow of fear remains.

Only 5 of the demon lieutenants are even known, the other 8 names having been lost. And though most would rather not think of those terrible tyrants, knowing there is something to fear and not knowing what it is, is all the more terrifying. And though, many wonders have been wrought with magic, since the end of the Subjugation, and the world has an order to it, and people live comfortable lives, every once in a while a story crosses a tavern floor, or is whispered in parlors, or by merchants at market, that a darkness moves in the world still.