[ WP ] A fantasy world filled with races such as elves , dwarves , goblins , orcs etc . who all have their patron gods . Then , out of nowhere , come the humans , people of no deities . Helpless against gods , humans team up with another group of outcasts , the demons .

It is said in the old songs that the humans came from the plains of Urun, but that they were driven into the North. Perhaps that was true, but if so it was before there were books or cities or places to record such events. The great Elven Kingdoms had lasted a thousand generations and none knew of men as anything more than raiders and thieves and so it had always been. 
 
 In the time after the Third Great War there was much change across the land. The citadels of the Orkfolk were changing, forced to adapt by the peace treaties and the conditions they had places on both the Orkfolk and their Gods. 
 
 No longer could the great Ork Father Kraa sit in High Murgon and dictate to the Orkfolk how he wished them to war and die, now he was shackled in the Silver Tower, held captive by the united Elven and Dwarf pantheons. He was a guarantee against the behaviour of his people and without his warlike influence they were to last taking to the world. 
 
 With this change in power came other alterations in the structures of the world though, changes that none could have predicted. With the loosening of Kraa ’ s grip, the Ork watchers, who had long guarded against human invasion and indeed had revelled in their guard, were at last relaxed. The Patrols lessened, the towers were abandoned and in a few short years, even the great walls had begun to crumble. 
 
 But the humans did not come. 
 
 In the North Wastes, in the place beyond the cold, where humankind had been forced to scratch an existence, a fire was finally burning which could not be extinguished by snow or water. The fire was instead growing more powerful by the day. 
 
 In the lands to the South the summer brought prosperity and without the threat of war from Orkkind, the elven and Dwarf lands opened themselves to trade and peace. Swords were lost and forgotten and tales of the old wars were told to scare children, but none expected to see them again in their time. 
 
 They spoke of the second war, where the Elven Kingdoms had first grown, near thousand years ago and thrown back the Ork and Dwarf Kingdoms. They sang of the third war, where the Orks had waged a battle that left scars across the land, as they sought to reclaim what they saw as their lands; but none sun of the first war. 
 
 The first war was in a time before stories and only existed as a faint memory, almost a fairytale as it involved beasts of fancy, machines of metal and fire and death beyond count. Such things did not exist and so they were laughed at, turned into myth and legend. Such things did not exist… but once they had. 
 
 In the snow they had come to the humans, at first taking on forms that were familiar, but as they saw that the humans did not fear them, they took their natural forms and lived in the world once again. These creatures were not part of the order, they were not part of the story of the land, but still they coveted what they did not have. 
 
 They had been there at the start and it had been their metal, their weapons that had fought the first war, but not against one kingdom, or even two, they had fought against all, even the humans. It had been the humans though who had changed sides, seeing the logic in the whispers of the creatures and turning against their friends. They had spun in battle and fallen on their allies, nearly destroying them all, but at the end, failing. 
 
 The humans had paid dearly, driven out into the north and the others, they had slunk back into their home and waited patiently for the day they could return. Now, the Kingdoms had forgotten the old stories, their old allies the humans, were tired and desperate and they had grown strong and powerful in their wait. 
 
 As the plains or Urun grew peaceful and quiet, in the north they began to forge swords in the flames that did not die. The humans took the weapons their allies gave them and in turn the human tribes united and came out from the cracks and shelters where they had shivered. First in their hundreds and then at last in their tens of thousands, the humans sat by the fire and grew warm, grew hungry and grew strong. 
 
 Years passed as the creatures helped the humans to grow strong, to remember what they had been and what they *could* be and at last they were no longer scared and scattered, but united and strong. The human ingenuity worked on the weapons of the creatures and made them more deadly, inspiring such cunning and brutality as had never been seen. 
 
 The leaders of man and the leaders of the creatures sat in the flickering shadows and drew arrows on maps, until the show was thick and heavy and the men were impatient to move. It would take months to move the people down to the edge of the land, but then it would be spring and the snow would melt, leaving the way clear for the attack to begin. 
 

