The angels of darkness made the Roof of the World their home, and
after deceiving the followers of light who had eagerly welcomed them,
they wielded the ancient and dreadful weapons of Heaven and vanquished
those who rejoiced in the light.
In those first dark years, there were none at first among the
dark ones who could descend to the lower lands and bear the heat, and
the lords of mankind, their true daughters, and their consorts
rejoiced that this was so.
For the angels of temptation bore blades that slashed through
armor and loosed arrowheads that treated iron bucklers as if they were
rotten wood, and they raised a mighty stronghold called Westwind,
anchored on Tower Black, that rivaled Freyja in power. And the
followers of light, who had ages earlier forsaken the powers of the
heavens, relinquished the barren heights to the dark angles and their
evil powers.
The dark angels were women who made a mockery out of hearth
and home, who reviled men and laughed as they destroyed all the armies
of the Westhorns sent against them, as they forced the great lords to
heap dust and ashes upon their own heads and to bend their knees and
pay tribute, and to stand helplessly as their daughters were tempted
from their hearths and consorts.
Yet an even more deadly evil was to flow from the Roof of the
World, and none knew it, from the mighty Nylan, smith of the angels,
he who builded the Tower Black, he who forged the blades of night and
the arrows of the storms....
Colors of White
(Manual of the Guild at Fairhaven)
Preface
(The Chaos Balance, 11)
Disdaining the Angel Ryba, the smith Nylan, knowing the fate of the
once-mighty hunter Gerlich, made his way from Westwind, with all the
stealth and craft that befitted the one who had re-created the fires
of Heaven and the rains of death.
The soul-singer Ayrlyn accompanied him, and a child, and far
more harm than mighty Ryba did these three portend for all of Candar,
and all lands, even unto the ends of the world....
The Angel and Marshal of Westwind was sore vexed, and sent she
her guards after the three, but, against the dark arts of the smith
and the singer, they could not prevail, and in time the three came to
the ancient and powerful land of Lornth.
The people of Lornth closed their shutters as the angels
passed, and feared as the dark shadows crossed their doors.
The leader of the council of Lornth was a woman, and
guileless, and, beguiled by Nylan and the sweet songs of the dark
singer and the seeming innocence of the child, she offered them
respite, and opened her land unto these dark ones, despite the counsel
of those who cautioned against what would come from the angels.
And there, for time, abided the mighty smith and the singer of
dark songs, and the child.
Colors of White
(Manual of the Guild at Fairhaven)
Preface
(The Chaos Balance, 142)
In the mighty city of Cyad dwelt the mages of the white rainbow, whose
ships fueled on fire and spanned the seas, whose white marble palaces
glittered in the sun of contentment, and who pursued the knowledge of
the distant stars.
Horseless wagons, harnessing the power of chaos to the will of
man and mage, traversed the polished stone roadways smoother than
glass. Those great firewagons sped more swiftly than the wind,
bringing crops and goods and wealth to all of Cyador.
All were content in the order kept by the white mages, and
seldom were necessary the shimmering shields and burnished blades of
the mighty Mirror Lancers, for there was peace.
In those days had Cyador allowed Lornth privileges in the
Grass Hills, among them the privilege to remove metals from the
earth. Seeing this privilege, the smith Nylan, in his guile, asked of
the regents of Lornth why they existed upon the suffrage of Cyad, when
for generations they had slaved and the mages of Cyad had done nothing
with the bright copper buried in the Grass Hills.
Those of Lornth pondered his words long into the deeps of the
night and recalled that the Grass Hills were yet those of the Lord of
Cyad.
As they pondered, then sang Ayrlyn the soul-singer of that
darkness of despair that would follow when Cyad asked back what was
its due, and when Lornth could no longer mine the bright copper of the
Grass Hills.
What can be done, asked the leader of the Lornians, for she
was a woman and trusting. How shall we hold to the delvings of our
fathers and forefathers that have sustained us through the years?
In response to such questions, the dark angel Nylan offered a
great wizardry against which the might of Cyador and her mages would
not prevail, and, persuaded by the wily Nylan, the council of Lornth
said, it shall be so, and they turned their eyes from the evil that
Nylan proposed.
Colors of White
(Manual of the Guild at Fairhaven)
Preface
(The Chaos Balance, 199)
... and when the White Lancers of Cyad had come at last to the copper
mines of the north, those of Lornth threw down their picks and shovel
and their blades, and fled into the Grass Hills, for they well knew
that the copper mines were not theirs, and they were sore afraid of
the righteous wrath of the Lord of Cyador.
The White Lancers rebuilt and refurbished the mines, and
brought order and discipline back into the Hills of Grass, nor did
they afflict the peoples nor their hamlets.
The wily Nylan, like the mountain cat who cannot face the the
well-prepared hunter in the light of day, advised the guileless
council of Lornth behind heavy doors, saying, If the Cyadorans cannot
eat and they cannot sleep, they will not hold to the mines that your
fathers and forefathers have worked. And they will depart.
The delvers and diggers of Cyad labored long and with great
effort to bring forth the copper from the mines, trusting in the honor
of the Lornians and in the forces of the most honorable White Lancers.
For in that time, none believed that even the wily Nylan would
stoop to slaughtering innocent horses, nor to murdering hapless
wagoners, nor to raising fireballs in the night and dropping them upon
lancer and digger alike while they slept. All this did Nylan, and
more, terrible and dishonorable deeds better lost in tumult of time.
Yet remember we must, for this is how the dark angels came to power in
Candar....
Colors of White
(Manual of the Guild at Fairhaven)
Preface
(The Chaos Balance, 307-308)
... and when mighty Cyad asked that her lands might remain hers, that
her gifts to Lornth be remembered in honor and peace, Nylan spoke
quietly, saying that the legions of Cyad would rain destruction upon
Lornth, and that the white legions must needs be repulsed.
Will you have Cyad take all that for which you and your
fathers and forefathers have worked and earned, asked the dark Nylan.
And all of Lornth said that Cyad must be destroyed. From the
shimmering cities of order and their peoples to the polished stone
roadways smoother than glass and the great firewagons that sped upon
them more swiftly that the wind, Cyad should be no more.
None would stand and state that Cyad had been kind and just,
and that her peoples lived in justice and peace. For such truth was
struck down by the dark mage Nylan with his black hammer, and also by
the dark Ayrlyn and her lute so that none would know the grace of Cyad.
The Mirror Lancers burnished their shields and lifted their
lances, and the sound of the hoofs of their steeds echoed through
rocks and stones of all Candar. The white mages, powerful in the
paths of peace and wary of war, girded their robes and invoked the
hopes of peace ... but all were doomed.
For Nylan, the dark angel, again lifted his hands, and he
unbound the Accursed Forest of Naclos, and the forest rewarded him,
and rendered back unto him the fires of Heaven and the rains of
death. And Nylan laughed and cast those fires and rain across the
west of Candar. And Ayrlyn sang songs that wrenched soul from soul
and heart from body.
The Mirror Lancers found their light lances turned upon them,
and the very earth rose and smote them, and the righteousness of the
white mages was for naught as their glasses exploded before them, and
death rained upon all the armsmen of Cyad, until none stood.
The very ground heaved, and belched, and swallowed the great
cities of Cyad and Fyrad, and the winds flattened distant Summerdock
so that no stone remained upon another.
The Grass Hills were seared into the Stone Hills, so dry that
nothing lives there to this day. And Lornth rejoiced ... until its
time had come....
Colors of White
(Manual of the Guild at Fairhaven)
Preface
(The Chaos Balance, 441-442)
