First Dragmar Horde
The First Dragmar Horde
The first waves of immigrants to Duende were completely ignorant of Duende's nature. The fact that a world could, and frequently did, respond to the collective thoughts, feelings, and beliefs of its residents was something that they simply had no frame of reference for. For several centuries the populations were sparse enough that there were few enounters with other inhabitants. However, as the populations grew and expanded, old cultures, old habits and legacy hatreds festered in the people like rot in a wound. It did not take long for conflicts to break out as different peoples began encountering each other and news that old enemies were alive and well on the planet stirred the fires of war in the hearts and minds of people.
There is a special kind of madness in war; a blind, ravenous, contagious hatred borne in of a multitude of back and for injuries that become harder to forgive and impossible to forget. The maelstrom of emotions that accompany war, hatred, pain, sorrow, anger, malice, bitterness, and resentment became amplified in Duende's mana saturated environment, giving rise to a horde of Dragmar. Dragmar, the things of nightmare; all of the worst parts of sentience given physical form. Like the Dremen, the Dragmar are not a single species, but a category of creatures that are generally considered 'monstrous'. However, it is worth noting that Dragmar are not inherently ugly. Some Dragmar are defined by their charm or seductive beauty. Regardless, they are the manifestation of intense negative emotions and thoughts, of which war produces no shortage.
In the third century after arriving, the humans of the southern reaches of Rigda began an economic war that quickly escalated into full military conflict. As people died and grievances grew, so did the number and power of the Dragmar. In the early days, the Dragmar were scattered and disorganized, attacking randomly and without warning, each kind mainly sticking to its own or going off to live a solitary existence. With war induced poverty and grief weighing on the people, the appearance of monsters just added to the sense that Duende would be their grave. In the 10th year of the war, a young lord whose name has since been stricken from the annals of history, devised a poison so lethal that a single drop could cause death in hours and distributed into the headwaters of the river.
The indiscriminate death that followed was scarcely imaginable. Everything died; people, plants, animals, everything. However, the fates were not content to merely kill the poor souls. The poison had diluted in the river's water to the point that death could take several agonizing days or weeks. The land's vegetation withered away and the air became fetid with the stench of the dead. The months of horror gave birth to Dragmar on a scale that had never been witnessed before, and from among the newly awakened, something new.
Two beings of immense power also reportedly appeared, calling themselves Chernobog and Hecate, each with their devotees and followers, each with vastly different goals. Chernobog took command of the Dragmar hordes and sent them to the west, northwest, and north east, pushing across the great river into other occupied land in devastating attacks. For years it seemed the peoples of Rigda would be unable to push them back. It is likely that the continent would have fallen to the Dragmar had it not been for the heroic actions of a brave few souls like Vendarin and his comrades.
Vendarin and his party of adventurers managed to make their way through cunning, stealth, and force of arms into the heart of Chernobogs stronghold and struck him down. Without his control, the Dragmar lost their cohesion and were slowly slaughtered and driven back into the desolated mire that had become known as The Spirit Fens, a land which, to this day, is considered a land of the dead and the damned.
The appearence of the First Dragmar Horde forced an uneasy peace on the lands of Rigda in what became known as The Spirit Accords some fifteen years after the war started. The newly established The Adventurer's Guild, for its part, did its best to help maintain both the Dragmar population and the general peace of the realm. And for five hundred years there was peace. How short the memory of mortals...
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