The Heroic Ages

The Heroic Ages are a reckoning of ancient history that divides several centuries into three distinct sections each instigated by a Demonic Invasion of the Material World.

## The First Demons

Far back in the mists of time and lost memory, overly ambitious Wizards sought power outside of the mundane world around them and inadvertently let slip the existence of the Material Plane to  the creatures of the Infernal Plane. Feral demons of every variety swarmed into the world in great numbers and it took several generations for a group a legendary heroes to rise up and successfully banish the hordes back to their fiery home. The time of peace that followed would be known to history as the First Heroic Age.

## The First Heroic Age

The demonic forces were beaten by the heroes but they were not vanquished for they had long lives and far longer memories than mortals. They spent centuries plotting and forcibly evolving to be an even more fearsome race of terror and blight. The Second Demon Invasion was not through portals opened by foolhardy spell weavers but a tear in reality clawed into existence by the demons themselves. This Invasion was shorter but exponentially more brutal as the demons developed a uniform policy of "enslave all that you do not kill."

The Invasion was only ended when the Twelve Ancients, dragons of unimaginable power and longevity, uncharacteristically banded together and took to the battlefield. The demons were beat back yet again and the Ancients were exalted across the Known World. Thus began the Second Heroic Age.

## The Second Heroic Age

Numbers did not win the day, nor did brute strength. The demons came to realize that in order to conquer the Material Plane they needed something else; cunning. So they spent the Second Heroic Age largely dormant but peering in to the Material World in order to learn from them. The most important thing they learned was the mortal need to always demand MORE.

And so began the demonic tradition of appearing before mortals in moments of crisis to offer them whatever their heart desired. Gold, time, death. A demon could provide all of these things, all they asked in return was service. Sometimes this service was to be inexorably bound to the demon, other times it was to help bring a demon spawn into the Material World. Thus the first Tieflings were born.

This project continued in the shadows for generations until enough loyal Tieflings could be brought to bear at once. And at the critical moment they were deployed to infiltrate the Hoard Lairs and assassinate the Twelve Ancients. Arrogant in their previous victories and unaware of the machinations of their old foe, all twelve dragons fell. And the Third Invasion began.

This time no heroes rose up, no dragons stormed in. The demons were eventually fought back but it was a hard won victory by the combined armies of all the mortal races. The demons were gone but it was at best an uneasy peace. This melancholy led the singers to dub this the Last Heroic Age.

## The Last Heroic Age

The Last Heroic Age was marked by the decline of Demonic interests in the Known World as well as the rise of the Hoard Cities to fill the void left by their former masters. Scholars debate on the exact date that this Age ended as it lacked a Demonic invasion to serve as a transition to out Current Age but most seem to agree that with the death of the Manticore King, the last of the Known World's heroes was lost.