Prologue: Hunted and Hated (Shade)

When you were born, your mother an Oracle of your people, dedicated your spirit to the Goddess Diana and imbued you with the Spirit of the Hunter. As you grew by her side she told you of the days before the Blood Wars, when Umbrians were at peace and there was no Tyranny forcing each of the holds under its power. The days when the Old Gods such as Diana guided your people and maintained the balance between the faerie and woodland spirits. The days before the Corruption of Blood had come, long before the hated enemies the Ankivari had fallen to the followers of the human god of the East.

For fifty years you lived the life of a ranger, following the doctrines of balance and order of the Old Gods, in harmony with the forests around Dauphne, your ancestral homestead. You heard stories of the war being waged far away and the merciless expansion of the Tyranny. You heard of the sacrifices being made to the New Gods, the Primordial Princes of the Elements and the destruction of the shrines to the Old Gods. You wept to hear of the forests burned and devastated by the fiery abominations.

It was with a sense of inevitability that your people heard the news that the Tyrant's Host marched on Dauphne, one of the last holds to remain independent of his power. The populace prepared for the battle to come and you joined the forward skirmishers that sought to delay the advance of the black legions. You fought valiantly alongside your kin but the Tyrant's forces were too numerous and the tide swept aside the hold's defenses. You evaded death and for sometime capture but only long enough to know your family had perished in the assault. Bound by foul magics and binded with a runed collar of silver, you were press-ganged into the slaver ships that ploughed the Golden Gulf.

The next stage of your life was a torturous hell of sea-borne pillaging and the stench of burnt human offerings to the so-called New Gods. Far from the glades and forests of your ancestral home, your soul retreated deep within you. For years, you awoke with nothing but the wish that you would die on the next voyage.

It was at the nadir of your spirit, that something miraclous occured. You awoke one morning and your binding collar fell. For the first time in over sixty years, you had free will to act and knew hope. Your body exhausted beyond measure collapsed and the galley master presuming you had died threw you overboard.

Were it not for a second miracle you would have died beneath the depths but instead you awoke on an unknown beach. You clung on to life finding food and shelter, nursing yourself back to health on that hidden cove. Your strength restored, you gathered makeshift tools and clothing heading inland. The sea shore led steeply up to broken wastelands and beyond them desert that seemed to go on forever. You wandered along the coast until at last you saw a strange looking settlement. Remaining hidden. you observed the first people of the Caliphate you had seen in their natural environment. Expecting a hostile reception, you covered your appearance and adopted a psuedonym.

You travelled along the deltas with much time to think before you arrived at the City of Pearl, Darvish Kapur. Your hatred for the Tyranny and the Elemental Princes brought you closer to the people of the Caliphate and piqued your curiosity about this "Holy Divine" that they worship. You cannot help but wonder: Where was the Goddess Diana when your people were subjugated? Did this Holy Divine truly bring an end to the Ankivari? Could He do the same to the Tyranny? And what role will you play in all of this? And of course, what power had set you free?

There was a lot to consider but it was evident to you that a single Umbrian stranded in a hostile land could not achieve much by himself. Sitting in a coffee house in the Bazaari quadrant of the city, you wonder whether there will be potential allies to be found amongst these people who will look past your origins and see the Spirit of the Hunter within?