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Long ago there existed a witch named Melcynda.  Her talent and drive had brought her a mastery of witchcraft greater than any other in her coven’s history.  Melcynda understood the working of Witchgates, portals through space using the live-force of the world.   She understood the cantrips and incantations of her sisters.  She knew pretty much every spell and enchantment that any coven possessed. 

What Melcynda could not fathom was Nothingness.  When she was young her grandmother had explained to her that the void or abyss, where demons dwelled was made of nothingness, as were the fiends themselves.  Melcynda could not understand how something, a place or being however vile, could be nothing.  The question ate away at her until finally she succumbed and opened a WitchGate to the void to see what nothingness was.

Time had little meaning as the witch fell through an endless abyss until the Duke of Hell caught her.  This foul demon had been the source Melcynda’s obsession.  It had lured her into the Abyss for one reason, for the mortal woman to bear him a son.  When he was sure she had conceived his demon-child he threw her back into the void and warned her of the torments she would suffer if she did not bring his child into the world.

If the child within her had any chance of besting the darkness it carried then it would have to be through love.  Melcynda sought a safe place for her child to be birthed and to grow and found there was no such haven in the ShadowLands.  So she built one and named it the Peace Glade.

The Duke of Hell though was not to be cheated.  His son would be the scourge of the world.  He tricked Melcynda into leaving the Peace Glade and brought about her labor as she reached the Great School.  When the babe was born in the teeming halls of the School the Duke reached out and touched the Infant’s soul.  He opened a door there and placed a great hunger.  The baby starving for something more than food reached out and tasted the magic and life all about himself.  The babe, who would become Necronias, feed.  In an instant the infant devoured the life and essence of everyone around him including his mother.

Melcynda's spirit did not give up.  Linked to a talisman her son kept, she returned repeatedly to visit Necronias as he slept.  Each night she brought him comfort and love weakening the shadow that grew inside the child.  Again the boy’s demonic sire intervened.  He touched Necronias’ mind and filled his son with the notion of honoring his mother by making sure her talisman was safe forever.  Necronias placed the token beyond the Vortex where it would remain untouched and protected

There her spirit remained trapped unable to visit her son in his dreams. Without the kind presence of his mother the evil within Necronias raged like wild fire, and burned away all but the smallest sphere of humanity within his dark soul.  That tiny fragment of light was a love for his mother that even the Duke of Hell could not abolish.  So instead his father touched the boys dreams and filled his head with the burning certainty that the Great School was responsible for Melcynda’s death.  The Master of the Abyss night after night fanned that thought into an obsession and so gave the Necronias’ life an evil purpose, ending the Age of The Great School. 

He brought down the oldest clan of gods.  He then shackled the young Gods. 
He freed his half-brother, Thadun, from the Abyss and twisted the heart of a fairy named Thalleus until it was as black as his own.

Necronias then brought about the destruction of the Great School.   He turned the High Mages against the Low Mages and began the Wizard War that decimated both castes.  Just when the war was about to end, Necronias brought forth a legion of undead.   He had become The Necromancer.  The waves of zombies, skeletons and banshees destroyed the last of the mages.

For the next 250 years the ShadowLands lived in the terrible Age of The Necromancer.  Necronias built a huge citadel and protected it with vast magics.  His keep was never the same.  It shifted and changed.  He built the town of ShadowGlade clandestinely so that none would know he had a hand in it’s founding.   It stood not far from his citadel and was the Necromancers way of luring heroes into his grasp.  This was how the Five Heroes came to face the Necromancer.

In their first encounter the Five unwittingly played into the Half-demons hands.  They sought and found the dreaded Deathstone.  They used the stone against the Necromancer.  It stripped away the mighty enchantments that protected Necronias and killed the dark mage.

Unfortunately that was exactly what Necronias wanted.  He had prepared himself to become a lich.  All he needed was a death that would empower him and the Deathstone did just that.  He arose again as an undead lich with even greater power than he had in life.  The heroes again returned to ShadowGlade to try and stop him.  They were no match for him in power but they used their intellect and magic to learn the dark mage’s tale.  The only chink in Necronias’ armor was his obsession with his mother.  The heroes journeyed beyond the Vortex and recovered Melcynda’s talisman.  When the at last faced the undead Necronias rather than trying to fight the fiend they summoned the witch’s spirit.  Necronias then learned the truth, that he and not the Great School was responsible for his mother’s death.  Unable to bear the pain, Necronias took her ethereal hand and followed her into true death.

The Duke of Hell’s plan had finally come to an end.  The Great School was no more and humanity’s magic was a mere shadow of what it had been during that golden age.  Darkness had ruled the ShadowLands for a quarter millennia. 

Melcynda was not done.  She bartered with the Muses of Death to let her take on the sins of her son.  By taking the burden of evil from her son she hoped to give him a chance to find peace and goodness.  Necronias’ soul had been so black that one day it would crush out the tiny spark of light that had caused him to join her in death.  The muses accepted her sacrifice.  The stripped Necronias’ soul of all the evil and justly the touch of light too.  The once Necromancer became a soul in perfect neutrality, no good and no evil at all.  Melcynda suffered unimaginably.  Colossal black chains bound her from head to toe.  The bit at her spiritual flesh and broke the bones of her soul.  Heavy black spikes nailed her jaw and locked her in silence.