Valen
Well-Known Member
Life in Shady Vale was a simple one. It had been countless centuries since the days of the Ohmsfords. In those days, Shady Vale was a small, but prosperous community of farmers.
Most of the villagers had never travelled beyond the borders of Shady Vale. Had they, they would have seen relics of a world long gone. Another time, another age. Rusted, metallic skeletons embedded into the soiled earth. Their painted majesty providing a vision of an age of flying machines and deadly weapons. These relics were dotted around the landscape, providing a picture into a world that once was, but could never be again.
These days, this new Shady Vale was build on the skeletal ruins of the old one. A simple collection of thatched huts, Shady Vale was nothing more than a gathering of like minded hunter gatherers. Theirs was a simple existence. Sleep, wake, hunt, eat, sleep. That was the cycle, and had been ever since the death of the world that was once known.
The Ohmsfords were long gone, and their name was now reviled. History had been revised and altered. Where once they were a line of heroes and their courage the thing of legend, things had changed. In these dark times, the Ohmsfords were seen as cowardly, villainous, power-hungry despots. Twisted creatures of darkness who had struck out to conquer the Four Lands. This revisionism triggered by their association with the thing that had come to lay waste to most of the known world.
The Wishsong.
Once, a number of centuries ago, wielders of magic walked the Four Lands. Druidic magic and Wishsong alike was used to make the world a better place. But over the roll of years though, something happened. It started as a strange, subtle twisting of the magic. When a druid used their ability to create light, for example, the light was tainted by dark shadows, flickering and burning in the air. That subtle manifestation gradually expanded, until the magic was twisted and altered in ways beyond the wielders control. This random, bizarre manifestation led to magic and magic wielders being barred from the major cities in the Four Lands.
Then, one day, the Plague appeared.
It began through use of magic, spreading from wielder to the next. It twisted their physical bodies as it had their magic, destroying their humanity. What began as a plague carried by magic wielders quickly spread through the rest of civilisation. Despite every possible effort, there was no containing it. In a matter of months, humanity had been devastated, and the twisted, dead bodies of the plague's victims lay broken and rotting across the Four Lands. Civilisation was reduced to ash and dust. Those that survived the effects of the plague were twisted into hideous mutants. Their minds shattered, they were reduced to base, murderous killers. They scavenged the ruined wastelands in search of victims to feed their insatiable bloodlust.
Shannara was dying.
Over the two centuries since, small pockets of civilisation sprung up once more. The survivors of the apocalypse coming together to try and rebuild some small semblance of the lives that they once had.
Here, in the ghostly fragments of what once was Shady Vale, you are one of these bands. The Children of Armageddon. But soon, you will become much more. You will become the genesis of Shannara, the leaders of those who would look to survive the final death throes of the world.
Where once it began, now the cycle completes, and it all begins again.
Most of the villagers had never travelled beyond the borders of Shady Vale. Had they, they would have seen relics of a world long gone. Another time, another age. Rusted, metallic skeletons embedded into the soiled earth. Their painted majesty providing a vision of an age of flying machines and deadly weapons. These relics were dotted around the landscape, providing a picture into a world that once was, but could never be again.
These days, this new Shady Vale was build on the skeletal ruins of the old one. A simple collection of thatched huts, Shady Vale was nothing more than a gathering of like minded hunter gatherers. Theirs was a simple existence. Sleep, wake, hunt, eat, sleep. That was the cycle, and had been ever since the death of the world that was once known.
The Ohmsfords were long gone, and their name was now reviled. History had been revised and altered. Where once they were a line of heroes and their courage the thing of legend, things had changed. In these dark times, the Ohmsfords were seen as cowardly, villainous, power-hungry despots. Twisted creatures of darkness who had struck out to conquer the Four Lands. This revisionism triggered by their association with the thing that had come to lay waste to most of the known world.
The Wishsong.
Once, a number of centuries ago, wielders of magic walked the Four Lands. Druidic magic and Wishsong alike was used to make the world a better place. But over the roll of years though, something happened. It started as a strange, subtle twisting of the magic. When a druid used their ability to create light, for example, the light was tainted by dark shadows, flickering and burning in the air. That subtle manifestation gradually expanded, until the magic was twisted and altered in ways beyond the wielders control. This random, bizarre manifestation led to magic and magic wielders being barred from the major cities in the Four Lands.
Then, one day, the Plague appeared.
It began through use of magic, spreading from wielder to the next. It twisted their physical bodies as it had their magic, destroying their humanity. What began as a plague carried by magic wielders quickly spread through the rest of civilisation. Despite every possible effort, there was no containing it. In a matter of months, humanity had been devastated, and the twisted, dead bodies of the plague's victims lay broken and rotting across the Four Lands. Civilisation was reduced to ash and dust. Those that survived the effects of the plague were twisted into hideous mutants. Their minds shattered, they were reduced to base, murderous killers. They scavenged the ruined wastelands in search of victims to feed their insatiable bloodlust.
Shannara was dying.
Over the two centuries since, small pockets of civilisation sprung up once more. The survivors of the apocalypse coming together to try and rebuild some small semblance of the lives that they once had.
Here, in the ghostly fragments of what once was Shady Vale, you are one of these bands. The Children of Armageddon. But soon, you will become much more. You will become the genesis of Shannara, the leaders of those who would look to survive the final death throes of the world.
Where once it began, now the cycle completes, and it all begins again.