The Tale of Esmerelda

When the world was yet young, and all the gods walked the earth amongst their creation Loki, the dwarven god of war and chaos, grew lustful and jealous of the other gods. In his lust for power and love of war, Loki turned to Esmerelda, the most beautiful woman ever moulded by the gods and Empress of the elves. Sneaking into Esmerlda’s chambers one night, Loki gave up a portion of his magic into her, filling the elven queen with an insatiable lust. Loki weaved a trap around Esmerelda that would entrap all her lovers at their moment of greatest vulnerability and highest pleasure. Then, loki left the elven queen in her chambers.

Waking up, Esmerelda was overtaken with an insatiable lust. Esmerelda called her husband, Emperor of the elves, back from campaign but he was not able to satisfy her. She turned to the suitors of the Elven kingdoms and promised great riches and pleasures to those who could satisfy her, but none were able, and with each partner that Esmerelda bedded, at their moment of climax they were consumed by magic and imprisoned in the abyss, neither on the earth nor in the heavens nor indeed anywhere bound to reality.

Consumed by unsatisfied lust, the Empress of the Elves challenged the world to come to her aid, but there was no man or woman born of this earth that could quench her lust, and so Esmerelda turned herself to the heavens. She travelled to the deepest glade of the sacred forests, where she met Corellon Larethian, god of the elves and preserver of life. There, in a midsummer night Esmerelda seduced Carellon Larethian and on the soft grasses of the God’s sacred grove they bedded, filling the forest with the sound of the birds. But when Carellon was most vulnerable, the magic imbued in Esemerlda’s kiss struck, and the god-protector of the elves, the preserver of life, was imprisoned in the Abyss.

Still unsatisfied, Esmerelda turned to Ehlonna, Godess of the forests, and Ehlonna took Esmerelda in her breast. The Queen of the Elves and the Goddess of the Forests joined in perfect harmony, and at the climax of her perfection Ehlonna, as Carellon Larethian, was entrapped by the magic in Esmerelda’s touch, and imprisoned in the Abyss.

Driven mad with desire, Esmerelda sought out each of the gods of the world one by one, each time seducing them with her unrivalled beauty and unparalleled charm. And with each encounter another of the gods of the world was imprisoned in the abyss, and Esmerelda remained insatiate. Soon, each of the gods had been seduced by Esmerelda and consigned to imprisonment of the Abyss - all but one, Huskar, the god of war.

Esmerelda sought Huskar in his warlike encampment, among his host swordsmen and cavalry, and as the Queen of the Elves marched through encampment her beauty radiated outwards like a beacon, drawing the battalions behind her. But Esmerelda stepped on aloof, for if all the gods of the heavens had failed to satisfy her, what hope could mortal men have? When the Queen of the Elves entered the war-gods tent, she found him sitting cross-legged on the skin of a goat, his eyes burning with desire

The queen of the elves lay her head in the war-gods lap, tracing her hands across his arms and chest, but he was unmoved. For he alone of all the gods had no interest in womans’ flesh, preferring instead the kiss of the sword and embrace of plate armour. Her beauty failing her the Empress grew desperate, and promised to Huskar the God of War all he should desire in return for her satisfaction, and the God of War demanded only one thing: her empire. And Esmerelda the Queen of Elves prostrated herself for the God of War, and he won the Elven empire by this deed; for Huskar had no desire for Esmerelda and was able to fulfil his promise of her satisfaction without reaching his own.

As the final god able to walk the bounds of the earth and with the Elven hosts behind him, Hextor besieged all the cities of man, and all of the dwarves, and all of the orcs, and all of each race with which his brothers and sisters had seen fit to populate the world, and as master of this earth Huskar reigned in terrific tyranny, showering chaos, destruction and war across the land.

Cured of her magically induced lust Esmerelda, Queen of the Elves, saw lucidly all she had done and felt a deep shame, for not only had she betrayed her king and her people, but she had betrayed the gods themselves and, by seducing them, had brought about their imprisonment in the Abyss. Distraught with humiliated abashment, Esmeralda turned herself to celibate exile as a nomadic hermit, to walk ashamedly around the edge of the earth.

But her belly grew, and grew, and Esmerelda could feel life budding inside her, and so she travelled into the abyss to beg for forgiveness, to beg to be released from her shame and guilt, and to beg for the aid of the gods whom she had betrayed, for if they would not aid her, perhaps they might aid the life growing inside her, a life that must have been partly of their own.

She found the imprisoned gods in the abyss, and to each she pleaded. Each of the gods agreed to her pleas at length, but each was also imprisoned, and they could not break the spells to once again walk the earth. And then Corellon Larethian, the god of the elves who was the first to be trapped by Esmeralda's kiss bowed to her.

One by one, the imprisoned gods bowed to the Queen of the Elves, granting her a portion of their power. By relinquishing their magic the gods would forfeit their supreme hold over the world. No longer would they guide and mould the earth, no longer would they walk upon it. The world would fall to the custody of men, elves, dwarves, orcs, and all the sentient races while the gods, freed from their imprisonment by this act, would be forced to return to the heavens to observe, only able to influence the world subtly.

The magic of the gods flowed through the Queen of the Elves and into the children growing inside her, welling inside them to burst out and spread magic across the world. The birth of sorcery.

Nine years later, Esmerelda, Queen of the elves, gave birth to four children  - Eriladaer, the Elf;  Arcdraec, the Dwarf; Piersym, the human, and; Wilmin, the Gnome. Four brothers, the son of the Queen of Elves and a Pantheon of gods. Four brothers, each bearing the gift of the gods - sorcery, magic, arcana. Four brothers, the first of each race to wield the arcane magics of the gods. The queen of the elves hid her children from the God of War, and for their first twenty years they grew up alone, Eriladaer in the forest of Elves; Arcdraec in the caves of Dwarves; Piersym in the steppes of Men; Wilmin in the hands of Gnomes.

On the day of their coming of age Esmerelda, Queen of the elves, brought her children together and told them the circumstances of their birth, the secret of their powers, and promise of their honour and duty: to kill Huskar, the god of war. The four brothers set off on their quest, each wielding in one hand the powers of gods and in the other the powers of men and elves, or dwarves and gnomes.

And on the day of the final battle the four brothers came down upon Huskar and cut off his head, but in the chaos of the battle the body of the God of War snuck away. The four brothers took the war god’s head and locked it away, hiding it at the furthest corner of the earth, where it would never be found by the body. Four brothers, four guardians, the four brothers dedicated themselves to ensuring the Head and the Body would never reunite, for should they meet, Huskar would rise and once again reign his tyranny and destruction upon the world.