Hauther, a Continent under Siege
For almost a three quarters of a century, Hauther has been suffering from the blood plague, a grotesque and supernatural disease that was unleashed by malevolent dark horsemen known as the Revenarum. The horsemen were first summoned by Argus Cainon, the former regent of the Thyrellan Empire, and his secret cabal of twelve darcanists. Cainon had been working to usurp his charge, Byron Gaedan IV, as the boy emperor matured. However, by the time Gaedan IV was old enough to assume the full responsibility of his throne, the neophyte emperor had suspected the regent wasn’t working toward his best interests and dismissed Cainon from his court. Incensed that his power grab had been snuffed, Cainon and his cabal summoned the Revenarum using a dark Ancient ritual in a bid to quickly build an army to conduct a coup. When Cainon unleashed the Revenarum in a surprise assault on the capital, his agents were able to infiltrate the imperial palace during the chaos and assassinate Gaedan IV. However, Cainon was never able to obtain the throne after his dark horsemen attacked the capital because of the subsequent resistance to his plan by the Thyrellan Imperial Guard.
Reeling from their failure to protect their emperor, the elite Thyrellan Imperial Guard vowed to avenge Gaedan IV’s death and fight Cainon and his Revenarum until their final breaths. They rallied Thyrellan’s army against Cainon and took the war to his inner circle, hunting down and killing most of his cabal of darcanists. However, they realized too late that with each darcanist they eliminated, the cabal’s hold over the Revenarum weakened. With only Cainon and a few of his fellow darcanists remaining, the Revenarum wrested themselves from Cainon’s control and slew their summoners. Then they set out upon Hauther, unleashing their own evil, the blood plague. Countless subjects died from the blood plague alone, but those who didn’t die from the initial infection became plague zombies, servants to the Revenarum without a will of their own. In time, the plague zombies became the foundation of the Revenarum’s army, which they unleashed across the Hauther.
With no successor strong enough to take command and hold the empire together under the assault of the Revenarum and the blood plague, the remnants of the imperial bureaucracy crumbled. The few surviving imperial guardsmen abandoned their defunct corps and formed a new brotherhood, later called the Silver Order. The brotherhood made a new vow to protect Hauther from the new tide of darkness at all costs. They rallied the fractured armies of the empire, militias of the duchies, and any other able fighting force and directed the defense of citizens across Hauther. The Silver Order was eventually able to halt the advancing blood-plagued army, and they were even able to slay seven of the thirteen Revenarum. However, they weren’t able to push into the heart of the Revenarum-controlled territory, now known as the plague lands, and decisively end the war. The Revenarum’s army had become too entrenched and the Silver Order spread too thinly to make the final blow. The war had reached a stalemate. So, the order’s focus turned from vanquishing the Revenarum to bolstering its ranks and defending the few remaining communities and cities.
In the seventy two years since the Plague War ground to a stalemate, the Revenarum have yet to make a major offensive against the last bastions of civilization. In kind, the Silver Order hasn’t been able to muster enough forces to seek out and destroy the remaining Revenarum. Nobles and common folk alike have had to band together in protected communities in order to survive. What were once glorious cities and expansive duchies of lush, arable land have become walled-up and crowded islands of squalor interspersed within a plagued land.
Under the vigil of the Silver Order, cities and smaller communities have bolstered their territory by reinforcing the walls protecting them from roving plague zombies emerging from the plague lands. At the fringes of the outlands, a lawless zone that acts as a buffer between major settlements and the plague lands, the Silver Guard, the shield arm of the order, patrols and watches for more dangerous blood-plagued minions moving in from the plague lands toward civilization. If they suspect that the Revenarum are making a move upon humanity, they summon the Silver Knights, the sword arm of the order, to drive deep into the plague lands and counter them. Until the Silver Order can find the means to strike at the heart of the plague lands and defeat the Revenarum once and for all, this bleak existence is all Hautherians have to hope for.
The Blood Plague
The blood plague is a blood-borne disease so virulent that once infected, the victim is doomed in one way or another. The infection spreads when infected blood contact the eyes or enters a wound or the mouth of a person. Once infected, a person will soon fall sick with fever, chills, and boils. As the infection progresses, the victim will begin coughing up blood and bleeding from the boils and all orifices. At this point, the victim is contagious, making the handling of him dangerous. Depending on the hardiness of the person, the infection will reach its critical point within 18 to 24 hours, at which time the victim either dies or loses all sense of self and succumbs to the “voices” of the Revenarum. In such a state, the victim rises as a plague zombie and follows these voices, which usually compel the victim to spread the blood plague by biting or scratching others without regard for themselves.
Because of the grave threat the blood plague poses to a community, very few common folk travel outside the protection of their community’s walls. Understandably, if a person showing any kind of symptoms emerges from the outlands seeking refuge within a community, he is usually slain on sight without any investigation or recourse. If the person seeking refuge doesn’t show any obvious signs of infection, he would be tested before being allowed to enter. Usually, a few drops of the subject’s blood in a silver plate or bowl is all that’s needed. If the blood boils when it contacts silver (a discovery made early in the Plague War), then the victim is infected and usually slain and burned outside the confines of the community. Otherwise, the person may be allowed to enter, depending on the attitude of the community’s authorities. In some communities, those who have traveled beyond the walls are not even permitted to return for fear of bringing in some kind of hidden infection that a silver bowl can’t uncover.