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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bob Aberton" data-source="post: 134852" data-attributes="member: 1518">Being an account of Anne Rex Tri (The Third Age of Kings):"In the year 1 ART, which corresponds to the year 689 ARD and the year 1001 AR, after 89 years of chaos and unrest as no new heir to King Caradoc the Fifth could be found, a new claimant took the throne, a bastard son of King Caradoc's cousin Anheirlion, whose name was Heyvdd Nherianthir.  He attained his throne by slaying all of the other claimants, and in this he did evil, for he slew his own kinsmen, and it was said ever after that the Nherianthir line suffered from this ill-done and violent deed, for, after that, none died of natural causes but by violence, save for one, but he became enamored of a Fey-woman and wandered off into Faerie, and ne'er was seen again by mortal men.Hevydd died in battle in the year 27 ART, and he had done much good for the Kingdom of Avalon, but his subjects now had cause to remember that deed of violence which put him on the throne, and the curse which followed, for he had no heir save a daughter, who men thought not fit to rule, and it seemed that Avalon would once more be rocked by civil war, but the daughter proved stronger than any could have guessed, and she took and held the reins of power for 63 years, finally dying in 104 ART, she whose name was Angharad, and, being wise, kind, and strong-willed, she was well-loved by her subjects.She left behind a son, Bran, who ruled for but 3 years before he was slain by his jealous wife, who he had long been cuckolding.  That was in the year 107 ART.  His daughter was Eilonwy and her son was Anheirlion.  Thus continued another Golden Age, but this one was more shaky, and in the later years of Anheirlion's reign, troubles increased in the realm.  Dwarf clans marched against each other underground, and even the surface world shook with their marching.  Fey became even more reclusive, and people feared them, for many were slain by elf-arrows each year.  In the year 210 ART, soldiers of Cadwgawn the Second, heir to Anheirlion, marched against the Fey.  They were slain in great numbers by elf-arrows, and they retaliated by burning the forests.  Peace was eventually settled when the army, who greatly feared the Fey, calling them demons and slayers from the shadows, mutinied and for five years roamed the land, answering to no one and taking what they would, until they attacked the Knights of the Golden Guard, who were the High King's especial body-guard, who summarily slaughtered them.  In the process, however, Gwydion, then the King and son of Cadwgawn the First, was slain leading the Knights.  The Preceptor of the Order of the Golden Guard (so named for the gilded armor they wore) was Ignatius Inorien, and the office of Preceptor of the Order passed through that family for many generations.  This was the year 214 ART, and the Third Age of Kings would not last much longer.In the year of the reign of Arianrhod, the High Queen, a new shadow of a threat grew in the Harshlands, a desolate swamp near the Southern Mountains.  A warlord calling himself the Wizard, who was reputed to be sorcerer of terrible power, mighty and cruel, was raising himself an army of the malcontents and degenerates in the fair realm of Avalon.                                    The truth was much more sinister, and tis a tale to long to tell in one volume.  The Wizard was said to wield, as weapon and symbol of power, a spirit in the shape of a mighty rod of iron, a weapon as terrible as the Wizard himself.  Howbeit, it might be better to say, rather than the Wizard wielding the Rod, 'twas really the Rod that wielded the Wizard, for the Wizard, who once had been a man, had been corrupted by this spirit.  He had not the will to resist, and he become Spirit-ridden, a pitiable ruin of a man, whose dreams of granduer had been perverted and twisted, whose honor had been turned to evil, and whose very humanity had been tortured out of him by this spirit, until he was as souless as a statue longing for death but never recieving it.And so the realm was darkened.  Arianrhod sent her troops against the Wizard, but they became bogged down in a seige, and they broke and fled when Arainrhod herself died.  She had been travelling when she and her entourage were set upon by lawless men, remnants of the armies of King Cadwgawn, and she was raped and then cruelly slain, with the rest of her serving women and attendents.  Her son, Nwren, survived howbeit, and he became known as Nwren the Golden, for he was the very flower of chivalry.Now Nwren was likened to the Sun, but he might more have been likened to a shooting star, that streaks fast across the sky, lighting all the world, only to die, consumed by its own radiance.He was ever hot-headed and impatient, and that was one of his few faults, for he was always fighting in some war or another. With all his exploits in war, many worried about the Curse of the Nherianthirs, that he should die on the battlefield, but such a curse seemed to have no bite on him, and reputation was as great, nay, greater than even Avalon's patron King, the legendary Arthur Pendragon.  He warred against the Wizard, intending that he should remove this particular thorn, and those were the Ruinous Wars that were his down fall, of which I will tell in another volume."                                                 -Arolas, Merlin of Avalon, in "Historica Avalonica," 23 ARQIn the next post, I will tell of the Ruinous Wars and the Wizard.  Anyone anxious to hear more?  I hope so as I am putting ahuge amount of effort into this.</blockquote>

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