Prolog

Red steel is a magical metal, a metal of legends. Red steel is rareand coverted by all who know of it, coveted and cursed. Red steel comes from only one place in the entire world, the Savage Coast. Fare away from those lands called civilized, the savage coast is a war-torn frontier land that stretches for nearly 2000 miles. The coast is home to a dozen diverse and intelligent races like the human of the Baronies, the dog-like Lupins, the feline Rakastas of the central cost, the mysterious arenas of Herath and the savage lizard men of Yalu bay.

With The Red Steel came the Red Curse, and with the Red Curse there came a blessing. It granted its victims wonderousmagical powers called legacies, but at a prize the Red Curse also twisted them, deforming them into hideous parodies of their former self. Only one thing was known to protect from the side effects of the curse: an amulet of Cynabryll.

Cynabryll is an enchanted metal which was once commonly found in deposits along the outskirts of the Savage Coast. The wearer of a Cynabryll amulet could enjoy the blessings granted by the curse without suffering its hideous side effects. Unfortunately Cynabryll has to be hunted constantly because time fades its magic like the bloom of a flower. And that is not all, for as Cynabryll loses its powers it transforms into Red Steel.

The flow of Cynabryll was controlled by The Inheritors, an organization spit into three orders. The Crimson order wanted to make the best of the curse, using its advantages to help there people. The Ruby order wanted to find a way to prevent the curse from spreading or if possible cure it completely. The Flame order liked the curse for the power it gave them, and was blind to the effect of the curse on the weak and poor.


Previously

20 years ago, 1012 After Crowning, a mad wizard of Herath named Zoron had found a ritual that would make him gain all the powers of the legacies and in the process deplete all the deposits of Cynabryll, leaving only red steel and the curse. But to complete the ritual Zoron needed to find the 5 artifacts of the Wallaran.

The inheritors arranged an emergency conclave, and all orders decided that the artifacts had to be found and destroyed.

We did not want to spread panic over the coast; therfor I, Baron Mendez Calinties, suggested to the conclave that we should send a small party to go looking for the artifacts. And I knew of just the inheritor to lead such a recon mission. My pupil inheritor Chavez e La Vega, had recently been admitted in to the Crimson Order, and we saw great potential in the young man.

Not many weeks had passed when lo and behold de La Vega had located two of the artifacts, with a little help from my good friend don Luis de Manzanas. There the flame inheritor Balazar had fallen in to affliction, and blamed Manzanas for his dismay. He was desperate for revenge and Chavez and his group had no choice but to kill Balazar in the process of protecting a fellow inheritor and a good man.

The Barrier Mask and the Bracers of Forbiddance seemed only to be the first to pieces of a complete set of armor. The artifacts in themselves were of greater power then anyone had ever imagined.

By the time the third artifact was found, lord Medusa of the ruby order came to me and told me of their progress in the study of the artifacts potential. It seemed that the artifacts used with a different ritual could eradicate the curse itself, taking with it its benefits and side effects.

This was good news, but I still knew in my heart that there was probably a dozen ways to dispel the curse, and the chance of the artifacts falling in to Zoron’s hands was a great risk to take. So to my disagreement, the destruction of the artifacts was now not only hard, but forbidden.

Over a course of time Chavez and his friends met many interesting characters. Like Killian the swashbuckling sailor, who sailed them to the island where the Armor of Immortal Skin was hidden. The man always stayed away just long enough not to get infected by the curse.

They also met the little man, Plancheras Pestillo. Who was at that time working on the iron horse that ran on steam, which he thought would revolutionize transport over the coast. Unfortunately he did not think of the Yasak riders.

The group was followed and watched by the orders, only to realize to late that Medusa was after all corrupted, working for Zoron to save his own life.

In the end Zoron took all the five artifacts from Chavez, and for a time all seemed lost. Then a wise Tortle named Sesudo Brujo, came to them and gave them a scroll which had been in his possession for hundreds of year. The scroll was almost identical to the scroll that Zoron was to use in his ritual, but one sentence was different. He also gave Chaves and his tree friends four rings of time, very powerful artifacts which he really did not want to part with. Should all life leave theirbodies while the ring was on their fingers, they would be transported back to the place when the ring was last perforated, and the ring would evaporate.

Luckily they did not need this function, and the rings were left unused. They tricked Zoron to use the wrong script, which led him to remove the curse with a wave of silver flowing from his center. It moved like a wall of silvery fog along the coasts entire length. The red sands, red steel and Cynabryll all turned to dust and crude steel. All afflicted who came in contact with the wave became healed from their deformity, and all tyrants relying on the powers of legacies became powerless.

Zoron was destroyed and the coast was now a little bit safer.


The time between

For a few years there were joyful and prosperous times, yet not for all. The inheritors lost a lot of their powers when the curse and Cynabryll disappeared. But luckily they did not loose all of their respect, so they turned to other resources to help there people.

The ruby order had the least of worries. Taking a lot of undeserved credit for the disappearance of the curse, gave them great political power across the east coast.

The order of Crimson more or less dissolved naturally. There was no point in a “curse police” now that the curse was gone. So they lay down their arrangements and went each to their own, finding new ways to help there people.

The Flame inheritors where probably more bitter then the others, promising revenge on the ones who had taken away their power. Since they now no longer could control their people by fear they now had to turn to darker methods to obtain powers. The order turned underground and is suspected for a wide ranger of coastal code breaks. Smuggling, tyranny, fraud, murder and any thing else you could imagine, including trying to reclaim the powers of the Red Curse.

The people of the coast turned to solve other problems. Like keeping the Yazak out of civilized areas, mining and farming trade goods, getting the water clean from pirates, resolving some kind of general costal law, building peace treaties between states.

But there biggest concern is that the curse will return, therefore the people of the coast does not look kindly on magic users. They do not se magic, they see legacies, and will go to extreme measures to make sure that they will not get reinfected.

Now sitting here alone on my vine farm in Baronia de Gargoña, I think back at the time 20 years that has passed and wonder where Chavez is now. I have not seen Chavez de La Vega since he went into hiding from the flame order a long time ago.

Will we meet again? Will I ever have purpose again? I don’t know. All I can do I write down what I remember, before my old age catchesup with me.

Senior Mendez Calinties
1022 AC