Chapter 1 - Kallan Marnordir

When young Kallan Marnordir had survived a seventh deadly winter, his father realized that he might be able to get something out of this secretive, sickly child. The father, also called Kallan Marnordir, a blacksmith by trade, had no use for the kind of help his son could offer at the forge. So he decided to apprentice him to a local master. But which one to choose? Who would take a child as clumsy as young Kallan under his wing? The elder Marnordir watched the doors of his friends and neighbors close one by one. With his son under his arm, he scoured the countryside in search of an apprentice master for his son, though he was beginning to think this master was only in his imagination.
On the morning when young Kallan Marnordir's journey began, his father, who had found no other solution, led him out of the village to a small grove where the Magician of the Four Valleys lived. Kallan was entrusted to the care of the old enchanter, where, for one silver coin a week, he would learn a trade in order to become "somebody." Every morning at dawn, Kallan had to report to the home of his new master, with whom he spent the day, and was released shortly before nightfall. In return, the Magician taught him the rudiments of Enchantment. From one thankless task to the next, for seven years Kallan learned to become "somebody."
The young boy worked hard to find his place in society until he was fourteen years old. Therefore, he couldn't understand why his master and father told him that, now that he was a man, he must find another house to live in and another place to practice his new profession. Some say that Kallan Marnordir was banished from his native village for stealing a chicken, while others claim that, affected by the troubles of the Empire and naturally predisposed to rebellion, he escaped to conspire in a seedy dive in the city of Juzil, the stronghold of what would later be known as the Alliance of Marnordir. Ultimately, we know almost nothing about this period.

In any case, for seven years, young Kallan Marnordir wasn't heard from again. His parents even began to forget that they had once had a son. Then, one stormy evening, Kallan returned home. The year was 707, after the Four Continents conquest by Emperor Mar Saya. The young man was turning twenty-one and was no longer the awkward boy he had once been. Kallan had grown even taller after his fourteenth birthday and had filled out considerably, so that he looked like one of those plains warriors who were so appealing to young girls. Kallan Marnordir II had become "somebody," and a very respectable somebody at that.
He stayed with his family for a while and then set off again for the town of Cartaam, in the Juzil lands. There, he made an extraordinary discovery: he found a way to enclose the essence of things and beings in small pieces of parchment. No magician had ever come close to such powerful magic. Kallan Marnordir's little parchments would change the world of Moonga. Rectangular in shape, these little cards - better known today as Spells - contained the essence of whatever had been imprinted on them. It was painstaking work, and it took Kallan a few years to learn how to capture an essence in a piece of parchment. This meant living right alongside the very thing you wanted to capture, sometimes for more than a year.
In order to create the Power of River Saya and River Saya Dragon Spells, Kallan lived as a hermit for eleven months by the river - and sometimes in it - to get to know it and its inhabitants. By the time he had unlocked all the secrets of the River Saya and its inhabitants, just as one would unlock the secrets of an old friend over time, he was completely immersed in their essences. Then, thanks to an enchantment known only to him, he was able to imprint the essence on the cards in turn. It took him eleven months to create the Power of River Saya and River Saya Dragon cards, and he was fortunate enough to withdraw two different essences during this imprinting time, as it turned out that he could only create one card at the end of an imprinting period, sometimes lasting up to two years.
Aware of the work involved, Kallan Marnordir decided to share his knowledge. Seven enchanters had the good fortune to be trained by the greatest magician that The Great History had ever known. They were called the Seven Initiates. Marnordir taught them the art of imprinting and card creation. He then decided to entrust the task of copying the cards to a community of copyists secluded in the Quartz Caves of Juzil. Marnordir had enchanted the copyists of the Quartz Caves so that, simply by copying the cards, they alone could infuse the essences already captured from an original card into its copy.

Seven more years passed. At just twenty-eight, Marnordir had collected and copied an incalculable number of Spells. In agreement with his Seven Initiates, he decided to distribute the Spells. He felt that such great power shared by so few would become dangerous. After lengthy deliberation, they chose to favor the Juzil region, which has always been known for hosting detractors of the Empire. For the first time in his life, Marnordir acted on his rejection of the Empire of Sayosia.
Gradually, the region's inhabitants came to appreciate the invaluable protection afforded by the cards. Their conditions improved, and they soon pushed the Empire of Sayosia back to the borders of their territory. Freed from the Empire's domination, the people, unified by the power of the cards, asserted themselves and declared their independence. The emperor Daryen, who always had a few spies on missions here and there (just in case), soon saw the beginnings of a shocking rebellion. According to his henchmen, rumor had it that peasants were defeating Sayosia's undefeated soldiers with magic cards. "What nerve," he shouted to his advisers, "what nerve! I let them reproduce as they please, and this is what I get. My father was right, dogs only learn with a stick!" As soon as he uttered these words, the Empire sent out soldiers en masse to beat to death - with sticks, of course - all the cardholders they could capture. Bolstered by this self-confidence, the Sayosian emissaries, who until then had been unable to resist, were slaughtered on Juzil soil.
Following this crushing defeat, the emperor sent all his warlords back to the capital to devise a strategy and prepare for a second attack. Then he officially declared that anyone in possession of one of these Spells would be executed on the spot. He thought this would dissuade people from buying these Spells. He was wrong. The neighboring territories of Armanor and Dizulmar, stunned by the outcome of this battle, joined Juzil to form an alliance against the Empire: the Alliance of Marnordir. The inhabitants of these two territories had been impressed by the speed with which the people of Juzil had countered Sayosia's offensive. Shortly afterwards, they also declared their independence. In the meantime, the emperor increased his campaigns against the ever-growing number of cardholders, to no avail. His repeated failures quickly damaged the Empire's image and unsuspected enemies let their masks fall. Daryen realized that his army was no match for these super-powered Spells. He halted the attacks on the Alliance of Marnordir. Using trickery, he managed to convince two Initiates to join the ranks of the Empire. Daryen would soon have his own Spells, too.
From then on, there were only five Initiates of Marnordir. Thus began the longest, most insidious war the land of Moonga has ever known: the war for the power of the Spells.