Tragedy and bloodshed pervade the landscape of Skellbrieg. The very soil is cursed in some places, but perhaps none more so than Morrogoth. Initially one of the most ambitious settlements of mankind, it actually started to prosper in the swamplands near the Frigid South. It all began with a plague.
At first, it seemed innocent enough. Minor fever and cold symptoms, nothing too unmanageable. The local priests found the cure easily enough, but as they were applying it they were bombarded with images of a great disaster. Soon, the plague returned. Again and again, the priests and apothecaries tried to banish it from the blood of their people, but it came back even stronger each and every time. People started dying by the barrowful. Corpses had to be burned. Villages were put on quarantine, the capital city of Foremost Hope reduced to masses of refugees huddling under a cold sleet.
Madness began to sweep the nation. It was during this time that the infamous Count Orloff massacred his family and devoured their remains, becoming the first vampire in Skellbrieg. Where and to whom he sold his soul in order to accomplish this dreadful feat still remains unknown, but speculations are guided to the Womb of Evil that burst open mere days later. Perhaps Orloff was the trigger for it to emerge fully.
Whatever the case, widespread mutations started to occur. Those bodies that were not burned began to shuffle in their graves, and rise out of the ground. Hounds turned on their masters, inflicted with a blood curse that twisted their shapes into humanoid demons. Those they attacked were either devoured or forced to share this fate. These wolfmen, however, managed to overcome their blood-greed with the help of the Twilight Elves and now stand at the forefront of a guerrilla war in their former homeland, now overtaken by darkness and insanity.
The vampire hierarchy is dominant in Morrogoth, but the demon legions of the Dark Horde that they summon are in a class all their own. With the plagues of undeath and wolf-beast sweeping the nation, Count Orloff only had to take a few steps towards the throne of Morrogoth before feasting upon its king. He renamed the city, and instead of Foremost Hope, Orloff has cast down any remnant of decency he could have shown towards his hated enemy in the living.
In undeath, he has crowned himself the lord and master of the citadel of Forsaken Hope, and manipulates his vampire underlings as well as the legions of undead swarming throughout the countryside.
Yet, curiously, much like the wolfmen, some of the undead have retained their memories and free will despite the forceful presence of the necromancers scouring the land. These undead, who despise Orloff for both depriving them of their peaceful slumber as well as turning their homeland into his puppet show, have dedicated their rotting corpses to destroying him and the vampire blood-curse forever.
They are known as Redeemers, for most of their number are terrified by dreams of horrible crimes either inflicted upon them or by their own hands. Anger fuels their grief-stricken hearts, and they are a naturally violent species. Rather than purely human, the Redeemers are comprised of all manner of undead, be it ogre or elf, or anything in between.
This is partly the reason why their leader is the Twilight Elf Silverstar Windspeaker - the late wife of Jaden Windspeaker, the Betrayer.
Rather than sit idly by and pick apart the endless hordes, Silverstar has made it her mission to actively destroy their sources, not just sealing them up. Though destroying a single Womb of Evil is a monumental task, Silverstar is confident that she will succeed. The wolfmen do not approve of this method of dealing with the war, considering that with every Womb of Evil destroyed another one appears. But, in the end, it would seem that this is Silverstar's intention.
The fires of vengeance burn in her withered soul, as the thought of killing Jaden forever haunts her nightmares.
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It would seem that Elves, due to their constant battle against the Dark Horde, might be the best answer against it. However, even Elves - like Jaden demonstrated - can be corrupted. The denizens of the Land of Eternal Midnight are all outcasts, abandoned by their kinsmen, criminals, and psychopaths. They are Moglor Daiga, "Dark Elves," and the very mention of their names invite images of brutal torture chambers, battlefields swept clean of corpses, and entire cities enslaved to their perverse pleasures.
To say they are pirates is an understatement. Along with the naval commanders of Swan Island, the Dark Elves command the seas around Skellbrieg from two ports on opposite sides of the continent, each one a bastion of pain and agony where the screams never stop. They are infamous for lightning-fast raids, attacking in the blink of an eye and leaving just as quickly. The most disturbing thing about the Dark Elves is that they don't just kill, but they take a fetishistic enamorment in dismembering the corpses and manipulating the flesh to their own desires.
If one were to be captured alive, it is a fate worse than the great unknown of death.
The Dark Elves have not had a prisoner they could not make talk, whether by pure physical torture or by inflicting their minds with unbearable agonies, as well as picking apart their very souls.
Their current racial leader is a madman simply known as the Thorn King. How he earned this name and prefers it over his own is a mystery, but knowing the Dark Elves it is more than likely related to his preferred method of torturing his victims.
Despite their fearsome and loathsome reputation, there are some Dark Elves who escaped the fortresses of black ice and the halls littered with bones and entrails. These certain few travel the world, revoking the maddening lifestyle of their kinsmen and adopting the opposite instead, becoming renowned healers and surgeons because of their intense knowledge of various states of anatomy.
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