Destiny

A world sculpted by the Gods, who now sit quiet and distant since the failed invasion of the underworld. The Mortal Realm has had no one to look over it for some time. No custodian to guide it to and from the right and wrong decisions. No one to save it from suffocating in the religious fervour that grows with the absence, and the power of the Nightmare which feasts upon it.     The Mortal Realm of the Cosmology now sits in its Fourth Age - the Era of Thorns, the Mortal Age, the Age of Autumn - but external powers threaten for the balance of the Great Dance to slip and tumble, casting all the Realms into ruin and non-existence. The Celestial Gods of the Magus Realm compete with the Fiendish Circles of the Mortis Realm in an arms race of souls, forging them into eternal warriors for the prophecised Collapse to come. Though whispers come from those who observed the Tomes of Chalanna, claiming that this would not be the first history of the Realms. The Holy See debates amongst itself, now to the point of schism, whether it was remembered or foretold but in truth it matters not. A single entity will rise above the Great Dance of Light and Dark to claim all of creation with an iron fist; Fear manifest.   The year is 4E 297. The Crown of Thorns has been stolen. An ancient artefact from the First Man which became a symbol of authority for the Holy See, whose territories dominate the northern hemisphere of the Mortal Realm. Birdmen from the East, sent by the new Archmage of Mampang, raided the coronation of Analand's Divine King as he claimed the Halfling Shires of the Jabaji as his own. To the South, the Kushan Empire rallies for war as tensions rise between the powers, militarising its borders rapidly and forcibly vassalizing all smaller independent border states. Inquisition of the See all receive reports that the Council of Kush are not as they seem; Other-Realmly intruders seeking to remove the Mortal Realm from the Great Dance. In the North, rumours begin to hint towards the rise of a Silver King, or is it the return?   The Destiny of the Realms are in flux, where no Oracle nor Deity can claim foresight as nightmares continue to consume all one by one. All that can be certain is the Age of Winter draws nearer with every passing day. With it, the Great Collapse.     -------