Profiles in History: Asheron

You have left the Shelters, made your way through the tunnels, killed a Drudge or two. You step through the portal, and you fall through a swirling tunnel of energy .. and you land gently on your feet in a new land. A stranger, a mortal like yourself, sees you arrive and says, smiling, "You have answered Asheron's Call. Welcome to Dereth."

"Thank you," you say, and "But who is Asheron? Where is he?"

The other looks sad, and says, "Where? Alas, I wish I knew." He sits upon a large flat stone lying conveniently by the road, and invites you to sit beside him. "Asheron's story is long," he says, "as his life was, and I must be brief, for you will want to be off exploring and adventuring.

"Asheron Realaidain was one of the Empyreans, the tall slender people who used to live on this world. He was a mage of great skill and wisdom; he showed such promise as a young man that, under conditions of terrible danger, his mother sacrificed her own life to save him and to grant him a longer life than was natural for Empyreans. Over the centuries he studied many forms of magic, including the complex planar magic that creates portals from one place to another, such as the one you just came through. Portals linked all the inhabited parts of this world, Auberean, and other portals reached even into far distant worlds.

"One of those portals reached a world whose name we do not know, and through it the Olthoi, giant terrible insects, poured into this world and overran it. Asheron used his portal magic to send the remaining Empyreans into a place in portalspace where they could sleep and be safe, for centuries if need be. And he remained, alone, in his tower on an island east of Dereth, for some five hundred years, studying planar magic, studying the Olthoi, searching the worlds for a force that could defeat them.

"Those portals reached our homeworlds, and our ancestors stepped through them, never to return home. We met Asheron. At first he hid from us, as unworthy of his wisdom: later he learned to love us as though we were his children. I must mention though that not everyone loved him in return. That is one of the reasons we have three Kingdoms, or factions, today. We fought the Olthoi, and many other horrid creatures, and at length we achieved the Golden Age, a century of peace.

"But the peace broke, as it always does: on Auberean, on Ispar, on Tuu or on Ezheret-Hazahtu or whatever world your people came from, my friend. An old enemy, the Hopeslayer, rose out of his prison in the depths of the Sea and attacked the land itself as well as those who lived upon it. Asheron had been living in retirement during that time, since we could manage our own business and didn't need him--till this started. Then Asheron returned from his quiet laboratory and came to our aid. ...But something went wrong with the magic. Asheron and the Hopeslayer, and their rival the Virindi Imperator who stood by watching and waiting, went up in a flare of magical energies, never to be seen again. The Nemesis races attacked us, and we took shelter underground for ten generations.

"It is such a strange thought, that after nearly 2500 years Asheron might finally have died. Still, his people believed that they had come from the stars, and returned there on death ... from whence they might someday return. Who knows? Stranger things have happened. The other Empyreans are arriving out of portalspace now, where they slept for so long.

"As you go along in your adventures, be sure to explore each of the regional Vaults and listen to the story the Menhirs will tell you; perhaps what lies hidden within these Vaults will prove our salvation, the means to take back what has been lost."

"Now I must go, friend; go over there and talk to the Explorer, he will give you a quest that will get you familiar with some of the landmarks around here."

He bows, and vanishes in a swirl of portal energy.