The Mantica Story: The God War

Gather round friends gather round and listen to the tale of our fair realm. Last where i left off the powerful elven mage Calisor had been instructed  by the Celestians Oskan to build a enchanted mirror to aid the elf in winning the heart of his love Elinathora of the Primovantor. However in aiding the mage Oskan warned Calisor not to allow Elinathora to view past when the golden bird sings. Now my friends see what comes of ignoring such a cryptic warning.

Forest Shamblers prior to The God War

But i am getting ahead of myself, for just as there is a period of calm before a great storm so to was there a period of time where Calisor returned to his old self, so enlivened was he at having a chance to win his beloved's heart that he set about building the mirror with great vigor. It was said that the Elves were so pleased to have the mage return to his old self that they ignored his constant questing and singled minded obsession with the construction of the mirror. When a great mage truly puts their mind to a task it takes little time for it to be completed and thus it was so with Calisor who in short order had assembled the components for the mirror and could begin its construction. On the day the mirror was finally forged the sky was split with blinding lighting, the ground shook with thunder terrible awe instilling thunder and such ferocious waves battered the coasts it was as if the seas were trying to prevent the mirrors creation, as if they knew what was to come.
 
Upon the mirror's creation Calisor took it straight to Elinathora. Given that she had spurned his every advance until this point one can only imagine what she must have thought when the elf asked her to look into the mirror and unfortunately no accounts exist of what Calisor precisely said to her to get her to look into the it, for such a argument would be worthy of the gods themselves! Regardless of what was said Elinathora did eventually look into the mirror and what she saw there was what all potential lovers wished to see: a future full of life and adventure beside one who would totally give himself to her. She saw that her mere proximity to him would lengthen her life and that when she did grow old it would be unlike normal human old age but instead a golden glorious twilight, a perfect capstone to a life lived to the fullest besides the one she loved. 

It is a cruel fact that the very vision of this perfect existence prevented it from coming to pass for as she saw all this her heart began to thaw towards him and she  gave him a smile, a smile that turned her gaze away from the mirror, a smile that prevented her from seeing the golden bird sing and distracted Calisor  from seeing it as well. Too late did he see it and was unable to stop her from turning back to mirror to see her her own death, her corpse rotting in a marble tomb and with her passing so to did something die in Calisor. She saw him grow old and bitter, she saw one of their children grow resentful and how that resentment lead to that child founding an army to fight their father. She saw Calisor  die in shame at what he had wrought and in horror at all that it had shown her she smashed the mirror.  

Recall my friends how i mentioned previously that the mirror had been forged with The Star of Heaven, the source of the Celestian's very power. Well when the mirror was shattered so to was it, and so to were they. Those that did not die instantly were split asunder down moral lines, in short each surviving Celestians became two: a "Good" and "Evil" version of themselves. Where once there was a "Good" Pantheon of gods there were now two, one good and the other evil and both instantly in conflict with the other. The time that followed is referred too as The God War. This one term covers the countless skirmishes, battles and wars that followed the breaking of, what came to be known as, the Fenulian Mirror. Oh my friends that was a terrible time that lasted for centuries. Legions of Elves, Men and Dwarves fought on both sides of the conflict for the gifts they had enjoyed from the Celestians caused them to be affected in the same manner as the Celestians were. Brother fought brother, friend fought friend while the ranks of the Wicked Ones,  the name given to those wicked and evil aspects spawned by the mirror's shattering, were swelled by foul evil creatures who had resented the Golden Age and the Noble Peoples.

It is only fair to devote some time to the matter of Oskan. Many wise and learned individuals believe that Oskan manipulated Calisor, that he knew that the Elf would ignore his warning and that the mirror would consequently be broken, thus causing the splitting of the Celestians and all that followed. They say that he was unlike other Celestians and that his dark nature was always supreme. I wounder at this, the Celestians were unlike any other race this world has ever seen so can we really assume that they could be as blind to such a danger in their own ranks as we might be? If the nature of the Celestians was good then surly no matter how well hidden it may be a dark evil nature would be detected and dealt with. But if thats true then we must  conclude that  breaking of the Fenulian Mirror and The God War were mere accidents, a cosmic twist of fate that could have gone one way or the other. Imagine my friends what may have come to pass if, so to speak, the dice fell the other way. What glorious age may have occurred if Calisor had stopped Elinathora from looking at the mirror at the right moment?

But back to the events at hand. The God War, as all things do, would eventually come to a end at the hands of Domivar the Unyeilding, son of the God of justice. It was at the climax of the war with armies a hundred thousand strong clashing in the background that Domivar meet Oksan in combat, for it was Oksan.s evil aspect that had claimed leadership over the Wicked Ones.  The duel they fought is, to put it simply, legendary. They fought beneath roiling black clouds with blinding flashes of lighting illuminating the scene and the massive battle fought on all sides of the duel. Oskan had grown mighty with the evil that had been unleashed on the world while Domivar was a god in his own right. They fought for many hours but at last Domivar triumphed. He wrested Oskan's own weapon from his grasp, a Black Axe of terrible cold power, and struck the ground with it tearing a rent into the earth into which he swept all the Wicked Ones, Oskan included and imprisoned them. Domivar, his driven power spent was left a mere mortal and died there besides the hellish prison he had forged.

And that alas my friends is where this part of the tale must end, but fear not for there is more to come for now we must bride the gap between the war ravaged world of the God War and our own more settled time, but that is a tale for another night.