During the Age of Legend, the greatest of the cyclopean seers left the savage and decadent land of Ghol-Gan to settle in the land that they then named Koloran in western Casmaron. The Koloran cyclops clung to the old ways of nature and ancestor worship and the veneration of the sun and the moon.
During that time, a prominent and influential tyrant by the name of Vordakai ascended to power and began to strive for ever increasing swaths of land to cater to the growth of his nation and people. As his kingdom expanded west, it finally reached the border of Count Ranalc, a powerful fey lord of the First World known to other fey as the “Eldest”. This land had very strong ties to Count Ranalc’s own personal home in the First World and he assumed ownership and right over it.
Vordakai met with very swift and powerful resistance as he expanded to the east and finally it culminated into bloody war between the two kingdoms. The armies of the fey met the cyclopean kingdom in battle after battle that devastated the landscape and to the horror of Count Ranalc destroyed all the elements of life and nature that he so held dear.
Finally, Count Ranalc met with Vordakai and sealed a truce that the fey-lord would withdraw his armies to the First World and allow the cyclops to rule in peace over his land for a period of three generations. During that time, Vordakai and his kin would establish and develop more land further south and east of the Stolen Lands and when his cyclops kingdom could be sustained, they would withdraw from the land and rule would revert back to the count. The pact was sealed with blood and was simple in wording.
“Three generations of cyclopean rule and then the Lands reverted to Count Ranalc with all cyclopean influence to leave it forever.”
Two generations passed quickly with the cyclops anxiously trying to expand their kingdom while using Count Ranalc’s lands to fuel their armies. They met with large resistance from the Azlanti who fought back fiercely.
Generations past and the grandson of the first Vordakai, also named Vordakai in his honor looked in dismay as his kingdom stood poised on the brink of retreat from a land that the cyclops still needed. In desperation, Vordakai turned to the dark arts of necromancy and with dark magic extended his life-span considerably at the cost of his sanity and the desecration of his family’s previous bonds with nature worship and animism. As he grew in power, his kingdom fell to decay. Finally, in an act of perversion and necromantic energy that devastated land and creatures alike, Vordakai fueled his transformation to lichdom. Now with his rule never-ending, he had no fear and could rule without having to ever return the land to the Fey-Lord.
However, he did not count on Earthfall and with it an end to his aspirations and the nation of Koloran. As time passed and the dust settled, the now First World Eldest, Count Ranalc returned to his lands, known to him as his “Stolen Lands” to reclaim them. He was shocked to realize that he was still barred from entering. Vordakai had survived.
However, the devastation of Earthfall was even greater then Vordakai expected and when he finally rose from his torpor, he found himself diminished. Anxiously trying to regain his lost power, he began the process of trying to charge his magic from the life energies of the land and people; however, this time they were prepared. In the end, those who he was attempting to command rose up against him and trapped him in a crypt of his own design hidden away in westernmost Casmaron.
Count Ranalc, unable to enter Vordakai’s realm once and for all left his “Stolen Lands” in frustration and returned to the First World to rule. It was there that he met Nyrissa and wooed her as his consort. When Nyrissa claimed that she was an “Eldest”, the other Eldest released the Jabberwocky, plucked away her “love” and formed Briar with it and banished Count Ranalc to the Shadow Plane. As a token of their disdain, they handed Briar to Count Ranalc so that he could always remember what he had lost.
Lost from the First World, Count Ranalc tried to regain as much of his former life as possible. Using shadow magic as well as his own formidable power, he reshaped Briar into a facsimile of his Nyrissa and together they gathered fey under their banner to rule in a mockery of courtly politics and romantic idealism. Briar, herself, grew to become a powerful entity in her own right and soon assumed the mantle of leadership while Count Ranalc slipped into disrepute and insanity.
And the Stolen Land’s destiny. Well, that is up to the players to decide.
