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The Appendices Xoltania
nbrown4
History:: My tale is not one that I recount with any zeal or fondness, for it chronicles my greatest fa ilure, however, there is truth in the maxim that one who does not learn from history is destined to repeat it and thus I have recorded these events to safeguard against such an eventuality. I have bee n betrayed, deceived, and disgraced. Stripped of my rank and honor, banished from my home, an d sapped of my powers, I have been forced to struggle, to crawl my way back from the bleakness that is to live without meaning .::  The story of my struggles does not begin in the world of Aegis, but in a different realm tha t I once called my home. The name of this place cannot be uttered in the tongues of Aegis but it was a place of great turmoil. The luminous beings who were thought to have created this world taught hu mans, their first creations, the use of magic so that they might pick up where they had left off. :: Even with the power of magic at their disposal however, it took the humans several millennia before their task was completed, and by that time, they had forgotten near entirely about the ones w ho had given it to them as they now called the world their home. The beings wished to reclaim the wo rld that had once been theirs and disregarded the humans' protests that it no longer belonged to them. ::  The wrath of the luminous ones was ancient and terrible, with the humans scarcely able to de fend themselves. It was not until the mages; humans taught the use of magic, took up arms against th eir former masters and turned their power back upon them. As the most powerful and charismatic of th se mages, I succeeded in banishing the luminous ones from the realm in a fierce and bloody ba ttle. At its conclusion I was heralded as the savior of the now free humans and chosen to rule over them. ::  I, who had studied the luminous ones more closely than any of my companions had uncovered th eir most secret of magics, the apparent immortality they possessed, and I had found a way replicate it. With never ending life I sought to guide my people into a golden age, but it was not to be. Fear ful of a king who would rule forever, my friend and fellow mage Khak-Mordel laid siege to my fortress, disrupting the ritual. ::  Weakened by the attack, I found myself unable to resist Mordel and his reavers, and was boun d and dragged before the nexus of our world, the place through which the winds of many different dim ensions blow, and the walls between worlds were thin. Using crude and unknown magic, Mordel tore ope n a portal through which I was flung.::  I next awoke in the world of Aegis, my body rather worse for the ware. The forced trip had w ithered and blackened my skin and caused my eyes to burn crimson. Sensing the presence of magic in A egis I now seek to relearn the mystic arts so that I might one day return home and take revenge. :: My ponderings on Aegis::  This world reeks with the stench of the putrescent undead, who lurk and fester among shadows unseen. Their influence in this world is all but absolute, for though there are admittedly few in A egis that have escaped the confines of the grave, I have beheld nigh countless others, pitiful fools who seek the favor of their beloved "Fallen One." It is desire that has ensnared men and wome n of every race and creed, one under which more people have united than can be said for any nation o r religion. ::  It is the weakness of these fools that most sickens me. Rather than depending upon themselve s, upon their own strength and ability, they seek ascension from the mundane monotony of their lives through the pledging of their servitude to an ancient and reviled being who is more likely to plung e their souls into the abyss than to aid them.::  The weak fail to understand that the toil we endure in life is proof of our own ability and the mark of our existence. To die is to achieve eternal peace with only the most worthy of our explo its to live on in the memories of those who remain. When one shackles his soul to the will of Iblees , he is denied the blissful fate of death.::  The ultimate irony is that here in Aegis, the potential for magic exists in all of its inhab itants. Were each person possessed with the will and determination to elevate their lives above the tedium of the everyday, to resist the temptations of the undead, to ignore the judgments of the asce nded, the destiny of the world would once again belong to mortal man and a resplendent and be autiful world it would become. ::  It is for these reasons that I wish to once again become learned in the magical arts, to aid in liberating the world from the whims of immortal beings. Above all else I wish to pledge myself, not as a mere practitioner of the magical arts, but as an architect devoted to the creation of a new  and glorious age.::