Age of Chaos - Karatta

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Introduction

So it came to be that people found one another and began carving a new life out of the ruins of the old. Many years passed and much was forgotten just as much was learned. All seemed well in Lazaron, however, they were unaware of the darkness brewing and plotting against them in the land of Karatta.

As the forces of the Horde moved into the unsuspecting Lazaron, with Dekatar at the head, the races of Karatta were thrown into a greedy political war over who would own what of the lands they had gone to conquer. As the Legions began their single minded task of destruction, the people of Lazaron united for survival. At the time when their gods were needed most, they seemed no where to be found. Powerless against such demands for new life, the Aspects including Xaltion were forced to sit and watch as their worshipers died and their powers dwindled with each decaying soul.

This was an age of War and suffering. An age where the present was so bleak, that the thought tomorrow may never come was a blessing. An age where blood was a common sight, and the sound of mourning resonated throughout the lands. An age where gods were powerless, and weapons held the only salvation. This was the age of Chaos.

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As the forces of Karatta poured into Lazaron, those that were left behind, mostly the political leaders and families of the warriors, eagerly awaited news of their triumph. News would not come for a full year, but that news was indeed worth waiting for. Already their mighty forces had routed four of the meager towns, and were pushing the survivors ever back to the edges of their lands. Those in Karatta reveled at the thought of their betrayers, those that deserted them to a life of hardship and cruelty, would now feel their righteous wrath. With Dekatar at their lead, they knew that their victory was assured.

Dekatar had become more than just a leader. The myth surrounding his sudden appearance, never aging complexion, and unmatched power in the strange magic he brought them had made him more than just a hero, but a savior and nearly a God. His leadership in this war and the addition of his personal army of hideous, yet effective creatures, with little to no mention of what he would gain from it, led most to further the belief of Dekatar being a God in Avatar form. But others were not so sure. Others wondered when Dekatar would reveal what he wanted for his supposed deliverance. But they kept quiet, and these things were only whispered about in the darkest shadows of the deepest night.

The battle continued in the New Lands and the messengers sent from Dekatar kept bringing in the news. These messengers were notably mostly Orc, this slight indication of favoritism overlooked, as the reports sent back were magnificent! It had now been two years and the forces of Karatta had the betrayers with their backs against the wall. With their inevitable victory in sight, new questions and ponderings began to ignite the ears of the gossipers. Who would claim the New Lands? Would Dekatar finally step forward and take these lands for himself, giving them over to his favored Orcs? Which one of the races deserved to rule over the plunder of their war?

They were questions that started as whispers that became demands and soon, statements. The humans were the first to claim they were the rightful owners of the New Lands, what with Dekatar being obviously some kind of Human, and the count of the human’s military force in the New Lands far outweighed those of the other races. And aside from that, humans were of course the very first race to establish life in Karatta and pave the way for the others who showed up hundreds of years later. Yes, the humans held fast to their belief that they were indeed, the ones that would take over the new fertile and promising lands.

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The Stone Elves and Under Dwarves rose up in argument with the humans’ claims and stated their reasons for being the rightful heirs to the conquered lands. The Gnomes didn’t say much other than they didn’t really care who owned what; they just wanted to bring their people back home. Agreements and compromises were not to be found. With the fighters gone to the war, and the Orcs returning with Dekatar’s demands for more troops depleting the militias further, the bickering and arguing were reduced to political moving and plotting. This went on for years, as did the war, to Dekatar’s great amusement.

Dekatar enjoyed the tenacity of the people who he conquered, how they always seemed to find a back door or a way to scurry to another hole to hide in. Yes, he enjoyed it quite a bit. Especially when they died. He toyed with these soft people like a vicious child with a bug under a finger, crushing yet not quite killing. Always leaving them with the hope they may wiggle free. He enjoyed the petty maneuverings of the political parties back in Karatta. The passage of time was nothing to him, and he continued to let the legions do as they would, even if it was generally poorly planned and executed, it was after all, amusing.

Dekatar had his own agenda, what exactly it was no one knew, but he operated on his sense of time, which was much different than the average person’s. A month seemed like a blink of an eye, a year nothing more than a passing day. He was known to spend months poking about in the ruins of towns that his armies had overtook. He was looking for something, though he never told anyone what it was, nor employed help to find what he sought. He seemed to really care little for what the armies did or didn’t do until he was done sifting through the rubble of their last conquest. The first four villages fell so quickly, that Dekatar had much catching up to do. He spent nearly two years in the ruins of those first four, handing wrapped packages to Orcs with instructions only they knew.

When Dekatar finally caught up to his forces, they were camped outside a tiny village being defended by what was left of the people of this land. Dekatar pondered ripping away their magical shield and killing them all here and now, but he was enjoying the dramas of the people playing out before him. He let them stay in their little bubble as he picked through the rubble of Quenae, which had proved to take much longer and produce many more packages then any of the other ruins. The Orcs were busy doing Dekatar’s bidding, while the rest of the army threw themselves day and night at the resistance.

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Dekatar spent almost three more years in the ruins of Quenae, digging about with a single group of Ogres and Orcs. Over the course of these many months, items would be pulled from the sea, dug up from the ground and from buildings that had been burned. When Dekatar finally left Quenae, he was surprised and even more amused than usual to find that the survivors indeed still lived in their little bubble. He stayed among the camp for a few months, toying with the idea of ending the war, but instead went back to Quenae where even more items were sent away with Orcs, to where, only they know.

For almost eight years the remaining Karattan forces supported those who fought across the rift, but year after year they were left with fewer and fewer fighters to send and the threat of another race war was beginning. The war was taking far too long for the impatient people waiting to claim a better life in exchange for the plight of war and strife. The years of debates and talks and battles of words and threats, unable to be backed for lack of military support, had pushed the patience of the races to its end. They began refusing Dekatar’s call for more reinforcements, and instead held them back, every month passing bringing newly trained troops to their militias. Threats of action became action, and soon a race war, for all the war it could be with most of their military in the New Lands, began.

As Dekatar’s Orc messengers came to Karatta with more demands and reports for and from the war, they found Karatta in chaos. Skirmishes constantly being waged as towns were barricaded and laid siege to in turn. Upon their arrival, many of the races turned their troops on the Orcs, claiming they were favored by Dekatar and part of his secret plan to keep the New Lands for himself by the blood of their people. The few surviving Orcs immediately reported back to Dekatar, who was said to have gone into a fit of rage and called for two large branches of his Orcs and Ogres to follow him back to Karatta. Upon his arrival, Dekatar set about dealing out his wrath to those that would deny him reinforcements for the war he was fighting for them. He quickly squelched the bickering and fighting and called immediately for the heads of each race to attend a meeting.

It would take Dekatar two years to placate the races and turn them away from each other and to the goal of conquering the lands that lay beyond the rift. Among the many disputes that were brought to light upon Dekatar’s arrival were the common feeling that the war was taking entirely too long. To this, Dekatar had hardly a response. The races as a whole had trained under him, learned from him, grew into his methods of thinking for nearly fifty years and they were now complaining at sight of a few years in battle. It was impossible for Dekatar to fathom and he returned to the main war after two years of reconciliation having grown ever more impatient with the races and the controversy they seemed to thrive upon. It was time for Dekatar to end the battle and to lay waste to all those who lived in the fertile lands beyond. By this time, the war for the New Lands had lasted over ten years.

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No word came for nearly three years after Dekatar left Karatta, bound for the New Lands and determined to end this ‘little war’ as he referred to it. No Orcs brought messages or requested more troops. No one returned, and no one left. In Karatta time seemed to pass like syrup in the winter. Slow, tedious days were spent wondering when they would be called to leave this land of strife and take up their rightful place in the fertile valleys and plains of the New Land. They glared at one another, growled at one another, and shook their fists, but no more fighting ensued after Dekatar had made the tentative peace. It was a waiting game, but the people of Karatta had something they had not had in a long time. Hope. It was that hope that carried them through, but it began to seem like a silly dream as the long months passed them by and turned to years. Then finally, word came. Words that would shatter their hopes and leave them further scorned and rekindle the fires of hatred toward life that had been dampened at the thought of a second chance at living.

Around the year 690 A.X. the first groups who had spent the last twelve years fighting across the rift began returning. Their return was not in glory or victory like everyone had expected and waited all these years for. Their return was in defeat, fear, and confusion. Many different stories were relayed from the war’s veterans, but the same main facts were presented in all of them. They had failed. The Chaos Legions summoned by Dekatar had turned on them and were coming close behind them. And the most surprising and disappointing to the people, was that they had lost due to divine intervention. As the towns of Karatta made their preparations as quickly as possible for the oncoming attack of the traitorous Chaos Legions, the story of the defeat began to circulate throughout the lands.

The armies of Karatta had vanquished every town, killed every soul, ravaged the lands and pursued the survivors until they had them cornered and pinned down. Many wanted to simply destroy them right then and there, get the war over with and on with the exodus of the people from Karatta. But not Dekatar. He wanted to toy with these weak people. They told how he would spend months amongst the rubble and ruins of towns they conquered picking about and secreting things off with his Orcs. They told of how once cornered, the people of the New Lands had put up a kind of magical barrier and stayed within this protective bubble for the entire duration of the war. Dekatar had claimed to be able to take the barrier down whenever he wished, but he never wished it. Instead, he preferred to watch them squirm within while he and his Orcs conducted secret missions all over the New Lands. None but Orcs, Goblins, and occasionally Ogres were permitted to accompany him on these expeditions, so none knew what exactly took place. But they did know Dekatar would be gone months, sometimes over a year.

They told of the final battle when Dekatar had returned from Karatta after being absent some two years. They said he had come back in a rampage, and killed many simply for speaking to him. At dawn, he bid the armies to follow him as he approached the bubble, with a wave of his hand the barrier fell, and they had all rushed in for their victory. They were upon the camp of refugees before many even awoke. Some in the back of the army had already begun to celebrate the end of the war. But all would be for not.

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Suddenly, the wind began to howl and the waters of the rivers surrounding the encampment rose up into the air like giant walls. Within seconds they began spinning about like a tornado, sucking up the entire first division of the Karattan armies. In horror, those in the back watched the display, the base of the tornado of water growing ever wider, wider till it was chasing the legions back. They ran from it, and after a few minutes it seemed to dissipate like mist into the air. No one knew what had caused this, but it was rumored that Xaltion himself had come to dissolve the war and save those that he favored, those that he still cared for, that he would do anything to protect. This did nothing but anger those of Karatta even more. They felt Xaltion must consider them worthless or worse, considered them a plague that must be wiped out in order to protect the better races and the better lands. For the first time, Xaltion incurred the wrath of many that were being forced to suffer through life in Karatta.

But that was not the end. They soon found Dekatar’s Legions upon them. Killing them, attacking them, with no cause or reason. The Horde pressed the Karattan armies back as they fled to the Rift and through the Dekatar’s Gate. As they passed through, with the Legions hard on them, those that survived the rear of the retreat reported watching the twelve-year-old gate slowly begin to shrink until it was closed. By the time it did close, most of the Karattan forces had made it across, but unfortunately so had many of the rabid Chaos Legions. It was madness. Orc, Goblin, and Ogre fought amongst themselves, the factions and tribes of their culture clashing without the hand of Dekatar to placate them. All three fought the Karattan races. These battles were come to be called the Chaos Battles, as chaos it surely was.

None knew the fate of Dekatar. Many rumors passed about, and still do, but nothing is of certain. Some say he fell as the Legions turned on him and died which caused the rift to close. Others say he was sucked up in the spinning waters. Others still report seeing him fighting his way out of the Horde with his personal guard, and riding away from the carnage. Still others reported seeing him enter the rift and close it behind him. One thing was certain, no one really knew where Dekatar was or if he would ever return. They didn’t have time to wonder about it very long before their gates were being pushed upon by the Legions of Chaos. Karatta was not unused to war and strife. They were well prepared to hold against the unorganized onslaught brought to them by the Horde. They held for nearly a year before the press for food began to take its toll.

The humans, much like their counterpart in the New Lands, fared well because they too were the primary suppliers of variety foods in Karatta. They were the first to break out of their town and begin pushing the legions back a small bit each day. The gnomes with their mechanically defended city fared very well as the Legions were at a loss as to how to fight metal contraptions seemingly with minds of their owns. They too began to push the Legions back away from their walls, and eventually met up with the humans as they left their town. Working together they pressed the Legions ever towards the mountain range of Veronai’s Whip.

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Word reached the Under Dwarves and Stone Elves that the Gnomes and Humans were pressing the Horde from the east, and they began to push out of their well-defended cavernous homes creating a sandwich effect. The four races, working together for the first time in a very long time, fought the legions ever south into the Rancorous Sands desert. They pushed them nearly half way across before they pulled back due to the harsh conditions of the desert. Patrols were set up along the borders of the desert to make sure the Horde did not attempt to return across it. And all seemed to be as well as could be expected in the land of Karatta. They had not escaped the Chaos Battles without cost. Many were dead, and their villages and towns were badly damaged, except for the Elves and Dwarves who had managed to escape with little destruction. But this brief respite of victory would only last a short time.

Life in Karatta was never without turmoil, the Chaos Battles did not end there. The Stone Elves had secretly captured many Ogres when the tides began to turn in the battle. With their knowledge of powerful magic they were able to control the weak minded Ogres and within a few brief weeks after the exile of the Legions, The Stone Elves set upon the Dwarves with their new army of brutally strong Ogres. The quarrel for the rights of the Mountain never ceased. The Dwarves, severely out numbered against the Stone Elves and their Ogres, collapsed tunnels and did what they could defend their mostly ruined city. A group of Dwarves was sent via secret tunnels to barter for aid from the Humans and Gnomes. That group instead intercepted a large force of Orcs coming up the side of Veronai’s Whip.

The Orcs captured the Dwarves who needed no torture to reveal everything the Orcs wanted to know. It seemed that they had come to retrieve the Ogres, who were an integral part of their society with their brute strength and unmatched fighting abilities. The Dwarves told the Orcs how the Stone Elves had captured a large number of Ogres and were holding them sway with mind magic. They also told them how they were attacking the Dwarven city at this very moment, and they were sent to get help. The Orcs accompanied the Dwarves back through the secret tunnels, and in an unspoken truce, the Orcs and Dwarves defended against the armies of the Stone Elves. It would take the Orcs several weeks, but they were finally able to break the magical hold the Stone Elves had over the Ogres. Once free, the Ogres turned on everything and everyone in sight. They listened only to the orders from the Orcs, and then only after several had died trying to give them.

Finally focused, Orc, Ogre, and Dwarf slaughtered the Stone Elves pushing them back into their city, pursuing them even into the caverns of their home. The Orcs sought out and freed the remaining enslaved Ogres, and the Dwarves took advantage of the situation to slaughter as many Elves as possible. They saw it as their chance to finally own the Mountain once and for all over the traitorous Stone Elves. However, the tides turned quickly as the Orcs had not forgotten they were indeed enemies with all of these people. In a strange twist of events, Orc and Ogre began to fight not just the Stone Elves, but the Dwarves too. In another strange unspoken allegiance, the Dwarves and Stone Elves found themselves fighting side by side against Orc and Ogre. This would go on for several more weeks as the Elves and Dwarves finally managed to push the Orcs and Ogres down the mountain. Word was sent to the humans, who responded with a small force to assist in pressing the Legions back into the Rancorous Sands. The prisoners that the Orcs had taken were never recovered.

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It was never discovered how the Orcs managed to get past the Desert patrols, but more were added to make sure it didn’t happen again. The details of the small war that had occurred on Veronai’s Whip were also never made clear. What was apparent was the near destruction of the Elven and Dwarven cities, the only two that had made it through the Chaos Battles with little damage. Karatta now stood devastated and broken, cities had been demolished, lives were lost and no hope remained of gaining a better life beyond the rift. It was nearly impossible just to survive the regular rift spawn and the diseased land itself with so few inhabitants left alive. The races feared the legions and prayed they would not set out on another attack to take over what little remained of the towns. They secretly feared each other and hoped no new race wars would begin. They also feared those they had fought on the other side of the rift, surely they would find a way to get into Karatta and destroy them all. And what if Xaltion chose to finish what he had started? If Karatta had an abundance of anything, it was fear.

All resources from every kingdom had been severely depleted. Humans had food but not much else, Dwarves had their metal and gems but that would not save them from starvation. The Gnomes with their trinkets and contraptions had little in the way of food or materials and the Elves were left with their knowledge of building and teaching, something very much needed by all the races. It had come time to devise a system of trade. It was the only way to ensure that the process of life would continue, that the races would rise from the perils of so many years of war, it was the only way any type of rebuilding would be able to take place. Each race had something to offer that another wanted; a truce of some sort had to be created.

A meeting would be called into order to discuss just such a thing. A defined trade route needed to be established between all the settlements so that the merchant goods could be moved freely between towns and cities. Merchants needed to be protected at all costs and patrols would have to be set up to monitor all of the routes to help with the safety of traveling merchants from rift spawn and bandits as well. The races needed to come together, not to conquer, or to control, but to continue their very own existence.

The meeting to take place was a glimmer of hope in the darkest of nights. The people of Karatta looked at this meeting, the first ever to take place, as a savior on the horizon. It did not go unnoted that their savior was themselves. There would be no God to come shield them or take them to new lands. They would forge their own destiny, their own fate. They would march themselves over this treacherous land and force times to turn better for themselves. They would take refuge in their new Gods, and many would come to shun and even loath Xaltion for his suspected part in their defeat. The next age would be their age. It would be their fate in their hands. It would be the Age of Prosperity, because they would make it so.