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Across Vatheria, the year 2784 is remembered
with dread. It was the year the great wars began, the year
that first saw the Frost move south across the face of lands once
fair and green, and the shadows move north to engulf ancient
centers of learning and culture. But in the minds of the people of
the Imperial heartlands, it was the Year of the Burning Star.
In that year, a great sign was seen in the
heavens, a star with a great tail of fire, which stretched across
the sky and grew until it was visible by day and gave so much
light at night that men could walk through village streets without
the aid of a lantern. But this was no benevolent star. Astrologers
and mystics warned that this was a sign of terrible things to
come.
Late in that year, the star at last fell from
the sky, leaving a flaming trail of wreckage across the Crusader
States and striking the plain of Acaris at a point near the border
with Haladhor, just south of the confluence of the rivers Phaedon
and Edruin. The ground shook and a pillar of smoke and ash rose
miles into the sky. The hills of Haladhor and the grasses of the
Phaedon valley burned for weeks.
Where the burning star had fallen, the earth
was changed. It lay twisted and burned, with weird columns of
shattered glass. Amid the devastation there walked terrors out of
legend, great giants wreathed in flames, and horrid things which
crawled among the burning sands, and all living things fled before
them. Soon all the lands around the Valley of the Burning Star
were devoid of people; their once rich farms left to wither and
become wild.
Yet in the little town of Vendarius, there was
a priest, a humble Seeker who was wise in the lore of magic. His
name was Claudius Amulius Quintus Amantes and he had led a quiet,
contemplative life until the Burning Star fell. On the very same
night, a celestial visited Quintus Amantes and tole the
scholar-priest that he must arise and travel to the site of the
fallen star, there to receive the gift of the Opener (for that is
the ancient name of Borlamnos). Some say that this messenger was
none other than Kardev the raven, who serves the god as messenger
on Theeurth.
Armed with little more than his faith and an
old walking staff, Quintus traveled to the Valley of the Burning
Star and there was confronted by the terrors of that place. But
the servants of the god were about him, and he walked unmolested
into the heart of the valley. There, to his amazement, he found an
altar, as of black iron, and this bore many strange signs. And
round about the altar he found five tiny babes, naked and mewling.
These he carried away with him, in his donkey-cart, and returned
to Vendarius, though all the while he was in the valley, strange
beasts did menace and follow him.
Now these children were apparently ordinary
save for one thing. Each bore a strange mark upon the right hand
and arm, as of many lines of silver, which twisted and turned in
the light when one gazed too long upon them. Nor where all the
children alike. One girl there was, and three human boys. The
fifth was a halfling boy, though all agreed that he bore a strong
resemblance to the other four, though he were half their size.
That these children were important, Quintus
Amantes had no doubt. But whether they were sent by the god or by
another, he was never certain. He raised them as his own, and
taught them to love and respect the gifts of the Opener. He
studied their strange markings, never able to learn much about
them, but certain that they were a sort of rune or sigil. The five
children took his family name, Amantes, and grew towards adulthood
in his small town. They became pillars of the church in their
small community, and the Amantes "family" became
well-known in Vendarius. But always their restless nature showed
through. A keen need to learn, a desire for something they barely
understood kept them from being academics like their adoptive
father. Instead, they turned to a life of action...
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