An army of barbarian horsemen rides across the land from the northern steppe, leaving fire and death in their wake. Their leader, Kalagan Kolichev, planted his spear in the soil of the southern coast and declared that the land his own. The mobility, resilience, and shocking brutality of the Kolichevs wins them the war, as well as the lands that will form their imperial heartland. When the dust had settled, Kalagan founded the village of Dmiskava on the banks of the Zrava River.
This world was once a prosperous and thriving place, full of life and technology, until in a gamble for power, Empress Tatiana Kolichev tried to exploit the roiling energies of the Abyss to fuel her expanding civilization. After years of failed experiments, the scholars of the Kolichev Empire made a breakthrough. They discovered how to tap the raw energy of the Abyss, and trap in in crystal batteries. Empress Kolichev’s efforts earned her the energy needed to power trains, factories, and machines of war, which propelled the Kolichev Empire to enormous power overnight.
Marching armies and roaring demon engines propelled the Kolichev to dominance. Less advanced foreign rulers were forced to bend the knee or die.
The overuse of demonic energy tore a rift in the face of reality, summoning a mighty balor by the name of Uulichetz. This balor ushered his hordes through the new gate and directly into the Kolichev heartlands.
The Night of One-Thousand Tears was a vicious coordinated attack by the duergar on the settlements of mountain dwarves living in the Ash Peaks . The duergar had noticed the weakness of their surface dwelling enemies in the wake of numerous fiendish attacks during the Flood, and capitalized on this weakness to great effect. This attack, which costed both sides enormous casualties, forced the surface dwarves out of their homes and casted them out into the wasteland. This attack secured the Greyholds for the duergar, and they have used these new holdings to reach their soot-blackened fingers across the land in greed.
Rahatiel the Evervirtuous, the most powerful of solars, faces off against the demon Uulichetz in single combat. After a duel that lasts seven days and nights, Rahatiel realizes that he can only defeat the balor by sacrificing his own life. In a glorious conflagration of holy fire, both beings are destroyed, and the Flood is over.
The dunefolk emerge from their burrows under the mountain and settle in the ruined Kolichev territory.
Under the leadership of the young Baron Hadrokan, a group of settlers carved their homes into the sandstone that would become Red Gash.
A vast fungal infection ravaged the Hivelands, destroying the population and forcing the Dunefolk to flee.
