The Calamity

The Hooded King, as folk call him, has reigned supreme ever since took place and reshaped the world as we know it today.
Great conflicts were fought among the races and other interest groups within the Second Age and kingdoms rose and fell, one civilization crumbling before the next. Centuries of great battles were fought and life and death became a fluctuating and uncertain virtue in an age of war. The common sensed among the living creatures knew, that magic was too powerful in its current form and the only way to stop the everlasting conflicts was to shun it away from the everyday lives of all. The most powerful acolytes of their time came together, even when they knew they would not survive this act, with one goal in mind: Bind primordial magic to The Fade and its inhabitants – away from the material world where its conflicted harm is too great of a price to pay. In a last great attempt, the greatest ritual this world has ever experienced so far took place in the year 2979 of the Second Age, the essence of magic which once flowed so freely and created this world as we know it was bound to the astral plane and exiled to The Fade, where it has been slumbering since. The ritual being a success, all of the once mighty magic-wielders were powerless and crumbled to ashes – all but one. As the last one standing, a voice came out from the grand portal they had opened for the great binding - the voice of Ëli, the greatest daemon of his age - although being the last one with magical abilities in this world, the King was weak and succumbed to the daemon. He created and unbreakable pact with Ëli, his old age was never again an issue and the unending power of magic within his sole grasp, siphoned from the realm of The Fade directly. The King’s lifeline took a turn and instead of dying, his pact with Ëli allowed him to stretch out his existence even further – always seeking ways of the old within The Fade to gain more power.
Magic-wielders are a very rare nowadays in the Third Age and quite unique. Magic of the world as we know it today only comes from two places: The Feywild and The Fade (Feyfolk call it ‘Dahae’, a very old term for the place where dreaming souls wander). Fey creatures such as faeries, elves, dryads or pixies found a way to harness their fey magic from their direct connection to the Feywild plane and this comprises some of the purest magic known to mortals.
The only other way to gain magical abilities is to usually become a lucid dreamer: A creature with the ability to become lucid and enter an “awake” state while dreaming. Dreamers with this absolute power over their sleeping consciousness can then leave their dreamscape and enter The Fade to seek out one of the scheming daemons there. After ages of contact with the pure form of magic within The Fade, each daemon can harness and possess unique magical abilities – the more they harness, the more powerful they become. Being of a very treacherous and cunning nature, daemons want to play with mortal lives in the other planes of existence and try to expand their rule and power by binding themselves to a pact with weak minded dreamers who want to utilize magical abilities during their waking state this way – it’s a profitable situation for both beings, of course. Once bound, both beings exist from one another, each in their own plane of existence – our world and The Fade – and the warlock can use his abilities once he goes into a pact with a daemon. The daemon can utilize its partnership with the mortal being, gaining influence in the material plane. Therefore, humans, dwarves or other non-fey beings with magical abilities are utterly rare. The Hooded King being one of them…