Owner of the Book of Endless Chaos

The Story of Erwin

Centuries ago, a powerful Necromancer by the name of Erwin was on the verge of wiping out all of the elven cities in his realm, until his old friends betrayed and defeated him.  After imprisoning him for years they began to fear that he would eventually escape, so they decided that they must kill their once close friend and adventurer.  But Erwin’s closest friend, Reese the Master Alchemist convinced the group that he could build a one-way portal to a realm that he would not be able to return from.  This would put him in a demi-plane where he could not escape from because they would also strip of all his magic and spells and the plane had no sentient creatures to help him.  There he could live out his life without being a threat to anyone else and his old friends would not have to slay their once close and loyal friend.

             

  The group finally agreed to this, even though some still thought it would be best to end his life quickly and painlessly.  So, Erwin was banished to a demi-plane, never to return back to his home realm.  But as Erwin was living out his days with no access to his magic, he had a stroke of luck.  There was a mage that was exploring different realms and happened to land in the plane that Erwin had been banished too.  After spending time with and talking with Erwin the wizard agreed to bring Erwin back to his realm in exchange for Erwin serving the wizard as his apprentice.  Erwin had been so far removed from his practice of magic that the wizard had not realized how verse in the art of magic Erwin really was.  So, they both returned and Erwin seemed to be honoring the agreement and served the wizard for many years.

               

During this time serving the wizard, Erwin continued to regain his powers and planned to eliminate the wizard and be free from his agreement.  After about 10 years of serving, Erwin had regained his power and was quickly able to turn on his wizard rescuer.  Erwin planned to return to his realm as soon as he could and extract his revenge on his unsuspecting friends.  But he did not realize how powerful the magic was that banished him from his home realm, and he was constantly getting blocked from returning.  So, he spent decades rebuilding his power in his new realm all the while trying to find a way back home.  Luckily for the new realm all his anger was focused on getting back to his home and extracting revenge.  The years turned into decades and the decades turned into centuries and soon his name faded from what few history books had mentioned him.

               

Erwin had built a fortress inside the Griff mountain range in a frozen wasteland that was only inhabited by the hardiest of barbarian tribes.  The barbarian tribes quickly learned to avoid those mountains and rumors of evil began to swirl in the barbarian tribes.  They would talk of an old man that walked among the dead and would steal their ancestors.  The tribes had to begin to dismember  the bodies of their fallen comrades and burn the them, but even with that they would still find the body parts would be stolen from their burial sites.  Eventually the barbarian tribes began to grind their dead into dust after burning the flesh away.

               

Eventually the sightings of the old man began to disappear and the barbarians began to bury their dead in their old traditional ways.  Soon, only rumors remained until a group of adventures stumbled upon a witch doctor of one of these tribes.  The adventures became very excited as the witch doctor retold the tale of the old wizard and his hidden fortress and most off all that no one had seen the old wizard in many years.  Seeing that as an opportunity to find the old fortress and take what riches that it must surely lay with in.  The powerful adventuring party left to find the fortress as they felt confident that they could handle any obstacle that they may come across.

                Weeks went by with no word from the adventuring group, until one day a hunting party from the same barbarian clan that they had visited ran across a lone survivor of the party.  The lone survivor was that wizard that was with the party, he was half dead when he was found and rambling like a mad man.  The hunting party took him back with them and helped the wizard and were able to heal him and bring him back from the grips of death.  But his mind was badly damaged and he would rant and rave crazy things and soon became a danger to the barbarian clan, so they were forced to remove him from their home.  They were sympathetic to him and built him a small hut on an island not far from the mountains that drove him made.  To this day they check on him and make sure that he has food, wood to burn and warm clothes.