A six-hundred-year era when Duskward was unified, stable, and wonder-filled—a golden age of art, learning, and arcane achievement that ended abruptly with the Fall of the Sunken Spire seventy years ago.
The oldest records speak of a kingdom founded by a council of legendary mages and blessed by divine beings. These founders wove a spell so intricate and powerful that it could hold an entire realm in harmonic unity. For six centuries, Duskward flourished.
During the Age of Splendor, the roads glowed with enchanted light. Towers grew impossibly tall, their architecture defying gravity and decay. The seasons followed a perfect cycle blessed with abundant harvests and optimal conditions for learning. Magic was stable and reliable. The factions did not yet exist because there was no need for them—governance was orderly, justice was swift, and prosperity seemed infinite.
Artists and scholars came from distant lands to study in Duskward's greatest academies. Its merchants grew wealthy trading its unique goods. Its knights were celebrated across the realms. Every person born within its borders believed themselves blessed to live in the kingdom's light.
The Age of Splendor ended with a single spell-failure. What the founders did not account for—or could not predict—was that their great spell could break. That when it broke, it would break everywhere at once. That no one would know how to fix it. That in the ruins of that golden age, something far darker would take root.