Ancient history

The World Unchained

In ancient centuries, in times of legend, arose the Duke and the Duchess to power. With their minions, the Seven who were Slain, they came to dominate the Known World, persisting for centuries, until the Red Sword unseated them and bound the Nine of Legend to an uneasy rest in the Mouth of Darkness.

The Red Sword's faithful companions, the Eighteen, gave their lives willingly to hold the Nine bound. Their names are told:

The Hungry Man and the Heart of Iron were bound to the Duke.
The Man of Twists and Turns and the Golden Hair were bound to the Duchess.
The Lord of the Warcry and the Seafoam were bound to the Drowned Daughter.
The Leaden Amulet and the Broken Strand were bound to the Defiler.
The Elysian Knight and the Lady of Hardship were bound to the Musician.
The Prisoner of Hope and the Bride of Life were bound to Darkhunter.
The Wounded Saint and the Restless Lover were bound to the Wanderer.
The Stone of the South and the Silken Stalker were bound to Cityslayer.
The Hound of Strife and the Penumbral Feather were bound to Burrower.

Thus was peace returned, until the re-passing of the Great Comet, almost forgotten in the five centuries since its last orbit. The Comet portends change, and it came to pass that the researcher into ancient times known as Scrivener found texts from which he extracted, so it is told, the true name of the Duke, and used this to contact the Duke in his imprisonment. None know what truly came to pass, as the Comet dominated the sky, but when it had passed, Scrivener was no more, and the Duke was unbound. Immediately he fled into the scorching deserts of the North, and the watch on the Mouth of Darkness was relaxed once more. Full two hundred years passed before the Duke rode from the North leading an army of the wild men that live in the deep desert, and unbound the Seven. The Duchess, his bride, sleeps still, but the Duke and his Slain retreated again to the North, for near three hundred years, until memory of them was near extinct.

Now, as the Comet brightens in the evening sky, the Duke has returned once more from the North, to conquer Wolfram, the greatest of the Cities of Metal, and make it his capital in what all presume will be his empire.