The Second Age: The Age of Kings

The Four settled from their creative projects and began to pursue other goals, far beyond mortal ken. In time, various peoples of Beuath carved kingdoms out of the great wilderness, and as the centuries passed, cities sprang up and flourished. Each city had a king, and as many were benevolent and kind as were cruel tyrants.

There were those among the peoples that longed for the attention once given them by the Four, and in an attempt to garner favor they built grand temples in which to worship their chosen deities. The Four took notice as the faithful prayers of mortals called out to them through the planes, and they carefully selected those of their servants in whom they saw the greatest potential to spread the word of their faith.

Seeing the power commanded by the clergy, many kings sought to control the temples and dominate the priesthood. Before long, small wars began to break out between temple faithful and nearby city-states, and as the temples were captured the kings set up their own loyal servants to replace the slain clergy. Angered by this trespass, the Four each gathered their remaining faithful, and from each group one was chosen to be a mortal avatar of their god's power and unleash holy retribution upon the usurpers.

Armed with power unseen since the fall of the Calaedium Empire, the Chosen quickly freed the captured temples and drove off all attackers from those still free. In time, all of the power-hungry kings were slain or cowed, and the Chosen took a place above them all. As recompense for the transgression of a few, the chosen exacted a tithe from all the kingdoms in their respective Lands and with these tithes each commissioned a great temple for their god.

In Eupa, in the city of Jenma, was built the Shield Wall, a great fortress built in the very side of a mountain. Dedicated to Garrison, the Shield Wall was an impenetrable defense and from its highest parapets one could overlook the neighboring peaks and valleys for miles. Though carved from granite and rough stone, the walls, ceilings, and floors of the Shield Wall were polished smooth as flawless marble, and in the sun at noon the temple shone like a great jewel worthy of a god's collection.

In Tyrn, a great island was pulled from the waters off the coast and set floating in the sky above the tallest treetops. In the center of this island was built the Temple of the Stars, a low, wide building with a dome of the finest crystal glass in the center. So expertly carved and enchanted was this lens that any standing under the dome at night could focus on any star and see it as clearly as if it were the sun itself. Around the temple sprang what would become known as the floating city of Shkai, and enchanted winds lifted the faithful from the ground to worship.

In Sora a temple was erected around the wellspring of the river Tuen, the largest river of the land. Named the Basilica of the Waves, this temple became a great center of learning and healing arts. The sick and infirm from all reaches traveled to bathe in the holy waters and receive the treatments of Siv's most skilled healers. The temple also guarded the purity of the river, and under its protection the river Tuen's waters ran as clean as morning dew and as clear blue as the cloudless sky.

The Chosen of Arki constructed the temple to Arudain with his own power. The Black Hand of Arki was formed from volcanic glass atop Mount Fury, the greatest and most potent of Arki's volcanoes; at the Chosen's bidding the volcano fell into dormancy, its bubbling lava flowing and cooling into the smoth, cruel walls and spires of the Fire God's foremost temple. At the highest level of the temple was formed a throne room open to the air, decorated in the finest of all decorations for their god's personal use should he ever care to do so.

The Chosen War

The Chosen of the Four were granted not only great power by their gods, but the divine essence filling them also gave them greatly extended lifespans, far beyond even that of the dragons. In time, however, this life proved a curse as much as a blessing, for the core desires of each deity began to corrupt and replace the fragile mortal mind of each Chosen. In a time when the Four had once more turned their attentions away from Beuath, the Chosen of Arki gathered an army greater than any the world had previously known and launched an assault upon Sora.

Overcome by the desire to burn and conquer, the Chosen of Arki gave in to his lord's baser thoughts, the anger that had slower smoldered and hardened into raw hatred of Siv and her creations over the millennia. Before the other Chosen even had time to react, the Chosen of Arki had swarmed across nearly a third of Sora, razing every temple of Siv his army found, conscripting every able-bodied being who would join the army, and slaughtering or enslaving any who refused. The Chosen of Eupa found that though he could defend himself and his own people, his power was impotent against the burning blade that was Arki's fury; and the Chosen of Tyrn, though she sent storms to slow Arki's armies and aid Sora's defenses, gathered all her people into floating cities and deep forests and waited for the fires to burn out.

Left alone, the Chosen of Sora was almost overwhelmed by the need to protect and heal her people. Ordering her most trusted lieutenants to gather an army to fight Arki, she threw the entirety of her power into driving back Arki's armies. Backed by the rage and hatred of Arki's Chosen, the army pressed onwards still, but was slowed enough for Sora's defenses to gather. Though they suffered few losses, the forces of Sora were slowly driven back to the Basilica of Waves, and it was there that the last battle of the Chosen War was fought.

Thinking his opponent cornered and cowering, the Chosen of Arki commanded the volcanoes to belch forth a cloud of ash and smoke that was carried on the heat of the air to blot out the sun from the skies over the Basilica, and in such darkness the orcs and vile men of Arki's armies were given an advantage over the warriors of Sora whose eyes were used to the light of day. The armies of Arki pressed on nigh unto the gates of the Basilica under such a darkness, and victory seemed inevitable when the Chosen of Sora herself strode into battle, clad in mail of mithral rings and wielding a morningstar forged from steel on the heavenly planes. As she stepped from the Basilica the darkness fled before her, and under the sudden reappearance of the sun the armies of Arki found themselves blinded.

Given hope by their Chosen's appearance, Sora's forces drove back the Arkian horde all the way to the border between the two Lands. Infuriated beyond all reason, the Chosen of Arki gathered all of his power for one final assault, determined to devastate Sora in such a way that it would never recover. To stop such a thing from occurring, the Chosen of Sora threw every last bit of her own strength into defending her people, and as the powers of water had always been stronger than the powers of fire, the devastation aimed at Sora was turned back instead to its source.

In an instant, the jungles of Arki were laid to waste. The plants withered and crumbled to dust, the fertile soil turned to sandy expanse, and the rivers and lakes flashing into steam. Caught in the backlash of his own power, the Chosen of Arki was utterly destroyed, and his armies decimated. Only the temples of Arudain were spared, protected from the destruction by the power implanted in their very foundations. Though severely weakened by the assault, the Chosen of Sora gazed across the border in horror at what had been wrought, and gave what remained of her life and power to restore what life she could in Arki. Tough, dry grass began to grow for several miles inward from the borders with Eupa and Sora, and in the desert wasteland there sprang oases and water-bearing cacti. Drained almost completely, the Chosen of Sora traveled into Arki as she fed her power into its healing, and though she traveled almost a hundred miles she finally could heal no more, and fell to the ground, dying even as she unleashed her final spell. As soon as her body hit the ground it discorporated and became water that refused to soak into the ground. The waters swelled and the ground beneath them caved to form a bowl nearly five miles across, and the last gift of the Chosen of Sora was a great lake of pure water.

The people of Arki and Sora, both horrified at the devastation wrought in the war, built a temple dedicated to both Siv and Arudain on the northern shore of the lake, and they named the lake Sivara. Around the temple grew a city known far and wide for tranquility and balance, the powers of water and fire eternally intertwined there.

When the four discovered what had happened, they were all overcome with grief. Immediately Garrison and Lillith withdrew the power they had given their Chosen, horrified that they had not done more to avert such a catastrophe, and Siv immediately set about healing the scars left in Sora from the war.

Alone, Arudain returned to his Land and as he walked the throne room of the Black Hand and looked out upon the desert, he wept trails of flame and cried out in such grief and rage that his pain was felt briefly by every living thing on every plane. Whatever was left of compassion and kindness in the Fore God was buried then, and forever more he blamed Siv and the people of Sora for the destruction of Arki's savage jungle.