Behold...The doom of Theredore...
How he came to be, none know, how he found his power...none dare tell.
It was he who laid siege to great cities, and in his wake burned many in the flames of death.
Bel'Zammon...
It was this dark lord, a Forsaken mage, who was long held under the dark sway of the "Black Tome of Malastar".
Long had the Black Tome sealed the fates of many, the book written long ago by ancient demons, before the foundation of the world was formed...Its blood stained pages held secrets too great and terrible for mortal minds...Even the gods were wary to hold it.
The book had long ago sealed the soul of a great wood elf named Tanath, who in his greed for power beyond his lineage. In his deep wanderings at last he came across "The Book", and it was then that his fate was sealed.
Written by the hands of demon sages, and long buried beneath the sands of a great desert, Tanath could feel the power course through his veins, the rush of the dark Aer filled him with a hunger for its secrets.
With great struggle he pulled at the seals, with all the spells of his mortal kind he sought to break them and see what was held within.
Atlast the first seal gave way, and the secrets of Hell, were opened...
The Book cursed him with great power, a power never held by any of elf kind, or any race under the gods.
His dark power did many things, he raised dead trees, rotted and twisted, piercing with thorns and death. Great poisons he culled from the earth, and brought all that was evil in the souls of flesh under his dominion...
But ever more, his greed crept into his mind, and the lust for power consumed him...He poured himself into the dark lore of the tome, great secrets he discovered, dark powers he wielded, and of the deeds of ancient evils he learned much...But it was upon one dark chapter, that he found a terrible calling.
The dark pages, told of a great demon, a dreadful lord amongst them. Whom in his great arrogance, sought to rule all the realms of Hell, and when he attempted to destroy it...The Demons of Hell revolted, and overthrew him, and imprissoned his soul within a buring stone, to be imprissoned for eternity, and banished him to the mortal plane, where only death or the gods could return him.
It was then, that a secretive order of Paladins, "The Order of The Golden Lady", chased down the demonist wizard, and cornered him in the fertile eastern lands of Ashen...
It was here, deep within the fertile land, that Tanath found a great tomb, buried deep into the mountain side of a mountian, cut off for eons, by a great abyss that stretched before it.
He made his way down and up the side of the mountain, and before the massive gates of the tomb he rested...He gazed upon its surface, a great work it was, and carved by evil hands, sealed by a magic so dark, it pierced even the light of the sun, and wrapped the mountain in a mist of gloom...
He soon found the spells to open the great doors, and he entered within it's gaping maw...
He made his way down, deeper and deeper into the demon's crypt, great statues of evil beings lined the walls, their robed bodies, and cowls hid the twisted faces of long lost demon lords, who still dwell perhaps in the very roots of Hell.
Atlast he came to a great hall, and across a gulf of darkness rested a great stone...Burning red and licked with foul energies, it illuminated the cavern in its scarlet light, its crystaline hide was tightly held in place, by an obelisk of bone, and set deep into an iron dias.
Upon the dias was written in runes of fire, "Thou shalt not dare remove the stone, or thou shalt tremble before the burning might of Hell"
Tanath scoffed at such a warning, and lifting the book before him, he summoned the very bones of the earth to pry with force the gem from its resting place.
But as Tanath approached the burning gem, the Paladins intervened. They burst into the hall, and fought the demonist.
Tanath prevailed long into the day, while his powers remained, but soon the Paladins gained the upper hand, and prepared to fell the final blow...In desperation he grasped the gem, and as he touched it the ground split apart, and a demon ascended from it. And with a loud roar, struck Tanath...
"The stone shalt remain." The demon said.."Fore neither by the Power of Hell, nor the Gods, shalt you release this power."
Tanath lifted the book, all his hope now resting in the pages of the dark tome. In all his arrogance he sought to kill the demon with whatever dark monstrosities were held within...
But the demon laughed at the pitiful attempts, and lifting his hand he ripped the aer, and flesh from Tanaths screaming body, all that remained was was bone, and his soul laid bare...
And laughing once more the demon forced Tanath into the book, and cursed him to remain imprisoned for all eternity...
The Paladins, then were beset by the demon..and fled from it..And quickly by the power of Larissa they sealed the tomb...With a mighty door...And placed upon it runes of warding, and inscriptions of containing...to seal the tomb for all eternity.
And upon its face, but a curse appeared upon the door...and a spell was forged upon it, that should the prophecy of the tome be read by one of power, the door shalt open...
The Paladins feared this...and took the tome, and sealed it also within a secret tomb...and above the tomb they built a massive Cathedral, and above the tomb of the gem, a fortress...
And they forged a kingdom who’s sole purpose was...to guard the secrets of the tombs...lest their evil spread forth, and the powers of Hell be set loose upon Darjis.
They called this kingdom...Theredor.
And so it would come to pass that Theredor grew prosperous in the fertile lands where the Black Tome was held imprisoned, and the demon stone that stood before it. But soon as the generations of these might paladin kings withered down and their blood mingled with that of their less holy brethren, they lost sight of their holy charge. And it was from this mingling that the line of Theredor’s holy blood was diluted, and their kings fell deeper and deeper from their righteous path.
It was then that a new king, born from this mingled line of weaker men, wandered into the mountain peaks near their mighty and ancient Cathedral long laid into ruin and its purpose forgotten, only remembered in legends and ancient tales as a haunted place.
The name of the king was Peregrinus, the wanderer.
He went down into a deep cave in the side of the mountain, until at-last he reached a winding stair that burrowed underneath the cathedral. He descended down upon the hewn stone steps, the shuffle of his feet echoing in the darkness, until he stepped away from the last step and into a great hall. There in the center of the circular chamber, propped on a dais of dark rock was a statue of Larissa, the goddess of Light, but even the light of the goddess was held at bay in the shadows of the hall.
He walked toward the statue and noted its fine carving…but was dismayed by its demeanor, for she was not the kindly goddess as seen in the temples, but was had a cruel face and was arrayed in armour looking down at Peregrinus as he stood under the tall and menacing stare, her golden hammer was raised and her face was fierce in the frozen stone, ready to smite any who dared pass it seemed to him.
He looked down his eyes wavering, and as he did, he beheld upon the dais an inscription.
“Dare not pass, lest your innocence perish, and your soul be devoured. For evil untold is held in my charge”
It was at that moment that Peregrinus heard a whisper in his mind, a whisper of power untold and glory undimmed and even immortality….He was so easily caved, and began immediately to search for a way past the monolithic goddess.
Soon he grew furious as the riddle of getting past filled his mind, and he yanked the hammer out of her stony grip, and bashed the base of the statue.
With a great crack and a rush of air from the chamber held below, the statue collapsed and the dais was broken and splintered into rubble…the proud statue of the Goddess was no more…and the way was open to the chamber below.
Peregrinus beamed as the thoughts of immortality and power tempted him, the taste of it made him slaver and lick his lips as he descended down even deeper into this mountain side hall.
When he reached the end, he found to his delight and horror, an empty tomb, bare of gold or riches.
But in the center upon a sarcophagus, was a mangled corpse of bone and rags, mutated and twisted the poor soul in life must have been. His skull bore horns and deep scars carved into his head long ago in some long and arduous struggle, his body chained to the table of stone and in his enfolded arms was a single black tome.
Peregrinus heard the voice again…
“Release me, release me and obtain power beyond even the thought of the gods!”
With one swift motion, Peregrinus grasped the book, and his mind fell into darkness…
Peregrinus did indeed grow powerful beyond the kingdoms of men. His eyes were dark and the power of the book reigned within him…the poison voice of Tanath now ruled his heart.
Peregrinus never opened the book, and in fact, from the day he lifted the book, he was no longer Peregrinus, or even alive…Tanath he now was, or at least his faithful puppet.
Like a dog he obeyed every command of Tanath, and only spoke what his dark master bade him.
Peregrinus was gone…
And so Tanath in possession of Peregrinus soon made war upon his own lands. He persecuted his subjects, and into slavery he cast them. Oh how they suffered under his cruel hand.
But it would not last for ever…Peregrinus in his deep darkness was awakened, and in a great struggle of the mind, cast down Tanath and hid the black tome in a secret archive deep into the chambers of his castle. And with that last struggle he died…his people never knowing the suffering of Peregrinus, and forever cursing his name.
And the Black Tome was hidden once more.
