Shattered world history

The Shattered World Overview: A thousand years ago, the world of earth was a very different place. There were many races, Elves, Dwarves and Dragons, and many others. The races acted much as they do now . . . there were wars, and times of peace, great discoveries and great betrayals. The land was bordered by vast oceans and a ball of fire bigger than the largest shard lit the sky. So bright that a being could be blinded by looking at it. Then the Elves conceived of a plan. The Orcs and Kobolds were considered vermin by many Elvish people, and they wanted to be rid or these races. So it was that they began to craft a spell that would whisk up these unwanted creatures and send them . . . someplace else. This spell was to be the masterpiece of the elvan race, a force greater than the sum of its parts, a spell that would endure forever. The Elves became obsessed with it's creation. It was a seething storm of magic . . . The Banestorm. They crafted (some say gathered, from even older sources) thirty talismans to be used as amplifiers of magic, Each of these coins enhanced the magical powers of its bearer, and grew exponentially when in contact with the others. With these, they crafted a moving portal that could whisk entire armies into other worlds. The controlled it with a Mirror, allowing them to see other worlds, and directed this Banestorm, this dimensional door, to the locations they desired. But the users of magic began to sense a deep foreboding, a quiet dread that shadowed everything. A premonition of disaster. The greatest mages, sorcerers and spellcasters of the earth... rebel elves, Dwarves, intelligent dragons (some say, ALL of them), the Ellyonn, , even a few orcs and goblins began to gather together at an unnamed place of power, it was as if the earth itself was calling them. This gathering of wizards became known as the nine hundred, and the power they possessed was vast . . . In epic confrontation, the nine hundred faced the dark elves, led by Pendamon, and won a great battle, shattering the Mirror of All, and flinging the thirty coins into the Banestorm itself. But the storm had already grown too powerful. It was too late. When the Banestorm was released, it began to feed from the power in other dimensions (an unexpected development) and grew more powerful than even the most imaginative of the Elves could have predicted. The Banestorm destroyed the world. It whisked vast chunks of land into other places, cracking the mantle of the earth, and causing the core to explode. The earth was shattered into a thousand pieces. some the size of continents. The nine hundred could not restore the world, nor could they destroy the Banestorm. They did manage to save the planet by using the Storm itself to whisk the remaining shards of the planet into another dimension, where the laws of nature were somewhat different. Then began a process of reconstruction that lasted many years. The Nine Hundred created many great shields of magic that protected the individual shards, and spells that restored the seasons, and night and day. They moved the larger shards into permanent orbits and restored a semblance of order to the world. They did manage to limit the power of the Banestorm by shifting much of it into many other dimensions, but this was not a perfect solution. The Banestorm still travels through the remains of the shattered world, taking things elsewhere in time and space, but now it also drops things off. All this was a thousand years ago. The Nine Hundred collapsed shortly after the fate of the world was more or less resolved, as if the force that brought them together was no longer interested in them. Some of the Nine Hundred continued to restore the world, some became tyrannical overlords of individual shards, but most vanished, picking up their lives where they left off. The shards for the most part remained totally isolated from the other pieces for some six or seven hundred years, developing very different cultures and histories. The Banestorm helped matters along by dropping large deposits of people occasionally onto a shard, and vanishing, These people no worse for their experience. The Shard of Megalos is one of these. Shortly after the Banestorm, a dozen small towns and villages of medieval Europe, Asia, and the middle east were unceremoniously scattered across Megalos overnight. Humans came to the Shattered world. The Humans thrived upon the shard and quickly grew to dominate all of Megalos. Particularly the Norman and Saxon Catholic Crusaders who conquered most of the eastern and northern lands. The Asian people were all but pushed off the shard, and have retreated to the other side of nearly impassible mountains to the northwest. The Moslem people have dug in to the south and have built their empire there, strong enough to defend their borders from the sporadic crusades over the centuries. On the other side of a great desert lies the unexplored Land of Djinns. Little is known about them. Since that time there has been several important historical events: The time of the sorcerers (great mages far more powerful than those currently alive), The creation of the capitol city of Megalos by defeating the great dragon "Longflame", the continuous crusades against the moslem empire, the successful illithid takeover, and the great war against the illithids... which ended less than one hundred years ago. The Sorcerers were a group of mages, who apparently could not die. Their power is far greater than anything humanly possible. They ravaged the shard of megalos shortly after human cities began to appear through the whimsical power of the banestorm. They are suspected of pre-dating human (or even elven) history. They fought great battles against each other, using unbelievable magical power. they disappeared from all awareness roughly 1,000 years ago. The city, country, and shard of Megalos were so named when the Korthos Megalos (a warrior-mage of honor and valor) challenged the dragon Longflame (a dragon of vast power that was laying waste to much of the shard) to a battle in order to lure it into a magical time trap, sacrificing his own life in the process. The people of the shard named Megalos after him in his honor, and also made his descendants their emperors. There have been 32 emperors and one empress since that time. Most have ruled wisely, and the people of megalos consider the emperor to be of nearly divine power, NOT to be questioned. The crusades are now into their seventeenth round... each time, the victories on both sides have been minimal. there is currently no crusade going on, due to the recent recovery from the illithid invasion. but swords are being sharpened, and there is no love lost between catholics and muslims... The great truce is wearing thin. The illithid invasion (an invasion by various squidlike creatures of great psychic power) held the entire shard in it's grasp for over twenty years... the mindflayers, mindtwisters, beholders, bales, and various creatures completely subjugated the intelligent races on the shard. The people of megalos did not stand a chance. The "squids" were defeated and driven off the shard by the emperor Jhona Megalos. He used unorthodox magic, rebellious mindtwisters, and guerrilla tactics to defeat them. the purge on the illithids was ruthless and effective. All illithid races are now used as basically "the boogyman". The hint of one being around is enough to create a lynch mob. Unfortunately since humans with psionic powers were considered to have allied with the illithids, all psionics fall into this category of "kill on sight". Even magic spells that deal with mind reading and mind control are considered to be heinously evil. Necromancy is not even a close second. Yes, the people would rather see dead bodies walking around, than have somebody use a spell to read or control their mind. The campaign is set within the city of Megalos, Capital of the Christian Empire. Home of the Emperor and focus of trade and commerce with the rest of the shard, and rarely, other shards as well. Most adventures will be set within or near Megalos city at first, and all players are native to this shard. Since Megalos is somewhat cosmopolitan in outlook, this won't pose too big of a problem.