Lich Ring of Baruule
Xic – The “exiles of heaven” the Olde One called them. Entities that were venerated as gods of evil in their time and place. Bound to the Olde One by undead servitude, these entities had their names taken from them. Their faces were “stripped” and each gave theirs to another to bind themselves to each other – though they could not recognize themselves any more.
The World of the Giant’s Moon
Fhanelurne “The Eternal” was a thriving city in the northlands of Hybish, the moon of Egrotheen long before there were any men upon Helca. Its inhabitants were called Thanoi, distantly faelen stock, although alien in features and as long lived as some of the faeries. They were large and squat, powerful in build with a massive frame (the gravity of their world was greater) and angular, flat features. Their eye sockets were oddly diamond shaped, stretching vertically, not horizontally. They were an evil race on the shores of an evil, storm tossed ocean before the continents took their final shapes. They were ruled by a succession of kings, worshiping a violent, evil formation in their sky which grew slightly larger as ages passed. Only the most powerful of those passing into undeath survived – as they struggled with each other over the finite pool of power their dark god Uhletek provided.
The Lich Ring: These undying shades took their place in co-rulership, the Lich Ring, as each one passed into lichdom, until one would kill the other. The kings each forged a seven pointed crown of black metal, a pattern found by their ancestors long ago. Legend speaks of an original seven crowns of eternal night, so black they absorb light. Said to deliver unto its wearer the power of the void and granting their possessor the power of a dark god. The Thanoi had once been a religious people, but the forging the Crowns had made their kings like Gods themselves, and their focus a sentience housed in a pall creeping over their solar system from its outer edges.
The Final King: Most of the archives speak of the last king, a final king which would unite the Thanoi and raise them above all others. This king would be the last and would rule forever over all the others. Some whisperings spoke to of a prophecy saying that the last king can only be made from the deaths of the others. It never mentions that the last king would be of the Thanoi.
Eternal Struggle with the Daichmon
From the ocean’s black depths they warred with the Daichmon, monstrosities out of nightmare. Their head appears as an octopi, tentacles writhing around the mouth. Their thick bodies stand leaner and taller than the Thanoi, and most have 4 arms or 2 arms and 2 tentacles. Their digits are webbed. They fought with speed and precision. For ages these two peoples fought, struggling without question of the will of the lich-kings of the Thanoi and priest-kings of the Daichmon. Over time, both the populations gradually diminished.
After thousands of years of war, the Thanoi were few in number – the eradication of Daichmon sea homes took its toll. Only a few hundred Thanoi were left when Soru, the last of the mage-kings passed into undeath and peace reigned. After an untold number of years, hundreds or maybe thousands, the Daichmon summoned their entire population to battle. Few were left after the predation of the Thanoi, but somehow their priests had discovered the power of the Crowns.
The Daichmon swarmed over the city at the height of the sun’s zenith one day, orn the coronation of the new king Da-moori. They brought the fire that both races feared, gray ashes and death. The Daichmon usurped the throne of Baruule, stealing the last crown. The Daichmon prince of the living fought against the undead Kings of Baruule with the aid of the final crown. In a cataclysmic battle, the city was engulfed in an earthquake and sank beneath the waves into the gloom of the world of the Daichmon. The Daichmon prince trapped the inhabitants of the city, sealing forever the fate of both races, and was unable to destroy the liches himself. In sealing the city, the inhabitants were crazed. In their final hours, the powerful wizards of the Thanoi fought in a bid for eternal life and escape from their prison. The remaining Thanoi and Daichmon were seized by foul creatures from far away spheres, and the long dead rose from their resting places for revenge upon the living, and the remaining living died in their places or rose against their fellows. The Daichmon Prince, whose name history has forgotten, knowing the ultimate fate of those wearing the crowns, wrote upon stone and metal before the final battle:
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Beneath the waves, the Gods have hid a wound in the world.
It draws to it the souls of the living and spirits of the dead
It tears at hope like a ripe fruit
It gathers its strength in darkness and bides itself in silence
The wound will be opened anew, to spread forth its foulness
And devour all life and light
Only the last of the living can turn the path set by the lords of the abyss long ago
Through the glass darkly I watch, feeding the darkness and waiting for the wound to open again
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The Binding of Orlec and Helca
In order to break through the protective barrier the living planet of Helca had built, they were sent into the world with the power of a triple sun of another system that would forever bind the two systems together. The power folded time and space and catapulted the lich-gods into the ocean off the north shore of what would become The Steel Realms. They were given the tome Keys to the Outer Doors as a means of breaking the power of Helca and communicating with their fell master.
Time on Helca
Initially, they were pursued by the Aelves and peoples of Helca, but eventually they gathered their power and they went to war against the powers of the world. Undeath spread everywhere – the dead swelled the ranks of their army until the sea aelflings of the world became the focussed target of their wrath. They made their city the capital of their growing empire. Then the creatures of the world all sacrificed Essence and an entire species – the sea Aelflings, sacrificed themselves and the city, then known as Baruule, sunk, imprisoning them in it. Four of their number were slain. They were able to get the evil tome Keys to the Outer Doors out into the world, a final means of perhaps re-awakening them and their master’s power in the future. With it went the 11 masks of their faces and power – which would eventually be found by the Lich Lords of Dundaria and known as the Masks of Rolciado.