The dawn of time was one of peace and construction. Races were born from the Gods and have been diversified into different ethnicities and cultures. These beings would soon come together forming settlements and discovering the lay of the land. Some would create strong alliances and the others would battle it out for supremacy over contested lands. The Gods would not interfere, for their work was done.

Years passed—mostly peaceful, the settlements started growing rapidly for the ever-nurturing land was vast and rich, allowing the people to grow rather quickly. Kingdoms emerged from every direction in the continent with a sprawl of small kingdoms in the north there were continuously waging wars against each other to determine the ruler of the freezing northern lands. These people were ferocious and were as strong and just as big as adult bears, even just the thought of them strikes fear into people’s hearts. They were the Goliaths and were the inhabitants of the cold harsh north.

Further down south ruled a major power, a land of peace and stability founded by the Empire of Galador. There was a diversity of races unified under one banner. Minor kingdoms altogether swore fealty to the empire becoming a superpower amongst the world. Though they had no need for expansion for this empire was peaceful, they had to reach out to other lands to further promote their beliefs and culture to fully achieve peace and stability thus they conquered the whole eastern side and the center of the Pangea.

On the western side of the continent were large mountains and hills and were filled with nature’s rare resources. Within them a settlement of Dwarves sought refuge and thus their Kingdom was born. The Kingdom of Dvaren occupied caverns that ran deep into the crust of the world and they built immense halls under mountains where they built their cities. They were unrivalled in smithing, crafting, metalworking, and masonry. They soon became one of the richest and most advanced Kingdoms of the land.

On the southern area of this Pangea across minor mountainous regions, deserts, marshlands and flood plains, ruled the city states of different races. They are protected by the Empire of Galador thus none would dare seek war against them or each other, for that meant declaring war against the Empire itself.

In time, the Dwarven Kingdom of Dvaren would venture into the other lands trading their knowledge with their neighbors, allowing the rise of the technological era. Buildings that soared to the skies were constructed, gadgets and machines would help with their quality of life and were the pillar workers for all the hard-intensive labor. As technology evolves even flight has been deemed possible with the creation of airships.

But fortune and misfortune often come hand in hand,

Everything up until that point would change drastically…

It’s been ten years since the inexplicable happened, and everyone knows the story that has shaped the world today:

The North was the first to fall and feel the ice cold. They stopped sending any response of any sort; no raiding parties from the savage northern clans, no caravans, no refugees, no one at all. At first everyone thought it was just a tough winter—the icy roads making it impossible to travel. But rumors circled around fast.

The Mage Council, the wisest and most knowledgeable people of the continent, were starting to mobilize. This was no minor college of wizards-in-training; the Mage Council encapsulated only the best and the brightest that the continent had to offer, positions opening rarely as the enigmatic members had long since trivialized expanding their own lives. Only those of immense power could hope for even passing consideration into their ranks, whereby controlling time and granting ones every wish were mere trifles of their power. And yet, the coming cold had driven their entire Council to action.

Southern rumors spread like wildfire as this Council disappeared into the North. Three of their ancient airships could be seen being used once again, a rare sight in the skies, as they flew off into the distance. They were last seen traveling north, the continent hoping they could resolve the coming cold. They were never properly seen again.

With the Mage Council gone for over three years, the encroaching ice began pressing into the centers of the continent. Refugees from the northernmost kingdoms in that region told stories of the ice freezing everything in its path; no efforts seemed to slow its destruction, the rime laying waste to crop and snuffing out even infernos in its path. It was advancing south, and it was not slowing.

It was under these conditions that The Freeze seemed to manifest a new property—or, perhaps, merely a hitherto unknown one: raising the dead. Bodies left buried clawed their way through frozen ground once the cold had covered their corpses; mausoleums became armies, as those long departed took arms against their ancestors and cut swaths through hardly prepared town. A body fallen was a soldier added to their ranks, and only cremation or otherwise total mutilation of a body seemed sufficient to ensure the dead received their rest.

Many people fled The Freeze, as it came to be known, now four years from when the Mage Council first disappeared. The massive rush away from the north's cold and dead strained those to the south, and panic ensued. The southern Kingdoms fought hard to repel the large mass of northern refugees—they lacked the provisions necessary for their own people, let alone enough to handle double the population. Despite this, their fight was ultimately in vain. Numbers will overwhelm even the strongest militaries, and many soldiers were just as worried as the people they were meant to be fighting off. The mass riots were unquellable. The citizens demanded answers. There were none.

One year into the riots, hope prevailed as the three airships came back. The continent was not met with the full strength of the Mage Council, however. Instead, emissaries from the Druids of the Mage Council explained their plan. The Druids had been sent to create three safe-havens from the coming freeze. Soon they would slowly start shipping off the citizens of the continent to these havens, hoping that the islands would not be affected by this unnatural ice. There were three such prepared islands, each intending specific inhabitants to their midst:
The First Island was the farthest away from the mainland, and thus was deemed the safest. It was reserved to families, children, and folk who could not fight.
The Second Island was reserved to preserve the knowledge of the kingdoms and the old world; craftsmen, wizards, engineers, alchemists, historians—all who knew something to preserve civilization would remain here.
The Third Island, closest to the continent, was left for the strongest among the people. Adventurers – or those who simply couldn't make the other two islands – were to end up here.

This new plan brought hope, but many worried about this solution. Was running the answer? What if they were wrong? What if the ice never stopped? No one had answers. More importantly, no one had a better solution.

Time passed. Many people slowly made their journey to the safehavens in the limited space of those ancient airships, ultimately spanning another four years of back and forth travel. The ships were pressed to their top speeds during nearly all of this time, damaging the sensitive combination of technology and magic that made them possible. Even so, The Freeze forced the last group – a shipment reserved for those destined for the Third Island – to the edges of the continent as time ran out. They stayed on the continent as long as possible to give time for everyone else to retreat, and some paid for that in hearts brought still and skin turned to frost.

Now, ten years on from when The Freeze first arrived, the continent has been left to its frozen grasp. With the last shipment arriving to the Third Island, The Freeze could already be seen on the horizon. The harsh winter had already arrived.