Alaloth.champions.of.the.four.kingdomsv.2022.09... -

The Four Kingdoms were in chaos. To the north, the Dwarves of Karak-Hohn had shuttered their mountain gates, suspicious of the shadows lengthening in their deep tunnels. To the east, the Republic of Larastir struggled to keep its forest borders from being overrun by the twisted remains of those who had ventured too close to the rift. The humans of Edrath were fractious, their lords more concerned with ancient bloodlines than the impending god-fall.

The sky over Plamen did not bleed red; it bruised a deep, sickly purple. In the year 2022.09, the stars aligned in a jagged pattern that the High Elves of Goldwood had long feared. The seal on the Valley of Storms was cracking. Alaloth, the dark god cast down by his kin, was stirring in his prison, and his breath was a cold wind that withered crops and drove men to madness.

Kaelen stood at the edge of the Stonebow Bridge, the gateway to the Kingdom of Edrath. He was no king, though he wore the sigil of a forgotten house on his battered cuirass. He was a champion, chosen not by divine right but by the sheer will to survive the monsters now roaming the high roads. In his hand, he gripped a blade forged in the heat of the Iron Mountains, its edge humming with a faint, blue light.