"Had we but worlds enough, and time"

Hundreds of years ago, the world was a different place.

That was before the heroes went away. That was before the Gods left us.

That was before all the evils that were part of our world ran riot, destroying cities,
killing the innocent and the helpless, and bringing civilisation to its knees.

But in that time of barbarism, the spirit of our people was born. An indomitable spirit, the soul of a people who have experienced the worst a world can throw at them, and survived.

Five hundred years ago, the world of [x] was prosperous and happy fantasy-style world. Evil existed, but heroes from every nation arose to light the candle to hold back the darkness. Beasts were fought, evil barons were thwarted and the servants of the powers of darkness were exorcised. The world was far from perfect, but it could have been worse.

Unfortunately, it quickly became so. Histories from that time are vague, or non-existent, but scholars have pieced together some information about the time which they refer to as the Fall of the Heroes.

For reasons which are still unknown, in the year before the Fall, many of the greatest champions of the land vanished, leaving not a trace of where they might have gone, nor what might have happened to them. Worse, some of the strongest turned against the people they were meant to defend, slaughtering hundreds or turning to the worst immoral excesses.

The people turned to the Gods to protect them from the crazed lunacy of their chosen ones, but the Gods were silent. When the prayers of the priests who had served them for millenia were left unanswered, some temples were pulled down by enraged mobs, others turned to despair. Strange and dark cults arose to serve new gods, and religious fervour engulfed cities. Many claimed it was the end of the world, and civilisation began to tremble.

Not all the heroes Fell. Some few remained faithful to their lives of glory and courage. Legends tell of great battles between those who kept the compacts to protect civilisation and those who had Fallen - wild storms were called down by their magic, and in some cases entire towns were obliterated in the fight to save them. Rumours abounded of heroes who vanished, but left promises of a return in the darkest hours of the kingdoms. Yet the darkest hours came and went, and the heroes did not return.

In the years that followed the Fall of the Heroes, a relative peace descended. The nations of the world were quiet, if not as prosperous as they once were.

However, this brief lull was not to last. Unchecked by the forces of good, the evils of the world grew and multiplied. Finally, during the deep of winter, hordes of humanoids and creatures of evil rampaged across the nations, free to burn, ravage and pillage with no one to stop them. Cities fell, nations crumbled and civilisation plunged into an age of darkness.

In the following hundred years, civilisation and culture foundered amongst repeated invasions, petty dictators and calamaties. People cursed the heroes, the gods and each other, and struggled through as best they could. Over time, however, the human settlements regained a foothold on peace. Settlements became small domains, which became small kingdoms. Law and order were restored, and new champions arose - not heroes, for to the people of [x], 'hero' remains an insult of the highest order - to fight back the darkness and make life safer for all.