The Fallen Angels

The Elnori once ruled the Realms. They were the divine. They were Gods and they demanded worship from those they ruled. Their reign lasted an age but it ended swiftly in the Cataclysm.

As the Cataclysm broke the Realms the Elnori were decimated, that apocalyptic storm striking them down with seeming divine wrath. Others were slain by those they ruled, an uprising at last after an age of tyranny as the Realms fell asunder.

But... some survived.

In forgotten places they had fled, there to wait out the long Dark Age to come. Though reduced in power, they were still wrought of divine flesh and augmented by their arcane sciences mighty they remained. As the Realms healed about them some of these Elnori left their sanctuaries and gathered about them once more followers from the clans who by then had forgotten the tyrants of old, rebuilding their kingdoms and offering wisdom and guidance in exchange for protection and worship. Many of these fell to the Ascendant Empire and its inexorable crusade. But not all and in forsaken places they remain still; a vestige of a bygone age.

And some Elnori, perhaps seeking forgiveness from those they once ruled and their Creator, forsook rebuilding that which they had lost and became guardians of those in need, protectors of the weak during the Dark Age. Mysterious benefactors who would offer guidance and knowledge. They endure to this day, their true nature unknown to most.

Others became little more than beasts. Wild, mad and monstrous things, their divinity lost and in its stead a nightmarish mien driven by hunger and hatred, their onetime glory a fading memory. They would build lairs festooned with bones and blood and scrawl upon every surface the language of their people, though utterly meaningless and nonsensical. Few dangers in all the Realms are as great as these mad Angels and the wise avoid the deep forests and wastelands where they dwell.