Humanity came to Tal'Vorn almost three thousand years ago and in that time their population has exploded until they are more populous then the Angels, DragonLords, Dwarves, Elves, Fairies and Mermen put together. They are resourceful, adaptable, ruthless, manipulative, deceitful, greedy, vain, noble, courageous, petty, childish and foolish. Humanity is the true contradictory race and indeed it is perhaps because of this that they are so totally hated by so many of the other Races.

Humanity came to Tal'Vorn upon ships of fire, screaming across the arching sky of the world like so many tumbling meteors. Originally their ships had been intended to be able to land safely and then take off again at a later date but a miscalculation on the behalf of humanity meant that instead many of their ships erupted into balls of flaming wreckage before landing, only a few million humans surviving to emerge from their ships in the green and fertile land of Ilars to the south of the Eastern Land, instead of the round billion who were supposed to have landed.

This land was originally populated by a few scattered tribes of DragonLords who, in general, ignored the coming of these strange humans to their lands simply because they did not view them as a threat. Yet the humans, though physically inferior to almost every Race on Tal'Vorn in some manner, had something that they did not. Technology. The technology that had allowed them to travel to Tal'Vorn across the very gulf of the stars themselves, technology that almost made even the Jump Gates of the Dwarves and the Ether Walkers look primitive in comparison.

Mass Drivers, ion-driven power stations, solar power, Impactive Thermal Plating Armour (ITPA), Personal Combat Units (PCU), Personal Refractor Shields (PRS) and many thousands of other little devices, such things that allowed them to make any liquid drinkable and even dirt become the most appetizing of food. All these and more did the fledging colonies have access to as they created their city upon the southern most tip of Ilars, the back of the city overlooking the sea itself. Surrounded by high walls plated with ITPA to defend against any kind of attack imaginable the city was impregnable by normal means and since the humans had yet to come across any kind of intelligent life in their scouting parties they felt no need for fear and such was their arrogance that they even named their city Primus, meaning 'First'.

However this was due to change and change for the worst. A small scouting party went north, several decades after the arrival of the humans, looking for a possible site for a second city to expand the amount of land under the control of humanity. Eventually the plan was to have a network of cities across the whole of Tal'Vorn's immense surface, all connected by Frictionless Trainlines capable of faster then sound travel. It took the many scouting parties months to cross the great expanse of Ilars grassland, crossing over into the territory of the DragonLord tribes without even realising it.

This had dire repercussions, but not the ones you would expect. The DragonLord continued to ignore the humans, even as they moved deeper and deeper into their territory. It is not entirely known why this is, though it might have been due to a lunar shift, a solar event that occurred once a millennia, when all twelve of Tal'Vorn's moons came into alignment. This is a holy time for DragonLords for it is during this time that Shaltar is supposed to have descended from the skies so long ago and crafted the first of the DragonLords, Drake FrostHeart himself.

And it was one of these gatherings that a small scouting party stumbled across, a dozen DragonLords all celebrating the birth of their Race through sacrifice and the drinking of strong Dwarvish Ale and their own concoction, Fire Wine. Terrified at the sight of the half-naked drunken, copulating, feasting DragonLords, the humans opened fire, killing all but one of the DragonLords. Fleeing the site as quickly as they could, returning to their city with as much speed as they could manage in their transports. As they fled the survivor of their unprovoked attack, a tough young DragonLady called Isabella BlindingStrike, crawled away from the shattered bodies of her clan mates and up into the nearby hills.

Using the Jump Gate that the Dwarves had granted her tribe many years ago, she traveled to the Dragon Isle itself, the holy ground of all DragonLords. As her broken body healed itself even as she dragged it through the soft and silent grass at the heart of the Dragon Isle, Isabella made her slow way to the Temple of Shaltar, built upon the very point at which Shaltar's holy feet touched the earth, just as the other Gods Temples are scattered about the world where their feet first touched Tal'Vorn.

Passing the three trials, Isabella approached the Enchantress herself, the High Priestess of the Dragon God, the immortal and forever beautiful woman, Sara. And as Isabella poured out her story it is whispered that Sara shed a single tear, the glistening thing, that single tear, the most holy relic of the Dragon God that has ever been. Indeed the tear was kept in a glass vial in the Temple itself for many years until it was recently stolen.

The shedding of the tear was felt across Tal'Vorn, every Child of Shaltar, be they DragonLord, Dragon, Wyvern or Hydra, feeling it at the same instant, the sorrow that was so utterly alien to the Race as a whole, all called to the Temple by some indescribable feeling. It took only a handful of days to gather together every single Child of Shaltar, a feat that has never again been matched, an astounding thing when the sheer distances involved are considered and the number of people and creatures to move, more then a million bodies, all traveling to the same spot.

When it was done and when the DragonKing, Vralic BlackDragon, had spoken with the Priestess and Isabella, he sat in thought for a long time, staring up at the great Wall of Heroes in the Temple of Shaltar, that single piece of basalt stone inscribed with the names of the honoured fallen dead. He could almost feel the list expanding as he watched it, knowing that in this war, with such lethal and powerful foes, many DragonLords would fall to add their names to the Wall.

When Vralic finally emerged he had decided that he had little choice but to allow the Children of Shaltar to go to war. However he was not fool. Though a Dragon, Vralic was well aware of the limitations of his peoples and knew that they could not hope to win a war against a technologically and numerically superior foe on their own. So Vralic traveled to the cites and homelands of all the Races until he finally had the agreement of every Race but the Angels.

When the Races of Tal'Vorn came to wage war upon the humans it must have been a magnificent and terrifying sight, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of creatures and monsters, all ranged against the walls of Primus. The feral roars of the Beasts, the sparks of energy in the air as the Ether Walkers prepared their spells, the drifting forms of the Fairies as they moved from group to group, checking them for injury. The rank upon rank of Anvar, all chanting in the same voice, the same words, prayer after prayer ringing to the heavens, DragonLords standing shoulder to shoulder with Demons, both Races striving to out do the other with blood curdling promises of violence to come, of pain they would inflict upon the human invaders. The flashing shapes of Mermen darting form spot to spot, their inhuman speed counter pointed by the stolid ranks of Dwarves, gleaming rows of steel mail and shining mouths of cannons.

The war was bloody and brutal, the terrible weapons of the humans ripping bodies apart and shredding flesh to the bone, punching holes through dozens of warriors at once. Indeed so bloody was the war that it lasted for more then a decade, horrific casualties on both sides. Indeed if it was not for the skills of the Fairies it is doubtful that Vralic could have held the army together. Finally humanity was broken through the efforts of Drake FrostHeart at the head of an Angelic army with the aid of a carefully selected group of individuals. Yet once the war was over humanity's struggles had only just begun.

Vralic had every piece of human technology and written text that could be found destroyed, to prevent any such uprising occurring again. Stripped of their technology, their numbers nearly halved, the humans were forced to step through a Jump Gate the Dwarves set up. This gate scattered the humans to three different locations on Tal'Vorn, places that had once been occupied by DragonLord but had now been put aside as places difficult to exist.

Slowly humanity rebuilt itself, learning through trial and error how to use the Jump Gates. Though it took many hundreds of years they built up the city of Grath through back-breaking labour, whilst the humans in the other two locations simply struggled to survive, one group deep in the deserts of Lakra and the other in the jungles of the Great Continent. Grath City, though in an infertile area of land, a scrub plain where only stubbly bushes could grow, was still the most hospitable, the humans building their city up relatively quickly.

However everything changed when one human, a Christoph Jacobs, spoke to an Ether Walker. The grey-skinned being took a liking to the human for some reason and taught him about Psychic Magic and the Mani. Christoph was an able and clever student and quickly mastered many of the aspects of Psychic Magic. He used the theories of the Mani and spoke with the human leaders. Christoph had come up with a plan and it was simple. If the humans could learn how to wield magic, how to bend it to their wills, then they would be saved, they would be able to survive in this harsh world against the foes that surrounded them.

It took time but it was achieved. Unfortunately only a small percentage of all humans are actually able to wield the Mani, to cause them to unleash their spells at the casters will. However within a population of millions that is still a substantial amount of humans. Yet Christoph found only twelve people, other then him, that showed exemplary talent, and each of them was skilled with a different art, a slightly different expression of the Mani. And so they came together, these thirteen masters of the new magics and spoke with the human leaders, outlining their plans and a way forwards.

From this, the Magus Council was born and so were the Sects. Each Sect was given a different task and symbol as well as a single seat on the Council. Over the next century the city of Vorn was created in the deserts of Lakra. However so much magic was used to raise the city, to transport the immense blocks of stone and wood, that the desert surrounding it was altered forever by it's very presence. Indeed it took all the ingenuity of the newly formed Research Sect to simply prevent the desert blowing away what had only just been created. The magic had heated the sand of Lakra and turned it into glass, tiny, razor edged shards of glass surrounding a human city. Because of this destruction wrought by the uncontrolled mass usage of magic, the desert was renamed the Vorn Wastes.

Within Vorn was raised the hill of Tal, the Magus Council setting up their first Meeting Hall upon it's lofty, eight mile high summit, immense generators devised by the Research Sect pumping warm air up to the top to allow humans to live there and grass to grow. Eventually this city within a city became one of the most beautiful of all human places, a shining land of stone and glass, cool plazas meeting with waving stands of soft grass.

However the newly instated Earth Sect had decided to take no part in the construction of Vorn, moving instead out to the still stranded humans in the jungles. The coming of the Earth Sect, already consisting of more then three dozen mages of various skill levels, as well as their Sect Lord, was like a thunder bolt. Within months the tribes of humans had come together within one city, a white limestone paradise within the baking heat of the jungles, immense step pyramids lifted up within and around the city in praise of the patron god of the Earth Sect, Terra the Rock Lord, the Dwarven God.

With the three cities built, and the Order maintain peace, ensuring some level of equality, even if that equality was slum life, then the Magus Council met again, and agreed to one more city and a stronghold being constructed. The first of these was a city to support a school, a Mage School where children could be taught from a young age how to wield the flows of magic to the best advantage. Constructed upon the Dragon Isle in the Arata Bay it was the forerunner to the sprawling campus that is today’s Mage School. The stronghold, on the other hand, was built simply to defend the Magus Council, a last bastion should all the other cities finally fall.

Indeed this is the current state of human affairs. The Magus Council rules over everything, each of the Sect Lords having a seat and the Warrior's Guild being granted one as well. This means that almost every choice made by the human government is one that will benefit the Mages rather then the common people. And this is not helped by the constant in fighting between the Sects either, age old enemies and passed down feuds causing division and strife within a race who's only real chance to continue flourishing upon Tal'Vorn is to work together. For if they don't, all it would take is a charismatic DragonLord, Beast or Anvar and any of the human cities could be wiped away, destroyed in a matter of hours. For though the twelve Races may be much weakened by the Great War, they are still strong enough to lash out like a dying beast and deal the usurper humans a fatal blow.