Nestled between the towering cliffs of the Zorian plateau, lies a vast cavity that is wide enough to swallow an adult bull elephant with enough space to spare for a small herd of draft horses on either side. There you will find gold, an abundance of it. But what is that you say? That the natives tell you that it is a place of death and home to hideous monster that will devour you? Ignore the savages. They only seek to protect what they are too indolent to grab for themselves.

-A Khanate offical assuring a bunch of miners.

Have a family that is ever at odds with each other? Beware lest the Slurran comes for you..

Suffused with a love for probing every inch of the darkest and most unexplored depths of the ocean,this adventurous octopus like being possesses a dashing courage most odd for one of his race.

Not very surprising perhaps,when you consider the fact that this young explorer is insane.

A reclusive race, the Ragori live deep in the heart of the Purvis Swamp.

Lying forgotten on the ocean floor by the children of Acqua,reposes the very monument that commemorates the passing of the islands from the hands of the Old Ones into those of their ancestors who sailed out of the mists long ago to claim them for their descendents.

But in a twist of extreme irony,others have come to venerate this creation abandoned by the race of man that built it. They are the Old Ones,the very same race whose defeat this statue is supposed to represent.

Can a demon ever learn what it means to feel pity, grief, fear, despair, joy and the rest of those tangled emotions and feelings that plague humans? Can beings who obtain their deepest satisfaction from the suffering they inflict on others,ever embrace those very things they so passionately despise and hate about the mortal races? Mozrak,wisest of the half-demons and beloved of the Mother Godess, believed it not impossible. The Staff is both his curse and gift to his pureblood cousins.

Man, too, is a primal creature, though he binds himself with the chains named Reason and Law, locked link by link from birth. Yet, those locks can be opened, the links broken, in both the savage world of the street-slum, and in the gilded cages of nobility.

One such creature is the petty pirate, Gurad Sorgon. Unknown to those that dismiss him as being merely an ugly face among the multitude of floating scoundrels that abound on the lawless seas, this marauder conceals within him the soul of a prehistoric terror.

Like the heated embrace of a lover, this singular thing caresses and binds itself around the chest of the wearer, linkings its fate with his to the end of his days...

Isolated from the known world by the seemingly endless watery wastes of the fabled Vaet Ocean, the Eshal rule the watery continent of Tarrod with an iron fist, ever ready to carry out plundering raids on the subject races at the slightest excuse. Proudly calling themselves the Brave People,the Eshal are a race of savage warriors and fanatics that are driven by the consuming need to find an ever larger number of victims to feed the monstrous thing known simply as the Matriarch .

The Brotherhood's goal was to preserve traditional Eshal practices and customs, with emphasis being placed on the belief that every member of the tribe mattered and that to ignore his rights and contributions, would result in the Clan collapsing.

Just like with the sharks they so revere,a wrong or inappropriate action can provoke a lethal reaction from a Shura. As the other mer-races are so fond of saying among themselves,the only thing more unpredictable than a shark is a Shura. This is a prefered weapon, simple yet deadly.

The small planet of XX has constantly puzzled astronomers who are unable to make any sense of its constantly shifting location on the cosmic charts.

Other less lofty minds pay this oddity no heed, choosing instead to focus on the search for more more promising worlds to colonise and tame.

But unknown to the race of men, a ferocious rival lurks in the black depths of space, constantly on the hunt....

''In a world dominated by savagery and barbarism, we alone represent civilization. Is it any wonder then that we are forced to keep the horrors of the outside world at bay?''

-an anonymous Usholal

Never look over your shoulder when you hear that hiss..

‘‘We are the Lords Of The Straits, Rulers Of the Sea, and the very ocean acknowledges us as Her children! Men of Pan-Kor, nothing sails on the waters without acknowledging our might !’’

This sea monster seeks to devour more than just mere flesh..

Honored and cherished by the people of the Ragosi mountains, the Osaki have allowed them to retain their freedom in the face of those who would enslave them.

The Surash are without doubt,the most distrusted and least liked race in existence.

Whenever the earth trembles and shakes, it is the children of the Stinging One furious that the nourishment due to them, has been denied. Honor them unceasingly by sating their hunger, or the earth itself will swallow man-kind whole to feed them''.

-Taken from the Arahuain Codex, the most sacred text known to the priests of Ixtili, the Stinging One.

Doom and hope, misery and joy, are but two sides of the same mirror to this ancient force that has withstood the annihlation of an entire culture..