Ward History
Chapter 11 - A Man Amongst Gods
The Empire of the Damned and the Holy Order exchanged victory and defeat. The Grand priest met with leaders from the other mortal races at the Cathedral of Dawn, in the new capitol city of High Rock. Leaders of Men, Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Halflings all met, and with their meeting, formed an alliance with the Holy Order known to this day as The Order of Dawn.
Meanwhile, in the new Orc stronghold of Thul, the darker races of the world formulated a separate alliance. Leaders of the Orcs, Dark Elves, Goblins, Trolls, and Minotaur formed an alliance known as the Warstrong. The Warstrong had no love for the Order of Dawn, but they also felt the Empire of the Damned needed to be destroyed before they could further their plans.
The Order of Dawn launched a military campaign across the land. They learned to burn the bodies of their dead to avoid the Undead King adding more might to his army.
While the Order pressed toward Westgard, the Damned prepared for a siege. The Order invaded the Damned in the Decay Lands. The battles seemed to be a draw between living and the dead, until the Warstrong attacked from the flank. The Orcs brutally mangled the clattering bones of the undead, the Minotaur crushed the skulls of the stumbling corpses, and the Night Elves launched barrages of dark arcane magic from a distance. The Order did not like the idea of assistance from the Warstrong, but to stop the Empire of the Damned, they were willing to make an exception.
The living pushed the Damned all the way back into the unholy city of Westgard. They began to set up military lines, and heavy weaponry for a siege. It was at this time that the gates opened to the city, and the Undead King walked out. He let out a loud and terrible scream before raising both arms into the sky. Suddenly, the sounds of shrieking roars echoed across the heavens. Then, from the darkened sky, a full fleet of undead dragons flew to the gates and scorched the armies of the living. The Order returned fire by launching volleys of arrows, while the Warstrong fired dark arcane magic into the air. Nothing slowed the green flame of the unholy flying beasts.
Defeat was inevitable. The Order and Warstrong lost too many troops to the Damned. The Undead King then began to raise the dead of both factions back to life and send them forth to finish off the remaining living mortals.
Suddenly, a burst of cosmic energy fell from the heavens, destroying most of the unholy dragons. From the cosmic energy emerged the Eternal Dragon, a colossal humanoid dragon covered in armor and long sprawling wings.
The Undead King sent all of his forces after the Eternal Dragon, but the clamoring bones of the undead where easily dispatched of by the beast. The undead King then drew his unholy sword and charged at the beast. The battle was fierce. Cosmic energy, and unholy power swarmed the area surrounding the two powerful entities.
The High Priest of the Order could not help but admire his former King. A man, a mortal human man, was contending with the will of a beast created by the God that he worshipped. He began to question the power of his own worship.
As strong as the Undead King had become, the Eternal Dragon was still too powerful and forced him to surrender. After the Undead King was defeated, the Eternal Dragon flew off high into the cosmos, leaving Ward.
The Undead King was then taken into the custody of the Order of Dawn and transported as far north as north goes on Ward. They wanted to execute him far away from anywhere where his necromancer followers could find him. He was killed in the frozen wasteland of Everfrost. His body was buried deep below the permafrost ground. With no master, the remaining undead were now free from the control of the Undead King to live a second life in undeath.