For those curious. Don't feel you have to understand all of this, or its implications, to play through Epic, though. This is just for those lore buffs and speculators.
Eons ago, the world of Erdu fought the Yth and the coming of the
Devourer. However, they underestimated the Ythlords until it was too
late, and the planet was destroyed. Foreseeing the same fate for other
worlds, the goddess Eilessa (Shard) and the rest of the pantheon pooled
their last dregs of power to create a Voidship and a mighty power
source, the Crystal of Erdu. They would spare the next world the same fate. Before they could safely escape, however,
the Yth damaged their vessel and it crashed somewhere in the Astral Sea.
Among the only survivors were the servants of the Erduan god Akadder,
creatures of shadow and thought known as Anubians. Without guidance, the
Anubians attempted to use the wreckage of the Voidship to restore their
gods. On Erdu, there were only two predominant forces, the gods' own
divinity and the magic of the mind (psionics). In the Kalindian System,
Anubians had access to a much more diverse spectrum. Proving more
ingenious than even their creator, the Anubians constructed nine
different vessels and accompanying gems for the nine worlds and spacial
regions, yet the Crystal of Erdu was beyond them and they could not
properly assemble their designs. The Anubians failed, and the Devourer
inevitably consumed everything, save a people descended from the Emperor
Endymion Norson and his inquisitors, the race of Gith.
In a doomed
future one million years hence, an Anubian vessel was found by Zerthimon
and other githzerai, whose psionic and engineering skills were enough
to discern its nature. Under the notice of a totalitarian regime, they
reassembled the vessels and even recreated the unifying effect of the
Crystal of Erdu. Because the Gith had been survivors of the Kalindian
System, not even the Devourer could totally dissolve its history, and
Zerthimon rode that shred of chronology back to a fuller, lusher past.
However, he was intercepted by the Queen of the Universe herself,
Vlaakith CLVIII, who understood his mission was to change the future and
avoid catastrophe, with no guarantee if even the Gith would survive
this time (and certainly no guarantee Vlaakith would be the absolute
authority). The githzerai were killed in a crash that landed in the wake
of the Elder War, just after the Old Gods had been destroyed and the
Far Ones repelled. Zerthimon's consciousness fled to the Ethereal Plane,
and Vlaakith, not wanting to interfere with anything that might
jeopardize her future, took her fleet and hid in a darker corner of the
Void dubbed Githspace. Her agents, the githyanki, scoured Creation
behind the scenes, seeking Zerthimon, but the psychic-ghost was far too
elusive thanks to a cloaking stealthsuit in which his consciousness hid
(a huge, imposing, black apparatus that oozed shadow and exhaust: the
form of the Dark One).
He used his time wisely and met with some of the
most powerful figures in history, warning them of what was to come and
enlisting their help in finding the vessels and the gems. In this
endeavor, Zerthimon first came to Highking Gloriandel, and for a time
they worked together with like mind, creating fusions of magic and
technology called helms in which to more precisely control both the gems
and the vessels. Despite never managing to collect all the gems or
reproduce the Crystal effect, Gloriandel did devise a way to harness the
helms, vessels, and Har'venoth into something he called the El'avenoth,
or the Heart of Creation. Its potential to create a new reality drove a wedge between the two,
and Zerthimon fled with the few reclaimed Har'venoth before the elf
could explore his designs any further. Gloriandel laid a powerful
enchantment through blood magic, however, so that the Har'venoth would
inevitably find their way back to him or (he didn't quite intend this) his far-flung descendents.
He might have pursued the githzerai ghost had there not been an
uprising in one of the imperial territories, some young upstart calling
himself Nor.
Zerthimon moved about Creation as time passed, collecting
what he could with the aid of such accomplished figures as the Ur-Pasha of the Efreeti,
the Witch-Queen Iggwilv, Oberon Partholon, Iluvistria Firstborn, Archdruid Chantico, Count Strahd von Zarovich, Archmage Serren, and the archangel Ezariel the Watcher. Each of them retained a helm and in some instances a vessel, meant to be safeguarded from elves, githyanki, and especially Yth
until which time he could gather the necessary components to lay the
Legacy Matrix over Creation, thus masking it from the Devourer. Yet some
of the gems and vessels were still cascading through time and space,
and it wasn't until the advent of the Demon War (20 years ago) that all the necessary pieces were accessible.
By that point, many of the helmbearers were undone and Zerthimon had to
again seek the components, only to find that Ezariel had already done
so.
Zerthimon joined his items with Ezariel's and began the unification,
however in its late stages the Gith realized with abject horror that
Ezariel was not masking Creation, he was forming a new one using the
Gloriandel Contingency. Heaven was to become the sole reality! Zerthimon desperately intervened and the contingency failed,
allowing the Har'venoth to escape and sending the vessels cascading
again through time and space. Terrified the window for victory was now
closed, Zerthimon fought his way free of Heaven in hopes of establishing
the matrix before the Devourer arrived. The likelihood seemed grim
indeed, and this time he'd have more than Vlaakith and the Ythlords to
contend with.
Somewhere in the distant past, a green wyrm watched
curiously as a jade meteor struck the summit of his mountain. Perhaps it
was key to the mysterious woman who'd crashed a
decade earlier. Much closer to the present, a young boy named Endymion
witnessed a piece of the firmament crash land behind the next hill.
Similarly, others watched the vessels and the Har'venoth cast over existence, becoming ingrained in the history, the present, and the future of the Kalindian System.
