At the Beginning...

The world as we know it was not always the same... There was a time, at the beginnings, when the three old races lived in separate lands, holding hostile relationships and fighting the wars of hatred and intolerance. Orcs were a powerful and violent race, their lust for blood being equalled only by humans' lust for power. Us, Elves, we never got along with the others because of their wickedness and disrespect for life. Since the beginning of time, we were thought to see the sacred hand of Demius in everything that lives, to respect and protect the fragility of life since this is our mightiness in front of the tenebrous tentacles of Chaos. But the others, creatures of Norbus and Rubshi, hold in their blood the poisonous sting of evil.
At the beginning was the Life... and the Life exploded from the Chaos and fought to exist... Life curdled into being and became aware of it. And life named itself Demius, the first one and the one who is. Demius looked into the chaos and felt its cold nothingness. Rubshi, he named it, and the evil goddess of desolation appeared from the depth of the abyss. Her heart was cold as ice and her mind vicious, as she was the essence of the chaos: the terrible hatred for life. From the first moment she tried to spread her evilness into all beings. When Demius named the ground and the sky, and they came into being, Rubshi named the darkness, and darkness invaded the new born world and started to devour it as a hungry wolf. But Demius threw arrows against the darkness and pierced its coat in millions of places. Then he named the light, and put it above the darkness. Through the holes let by Demius' arrows the light shone joyfully in the world. But light was still shy and fragile. So he took a piece of his own heart of fire and threw it on the sky to travel around the world. He called it sun and the time of the sun he called it day. And seeing it all, Demius spoke the name of the third god - Norbus, the equilibrium. All three of them created races: Demius created us, the Elves. We are the mirrors that reflect his essence of goodness and majesty. We are the oldest race of the world and we have solar hearts, as our creator. Norbus created the Humans, a slippery race, with short and desperate lives, waggled by devastating passions. Norbus created them from contrasts that contradict and equilibrate each other, as a demonstration of his eternal neutrality. They would have been a fascinating race if it wasn't for their restlessness and need of change. Rubshi created the Orcs. Her powers grew weaker when she gave birth to them, since it was not in her nature to create. But she had no other choice but to subdue, as she could not stand to see the world not carrying her evil shadow. Orcs are heartless and violent; they starve for the pleasure of destruction and death... They kill for pleasure... even their own kind... They have great physical power but they are disorganized and selfish, being difficult to be lead in battles. Orcs lived in Gundharosh and extended to the western islands. Humans populated the Middle Lands, the plains of Rurpia and the mountains. From all the races, they seem the most adaptable to any land type and various conditions.
And us, we settled in our homeland in Neemahnesti, the most beautiful of all lands, the sacred ground where Demius pointed his holy finger. We grew and we raised glorious civilisations, we extended in Qualinesti, sweet land of lakes and waterfalls and even to the shore of the Emerald Sea. The misty Silvanesti, land of wonders and deep woods became the home of the Forest Elves. And in all places, since the age of fire, our supple and elegant palaces, our prodigious gardens, our serene eyes glorified the beauty of life.

Then other races, young races appeared... dwarves, kenders and minotaurs were imperfect attempts of the minor gods, although they don't like to admit it. Goblins and gnomes came as an experiment of Rubshi. But if goblins do indeed incarnate the wickedness of their creator, gnomes turned out to have a good essence, despite their unhealthy curiosity and dangerous taste for innovation, which drove Rubshi totally mad. She would have destroyed them immediately if Demius and Norbus hadn't intervened and taken them under their protection.
Those races populated the resting territories in the East, the desert and the Highwoods. They build their cities and laboured to gain their living, they fought wars and greeted times of peace; they played their songs and raised their art to the gods.

And after all creation was done, magic appeared in the world. Magic came from the heart of the land, as a mysterious spirit of all things, slippery and changing and alive... It connected the heart of man with the heart of being and with the heart of the abyss, allowing he who could master it to bend the rules of the universe. Even gods feared the deep mysteries of magic and tried to control it or destroy it. Yet, magic came only to man.

And time has passed... After the age of fire came the age of shadow – a doomed time of war and destruction. But it passed away, and it was followed by the age of light. And it is now that our story begins, with a young elf, day dreaming under an old cedar.