Sanctum

A world where the gods were birthed through fire--some from the darkness that flame's absence created--Sanctum has changed hands several times over the course of its history.   For thousands of years, dragons ruled the world, and some of the most ancient and powerful among them breathed life into mortal races. Bahamut, the most powerful among them, guarded Yggdrasil, the World Tree who, with its siblings, tied together the Material Plane and its reflections, the Feywild and the Shadowfell. At the culmination of a centuries-long conflict over possession of the tree, Bahamut slayed his arch nemesis, Tiamat, by spilling her blood across the World Tree's roots, giving birth to a seed of fiery revenge. This seed in turn birthed the first demons, and thus began their age of evil. The dragons split into two factions: Tiamat's allies, the chromatic dragons, who chose to side with the demons, and Bahamut's allies, the metallic dragons, who chose to side with their mortal creations. With the help of fiends called Overlords, powerful forces who could endlessly resurrect their fallen soldiers, the demons and their chromatic allies nearly drove the metallic dragons to extinction. In an act of desperation, Bahamut sought the council of the immortal couatls who lived far beneath the waves of the Endless Depths. The ancient race of feathered serpents agreed to collectively sacrifice their souls, mirroring the murder of Tiamat, in order to put the world back in balance and create an equally powerful flame of good: a Silver Flame.   Their sacrifice birthed celestials and a second deity whom the dragons and their mortal children could channel to fight back the demon scourge. The war was an effective standstill--both deities fueling the flames of war with no end in sight--until the humans came forth and tipped the scales. Still a young race, humans were vagabonds with neither patron nor ally, and were the only intelligent creatures on Sanctum other than dragons who grew to maturity with the planet rather than being birthed from a god. Upon introduction to the conflict, some humans sided with the demons, though most valued the virtues of Bahamut and added their numbers to his army. Among them was a warrior named Tira, and for the purity of her heart and bravery of her soul, the Silver Flame chose her to put an end to the Great War and banish both demons and celestials from the Material Plane. She was gifted a coautl companion named Jazirian and five artifacts blessed by the Silver Flame. Using her newfound gifts, she banished the Overlords into the Silver Flame, using its holy essence as a prison while simultaneously adding their power to her god's, but in the process, she perished. Her death was not in vain, for with her last breath, she managed to banish the final Overlord, Bane the Strife Emperor, to his eternal prison. With the final addition of Bane's strength, the Silver Flame was able to exile demons, celestials, itself, and its dark counterpart to new planes of existence: the Positive and Negative Planes of Energy, where the respective forces would reside forevermore, unable to cross the threshold back into the Prime Material.   Thus began the Age of Silver: the age of man. With a nationalist mindset instilled in them from years of war, the mortal races hunkered down on an easily defensible island and constructed a great city. With their efforts so centralized and with no demons to hunt, mankind flourished and managed to make great strides in the fields of magic and technology, soon becoming the front runners of civilization. Artificers and their wondrous clockwork inventions became commonplace, but the prosperity could not last for long. Centuries of impressed tribalism left the mortals wanting for a greater enemy, a greater purpose. Their eyes turned to the bestial races, and like the dragons before them, ingenuity gave birth to new beings known as the warforged. Automatons of wood and metal powered by raw, magical energy, the warforged were crafted solely to fight mankind's misguided war against the fur folk. The dragons' favored races have grown short-sighted in their comfort. They enslave these souls, forcing them into endless, bloody conflict. They rule a theocratic empire that tolerates no dissent and punishes those who might disobey, enslaving any malcontents. Meanwhile, their ancient enemies plot just out of sight, weaving webs of discord and taking advantage of the resulting chaos to resurrect their banished allies and bring forth a new age uncontested. The age of man is young and yet already on the brink of collapse. As we've learned from ages past, the world cannot remain unbalanced for long. With these threats also rises a new band of adventurers, a group of individuals whose actions will forever change the face of Sanctum, but the question remains: Will it be for better, or for worse?