Before the darkness came there was the mistake.
Before the time of the Britanan Empire, before the time of the Orcnar, even before the time of the very gods themselves there existed the Vaettir. So old was this race that it was they who taught the ancient gods the ways of the universe. They taught them of life and death, of order and chaos and of power.
Once they had been blessed with this knowledge the gods took it upon themselves to create their own race of followers for what was the point in having such power if no-one could sing your praise in worship. It didn’t take long for one god to decide that he deserved to be worshipped by the other races as well as his own creations and this led to a war between the deities.
The war between the gods was a terrible thing to behold. The very earth shook constantly, mountains collapsed into the seas causing great floods which destroyed vast areas of land yet throughout it all the Vaettir sat. They protected themselves and their lands during the onslaught by using their mastery of magic; raising mystical barriers that shielded their own domain from the fall out of the war.
The heavenly hostilities lasted for a mere thirty days and once it was over the gods had vanished. Whether they had somehow simultaneously destroyed each other or decided to flee for their lives mattered little. The younger races lamented the loss of their patrons yet the Vaettir barely noticed, their remoteness from the world around them raising them above even noticing the gods had left. This aloofness, unfortunately, caused them to miss one race appearing as the gods vanished – the humans.
The isle of Unglandan was so small, so insignificant, that it didn’t register on the Vaettir’s consciousness. The growth of the human populace and subsequent expansion went unnoticed in the way that a regular being would ignore the forming of an insects hive in his rafters. It is only when the insects are established and become a nuisance that they are acknowledged and become a matter to be dealt with. The blink of an eye in the life of a Vaettir covered the time from the appearance of the humans to their current march of conquest across the land.
The aggressive human expansion had already forced out a number of races from their own lands before the Vaettir became aware of their colonization. Studying this new race intently the Vaettir realised that nothing could persuade these beings to cease their way of life and share the world with the others and they decided to intervene, a measure they hadn’t taken in the conflict of the gods, in order to restore some peace to the world they called home.
The plan to stop the humans and restore the natural balance was to construct a spell; the most powerful use of magic ever undertaken by any race at any time in history. Numerous assemblies of Vaettir worked continuously to craft the spell, each group concentrating on a specific part of the overall. Each group was determined to finish their particular section of the spell before the others and a sense of competition overtook the Vaettir; something that had never happened in the lifespan of their race.
Consumed by this new found rivalry no one group thought to check that their part was compatible with the others. The spell, once cast, began to work as was intended and as a whole the Vaettir congratulated themselves on their own brilliance. As the spell reached its climax the Vaettir lost control as they changed from one section of the spell to another. The spell took on a life of its own and the Vaettir tried in vain to prevent the discharge that travelled the globe like a wave.
The power that had been put into the magic had to escape somewhere on its journey and nothing is left untouched. The human race suffers greatly with the handful of survivors who were shielded from the bulk of the magic driven to insanity. The Orcnar are sentenced to a long and drawn out death of their species as their very core is disrupted by the energy that passes through them.
The Vaettir themselves do not escape the suffering. The former masters of magic, realising that they have doomed the very world they were trying to save, attempt to absorb the uncontrolled power that washes over all corners of their world. Their bodies are saturated with the magic until their bodies no longer resemble the beings they once were. In an attempt to control the elemental forces of their planet they have turned themselves into living versions of those forces, able to gain control over earth, air, fire and water and use it to their ends. The devastation that the elements can cause is slowly twisting their minds in a similar way to their bodies. The sheer destructive force behind earthquakes, tornadoes, wild fires and floods is flowing through the very veins of the Vaettir.
The mistake was theirs; the long task of righting the wrongs they have caused is theirs as well. The Vaettir have decided on their path to restore the world and woe betide anything that tries to stop them.
