Foreword:

 

I hold this to be true: the world we know is not the sole, defining timeline. As Xynthin demonstrated to us, possibilities have a world of their own. What can be, is, and has a life as true and as vibrant as our own. And though the barriers between worlds are mighty, they are not insurmountable. The divergent branches of possibility may converge upon one another and interact, each changing the other forever.

 

-Thul of the Fog

 

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A Brief History of the Tarnished Age

by Thul Lakeheart, the Questing Beast

 

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The Dwarven War

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Celestian scholars dispute the claim to this day, but enough evidence from recovered documents to confirm that it was the Empire that instigated the Dwarven War. Scrolls from the ruins of Old Hallifax detail repeated and substantial payments to the same mercenary companies that plagued mining towns all across the mountains, robbing the Mountain Kingdom of various resources, but particularly its gems, and documents recovered from dwarven ruins detail especially well-armed raiders, some bearing the insignia of noble houses, notably Houses Shevat, d'Vanecu and d'Illici. With the Celestian Empire pushing its influence with impunity into the mountains, it is small wonder that King Hardak Falgirn felt threatened enough to take action.

 

Undated reports by Glorianan scouts detail the discovery of strange patches of land, grasses turned to iron spikes, dirt becoming as hard and smooth as bronze, and the waters flowing as gold, but 24 Raziary, 396 IE is the earliest certain date when Celest came into conflict with the Mountain Kingdom's newest forces. Cr'kar Shevat was on a routine patrol (leagues away from Hallifax, near the dwarven mining settlement of Angkrag) when he and his company were ambushed by dwarves. Cr'kar, a member of the Institutional Society of Hallifax for the Improvement of Temporal Knowledge, was the only one to escape. He reported that his contingent of bodyguards were suddenly overwhelmed, as their own weapons turned against them and their own armor pinned them to the ground. More such reports would soon come from all around the Basin, as the Metallomancers revealed themselves to the world.

 

Emperor Tamontane II, offended by the string of defeats and unwilling to accept one more nexus in the Basin outside his control, sent ambassadors to demand reparations while his forces worked in secret to locate the source of the Metallomancers' power. While Celest searched in vain for the dwarves' hidden nexus, her emissaries were rebuffed and mocked, and Imperial forces driven back to the hills. In this, the dwarves were aided by the Forest Communes, embittered by similar behavior from the Empire. This state of mutual aggression lasted for years, but it wouldn't be until a direct assault by dwarven forces upon the city of Hallifax during the Quadricentennial Fair that Tamontane would declare war.

 

Celestian forces found themselves hampered in their war by a number of problems. First, the bulk of their troops, ur'Guard, Sentinels and Templars, fought in armor, a fact greatly exploited by the Metallomancers. Additionally, most troops were not accustomed to battles in the mountainous terrain, only the Geomancers finding themselves at home in the labrynthine dwarven halls. Finally, around Shakinary 403 IE, Imperial forces found themselves being repeatedly ambushed without recourse. Months would pass before Celest could confirm the existence of the Mountain Kingdom's newest force, the Tyrfing, who conjured spectral weapons and terrible machines from the very air, allowing the dwarven forces to strike and ride away through the earth on devices faster than any steed.

 

With victory after victory, it looked as though the Mountain Kingdom might hold off Celest forever, but on 12 Elohian, 406 IE, Tamontane gathered his forces, pulling them away from Angkrag where they had been focused, and turning them to the distant Razines. At last, he'd located the dwarves' nexus, hidden deep beneath the earth in the fortress called Undercastle: what was once the True Forge of Klangratch, now the Fountain of Steel, connected to the Elemental Plane of Metal and the Cosmic Plane of Fornax, birthplace of Clangorum and Agnomenon.

 

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The Rupture and the Return

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King Hardak's victories relied upon a strategy of hit and run, leaving Celest's larger forces no place to truly focus her energies. With the full might of the Empire converging upon the Fountain of Steel, Hardak grew suddenly desperate. Waves of terrible machines met Tamontane's forces in Irshaw and Oleanvir, but did little more than slow the masses of warriors, mages and mystics down. A massive device known dubbed the Hammer of Klangratch brought down a whole section of the Razines upon Tamontane's army, but Geomancers blunted much of the damage, and the vengeful ranks of the Aeromancers, Researchers, Celestines, Fatalists, and Illuminati took to the skies to obliterate the machine and its operators. Finally, with the armies of Celest at his very door, Hardak ordered his people to begin Operation Dainsleif.

 

Much about Operation Dainsleif is speculation. The only documents recovered from Undercastle are soiled and heavily-damaged, but the remnants point to theories of something beyond the Cosmic Plane, a treasure or a realm, or perhaps some portion of Avechna's power for the taking. Scholars today still debate over what Hardak might have been hoping to accomplish with his last command. What he got instead is indelibly etched into history.

 

As Celestian forces fought their way through Undercastle, the Tyrfing suddenly began to scream and collapse, their conjured weapons and machines warping into nightmarish designs, their bodies soon following suit. Unnerved by the uncanny display, but encouraged by the sudden elimination of enemy forces, the Celestians pushed forward, until the Metallomancers suddenly began to collapse as well, their shining demesnes twisting and tarnishing in blasphemous patterns. As dark power washed through Undercastle, it touched every piece of metal within, from the brackets on the doors to the weapons in every hand, and the armor on every body, turning everything it filled sharp and hungry for blood.

 

Celest's mighty armies were cut by a third that day, much of its vaunted legions murdered by its own armor. A cloud of corruption spread forth from the twisted Fountain of Steel, taking control of those caught in its choking smoke. The few not slain or grasped in the cloud's tainted grip fled hastily, leaving behind ravening masses of twisted dwarves with skin of black iron, and the torn puppets of their fellows animated on wires of thin steel.

 

In the wake of what would later be known as the Rupture, confusion and terror reigned. The smoke from Undercastle spread thinly on the surface, forcing evacuation from the surrounding countryside, but corrupting all it touched. The Irshaw tae'dae, dragged into the smoke by masses of undead and black dwarves, re-emerged as monstrous, bestial behemoths. Gaudiguch, weakened from the disaster, was beseiged by the re-emergent Metallomancers and Tyrfing, mounted atop twin-headed beasts never seen in the Basin.

 

Worst, corruption spread from the Plane of Metal, tarnishing, twisting and turning the very tools of the world against their owners. In some places, swords and armor animated themselves to slaughter their would-be wielders. In others, the metal merely corrupted the minds of those who dared touch it, chaining hapless mortals to the same alien overmind that ruled the smoke. In Hallifax, the complicated machinery powering the Matrix abruptly faltered and died at once, sending the city's non-trill population to plummet to their deaths.

 

In all the chaos, corruption and death, it would be weeks before the Basin had any idea as to why any of it was happening. Then, on 23 Methril, 407 IE, Urian Falgirn, son of Hardak, arrived on the shores of Celest, clutching the Holy Stone of Klangratch to his chest. Shaken but somehow still pure, Urian finally gave a name to what threatened the Empire and the Basin: Kethuru, last and mightiest of the Soulless Gods.

 

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The Battle of Undercastle

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Emperor Tamontane II knew well what he had to do: awaken Avechna the Avenger to defeat and seal away Kethuru once more, and to do that, he would need a Vernal God. Yet, the Empire lay depleted. Hallifax had been destroyed, Gaudiguch remained in a state of siege, and both Magnagora and the city of Celest itself were in a state of civil war, the corrupted and possessed roaming the streets, looking to spread the touch of tainted metal to their countrymen. In utter desperation, the Emperor turned to the forest communes, who had suffered from the Rupture, though nowhere near as badly as the cities. With the safety of nature and the whole of the world at stake, the communes mobilized.

 

After deliberation, and the channelling of vast amounts of power through the Maeve to Serenwilde, Merowyn Lunseer, High Wisdom of the Moondancers, arose through the Mother Moonhart Tree to become Ellone, the Winter Maiden on 25 Methril, 407 IE. As her shining form loomed over the Basin, she called to Avechna, who rose to meet her. Wordlessly, Ellone looked to Avechna, and wordlessly, Avechna nodded. He vanished, to appear again standing before the Razines, tall as any of the mountains before him. One stroke of his sword rent the mountains in two, opening up Undercastle to the skies and drawing an unearthly scream from the very heavens. With that, Avechna vanished once more. "He has severed Kethuru from this world, and now goes to reform the Seals," Ellone intoned. "But the corruption yet remains. Let us go to finish the job."

 

The corrupted armies, though they yet remained maddened and violent, laid in disarray without Kethuru's guiding intelligence. The armies of Creaton mobilized to sweep their lands clean of the corrupted. Magic did the bulk of the work, though warriors adapted to fight despite the insanity that yet lingered within the world's metal. Many turned to weapons of bone and stone, and armor of magically-hardened leather. Some fought with techniques taught by the monks of Tosha, who had fended off black dwarf attacks with their bare hands. Some precious few, like Emperor Tamontane himself, fought with steel blessed and purified in the Cosmic Planes. With renewed purpose, they cleansed their lands, and then turned towards Undecastle, where legions of black dwarves and the Wellspring of Annihilation yet waited.

 

On 7 Ashtar, 407 IE, Ellone flew at the head of an army larger than any since the Vernal Wars. She expected little real resistance from the forces of Undercastle, just a culling of disorganized forces. She did not expect to see the black dwarves lined up in ranks, and she most certainly did not expect to see Hardak Falgirn, wreathed in a sharp-edged halo of pulsating corruption. The dwarven king, styling himself Goreblight, cackled madly as he grew to massive proportions and strode into the armies of Creation.

 

The battle was, by all accounts, nightmarish. The Tyrfing and Metallomancers retained their connections to their tainted planes, wielding maddening metal and horrible constructs against their foes. In retaliation, Imperial mages unleashed a holocaust of the pure elements upon their foes, as priests and wiccans struggled to keep their allies upright and sane. Meanwhile, Ellone, wielding the Scythe of Winter, did personal battle with Goreblight, fearing what the Corrupted Vernal might do given a moment to focus on her armies.

 

Soon though, it became apparent to all that Ellone couldn't beat Goreblight on her own, and the Black King laughed madly as his Stygian Panoply shredded Ellone's godly form. Seeing this, Emperor Tamontane called out to his old foe, mocking him for his corrupted state and his foolishness. With a mixture of anger and amusement, Goreblight turned on him, and Tamontane died slowly. But when Goreblight turned back, Ellone was no longer there. The Black King searched the battlefield for her, annoyed, and then shouted in alarm as he spotted her in front of the Wellspring of Annihilation.

 

The antlers of White Hart upon her brow, body shining brightly with the pure light of Mother Moon, Ellone smiled thinly as Goreblight rushed towards her with godly speed. As the world watched, she fell backwards, away from the Black King's desperately-reaching hand, and into the seething mass of jagged, bubbling metal. The Wellspring of Annihilation was obliterated within the noon-bright explosion of Ellone's sacrifice, and Goreblight, face inches away from the mountain-sundering blast, evaporated into nothing.

 

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Birth of the Monk Guilds

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The forces of Creation, wounded but triumphant, returned to their homes to rebuild and recover. The forest communes lay drained after the ascension and loss of Ellone, but were still in far better position than the Celestian Empire, which had lost an entire city, and now struggled to rid itself of vast quantities of metal, still tainted and maddening after Kethuru's expulsion. The forests, never so dependent on artifice and steel, recovered far faster than any of the cities, and took advantage of their greater power and the goodwill fostered by Ellone's deeds to take back the lands the Empire had claimed from it. Gloriana spread once more to encompass the Grey Moors and the Malacoda Heath, Serenwilde healed the Great Scar over its center, and spread west to the very edge of the Blasted Lands where Kethuru's corruption yet lingered, and in the most contoversial move, Ackleberry spread east towards the Shallach, swallowing the crater left by Hallifax's destruction and expelling the lucidian and trill attempting to rebuild.

 

Seething, but unable to mount a counteroffensive on so many fronts, Empress Sineth IV sought to re-establish Celestian power however she could. Unfortunately, the ur'Guard and the Paladins, hardest hit in the Dwarven War and the chaos following, could hardly muster a single regiment apiece, relying upon blessed and warded steel directly from Celestia and Shallamar. The Templars lacked even those resources, turning to increasingly estoeric and desperate methods of combat. On 22 Gorgani, 452, in the face of a Seren army marching upon the Eternal Flame, the remnants of the Templars showed the fruit of their research, in little more than saffron sarongs and bearing claws of onyx and garnet.

 

The Seren army, druids and wiccans and a scant few warriors in wooden armor and weapons of stone and bone, stood completely unprepared for the martial onslaught released upon them. Many had seen the monks of Tosha and their students fell foes with nothing more than punches and kicks, but the Templars wielded a completely unfamiliar and far more deadly style. In the face of a legion of flame-spitting, nigh-untouchable martial artists atop the usual Gaudiguchi firepower, Serenwilde retreated.

 

Curious as to how the Templars learned their style, Sineth IV summoned Grand Master General Hlaxohachi Iborchi to Celest to report. When Iborchi left, against all expectations from the court, the Empress was displeased, and forbade her Paladins and ur'Guard from learning the style, despite a number of victories across the Basin. Her order remained even after the successful defense and raising of New Hallifax over the ruins of Rockholm on 8 Raziary, 461, though she allowed, with expressed reluctance, for Iborchi to pass his teachings to the city as a gesture of goodwill. Thus was the Society for Harmonious Ascetics, the first guild of New Hallifax, formed.

 

Alarmed by the Empire's new power and subsequent gains in the Basin, the forest communes struggled to replicate Templar and Ascetic claw techniques. Ackleberry was first to have any sort of success, developing the brutal, bare-handed Riastrad berserker style which, while well-suited to the hulking tae'dae of the Spring Court, was far less fearsome wielded by the elfen of Serenwilde and Gloriana. The two forests were struggling to adapt when Fate delivered an alternative solution into their laps.

 

While Kethuru's invasion into the First World left its mark on the surface, far below the earth, the impact had been even worse. In the tunnels of the Undervault, where the shards of the Primordial Goddess Keph had maintained an empire alone for Ages untouched, the Rupture had corrupted entire hives and twisted already ferocious monsters into things of nightmare. The kephera, those untouched by the maddening smoke that filled the tunnels, sought aid against their kin and now foes, the armata. Following the guidance of their ancient ally, Old Man Bull, the kephera fought their way to the surface to the Serenwilde, to find true defenders of Creation. In exchange for help in guarding their queen, Zenobia, in her vigil over the Dread Prison, the kephera agreed to return martial arts from the Vernal Wars to the forests. Serenwilde and Gloriana hastily agreed, and on 16 Nifil, 469, the forest communes emerged from the Undervault, wielding the twin arts of Shofangi, using stag-horn knives, and Kurado, using the raven-claw rods.

 

The forest's sudden advantage in number of new arts was remarkably short-lived. A scant year later, on 1 Shakinel, 470, Empress Sineth IV announced to the world the formation of not one, but two new forces. First, she brought forth a group of blindfolded Magnagorans in plain robes of red. Within the Imperial Court, in a display broadcast to the entire Basin, the sightless Augurs sliced through a number of targets with speed and perfect accuracy, wielding blades made of thrumming purple energy. The audience applauded, but even the carefully-chosen crowd of Celest's most loyal elite appeared unnerved when the Augurs departed into their midst, and vanished from the sight of even the most observant.

 

That display was all but forgotten by those present as the Empress revealed her second contingent. Where the Augurs had been plain, unobtrusive and small in number, these monks arrived in legion and glory, shining with the Light, robes shining and decorated with the symbols of the Supernals, and wielding their staves in a perfectly-unified display of martial prowess. After a long performance punctuated by the sounds of wood on stone, Sineth IV announced that her new contingent, the Lumosi, would soon arrive in all corners of the Empire, to assert her will and Imperial order.

 

The Second Nature War began three days after, and has never truly stopped since. Neither the Court of Seasons nor the Star Council has ever declared the conflict ended, even in the longest lulls between active hostilities.

 

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Current State of the Basin

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To this day, the forest communes and Celestian Empire remain officially at war, though the most recent conflicts are internal: Serenwilde in a territorial dispute with Ackleberry over the Toronada Fork, and Gaudiguch and Hallifax against the inquisitors of Celest, pursuing ancient claims of corruption within the ranks of the Templars and Ascetics. Still, history shows that any possible threat to nature or to the integrity of the Empire will close even the most bitter spat within the powers in an instant, as happened with the coming of Estarra, Roark and the human race on 1 Methril, 802 IE, also known as 1 Estar, 1 CE.

 

The return of an Elder God, and the apparent amalgamation of Dynara the Creator and Magnora the Destroyer have changed surprisingly little about the Basin of Life, the most blatant development being the creation of a new calendar, pushed by the forest communes in what the Empire decries as a passive-aggressive jab at Celest's importance. The forest communes' interactions with the Creatrix have been polite, if brief, while Emperor Ladantine VIII refuses to acknowledge Her presence, in the wake of dismissive behavior by Estarra. Meanwhile, Roark has ignored the forests entirely, appearing to members of Empire individually to speak with them at great length.

 

While the gods have had little measurable impact upon the Basin, humanity has proven much harder to ignore. The naturally curious race has spread everywhere, across cities and communes, to settlements of their own, and even past Avechna's Gorge to the lands west of the Basin. Unfortunately, the race as a whole seems reluctant to move on from old habits from whatever land Estarra brought them, which includes an over-reliance on metals. A good number have been exterminated by both Imperial and forestal armies, including one entire tribe found to have dug into the ruins of Undercastle.

 

Meanwhile, the Spirits and the Empire's own allies warn of dark times to come. Urianheim in the east has reported ambushes by dwarves with hides of iron, and Zenobia speaks of renewed assaults upon her vigil. Mother Night whispers of the tainted Sun rising in the west, and in Shallamar, the Verses of Magnora rain from the sky. But whatever is to come, the Basin stands ready, legions honed by war for generations hungry to prove the strength of their guild and nexus.