Prologue

… and thus, unlike the Ages before it, the Age of the Chosen began with the precursor to a war rather than the end of one. The Realms had been in a state of relative peace for generations, but the coming Age would be one of the bloodiest and most chaotic in all of recorded history. Still, though, it was also an Age of great wonders, soul-stirring art, and spells and rituals so breathtaking in scope that entire branches of the Imperial Library are dedicated solely to cataloging and recreating them.

Even today, very little is known of the Chosen who marked the Age. Many of the most powerful people of the Age claimed to be Chosen, but none have ever found a way to truly verify such claims; even powerful Truth-Finding rituals and other divinations fail to reveal such information. Careful analysis of historical records has allowed us to be relatively sure that a few specific individuals, such as Khajdar the Imperishable, were Chosen, but it is thought that the number of Chosen numbered in the hundreds or even thousands. Surely not all of their number rose to the heights of fame and glory, and equally surely many of the powerful Chosen acted behind the scenes and opted to let others take the credit for their accomplishments.

Even the identity of the Chosen who triggered the Age is not known with perfect certainty; many scholars believe that the Lady Elessiandaria Life-Singer, who is said to have sung songs capable of bringing the dead to life and the undead to true death, was the catalyst. I, however, dissent, for two reasons. Firstly, records of her life stretch back much further into the Godless Age than any other individual thought to be Chosen; and secondly, although she is said to have truly a miraculous voice and talent for weaving magic into her songs, there is no evidence that she acted as the direct agent for any Powers of the Realms.

Instead, it is my theory that the true Herald of the Age of the Chosen was a man now known only as the Phoenix King, who rose to prominence in the northern Wildlands very shortly after the start of the Age. The very first mention of him is from a historian’s account of the Wildlands War between the tribes of the Wildlands and the human-dominated Kingdom of Gilhardt; here he is described first as a seeker of peace, but after an unknown event he became a “firestorm of vengeance, spreading flames all across the land and leaving only ashes in his wake”. Very little is known of what caused this shift in focus ...

-- Excerpt from “Historical Figures of Ages Past, Volume IX: Godless and Chosen” by Emmanuel Tolliver, First Scholar to the Emperor Justiar VI