Blood and Gunsmoke

It has been twenty-years since the Hell Surge, wrought by the Vampire Queen, Elena Von Adelheiss, rocked the Old World and unleashed its myriad and managerie of terrors upon its denizens. With it, came Mutation and Madness, Famine and Plague, Monsters and Demons, War and Destruction, Demonic Energies and Dark Magics, and the spectre that loomed over it all, Death, brooding with his scythe, reaping what is sowed.   In such ill-fated days where it seems that God has punished the world for its sin, it is of little surprise that some, the desperate and the foolish, the ambitious and the insane, turn to the worship of fell, pagan deities. A few, of this world. Most, not. But they must be cautious, for lurking in the most assuming shadows are the agents of the High Church's Inquisition, who seek out the heathen and the heretic and act as their judges, their juries, and their executioners.   Despite the suffering wrought unto the Old World, War marches on. Be it through desperation or ambition, stubbornness or the will of the people, or be it caused by Man, Elf, Orc, Dwarf, Goblin or Vampire, the result is the same. It is also an age of change and the turbulent usurpation and challenging of established hierarchies, spurred by the Enlightenment. Typifying these aspects is the man who, if it weren't for the Hell Surge, would've defined this age.   Erkonne, born the lowest of peasants and street-rat in the nation of Aserlainn, utilised the turmoil of the Aserlainni Revolution and Civil War to rise the ranks in the military, culminating in his crowning of himself as Emperor of Aserlainn after the assassination of the Lord Regent Ricter Von Lowenhar. He, fuelled by an industrialising nation and a devoted people, has led a war of conquest against the surrounding nations and has established an empire in the Old World not seen since the days of Arthur and the Empire of Camelot.   Yet, despite the suffering wrought unto the world, and the everpresent change and uncertainty, the races of the Old World march on, as they always have. Be it in name of God, Family, Clan, Nation or Themselves, they march on and when presented with evils innumerable, they do not flinch...   They look it in the eye... and they do not relent...