The War of the Traitor-Heroes

The last blood of the Immaculata was draining from the mortal races and in those closing days of the old magic, the Black Rock Council numbered a scant dozen from across the entirety of Zenáthras.  Blind Vez'roon led them, but they were a quiescent lot, content to watch their fellow humanoids surpass their legends.

All, that is, save two, who continued to live as heroes, facing creatures that even the strongest mortals could not best or exploring long-lost secrets of ages past.

Ren Shin was a hero from the southern lands.

Alutuus was a hero from the north.

They were as unalike as it is possible to be, and fierce rivals besides.  Many times had the halls of the Black Rock Citadel echoed with their arguments and more than once, they had come to blows.  He was little more than a child and said to be the world's greatest scholar; she was a wizened crone and yet remained the finest warrior of the age.

No record exists of what transpired in the Citadel on the Faithless Day in Millennium 6 Year 78, but Ren Shin and Alutuus laid low the Black Rock Council, taking the head of Blind Vez'roon and slaying those who had, until that day, been their closest friends.  All knowledge of the betrayal would have been lost, save that Karthay Coppertooth managed to send away her apprentice—Meecia Whem—and several servants, who arrived blood-stained in the court of the Xenarch, gasping tales of the all-consuming madness of the pair.

Though at first they were doubted, it became obvious that there was truth to the apprentice's tale when Alutuus appeared at the gates of Great Fassadum, chief and greatest of the southern nations.  Alone, she demanded that the Xenarch renounce his throne and all the people of Fassadum flee as far away as possible.  They would have three days, at which point she would return.  The Xenarch sent word to his fellow rulers, who responded by saying that they had heard from the people of Baracca'laias.  Though a small nation, they dwelt in peace at the heart of the northern hemisphere's largest continent, but Ren Shin had appeared before them and commanded them as Alutuus had commanded the people of Great Fassadum.

It is then that Meecia Whem, in dawning horror, spoke.  Great Fassadum and Baracca'laias existed perfectly opposite one another on the great globe of Zenáthras and, further, were both located roughly a quarter of the planet's circumference from the two largest ley line nexuses.  Conceivably, it could be that the Traitor-Heroes sought to do something to the Well.

Those words were sufficient to mobilize the entire world.  The wilderness of Baracca'laias was no place to try and face their foes, so it was decided that all strength would be directed towards defending the high walls and powerful barriers of Great Fassadum's capital, Dyykada.  Paladins from the Holy Coast arrived on their winged steeds of pure white while Sin Mages from the Excoriate toiled in the same workshops as Alchemists from Vohtün Thoid and Libramereid from the Great Libraries of Wessmio.  Soldiers from Churt and Totunthorm were ranked alongside Wyln beastmasters and the Chanting Knights of Dwalltrem.  Not even the War of the Walking Gods had seen such a mortal army amassed, all to stand against the might of two heroes.

But when they came, they came with a fury that no mortal army had ever faced.  Alutuus had raised a terrible army of monsters lead from their planar strongholds through magical rifts in reality: phalanxes of cloven-hoofed goatmen from Acheron and packs of snarling wolven from the hunting grounds of the Beastlands; offshoots of the banished demons, there came the mystic daemons from the ashen shores of the River of the Dead and the jailers of Carceri known as devils.  There, also, was Ren Shin and he led ten thousand iron warriors, golem constructs animated by heroic magic and each a siege unto itself.

The Traitor-Heroes brought war to Great Fassadum and to all the armies of Zenáthras.

There, on the Field of Broken Crowns, beneath a thousand burning banners, the legends of the world died and the magic fled to the places where men feared to dwell, and all that remained is all that remains to this day.