Prologue

Andir set out that evening in search of a monster, He had learned, as all children must that adults are capricious with the truth. His parents seemed to believe that Andir's age orecluded any serious disclosure of why the world worked as it did. His persistant questions were most often met with a sigh and a tired "becuase". If he caught them in a particularly dark mood, the would answer his question with a wry story invented on the spot abd see how long it took Andir to get the joke. For the bulk of his ten years, Andir had believed his fathers tale of the uncharacteristically kind Ghol who delivered presents to obedient children on winters longest night. Their jokes grew increasingly bitter as the boy grew older; his parents were simple poeple whole believed that an active mind led to nothing but laziness. Far better to bring honor to the king through hard work.

Over the years Andir began to wonder how much of he knew was true. Age was not a guarantee of wisdom, honesty, or kindness. If adults could lie or joke about some things what was to stop them from lying about the rest? So many things he took for granted might be half-truths, or even preposterous fantasies. A percocious child in many respects, Andir found this notion depressing. He considered what he knew or thought he knew of recent history. Some of the poeple in his village were veteran of the great war, and the rest spoke of it so often one might be forgivin to think it had ended sixty days ago rather than sixtey years. In light of Andirs developing skepticsm, many of the tales told about the war seemed suspect. Hordes of reanimated dead deafeted by small ragged groups of mercenaries and volunteers? A severed head that spoke, lies slipping through its lips to a audience that would soon be dead? Alric, then simpley a wizard of immense power and not a king plotting and fighting against walking dead without so much as a scratch on his chin from Balor's rotting armies? Balor himself with a legion of creatures bound to him through sorcery and intimidation unable to stop alric from lopping off his head? And Soulblighter - the towering mad thing who cut off his own face and tore his own heart out as part of a ritual too dark to speak of?

None of it seemed especially believable, although the adults still spke of Soulblighter in hushed tones; according to the stories, no one had ever discovered what happend to him. Andir was not inclined to dismiss this superstion, but chose to reserve judgement until he could learn more about the war. So he set his sights on a goal closer to home: learning the truth about the caves in the forest near his village.

The forest was full of dead trees which had a habit of falling over and killing things. Knowing this his mother told stories of a terrifying blur of claws and fangs that lukred in caves and fed on young buys. Andir suspected the story was false and planned to disprove it by examing the caves; he felt certain that he would find them as harmless and empty as his parents words of caution. Armed with his knowledge he might return home and convince his parents that he was mature enough to learn the truth about the world and to have his questions treated with respect. If they must tell him stories, he wanted only to hear the true stories. And stories of monsters werent true.

He slipped quietly from his familys cottage late one evening, darting between houses and trees, trying not to be seen by other villagers who might order him back home. Once he cleared the village he had a straight run across a jade plain that ended about a mile from the edge of the forest. He could no longer see the sun but enough light penetrated the tightly clustered tree trunks to keep him moving.

He picked his wat carefully between trees in the forest. It seemed that every other trunk was whitened and papery; one fell over when he leaned on it to catch his breath. Andir remembered the stories of the Fallen Lord Shiver killing any tree she brushed as she and her army marched toward Madrigal. Again he wondered how true that tale was.

He ripped large strips of bark off the living trees to mark his passage and kept moving towards the heart of the forest. By the time he found the first cave, night had crept up behind him obliterating even the silhouettes of the trees. Steeling himself he stepped inside and shuffled foward.

The cave was damp with a roof that sloped gentyl downward to its end. After ten feet he had to bend down; after twenty he had to sit down. He smiled if there were any beasts in the cave they were so small to be harmless - even to a child. Andir knew that his mother had concoted a story to keep him out of harms way; he could understand and appreciate her concern but also felt certian that his mother was jumping at shadows. He had learned the truth and it had not hurt him.

Andir crawled out into the night air and began walking back home. He could not seem to find the last tree he had marked. He stumbled through brush and over thick toors for perhaps thirty minutes before he saw the crow.

Although in perfect darkness the black bird somehow stood out. Its feathers were a glistening oily black that seemed the pulse with inner turbulence. The bird seemed to look past him rather than at him. Curious, Andir stepped toward it.

The bird hopped away. Andir followed. He tripped on a root and fell against a fallen willow branch. The noise he made must have drowned out the rustle of another birds wings, for when he picked himself up there were two crows before him. Both stared directly at him. Their eyes moved with the sme sinuous smoky motion as their feathers.

Andir understood that these were no ordinary birds, but had a suddon urge to god home and wait until daylight before returning to study them. He stepped backwars eyes on the two crows. They remained motionless. He turned around intending to go back to the clearing hed passed about twenty feet back and choose another path - he stopped.

Andir stood withing a group of crows arranged in a perfect circle.

He felt sweat run down the side of his face. The crows took baby-steps forward closing in almost imperceptibly. Andir squatted low and ran his hand over the ground trying to find a fallen branch with which to shoo them away. A crow pecked at his ahnd and he swung his aloft in self-defense. Andir felt an ugly numbess spill down from his upraised arm into the rest of his body, and then his muscles gave way and he fell to the floor of the forest. Andir felt as though all the skin on his body was cumbling like paper consumed by fire.

Andir saw a tall man, smiling so hard it almost seemed as though he had no lips. There was a grotesque scar running down his bare chest. Andir knew his name from the stories, and might said it aloud if his toungue had still worked.

And... somthing else, behind him, somthing nameless for a thoughsand years. Andirs final insight was that all stories contained little truths. Larger truths like that of the scarred presence towering over him, could never be adequately conveyed in a tale.

He blinked and the monster was gone, and the crows were on him.

He might have seen the ceiling of the night dissolve into daylight and the crows rise in a solid black mass towards the blue sky, hovering like a malevolent angel with far too many wings. Except his eyes were long gone by that point....

The other things, creatures Andir had no name for, dashed through the countryside for the first time in centuries, toward a village alive ith sounds of roosters and two parents wondering where their child had gone off to at such an early hour. Andir had learned, as all children eventually must, that there was a little hidious truth in every monster story. And the horde that followed the crows knew that the best stories deserve a second telling...

The Story So Far

Its now over 100 years since Balor first appeared at the eastern edge of the civilized
lands. His arrival was heralded by a great comet that grew in the sky and signaled doom to all life. With dark arts he raised up the Fallen Lords, sorcerer-generals like himself, bent to his will and desiring nothing but to lay waste to the living and rule over the blasted lands. Among their number were Shiver, The Deceiver, The Watcher and most vicious and cunning of all - Soulblighter.

Leading a grim ormy of many beasts, spirit creatures and the reamiated dead, the Fallen swept through the Eastern villages and cities, destroying the great capital at Muithemne and scattering the survivors. They passed the great continental range of the Cloudspine and flooded into the rich lands of the west. Only to of the great cities of the west still stood when our armies rallied.

Pursuing a plan of retaking strategic points and exploiting the weaknesses of the Fallen, Alric, last of the nine protectors of the west led a strike through the Fallen lines and directly for Balor himself. In a desperate gamble Alric tricked balor into exposing himself and cut off his head. Eluding Soulblighter he brought it to the Great Deviod, a cast pit in the heart of the world and threw it in to seal Balors fate and make sure he shall never return again. Their leadership broken, most of the Fallen Lords were soon hunted down and destroyed by Alrics armies. With Balors destruction, Soulblighter found himself defeated but alive and free from Balors service. He escaped into the wilderness to bide his time and look for an opportunity to return to his former power, to achieve the ambition the was denied his master.

Now sixtey years have passed since the end of the Great War against the Fallen. Alric sits on his throne in the rebuilt city of Madrigal. Warriors have returned to their villaged and allie like the fir'bolg to their homelands. Peace reigns and the land prospers.

History proves there is always lull before the storm.....