(See also: the origin page.)
For as long as folklore recalls, the people of Istria have regarded comets as the ultimate of ill omens. It is a belief shared by their neighbors, and indeed, every culture anyone has record of. When comets pass over, all business ceases; every mage, no matter how minor their skill, is inundated with requests for glyphs of luck and protection, meager bulwarks against the comet's eye. The oldest of legends speak of comet-spawned demons, battled with the power of glyphs and steel's sharp edge. Scholars and historians long considered the demons to be no more than myth.
Fifty years ago, a comet did not merely pass over the earth. It fell from the sky, fragments painting the sky red in their wake, impacting in the mountain jungles beyond Istria's southern border. For three years, the world was cold and bitter, summer barely a blip on the calendar; then it warmed again. People began to believe the comet's influence had run to its end; the sun had returned, and all would be normal.
A few dared the jungles, in subsequent years. Fewer returned. But the villages of the southern farmlands began to report strange things — creatures different from those they knew. Changed in color and conformation; worse still, changed in behavior. Even animals such as deer and rabbits became more aggressive, as apt to charge the hunter as to be hunted. Mages were sent to the villages, escorted by guards, to investigate these occurrences and protect against them. If possible, to eradicate their source.
An expedition of seven — three skilled mages, three experienced guards, and a local to advise as he could — traced the source of the changes to the jungle. Seven years after the comet's fall, they too dared to enter its depths. None were ever seen again.
A year later, another expedition was sent. Afterwards, a third. None came home; none sent word of what they had found. The jungle, always dangerous, had become a black hole into which no one dared go.
Istria carried on, sending more guards and mages to the southern border to face what seemed to be a never-ending supply of beasts. Some attacked the villages; others did not, but anything identified as aberrant was either captured or killed and brought back to be studied. There was but one common theme: everything examined had once been something else. Something normal. On rare occasion, as having been human.
Twenty-seven years after the comet's fall, children in Istria's southern villages began to be born with strange features. Tufted ears, clawed fingers, partial fur pelts; unusual colorations, unusual teeth. Partial snouts, paw-like feet. Any of these, and stranger characteristics besides. Many were killed immediately. Others were watched with suspicion, but allowed to live.
The influx of aberrant beasts continued to increase with each passing season; so did the number of inhuman children. By the thirty-third year after the fall, even the plants in the farmlands had begun to change in subtle ways — but the people no longer noticed. Friction rose between those who seemed human, and those who did not; mages stationed in the villages found their powers dwindling, but learned something else at the same time. Sometimes, just sometimes, they could feel the corruption sinking its claws into the village, chipping away at its spirit.
Just thirteen years ago, thirty-seven years after impact, chaos erupted in the farmlands. Five villages seemed to fall off the map — no messages came down their roads, no word from the mages stationed in each. Istria's queen sent troops to discover what had happened.
Each village had literally torn itself apart. Buildings had been demolished, where they were not burned. Bodies, of those changed and unchanged, human and beast alike, had been shredded, some so badly they could not be identified. The earth was stained red by blood — a red that has not faded in subsequent years, and over which not even tainted plants will grow.
The people of the other southern villages retreated to Istria's capital (Maratha) and neighboring lands, ceding their homes in the hope that they would escape that fate. The southern region became known as the Fringe, the edge of the taint's reach — and the mountains beyond, where the comet had fallen and started all these troubles, the Broken Lands. From those tainted lands, the power continued to spread, tainting everything it touched.
Seven years ago, the Hunters appeared in Maratha, adding their skill to the guards' swords and mages' power. Some believe they hail from northern Kalmar, or even beyond the sea; others, that they are the elite of Istria's guard, trained or retrained solely to fight the monsters twisted by the comet's power. Combined with the swift extermination of any who are found to be tainted, their efforts have helped Istria to hold her own against the demons. None of the southern lands have been reclaimed yet, but a balance has been established… or so Istria's people dare to believe.
