Whispers of the Ynfernael
Mennara is a world facing many threats, but few know of the threat both outside of the world, yet also parallel to it like a warped mirror upon the mortal world. This is the Ynfernael—a separate plane of reality made of vile, negative energy and boundless evil. Awash with unfathomable darkness, it is the home of unnatural creatures that emerge out of its all-encompassing rage and despair like hungry sharks leaping from roiling oceans.
This is a unknowable plane of existence that is drawn to the most horrid acts of mortals, taking their offerings of blood and murder gifting them with strength and rage. None can comprehend the motives of the unholy demons of the Ynfernael, only that their actions echo the abhorrent plane of their existence. Their dread effects on Mennara are many across the centuries, though, are fully evident. Even the Tears of Latariana were not immune to the corruption of the Ynfernael, and mere mortals and their works even less so. The power of the Ynfernael grows everywhere, defiling all it touches, until one day it will transform all of Mennara into an unending, bloodsoaked cauldron of evil. Scholars in Greyhaven and elsewhere hold that despite its vile nature, the Ynfernael is a primordial part of all existence. Some others simply believe it is the source of all evil in Mennara, and can trace every terrible act and betrayal back to its influence on the desperate and weak willed. They even hold that the rifts where the boundary between Mennara and the Aenlong are thin and tenuous, the Ynfernael’s baneful energies can spill through and befoul the land and taint those who reside there, no matter their intentions or will. In their view, accessing the plane of demons is extraordinarily dangerous and not worth the vast power it can bestow. For others, however, the power of the Ynfernael is everything.
The Origin of the Ynfernael
In the Mythic Ages, as the mysterious entities known as The First shaped the spheres of the universe, the Ynfernael was created. The First conjured three distinct existences from the Void, called the Planes of Power. The highest of these is the Empyrean, a plane of perfection. Elven legends talk of the four spheres: the spheres of light, air, life, and dreams. These spheres exist in such an unadulterated form in the Empyrean that the cares of hunger, age, and discomfort are utterly unknown there.
The lowest of the Planes of Power is the Ynfernael. Whether the First intended the Ynfernael, or whether it was through the influence of some other malign power, is quite unknown. What is clear is that it is a dismal place populated by monstrous entities that crave to visit torture and degradation upon mortals. The Elves speak of several spheres that they associate with the Ynfernael, and these include (but may not be limited to) Darkness, Pain, Death, and Hunger.
Between them, the Aenlong was formed, the realm to which the plane of physical existence is connected. The Aenlong is a spiritual plane, however, believed to be the same as the fabled Grey Lands spoken of in the practices of the Dream Walkers. Over time, the Aenlong became full of the refuse of creation, half-tangible, unfinished things that belong in neither the Empyrean, nor the Ynfernael, nor the mortal realm.
The Verto Magica
The First then set into motion the Verto Magica, which is also known as “the Turning.” According to Elven sources, to create the Verto Magica, the First employed a sort of spiritual mechanism involving the rise and fall of the Empyrean and the Ynfernael planes. Without the Verto Magica, everything would be fixed in place, and time would stand still. Learned beings propose that for something to occur, the energy for such an occurrence must exist, and it is speculated that all such energy is due to the Turning.
The Shadow Tear
The elven tribe known as the Malcari of Malcorne ventured forth from the boughs of the Aymhelin and roamed far from other Elves, settling at last in what would become known as the Jornall Mountains, where Emorial was believed to have pursued the demons into their home. Among the other tribes, Malcorne’s folk had a mixed reputation. They were hailed as heroes for carrying Emorial’s legacy into the present, but also sometimes regarded as aloof and often criticized for taking action without consulting with the other tribes. In their efforts to fight the Ynfernael, they had begun to study and use the demons’ very power against them, earning them the consternation of their allies.
During one patrol, Malcorne was leading a band of demon hunters deep into the caverns when their battles caused a cave-in that separated him from the others. He was thought to have perished alongside the treacherous demons, and his tribe wept for their lost leader. When he returned to the Malcari city, having somehow miraculously survived his encounter with a demon, Malcorne was a changed chieftain, given to brooding moods and regarding his fellows with suspicious glances.
In time, Malcorne gathered a small coterie of his most trusted allies to his side and explained that in his wanderings he had found Emorial, their long-lost king. Emorial had explained to Malcorne that the Tears of Latariana were a gift in disguise, powerful enough to open a door to other planes of existence—to the Aenlong—allowing the Elves to return to their rightful home. In Emorial’s time hunting down the forces of the Ynfernael, he came to realize that the First were tyrants, afraid of being usurped by their own children. The promise of Latariana was a lie: the false hope it had instilled in the Elves would keep them subservient in their prison and obsequious toward the First for the rest of eternity. In his dying breath, Emorial charged Malcorne with revealing the truth of the First to the other Elven tribes and leading them in rebellion against their former masters, lest they be prisoners forever. The Latari Elves maintain to this day that it was not Emorial whom Malcorne encountered in the cave, but a cunning demon wearing his face.
Malcorne knew the Elves would need strong allies if they were to cast down the First, and so he used his Tear to pull down the shields between the Firma Dracem and the Aenlong. There, he found the allies he had been looking for: a horde of demons who had crossed over from where the Ynfernael overlapped with the Aenlong. In that moment, the Tear of Latariana that Malcorne possessed grew dull and shadowy, losing the light it once held.
Malcorne made war on the Latari and other elf tribes, which he eventually lost. The War of the Shadow Tear was over, but their scar was permanent. Daewyl sorcerers had opened up many rifts between the mortal realm and the Ynfernael, and any demon wishing to enter Mennara could use them to cross over into the vulnerable world.
For the Elves, these rents were a curse, but from the Human perspective, perhaps they should be thought of as a mixed blessing. The direct influence of the Ynfernael is no doubt inimical to life, as demons love nothing more than to cause suffering for mortal beings. However, the indirect consequence of Ynfernael energies bleeding through was geographical change and the alteration of animal kinds that has led to life as we know it.
The Elves strove to locate the rifts and close them, sealing them with powerful wards of Empyrean magic, yet they never found them all, and despite their efforts to guard the sites of warded portals, Daewyl agents still occasionally managed to sabotage their work.
It was during this time that other races, driven into being through the mutating forces of Ynfernael power, came to make their mark on the world. The Dragonkin had always shared a semblance of culture and learning and had assisted the Elves in the past, but now they were joined by younger races, such as the Dwarves, Catfolk, Gnomes, Orcs, and the Humans.
The Uthuk Y'llan
Llovar Rutonu Lokander, a Loth K'har Nightseer, became one of the greatest servants of the Ynfernael when he initiated the First Darkness. He sprung his carefully laid scheme during the Night of Summons. Promising great rewards and using forbidden bindings, he led his tribe’s greatest warriors into the T’mara T’rusheen. They emerged physically transformed, shaped by Ynfernael influence. Their wiry muscles became supernaturally powerful, and their very bones became weapons that pushed through their skin to form great spikes and blades.
With these warriors at his side, Llovar began to form a confederation of tribes, conquering those who refused to form alliances willingly. Even the chiefs of the Scal and L'Jan tribes, which were many times larger than the Loth K’har, bent their knee to Llovar. Soon his campaign bloomed into full-scale civil war between the tribes of the plains. The Loth K’har and their allies took on a new title, the Uthuk Y’llan, which means “locust swarm” in the language of the plains people, as they conquered more and more of the Ru. The foul warlocks and blood sisters of the Uthuk weave terrible demonic magic, empowering the Ynfernael to exert unprecedented influence over the mortal plane.
The Uthuk waged a great war on the western lands of Talindon, the Aymhelin, and Dunwarr. In the end they were defeated and Llovar was slain, but his legacy remains. The magic of the Uthuk has transformed the lands of the Ru, now known as the Darklands. The Darklands are the closest one may come to the Ynfernael within the mortal realm. Demons roam freely and the chaotic winds of magic have turned the land into a hostile hellscape. Worst of all, the Uthuk remain, plotting their revenge on their mortal enemies and making blood offerings to their Ynfernael Lords.
References
- Realms of Terrinoth