A Chronicle of The Dry Land

Only in silence the word,
Only in dark the light,
Only in dying life:
Bright the hawk's flight
On the empty sky.

- from The Creation of Éa

------====== The Second Age of Man [-1250] ======------

Selidor, the outermost isle in the West Reach of Archipelago, is a barren, desolate wasteland. It lies right amidst the dark realm of the vicious Dragonkind, where perpetual darkness rules with never-ending storms. It was not created by Segoy during the raising of the islands of Archipelago, but rather lifted up from the bottom of the sea by a band of Archmages and Rune Makers from the isle of Pendor.

It was placed there for the sole purpose of guarding the gateway to the Dry Land, which was created by the powerful wizards of the old world who sought to seal off all the evil in the world of Archipelago inside it. The Dry Land itself was made into a mirror image of Archipelago by the ancient wizards, who believed that the evil and chaos in the world were placed there to counter the order established by good.

It all started with the Vedurnan, when the ancestors of dragons and humans were given two different paths of destiny; to roam the sky freely without restraint, or to rule the land and shape the face of Archipelago.

The ones that valued order and stability chose the latter, and became humans. They moved from the sea onto the isles of Archipelago to bring order and stability to the land; they built cities and established kingdoms; as a result, the human race blossomed in prosperity and growth. However, order and prosperity came at a great price; over the centuries, in their endless pursuit of logic and order, the humans lost their ability to use the old speech - a tool granted to their ancestors at the beginning of time to control the elements and bend the rules of nature. Although there were a few who were still apt at using fragments of the old speech to call on the weather and create illusions, these skills are merely minor trickeries compared to the power and might of the old race.

Those of the old race that chose to roam the skies became dragons; they loved and embraced the chaos and endless variability of the open sky of Archipelago. But by endlessly meandering in the sky and flowing with the wind, the Dragonkind lost most of their appreciation for order and society. They mostly wander the skies alone without any destination and purpose; they roam solely for the enjoyment of its freedom. They only ever came into the realms of the humans to feed; they saw no wrongs in slaughtering innocent people and gauging on their raw flesh. To Dragons, there is no difference between a human and a sheep, because their minds seemed equally incomprehensible and irrelevant.

These fundamental differences between the two races sparked a debate among the ancient philosophers of Pendor, who deemed the two races as the manifestation of the two opposing fundamental forces of nature – order and chaos. They argued that by banishing the race of the Dragonkind, the world would thus be rid of the most formidable force of chaos and evil. And because death and disease were also thought to be elements of evil, the Pendorians hoped to banish the failings of mortality such as death and disease along with the elements of evil. And in their foolishness, the philosophers called upon the mages and sorcerers of Pendor to create a new land west of the West Reach of Archipelago for the Dragons to dwell in.

As instructed by the wisemen of Pendor, the mages raised the isle of Selidor, and beyond its walls they created a copy of Archipelago, naming it the Dry Lands. The runes inscribed on these walls locked all the elements of chaos and disorder within… All except for the Dragons. The Dragons of the land, being the most powerful beings of Archipelago, were not so easily bent to the will of humans.

Ignorant of the power held by the Dragons in their mastery of the old speech, the mages of Pendor proceeded to remove the Dragons from Archipelago by force. Thousands of battlemages and warlocks gathered at the island of Lorandor south of the newly created Selidor to make a stand against the Dragons, thinking to drive them northwards through into the Dry Land.

The wizards transformed themselves into the form of Dragons in order to match their opponents physically before going into battle. However, the mages, in all their wisdom, did not anticipate for the battle to last a full seven days. Much to the dismay of the Pendorians, more and more of the transformed mages found themselves unable to return to their human form as the battle dragged on, sinking deeper and deeper into the oblivion created by the Chaos which they fought so hard to contain. Not only were they trapped in the bodies of Dragons, the minds of the wizards are also beginning to crumble to the corruption of Chaos, rendering them more and more Dragonlike. At the end of the seven days of the Battle of Lorandor, all of the mages that came to battle the Dragons had turned into Dragons themselves.

During the ferocious battle between the two sides, the island of Lorandor was mutilated beyond all recognition; it was scorched by magical flames that melted rocks into lava; the earth shook and cracked, allowing sea water to gush in and fill the void. The wasteland created by the battle latter became known as The Dragon’s Run.

But the destruction did not stop there. The Dragons sought to destroy the power behind the attack and avenge their fallen brothers. They laid waste to all of the human kingdoms from Lorandor to Ontuego, finally arriving at the island of Pendor. The siege of Pendor was long and bloody, and lasted a full forty nine days. When the Dragons finally broke through the defences, the warriors and mages of Pendor made a last stand on the highest hill of Pendor, in the midst of the ruins of their once splendid city. But despite their courage, the defenders were vastly outnumbered and were quickly defeated and slaughtered.

A band of wizards who witnessed the creation of the Dry Land had escaped the siege and fled to the isle of Selidor, where they hoped to use the Dry Land to purge their souls of the influence of chaos in order to become immortal and therefore defeat the Dragons. However, they were neither powerful nor wise enough to control and comprehend the might of Chaos and the Dry Land. They didn’t realise that the soul is in itself an object of chaos, for it cannot be explained logically in physical terms. They also overlooked the nature of the Dry Land; it imprisons all manifestations of chaos, including human souls. Without realising their mistake, the wizards preceded to chant the spell which separated their souls from bodies in order for the transition to take place. But as soon as the soul threads were broken, their souls were sucked into the Dry Land and locked inside it forever.

Yet the bodies of the mages remained in the world of Archipelago - they were still alive when the Dragons arrived on the island. In their endless wisdom, the Dragons knew not to temper with these blasphemies of nature, and exiled these living dead to the realm of the Kargads to live out the remainder of their ‘lives’. But even the Dragons did not realise, in all their wisdom, that without the influence of the chaotic souls, the bodies, being objects of order, were able to function for all eternity.

Rumour has it that the bodies of these unfortunate wizards still roam the hills of Kargads Land in search of new souls to devour…