The Howling Dark

 

…when Tarsulis slew Maedrach a thousand years ago, and was in turn slain by Taranis his son, the line of the Merovar kings was restored; and yet Taranis would be the last of this mighty bloodline, for he would be known as Taranis the Deceived, Last King of Modrach, and under his rule the kingdom of Modrach fell willingly to the Howling Dark, that force of malice and spite which is unending and absolute in its hatred for all things living…

 

 

None can say from whence the Dark arose; some say it is a cyclical entity, that comes with every passing age, to level the world and raze it to its foundations, so that life may arise anew from the ashes; others say it is a phenomenon wholly alien to our world, and that it is inimical to the existence of life itself, that it is a cancer upon the very fabric of the skein of reality.

 

​

But none of this concerns the denizens of the Continent. For them, the Dark is simply a fact of life: it is the genesis of the curse of undeath, and it is the enemy of all who live. It is the reason why the dead rise from barrow and tomb, why crops fail to grow in the blasted lands of the West, why witches, malcontents and seers are hunted down and slain by the terrified, superstitious masses, why children wake screaming in the night, driven insane by the laughter of inhuman, alien entities others cannot see or hear.

 

And after one thousand years, it has returned.