The Empyreons

by Sado

The Great Elven War

With the Comet in the skies, causing terror from afar, the High Elf legions were severely weakened. Their drained strength, however, was not the result of physical fatigue, but rather of psychological madness: among the Comet's effects was the sudden and immediate removal of immortality, were one hit by its invisible radiation. Many Elves could not handle this, and the once great society that had lasted for as long as anyone remembered crippled in a matter of days. Banning mortal Elves from their cities, the High Elves called upon themselves the rage of those who were expelled, and civil war ensued. The Elves broke up in three factions, which we still distinguish today: The immortal High Elves, the Dark Elves and the Wood Elves.

As the Humans, under the command of Lumina, the arch mage of light, channeller and personification of the will of creation, and the Orcs, under the command of Asmodeus, the arch mage of darkness, channeller and personification of the will of destruction took arms and fought their ways into the four cities, the High Elves were forced to invent new means of waging war. Manipulating the force of Magic the way Lumina and Asmodeus did, they quickly learned the true nature of the Comet's radiation: it was the source of all mana. Constructing guilds to store mana in the city of Crystallion, the mages trained there became awesomely powerful. We refer to them today as the Empyrean Mages; who learned the trade by two mysterious persons that aided them in their studies, and taught them nearly all spells we still know of today. Before the appearance of the Comet, Crystallion had been the city of thieves: its main purpose was to keep peace within the empire. Most of those thieves, when the war was at its fiercest, eventually gave up their profession to become mages. As such, slowly, the Empyrean Thieves became the Empyrean Mages, and their iron grip over the empire made them more feared with their own people, than with the enemy.

While legion after legion was slaughtered, the Elves that had fled the cities concerned themselves with the path they had calculated the Comet to make: straight for the High Elven cities. Their sense of righteousness prevailed over the differences between them, and the Dark Elves, Wood Elves, Humans and Orcs collaborated to construct the most powerful weapon Orkfia had ever seen or will see: the Babel Cannon. Designed specifically to destroy the Comet, it was the only hope the Orkfians had of securing their future. The weapon, however, did not have its intended effect; rather, it made things far worse. Radiation engulfed all of the Orkfian universe, and the forces were thrown off balance. Many new races were created, and many obsolete things destroyed.

With the races thrown into a state of utter confusion, the High Elves attempted one final assault to suppress the uprising, now that they had discovered the supposed deaths of the two arch mages, Lumina and Asmodeus. With their disappearance, the Humans and Orcs lost the greatest deal of their firepower, and they were quickly overrun by the High Elf legions. The Dark Elves, blinded by fear of death, fuelled by their frustration and anger, assumed command of the alliance that had been formed between the races prior to the Babel Cannon disaster, and marched straight for Cystallion. The battle was won only because of a spell the Humans had invented, one that instilled weapons with the effects of the Comet' radiation. After the conquest of the city, the Dark Elves noticed that the three cities were preparing to march their armies to overpower the alliance in a final, decisive battle.

Last updated: January 2013