The Great War

## Immanaea - The Supercontinent

Once upon a time the world of Navaria consisted of just one single gigantic landmass, which is known as Immanaea today. On this supercontinent the creations of Light lived in peace for thousands of years, until one fateful day the Darkness emerged out of nowhere and haunted them mercilessly. From this moment in time everything changed for Navaria.

## The Darkness

Even though the ancient texts from this time contradict each other in many points and a lot of knowledge has been lost since then, the historians of current days agree about one thing: This darkest stain in the history of Navaria was a creature made of flesh and blood, who was endlessly more powerful than any other living being before or after. It is said the sky turned black and blooming flowers withered immediately in a radius of multiple miles as soon as it approached. Creatures froze in fear in its presence and a lot of them lost their mind soon after.

For years the Darkness caused chaos uninterrupted, drained lakes and rivers, destroyed cities and cursed the creatures of Navaria.

## The Three Curses

The First Curse was supposed to break the spirit of its hosts by attaching a never-ending thirst for blood to them. At the same time these unfortunate creatures were blessed with considerable physical and magical abilities, so they would become suitable servants for the Darkness as soon as their spirit was broken. The race of vampires was born.

The Second Curse was supposed to take away its host's bodies and to replace them with a husk made out of fur and teeth. A driving hatred for all other living beings was planted deep within them and soon wild beasts roamed the lands of Navaria to kill the Light's creations. This is how lycanthropy came to be.

The Third Curse was supposed to steal the only certainty of every single living being in Navaria: Death. All of a sudden fallen loved ones rose from the dead, climbed out of their graves and stood up from the blood-soaked battlefields they just died on. They joined the Darkness without hesitation, not showing any sign of intellect or fear at all. They didn't even spare their own families and friends as they marched forward in the name of their evil patron. This way the first undead ravaged the lands of Navaria.

## The Five Heroes

The initial attempts of resistance were desperate villages and cities, who didn't know what else to do against this kind of overwhelming opponent but to try and fight back. Each and every single one of them was beaten in such an annihilating way, that several years of fear and despair had to pass before finally an actual alliance of all the creations of Light was formed. An army of a size never seen before in the history of this world was mobilized then to face the forces of Darkness.

The generals of this army would be famously known as the Five Heroes later on. They were individuals of great power, knowledge and wisdom. As a group they were equally well versed in magic and battle skills. With them in the lead the confidence of all creatures in Immanaea began to grow again and this first spark of hope would ignite many more in the times to come.

At the beginning of the following battles the army of the heroes still regularly suffered from great defeats though, which cost innumerable lives of warriors and townsfolk alike. The Darkness didn't turn out the be the senseless force of nature many made it out to be, but a thinking and very intelligent being, which learned from the resistance and countered it with complex tactics on the battlefield. Quickly the heroes' army lost all of its momentum and the blossoming spark of hope was about to be extinguished just as fast as it was born. It was just a question of time until the last bastions of the creatures of Light would fall.

## The Light

It was in this dire hour of need the Light appeared. Like with the opposite term "Darkness", it was nothing more than a simple way for the common folk to describe this shining figure of history, that rose among their ranks out of nowhere and helped them turn the tide in this war. In all likelihood it was not divine intervention, but just a master tactician of some sorts, who joined the heroes and was responsible for their battle plans from then on. All of a sudden they tended to be one step ahead of their enemy and it seemed as if they read the movements of the opposing army before they even happened. In the end they even managed to lay a trap for the Darkness itself.

## The Final Battle

Together with the Light the Five Heroes forced a direct confrontation with the Darkness in the center of Immanaea, while their army fought a desperate battle for the Fortress Seinaru around 50 miles away from them.

Nobody had actually witnessed the following events (at least no reliable source has ever claimed to have done that), but the impact of the clash between these two forces of nature shook the continent in its very foundations and caused heavy earthquakes for several days. Even the battle of their armies so many miles away came to a standstill, because it wasn't possible for either side to keep fighting under these circumstances.

At the fifth day of their fight everything ended in a final earthquake, that was way more intense than anything Navaria had ever experienced before. Immanaea's surface ruptured and the once so huge landmass shattered into five big and an almost infinte amount of tiny pieces, which drifted off of each other and turned into the continents we know today.

This catastrophe cost countless lives among both sides in this war, but wondrously the horror of the past years finally had an end after this. The Darkness was gone and was never seen again. Its army fell apart and scattered in all directions, while the followers of the Five Heroes waited for their triumphant return.

But just like the Darkness they and the Light never returned. They had vanished without a trace and their only memento was the freedom of the world they left behind.