The story regarding the death of our sun is among the oldest in the world.

In the Age of Dreams, magic was untamed and untempered. That was before The Darkening, before our Gods were banished or killed alongside our once beautiful sun.

As has happened on countless worlds before, darkness seeped into our world. Five Demon Lords found their way into the hearts and souls of corrupt mortals from their abyssal realms. These five Lords of Darkness, alongside their endless hordes of followers, waged war upon the civilized races of Humans, Elves, and Dwarves.

The Light stood upon the precipice of victory before the actions of a single Elven Mage, stricken with grief, pain, and loss; snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Elven Mage Esteban is spoken of as the most powerful of the Elven spell casters of that age. He learned the evening before The Darkening, his only son Mihaly had been slain in single combat against the Demon Lord Sargon.

Esteban's grief was an awesome force of nature. Blaming not only the Demonic Hordes Invading his world but also the mortal races for allowing Mihaly to engage in single combat with such a dread foe. Yet, he blamed the Gods even more; they had not protected his son in the moment of his greatest need. Esteban had believed in their cause, had trusted the Gods completely in their wisdom to guide the mortal races against the Demonic invasion. That faith, seemingly unbreakable, had been shattered.

When dawn lit the lands the next morning, Esteban was waiting atop his tower. What dreadful curse or ritual he invoked is unknown, for none survived the blast to tell. What has passed down from that age tells of a great yawning portal opening in the sky. Few who saw that portal retained their sanity, and a horrid green light issuing forth towards the sun. The explosion which followed ripped apart the land for hundreds of miles around. The heart of the Elven homeland was devastated and turned into a barren waste. The rolling hills near the border turned into a fearsome mountain range. The blast dug a crater miles deep at its epicenter. Everyone on the continent saw the sickly green and black energy reaching up into the sky and slamming into the sun... and then the sun went black. The sickly green energy wrapping around the now black sun, encasing it in eldritch power.

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They named the event The Darkening, and the event damned Demon and Mortal alike. Elven lands were shattered and their forces broke like waves against rocks. Upon seeing the ill omen in the sky, the Dwarves pulled back into their mountain kingdoms, shutting their great gates and leaving Men and Elves to their fates. Only the forces of Humans stood still against the Demonic Hordes which were sweeping the land.

The dead, unable to move to the realms beyond, rose across the land. Damned to walk the world until the pathways to the realms of the Gods opened up once again. The Darkening had cut off the Gods from the realms of men, or so the tale is told. Clerical spells failed and armies routed, who could no longer feed or heal their forces without divine magics to aid them.

This moment may well have meant victory for the Demon Lords, had they lost as much, if not more, than the Mortal races; Completely cut off from their abyssal realms, their powers of magic were gone... their endless hordes of demons gone. For a time, it forced them to rely upon their brute strength to maintain command of their every rebellious armies. As time moved forward, they would learn to harness the strange new dark energies that washed across the land. Yet for the moment they were forced to retreat to their citadels of darkness.

The final and perhaps most frightening effect though is what that act allowed in. Unknown is the power the Elven Mage Esteban called upon. Yet many believe he called upon the unspeakable and unknowable horrors from beyond the veil of reality. Entities that would love for nothing more than to spread their own particular brand of madness and chaos throughout the world. These unnamable beings lurked beyond the veil, always tempting to lure mortals into opening a doorway for them.

So the tale of the fall of our world goes, an act born out of the purest love; that of a father for his son, damned the world, slew gods, and condemned the souls of an entire realm. Mayhap in aeons untold a hero will arise to bring balance back to the world, yet all that exists for now is darkness.

~Excerpt from A History of The Land of the Dead Sun - Tales of Apocalypse