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==== Storm Cloud ====

A veil of psychic energy which shielded the land below from the sunlight, but
let the moonlight through without hindrance.  This cloud was originally an
unexpected by-product of the tremendous carnage at the end of the second age and
was drawn down to Lowland by Pelham in 1093.  In 1104, it was brought down by
the Good Party and has since settled over the necropolis that used to be the
city of Lowland.

==== History ====

{{ stormcloudmap.jpg?400|The Tower Positions and extent of Hades' storm cloud}}

[[Hades]]' storm cloud is a vast, black cloud that completely blocks out the
light of the sun, but lets through the light of the moon with no hindrance.  Its
origin on this world is shrouded in mystery, but it seems to have emerged over
the reconstructed ruins of the [[Dark Mage]]'s castle shortly after the great
explosion.

There it remained for centuries, powered by the [[Dark Mage]]'s scepter and the
great [[Luinmîr]], the gem of [[Corellon]].  In 1093, this gem was recovered by
[[Karelia]] and the storm cloud lost most of its anchor (having grown weak over
the centuries of isolation).

[[Pelham]], meanwhile, had wanted to control the storm cloud for his own
purposes.  When its connection faded, it swept off south and connected again
over [[Lowland]].  There it was kept going by [[Pelham]]'s magics and he devised
the means to expand it over his enemies ([[Backbone]] and [[Pleven]]).

Beginning in 1095, [[Pelham]] (in disguise) went throughout the land convincing
the various leaders that it would be in their best interests to construct a
series of watchtowers "to watch and to protect" the lands from the orcs and
other evils.  With his mind-influencing powers, he succeeded in this endeavor
splendidly.  Once these towers were up, [[Pelham]] planned on populating them
with hosts for special crystals.  These hosts could then keep the storm cloud
alive over thousands of square miles. Only the dwarves in [[Blanan]] were
unconvinced by [[Pelham]]'s logic, saying they saw little practical use for such
a tower.

The crystals [[Pelham]] were to use were fragments from a great crystal of
immense magical powers.  When the [[Dark Mage]] emerged and contacted
[[Pelham]], he was enthralled by the telepath's plan.  When his powers were
built up to near full force, he took the crystals from [[Pelham]], recovered
many of the still-missing ones, and carried [[Pelham]]'s plan to its "next
logical step."  Whereas [[Pelham]] would have been content to enslave his
neighbors, the [[Dark Mage]] would settle at nothing less than the entire world.

When the [[Dark Mage]] took possession of the crystal in late 1097, the eighth
tower had been completed, but only two of them were populated: the one over the
captured city of [[Bearly]] and the one overlooking [[Gnome Valley]].  Both
were considered by [[Pelham]] tests and only the [[Bearly]] tower expanded the
shadow any.  At this point, the shadow (initially kept just over the cities of
[[Lowland]] by [[Pelham]]'s own magics) had spread to encompass most of the
orcish lands of [[Qôc Larnaî]] as well as the city of [[Bearly]] and the
surrounding lands for about fifty miles.

In November and December of 1097, the [[Dark Mage]] populated the towers in
[[Leafgal]] and [[Torthorne]], thus enhancing the cloud's strength over the
entirety of [[Lowland]], spreading it further into [[Backbone]], though still
not over any of the major cities.  In January of 1098, the tower on the [[King's
Island]] was taken by force and populated.  This spread the storm cloud suddenly
over the cities of [[Backbone]].  However, the wizard [[Edric]] made the
connection between the [[King's Island]] tower and the clouds.  In June, he sent
his champion [[Lamar]] to investigate.  [[Lamar]] succeeded in ousting the
shadow host from the tower and so the cloud pulled away from [[Backbone]] and
settled back to [[Lowland]].

The [[Dark Mage]], desperate for a strong host near [[Backbone]], forced
[[Pelham]] to become a shadow host on June 24, 1098.  This was just the needed
edge to restore the cloud over [[Backbone]], though slightly weaker than before.
A month and a half later, on August 1, a host was placed in the tower in
[[Kinander]], the orc-held city east of [[Larinday]].  This, combined with the
already existent host in [[Gnome Valley]], was enough to spread a thin cloud
over all of [[Pleven|Elfland]].

With the cloud spread over more areas, the orcs were able to renew their assaults
on [[Backbone]] and the elvish cities.  [[Marsvan]] fell in late August, mainly
due to the number of fleeing citizens.  [[Hookridge]] followed soon thereafter
when King [[Scardore]] ordered the soldiery to concentrate on saving the capital
city.  On September 2, 1098, a host was placed in [[Hookridge]] and the storm
cloud's presence over [[Backbone]] was established without a doubt.  The capital
city fell under a concentrated siege on November 22.  Though [[Edric]] and his
wife [[Tacey]] fled to safety, both [[Lamar]] and King [[Scardore]] were killed.
Their bodies were used immediately as shadow hosts for the city of [[Backbone]]
and for the tower near the spire in the hills south-east of the city.

The next April (1099) saw the fall of [[Larinday]], mainly because the [[Ainagûl]]
[[Elsa]] had been killed a year earlier and the city's defenses were not
formidable enough without her.  The [[Dark Mage]] had saved her body to be used
as a shadow host and with her in [[Larinday]] on April 26, 1099, the cloud grew
stronger over [[Pleven]].

In May of 1099, due to the mysterious disappearance of the protective dwarves in
[[Blanan]], the gnomes of [[Riprap]] had to concede part of their territory to
the goblin horde.  While the main city continued to operate, a shadow host was
placed in a nearby tower on May 21.  Meanwhile, the nation of [[Resh]] enjoyed
an unexplained safety for as the storm cloud expanded with the renewed energy from
[[Riprap]], it seemed to come up to a protective barrier.  [[Resh]] breathed a sigh
of relief and thanked their gods for saving them.  (See elsewhere for details as
to why this protection came with a terrible price!)

By July of 1099, the wood elves of [[Wisewood]] had been forced to flee into
[[Pleven]] (as had the elves of [[Larinday]]).  Even the combined force of the
three elvish kingdoms, though, could not face up to the ever-increasing might of
the orcs under the storm cloud.  On July 24, the orcs broke into the city and
slaughtered all the inhabitants they saw.  Surprisingly enough, the elves found
represented only less than one percent of the elves expected. Somehow, the elves had
all left.  This sent the [[Dark Mage]]'s plans slightly haywire as he could not
find an appropriate shadow host for several months.  Nevertheless, on October
31, the [[Pleven]] tower was populated, strengthening the cloud even more.

In a move to engulf [[Resh]], two towers were populated within a day of each
other.  One, over [[Blanan]], on November 11, 1099, and the other west of
[[Resh]], near a large marsh, on November 12.  Much to the surprise of the
[[Dark Mage]], though, the cloud encroached the nation only slightly more.
Instead, it held its distance at a radius of about one hundred miles.  After
repeated failures on the part of the orc armies, he abandoned attempts to
capture [[Resh]] for the time being.

[[Wisewood]] and [[Lar Pelar]] were populated on November 26, 1099, and November
29, respectively.  These were followed by the tower over the ancient [[Glekdin]]
the following January 14.  This, though, signaled the end of the main push for
expansion.

The next expansion came over the mountain pass south of [[Backbone]] and into
the great desert.  The mountain pass tower was populated on August 8, 1101, and
the first desert tower on March 27, 1102.  By September 1, 1104, five other
desert towers had been populated with no resistance.  The nomads of the region
simply fled south and west away from the expanding cloud.

All this time towers had been put up all over the [[immenri|Northern Continent]]
as well, and by January 1103 fifteen were in place and populated.  Three others
were never completed (just as two in the desert).

On December 4, 1104, a man named Ashby was placed in the secretly-constructed
storm tower on Midore Island, causing the cloud to spread up from the
[[thentao|main continent]].  That night, the wizard [[Griswold Gildersleeve]]
was enslaved in the recently-completed tower on [[Lendore]] and the cloud firmly
established over the islands.

In perhaps his greatest mistake, the [[Dark Mage]], on January 4, 1105, diverted
the storm cloud from the hosts in the towers to the more powerful //Scepter of
Might//.  This expanded the cloud to encompass the entire plains of the
[[N'Galt|eastern continent]], all of the [[immenri|northern continent]], and all
but the south-west coast of the great desert.  Only [[Grugach island]] and the
southern mountains and coast of the [[thentao|main continent]] were spared.
Though this greatly helped the [[Dark Mage]]'s plans to defeat [[Rota]], it also
left him vulnerable. The next day, as fate would have it, the [[Good Party]]
(quite by accident) stumbled across the Scepter (located in the tower on
[[Lendore]]) and took it away, giving it to a Deva.  Many of the storm hosts, by
this time, had broken free of the cloud's influence and so the cloud faltered
and did not reconnect to its original hosts. In one swift motion, the entire
storm cloud retreated to its origin over [[Lowland]].

After the defeat of the Dark Mage, the cloud began to dissipate.  For some reason
(perhaps it cannot be fully destroyed), the cloud (in its original size: less than
one mile wide) drifted over the ruined city of Lowland where it remains to this day.

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