With fiery new releases for the Forces of the Abyss arriving this Friday (6th September), let’s take a walk down memory lane – and find out just how such evil was inflicted upon Pannithor…

The Celestians

Precious little is known of the Celestians, save that they were extremely powerful, and not of Pannithor. Some theorise that they come from a distant star, the few survivors of some ancient, advanced civilisation. Others say that they came from another dimension altogether, a mirror world in which mortals had created the gods rather than the other way around. Others still assert that the Celestians come from the future, the elves’ childlike meddling in powers they did not understand slipping loose the bonds of time itself.

But the Celestians were not content merely to share the limited realm of the elves. Such beings would not be contained, and spread their attentions across the whole world, taking in the cultures of humanity and, eventually, even dwarf-kind. The dwarfs were naturally the very last to succumb, isolationism and suspicion built into their very being, but eventually even they were brought forth by the wonders which the Celestians could bring.

Origins of Oskan, the Father of Lies

It is said that Oskan was the youngest of the Celestians, possibly even the child of an unhappy union among their kind. Bitter, and full of loathing both for his own kind and the noble races of Pannithor, Oskan conceived of a way to destroy both without challenging his peers himself.

Young and weak as he was, barely tolerated by his kin, Oskan feared the oblivion of death more than anything else. He sought the destruction of his own noble impulses, which he saw as an alien being trapped within him, so that he could give in to every dark whim…

One fateful day, wandering the sacred glades of Therennia Adar, he crossed paths with none other than Calisor Fenulian, greatest of his kind and the most powerful elf to have ever lived. Oskan could not have found a better pawn for his plans – and through him he orchestrated the construction of the infamous Fenulian Mirror, a magical object secretly tied to the very essence and power of the Celestians themselves.

So when Calisor’s doomed love, Elinathora, later smashed The Fenulian Mirror, chaos erupted and sorcerous turmoil swept across the land and skies as the bodies of the Celestians were ripped in two.

Oskan was prepared like none of the others, having orchestrated the construction of the Mirror and the events that led to its sundering. His own splitting was a dark blessing, and his baser self was was quick to seize a splinter of mirror lodged in the heart of Elinathora and use it to murder its noble twin. Oskan became a creature of true darkness. His title, the Father of Lies, came about from his first actions of the God War.

The God War, and the Creation of the Abyss

When the Fenulian Mirror shattered, the Celestians were either destroyed or split apart, and the conflict known as the God War began.

Oskan was powerful, but not strong enough to take on hundreds of Shining Ones alone. He knew that only a demonstration of strength and ruthlessness would guarantee his victory, and to this end he sought out Shining Ones, pretending to be as wounded and confused as they, earning their trust before brutally slaying two dozen of them. Upon learning of his deeds, the Wicked Ones quickly fell into line under his leadership, while his enemies attempted to rally together. Now, the war began in earnest.

No war before or since has matched it for intensity, scope or impact. The blood of mortals ran in rivers of red across the land, the skies remained unnaturally dark, rent by thunderclaps which smote the ground and flashes of lightning in colours no human eye could perceive. The oceans rebelled, tsunamis of foaming waters crashing over entire continents and vast, monolithic creatures of the deep rising in fury to crush those who had disturbed their stygian depths.

Such slaughter could continue only so long, and eventually, the conflict came to a head when Domivar the Unyielding faced Oskan above the great Northeastern Plains.

Oskan had become ever more powerful as the slaughter of the War had raged on. His infamous dagger was reborn, becoming part of a mighty axe bearing the same name. It seemed to cut through not just the air, but the very stuff of existence, leaving reality itself bleeding in its wake.

Domivar wielded his father’s sword, forged from Star-Iron and woven with enchantments of strength and power. It had seen him best every mortal challenger he had faced, but it was not equal to the task, scratching harmlessly across Oskan’s hide until it was caught by a parry from his almighty axe. The blow shattered it, the fragments scattering in an explosive release of Celestian power.

Oskan bellowed with laughter, savouring the moment of his final triumph, but buried within Domivar’s blade had been a final, terrible secret –  a tiny sliver of the shard which had ended Elinathora’s life. Unnoticed, it had flown free when the blade shattered and lodged in his flesh, a mere splinter, an irritant beneath his notice.

Now, as he raised his axe to finish his opponent, Oskan felt the monstrous strength begin to leave his swollen frame. Domivar grabbed the hilt of the axe and wrested it from Oskan’s trembling fingers. With a rousing cry, Domivar dove towards the ground, raising the axe above his head and bringing it down with all the force his tired muscles could summon.

The impact of the weapon upon the earth was devastating. The ground cracked beneath it, splintering for miles in either direction. The gap widened like a beastly maw, the red glow of the world’s very core rising up in a flash of heat. Either side of this gaping wound, the earth itself began to blacken and die, and the mortal creatures too, hundreds dropping stone dead or flashing to withered husks. All of the bitterness, anger and heartbreak trapped at the heart of the evil blade, had been added to a thousand-fold by the hateful slaughter the axe had made. All that poison was anathema to the world it touched, and the rapidly widening wound in the world began to drag everything towards it with inexorable force.  Oskan, his followers, and his bestial generals were sucked hungrily down by the maw that had formed. Thus was the Abyss created, at once a home and a prison for the Wicked Ones and their foul spawn.

The Abyss Today

Far to the northeast of the Infant Sea, amidst the shattered, soot-stained remnants of Winter’s glaciers lies the Abyss. Here, the last of the wicked gods reside, twenty-seven in number, their dark magic spewing ceaselessly into the world, twisting Men and nobler creatures still into dark images of themselves.

A great rent in the ground, the Abyss is many miles deep and countless leagues across. A pall of smoke hangs above the Abyss, so that it and all the lands about it are shrouded in unnatural, perpetual night. The empires of the Abyssal dwarfs as well as countless Orcs, Goblins and other wretched creatures all exist there. Further down this hellish crevasse, the taint of the malevolent energies of the Wicked Ones becomes stronger, and things far worse than Orcs dwell.

When the constellations are in alignment and the power of the wicked ones waxes strong, their infernal legions march forth. Cackling, spiteful devils march alongside muscled behemoths. They are the Forces of the Abyss and the world screams in their wake.

The Abyss is a chasm, both literal and metaphorical, in the skin of the world. It is thought by many to be a vast, physical cleft in the earth, leading to some cyclopean, volcanic depth far below. This is only partly true, for mortals must ever reconcile that which they cannot understand with absolutes. The deeper one ventures into this dizzying realm of darkness, the more it becomes obvious that the Abyss and all its denizens are anathema to natural law. The veil between planes of existence is thin, a dark parody of the power of the old Celestians to walk between worlds. Bare rock breathes with bilious life; black smoke coils with dark sentience, corrupting all that breathe it; measureless caverns convulse and twist into labyrinths that would take a lifetime to traverse. Countless tortured souls gibber as they suffer exquisite pain in the endless dark, their fevered imaginings giving form to new realities, new monstrosities, and new sorceries.

The Abyssals

Deep down in the shadows and billowing fumes, perpetually lit by the glow of hellish red fires, fouler creatures reside – beings of unfettered evil, whose very existence is an abomination against the natural order of things, living in a twisted mirror of the celestial orders above. These are the Abyssals, immortal servants of the Father of Lies.

The Abyssals are emanations of their Lord’s mind – pure Evil incarnated. They are organized into a strict hierarchy, which perversely mirrors that of the celestial hosts of the Shining Ones, and is related to which level, or ‘circle’ of the Abyss in which they reside. Each Circle of the Abyss increases in size to accommodate the burgeoning hordes that dwell there, and yet diminishes in power the farther from the sight of the Wicked Ones they are cast.

Among them are the Archfiends, and the greatest of their number is the Lord of Lies. Such is his cunning that this being is an avatar of Oskan himself; a means to escape the Eternal Dark and once again experience conquest in the mortal realm, for a limited time at least. Taking on his ‘war form’, he is a sight of power and terror to behold – a massive winged demon of fire and brimstone, clad in soul-forged armour.

Of late, the Lord of Lies has been busying himself with a new scheme, and if the portents are right, he may finally have found a way to unleash his dark patron once and for all…

Lore Credit: Mantic Studio Team & CL Werner

Intriguing, eh? Especially that last bit: so come back on Friday 6th Setpember to see who (and what) is preparing to stride across the battlefields of Pannithor!