<div align="center"><span class="bbc_u"><strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;">Backstory</span></strong></span></div><br/>Welcome to the world of Mara.  Mara is a land of ancient history, fallen empires, and limitless magic.<br/><br/>Much of the history of Mara was lost to your ancestors in the events that lead to the founding of the faded lands.  As the great Mar kalkin empire shook itself apart in civil war and darkness, one paladin (or so the story goes) saved a portion of the empire by taking them on an exodus.  An exodus that ended in the event known as the fading, an event that sealed off the faded lands from the rest of Mara for over a thousand years.  But eventually even the magic of the cataclysmic fading began to wane and people began to leave the faded lands to begin exploring the long forgotten continent of Mara again.  Did they do so seeking their lost history?  Hoping to find riches?  Were they looking for long forgotten magic and power of the great Mar kalkin empire?  That is for you to decide.<br/><br/><hr/><br/><br/><em>"Mara is and always will be.  Her face may change, but her soul remains"<br/>-Druidic proverb</em><br/><br/>So much of history has been lost to war, cataclysm, and time, that there is no good place to start.  The oldest of history is simply myth, accepted by all, but it's not clear if it is truth or fairy tale.  Yet we accept it because we have nothing else.  Our oldest myths try to explain why there are so many different peoples in Mara.<br/><br/>The Birth of the Demi-humans<br/><br/>Every race has it’s legends about how it came to be. However in the faded lands several races are newer then others. The following is the story of how several races came to be in the faded lands. Whether or not they are true is unsure, but the story has been passed down for generations, so most believe it to be true.<br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Birth of the races</div><div class="spoiler_body"><div align="center"><span class="bbc_u"><strong>From whence we came </strong></span></div>(A legend of the demi-humans)<br/><br/>In an age long past, in a kingdom that histories have forgotten the name of, dwelt a mighty king. The king ruled the land far and wide, and was loved by his people. Some say the king was a mighty Human priest, others a wise and ancient Elf, others even suggest that perhaps he was a fierce Dragonborn warrior. Despite his race, the story remains the same.<br/><br/>This king looked upon his kingdom and sought to improve it. Drawing inspiration from the mighty Dragonborn, who had all the humanity of the other races, while tapping into the power of their dragon ancestry, he decided that he could improve upon his peoples.<br/><br/>The king tried to take the best of many of his subjects and with the thousands of prayers to gods, combined with vast arcane energy, and forced breeding between the races, the king brought forth many new races of people into his kingdom.<br/><br/>Humans, with their heartiness, adaptability, and unceasing drive, were the king’s base for his cross breeding. Over an age of breeding them with elves, eventually the Half elf race came to being. Next were his experiments with the cursed lycanthropes that were a bane on his kingdom, much more difficulty was found in this breeding. Eventually however were born a race who had the ferocity and strength of their animalistic parents, but with control, thus did Shifters step into the world.<br/><br/>The king met with repeated failures to breed humans with dragonborn. Dragonborn would say that this is because they are the pinnacle of being and can not be improved. Others however roll their eyes at this explanation, as soon as the dragonborn speaking it has turned his back of course.<br/><br/>But the generations of tampering with the races of people took it’s toll on the kings empire. Many people felt that despite the inclusion of priests in the process, that the king should not be tampering with the creation of the gods. A sect formed in the kings domain that opposed him. They met secretly in first, but over the many years they grew in power and disposed of their secrecy. The king, not wishing for civil war did his best to ignore them, despite their growing ranks.<br/><br/>Until one day the head of the sect, a vile priest whose name has become dust, made a deal with a demon. The demon offered the priest the power needed to finally overthrow the king. The priest not seeing the demon for the liar he was, accepted the offer. In a massive ritual designed to channel the power from the demon into the priest’s followers, most of the sect changed instantly. Suddenly the sect that had formed because of the kings tampering with humanity became instantly what they fought against. The members of the sect found their bodies twisting, skin darkening, and power flowing through their veins, thus were the teifling race born into the world.<br/><br/>Shortly after realizing the curse that they brought down upon themselves, the high priest turned his people’s anger towards the kingdom they were angry with. A portion of these new people were dedicated to creating their own race of servants, without the blasphemy the kingdom had used in the creation of the demi humans. Talented and magical teiflings eventually came across the secret to creating the Warforged. Holding up their creation as superior to the demi human blasphemy, the teiflings declared war on the kingdom with their warforged warriors leading the charge.<br/><br/>While some of the new teiflings and their warforged servants refused to fight, the ones who did threw the great kingdom into civil war. No race was spared. Humans fought shifters who fought against teiflings who fought against dwarven allies who fought against the elves who fought the warforged. The kingdom tore itself apart and the king, after rule of hundreds of years of peace died. Thus began what would become known as The bloodline wars<br/><br/>With the death of the king came the invasion of those from the ether. While the civilized races fought against themselves, they were destroyed from the outside. Thus fell the ancient empire, and for an age, the land again fell into darkness.</div></div><br/>After the death of that ancient empire, and an age of darkness, a new kingdom arose, and for a time this kingdom was apparently quite powerful.  But it too fell because of the bloodline wars.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">The Bloodline Wars</div><div class="spoiler_body">Half elf (half elves), Shifters, and Teiflings all came about because of magical tampering with the human race. These races were created to be subservient to their progenitor race. While many think that Humans were the progenitor race that race originally created these demi humans, the truth is now lost to history.<br/><br/>What is remembered however is what came of the creation of the demi human races. The established, civilized races, became very discontent over the meddling in the realm of the gods by mortals. Some scholars contend that that ancient empire may also have suffered from some other disaster, perhaps a plague, or scourge of monsters. Other scholars speculate that it was nothing more then simple ennui or laziness of the original races. But whatever the case was, the new demi humans eventually tired of their yoke as racial slaves. They rose up against the other races in a vicious revolution that became known as the bloodline wars.<br/><br/>The players in the bloodline wars have long since been forgotten, but what is known that the battle lines became drawn along racial boundaries. Suddenly in the ancient empire neighbor turned against neighbor based on the point of their ears, or the height of their bodies. While history claims that certain races did ally with each other more often then not, it is known that the bloodline wars were a period of extreme anarchy where each race drew into itself, trusting in no other.<br/><br/>Amongst the shifting allegiances, the ancient great empire fell into several warring nations, which then fell into hundreds of battling city states. Order broke down and anarchy took over.<br/><br/>Finally as a dark age settled on the land, and all the races seemed to be simply sick of the years of war, a new threat arose.<br/><br/>An evil race emerged from the ether. These aliens began to systematically lay waste to all they touched. Raping the land of all the resources they could get their hands on, killing or enslaving all races, these evil beings seemed to be unstoppable. They wielded mighty magics and powers of the mind. They swept across the land like a black wave, and everyone cried out that if only the mighty empire had not fallen, the evil may have been stopped.<br/><br/>Finally when all seemed lost a band of heroes stepped up to combat the darkness. Much about the band is lost, but what is known is that it was a fearsome band led by a member of all of the races common at the time.<br/><br/>Dragonborn, Dwarf, Eladrin, Elf, Hafling, Half elf, Human, Shifter, Teifling, and Warforged all stood together against the invaders. They battled for an age, waging war across every corner of the land. Finally however the alien horde returned to the ether from whence they came.<br/><br/>The ten races, hardened by two ages of war, first against each other, then with each other as allies realized the futility of fighting amongst themselves. The ten races made a pact to each other to not allow each other to fight amongst each other simply based on their race again. A spurious pact at best, but one that has teniously held over the many ages since it was made.<br/><br/>The victory over the evil invading race, along with the pact for brotherhood at the end finally put an end to the long and vicious bloodline wars.<br/><br/>All that was left was The Aftermath.</div></div><br/>The only thing that brought the bloodline wars was the invasion from another plane of some sort of alien race... demons, outsiders, whatever they were, the people of Mara finally banded together to fight back.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">The Aftermath</div><div class="spoiler_body">During The bloodline wars the ten civilized races: Dragonborn, Dwarf, Eladrin, Elf, Hafling, Half elf, Human, Shifter, Teifling, and Warforged all fought brutally against each other. The bloodline wars however ended with the invasion of an alien race. The civilized races all banded together to repel the invaders.<br/><br/>After the eventual defeat of the invading race, the ten civilized races all made a solemn pact. Never again would they raise arms against each other based solely on their race. The mighty armies broke up and went their seperate ways, content to try to allow peace to settle over their war torn land.<br/><br/>Most of the races went back to their ancestral homes. No longer interested in war with the other civilized races, yet also sick of association with them. The age of peace that followed the bloodline wars was a dark, silent time.<br/><br/>Once great shining cities, now turned to ruin from the bloodline wars, sank slowly into the wilderness. The massive city states turned into baronies and then into single walled settlements, and then sometimes, into ghost towns. The population, so decimated by The bloodline wars could no longer support the massive world spanning empire that once was. Cities and settlements that could not defend themselves from the falling of civilization faded away into nothingness, or sometimes ghosts of their former selves.<br/><br/>This time was characterized by silence. While no major war of any sort fell upon the land, nor did much good come. One major event that took place in the aftermath of The bloodline wars however was the inspiration of two races to turn from their evil ways.<br/><br/>First, after millennia living below the surface, in the Underdark, groups of Drow returned to the above world. These renegade drow were sick of the evil and chaos of the Underdark. They forsook the worship of the evil Lolth and rededicated themselves to the light.<br/><br/>Originally the Elves and Eldarin especially were ready to destroy all the drow, convinced that these so called “redeemed” as they refered to themselves, were only a plot to try to take over the surface world. The drow sued the civilized races for peace. They claimed they only wanted the chance to live away from the evilness that was inherint in their underworld society. Also they claimed that from traders, they had heard of the pact that the races had made at the end of the bloodline wars and claimed that they should not be judged on their race either.<br/><br/>The situation looked grim as the Elves and Eladrin armed themselves for war against the drow. Then salvation came from an unexpected quarter. The mighty and noble dragonborn stood up, speaking for the drow. Remembering the horror of the bloodline wars, and knowing well what it could be like to be judged based on a connection to a line of monsters.<br/><br/>The shifters quickly took up the cause too, speaking out for peace, and crying that war against the redeemed drow would mean war against them as well. That was the final straw, no race wanted to break the sacred pact, nor reignite the horrors of the bloodline wars, everyone stood down from the brink of war. The eldarins, elves, and their dwarvish allies vowed to give the drow a chance, but would be ready were they to show their evil ways. The teiflings also came to side with these ancient races. Having come from the union of man and demon themselves, they did not trust a race that had been dedicated to Lolth, one of the most chaotic and evil of all the demons.<br/><br/>True to their word however these redeemed drow wanted only to live peacefully. So another period passed, some small kingdoms rose and fell. Great heroes committed great deeds, and villians terrorized the land.<br/><br/>Almost quietly, following the example of the redeemed drow, goblins started filitering into society. Quietly at first, most people just accepted them as occasional pests. But then over time people realized that clanless goblins had wormed their way into every part of the land. Some efforts were made to expell them, but not much came of it. Most simply accepted their presence as they endevoured to survive.<br/><br/>Thus ended the age after The bloodline wars that came to be known as the aftermath.<br/><br/>The land fell into a long period of silence again, many events doubtlessly took place that are lost to history, but none of them so very important as the rise of the The Great Mar kalkin Empire.</div></div><br/>After the Bloodline wars and the invasion, the world settled into a long period of peace again.  Ruins gave way to villages, which grew to cities, which became kingdoms.  Eventually the kingdoms banded together in one great empire, the last great empire, the Mar Kalkin Empire.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">The Great Mar kalkin Empire</div><div class="spoiler_body">The Rise and Fall of the Great Mar Kalkin Empire.<br/><br/>During the Aftermath of the bloodlines war, the land settled into a long quiet period. Even the re-emergence of the drow, and the inclusion of goblins into society didn’t set the land into terrible upheval. After a long time however the races all began to work with one another again. Trade between the once hated enemies swept away racial tensions. Culture began to again flourish and people began to think that they were experiencing a renisance of the time before the bloodline wars.<br/><br/>Races began living together in great walled cities and small kingdoms began springing up across the world. These kingdoms finally desiring peace began to work together. Over time the kingdoms began to merge with each other and grow in strength and power. There were of course battles amongst the nations, but as time went on, eventually the land came together.<br/><br/>Thus was born a great empire, what became known as The Great Mar Kalkin empire rose up. What follows is the legend of how the kingdom came to be named.<br/><br/>Mar Kalkin was the name the empire settled on during the merging of the last two great kingdoms. The Elvish kingdoms, along with their allies, as they merged with the joint human and dragonborn kingdom had to decide on the new name for their empire. Electing to allow the dragonborn king to rule over the land, the human king stepped down on the stipulation that he would choose the name for the empire, and the elvish king bowed to the dragonborn on the stipulation that the empire’s name would only be pronounced in elvish.<br/><br/>Thus agreed, the Human king bent his knee to the dragonborn and named the new kingdom “The shining land of peace.” The Dragonborn king nodded and looked at the elven king. The Elven king smiled as he knelt in front of the new dragonborn leige and spoke “Kaelkin, Maer Kaelkin.”<br/><br/>The dragonborn king placed his hands on the two kings kneeling in front of him and spoke “Rise friends, sit by my side as my most trusted advisors, let us bring glory to the empire of Mar Kalkin.”<br/><br/>So goes the legend of the founding of the Mar Kalkin empire. What history remains of those early days of the empire speak of much exploration and rediscovery of what was lost. Experiments into the nature of the world around them. The land entered a great time of prosperity.<br/><br/>However history is cyclical. Those events long in the past come back and repeat themselves. So it was that eventually after an age of peace and prosperity the races began to squabble amongst themselves. While the legends of the bloodline wars, its aftermath, and the pact that brought the races together had not been forgotten, many chose to ignore those ancient stories.<br/><br/>This time however the empire was not destroyed by invaders from the ether. This time more mundane forces tore into the world. Evil drow attacked from below, seeking the riches and power of the overworld, while also seeking revenge against the redeemed that had slighted them so many centuries ago.<br/><br/>Orcish hordes, bolstered by all manner of goblinoids, began to come down out of their ancient caves in the mountains, thirsty for pillage and blood.<br/><br/>Elementals, loosed on the land by failed magical experiments roamed the land destroying everything they touched.<br/><br/>Slowly the empire dedicated to peace and growth began to draw inwards. First the fringes of the society fell, the outskirts of the empire. Eventually however the darkness that covered the land spread across every aspect of the empire. After an age of peace and prosperity, the Mar Kalkin empire crumbled in the reverse of it’s growth. First it split into kingdoms, then baronies, finally into struggling towns, eager to survive from day to day and unconcerned with their neighbors.<br/><br/>The world seemed ready to plunge back into darkness, but for one mighty dragonborn. A paladin of the god Bahamut claimed he had been given a dream by his god. He was to help preserve a small peace of the empire. This paladin, by the name of Andrachelisitis (pronounced an-DRAH-chuh-liss-it-is) gathered fellow paladins and set out along an epic quest that crossed the known land.<br/><br/>His tale will not be told here, but he did end up in the eastern part of what had once been the Mar Kalkin empire. Promising the surviving people living in this section of the world that he would protect them, he traveled to the western edge of what is now known as the faded lands. Standing in the middle of a bloodstained ruin that was once a peacfull town Andrachelisitis cried out to the gods to protect what was left of the land.<br/><br/>Holding aloft two mighty artifacts, a spear given to him by the god Bahamut, and a mysterious orb of unknown power, Andrachelisitis cried out to fade these lands from the sight of the coming darkness. Throwing the orb to the ground, he peirced it with his blessed spear. A great explosion rocked the world, and the grasslands around Andrachelisitis that had been stained red with blood lit on fire hotter then the abysses itself.<br/><br/>When the fires died out, in place of the grasslands, from the ocean to the north, all the way to the mountains to the south, stood instead a bleak grey wasteland. This wasteland contained nothing but ashes. No life, no death, no movement, no sound save that of the wind crossing the barren plains. This event became known as The Fading. This fading shaped the land that our campaign now takes place in, The Faded Lands.<br/><br/>The Faded lands encompases a strech of land that once made up the eastern portion of the Mar Kalkin empire.</div></div><br/>It was during the fall of the empire that a dragonborn paladin took all of the people he could, thousands upon thousands the legends say, and lead them to a place of relative saftey in the eastern part of the empire and then sealed it off from the rest of Mara in the fading.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">The Fading</div><div class="spoiler_body">The Fading<br/><br/>Andrachelisitis, a paladin of the god Bahamut, had the foresight to see the decline of The Great Mar kalkin Empire and having received a vision from Bahamut knew what he must do. He traveled to a war torn and desolate section of the empire. He gathered up the remaining peoples in that area and moved them either east along the spine of the mid world mountains, or north and west, along the coast of the Great sea.<br/><br/>The area, which would later become known as The Grey Wastes, now devoid of people and containing mostly ruins anyways Andrachelisitis held aloft two powerful artifacts. One his weapon, a spear of legendary power, given power by Bahamut himself. In his other hand an orb of swirling power, fashioned in an age long past. He brought to the two together in a titanic crash, shattering the orb with his god blessed spear, and unleashing upon the land a mighty explosion. The explosion scoured the area with uncontrolled arcane energies and killed every living thing in the area. Any remaining humanoids, monsters of all kinds, wildlife from rabbits to deer, and everything else, down to even the blades of grass.<br/><br/>The explosion and resulting devastation traversed the land, swallowing up hundreds of miles of land. When the explosion finished, a deep grey cloud of ash, as high as a mountain and as far as the eye could see covered that devastated land. To the people in the Mar kalkin empire to the west of the detestation, it looked as if nothing could possibly have survived of the eastern part of their empire. However the cloud of ash was imbued with a sense of intelligence, a remnant of Andrachelisitis’s will. The ash slowly settled over the non devastated land to the east, falling like a light grey snow over everything. When all was done, a unique phenomenon had taken place.<br/><br/>For any people looking at this part of the land from the outside, they saw only a devestated land, just like The Grey Wastes. However for those who lived in the area east of the grey wastes they only saw the grey ash fall, then dissappear. People who would sail out from the land into the ocean would say that the land would quickly fade away into a bleak grey desolation.<br/><br/>The land between the grey wastes, the mid world mountains, and the great ocean quickly became known by those who lived there as The Faded Lands. The desolation caused by Andrachelisitis, and the resulting illusion that covered a part of the globe, became known as the fading. Those who live in the Faded Lands quickly came to realize the great sacrifice that Andrachelisitis had made for them. In causing their land to fade, he had spared them the horrors of war that were begining to ravage the Mar kalkin empire.<br/><br/>So, the Mar kalkin empire passes out of our story and into history. The refuges from the devestation gathered in a small walled city west of the Splitwood, but centrally located in the Faded Lands. They named their city Malkin City in honor of the great empire that they were leaving behind. With a renewed sense of purpose the peoples of this land swore not to let the sacrifice of Andrachelisitis go in vain. Were it not for his act, which caused the Fading, The Faded lands would not exist.</div></div><br/>The Faded lands existed, cut off from the rest of Mara for a thousand years.  It went through trials and tribulations far too long to go into here.  What is important is that a thousand years after the fading began, for no reason that the mages or scholars can explain, the grey mists that surrounded the Faded Lands for a thousand years, began to dissipate slightly.  It was shortly after this that explorers finally left the Faded Lands and successfully returned alive.  With this realization explorers left to set up a place to launch further explorations into the ancient world of Mara.  Beyond the mists they found the ruins of an ancient city and began rebuilding it;  Thus Laelith the reclaimed city was born.