The Abyss

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“But my downward glance, returning,

Shrank in fright from what it spy'd;

Slopes in hideous torment burning,

Terror in the brooklet's tide:

For the dell, of shade denuded

By my desecrating hand,

'Neath the bare sky blaz'd and brooded

As a lost, accursed land.”

In the beginning,

The Creator had put Man upon the virile earth, blossoming and perfect. The Four Races flourished here, in the center of all mortal things; Aegis, they called it. That was their homeland, and even though the brothers or their sons had sown dissent and left to assume seats of power in the outer-lands, the center of the world, Aegis, remained populated and lively. It was here that the sovereign nations of Oren, Malinor, Urguan and Krugmar had coexisted in relative peace, and when the times came that conflict had been stirred, wars between these cousin-races did not fall into extremes. The descendents lasted through any desecration, and never once did one seek to truly eradicate the other.

It is only when the invoker of the 30 Year War, Iblees, arrived again that true decimation came to the centerland. Bringing with him his Undead Sorcerers, Iblees waged a war against the collective races; and when he did not will his shackled, decayed servants to inflict assaults of fire and dry lightning upon capitals and congregations, he had them plant the seeds of sin and terrible evil within the hearts of Men. The efforts of the Four Races and their Ascended allies were all but for naught, for even in the midst of their victory after the brief invasion of the Nether, the peak of the Fallen One’s ire was truly realized -- Aegis was scorched by a sky-reddening fire, and the land fell to a cataclysm in which all things became cinder and ash.

The legacy of Aegis, of which was the descendents themselves, fled to the unknown Verge and then Asulon in a mournful exodus from charred Aegis, and continue to migrate from land to land even to this day. Aegis itself was left behind, and as Iblees rose from the ashes to take claim to the land he was once defeated upon, the one known as the Caretaker of Souls descended from the heavens to initiate a finality to their long, destructive conflict. Aerial, the Aengul of Souls, and Iblees, the Daemon of Ruin, clashed together, using the centerland of Aegis as their battlefield. Already was it in shambles… but the result of this battle was much worse than what it suffered now.

As it is referenced in godless scriptures, the enwraithed one known as the Lord of the Dark beheld the battle himself, while his brother the Lord of Embers beheld it from far away. “Ground enshakened; skies enblackened; chasms pried open, with the earth whispering its ashen agonies.” That is the horror that the Lord of the Dark witnessed before Aegis suffered the apotheosis of the land’s Denaturing, before all things crumbled to nothing, and the Abyss was formed from the blight of divine battle.

Thus, the Aegis became a nothingness. Known only as the Abyss now, all things that defined the land that once was was but a pit which expunged a foul ash and the darkness of displaced Lifeforce, forever wayward from the cataclysmic shock that the utter destruction of Aegis induced. The cities, the roads, the forests, the mountains, all gone in an instant; either completely wiped out, or banished to the very depths of the terrible abomination known as the Abyss.

What exactly transpired was a process known only as the Denaturing - events in which the land is subject to such utter decimation that the very corporeal being of said land is limboed and scarred metaphysically. As a result of the divine battle, the natural presence of Lifeforce which lingered the earth in Aegis was forced to remain suspended in the air as a black fog, occupying the space that the sunken ground no longer had. This distortion is what both caused the depths of the Abyss to become so stygian, so shadowed; and why the very air within it is a noxious fume. Lifeforce has become abundant there, its mistual, dark visage both blackening the chasm and tainting the air.

One may assume that an abundance of Lifeforce would be beneficial -- yet, it is the opposite. The quintessence is the embodiment of life and its growth, and thus if condensed and then absorbed into a living being, the being itself is subject to terrible cancers and tumors borne of the malignant, aggressive growth of life. To intrude into the inner-sanctums Abyss by whatever means possible, and to remain there for some time, would mean to surely succumb to the sheer excess of life essence that dwells there. The depths are a solemn, accursed place; but they are not isolated, nor uninhabited despite the terrible darknesses and enfouled air.

There exists within the Abyss remnants of the land that once-was. Pieces that persevere; fragments of cities, homelands, roads. The deserts of Krugmar, the streets of Alk’hazar, the forests of Laurelin, all of these places still remain, though in shambles. They are like decayed corpses, shells and ruins of what they once were whence the sun shined upon them. Within these sullen landmarks linger on the phantoms of the past -- both dead, and undead. These beings are known as the Remnant Living and the Remnant Dead, and are both defined by their terrible afflictions and the reasons in which they still remain.

The Remnant Living linger on as practical revenants, accursed with blights of cancer and self-devouring illnesses brought on by the black fog that occupies the very air. Those that have lost their minds converge in primal tribes, where they commune together as if animals. The sparse few that have not succumbed to the madness of their existence exist as disciples of one they call the Abysslord, acting as historians and preservers of the fallen past. They suffer themselves for the good of antiquity.

Those that still remain with their minds intact shroud themselves to hide the horror that is their visage; dulling their pains with magics drawn from the Abyss, embodied by dying flames and other foreign dark arts.

... and others roam as savages, distortions of Man; congregating into brief tribes when they do not murder eachother in show of their corrupted, tumultuous nature.

The Remnant Dead are the only true free beings that dwell in abundance within the Abyss, for it is their undead composition that thrives amid the blackness instead of suffer from it. They are roaming corpses, lulled back into life by the will of their soul shadows; and it is by their very unholy composition that they grow strong and indomitable in the depths, for there never comes a time when the Remnant Dead are without the fuel of Lifeforce, keeping their inherent weaknesses and cravings at bay. They roam endlessly, scouring the Abyss as its watchers and keepers, and preventing the living from far above from intruding into the ruins of sacred Aegis - protecting the sunken land with no master to guide them.

Greater Remnant Dead give testament to the master of the depths, the Abysslord; dressed in cloaks which shroud their rotten body in a silken darkness. By whatever reason that remains within their ailing minds, these dark reflections of Men seem to choose to honor the old visage of the Old Lord that protects their sunless land.

But the grand apex of the black chasm is known as the Abysslord-- the gellid, enwraithed being that fell into the Abyss as it was carved from destruction. In an time, he was known as an Old Lord - one among the four Wraiths of Aegis. Now he exists as the Abysslord Malkaathe, forever bound to the churning fissures of the fallen old world. Seated upon the Throne of the Dark which lies at the very bottom of the Abyss, he rules his Remnant Living disciples; willing them from his seat of power to collect for him the remaining histories and texts that survive in the broken ruins of Aegis. So fused has become his half-corporeal being to the Abyss that his ethereal mind has become the herald of what it once-was; all memories of Aegis, all of its lost histories, coalesce in his mind and remain preserved.

He remains seated at the lowest of depths, lingering on as the solemn king of the once-was and the once-were. The Abysslord has become one with the chasm he rules; and it is not rare that he roams as a phantom of the Old Lords when his oft-incorporeal form drifts through the dark realm as a cold, blinding fog of shadow.

For that is his purpose there, now…

To remain, and remember, seated upon his throne amid the nothingness.

The Way of Things

- The Abyss is now defined, occupied, and ruled: given extensive detail as to establish the nature of its depths, what roams it, and for what purpose.

- The Abysslord, Remnant Living and Remnant Dead may now be interacted with in the future, able to be incorporated in any events that revolving around scouring the accursed Abyss.

- The Planar Dictate now has reason to open a portal into the Abyss, allowing for players to enter it with canonical ability.

- The ruins of Aegis may be explored, allowing for insight on an abundance of LT-created content as well as implementing landmarks and artifacts relevant with the developments that transpired in the first map; histories, fallen cities, artifacts.

- One Old Lord among four is now partially defined with the detailing of the Abyss; expanding Wraith canon and allowing for future developments related to his existence and that of his kindred.