Haelorin

"It takes more courage to suffer than to die" - Napoleon   Ages come and pass as the nations of the world rise and fall, borders flow fluid as river through the merciless march of time. Aeons of war mark the world, scars and festering wounds shaping the land and those who call it home. What should not have been forgotten, has slipped into legend and myth, or lost forever to indifferent erosion of the eternal sands.   This, the Ninth Age of Haelorin, is a time of tension. The world and its inhabitants still reel from the Shattering, the cataclysm that tore the World That Was apart and weakened the veil between what is and what cannot be. Monsters from children stories, long since thought extinct or unmade, return with a ravenous thirst for blood. The threat of uncontrolled magicks drive the icy nail of an all-too-familiar terror into the hearts and minds of all. The frightening progressions of technology hearten some while gravely threatening others. Shadows of war loom - long, dark, and unfathomable.   In times such as these, where the fanatics scream and holler as self-proclaimed heralds of the End, the people of Haelorin will cling to something - anything - as a means to give them security, safety, and peace of mind. Despite the advances in technology in the modern Age, there has been a resurgence of spirituality as all people, mortal or long-lived, look to something beyond the blood-stained soil of their plane to find the answers to the hard questions. There are some, though, who seek such answers through the clamor of metal and the murmur of alchemist's tools. None are right or wrong, but all are desperate to find sanctuary in the bosom of faith.