To understand the history of the Lands of Blood as they are today, one must have a grasp of the times they lived in and how it shaped them. In order to do this, we have to look at the documents unpurged and left behind by those who came before us. It is not an easy task to separate facts from fictions or truths from falsehoods.
Perhaps even more importantly, history does not exist. Oh, events occur right enough, but history does not. For each event, their can be many interpretations of it -- even different ones rendered by one individual. Memory is the core to history and the memories of the races are often flawed. We remember what we wish to, no more and no less. If reality intrudes, our perceptions change it. History is perception, and our senses are notorious for being unable to truly see. This is not argument, this is simple fact. In that vein, the stories and tales we will soon portray are as factual as we can make them. Some of what will be recorded is doubtless fanciful and foolish by our standard. However, it was what the people believed and it is the ultimate pride to declare that those beliefs were false or wrong. They simply were, and what follows is what was, though not simply. Truth is never simple, and only in the hands of fools is history made simple.
That having been said, the world that was in the 3025th year of the High. There are records of other high realms further north than Vel, Idruin, Uld and the others, but they tend to be confused with the dwarven empire of that day. In those days, the Blood was scorned and thought an evil magic. Only in Uld was it still practised and even there it was seldom used for more than blood oaths and controlling the commoners through the blood links the Blood Lords had to their people.
The High Realms were ruled by various monarchies, often petty excuses for dictatorships. In Uld, with the tradition of the Blood Kings ruling no matter who they were, the people had a chance to gain a ruler who was actually kind but even so, Uld was only marginally better than the other High Realms. Even so, the tides of change were sweeping the land. Demands for reform and riots abounded in the realms and brute force and wile was no longer enough to suppress them. Angered at the propaganda of a groups of rebels, the rulers of the high realms announced a joint exile for over 30 of them after destroying their press and banning the printing press in the lands.
The exiles were sent to the wasteland, where they somehow - even blood lost and stripped off all ranking and honour - they managed to perform a Sacrifice powerful enough to change the world. Somehow they managed to summon demons, endeavouring to end the old order and topple the kings. However, demons being what they were, they managed to destroy the Door opened by the exiles and marched from thier dark land into the wastland, ruining it even worse. Within 5 years the wasting was a reality. Within 10, the demons were marching on the world.
The high realm of Idruin fell in days as the army of unnatural beings marched on them and Vel had barely enough time to muster an army before the demons struck. Realising they were doomed, the people of Vel sent all the children across to Uld and gathered weapons and magic and fought the demons off with grim skill. For a day they lasted, then two, then a week. Then 2. By the end of the third week, the entire population of the high realm of Vel was wiped out and destroyed by the demons, cities and towns laid to waste.
The remaining high realms vowed that that sacrifice would not be in vain and mustered their own armies, all rivalries and the inner wars for balance among the people forgotten. In Uld, the Blood Lords and Blood Kings bound their people to them and began to use their forbidden magics openly, sacrificing much to shield the realm. Their shield bought the other nations another month before the demons went around it.
It was then that the actual demon army came out of the wasting, not just the advance scouting section. Uld’s barrier lasted longer than many thought, but finally the demons marched into the land, smashing cities and laying waste to nations and peoples with casual brutality. The last Blood King of Uld sacrificed his own life to give his power to the people of the land and the demons were forced back by the purity of the altryn sacrifice.
But still they marched. There was no reasoning with such creatures, no way to buy them off: just death and more death. The dwarven nations were destroyed because they tried to fight alone and finally even the outland races joined the nearly destroyed realms in fighting back against the demons. The elves, using knowledge that was their own, seemed to know many ways to kill the demons and taught the other races them. Slowly, aided by blood magic and elven lore, the demons were pushed back for a time. The Blood was given to the other races and peoples by the Blood Lords in honour of Bred’s death.
Finally, desperate to end the war, the Blood Lords gathered up a select group of allies and marched into the wasting. The elves sent almost all their people with them and only 2 elves returned alive. To this date no one knows what the elves did, but they broke off from the battle of the Door for their own reasons and none have found them out to this day. After the broken Door was shattered, the people stumbled back to the world, weary and broken themselves by the demonic races.
Years passed and Uld rose again, the Blood regaining the status it had in ages past. Nations were founded again, ruins left untouched and the demons slunk off into the shadows, only known by the destruction of homes in remote places and a sudden chill felt on moonless nights. Nations rose again, the order of kings abolished and after 3 generations only Uld was powerful enough to be a high realm. New nations rose and old ones took new forms. Old rivalries stopped friendships caused by the war and the demons remained holding the north since no nation was powerful enough to dare a war on them again.
It is now 450 years After the Sacrifice of Bred and the world is a changed place. Ruins exist where mighty nations once held sway and the desperate need to survive is slowly fading as time passes in peace and minor wars. Nearly broken by the demons, the people have forgotten the war, turned it into myth and legend and tried to forget how fragile the order we build truly is. We have forgotten much, and lost much. The demons took away lives and knowledge, destroyed millennia of learning and centuries of civilisation in scarcely one century.
| Timeline | |
| 3026 HT | The Exiles open the Door |
| 3031 HT | The Wasting becomes a reality |
| 3040 HT | The demons march |
| Idruin is destroyed | |
| Vel is broken | |
| 3041 HT | Uld creates their infamous shield |
| 3051 HT | The demons true army marches |
| 3073 HT | Bred dies. |
| 41 AS | The next generation of Blood is ready for war |
| 53 AS | The races march into the Wasting to close the broken Door |
| 54 AS | The great war ends. |
| HT: | High Time | AS: | After Sacrifice |
This is a listing of legendary events and figures in the world of the Lands of Blood. Some of them have existed, some of them are embroidered truths, the rest of them are at best tall tales. Some are even all three. From giants striding the world to creatures that live on after death, there are many legends in the worlds long, long history.
The shattering of the great dragons, the war of the giants, the day the stars vanished ... such are the events and occurrences that make up the myths of the world. These events are not listed in any sort of chronological order.
This legend claims that when the world was much younger, enormous giants strode the land, building mountains and valleys as we would make sand castles. Some claim these begins eventually grew too large for the world and floated into space to become the other worlds, or even the stars. Others say they eventually lay down and became dirt over the rock of the world. A few even claim that their magics died and they slowly shrunk over the years and became the races we know today.
Most stories of the birth of centaurs (or many other quasi-humanoid races) seem to centre on the elves and their having very strange sexual practises. No one is sure who began these myths but most bards know the songs and often ad-lib new verses as they go along. Most elves ignore such songs and they refuse to acknowledge the possible truth of such rumours.
This was a period during the High Time when all of the races except the lizardfolk expanded northward. While historical fact, the reasons for it are unknown to most modern historians. Many legendary figures exist from this time and the deeds of caverns being explored and dark places having their evil eradicated have become part of popular folklore. There are more songs about this than there are about elven sexual practices - including those of elven druids - as hard as that might be to believe.
Sorted from most recent and further back, these are people and beings who have become legends in the lands.
For the past 10 years, stories have been circling about a barbarian who wanders the lands riding a silver griffon. They rights wrongs, kill horses and generally tend to make life miserable for the Blood. He (or she) is very adept at evading pursuit, according to many of the rumours, is one of the Blood themselves!
First appearing about 60 years after the demon war, this figure (some say its really a child) was first seen in the destruction of one of the Blood Lords homes. People claim to have see a skeleton covered in burning flesh walking away from the burning ruins. Ever since, legends of a horribly scarred being with unnatural abilities have cropped up all over the lands. Some of them involve arsonists getting slain, Blood being murdered or slaves being freed. It all depends on who you ask and where you travel.
A legendary group of adventurers compromising an elven wizard, a kender member of The Order,* a gnome ranger and 2 dwarven fighters. Many claim they were at the forefront of the great expansion during the High Time and some even claim they founded the dwarven reaches all by themselves. While most scholars disagree with this - a few bored scholars seem to think they never existed at all - the fact remains that these five were notable as having no humans with them as well as being famous explorers.
* Strangely enough, ever since this time there have been no Kender members of The Order. And no, you don't want to know why.
Since boundaries of lands kept changing, maps of the old world don't list boundaries of nations.
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