At the beginning of time, the gods all lived on the mortal world. When the rivalry between the disparate groups threatened the destruction of all, the gods made a pact now known as The Concordant (or sometimes The Great Tribunal). In this pact, the gods agreed to leave the mortal world for places unknown and rule the mortals only indirectly. To ensure their own cooperation, they cast a great enchantment to seal themselves away from this world, effectively imprisoning themselves in Godsland. Because of this spell, they could not directly interfere unless called upon by the mortals. To this end, the gods ensured that the mortals would have an ample amount of mana with which to invoke the magical powers necessary to summon them back if needed.
Thus, the gods constructed the wall around the world, not to jail the mortals to a more confining region, but to concentrate the mana to make this world the richest of the twenty1). Also, the constructed the great Heaven Spire and cast it back to the world to be used as a magical anchor. No kingdom who rightfully possessed the heaven spire could be defeated by any outside force!
There were some immortals, though, who felt that the gods should not have left. Only one, though, was able to remain when the gods cast their fateful enchantment which sealed them away from the world. He was the elemental lord of evil, called by many names, but known throughout as The Deceiver. He cast a powerful illusion so that the gods would mistake him as a mortal and leave him behind. His plan worked magnificently and after the gods sealed themselves off from the world, he dropped the illusion and ruled the planet as his own.
The gods, seeing that The Deceiver needed to be stopped, devised a way of imprisoning the demon. They created a magical map of the portals, so tied to their existence that if the map were destroyed, so would the portals (temporarily). Using The Deceiver's own trick of illusion, the gods granted the map with other powers of location and presented it to worthy mortals as gifts (lawful under the great tribunal's charter).
Thus it was, that early in the realm of The Deceiver, a group of heroic mortals confronted the great demon with the map, tricked him into standing within the confines of one of the ninety-nine portals and destroyed the map. The portals connections were separated from this world and The Deceiver was cast into a far- away dimension, never to return.
Late in the 27th century of the first age, a master of illusion named Bar stumbled quite by accident upon a fragment of the great map. For the next several years, he used the magic of the fragment itself to track down the remaining pieces. On April 4, 2700, he assembled the pieces together and the map miraculously reassembled itself. On the spiritual plane of evil, though, Kost, one of the powerful demon princes, noticed the reassembly. Kost had more allegiance to The Deceiver than he did to his successor and so he saw this event as a means to perhaps release the “rightful” demon lord.
Kost tricked Bar into summoning him and confronted the wizard on November 9, 2700. Bar fled with the map, only to be followed by the demon prince at every step. For nineteen months, the demon prince carefully tracked down the wily wizard until on June 20, 2702, Bar made his last stand and dispersed the map while Kost stood on a portal. Unfortunately, Bar himself was imprisoned as well.
Many battles were fought in those nineteen months and many ruined castles litter the world as signs of the destruction. One casualty was the sorceress Shardanna, whose warrior-husband was killed by Kost on September 23, 2701. Shardanna, herself, was stripped of memory and powers and sealed in a tomb of ice by the prince in an attempt to trick Bar into rescuing her (and thereby placing himself at risk). That plan failed, though.
The following calendar is a brief account of the adventures of Rhae and Larindel (along with their cohorts) known collectively as "The Pioneers".
20 Apr – A man named Karsa uncovers the gem Cyrillus, a controlling gem which when combined with the great map will pinpoint the location of the racial weapons. Karsa wishes to reassemble the map, find the gem of the portals and establish a broad, power-base across the world with it.
13 Aug – Larindel meets Rhae in the wilds around Rhae's home kingdom of Lural.
20 Aug – The two team up with a colleague of Rhae's: a ranger named Loquen.
23 Aug – People working for the wizard Alsif, a long-time rival of Karsa, uncover the gem and immediately send it to Rep Klin. Aron, one of the chiefs of security betrays the knowledge of the gem's discovery to minions of Karsa.
25 Aug – Karsa sends a pack of goblins to uncover the gem from Alsif's messengers. As fate would have it, Rhae, Larindel, and Loquen discover the remains of the caravan which had been carrying the gem. The sole survivor: a young girl named Thryza, whose parents were killed, tells them of a box containing a very valuable item which the goblins stole.
28 Aug – After tracking the goblins to the Heaven Spire, the three meet a druid named Logan. He vows to help them defeat the goblins.
29 Aug – The goblins are found in a secret, underground passage near the base of the spire and vanquished.
30 Aug – The four uncover the magical gem Cyrillus, though they do not know what it is.
1 Sep – In Rep Klin, the wizard Alsif informs the group what Cyrillus is.
9 Sep – The group is in Vollarin to explore some ice caves. They are assigned a young warrior girl named Trevvi as a guide.
12 Sep – The five enter the caves and revive the frozen body of Shardanna. The wizardess remembers nothing except her name and a very few, simple spells.
For the next year, the five adventurers travel the world uncovering bits of the great map, always trying to keep one step ahead of Karsa and his enthusiastic servant, Aron. Finally, on September 30, 2712, a great battle erupts when the assembled map is presented in one of the portals and the demon prince Kost emerges. Karsa joins forces with the heroes to fight the demon and the prince is pushed back into his imprisonment dimension when the map is dispersed once again. Luckily, though, the imprisoned wizard Bar emerges from the portal.
As it turned out, the wizard Alsif was a replica of Bar constructed before his imprisonment in 2702. Alsif, being artificial, is more “fragile” than a normal human and if seriously wounded could disintegrate. This, along with the fact that Bar tied his essence strongly to the city of Rep Klin, forces Alsif to remain within the city. If he were to venture too far out for too long, he would die.
Shardanna, with the aid of Bar, has regained most of her lost memories, and she, along with her son (now only seven years younger than herself) and Bar, live in Alsif's castle in Rep Klin.
Trevvi returned quietly to her native kingdom of Vollarin; Loquen is back defending Lural from the orcs and goblins in the wild lands; Logan has returned to nature, wandering who knows where; and Rhae and Larindel continued their adventures and later joined up with a new group.