Prologue
Burnings, Betrayals and Other Bedtime Stories
[As preserved by Mortimer Flickerby,Master Chronicler of Things Best Forgotten]
In the time before memory, when the world was young and magic was but a whisper in distant realms, Fuerlis existed in peaceful ignorance. The people lived simply, their greatest achievements: stone castles and iron swords, their nights lit by fire and candles. They knew nothing of the powers that would soon reshape their existence.
Meanwhile, in the depths of the Underworld, four sisters of incomparable beauty and terrible power held court among the demons. The eldest commanded the domain of passionate destruction, love turned to obsession, devotion twisted into vengeance. The second held sway over the subtle art of influencing destiny, able to nudge fate’s threads but never fully control them. The third ruled over secrets and hidden knowledge, her power lying in what was concealed and forbidden. The fourth, the youngest, was erased from knowledge.
For eons, these sisters lived content in their positions. But contentment breeds ambition, and ambition breeds ruin.
Four demon princes of the Underworld, beings so dark their true names have been lost to terror, ruled their domain with absolute authority. Yet even gods may be moved by beauty, and the Sisters of Fury possessed beauty that could make even the demons kneel.
The eldest sister, ever the architect of desire, conceived a plan that would elevate her and her sisters above all other beings in the Underworld. She approached the princes with a bargain wrapped in silk and thorns: the four sisters, along with their companion dragons, would bind themselves in love and magic to the four demon princes, creating unions that would merge their power and multiply their combined strength beyond imagining.
The terms of this bargain have been deliberately obscured by time and shame.
But treachery most foul was in the princes’ black hearts. The fourth prince, in an act of betrayal beyond reckoning, struck down the youngest sister, slaying her in her sleep. In their unfathomable fury and heartache, the three surviving sisters and four dragons fled that cursed realm. As punishment, they stole enough power during their escape to lock the four demon princes behind an impenetrable veil.
But whispers persist among the oldest beings of magic that the truth may be far more intricate than this tale...
The First Burning:
When the three vengeful Furies burst through the barriers between worlds, they carried with them power that was never meant to exist in the mortal realm. This world, built on the foundation of natural law and mundane physics, convulsed as magic poured into its bones.
The burning began at the exact moment of their arrival; not fire as mortals understand it, but a pure magical force that consumed the world from within. Cities burned. The world screamed as reality restructured to accommodate forces it was never designed to contain. Thus magic was born to Fuerlis.
For seven days and seven nights, the world burned. When the flames finally ceased, the landscape was forever altered. From the ashes of this trauma arose the firstPhoenix—a being of pure magic, born from the marriage of the mortal world and otherworldly power.
With the Phoenix’s birth came theGreat Awakening. The magic that had torn the world apart now settled into it. But magic is not merely power, it is transformation. The survivors of the Burning found themselves changed, their essence reshaped by the very forces they had endured.
The Children of Chaos: Birth of the Magical Races
The mortal survivors of the First Burning emerged as something more than human. Magic had not only touched them, it had rewritten them at the most fundamental level.
The Shifterswere born from those who, in their moment of greatest terror, wished desperately to be anything but themselves. The magic answered their prayer with cruel literalism, granting them the ability to take animal form, but forever linking them to the wild nature they had sought to embody.
The Witchesarose from those who had the wisdom to seek shelter—not in steel or stone, but in ritual and symbol. They learned to channel the chaotic forces through runes and incantations, becoming the first to master magic rather than be mastered by it.
The Huntersemerged from the warriors who refused to yield even as reality crumbled around them. Their defiance earned them supernatural abilities and bound them tootherworldly beasts as companions, but it also cursed them with an eternal need to hunt that which threatens the balance.
The Spriteswere born from children too innocent for death. Magic preserved their essence in tiny, winged forms, making them perfect messengers and vessels of kindness and purity, though for some, the kindness has changed into something more bitter and cruel.
The Nymphswere born from those who clung to life with a hunger that would not be denied. When the First Burning came, they refused to perish, and magic answered their desperation with a terrible gift. They emerged as women of otherworldly beauty, blessed with extended life, but cursed with an insatiable need to draw from the life essence of others through blood.
The Lycansstand apart among the shifters, for their transformation was never a choice. Born from those bitten by wolves touched with magic, they carry the beast within their blood. When the moon waxes full or their passions run hot, the wolf claims them entirely. Unlike other shifters who dance between forms at will, the lycans are bound to lunar cycles and primal rage, forever struggling against the savage nature that threatens to consume their humanity.
The Scorchedare born from those who hesitated in the moment of transformation—those who neither fully embraced magic nor rejected it entirely. They bear but a single drop of power, enough to grant minor boons, yet too little to grant any true gift. They possess little power, forever reminded of their inadequacy in a world where magical strength determines one’s place.
Scattered throughout were theMonsters: creatures born from the nightmares and terrors that magic pulled from mortal minds and made flesh.
And there were others. Oh, so many others! Beasts both terrible and wondrous that now roam the ash-covered lands.Some walk on two legs and speak the tongues of men, while others remain savage and wild, twisted by the magic that birthed them. One could spend a lifetime cataloging the species that now claim dominion over this burning world, each one a testament to magic’s transformative and terrible power.
The Divine Bloodlines: Children of the Furies
The Sister Furies did not remain alone in their kingdom. In time, they took mortal lovers and bore female children who carried within them the echo of their mothers’ power. These offspring, and their descendants, became known as thefury-born.
Each bloodline carries the distinct magical signature of their ancestral Fury:
