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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arknath" data-source="post: 155323" data-attributes="member: 2850">This story hour is inspired by one of the players in my group as he has written one about his current campaign.  I hope you enjoy this as much as I’ll enjoy telling the tale.Our story begins in the land of Ersadia, a rich land consisting of a single massive continent that stretches across the globe.  Our story may seem strange to you, the reader, for here, orc and elf walk side by side and hold no enmity towards each other.  Not everything is as it seems on other planes of existence and you must base the emotions in one’s heart by the strength of his character.In northwestern Ersadia, lies a city called Sallineth.  This city’s creation dates back 175 years, the first year that is known to Ersadian scholars and is known as The Year of the Coming.  Sallineth’s history has been decorated with the land’s most powerful mages and scholars gathering to it’s gates and making the land around it a much safer place to live.  Sallineth is a bastion of safety in a sea of uncertainty that is the northwestern part of Ersadia.The creators of the grand city (priests, wizards, and psions) never laid a single brick nor did they mix an ounce of mortar.  The buildings, the walls, even the cobblestone roads were all constructed by the art in which they wield.  As the city grew, it became a place for learning, research and a virtual sacred site to all that was created and discussed about the powers of the mind and the art which came from the use of magic.  In the 175 year history, questions had been posed as to the nature of life and whether or not Ersadians were the sole beings in existence.  Those who relied upon divine spells regarded these historians and “free thinkers” with an air of absurdity, for they knew that the gods watched over them and that life did indeed exist beyond the current plane.  Wizards, ever practical, were not especially fond of placing belief in anything without concrete evidence of the existence of deities and other planes.  This began a great project amongst the wizards and the priests of Naristan (god of knowledge).  This project contributed much to what modern-day Ersadia knows about planar travel and creatures from planes not of their own.  At the forefront of this project was a group known as the Dolce Covenant, a group of the twelve headmasters of the foremost colleges and places of study in Sallineth.  These wizards and sorcerers where the most powerful in all of Ersadia in the arts of magic.  The Dolce Covenant decided on the course of action that the interplanar discovery project would take.  They decided that the only way to truly know about other planes was to travel there themselves and experience it first hand.Over the next hundred years, many gates and portals were opened to other planes of existence, each time with the twelve masters of magic diving into them with armies of mercenaries to aid in protection.  They found peaceful contact with many creatures and made alliances that would last millennia with celestial beings.  The wizards and other non-believers finally had their proof that the gods exist, and to this day there are few in Ersadia that do not at least make offering to some god or goddess.The time was nearing, however, to when the last portal had to be opened.  Having been fortunate in finding no enemies of great might on the other planes that they had discovered, the Covenant decided to cut back on expenses and lessen the armies in which they entered a plane.  A new set of mercenaries where brought in for the final day and the final unveiling of the portal in which would end a 100 year project of discovery and wonder.  Thakin the Wise, as he was known to his colleagues, was a particularly powerful and learned night elf (our version of the drow, but non-evil) in the ways of planar lore.  He was the single most knowledgeable being on the face of Ersadia in regards to the project, for he alone had been there at the inception of the Dolce Covenant and the project as a whole.  It was he who was elected to open the last portal and lead the expedition in.  It would be his first time off this plane, since he had never gone on the previous expeditions.A parade was held for all of Sallineth that day.  Leafcrest (November) 14th, 175 A.C. (After the Coming).  The fanfare was exquisite.  The twelve lords of the Covenant where marched around the city, escorted by hundreds of armed soldiers and scores of spellcasters who had been apprentices (or still were) to the masters.  The best students from all academies martial and arcane alike were marching in fine order and looking quite splendid in the gleaming purple and white vestments that the wizards had made the colors of the City of Magic.</blockquote>

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