Backstory... how it all began. Dramatic revelation of secrets.

The Tri-State Alliance of Sarronyn, Keidra, and Airmedach knew something was going wrong, they just didn't know what.

It was easy, and yet hard, to overlook as something entirely normal. The orcs were getting more aggressive, much different than their peaceful disposition recorded in the past, and the climate was getting much more hostile. Most people wrote off the orcs as wanting more territory, but Keidra's generals cited that with the amount of burning and slaughtering they had done, their intention had to be biased towards wholesale destruction rather than a land grab; As for the weather, volcanos and earthquakes, Sarronyn's mages could tell from the unpredictability and the much darker magical "feel" to the world that it was far from bad luck. And so, they prepared. Keidra readied it's armies, Sarronyn researched what the threat could be and how to overcome it, and Airmedach set out to find allies for fighting off the threat.

No one listened, though. They were all too busy fighting amongst themselves, or too paranoid they would stab them in the back, and at times turned to fight the Alliance, as well, distracting them from their efforts to prepare for what lay ahead. And so, when the real invasion began, the Alliance was left to fight them off alone. Which they did, for a short time, but they eventually realized that the horde of orcs was ever expanding, and that, strong as their fortifications might be, they would eventually lose. And so, when the call for mages to help create the portals to other worlds went out, every mage that wasn't currently in the field holding the lines was sent to help, along with some settlers and scouts, who were to be sent through to find a suitable location for the Alliance to rebuild.

Those settlers founded Crowyard and Kevbern in Mortia, colonies of the alliance. They weren't in ideal locations, but they got the job done; not only did the find locations for the cities of the Alliance to be rebuilt, they also found out that the orcs, and the dark lord Kresp, were already there. And so the colonists abandoned their colony and set forth an expedition to set up the groundwork for the Alliance to move to, while Sarronyn, Keidra, and Airmedach dismantled their own cities to salvage what materials they could bring with them, and to deprive the orcs of any chance of harvesting those. And so finally, after so much time trying to hold their old world, the Alliance went through the portal to Mortia, and sabotaged their own former defenses behind them to eliminate as many of the encroaching horde as they could.

The Alliance had escaped certain destruction, but there was no time to rest. They knew what was waiting for them, what great evil they had to defend against. And this time, they were ready. And they'd make sure everyone else was, too. And so, the Confederation of Sarronyn, or "Understanding", was formed, with their two closest neighbors. Whether they can find more, or if that will be enough to stop the tide remains to be seen.

written by Merddyn