Father Flame

The realm of Father Flame sits at the bottom of a maelstrom of chaos at the very heart of reality. The realm by all rights should not exist and yet somehow it clings to life. It is a realm of contradictions, a sinkhole in reality and home to many strange and wonderful creations. It exists as a repository of a sort, as it pulls being from all corners of reality to it, as if a moths to a spell conjured flame. Some beings plummet to the depth of chaos and land upon it as a random chance. Others collide with it as a hammer collides with a shield. More often they arrive slowly, inching moment by moment to a new destiny. A precious few arrive as if through a door, walking from one room to the next, perhaps as a cruel joke of the gods. While others are pulled kicking and screaming through reality on the wings of magic. Many come in different ways, yet few if any leave.   It is whispered that many eons ago a strange and terrifying power forged a large continent that floated in an endless ocean of chaos. Ages of titanic struggle by mind bending powers saw this land expand and the tide of chaos pushed back. Ever so slowly the chaos that surrounded creation became a calm ocean of reality. The creator, called the stable continent the "realm" and it was good, but it was empty. For a time, it was hollow. Then nature began to grow, to flourish and a kind of life emerged. Yet something changed, something created a slow pull bending the tides of chaos that surrounded the realm.   This pull increased inescapably moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day. It increased over the many ageless years of the prehistory. Then out of nowhere a stranger arrived, then another and another. At first no one knew there were strangers at all, the land was vast and these travelers were few and scattered. Most did not survive those early times. Yet ever so slowly more came and the land began to fill.   What strange will created this realm? For what purpose or mad scheme was all of this brought forth? Who started the chaotic pull? Who forced all those that came to stay forever? None who live today can say, but many guess. Only Father Flame knows for sure but has never explained.   Some say the realm has no true end and will continue in all directions for eternity. But all things have an end and all things have a beginning. To tell of the end is easy, all shall end in fire and blood. When the skies open to bring an endless torrent of fire and when blood shall run across the land. But when? The end times have been predicted often, yet in each instance something or someone has pushed the tides of carnage backwards preserving this realm. When will it all come crumbling down and who shall cause it?   The end will come, that is for certain. But in the time, in the space between hope and despair that time is for heroes.   That time is for legends... that time is for you.