The Cataclysm

## History

### ORIGINS

It was during the time of the mysterious Giants that the first Dragons descended upon the mortal world. The Giants were the architects of the Known World, able to twist the fabric of space and time to their will, and summon vast energies to be manipulated in the form of great magical feats.

The Giants were beings of magic and near-omnipotence, but it is unknown when they first detected the impending disaster, or if they realized its magnitude. Although they tapped into primeval energies, they had always struggled to contain that kind of power — and soon found themselves embattled by the forces of WYRM. Having glimpsed some future portent, it is probable that a reason for the creation of some mortal races was for them to fight against the creatures that emerged from the CORE machine. After the Beastmen, the first of newly created mortal races was The Fae, and they learned the ways of magic in the lap of the elder beings themselves. The Trolls soon followed although their magic was insular and intrinsic to their craftsmanship and themselves. The seas required guardians so The Merfolk were created to protect those waters. Wildmen were creatures made to be a bridge between nature and mortal. Seemingly in haste, the Halflings were risen up from the lesser beings that roamed out there. Finally, as the pressures of their cosmic war intensified, The Giants created the prolific and highly-adaptable race of Humans.

### Coming of Corruption

Disaster came suddenly. Whether due to enemy attacks or structural failure, The Giants’ great CORE apparatus, the means by which they channeled the planet's inner fire collapsed upon themselves. The eldritch machineries of the CORE crashed onto itself  inside the world in a great flurry of star-steel. Simultaneously, the CORE imploded, creating a rift to the worlds of malevolence. Dragons and their mal minions spewed forth from this crack. Spews of solidified corrupted magic, a strange color-draining substance known as wyrmstone rotted from inner earth all the way to the surface. The world shuddered under thunderous impacts, with the wyrmstone burrowing like parasites throughout the planet.

A layer of Wyrmstone dust was cast into the earth, its mutating properties causing untold havoc. Across the Inner-Earth, lands were ravaged and convulsed with grotesque growths. The Dragons saw an opportunity for conquest. Using horrid forms of magic they trapped the domains, claiming them as their outpost, Agartha became their’s. Many cries came from the sickly trapped realm, as hideously twisted creatures were made howling in agony.

Where once there was a machine to channel untold power there was now a gaping wound in the fabric of time and space, a gateway through which the terrifying rulers of Dragonkind saw through, manipulating our worlds. Rather than sit and watch as the Dragons take over the earth, the inhabitants of the arctic and the largest gate to inner earth never stopped fighting the reptile scourge. However, a few tribes welcomed the otherworldly guests and even worshiped the dragon rulers as deities; the most eager to damn themselves for unimaginable power. Draconic hordes ran rampant throughout the earth and few clans made unholy alliances with the lizards. Thus the first wytches and warriors of the wyrm were born, and civilizations humbled by their mighty onslaught.

It was during this cataclysm that the abominations of the dragons began to appear. Goblins, Ogres, Grendels and their like stalked the lands, created as the Wyrm to corrupt and poison the world. All around the planet, through millennia, half-breeds began plotting and worming their way into mortal society to gain the enemy’s secrets. The worst of it was the Lizardmen; The royals’ personnel army created from their ancient experiments and madmen foolish enough to give their allegiance fully to The Reptile scourge.

When the CORE collapsed and the gateway opened, The Giants stood their ground against The Dragons for as long as they could. Alongside them, their creations pushed most of the Wyrm forces to inner earth. As a precaution, the giants created smaller genetic copies to protect the largest gate, after their creation a city was eventually built around the gate, which would later be known as Hyperborea, used as a base of operations for the great descendants. With allies on both sides The Giants and Dragons went to war.

### A world divided

In the wake of the waves of mal-magic the servants of the royal dragons came from the great wound. They are the most loyal of their royal’s council, agents to spread the will of their master across dimensions. As the creatures of black magic dispersed across the earth, ancient deals were made and so the great conflict began. Faced with war the remaining Giants rallied, mustering armies the sizes of which the worlds have never been seen since. The Dragons attacked everywhere, but the Beastmen bore the brunt of the attack.

What followed was a series of terrible battles, enormous clashes that spanned continents, lasted centuries and claimed an untold number of lives. The Canis met the draconic tide, able to match their ferocity and return it in kind, but the might of the Beastmen did not rest solely with its armies. The Giants fought magically, physically and psychically. Gathering the most powerful magics to fuel spells of unprecedented destruction. They inhaled in the magic-infused air and breathed out blizzards, unleashed tidal waves, or split the earth asunder to lay waste to the invaders. In the war’s opening stages, The Giants proved more powerful than even The Royals. However as an ancient enemy attacked the Giants homeworld, the balance began to shift.

As the magic of the Giants’ ancestral land began to dim, so too did their powers. Then the worst happened, word came from the homeworld that the THUNDERER slaughtered all and that nothing was left. While the Giants were weakened, the Royals saw opportunity, invigorating their forces with corrupted magic and readily shaping them to their whim. As the magical supremacy shifted, so too did the war.

On the battlefields, massive behemoth war-beasts smashed into the Canis cohorts until the ground was drenched with blood. Plague wyrms and beasts of uncountable teeth hurtled themselves headlong into massive beastmen warriors, while above Thunderbirds fought feral wyverns for control of the skies. Despite mauling their reptilian foes, the Beastmen were driven back. The Giants drew ever more upon their nexus of power, using its grounding to steady the energies swirling around them. In a final desperation, they enchanted their most significant, shrouding the land in a protective field of magic, turning the surroundings into death traps for wyrms; living whirlpools, enormous golem guards and swarms of insectoids with stingers sharp enough to crack a Maturinaut shell. Currents were redirected to impede the sea wyrms advances and volcanoes erupted to slow their hellish progress. Yet still, the fell reptilian legions rampaged onwards the beastmen withdrew from their villages to the great cities, bastions of benevolence in seas of malice.

For a time, the relentless minions of the Royals were checked as the Beastmen exacted a tremendous toll. Enormous Mammoths waded into the tumult, crushing paths of the hellish hordes before being lost to sight beneath the writhing masses. Strange devices crafted by Centaur innovators were unleashed, powerful inventions that melted away the opposition by the thousands. Heedless to their losses, the Dragons continued to batter away at the protective barriers conjured by the Giants to protect each great city.

Eventually the dragons devised a way to breach the wards and Merposis was the first to fall, its inhabitant slaughtered and its great mystical stone towers cast down. Its fall began a chain reaction, weakening the magical barriers erected over several great cities. So Bodh-Gaya, Norumbega and Akilineq fell in quick succession.

At Akilineq, the Centaur mages managed to hold out long enough to send warnings to the other cities, allowing them to employ suitable counterspells. The Dragons were stymied for a period, yet they were unrelenting. They devised new deliveries to defeat each new defense, unleashing a plague to overcome Cibola, leveling Mahoroba with sonic barrage of a billion slaughtered souls screaming in agony, and summoning shadowy tentacles to drag the city of Kitezh deep under the sea, where its force dome eventually cracked. After thousands of years of battle, only a handful of Giant cities still stood, each a bastion protected by the greatest of the Centaurs.

### The Defense of Jarnvidr

At last the way was clear for the Dragons to besiege Jarnvidr, the First City and lynchpin of their enemies arcane defense. Jarnvidr was under the protection of Lord Polybotes, last remaining Giant of the mortal world, mightiest of the Gigantes Knights. The energy dome that surrounded Jarnvidr crackled, turning Dragons into dust as they railed against it. Yet after years of strain, even the greatest Centaur mages could sustain such mystic walls no longer, and with the final surge, Polybotes exploded the barrier outwards, flattening the surrounding woodlands. A hundred thousand Dragons were killed in an instant. Nevertheless, the remainder  swarmed into Jarnvidr.

Of all the long wars, no battle was more fiercely fought than the one amongst the abandoned streets of Jarnvidr. Only an epic stand by Lord Polybotes’ army of Canis Temple Guard prevented the Dragons from overrunning the city. For many days and nights, the elite Canis warriors stood firm on the lofty Bridge of Stars. Using his reservoirs of energy, Lord Polybotes prepared for his final stand.

As the last of the Guard was cut down, Lord Polybotes sent forth magics that were to kill gods, unleashing boiling water from the ground to scald his foes. Time stood still as the fabric of the universe strained at the outpour of sheer power. Yet eventually even Lord Polybotes succumbed. A dozen Drakes, commanded by Fafnir the butcher himself, fought through the deluge of magic and reached the Giant. There, they fell upon lord Polybotes’ form, ripping him apart in a savage instant. But this was not the end, so overcharged with ancient energies was Polybotes that his soul fought on, refusing to let even death hinder him. Set free of his flesh, Polybotes’ radiant will soared over the ruins, scourging the invaders with an almost divine light that was onto a second sun. The First City was saved.

Although Jarnvidr was delivered, the war raged on. Across the globe, the younger races also faced Wyrm legions. Despite retreating to the mountains and underground, the Trolls had been decimated. The Fae of Avalon suffered a tremendous loss, but in the end, their warlocks enacted the Great Ritual – a spell that created a vast network of invisible winds that drained away the swathes of magic that flooded the world. Deprived of the Royals touch, the Dragons returned to their cursed land or regressed into beasts, yet the Earth was irrevocably damaged, now transformed into a planet saturated with monsters and malice.

### Doom of Spaar

According to the account in the Testament of Hunters, the most ancient Troll book of lore, the coming of the Wyrm rent the sky and earth and tore the very mountains apart. Turbulent winds of colorless magic clouded the air. The Trolls maintain that their guardian Deya the Deliverer warned her people that such a time might come, and she told them to take refuge deep beneath the mountains. There they sheltered as the Wyrm Powers erupted out of the Core and scoured the mortal world.

When the tempest passed, it left in its wake a layer of dust that hastened corruption. When the Trolls emerged from their underground dwellings, they found the world a very changed place. Mutated beasts and rage-filled monstrosities prowled the mountains and underbirth, but there were things that were even worse. During the great shattering, Dragons sprung forth from the Corrupted Worlds, and now stalked the lands, seeking to dominate, eat or slay any they found. It was not long before the subterranean dwellings of the Trolls were ferociously assailed.

The Dragons soon discovered that the Trolls were far from defenseless. Ancient tales tell of how Bodus the brilliant taught his people to inscribe magical runes onto their homes, artifacts and weapons — allowing them to stand against the Wyrm hordes that assaulted them. Gogun the gentle used his protections to ward off the evil magicks of the enemies, dampening their dread powers. It was the great troll Spaar the spiteful, equipped with his mighty dawnblade axes and armor as strong as the mountains, who launched the counterattack. With their blazing guardian at the fore, the Trolls managed to clove a path throughout the subterranean realm, killing so many of their foe that –for a time, the Underbirth was cleared of Dragons. Spaar himself pressed the attack, pursuing his enemy with a relentless fury that dimmed only when the last foe was slain.

It was at this point that the Trolls first made contact with the Fae. A fleet of Faerie warships, captained by Merlin Ambrosius, had been blown off course after a battle with fleets of Sea Wyrms. Merlin was a great mage, and he searched the coasts of the Old Kingdoms, hoping to find clues to the source of the Wyrm powers that were destroying the world. Instead Merlin encountered a Troll army led by Spaar himself, for they had pursued the remnants of a Dragon army and sought to slay the last of them.

It was a pivotal moment in the history of Earth, as one of the greatest and most revered High Fae mages of all time met the brutal and mighty warrior guardian of the Trolls. What Spaar made of the high and mighty Fae mage is not recorded, nor is what Merlin thought of the tattooed Troll warlord. Both realized they were not enemies, and the matter was settled when a force of Lizardmen attacked. After a hastily agreed alliance, the foe was shattered by the combined might of Spaar’s axes and Merlin’s spells.

From Merlin, the Trolls learned of the great High King Oberon and his struggle to free the distant island of Avalon from the grip of the Wyrm. From Spaar, Merlin learned of the massive storm of raw mal magic that burst from the core of the planet that preceded the Dragons’ arrival. The wise mage concluded that an arcane gate had opened at the center of the Earth, a doorway between their world and the unimaginable horrors of the Corrupted Worlds. With this information, and their newly formed alliance, Merlin departed, in all likelihood already formulating the plan that would lead to the creation of the Great Ritual that would drain away the unleashed magical energies of Wyrm from the world. Upon merlin’s departure, Spaar presented the Fae mage with a runic stone of sovereign protective power. In return, Merlin gifted the dwarf with the Daylight Gem, an artifact that gifted all Trollhunters with incredible powers and skill.

The respite won by Spaar and his armies was hard-won, but its duration was brief. Even as Spaar headed back to the Underbirth, the air grew ominous. Once more the tide of Wyrm rolled over the lands, the Dragon legions and their untold terrors destroying everything in their path. This time, the Dragons attacked in such great numbers that the heroism of Spaar was not enough, and the Trolls were pressed backwards. Unable to hold their ground the Trolls were eventually forced to retreat inside their markets. One by one, their underground markets were besieged

Although they fought valiantly against the tide of Wyrm, several Troll lands fell to the unholy onslaught. Having heard Merlin’s theory of the rift in the core, Spaar decided to take action. Ignoring advice, he resolved to trek down and close the rift himself. Deya told him he would surely die, but Spaar snarled that it was worth the risk. The great warrior ritually carved runes into his arms and body. He gave one of his axes to his eldest son, Bo’raz the Bold, and departed to Agartha. A party of Trolls accompanied Spaar to the edge of Wyrms wastes that now plague the core, fighting off many dangers to reach this region. There, they at last turned back, watching in awe as Spaar passed onwards, his form dwindling into the empty haze of that poisoned land.

Spaar was never seen again, and no one knows what befell this most valiant of Trolls. Perhaps he was –at last– pulled down by an army of monsters. One tale affirms he  fought his way to the mouth of the rift and held it against an army of Dragons even as Merlin completed his spell on Avalon to create the Great Winds. Perhaps an even stranger and more terrible doom overtook him? Of Spaar’s fate, Trolls do not speak, saying only that he fell in darkness long ago.

In the end, Merlin’s spell drained the uncontrolled energies from the lands, an act that created a vast network of windlike magic spreading to all corners of the globe. Not to mention, the armies of unnatural creatures that surrounded each market went completely mad, and the Trolls emerged slaying the impotent beasts, and dawned on a whole new era.

The Troll Guardians were gone; Deya, Gogun and the others had disappeared. It is popularly believed that they entered the space between worlds, going to rest until one day they are needed by their people once again. In the Underbirth, the Trolls prospered greatly, but of their kin across the earth or from the Darklands, they had no word.

### Oberon and the Great Ritual of Merlin

Oberon was a Faerie wanderer who traveled the length of Earth, but who swiftly returned to Avalon in its time of need. Realizing that the Fae could not stand against the full fury of Wyrm, Oberon battled his way through the land to the Shrine of Dagda. There he offered himself to the sacred fires, and implored the old god Dagda to save his people. Dagda made no response but Oberon held to his promise and cast himself into the white-hot flames – yet Oberon did not die that day. He emerged unscathed from the fires, transformed by Dagda’s will from the mortal Faerie to the first and mightiest of the High Kings of Avalon.

Oberon began his reign with a truly auspicious victory. Outside the walls of the temple of Dagda, he faced a roaring Dragon horde whose dark hearts were set on toppling the shrine and to make sure the sacred fires were extinguished. With a single throw of his hunting spear, Oberon slew the Drake-lord who led the charge. Then, scarcely breaking step, he took the Dragon’s fire and molded it into a weapon, he obliterated and butchered the rest of the abominable horde.

Word of Oberon’s victory swiftly spread through Avalon. All Faekind took heart of his actions, and rallied to him even as the Dragons still reeled from the defeat. Merlin Ambrosius, the greatest wizard in known history, swore fealty to Oberon, and together they trained the Fae in the art of battle. Whilst Oberon bade the priests of the smith god Goibhniu to forge mighty weapons of tempered gaulau and steel, Merlin undertook the tutelage of his fellow mages, teaching them great sorceries to banish and destroy. Thus changed the Faeries’ fortunes. With Oberon at their head, the children of Avalon took the fight to the Dragons, casting down their champions and hurling their armies back to the Corrupted Worlds.

For nearly a century, the war dragged on without respite or sign of victory, and the Fae began to lose heart. Moments of peace were few, even these were tainted by the knowledge that the Dragons would soon return. Even the implacable Oberon realized there can be no victory – only a slow and inevitable defeat. Ultimately Merlin offered salvation, he devised a plan that would drain Draconic influence from the world and with it their wyrm puppets who rode with its fury would become impotent.

It was a desperate plan with little hope of success, but Merlin, and many like him, thought a last desperate gamble would be preferable to the slow death of the Fae people. Oberon opposed Merlin’s plan, calling it the counsel of despair. Although in his heart he knew the war was unwinnable, the High King was determined to put off the end for as long as possible, rather than risk Merlin’s plan failing. Such were Oberon’s charisma and powers of reason, that he surely would have changed Merlin’s mind entirely. Yet soon thereafter, Dragons overran Tairngire and Titania, Highqueen of Avalon and wife of Oberon, was slain in the attack, and their children could not be found amongst the carnage.

Upon hearing of his family’s fate, Oberon was overcome with terrible fury. He swore to kill every Dragon on every world, and declared he would travel to the Shattered Isle. Dread filled those who heard his words, for it could only mean one thing: Oberon intended to draw forth Bàs an T-Saoghail – the Worldbreaker, a weapon of terrible power that had waited, embedded in the great dark Altar of Balor since the first age. As old as Avalon itself, it was the ultimate weapon, desolation made manifest – a piece of a fatal weapon for the old god Balor, capable of destroying mortals and gods alike. All knew that to wield Balor’s weapon was to invite death, damn your soul and doom your lineage forevermore.

Upon learning of his liege’s intent, Merlin beseeched Oberon to relent, but he would not be dissuaded. Ignoring all warnings from mortals and immortals alike, Oberon vaulted onto Syntribos, the greatest of all Griffins and set off to the Shattered Isle.  The journey was long and arduous, testing even Syntribos’ might. Wyverns assailed Fae and Griffin as they traveled, trying to turn Oberon from his path. The Old Gods whispered warnings into Oberon’s ear , but if he ever heard it, he paid no heed. Parting his ways with Syntribos just a few leagues from the Altar of Balor, Oberon walked towards his fate. It is said that even the ghost of his departed wife  pleaded with him to turn back. Yet, as he stood before the altar, Oberon hardened his heart and wrenched free the great blood-dripping artifact, sealing his fate,and that of his people.

When Oberon returned, those Fae embittered by the war flocked to his side, and he created a kingdom in the dismal land of Malnorythe. There, to the surprise of everyone, he took another wife, the beautiful seeress Morganna. In time, Morganna bore him a second son, whom they named Erlking. Soon after, the court of Oberon earned itself a dark reputation, and the Fae of other lands were reluctant to go there. Tales of cruelty at Oberon’s court began to spread across Avalon. Even Merlin led his students south to his own land. It is said the Merlin’s departure angered Oberon greatly, but the Dragons struck again before wrath could bear fruit. Such was the size and ferocity of the wyrmly attack that it became obvious to all but Oberon that the war was lost and the world was doomed to eternal darkness.

Merlin, fully aware of Oberon’s incipient madness, decided there was only one thing left he could do. He called together a convocation of the greatest High Faerie mages then living, and assembled them to the Isle of the Fallen. With Merlin Ambrosius intent on performing the ritual, Oberon was left with no choice. He moved his forces to defend the mages on the Isle of the Fallen.

At the center of Avalon, the two armies met. Griffins, so numerous that they almost outnumbered the air infantry of the dragons. Faeries and Dragons were slain in their thousands, and the death agonies of monsters filled the sea with foam. As the creation of the Great Winds began the seas churned and a terrible gust blew from the south. The skies darkened, and raw magic lashed the tortured ground. At last, Oberon, with only faithful Syntribos beside him, fought a bloody battle against several of the royals’ chosen dragons as they strove to protect the wards. It was a battle that no mortal could ever win, yet Oberon’s fury and determination that day set him amongst the ranks of the old gods – one by one, the foul chosen fell before the Worldbreaker, though Oberon was mortally wounded in return.

While the battle raged, the Faerie mages chanted the spell that would create the Great Winds. Chain Lightning flickered. The world shuddered. For a moment all was silent. Then the mountains shivered. Terrible energies pulsed between earth and sky. From the mountaintops, bolts of pure power lept to converge over the Isle of the Fallen. While Oberon and his outnumbered army fought the mages struggled to complete their ritual with the hidden but invaluable help of the Centaur mages of the Beastmen. One by one they perished, the weakest succumbing first as the magic they sought to control burned out their minds. Even as Oberon defeated the chosen Dragons, the ritual was finally completed – or at least partially so. The mages had succeeded in forging winds to control the Draconic influence raging across the Earth, but were trapped in time within it, eternally monitoring it, forever held in a psychic battle against the Royals.

His foes were defeated, but his body was ruined, Oberon climbed wearily upon the back of Syntribos and made once more to the Shattered Isle. Barely managing to complete the journey, Syntribos crashed to the ground on the shores of the dismal isle. Trembling from fatigue and the terrible wounds to his ancient body, Syntribos gave one last bellow of defiance and died. Alone, Oberon crawled to the Altar of Balor. He knew that should anyone take the weapon of Balor, they could rule the worlds and so he cast it back into the void from whence it came. Then it is said he laid down beside the ravaged and torn bulk of his beloved Gryphon steed and passed from that age of the world.

The immediate effects of Merlin Ambrosius’ ritual were a series of magical storms, earthquakes and tidal waves that ravaged the lands for weeks. Hundreds died as the shores of Avalon were swept clear by monstrous waves, ships were sunk and the sky was split by lightning  bolts. When the storms abated, the psychic and magical influence of the Royals was gone, and the dragons either regressed or returned to the Blighted Lands. Avalon was a land in ruins, but at least it had a future.