The Invisible War: Part 1

The High Councils of the gods were once beautiful symposia where those beings met to discuss the workings of the universe and the actions of their lesser creatures. The first conflicts to mar the High Councils were solved when Draconis was cast down to Primus, but time was all that staved off their return. As the ages passed, the Second generation began to take part in these councils, and with them they brought conflicts of their own.

Vrojk and Vivec, twin sons of Layla and Arigon shared an increasingly bitter rivalry. Though they sprang from the same stock, they were as diametrically opposed as the domains they ruled: war and wizardry, the martial and the magical. Vrojk was an impetuous youth who grew into a temperamental god. He embraced hedonism, and his greatest pleasure was the thrill of battle. Vivec was a being of thought and reason. He used his prolific creativity to shape reality into his ideal conception of it, usually to benefit the gods or their creations. The brothers' respective philosophies were irreconcilable, and each frequently thwarted the other's machinations.

The ages wore on, and the children of Man spread their works across the face of Primus. Beloved of Lena and blessed of Arigon, they prospered, forming great nations and building sprawling cities. Vrojk was a being of conflict, and though he hated and resented Man, he favored the strongest from among the peoples of Primus, and he taught them the ways of battle. These "Dogs of War" soon used their newfound prowess to oppress their neighbors. The nations became empires, and the peoples of Primus suffered under these warriors.

But Vivec saw this and intervened. He used his knowledge to work great miracles, unleashing forces of arcane power upon Vrojk's malevloent chosen and toppling their empires one by one. For the war god, this was too much. His anger grew, and he began to devise a way to kill his brother. However, the Old Law forbade a god to kill another of his kind, so Vrojk sought another way to bring about Vivec's demise.

The Old Law restricted the gods, but no such restriction lay on men or elves or dwarves. However, none of the created could hope to harm a god, even if gifted with the ways of battle. So Vrojk set about creating a weapon that would allow even a mortal to slay a god. The risk was great, if the weapon were to be turned on him, but his hatred drove him onward. For years he delved into the secrets of the age before, and in time he discovered the story of the downcast god Draconis, whose fall to Primus had spawned the first Dragons.

In the ages since the fall, two of these first Dragons had met their end. Vrojk forged a blade from their remains. These divine draconic relics, black and silver, held the power of divine death, and Vrojk called the blade forged from their union Draconis, after its progenitor.

The war-god called together the scattered remnant of his Dogs of War, offering the blade as a prize to the strongest among them. To decide this, they staged a deadly tournament. When all his opponents' blood was spilled, a warrior called Kaine emerged as the victor. Vrojk endowed him with Draconis and charged him with his greatest battle: a confrontation with Vivec.

Kaine walked the lands of Primus, slaughtering all in his wake, and his soul bonded with the spirit of the sword. In time, Vivec came to stop him, as he had stopped the Dogs of War in days past. He descended from the Sea of Stars, an arcane cascade rippling ahead of him, but it parted in around the acrid presence of Draconis. Undaunted, he called reality itself to his aid, his magical fusillade twisting even the lands of Primus, but Draconis refused to change. Kaine's body was ripped and bloodied by his divine foe, but his soul was tied to the sword, which seemed to wield his body instead. He sidestepped a burst of distortion and lunged with the curved blade, penetrating the tattooed flesh of the god of magic. Vivec's power gushed from the wound unmixed, rending the sword in twain and washing over the face of Primus. The god of magic was dead.

His body drifted, lifeless, through the Sea of Stars, and Draconis, now divided, was lost to the ages. But in Vrojk's victory came his defeat. Vivec's power infused Primus, and the denizens of that world slowly learned magic of their own. Vrojk seethed at the proliferation of his brother's legacy, the power of the scroll mitigating that of the sword.

Legend has it that Vivec's spirit chose a mortal to imbue with its power and dwelt therein, a silent visitor until it needed to find a new vessel. Tales are spun of the magic god's eventual return, but other tales of the divided blades of Draconis finding unity once more are whispered as well.

One day, the Invisible War will begin anew.