This is the history of Stygia, a mysterious and ancient land, filled with wealth and riches beyond your wildest imaginings - or sudden death. Long ago, even before the Dwarves settled in what is now known as Mithris, there were nomadic tribes, wandering the vast wastelands of the Great Red Desert.

In time, some of the people from these tribes decided to end their ceaseless trek, and settled in a lush, fertile valley north of the Desert. They formed a city that became known as Hylar, from one of its original founders; a nomad that persuaded others to settle in the valley.

At the same time, another group of nomads - with powerful magic - decided to create for themselves an oasis in the desert. Rather than leave the harsh conditions of their home, they decided to change what Nature's hand had wrought. What they produced became the great city of Cathar. They built huge black pyramids, though their significance has been lost in the passage of time.

The people of Cathar had it good... their magic-users transformed barren, rocky, worthless areas into lush, fertile fields. Their technology was far ahead of anything that any of their neighboring city-states could produce, and they became very wealthy from those brave travelers willing to risk the dangers of crossing the Red Desert. Meanwhile, the agricultural people of Hylar slowly grew in numbers, and learned the hard way, that people unable or unwilling to pay would often take the fruits of their labors, causing much misery and grief.

They learned how to protect what they held dear, and created a tradition of being both polite, but suspicious of strangers. Their armed forces trained diligently, and soon, no one would dare to attack Hylar, simply because the rewards weren't worth the high cost that the canny Hylarean guards would make them pay. After many centuries, Marauder came into the land of Stygia - an inter-dimensional traveller from another world. He was not in a good mood, having just faced the destruction of his old world, as well as the woman he loved. When he walked into Hylar, people quickly learned to stay out of his way. Those that opposed him, did not live long to regret the error of their ways, and before long, Marauder was widely known to be the highest authority in Hylar. Fortunately, he wasn't in the mood to deal with the politics of a largely agrarian society, and preferred to stay in the confines of his castle, and left them to handle themselves as they saw fit.

One notable exception to this rule was the Hylarean Guard. With their long proud history, did anyone expect them to take Marauder's injustices silently? Of course not. But the outcome of those battles was always the same, and most were frighteningly short. Marauder elected to re-structure the Hylarean Guard, and make them an elite force of his own, dedicated to keeping people out of what he considered to be 'his property'. The remnants of the original Hylarean Guard became the Dark Knights, and the Captain of the Guard, a young man named Toblak, was trained directly by Marauder for many years, eventually to become known as Emperor Toblak - a name oft mentioned, and feared, in history.

With Marauder's blessing, and a legion of Battle Dragons, Toblak led his army of Dark Knights to victory again and again, conquering all the lands around Hylar. One of the first city-states to fall to Toblak's might was the impregnable fortress of Cathar.

That battle is documented extensively in the Great Hylarean Museum, and although it was long and bloody, in the end, the forces of Darkness and Evil prevailed over the superior technology, and powerful magics used by Cathar. They razed the city, and slaughtered its meek inhabitants by the thousands, then utilized all their knowledge of metal working to improve and create new types of weapons and armour, combined with their magical knowledge to make them even deadlier. The Dark Knights conquered lands reaching all the way to the Great Western Sea, down to the Land of Giants, all the way North to the ocean as well.

When Toblak decided to expand eastward, however, he made a very grave mistake. In order to easily destroy the city of Lirath, he decided to take over the land of Thelbane first, in order to surround Lirath, and be able to attack from two sides at once, costing only minimal forces in the process.

Somehow, Lirath was warned of Toblak's evil machinations, and when the Dark Knights were en-route to take Thelbane, they were ambushed by Lirath forces. In a bizzare twist of fate, Emperor Toblak was slain in the ensuing battle. No records exist of how he died, and the Dark Knights protecting him were not inclined to discuss how their Liege met his demise, so Toblak's end is lost to History. What IS known, is that the surviving Dark Knights of that expeditionary force were cut off from the main army, and had to take shelter in a large castle in Thelbane. Besieged for many years by Mithris and Lirath, they took permanent residence there, until very recently moving back to Hylar to resume their original position.

Marauder, impassive, simply watched these events happen, not much caring what Toblak did with his troops, as long as he didn't have to leave his experiments to go deal with trouble in Hylar.

A great deal of the magic learned by Toblak's army from the people of Cathar had to do with the nature of Life itself. Since the Hylareans had lush, rich land to grow things in already, and did not need to sustain their living by using these magics, their most knowledgeable spellcasters began to look for ways of using the knowledge to kill, and hurt. One branch of these magic users became what are now known as the Occultists.

Another group of them, with less magic, and more fanaticism, became the Pyrachs - a cult of no small popularity - and settled inside Hylar itself to build a huge temple. The Occultists, Pyrachs, and Dark Knights, although related, became rather distanced from each other; the Occultists believing in virtually nothing but themselves, the Pyrachs intent on worshiping their nameless Deities and Demons with ridiculous fervor, and the Dark Knights themselves, descendants of an elite fighting force unequalled in all the world, with a dark stain upon their reputation forever - the death of Toblak. The great Hylarean Empire has dwindled, until now all that is left is the great city of Hylar. The Red Desert still holds the ruins of Cathar, which stand to bear silent testimony to the awesome power Toblak had at his command.

Somehow, during all of this... there still remains one band of roaming Nomads, who, in recent years, seem to be considering a more sedentary lifestyle on the SE edge of the Desert. Who knows what shall become of their Khan, or what he will do next.