It is said that this world was created by the evil god Utareos, for whom it was named after, to be a place of fire and darkness, home of all demon kind and the other various races that cling to the shadows. There were no plants, no sunlight, only jagged stones and mountains, the only light coming from the infernal fires. But one day the god of light, Brigar, decided that the world was too dark, and that there should be more to it so that it would become balanced. And so he crafted the sun, and life began to grow upon Utareos, and other races began to emerge. The elves from the trees, the dwarves from the stone. This displeased the evil god, and so he attacked Brigar, and just as the two gods clashed, so did their creations. This world, made of both light and dark, meant to be a place of balance, has become a world of constant struggle.

Thousands of years pass by and a kind of balance has been found. The demons and other dark creatures have their freedom in the shadows of the Underdark, a series of caverns and tunnels and caves that run below the surface of Utareos where they can build their cities and basically do as they please. On the surface all the other races have found their place as well. The elves tend to inhabit the forests, the dwarves have taken to the mountains, and all the many other races to come into existence have found a place as well.

All except the humans. In this world humans are relatively young, having only been around for about two thousand years, only about a tenth of the time that elves have walked the world. But they are numerous, which makes up for their natural weakness. They have established cities, and more importantly armies, all across the plains of Utareos. The current leader of the humans is a man named Traben Lighthawk, their king and the leader of their vast military force. Under his leadership they have set up several forts in the Great Northern Plains and he has been looking to spread his empire to the Lesser Southern Plains, where there is already a decent human population. The other races have mostly left the humans alone, thinking of them as nothing more than children really, letting them play so long as they don't go beyond the boundaries set by the other races. For instance, no human is allowed in the Emerald Grove, and very few are allowed to see the interior of the Silver Peak range.

Our story begins in the small farming village of Marhorn Glen, a place populated mostly by humans, although a few members of other races have taken up residency here as well. The people of this village spend most of their time growing crops and raising livestock, some of which they keep for themselves, but most of which is either sent down to Half Horn Plateau or through Giant's Pass and up to Crossroads. The people who live here could be rich if they wanted to, not as rich as those who call Crossroads home, but rich enough, but they don't really care about money. Family, friends, and farms are most important to them.

This may seem like an odd place to start things off, and in all honesty is would be on any other day, but as it turns out a stranger has come into Marhorn Glen, baring an odd artifact...

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This story is sort of like a Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) campaign. The story will revolve around the mysterious artifact in this particular campaign, and as things progress a conflict shall arise between the humans and the demons, the outcome of which will lead to either the salvation or ruination of the world.

The places mentioned in the introduction, as well as the rest of the locations on the map above, will be talked about in more detail in the OOC. You can play as pretty much any race or class, making things up or using already established ideas. You can make up gods and heroes. As mentioned above the plot revolves around the artifact, but that doesn't mean you have to focus on that the entire time. Just have fun with it.

Character Sheet-
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Name: (your character's full name)
Title: (any sort of alternate name they might go by)
Race: (whatever race they are)
Class: (warrior, wizard, rogue, etc. you can make one up)
Physical Appearance: (describe their bodies, things like hair and eye color, scars, and so on)
Clothing: (what do they normally wear?)
Basic personality: (just in general, is your character bubbly and friendly, shy and withdrawn? just a simple explanation of how people would see them act normally)
Equipment: (weapons, armor, anything else like that)
Skills/Abilities: (can they fly, breath underwater, cast spells? any of that kind of thing goes here)
Background: (tell us a little about your character, who they are and what they're doing with their life, that sort of thing)
Other: (anything else you'd like us to know about your character)

Feel free to change up the character sheet, add whatever else you like to it, make it fancy, whatever. I just want to see at least this much in it.

RULES:
1. Be nice to others. You don't always have to post as soon as someone else has, give everyone time. And if there is a problem take it to OOC or PM, or talk to me about it, don't let it affect the RP.

2. You can cuss, there can be romance, all that good stuff, but all in moderation. There's no need for every other word out of your characters mouth to be foul language.

3. No godmoding. You can ask others if you can do something with their characters, and if they agree then go for it, but otherwise don't. And no one's character is all powerful. You can be powerful, but within reason. And keep in mind, the major baddies are meant to be stronger than the characters generally.

4. Let us know if you decide to drop out or won't be able to post for whatever reason. We can work something out and the rest of us will know whether to wait for a bit or move on and let you catch up later. If we end up waiting for one person to post for an extended period of time and there has been no reason given I will move things along without them.

That's about it. If you have any questions feel free to ask me, either in the OOC or through PMs or on chat if you can catch me on it. I'll get things moving when I have a handful of people, but if you want to join after we get started then don't worry, I can work your character in somehow. Also, I will be willing to add locations to the map if needed.