Thread:Dark dwarves 2/@comment-26084195-20170208013150/@comment-26084195-20170308230855

"Alright. It is a bit of a long tale, I will have to tell it in parts.

Creation of the Teir`Dal Innoruuk, the God of Hate, was excluded from the initial creation of races upon the world of Norrath. Brell, God of the Underfoot, and the other gods involved in creating the elder races were too powerful for Innoruuk to oppose directly, even though his fury at these others burned hotter than the fires of Solusek Ro. Together, the gods Brell, Tunare, Prexus, and Rallos Zek watched with great satisfaction as their creations successfully defeated the dragons seeded by Veeshan eons before upon the world of Norrath. In accordance with their pre-arranged pact, the new gods divided the world into the various realms in which their creations would live. These “elder” races carved out kingdoms within their lands as their numbers grew. By defeating Veeshan’s brood, the younger gods had ensured themselves status as major deities among the dominant population of Norrath. Cunning Innoruuk writhed and plotted in his hatred for all of these powerful young divinities, and he soon formulated a plan to teach them all a lesson. He patiently watched the other gods’ fledgling races continue to prosper and grow until, finally, the path for his ascension — and his vengeance — became clear.

Seduction of the Elves Of all the elder races, it was the elves who first came to dominate the first known continent, which was subsequently called Tunaria, in honor of the elven Goddess of Life. The king and queen of the elves, two perfect specimens created by Tunare’s own hands, were beloved by all elves for their beauty, kindness, and wisdom; each also possessed great power given them by their goddess. Ever did the two rulers wield their power sensibly, seeking always to maintain good relations with the other races, if possible. It also assisted them in their endeavors that these elves were as terrible in anger as they were beautiful, capable of unleashing frightening powers, a fact which had not at all gone unnoticed by the other races of Tunaria. Sensing that the time for his revenge was at hand, Innoruuk took the form of an elf and went to the elven capitol of Takish-Hiz, to observe the elves more closely. Among the elves, he learned of their two greatest weaknesses: their great lust for magical knowledge, and their arrogance toward all other races. These weaknesses he would leverage in his vengeance.

The crown prince of the elven royal house Thex, a beautiful boy named Tearis, heard that a certain mysterious elf had a magical gift for him. With great anticipation, the boy came to Innoruuk, disguised as an elf, and received a wondrous helm of magical power. The helmet was beautifully fashioned and shed a brilliant light. As the boy felt it in his hands, he could sense power coursing through the precious device. Prince Tearis, having a strong dose of the typical elven weakness for all things magical, could not help but don the helmet.

Innoruuk, however, had placed a potent curse upon the helm, which placed the boy under his thrall the moment the helm was worn: This boy was the offspring of the two finest elves created by Tunare, and, from the seed of their union, Innoruuk would sow his revenge by making this boy the king of a different kingdom altogether.

Immediately, Innoruuk opened a gate to the Plane of Hate atop the highest tower of the royal palace in Takish- Hiz. The Prince of Hate and his new servant, the prince of the elves, were about to step in when the boy’s bodyguards intervened. The guards would not allow this strange elf to take the boy away, even though the boy appeared quite willing to go. King Naythox and Queen Cristianos Thex, who had immediately sensed the opening of the gate, also rushed to the tower with their own bodyguards, and arrived just moments after the boy’s guards.

When the king and queen arrived, they saw their son’s guardians battling monstrous beings that had erupted forth from a fiery planar gate, while their son and a stranger — whom both monarchs instantly recognized as a being of great power, even if they could not perceive his identity — were trying unsuccessfully to run past the Koada’Dal and into the portal. Seeing the king’s and queen’s arrival and knowing that while they could not kill him, yet they held great power, Innoruuk quickly put a blade to the boy’s throat and commanded all present to halt or the boy would die.

After a brief negotiation, it became clear the king and queen would not allow their son to be taken away from them, dead or alive. Innoruuk shrewdly proposed that they give themselves up to him instead, paying their own for the life of their son. The king and queen immediately swore an oath to do that very thing, and Innoruuk freed their son from the helm’s curse, flinging him back to his guards. The Prince of Hate then took on his true form, causing a shudder to run through the gathered elves, and passed through the gate to his home realm, knowing full well the king and queen were honor-bound to follow even into Hate itself. The boy cried forlornly to his parents to stay, but his Koada’Dal guards knew that the oath of the king and queen, once given, was never broken; in tears, they held back the boy as the king and queen left behind their armor, weapons, and other valuables in a pile. Looking lovingly upon their loyal guards and their loving son, the monarchs passed through the flaming portal into the Plane of Hate. Passage to the Plane of Hate

Once the king and queen passed through the gate, its colors flashed briefly and then changed color. None who tried to follow their sovereigns through the portal — and many did so — could follow. To this day, some believe the fire of that gate still burns atop the remains of the highest tower of the royal palace in the Oasis of Marr, a sad reminder of the beginning of the decline of the elves. Overcome with despair, guilt, and hatred, the young King Tearis Thex ordered his wizards and druids to find some means by which to open a gate to the Plane of Hate for a rescue mission. Though the elves were proficient in the magical arts, though, none possessed knowledge of any method of planar travel to Innoruuk’s realm. Their lore, however, told them that the shissar, a race of snake people with a reputation as fierce warriors and potent spellcasters, had in the past constructed monuments that enabled planar travel in various places around Norrath; the shissar, who were at that time on only slightly unfriendly terms with the elves, were believed to possess such knowledge. The elves managed to secure the aid of the shissar in exchange for the shissar having full access to any discoveries made during the research of the elven scholars. Still, more than two centuries passed — though to the long-lived elves and the immortal shissar, such a period was but a frustrating sojourn — before the Keepers of the Art, with the knowledge and the Fulligran’s soulstones given them by the shissar, discovered a way to transport a handful of beings to the Plane of Hate.

The elves assembled the foremost masters of every spellcasting guild and fighting profession to assault the home plane of Innoruuk, where they intended to punish the Prince of Hate and his minions. If their kidnapped king and queen still lived, they would rescue them, although by now they harbored no such faint hopes. When enough of the elite elves had gathered, the mightiest wizards among them spoke the appropriate words and performed the proper gestures, and the assembled force vanished through flashing gates.

However, little did they know that the shissar, to whom they had already given the details of the new spell, had already betrayed their intentions to Innoruuk in exchange for an ample supply of Fulligran’s soulstones — the very components for planar travel to Hate. The shissar sought knowledge and mastery of planar travel at any price.

The Monarchs’ Descent Immediately after King Naythox Thex I and Queen Cristianos Thex entered the Plane of Hate, they were seized by scores of undead and forced to stand before the Dark Prince in his true form. With a quick gesture, Innoruuk infected the elf queen with a disease so virulent that she would die within a day — the only way she could live would be to look into her husband’s willing eyes and, in an act of communion made possible only by their many blessings from Tunare, draw a portion of his life into herself. Day after day, she would have to will a part of his life to her, for this was the only way she could endure the terrible ravages of the diabolic ailment in her blood.

Innoruuk smiled in anticipation of the shared suffering the two would have to endure for many years to come. Naythox and Cristianos were given separate quarters under heavy guard, but in relative comfort and with adequate provisions. Innoruuk’s plans for revenge against the gods were well under way.

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and months into years, with the king faithfully giving a portion of himself each day to help his beloved wife quell her painful disease. Both endured terrible pain in the process, and many times they nearly willed themselves to die, but while they wished to die, both believed there was yet hope for escape or rescue while they still lived. Because of their love for one another, they lived on.

After nearly a century had passed, some changes began to manifest in the queen. Her skin began to take on a bluish pallor, and, although she did not admit it even to herself, she was becoming addicted to the “taste” of her husband’s life force. She lied both to him and to herself, but was soon taking as much of his health as she could, bringing him to the threshold of death each day. Her skill at drawing his life energy had become much easier and more subtle after the decades of daily practice.

Naythox, for his part, began to notice a certain gleam in his wife’s eyes, not unlike that of a feeding animal, each time he was led to her room for the painful daily ritual. The wise king began to see the trap into which they had been led, for hatred felt on this plane was like a seed of corruption, and it grew even within Naythox’s heart.

Finally, after more than a century of suffering, the king was told by Innoruuk’s servants that the Dark Prince had decided he would soon kill Naythox. Innoruuk was quite pleased with Cristianos’ newly developed addiction to lifefeeding, and knew that her conversion from being an enchantress of the first order to a dark queen of necromancy was nearly complete. Innoruuk, in his secret mind, had for some time seen Cristianos as the queen of a new race of dark elves, sired by Innoruuk himself. However, true to his own hateful nature, Innoruuk could not help but give Naythox notice of the dark god’s intentions, if only to see the king’s reaction. Naythox’s powers as a paladin of Tunare had long since been exhausted healing himself and his wife, yet even without his magic he was a warrior of profound skill. Enraged by this news of Innoruuk’s intentions upon his gentle wife, Naythox managed to seize one of his guards’ swords and slay all of the guards present. He then fled, hiding in the darkened streets of the Dark Prince’s City of Hate.

When the queen’s next feeding time came, later that same day, she too flew into a rage when she found that she would have none of her husband’s sweet life to drink. In her anger, she instead drew the life force from all the guards about her and, without consciously meaning to, willed her disease upon many of Innoruuk’s creatures in the nearby city as she searched frantically for her husband. Only moments later, she realized that her ability to draw life force was no longer restricted to her husband; further, with her power to pass virulent disease to others at will, Cristianos had become, very subtly and without her even realizing it, a very capable necromancer. And due to the influence of the Plane of Hate, she reveled in the realization. Seeing the elf queen’s intense love at last shift to an equally fierce hatred for her husband, Innoruuk was pleased enough to delay hunting down and killing Naythox. In fact, at his order, some of Innoruuk’s servants came to the aid of Naythox when Cristianos finally caught up to her husband, healing him as she diseased and drained his life. Naythox, heartened, struck out at her and wounded her gravely, sending her running back to her quarters. Other creatures of Hate quickly rallied to Cristianos as well, keeping the maddened king from pursuing his wife, and so the hateborn conflict between king and queen began.

Over the next 40 years, many skirmishes, raids, assassination attempts, feints and coups took place during what Innoruuk laughingly calls the War of Thex. As the estranged monarchs’ conflicts grew in scope, their hatred boiled ever hotter. Although they did not know it, their hatred — made more potent, and thus more valuable to Innoruuk, by the depth of their descent from Tunare’s purity — was fueling the creation of an ever-greater number of undead and constructs as Innoruuk’s divine powers grew. As well, Naythox’s and Cristianos’ appearances were changing to a deeper blue skin-tone as the years of warring went by; while Cristianos’ power as a necromancer exceeded Naythox’s power as a warrior without his divine magic, the elven king nonetheless possessed a remarkable knack for escape and for using wits and daring to turn a battle from certain defeat into an overwhelming victory. Gradually, Innoruuk came to admire the cunning Naythox more and more. As the numbers of the underdog king’s victories continued to mount, Naythox came to realize that it was his own hatred for Cristianos that enabled him to perform ever more amazing feats so that his forces could win their battles. In time, the elf king came to acknowledge the power of his hatred as a supreme force, and, in effect, became a willing vassal of Innoruuk, like his wife. This artificially inspired hatred between husband and wife thus spurred their final, willing transformation into the first Teir’Dal.

Innoruuk, seeing that the sovereigns’ hatred for one another made them both powerful, ordered that Naythox and Cristianos should jointly rule the new race of dark elves. Lust had never been his motive in seeking to make Cristianos the queen of the dark elves in any case, and he valued both king and queen as two of his foremost servants. Just as their hatred pushed them to become stronger, both

as individuals and as leaders in the Plane of Hate, so would it serve them in the mortal world. As the newly reunited monarchs of the dark elves, their newborn hatred for one another (and their pre-existing hatred for all around them on the Plane of Hate) would serve as an example of the potential greatness attainable through hatred.

The Invasion of Hate It had now been centuries since Naythox and Cristianos had been taken from Takish-Hiz, leaving their son behind, when the large contingent of powerful elves finally launched their invasion into the Plane of Hate. Wizards, enchanters, magicians, bards, rangers, druids, paladins, and clerics, all were represented by their guild masters and champions. All had loved their king and queen dearly and had been pained watching the young king Tearis Thex struggle with his emotions and grow into manhood, all the while burdened with the heavy responsibility of rulership.

Now, these same elves who had won countless victories against powerful dragons during the elder age for their goddess, for the crown, and for all elvenkind, stood within the gloomy, vast City of Hate, with fierce determination in their eyes. As the invaders engaged Innoruuk’s minions, it became clear that nothing could stand in their way. At the forefront of the elves were the legendary “Three,” cutting a swath through all the undead before them, while elementals secured the flanks of the arrowhead-shaped wedge of elves. Bards, rangers, and rogues zipped through streets and back alleys, scouting out creatures to destroy and keeping their fellows apprised of any possible counterattacks.

As the elves fought, no building they encountered was left untouched, no creature of Hate left alive, as they destroyed all that dared stand in the way of the most powerful race on Norrath. As they fought on in the pitch black air, though, Innoruuk was without fear, for the elfhost’s hatred slowly built toward the one who had stolen their beautiful Queen Cristianos and their wise King Naythox.

Facing paralyzing ghasts, keening banshees, deathless revenants, vicious kiraikeui, revolting giant rats, sorcerous liches, animated objects, impervious golems, and roaring dracoliches, the elves repeatedly demonstrated why even the dragons of Veeshan had fallen before them. The Three at the forefront, who led the invasion, were ancient and fierce elf lords, the most blessed and mighty of paladins who had faced dragons in the First Days. Long ago, during the dragon wars, it had been prophesied that the Three would never fall to an enemy in battle. And indeed, nothing since that time had ever stood against the Three and survived. No mission had they left incomplete. And as their fate foretold, nothing would kill the Three the day they spearheaded the elves’ assault upon Innoruuk’s realm. Reaching the foot of the grand stairs to Innoruuk’s palace, the elven invaders saw two figures standing atop the promenade’s gentle rise. Each wore what appeared to be molten hot, hellishly glowing armor: One in exquisitely wrought plate armor and the other a full hauberk of fine mail. Emblazoned across the chest of each, though, was the sacred tree-and-crown symbol of the Royal House Thex. Crafted into the helms of their armor were black, adamantine jeweled crowns. Only members of the elven royal family dared wear that symbol and such headpieces. The symbol of the Thex family perplexed the assembled elves. Unconsciously, the mass of elves took a step backward. Then, at long last, the two figures, a male and a female, spoke to the elves in voices belonging to King Naythox and Queen Cristianos Thex.

The figures spoke to the elves personally, citing individual accounts only the lost king and queen would have known. The elves, stunned, realization dawning on them, finally recognized them as their king and queen. All the elves wept then with unabashed joy, and began to surge forward to take up their sovereigns and celebrate. But then the war party noticed that the denizens of Hate had gathered swiftly ands silently about them, and many more creatures were present than they had ever imagined. Scores, hundreds, thousands of creatures now stood, shoulder to shoulder on all sides, barely able to contain their hunger and rage, obviously wishing to tear the elves apart. Just then, Naythox and Cristianos removed their helms, finally revealing their strangely transformed features. The elves still recognized the king and queen, but they were disturbed and confused by the monarchs’ bluish skin. King and queen then began to speak of a new kingdom they would lead — a kingdom that would require the assistance of mighty elves before them to build, just as they had done together when the world was young. Indeed, the elves in the invasion force possessed the knowledge and experience learned in the wars against the dragons and had helped Naythox and Cristianos carve out a kingdom in the land of Tunaria.

The Teir’Dal monarchs assured their once and future subjects that this kingdom would be no different, that once again they all were needed to take their race to the next stage in their nation’s evolution — the evolution into Teir’Dal.

The Becoming of the Teir’Dal The king and queen bid the elves to pledge their eternal allegiance as subjects in this new kingdom. Not a few of the elves pledged themselves without hesitation. Others hesitated. Some refused at once, saying it was not the place of their strangely altered king and queen to demand such a thing. Then, to everyone’s surprise and horror, the king and queen turned with spell and sword upon those who refused. In a booming voice, King Naythox Thex I ordered the minions of Innoruuk to capture all who resisted. Great chaos ensued as some of the elves stood motionless, confounded by what they were witnessing, while others immediately cast gate spells or used similar magics to escape. Some of the elves fell to their knees, weeping openly, being unable to bring themselves to harm the ones they had so loved. Others were angered and fought to kill the false king and queen, only to be greeted by a quick death or overwhelmed and taken prisoner by packs of Innoruuk’s servants. A few of the elves, loyal to a fault, were incensed that any would not join the king and queen and actually fought to protect them, so that elf drew blood against elf for the very first time in Norrath’s history. The largest group of elves, however, moved into a defensive posture and prepared to evacuate.

The Three were among those who fought in a defensive position, for they, like most of the elves, could not bring themselves to strike at their former king and queen. They ordered the wizards and druids to transport everyone away immediately, as soon and as quickly as they were able. Some of the wizards and druids did so, though many were beset by foes and fell or were taken, unable to successfully cast any spells. As a result, many of the elves could not escape magically and found themselves stranded. The Three fell back, parrying the terrible blows of the king and somehow avoiding the mighty spells cast by the queen.

All the while, the Three organized a small group of elf lords and, eventually, they all managed to cut their way free of the fighting. Other groups were cut off by the forces of Hate, but these were shackled and not slain. Finally, the Three and their companions cut their way to a defensible stone building. Within its stout walls, the wounded gained a moment to rest. Any creatures trying to cross the doorstep were slain, for none could stand against the Three. Soon the doorway had piled high with bodies of the slain creatures of Innoruuk, when the attacks ceased. Hundreds of creatures formed a living (and in many cases unliving) wall around the building, watching and waiting tirelessly for the elves knew not what. Unfortunately, no wizards or druids were with the group that had accompanied the Three to the building.

Hours turned into days, days into weeks, and weeks months, during which time the terrible purpose of the inhabitants of Hate outside became clear. One by one, the isolated elves began to fall into madness, and their hate and despair turned them slowly into Teir’Dal. Even the Three finally succumbed to the hateful energies of the plane, although legends persist that the last of the Three to fall victim to this transformation — the so-called “Third of the Three” — did in fact escape the Plane of Hate. A variety of stories venture to explain how this occurred, but nothing, least of all the validity of the event, is known for certain. The destiny of the Three had not been untrue: They had fallen not in combat, but to the hate of Innoruuk, eventually becoming powerful undead knights in service to their Teir’Dal king and queen and their dark master. In time, the newly created Teir’Dal were deposited, along with their Thex monarchs, deep in Norrath’s underfoot realm, with Naythox and Cristianos were charged to fulfill Innoruuk’s vengeance against the elder races and spread hatred and discontent across the land. These Teir’Dal came to be known among later generations as the First, or Firstborn. Such ancient Teir’Dal still possessed their knowledge and skill from previous lives, but now they used their powers and learned new skills as well, all in service to the Prince of Hate. This knowledge became the foundation to rapidly build the new race of elves into an engine of terrible power. "