The Dawn
The Eternal Conflict
I take the following knowledge from a surviving fragment of one of the scrolls of the church of Zakarum. In it, the unknown scribe tells of events which took place millennia before the founding of the church. Thus, the descriptions are of questionable validity. I personally believe that the tales came from earlier and unknown sources. I have my suspicions, which, for the time, I will keep to myself-although I might expatiate on these things in a later writing. The scroll describes a war fought by agents of light and order against creatures of chaos and shadow. That is to say, forces both of the High Heavens and the Burning Hells (see later sections).
This war was most commonly fought within the realm of Pandemonium. According to one of the earliest necromancers, the angels and demons battled over control of one essential object, the Heart of Creation-the Worldstone.
The Worldstone is not, as the name implies, a mere stone. It is a colossal, mountain-sized object which was believed by many (and is supported by multiple petroglyphs and ancient sculptures) to be the actual Eye of Anu, the One. According to legend, to which I subscribe, the Worldstone is an artifact of unimaginable power.
Lacking the specificity and background a scholar such as I would like, a belief exists that control of this stone changed hands many times over the eons. Oral history tells us that the Worldstone "allowed the side that possessed it to alter reality and create life and worlds almost without restriction." the account continues that "angels used the stone to build worlds of perfect order in line with their ideals of justice, hope, wisdom, fate, and valor," whereas demons used the stone to "create unfathomable engines of annihilation and words of destruction, terror and hatred. How ever, these worlds created by angels and demons never flourished. They were inherently flawed, and doomed to wither and die."
I know not whether such worlds were ever created or, if they were, whether any of them still exist. To the best of my knowledge, no man has ever beheld such a world. Therefore, I suspect that this account is literary license. What we can all agree upon, however, is that this object was of great importance and that, whatever its use, it was greatly coveted by the angels and demons.
Further research suggests that in time, an archangel called Tyrael ordered a bastion to be built around the Worldstone, a stronghold which would come to be known as the Pandemonium Fortress. Throughout these writings, i will explore much further the tales surrounding Tyrael, as i have, indeed, actually met the angel.
archangel called Tyrael:
Read these sections carefully, my dear. Read all things about him carefully. For if my suspicions are correct. He still has some role to play in this grand drama.
I can testify to the existence of the Pandemonium Fortress, as I was once there. I can tell you from firsthand experience that this stronghold embodies the warped-reality traits ascribed to Pandemonium as a whole. Indeed, I have never seen anything quite like it. That having been said, I cannot be sure whether it is simply otherworldly in nature or it was built by an angel or a mad demon. In any case, over the course of the Eternal Conflict, the fortress changed hands between angels and demons. Thus, it has taken on structural and metaphysical traits from both the High heavens and the Burning Hells.
Long ago, an angel known as Inarius seized the Worldstone and, through some impossible act of magic, veiled it from the sight of both Heaven and Hell. He had accomplished this with the aid, I presume, of the mysterious demoness Lilith and a cadre of other angels and demons who had grown disillusioned with the eternal Conflict. Inarius succeeded in manipulating the power of the stone to create the world of Sanctuary, a hidden paradise where he and his followers could live free from the madness of unending strife.
This is the place we know as the mortal realm. This is our world. We must pause a moment to think upon this. Our world, unlike all the other worlds, was created by both angels and demons.
The day of Sanctuary's creation, the nature of the Eternal Conflict changed. Much confusion spread through the Burning Hells and the High Heavens. The center of all things they had fought over for countless millennia had vanished. It was simply gone. At first both sides suspected the other, but in time, they realized that the truth was something different. Thus it was that the battle for possession of the Worldstone became the search for it.
It is interesting to note, before we begin delving into the Burning Hells and High Heavens, that not all things assumed of them are true.
For instance, there were different cults which reigned in the period between what we now know as the Sin War and the Dark Exile (both of which I will discuss later). It was believed by some that the High Heavens and the Burning Hells were places where the souls of men went when they died-that men either were rewarded for their virtues (the High Heavens), or received punishment for their failings (the Burning Hells). Aside from the unfounded beliefs of various cults, there is nothing in academia to support this. It is important that the reader understand that the High Heavens and the Burning Hells, much like the realm of Pandemonium, are actual, physical locations in this universe.
Personally, I believe that there exists a place where the souls of men go after their death, but that discussion is beyond the place of this treatise.
This being said, I must confess that even I do not always know where myth ends and truth begins. That, reader, I will let you judge for yourself.
[ 此贴被chadesataniu在2012-03-21 22:30重新编辑 ]
