WORLD BACKSTORY SPOILERS

Once, there were two beings of great power, among the planes... They had worked great feats, and were closely bonded to each other. Yet, eventually, what already existed was not enough... So, one decided to great a world. He created a new place between dimensions, and put matter into it, before creating life...He created this world, and then he used it. He played with it, and its inhabitants, using them as he wished though they were not toys. The lives within this world were real, with spirits, mind and potential that could be great. ...Yet, they were being used as puppets. The friend of the creator grew troubled as he saw this. The friend tried to persuade the creator to allow the creation to grow, to flourish on its own and become greater. ...No matter what he said, his pleas were ignored. So he witnessed countless lives suffering on the whims of god. He continued to witness this, feeling helpless to act.

He did not have the power that would allow him to overthrow the creator, to free the world... So instead, he made his own creations to put into the world. He put every fiber of his soul into these creations, granting them great power, knowledge, and room to grow... These creations were the dragons. The dragons waged a war to free the world from its creator, and turned some of the creations against him. Those who would forsake the creator were cut off from his power, no longer his chosen ones, becoming lesser, short-lived... Despite this, they could still become great in number.

 The dragons and the forsaken fought against the creator and his chosen, a long and bitter battle with many casualties on each side. ...And then, the war ended with a great event. The creator's connection to his world became weakened, faulty, and his chosen no longer could be certain of their victory. Yet, the dragons were few now as well... So the war faded to silence, a cease-fire. The forsaken did not stay with the dragons, instead splintering into their own tribes, becoming no different than the savage races...

 The creator is now known as Saelenis, and his chosen ones the elves. The hated enemies of elvenkind, the forsaken who rebelled against their creator... None other than humanity.

There also were demons... Those creatures have a history of their own, not being of the same world. None could claim it a kind history, and they had many reasons to call themselves enemies of Saelenis... Yet, in their first excursion to the surface of the world, they were not aggressors. They were doing nothing more than investigating... Unfortunately, the instincts of every single creature in that world called them enemy. Saelenis very much hated them as well, and had hardcoded that hatred into the world itself. Thus, they found it inhospitable, and everything within it their sworn enemies... Naturally, they fought back. Their grudge against Saelenis was reinforced, and now his world as well had dedicated itself to their destruction.

Thus, the cycle began.

Yet, that cycle was only one. Far more contributed to the current state of the world.

Though humans and dragons would come to separate, humanity still had a trace of dragons within them. They had interbred, the power of dragons being such that never would it fully disappear from any bloodline... And, as well, they had developed arcane arts to call upon the power of the Great Dragon and the threads of the world itself. Saddening, that they would not unite to use it for good... But yet, something would one day come to unite them. One with draconic blood and great magicks, infusing body and mind with it to conquer and inspire. Named Corellus, he conquered and united the warring tribes of humanity into a single kingdom.

...Yet, the unity of humankind was not enough. In this unification, he had seen them do great things... He wanted to expand. He wanted humans to rule the world. So he fought, and fought, and expanded that kingdom... He came into conflict with the elves, but somehow, he ended up with the gnomes as allies, and a gnome as a friend.

Nothing would be enough. He came to have less and less faith in the power of humanity, and more and more in his own power... He decided that he would rule over it, gain as much power as he could and become deity and guardian of humanity. To gain this power, he needed to draw upon the great power within dragons... And so, he sought these dragons. He found them and killed them for their bodies and the power left within them. He gathered them, and made a ritual... But, he needed something to power the ritual, to truly draw upon the power. More than simple arcane magic... He needed a soul charged with it.

Thus he conspired with a great wizard that was most loyal to him, and utterly trusted... To capture a soul, and use it as a focus for the ritual. The greatest candidate was one that was close... A gnomish wizard. They betrayed her, and bound her to her own staff.

 The great emperor left his trusted wizard with a task before his ascension... Eliminate all the magic from the world. The great emperor, to be god, would be the only god, never to be threatened, with absolute power to guard over humanity. So then the emperor ascended, tearing apart the soul of one who trusted him, and leaving another to a dark, twisted path...

The wizard would lead the emperor's new church from the shadows, guiding it through the next two hundred years under many names. Most recently, he is known as Haisen. Meanwhile, the staff was sealed within a great circle, so that the tiny fragments of the betrayed gnome's soul would never awaken... Yet, they have begun to stir, and are now in the hands of one who may herald the end of an era.