Zown oh well let me fill you in with this lovely ballad.
Gather ye close, noble kin and curious folk, and harken to a tale oft whispered in the shadowed halls of Thardferr.
In an age not long past, there rose a kingdom most curious, one that sought not war, nor conquest, but mastery over the unseen arts. They swore no oath to blade or bow, but to the spellbook and the bubbling cauldron. Their purpose? Pure and unassuming: to provide the finest magical potions, unmatched in potency, untainted by foul alchemy, and with a taste that danced upon the tongue. A vendor of spells, a merchant of visions, offering the truest of sights to any with coin and cause.
Yet, as is the way of things in these lands, peace is oft mistaken for weakness.
So came the aggressors, those who saw passivity as provocation and charity as a challenge. They struck, again and again, until the caster's patience wore thin and the earth itself answered the call.
Enter Earthquake.
Long believed to be a myth, a broken remnant of ancient code, this spell known as EQ proved very real. And very devastating. What began as a humble test, a quest to find the limit, revealed a truth most grim: a single cast could rend 30 percent of a kingdom’s foundation asunder. Verified, tested, proven.
But knowledge alone is no shield. There came the retaliation, swift and brutal. The caster endured a gauntlet, eight strikes within a single turn of the moon. Reduced to naught but two castles and a meager stretch of land, it took fortnights to rebuild. Yet rebuild they did.
And so came the third attempt. Refined. Flawless. A kingdom undone in mere heartbeats, caught with its guard down. Victory, but not triumph. For in the stillness that followed, caster’s remorse took root. To unmake a rival so thoroughly, to leave them with nothing, it was not joy that filled the heart, but doubt.
And lo, from the ashes rose a gnome, wrathful and empowered beyond mortal reckoning, able to conjure anything at will. They returned the favor, though even in vengeance, they managed to fumble spells gifted by gods. A most curious failure indeed.
Still, the lesson was clear. A kingdom prepared can rise from ruin swifter than one struck blind. Five houses with strength and support will outpace two castles left alone in the dark.
But perhaps the greatest cost was unseen. In those moments, as stone crumbled and balance shook, offensive magic itself was rewritten. No longer could it serve as the blade of the ambitious. Its time had passed. What once was a tool of clever sorcerers became a relic, shackled, toothless, a whisper of its former glory.
Thus ends the tale, for now.
