After Almia

The Great Ulcer

The ritual released a massive rift between the Mortal Realm and Hell.  Demons tore out into the world.  The undead poured forth as fast as the Nopheratus could imagine them.  Worse yet, the effects of the rip surged outward, destabilizing the world.  Even outside the Great Ulcer hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters plagued every nation in the world.  The sun blacked out.  Animals rampaged.  It seemed that all of the Mortal Realm would fall.

            The dead rose elsewhere as well, and Belkanâth received the some of the worst.  Only holy ground was safe and even that began to fade in the dark light of corruption.

            Elsewhere in the world, the undead were not as bad.  Still, they rose and even other continents, those that had been seeded by the vortices during the Age of Chaos.  Everywhere, civilization collapsed under wave after wave of the ghosts, zombies, and skeletons.

            Then the corruption flowed out through the earth and the quakes began.

            Every  fault gave way at once, shaking apart mountains, moving landmarks.  The face of the world changed.

            The sun did not return quickly and the winter worsened.  Plants and animals died.  The druids saved every species they could, moving them into areas where they could maintain magical temperature and light.  Still, many species were lost.  Many of the animals that didn’t make it changed instead, corrupted by the Ulcer’s distant energies.

            It took months for the praying of priests around the world to slow the wash of darkness.  Then the tides of undead lessened, the forces of light beat them back.  Eventually, all the evils were put down or beaten back into the Great Ulcer.

            By the time the darkness passed, it was too late for the next summer, and the winter held.  Finally, over a year and a half after the ritual, the first twinges of summer hit.

            It dawned on a wasteland.  The druids worked, gathering seeds and samples of animal species, but only the liberal application of God’s magic kept anyone alive.

            In the wake of the long winter, an alliance formed. Across Belkanâth, churches and mages allied.  It didn’t matter whether they shared belief systems. They bonded together and used their magic to create food and water where there was none.

            Even the Warrens took damage in the quakes.  In 3109 PI, the denizens of the Warrens managed to clear enough of the tunnels that they could return to the surface.  They found that the surface had been devastated, and returned to fixing the tunnels and vaults.

            By 3106 PI, the dead stopped rising.  Now, holding back the evil no longer took effort, except at the borders of the Great Ulcer itself.

            The green places of the world grew.  The wastelands receded.  People began to think of politics and art again, not just survival.

            By the end of the die off, things looked hopeful for the world again.  The Dwarves, relatively unscathed, aided the other races in rebuilding.  The denizens of the Warrens had problems of their own.  The rest slowly rebuilt, trying to make a new society out of the ashes of Almia.

The Dark Ages

The dark ages were a time of rebirth for the Mortal Realm.  The world came back to life.  The Elven kingdoms recovered first because they’d protected most of their important sites.

            The Human nations came along more slowly.  Little is known of most of the nations that rose and fell during this time.  They were as plentiful and as short lived as leaves on a tree.

            One nation was ruled by a man named Maranoc the Just.  He worked hard to make it safe for his people, and he ordered the extermination of every cambion within his borders.

            He was wildly successful.

            Only a handful remained.  One was an orc name Dzoulg.  Dzoulg managed to work his way into the army of Maranoc as a soldier.  He passed all the loyalty tests and was granted exemption to the decrees against cambions.

            Dzoulg worked his way through the ranks of the King’s men until finally he became a member of the king’s royal guard.  He was one of the most honored and trusted men in Maranoc’s guard.

            What no one knew was that Dzoulg was on a mission of vengeance.  He was evil to the core and his only goal was the destruction of King Maranoc for his extermination of the cambions in his kingdom.

            Finally, one day, Dzoulg was taken into a private meeting with a king.  Instead of giving the king council, Dzoulg slew him with his bare hands.  Though he was butchered shortly thereafter, he was heralded as a martyr by cambions around the world and is worshiped to this day.

            Another noteworthy event of this age was the life of Demon Lord Lymalar.  Lymalar was a cruel man who relished poisoning and spreading plagues.  He roamed through the lands, killing entire villages.  Eventually his evil caught up with him.

            They finally tracked him down and captured him.  His dead body festered and exploded with disease.  Those who had killed him spread this disease.

            It became known as the Gray Death, and no cleric in the world could heal it.

            This plague spread through the world, causing a second great culling of the masses.  This one made it even to the Dwarves and the Warrens.  By the end of this age, no one had escaped horror.

            The final noteworthy event of this age was the life of Saint Dolonus.  Dolonus discovered that the Great Ulcer had expanded and foresaw that it would devour the world.  He journeyed into it single-handedly.  No one knows what happened inside, but the Ulcer vanished and Dolonus with it.  Many think that he had to be willing go to Hell, forsaking his own reward in Paradise to save the world.  If this is the case God later redeemed him as a Saint.