Ak'vani

In the beginning, humanity was perfect...   For a thousand generations they thrived in naive mundanity. They knew not death, nor disease, nor hunger.   It was a summer night when the world ended. A blazing fireball fell from the sky tearing the land asunder. Its echos woke humanity for the rock did not arrive alone, with it came magic, and the doom of all men.   Humanity embraced this gift. They built cities and devices the wonder of which will never again grace this world.   Men, however, are never content. In their avarice for power they broke magic unleashing corruption upon humanity. For the first time, children born tasted the fruits of death, the bitterness of disease, and the emptiness of hunger.   Fearful of what the future held, many of the children fled in hope their children would not suffer the curse of mortality . They believed life beyond this cradle would be better. How wrong they were.   Time passed. Stories of the cradle fell away into myth, then legend. Civilizations rose and fell until one day the children no longer remembered their heritage.   It was a young boy named Finneas Hroth who remembered. Inspired by bedtime stories of a lost world, he grew curious. Curiosity became obsession. When he was old enough, he set out to find this world, and find it he did. After a thousand years, the children would come home.   Hard was the labor of these early pilgrims for the orc had prospered in their absence. War came. Death followed. Defeat appeared inevitable until a hero rose from the commons to bring peace to the land. The kingdom grew and prospered. One day the hero simply vanished never to be heard from again. This was three hundred years ago.   A new threat now rises in the east and three heroes are about to take their first steps into a much larger world. Our fate is in their hands. May the light have mercy on us all.