werecorpse
Adventurer
For years nations pursued their personal and myopic agendas of power. Rel Mord politics was more about who would be sovereign while the Theocracy and the Urnst entities undermined Nyronds power. The silent ones of Keoland supported their nation against their rival nations only rarely focussing on the darkness beneath the Hellfurnaces. Yes Greyhawk battled against orcs from the Pomarj but always with an eye on it’s mercantile rivalry with Dyvers. When the Scarlet Brotherhood or Iuz rose in power or The Monstosity took the Malachite Throne these were too often other people’s problems.
Heroes seemed to arise from out of nowhere to battle these great evils, they defeated the plans of arch liches, destroyed demon queens as they broke loose from their bindings, recovered Raosih artifacts to allow fiendish armies to be decimated, kept fast the gates holding back Tharizdun, thwarted the plans of spider gods, ended the reigns of nascent elder evils before they had begun. The kings and queens of the Flanaess had begun to subconsciously rely on the rising up of heroes as if such thing were a natural law of opposition to the great evils that might plague the world.
Such was not the case. There was no “natural law”. It took a great and magical mind to see the fallow ground wherein the seeds of evil would grow. To, from the shadows, nurture and test the mettle of adventurers. To ruthlessly allow some to break against lesser foes so that they would not be those called upon to battle against the dangers most vile. Then to step out of the shadows to provide the advice that would hurl the surviving shining gems into the furnaces of evil knowing they would snuff out the evil while cracking and crumbling themselves. One who saw the utter ruin of truly good heroes as a worthwhile necessity to keep the world in balance.
But now Mordenkainen is truly dead. Some say he is no more yet others declare he exists in another realm one where the future of Oerth is no longer his concern. Either way he is gone. His hand rested lightly on the tiller of fate for decades if not centuries. Now the path is unclear.
Heroes seemed to arise from out of nowhere to battle these great evils, they defeated the plans of arch liches, destroyed demon queens as they broke loose from their bindings, recovered Raosih artifacts to allow fiendish armies to be decimated, kept fast the gates holding back Tharizdun, thwarted the plans of spider gods, ended the reigns of nascent elder evils before they had begun. The kings and queens of the Flanaess had begun to subconsciously rely on the rising up of heroes as if such thing were a natural law of opposition to the great evils that might plague the world.
Such was not the case. There was no “natural law”. It took a great and magical mind to see the fallow ground wherein the seeds of evil would grow. To, from the shadows, nurture and test the mettle of adventurers. To ruthlessly allow some to break against lesser foes so that they would not be those called upon to battle against the dangers most vile. Then to step out of the shadows to provide the advice that would hurl the surviving shining gems into the furnaces of evil knowing they would snuff out the evil while cracking and crumbling themselves. One who saw the utter ruin of truly good heroes as a worthwhile necessity to keep the world in balance.
But now Mordenkainen is truly dead. Some say he is no more yet others declare he exists in another realm one where the future of Oerth is no longer his concern. Either way he is gone. His hand rested lightly on the tiller of fate for decades if not centuries. Now the path is unclear.