In the beginning, there was the One. The One created the
world and created Smote and Siva to be the caretakers of
the world. Smote ordered and maintained the world, while
Siva struggled to renew it through change. Thus did the
world exist for aeons.
After centuries of relative peace, a wicked mortal warlord
arose and started a mad rampage of carnage and death. Many
years of terror and pain later, most of the known world lay
conquered. Unfortunately for the warlord these conquests
took a lifetime, and at the height of his rule he was ill
and on his deathbed, with all his sons dead on the
battlefield.
With no heirs to carry on his legacy, the warlord decided
to try another tactic. He summoned the empire's greatest
shamans and alchemists to try and restore his youth, but
all their attempts were to no avail. Resigned to the fact
that no one in his empire could cure him, the warlord had
scouts and spies sent throughout the rest of the world to
find someone who can help him. The man they found was the
archwizard Rimbol of Scarab - leader of a large Order of
mages, holy men, and scholars. The warlord lured Rimbol to
his court with the offer of vast magical resources in
return for trying to find a cure. Rimbol's lust for
knowledge overpowered his reason, and he agreed to make the
attempt.
After delving for months into increasingly arcane volumes
of magical incantations, rituals, and theories, Rimbol
found one that seemed promising. Unfortunately, the spell
required an artifact of immense power which had been lost
for many years. Deciding he needed help, Rimbol procured
the services of the infamous master assassin and thief,
Calistarius. Promised mounds of treasure, and thrilled at
the idea of the hunt, Calistarius set out at once. Taxing
his skills to the limit for nearly a full month, a battered
Calistarius triumphantly returned bearing the artifact.
After collecting his fee, Calistarius left to continue his
dastardly profession.
Glad to be rid of the distasteful fellow, Rimbol gathered
his spell components and prepared for the ritual. The spell
proceeded flawlessly, however when the time came to invoke
the power of the artifact, something went wrong. The arcane
energy was released incorrectly, sending an incandescent
surge of violent magical energy across the land. All
reality was warped. Siva himself, watching nearby out of
curiosity, was inadvertently torn asunder by the blast.
Such was the power contained in the artifact.
Watching from afar and escaping relatively unharmed, Smote
assessed the damage. He realized that with the demise of
Siva, whose essence was chaos, death itself had disappeared
from the land. Concerned, Smote began seeking out the
fragments of Siva's immortal soul, that he might be
re-made. Few of these fragments remained however, and the
new Siva was massively diminished in power, as much of a
twisted wreck as this new version of reality.
During his search, Smote came to realize that certain other
individuals who had survived the shattering had been
infused with either some of the artifact's power, or a
fragment Siva's being. He found Rimbol, the strongest of
these new immortals, weeping in the ashes of the warlord's
castle. Rimbol realized what he had done, and that the
curse of immortality was to be his payment. Not far away,
Smote found Calistarius' unconscious body. When he awoke,
he began gibbering madly. For some odd reason, he refused
to recognize his name and insisted on being called
Mephiston. Many others were rounded up by Smote and set as
keepers of this new world, but theirs is a story for
another day.
The warlord himself was nowhere to be seen. It is said that
just as the spell went awry, the warlord was breathing his
last breath. An instant before death took him, he was swept
away in the vortex, and was taken to a plane of existence
between this one and the next.