"I wonder how the night will be
On a day that I shall never see."
The two-mooned planet of Acarus has seen many epochs of Man since the beginning of creation, but none as grim as the current age; the one they call the Age of Darkness.
When creation first breathed itself unto mortals and primordial humanoids walked the crusts of Acarus, there quickly emerged a uniquely human power: magick. Humans magick did not simply twist the tapestry of creation, but directly created new tapestry, exercising powers of novel creation and permanent destruction as The Elves had never before seen, shaping the world in their image through their arcyne arts. Legendary beasts and strange creatures populated the lands aplenty, and the first, ancient human wyzards carved out dominion over Acarus, making manifest their will upon crust.
This was known as the Age of Myth, and much modern folklore and mythology is derived from the echoes of its history. Humanity and its companion races never forgot the images of monsters and magic, which etched themselves so strongly upon the world that generations for thousands of years remembered their many-faces.
But the time of magick did not last.
Eventually, when the stars wept their last in the skies and creation's currents settled to a steady metronome, mysticism disappeared from the world entirely. The human wyzards and witches vanished into aether, and with them so too did their powers of manifestation. The monsters, beasts, and creatures that once populated Acarus sevenfold no longer walked or even breathed—seemingly having faded out of existence entirely.
Over many eons, belief in "monsters," "magic," "demons" and so on became mere superstitions. The symbolic remnants of these concepts faded, blending into folklore and oral tradition.
From stability came prosperity. With the yoke of supernatural chaos lifted from the Acarian people, they were left with nothing else but to look inward—to improve themselves. Great nations of man, dwarf, and elf swept from sea to sea across continents, conducting great trade, research, and diplomacy among one another. Technology became pseudo-renaissance in nature and even erred into exaggeratory steampunk towards the height of the learned technologists. It was a time of peace and advancement like Acarus had never seen before.
And of course, as all good things in this world, it had to come to an end.
The monolithic empires that once governed Acarus' many territories in The Golden Age fell to ruin. Some say they collapsed because they spread themselves too thin. Others say the Gods came back angry, deigning to regress mankind until they learned hubris. Whatever the case, the grandest civilizations in history all fell within the span of one century.
War scoured the planet. Every kingdom torn asunder between countless succession wars and rebellions. In the end, the world was plunged back into a feudal dark age, forgetting much of the advancement they had earned in the millennia prior.
Then, the comet came.
A great, green meteor that sailed across the sky, traveling from Western Vessos all the way to Ancient Karrash. Everyone on Acarus saw it, and many knew what it meant—if they still believed in such things. The prophesy had come true.
It had long been told that when the comet came, it would signify the last age of Man—the Age of Darkness. The age in which humanity would finally breathe its last.
Five hundred years of dark ages had already torn the world asunder, and now the decline was set into a hurdling freefall. At last, after many millennia, magick returned. Ancient horrors reawakened, and primordial wyzards stirred. Monsters and the beasts of mythology were made manifest once again. It seemed the universe conspired to spell the doom of Man, as everything dark and cruel reared its twisted head once more, pushing humanity even further back to the fringes.
The civilized races of Kalladonia, fearing their imminent extinction, retreated to the northmost Kalldonian peninsula: The Isle of Man.
Here, they established the kingdom of Redcastle, its name taken from the original red-brick bastion city that sat on the ruins of The Old Empire of Man—the former capital of the Old Empire.
Over decades, almost every last civilized man, woman, and child in Kalladonia has found their way to Castillia—the greater province of Redcastle—and sought succor as refugees from the dark tides that conspired against Acarus.
