In the earliest memory of this world, there was no separation, no division—only wholeness. The land stretched boundless and unbroken, veined by rivers yet uncharted, crowned in mountains yet unnamed, and warmed by skies undecided in hue. This primordial world was known in forgotten tongues as Aurelia, the First Land, where every root reached into the same soil and every horizon belonged to the same earth.
Magic there was not a craft, but a breath that rose from beneath stone and sea alike. It seeped upward like mist, clothed beasts in scales bejeweled with firelight, and stirred trees until their branches whispered answers not yet asked. In Aurelia, the world was not alive—the world itself was life.
But life bears hunger. And hunger calls war.
No prayer or record speaks clearly of the beginning of the Mystery Wars. Some claim it began with kings who fought to rule the tides. Others whisper of priests who uncovered the hidden syllables that bind fate itself. And still others—madmen scribbling on cracked walls—insist it was war not between nations, but between concepts. Dawn against dusk, shadow against flame, dream against waking.
The truth is buried in scars, the earth itself remembering what men cannot. Valleys torn asunder, oceans spilled wider, fire melted flesh into glass, and night gave birth to realms where even light dared not return. Aurelia, once one, splintered—a shattered dawn turned sevenfold.
From that ruin, order clawed its way back. Seven great powers rose from the smoke of annihilation, each inheriting both the strength and the curses born of war.
The Seven Factions
The Dominion of Solenris. The empire of plains and coasts, their crown forged in sunlight and law. They expand not merely with steel, but with reasoned order—believing their rule as natural as the dawn. To resist Solenris is to deny the sun itself.
The Obsidian Clans. Born of volcanic fury and relentless fire, their people laugh where others scream. They forge weapons that drink light, wield violence as inheritance, and carve across the broken highlands like living storms.
The Verdant Accord. Forest-kingdoms bound by ancient oaths, druids and beast-kin swearing frail unity in the face of empire. They whisper to roots, command spirits, and guard their wilderness with teeth unseen.
Frostspire Enclave. In the north where the seas freeze, they endure snow and silence. Seers walk among them, interpreting auroras as the will of unseen forces, and warriors rise with the strength of glaciers to carve kingdoms in frost.
The Shattered Isles. A thousand fragments of a drowned continent, where pirates, sea-lords, and wandering kings battle ceaselessly. Amid upheaval, their fleets rule unpredictable seas, as chaotic as the storms that birthed them.
The Crimson Dominion. Desert-born, mountain-clad, unforgiving. Their cities gleam brass and sandstone above sands littered with bones. Warlords turned merchant-kings govern through blood, contract, and endurance.
The Eclipse Covenant. Shrouded, secret, faceless. Where their borders lie, even maps differ. They are keepers of knowledge too dangerous, wielders of sorcery older than names, rulers behind veils. They are not enemies, nor allies—they are the reminder that the Mystery Wars never ended.
Thus the world is sevenfold, scarred but alive. And of these powers, one looms above the rest: Solenris, the golden dominion. Its crown gleams brightest, its spires stand tallest, and its hunger stretches farthest.
The Jewel of Solenris
At the empire's heart gleams Eryndral, the city of spires. White walls ring it in widening circles, each tier higher than the last, each gate a mouth devouring caravans that stream to its heart. Towers catch the sun until it flees reluctantly each dusk, gilding streets filled with more tongues than one scholar could catalogue.
The air smells of spice from the Shattered Isles, of oils pressed from desert blooms, of frost-charmed water carried from the north in chests that never thaw. Smoke, incense, salt, dust—every scent is drawn here because all paths lead to Eryndral.
It is a city of priests and assassins, nobles and beggars, treaties and betrayals. It is a city where one can purchase anything—for a price. Even, perhaps, a future.
And nestled deep within its labyrinthine veins lies Lanthaven District, where cobbled alleys descend like veins under the skin, where cramped rooms lean against one another as though afraid of standing tall. Here, life is spent to buy another day of life—yet even here, destiny comes to collect its price.
A Birth Under Shadows
On a night when festival lanterns swayed above richer districts and drunken song seeped from taverns to river, a humble upper room in Lanthaven clung to silence. The air there was thick with heat, with the stench of tallow smoke, with the ache of waiting.
The woman labored long, her strength thinning like wax dripping low. But beyond the pangs and the agony of bodies, something else pressed upon her consciousness. Not sound, not sight—weight.
Shadows stretched unnaturally, clawing where the candle's flame did not reach. Corners folded wrong, familiar shapes hinted outlines that weren't there before. A presence filled the room without entering it: neither man nor beast, faceless yet poised as though expectant.
It lingered.
Hour bled into hour, yet still it lingered—closer when her pain peaked, sharper when she cried out. She dared not speak of it. She dared not look directly. But she felt its waiting, patient and unblinking. A sentinel at the threshold… or a hunter at the gate.
Then, as her body convulsed and she gave the final heave of herself to bring forth new life, the world paused. The moment the cry had not yet sounded, the instant breath was not yet drawn—the shadow recoiled.
Like ink spilling backward it retreated—folding into cracks of the stone, dripping into lines of the woodgrain, bleeding into corners where no gap existed. The air lifted, released, as though some cord had been severed.
The candle flame steadied. The room, for the first time in hours, felt merely small, merely human again.
The woman lay there trembling, holding something warm yet unnamed against her breast. She blinked with disbelief, unsure if madness had blurred the trial of birth. Alone, exhausted, she whispered nothing of what she had seen.
Sometimes silence is the only language in which terrible truths can be endured.