Riverwall

Depths of time   In ancient times, millennia before our stories begin many beings of thought and body walked the earth. Some lived and evolved, some passed away with the sands of time. Through the ages two beings rose in dominance and success, the Anakim and the Humans. The Anakim were giant people; strong, without fear, and clever. The Humans were more primitive, smaller but just as clever. In the race of life, the Anakim were first to discover fire.   Rule of the Anakim   History might have been different if it had been the Humans first. Nevertheless, the Anakim eventually invited the Humans to join them in the benefits of fire. An act which Humans, in time, repeated with wolves. Through the ages the Humans became the Anakim's domesticated beasts of service. They were bred for different duties, serving the Anakim well. Through the benefits of their servants, the great ones thrived and multiplied and went forth through all the world bending it to their wants and needs. Not all Humans were tamed though. As wolves still remain, so too did a handful of the primal humans remain. They named themselves, the Acii. The Anakim became evil, decadent through their power, and rejected the god who made them. Believing themselves more powerful in their magics and their construction and their domination of the world than their god, they created the Wombforge.   The Uprising   Seeing that the Anakim had rejected their gift of divine soul, the god removed it from them and breathed it into all Humans. Seeing through spiritually open eyes for the first time, humanity realized their enslavement to the Anakim was wrong. The wars for freedom began. All the races of Human kind joined in the world shattering overthrow of the Anakim rule. The wars raged for hundreds of years with the pendulum of victory swinging back and forth with no end in sight. Then one day a small band of primal Humans, the Acii, led by the weaver, Dayesh joined the fight. Humanity would eventually win.   Knowing with certainty their eventual defeat at the hands of humanity the lord of the Anakim race, Gressel, fled to the Wombforge. There he sacrificed hundreds of primal humans in the Wombforge to create the Arrowhead. Using their blood he forged the weapon and with a final personal sacrifice Gressel gouged out his own eye and drew the souls of all the remaining Anakim race into a concentrated taint of pure hate and revenge, pouring it all into the Arrowhead.   The ancient tales tell the remaining story of humanity's joyous celebration of the death of the Anakim, and also of the tragedy of Half-Blind Gressel's vengeance-filled hunt for Dayesh.   Rise of Riverwall   The races of humanity, elves, orcs, dwarves, gnomes, Acii, and all the others who had been bred by the Anakim found themselves the inheritors of the world. Some kept to their own ways and people. Some interbred no longer beholden to their ancient masters. They reclaimed some of the Anakim ruins, founding their own governments and nations. The greatest of these was eventually the Riverwall Empire founded by the remnants of Dayesh's companions and the seat of humanity.   This is the world of Riverwall.