The Land of Shadow

The Fallen God
In the ageless time before the dawn of history, there was a war in heaven. In desperation, the lords of light severed the black spirit of the dark god Izrador, casting him out of the celestial kingdom.

The Veil
The gods succeeded in vanquishing their brother, but Izrador corrupted their magic and turned their victory against them. As the fallen god’s spirit was severed from his physical form, so to was the celestial kingdom severed from all contact with the material realm. The lords of light discovered that they could no longer commune with their mortal children.

The Shadow
The dark one fell to the earth, his foul essence staining the land with its evil shadow. Weakened and bodiless, Izrador retreated to the ice and cold of the far north. There he slumbered, slowly recovering his strength and dreaming of vengeance across eons of time. Empires were built and crumbled to dust, races were born and died, and the Shadow in the North grew deeper and darker.

The Age of Twilight
Three times the fallen god rose and threatened the nations of Aryth with iron and dark magic. As the First Age drew to a close, an elven host led by Aradil, the Witch Queen, met and defeated Izrador’s horde on the plain of Eris Aman. At the end of the Second Age, the elves joined the dwarven lords of Kaladrun and the Dornish barbarian kings to once again throw back the dark one’s armies in the Battle of Three Kingdoms.

The Last Battle
At the end of the Third Age, four of the greatest heroes of Aryth were corrupted by the Shadow. These new servants, the Night Kings, led Izrador’s foul hordes across all the lands of the world.

This time, the dark god won.

The dwarven clans were broken and retreated to their holdfasts deep within the earth. The elves withdrew into their vast and ancient forest, abandoning all to the Shadow. The Dorns, tamed during the Third Age by a power from across the sea, were betrayed from within and surrendered to the Night Kings. The corruption of Izrador spread from the ancient battlefields of Eredane until all the world had fallen under the Shadow.

A century has passed since the end of the world.

The World of Midnight
In the aftermath of the war, Izrador and the Night Kings embarked upon a campaign to consolidate their power and eradicate their enemies. The elder races are being systematically hunted down and exterminated. The continent-spanning forest of Erethor has become an island of light in a darkening world, as the elves fight a neverending battle against besieging hordes of goblinoids. The surviving dwarven clans have locked themselves in their mountain holdfasts, and the streets of once-proud subterranean cities have become killing fields for the Night Kings’ troops that are sent in to root them out.

While the desperate war rages on in the ancestral homelands of the elder races, the lands of men are ruled with an iron fist by the minions of the Shadow. Many cities lie in ruins, and most common folk live in walled towns, locking the gates against the darkness each night. Literacy and learning are punishable by death, and ignorance spreads across the land like a terrible plague.

As the Shadow falls across the world, a few brave heroes dare to oppose the tyranny of the Night Kings. They struggle to stem the tide of darkness and restore hope to a despairing world. Pursued by the Night Kings’ foul minions and the secretive legates of the Order of Shadow, these heroes will never receive parades and victory feasts as the reward for their noble efforts. Their greatest foes are often the suspicion, resentment, and fear of the very people they strive to champion and protect. Welcome to the world of Midnight!