Karatta History

These four seemed to have reactions to one another when combined. The reactions were violent and sometimes harsh, but with the help and guidance of the four creators, they were molded together to create a sphere of incredible potential. The Creators were very impressed with the discovery and watched for many years as the sphere grew, shifted, and changed. The affects the four dimensions had on one another were incredible to say the least. They seemed almost to have a will of their own, forming themselves with no additional help from the creators at all.

Xaltion called the four dimensions the Elements. They were the Elements of creation. When the sphere stabilized, it had grown so huge that it took the creators 24 hours to move around the entire thing. All the reactions had ceased and now there seemed to be some kind of cycle. Keysa, Fergatu, and Kezarai began to be bored and suggested they try adding one other dimension at a time to the sphere to see the reaction.

Xaltion alone was wary of this. He was concerned it might destroy the sphere. Eventually however, Xaltion agreed and, one by one, they began to add dimensions. The results were somewhat devastating to the sphere, changing it further and creating strange reactions. The sphere began to show signs of instability, and Xaltion called a halt to adding any more dimensions.

Once Xaltion understood how the water interacted with the other four elements and the effect of the other dimensions woven into the sphere, he did not grow bored like the others. Instead he had ideas. He began to create again. Not dimensions or plains like before, he began to create what he called Life.

Using the example of how the sphere had taken on a will of its own when all of the elements were combined, Xaltion began to attempt to create Life that would resemble he and his siblings. Life that would create and destroy, change and grow all on its own, be unpredictable.

Xaltion started within his water, creating creatures he called Fish. He created different shapes, colors, and sizes. He created plants that housed and fed the creatures of the massive bodies of water that he called Oceans. He was very pleased with the world he had created. He gave his Fish the ability to procreate with each other and produce more of their kind.

There was no creature that was dynamic and could move through and utilize everything the environment had to offer. Things changed and evolved, but they always had boundaries. There were no creatures that resembled their creators. What kind of tribute was that? Xaltion voiced the idea to his siblings to create creatures in their images. The others were not interested. They were jealous of their power and they felt supreme over everything they created. If they created something in their image, would they be able to feel the same power over them?

The other three left the world again and Xaltion was left to tinker. And tinker he did. He began attempting to create a creature that would be like himself, thoughtful, creative, and willful. He wanted to create a creature that could look beyond foot and procreation and see things not just for food or shelter, but for potential. The first creature was called a Dwarf. The dwarf was a marvel to Xaltion. So willful, tenacious, and it thought in very creative ways. He made a male and a female and gave them the same ability to create others of their kind, and then he sat back and watched the dwarves develop.^[2]

Within a few hundred years, the dwarven population had grown and they had developed a distinct love and ability for crafting things. They were excellent at carving beautiful things from rock and actually preferred to live inside the mountains of the land. Xaltion was very pleased with the dwarves. They were very loyal to him and had developed in very impressive ways. But Xaltion saw room for improvement. Though he saw things he would like to improve, he couldn't bring himself to actually change his dwarves. Instead, he decided to develop a different race.

Elves were tall, slender and beautiful. They had a mystical grace about them and their creativity was very different from dwarves. While the dwarves carved beautiful things from the rock, when it came to more delicate things, like writing or speaking, they were not so talented. The elves not only developed a beautiful spoken language over a couple hundred years, but they created a written language too. The elves were also much longer-lived than the dwarves. The dwarves could survive for 200 to 500 years, the elves could live for thousands.^[3]

Xaltion enjoyed his two races for quite some time. He watched them interact with one another, grow, develop and discover. These creatures were perfect to him for they used everything around them and made new things out of them. They made dwellings, clothes, tools, and so many other things. They were always discovering something new and brought great joy to Xaltion.

After a couple thousand years, Xaltion began to see flaws in his creations. They lived so long and each was perfect in so many ways. He almost felt they had it too easy. He decided to make one more race that would be different from either elves or dwarves. They would not live as long, nor would they be so good at anything. They would be survivors. They would always just make it. And so Xaltion created Humans.^[4]

These individuals became clerics and Xaltion favored them above all others for their devotion and appreciation of him. Because he loved them, so did others of their kind and soon clerics were revered as what they called Holy.

Many more years passed and Xaltion was quite pleased with his world. Then, one fateful day, his three siblings came back. They too were impressed with what he had done with the world, but wanted to try other things. They wanted Xaltion to come away from his world and go with them to create something new. Xaltion did not want to go. He was happy and content with what he had made and didn't want to miss anything his creatures might discover or do. They were his children.

The other three were not so attached. They tried and tried to convince Xaltion to leave, but he wouldn't go. The three became angry and jealous of this world that had taken their brother from them. They began to cause great havoc, calling upon their respective elements to cause destruction.

The earth began to shake and split, volcanoes erupted and fire spread. The air whipped up great storms that toppled trees and building alike.

Xaltion watched in horror as the three destroyed so much in so little time. He commanded them to stop, agreeing to go away with them if they would only stop killing his world. The three stopped and Xaltion regretfully left with them. He was gone for only a few hundred years and felt he could stay away no longer. Leaving his siblings once again, he came back to his beloved world only to find sadness and despair.

So year one of the First Sun in the Age of Mercy began. People prospered and worshiped Xaltion. Clerics once again became revered instead of hated. When the world went mad, the races blamed their clerics for angering Xaltion and many had been exiled or worse yet, killed. Now that Xaltion was back, the clerics were once again accepted into society. Because of their sacrifice and suffering, Xaltion imbued the clerics with more abilities and power.

Xaltion was like an indulgent parent, giving to his children everything he thought they could ever want. Crops were abundant and there were no storms or harsh winters. For over 1000 years there was peace and great happiness. People relaxed and spent most of their time building or resting. There was all the time in the world for fun and games when Xaltion made life so simple and easy for them.

Xaltion was very pleased and enjoyed the feelings of being wanted, needed and appreciated. These were new feelings for him that he had never experienced before. He too was relaxing and enjoying everything. Then they returned. His siblings had finally grown bored and come to collect their brother.

Xaltion gazed one last time at his siblings, then ascended out of the core and the world to once again assume his normal form. Xaltion knew there had always been power in the world. He had watched as the occasional person would be born with the ability to sense it, but not understand it. All the creatures he had made were sensitive to magic in one way or another. Some, however were born with a strong ability to control and manipulate it, but without the knowledge of how to use that control.

With the introduction of the new powers, those who had the ability to use magic could no longer ignore the pull. They began to experiment. Many deaths and a bit of destruction occurred over the many years of experimentation, but within a few hundred years, the races had developed spells and rituals that allowed them to use the powers now available.

The original elves came to be known as High Elves. Some of the elves evolved differently, however, and wandered off. They created a virtually new race that was subsequently called the Tree Elves. These elves were much like the Elves from whom they were descended, but they had different creative tendencies and an uncanny ability to tap into the World Power. They could commune and control animal and plant, land and water, air and weather. They were a marvel to Xaltion. Not only for their abilities, but because he had not created them, it seemed the world itself had created them.

Now there were four races for Xaltion to watch and of which he could be proud. Within a few hundred years he had forgotten about his brothers and sister imprisoned in the center of the world. They, however, had not forgotten him.

The woman was actually freeing Kezarai from his prison. Xaltion was so enraged and felt so betrayed by this act, that without thinking, he struck down Kezarai just as he was released from his sphere of exile. The effect of this was catastrophic.

Because Kezarai was bound to the world and his magic and energy had become part of the fibers that held the world together, the loss of his essence created such havoc on the world that Xaltion was barely able to save it. When Kezarai died, all of his energy was forced into the world and the world could not contain it. Between the force of this energy backlash and that of the strike by Xaltion, the world began to tear itself apart.

Huge tears in the dimensional fibers began to spread. The damage to the material world itself was massive. Mountains grew where before there were only miles of flat land. Other mountains disappeared into the earth and the ocean swallowed up cities and land alike. It rained fire and hail and trees uprooted themselves or were simply sucked down into the ground. The death toll amongst the creatures was massive, but the toll among the races was twice that.

The entire band of humans wandered about for many years trying to find something recognizable. They searched in vain for the races of Dwarves and Elves, but found nothing. They found nothing familiar at any rate. What they did find was what seemed to be a completely new world. Traces of things remembered lingered but it was as though all of those things had changed into something new. Plants that were once thought to heal now killed. Leaves that were once green and lush were now dark gray and like rubber.

Animals that would once run from their sight now attacked humans without provocation. The water was tainted. The air was heavy, thick, and seemed to almost strangle the life out of everything. It was a hard life, and before they settled they had lost a good number of the original survivors. Finally, a man named Karatta, who had taken to leading the ragged procession, called a halt to their aimless wandering. He directed the people in building a camp and there they stayed. Eventually the ragged camp was named Karrattan after its founder, and likewise the land as a whole was called Karatta.

The Humans, after their long years of wandering, came to the conclusion that they were the only race left. They lived under this belief for nearly a century. An entire generation of humans came and went before they found out that they were not alone. A small expedition left the relative safety of Karrattan to explore the surrounding lands. To the south, a horrible and hostile desert was discovered. Out of a party of five who went to investigate it, only two came back. They reported that monstrous creatures wandered freely in the endless dunes of the desert, which the explorers named Rancorous Sands. They also reported there was nothing on the other side but a wretched and expansive swamp. They named the swamp Mecken's Swamp after one of the expedition's members who died there.

Another party left the confines of Karrattan and struck out to the west. Out of the six party members, only one returned, babbling of the end of the world and watching his party members disappear into the very air, never to return. Further investigation yielded what the scholars called 'The Rift'. From it, many horrible creatures came forth bent only on destruction and death. There seemed to be no end to the creatures, subsequently called ‘Rift Spawn’, it could put forth into the already struggling land of Karatta.

In these hardships, the lives the Elves, Dwarves and Humans once lived became bedtime stories for children. The reality of life was harsh, cruel, and left no room to wonder what life was like before the Rending? History was all but forgotten to the Humans, as the past no longer mattered when the future looked so bleak. People grew hardened over the years, and unbeknownst to them, the Rift itself influenced their violent and hate-driven ways. Even those who managed to resist and fight the influence of the Rift Energies usually succumbed to the hate placed in them by the evil doings of their fellow man.

The aspects had begun to show themselves and collect worshipers almost immediately after the rending. The people of Karatta were suspicious of any god, as they felt Xaltion had betrayed them and left them once again in his unpredictable wrath. It took time, but eventually people realized that they couldn't make it alone in the world, and began to call out to the respective aspects. Life went on. Karrattan was fortified with walls to protect against the creatures of the land and Rift Spawn. Life was hard and unkind. The people grew bitter and more hateful as time passed and took its toll on their hearts and bodies.

The Dwarves were not the same either. They had spent the last 473 years completely underground trying to find a way out. They had found themselves deep below the mountain they originally inhabited before the rending. This range was known to have an inactive volcano in it, which prevented the Dwarves from digging up and out. Instead they had to dig all the way under Rancorous Sands, which brought them to the mountain range of Veronai's Whip. This whole process, combined with the effects of the Rift, had forever changed the Dwarves. No longer were they the 'Mountain Dwarves' of the tales of old, but a dark, sinister, violent race of malicious beings bent on destruction. They were now referred to as 'Under Dwarves'. Not only had they changed in personality, but their bodies had changed as well. The lack of ANY exposure to daylight had caused their skin to become pale and nearly transparent and their eyes were generally milky or foggy.

Following the abrupt meeting, a very brief period of getting to know one another again commenced. The Humans listened in rapt awe and attention as the Dwarves reminded them of their long lost past. The Dwarves, in their turn, listened with great interest about the Gnomes, what had gone on in the surface world, and the absence of the Elves. For all their talks and meetings, the peace did not last long. There were many skirmishes and small battles as the Humans did not approve of the Dwarves coming off Veronai's Whip, and the Dwarves felt that the Humans were ungrateful and selfish. The Gnomes stayed primarily in their own lands in the northwest, only involving themselves if anyone came on "their" land. For nearly three decades the two races fought until one day their attentions were turned to a new comer.

In the year 492 AX, the Elves returned. They were not, however, the High Elves remembered by the Dwarves. They, too, had changed. Even more unique and strange were the effects of the new life on them. The High Elves, much like the Dwarves, had been trapped underground when their city slid into a huge crack in the earth during an earthquake. Having lost a large number of their citizens, the elves nearly perished. With the determination and wisdom born of living a nearly immortal life, the Elves were able to make their way to the surface. They too had to burrow under Rancorous Sands and eventually emerged in the same mountain range as the Dwarves.

The only thing that kept the skirmishes and small battles from escalating into an all out war was the fact that none of the races had an abundance of people to throw at one another. Their various fights for survival had diminished all their numbers. This, however, did not stop bloodshed as no one felt any mercy or compassion for others. This went on until something happened that forever changed life again for the races of Karatta. In the year 627 AX, a new person appeared. His name was Dekatar, and with his appearance a New Age began to cast its shadow on the entire world.

Dekatar appeared as a very tall, very good-looking human male. He came into the town of Karrattan and took an immediate hold over the population. Something about him captured them, entranced them. They hung on every word he spoke and followed every suggestion he made. They did not question where he came from or who he was. They listened in rapt attention to every tale he told and as they listened, the hate inside them grew and twisted their vengeful hearts even more.

High councils from the Gnomes, Dwarves, and Elves all came to Karrattan at the call of Dekatar. They too seemed to fall under the strange and irresistible charm of this unusual man. Dekatar spent the next few years forming a truce and a tentative peace between the races. Instead of turning their anger, hate and hostility toward the land on the other side of the Rift, Dekatar told the people of Karatta that their ancestors did indeed survive, and knew that they all were trapped in this horrible land. He told the people of Karatta that their ancestors had simply left them here, abandoned them because they were unwilling to risk the dangers of a rescue. He told them the Rift was created to make sure that none of the horrors the Karratans had to suffer through daily could make it into that beautiful and fertile land. He also said the Rift was to act as a barrier to keep out both them and the corrupting energies that seemed to leak from this land. Every last breathing person in Karatta believed every word he said.

Under Dekatar's guidance, the people began to train. Through him, they learned of Necromancy, a long lost magical art that gave them great power of the cycle of life and death. Over the course of three decades all the races sent their most magically inclined to Dekatar to learn the skill. Dekatar was a master, making every spell seem effortless. Though apparently human, it was suspiciously noted that Dekatar never aged. It was whispered that Dekatar was a Deity come to them in mortal form to lead them to victory and out of their suffering. It was whispered that Dekatar was the product of a coupling between a Deity and a mortal. Many things were rumored and talked about in dark shadows of the night, but no one really cared. They only cared that Dekatar would deliver them. Dekatar would see to it that what they rightfully deserved would be theirs. Dekatar was their savior. Dekatar became the closest thing to a king Karatta had ever known. He had united the races. He had revealed their past and their destiny.

Dekatar explained that the Rift responded to astrological events. Once every one hundred years, a portal through the Rift would open in the very center and core, which was located in the Rancorous Sands. Though the races had all been preparing, as the time fast approached that Dekatar said the Rift would open and they could pass through, their numbers were still woefully small. When the people expressed their concern, Dekatar only smiled and told them to have faith. They did. And in the year 675 AX, Dekatar led nearly the entire population of Karatta into the Rancorous Sands to the place the Rift would open.

The stars did shift, and the Rift did open as Dekatar had said it would. They all watched in a mix of awe and horror, as it seemed the very air split apart and gave way to a view of a perfect land, beautiful, green, lush, fertile, and safe. Dekatar seized the powers that rippled from the Rift and locked it open. The people had never seen such power displayed by anyone. They knew Dekatar must be a god at that point and many fell on their knees at the sight of his power. Dekatar, however, was not done. Once finished locking the Rift Portal open, he called forth an army of vicious and powerful creatures the like of which none had ever before seen.

These would come to be called the Chaos Legions, the Horde, and the Demons of the Rift. Dekatar would come to call them Goblins, Orcs and Ogres. He sent them through the portal into the land, the races of Karatta close on their heels. And Dekatar stood, laughing. It was a mad and echoing laughter that carried on the wind and chilled the spine of even the vilest of Karatta's abominations. He laughed as he watched his army spread into the placid land. He laughed as he gave birth to the new Age, his age. This was The Age of Chaos.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Though the humans were adept at farming, and certainly had a better time of it than others, there were still many hardships to overcome in tilling this sick land. The demand for food never ceased, and the humans did what they could to fill that demand. Aside from food supply, Karrattan became known as the place to find anything. It became a trade hub of sorts, having a large port and being fairly centrally located. After a time, the onslaught of demands for food began to subside, and the trade evened out to a steady and predictable flow of supply and demand.

The new trade routes had created an air of respect and a need for one another that the people of Karatta had never before known. Always having viewed one another as enemies or as a potential taker of what was theirs, each race soon came to the conclusion that this was a much better way of life. Cities became rebuilt and those who dwelled within them took a much tighter hold of their future than ever before. But despite the advancements, the discoveries, and the first working truce in Karattan history, they still kept a distance from one another and a watchful eye on each other’s comings and goings. They would never know the sense of explicit trust, but they would continue this lucrative truce and trade for as long as it would last.

After the challenges of survival and rebuilding had been dominated, nearly 15 years had passed. For some time, all of their minds had spun around the many questions that had been left by the end of the Chaos Wars and Dekatar’s strange disappearance. Answers had not yet come, but to everyone’s surprise, some of those answers would be brought to their doorstep in a most unexpected way. On the road up the mountain to Dar’Kitha, the home of the dwarves, a body was found by a merchant. At first thought to be dead, it was identified as a male dwarf, though the age was impossible to determine. He appeared unnaturally aged, covered in little more than rags and carrying with him only a rusted hand axe. When the merchant had investigated closer, he was able to tell the fellow was still breathing. The man was brought to Dar’Kitha where he recuperated over several long months.

It took many days for Kisternian, even with his noted powers, to calm the mind of this man and make some sense of his ramblings. Finally, he felt that all that could be made sense of had been made sense of and that the dwarf was not far from death either way. His body was failing as much as his mind. The Dwarves demanded that Kisternian reveal what he had gathered from the many sessions with the dying man, and reluctantly, Kisternian began to relay the information he had amassed.

The dwarf’s name was Mooreden and his family name remained uncertain, as he was never able to quite discern it. It was most difficult for Mooreden to identify himself at all, and Kisternian had not wanted to press the matter. But the dwarf had indeed fought in the Chaos Wars and was among the many that had fled from the rise of the spinning waters that drove them away from their victory. He was also one among the many that had managed to flee before the rage of the loosened Chaos Legions brought death upon him. However, he was not one of the many that had made it through Dekatar’s Gate before it had closed. He had survived with many others who became hunted, captured, tortured, killed, and even eaten by the Legions. The people of the New Lands also hunted them as well as they hunted the Legions. Mooreden, and the others who had so far survived, were forced to reside near the Rift and avoid the villages and towns of the New Lands, living only on what they could scrounge from the earth. They were hunted by everything, and never once had a solitary moment of peace.

Mooreden claimed that nearly a hundred dwarves, elves, gnomes, and humans had been trapped on the New Land’s side of the Rift. And from among them, he was the only one that he knew of who was not killed outright by the Rift Spawn, the peoples of the New Land, or the Legions. He had wandered for quite some time alone across the fertile grounds of the New Land. He had seen and learned much from its inhabitants while trying to avoid being killed before meeting up with the other Karattan forces. Traveling at night, he would come upon the camps of travelers and listen to their talk and wait for them to fall asleep. Sometimes he would kill them, and sometimes he would simply steal what could be reached from the shadows. Eventually he came across others who too, had migrated toward the area where the gate once stood, hoping for a way home.

The Dwarf was unable to reveal much more as his mind had nearly broken with his trials. By pure happenstance, Mooreden was present at the spot where the Gate had opened so many years ago when according to the stars it would open again. He said it had only remained open a few moments and he was left with no time to prepare. Mooreden had thrust himself through to find nothing but a desert waste surrounding him. He had no supplies, no food, nothing but what he had been wearing and his axe. He was unable to give details of his survival through the desert, but obviously, it had been in vain for he surely would die. And die he did. Not three hours after Kisternian ceased his interrogation, Mooreden of no clan died in the Temple of Dar’Kitha.

While the dwarves gave Mooreden many great honors including burial as a true war hero and several weeks of mourning which included the dedication of statues to his sacrifice, the Elves rushed to call another meeting. This one would be to discuss the grave threat that loomed over the denizens of Karatta, and to tell all others of what had been discovered. It took several weeks for all to respond and finally meet. Once the information was passed on, everyone reacted the same way. They were not ready for war. They had just barely gotten back on their feet! How long had these Lazaronian people had to prepare? How much of an army did they have now? They could have crossed the Rift and be marching across Karatta’s soil right now! Also of concern was the silence all this time from the Chaos Legions. What had become of them? Aside from a few scattered sightings of small bands of Ogres roaming in Rancorous Sands, they had been silent. Were they dead? Were they too planning on mounting an attack against the people of Karatta?

More than ever the people of Karatta feared to lose what they had worked so hard to build and maintain. For the first time in centuries, they were prospering. They finally had a foothold on this horrible land they had to call home, and they feared greatly to lose it. Much discussion was held and finally after many hours of talk, a conclusion was arrived at. They too must train and prepare. This ‘Academy’ idea these Lazaronians had, they could do that too. If they combined their talents, their skills, and started training their children from a young age, they just may be able to get their own skilled armies together. But how much time did they have? There was no way of knowing. It was agreed that patrols along the Rift borders would increase, and some sort of outpost would need to be established near the Rift area known to respond to the astrological symbols, where the gate was created to warn against an invasion.

The villages began to fortify under the threat of invasion from any and all sides. The paranoia spread throughout Karatta and tensions began to mount as merchants refused to travel the roads and trade began to dwindle. Patrols were increased and trade treaties reestablished and the merchants, feeling somewhat safer, began to trade again and violence between the races was narrowly avoided. It became more and more apparent that they would have to work together if any of them wished to survive, but it also became apparent that the peace was an uneasy one and at any moment it could falter. Karatta once again began to spiral down into the depths of fear and unease. Months went by with no attacks but also with no word from the established outpost or the team that had been sent to investigate the Legions. The academies were founded, and slowly people began to attend and send their children.

Nearly two years after the team of eight had been sent, three finally returned, wounded and ill. They were picked up by one of the Desert Patrols stationed on the edge of Rancorous Sands and brought to Karrattan immediately. Two dwarves and a human were all that had survived. They spoke of the knowledge they had gained and while it was not wonderful news, it was not exactly bad either. After six months of travel across the desert and another two months of searching, the group had found the villages of the Chaos Legions where they had been built in the swamps on the far side of Rancorous Sands. There had been no evidence of an attack being planned or launched. The group had watched the Legions for some time and had only been forced to flee once three of the eight had been discovered and captured by Orcs. Two more died on the journey back to Karattan as they were unable to secure sufficient supplies for the perilous journey. One of the dwarves then passed away about a week after being found with their names never being recorded.

As it became more and more clear that they were under no immediate danger, some of the gloom lifted from the people of Karatta. The academies became more and more popular, and they were expanding due to the increasing population. Instructors from every village were sent to the academies to teach. Humans taught farming and other ways of living from the land including the arts of trade. Gnomes taught of mechanics, dwarves of fighting, armor and weapon craft, and the elves concentrated on alternative methods of fighting and magic. Between all of their areas of expertise, the academies began to turn out highly trained individuals. The hostilities between the races once again began to flow away in light of their apparent success.

They fought the land, they fought the Rift, and they fought their very own fate. They were winning. For the first time, in a very long time, Karatta understood what success meant. Through blood, sacrifice, trade, and the realization of their own mortality and their need for one another, they had forged their Age of Prosperity.

Are you powerful enough to walk the paths of Karatta? Do you have what it takes to survive in the most vicious of lands? Is your heart hard enough to witness the pain of this place? If you think so, come and join those that fight for survival, power, and the hope of a new life. Join the ranks of Karatta.