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A Royal Guard, who stood brave and strong, where they stood against adversity which grew strong from every corner.
Their purpose held true, within their hearts, and within their minds.
But then they came.
The humans came with their weapons and their swords. Numbers which only the mind could dream of.
It was not war. Not battles held for conquest.
It was slaughter. The men, women, and children killed without mercy. And that was only those who did not have the affinity for magic.
Those who could did something unfathomable.
They used magic of the darkest caliber. Something that the screams could haunt. They used the monster’s strength.
Their affinity and closeness to the elements and warped it. They fought in battlefields where the trees and her Mother, screamed.
They could still feel the warping, the screaming, even after they were sealed.
Those who heard, who fought, quickly Fell Down.
Those who didn’t, like the King and Queen were forever haunted by the memories. The nightmares that came from that war.
The humans betrayed nature, and magic left them altogether.
Though, the monsters would never know that their art, had been lost aboveground.
Those who were left of the noble Guard were lost. They did not know what to do in the aftermath.
They did not know how to react.
Teaching fell slowly, and the Royal Guard, no longer felt Royal.
And the darkness sept in the Underground’s corners.
A king and queen guided their kingdom’s subjects.
They guided their will with their hands, their judgement swift and true.
And their extension, the Royal Judge. A Judge with the abilities to ascertain truth from lie, and to guide their kingdom’s hand.
They were lost.
They were gone.
A king and queen left befuddled without their noble extension, without judgement. And they could no longer see the darkness with their eyes.
They were blind.
And as much as they tried, darkness sept in. They were unaware.
And so, in their blindness, they looked for a replacement, a Judge for their kingdom. To serve.
It really was such a shame that this led them no fruit.
As they expanded underground, the darkness aboveground sept under.
And their power floundered. There were those who sought the throne. And were only learning to strike.
Those who did, lost their lives.
The kingdom stood for a moment longer.
But at what cost?
Kings and queens, they fall.
Unchallenged, they might think themselves.
Change might flow like the trembling of seas, thunderous and tired.
The waters hold memories, and they have seen this story before.
But change will come. As it always does.
This is the motto of those who have no king nor queen.
They wish for the tides of change to wash them ashore.
As all they know is drowning in fire.
There is no Judge here.
Just chaos, anarchy, rampage. Their gods and deities have abandoned them, left them to die in the sea.
It rains fire.
Chaos.
Death.
Imbalance.
Peace is but a thought in the hopeful, and a legend to the lost.
Resentment bleeds into their hearts, like how one would sculpt a weapon out of iron.
It all begins there. With fire, flame, and stinking hot lava.
A decrepit old sign in the wind, “Welcome to Hotland.”
A place where only the heat can hide the pain.
All the little pieces moving together, a changing landscape of factions.
With an enemy, they all stood strong. They had a plan to defeat and to live.
Now, they had nothing to do. Everything is happening. All the pieces are moving. Centuries have past, and all of them have settled.
Corners of the world to their heart’s plight.
In the Underground, there were darker places.
A Royal Judge who stood fair and strong.
A legend, a dream. Forged from strings of fate and light if the stories are to be believed.
The last one died, in a war so long ago.
The Judge’s details lost to time, they began and ended in fragments of a moment compared to now and the time spent underground.
New stories begin.
And the board is open for play once more.