The great battle of the races

With Undrad traveling the Cosmos, his generals fell one by one until very few remained. Undrad, consumed by his lust for new worlds neglected to pay attention to the events unfolding on Tholoria. The races were now working together. Hunting and slaying all dragons they could find in pursuit of knowledge and artifacts. As his generals grew fewer and fewer, Undrad started losing his beauty and perfection. He grew thin and weary, skeletal like in appearance. He returned to Tholoria and decided to intervene to allow the dragons to grow in population so that he may once more travel the universe. He planted some dark seeds among the races, nursing and caring for them. He molded and infused them with some of his power and so the four were born. One of each of the dominant races, on each of their home continents. Nogg’Garr the orc, Lothar Blackbrimm the human, Nivera Ravenclaw the elf and Dwossor Swiftaxe the dwarf. He hid them from the other gods and schemed to get each of them into influential positions within the continents. Once position was obtained and their powers were strong enough, he unleashed them on the world. As each spurred their nations to battle, the dragons were forgotten and the races turned on one another. The elves, now highly trained and in touch with nature, were able to see the corrupt nature of Nivera. They acted swiftly, blocking passage in and out of their continent, confining Nivera to Nyldras. They fought Nivera by themselves while the rest of the world destroyed each other in the great battle of the races. The battle lasted for 27 centuries and each time one of the four fell, Undrad would resurrect them and they would rejoin the fray. Undrad continued to hide his creations from the other gods and with the deaths in battle, he started to recover some of his once beautiful visage.

One of the gods accidentally stumbled across Undrad in process of reviving Nogg’Garr after he fell in battle and watched silently from a distance. He took this information to the other gods and shared what he had seen. What they once thought was merely the primal nature of the inhabitants of Tholoria, they now realized was being fueled by Undrad. They were furious as gods were allowed to provide guidance, wisdom, insight and minor powers. The scale of the power and the direct influence of Undrad on the world was so great that it was threatening to destroy Tholoria. Furious at Undrad, they decided to intervene and devised a plan. They would leave hints of nearby worlds filled with dragons which were under the control of the other gods and kept hidden from Undrad.

Some of the gods were sent to secure demon stones required to construct a prison. Traveling through the abyssal plains leaving a trail of dead demons in their wake, they eventually came across the workshop of the demon known as Tror’Vunar, a creator demon. He put up an immense battle with his armies, but was eventually forced to retreat and in doing so, they found the stones required for Undrad’s prison and returned to Tholoria.

They cleverly slipped the hints of these worlds in discussions with Undrad and left seemingly hidden clues as to the design of the mechanism which he would require to travel to them. The mechanism required four demon stones to operate and the sacrifice and blood of two generals in service of the gods in order to sustain the power of the device for the time required to travel the distance.

Undrad got to work finding the demon stones. To him it seemed an impossible task, but his greed was not about to let the chance to endlessly travel the cosmos slip by him. The gods selectively left clues and when they felt he had suffered enough they would place a stone where he was able to claim it, for they wanted to ensure that the demon stones would not be easily obtained by Undrad. This would strengthen the illusion Undrad was under making him feel that with each stone he was getting closer to obtaining that which the other gods withheld from him. They spied on him at all times and learned of the location he was to use for the ritual.