The Last Great Kingdom
There was a time, long ago, when one kingdom ruled all the lands. Stories were told of great battles and of fearless warriors who waged war across the continents with a single vision burning in their hearts and minds: victory. Legends tell of how the Great Kingdoms turned upon one another in bloody conquest, pillaging and plundering all they overcame, until every one of them was vanquished save a single throne. The victor was the Kingdom of Orion, remembered ever after as the Last Great Kingdom.
In the years that followed, the Kingdom of Orion came to stand for the delicate balance between the races, a peace that would hold for a thousand years. No longer was royalty dictated by the bloodline of a single lineage. Delegates of every race, wishing in time to govern lands of their own, were granted Lordship by the King. They answered still to the crown of Orion, but each now held manors and castles to command as they saw fit. It was a great age of peace.
King William was the last ruler of Orion, and he ruled the kingdom as magnificently as his father before him. The Old Gods, better known as the Elder Gods, were well pleased with him and with his fathers before him, and so each Elder bestowed upon the King a God Key. Forged by the Elders themselves, the keys held mystical powers unknown to any other relic in creation, and each power was a reflection of the virtue its maker deemed worthy of one fit to rule all the lands.
The King had but a lovely Queen to share his kingdom with, and no children were ever born of their union — no natural heir to the throne. It was not until King William and his Queen met their untimely demise that the feuding of the races began. The delegates of each race quarreled over who the rightful successor should be, and the Lords of the outlying lands proclaimed themselves Kings. The Gods looked upon the disputes for the throne, driven by self-centered greed and ambition, and their anger grew.
At last the Elders came down among the arrogant, quarreling races, wrathful that hearts could turn so cold. They declared that only a ruler of proven worth would ever again sit over the greatest kingdom of all time. Then the Gods swept every living being from the lands of Orion, and her gates were sealed.
Whosoever bears the Keys of the Gods, so shall they sit upon the throne of Orion and rule.
He lifted the God Keys into the air and cast them across the sky, to fall where they would in the far corners of the world.
The gates of Orion have been sealed ever since. Somewhere in the wilds the God Keys lie waiting to be found — and with them, the throne of the Last Great Kingdom.