V The First
by WM

“When the world was new, dark and empty, she was there.

When the first dawn came about, and the first man gave his first steps,

she was there.

She walked the land under pallid moons and blazing fires with no one to share her endless night.

Then there was light.

She was the first of all of us,

Us, Children of the Night,

The All-Mother in the Dark,

was the First, yet not the last.

She was there from the beginning,

and she will be there beyond the end.

V the First

In a land carved by blood, legend, and ancient dread, a cursed bloodline, a love both fated and forbidden, and a forgotten prophecy converge—awakening an ancient goddess and unleashing a war for dominion between creatures of night and the remnants of mankind. The fate of the world rests in the hands of the Basarab line, where every drop of blood holds the memory of death… and the promise of rebirth.

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The Plot:

The Dark Ages were, in fact, darker than we dare to remember. And the Middle Ages, not much brighter either.

War, famine, and plague swept across Europe, yet few understood their true cause. In the world of men, we believe ourselves the masters, high upon the food chain—but in the unseen world, we are little more than prey. For hidden among us dwell the Children of the Night, creatures of shadow who have long shared our world through secrecy and deceit. And all was kept in balance—until she awoke: the first of them all,

The All-Mother in the Dark.

The Realms:

Act I:
The World
of Mankind

Through the eyes of real historic figures, we glimpse the world and the turbulent events that shaped Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries.

In the year 1300, Basarab rose as warlord of Wallachia, a vassal in name to the Hungarian Crown. Yet when not one but two kings laid claim to that crown, Basarab defied them both. Outnumbered tenfold, he led his Vlach warriors into battle and shattered their armies, securing the freedom of his people and forging the birth of an independent Wallachia. From his triumph a dynasty was born—one that would carry his name across generations, producing princes, kings, and tsars who ruled over many realms. And in the early 15th century, one heir would eclipse them all in legend: Prince Vlad III, known to the world as Dracula.

By 1400, Mircea Basarab sat upon the throne of Wallachia. Wedded to his first cousin, Princess Mara, and father to the legitimate heir Michael, he also sired another son. That same year he faced the inexorable advance of the Ottoman Empire, even as fate bound him to a girl of Bohemia whose love would change the course of history. From their union was born Vlad II, later inducted into the Order of the Dragon, who would ascend as Voivode of Wallachia and in turn father Vlad III—Dracula. Yet beyond the chronicles of kings and princes, another tale was unfolding. As mortals waged their wars and clung to fleeting crowns, a different host steered the hidden course of history—creatures unseen, older than kingdoms, patient as night itself.

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Act II:

The Unseen
World

Between the rise of Basarab I and the reign of his great-grandson, Prince Mircea the Great, Europe staggered beneath calamities that reshaped the very soul of Christendom. The Great Famine of 1314 had starved nations, the Black Death that erupted in 1345 scoured entire populations, and the crowns of France and England clashed in what history would call the Hundred Years’ War. To the mortal eye, these were tragedies born of hunger, pestilence, and ambition. Yet the world of men would never know that their origins lay not in chance nor providence, but in the marrow of the Unseen World—consequences spun from the will of a few beings among the Children of the Night, and their dark progenitor, the All-Mother.

The Unseen World overlapped with the realm of man, hidden in shadow, its denizens moving among mortals unseen yet ever near. Witches whispered to the elements; warlocks struck bargains with shadows; revenants bore their eternal hunger across centuries; lycans prowled beneath the call of the moon; mages bent the forbidden arts to their design; and saints burned with a light whose martyrdom shone fiercer than steel.

But secrecy was not freedom. Even the Children of the Night were bound to laws and punishments. Above them loomed the Revenant Lords, an ancient council of predators, immortal only by the blood they consumed, and keepers of the Sacred Canons—edicts meant to preserve the fragile balance both within the underworld and between the two realms.

For centuries, the elemental witches, gathered in covens within the Four Watchtowers, served as eyes and ears of the Overlords. Yet when the All-Mother stirred from her slumber, her awakening brought the Black Death upon the continent. The Watchtowers crumbled, the covens scattered, and the underworld descended into chaos.

Still, some whisper that the balance had already been shattered long before. In an age now forgotten, the revenants had shared dominion with another apex predator—the lycan clans. They kept the vampire hosts in check, until a prophecy that spoke of the demise of the immortal revenants at the fangs of a Silver Wolf, ignited a war of extinction. The werewolves were hunted to the edge of oblivion, their howls fading into memory.

Since that time, the ancient revenants have ruled unchallenged. Yet prophecy endures. And many believe that in the days of Basarab, a boy with silver hair and golden eyes was born fated to bring about the downfall of the Revenant Lords.

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Act III:
The Clash of the Two Realms

The age descends into its darkest trial. Humans and creatures alike—long divided by fear, hatred, and blood—will find themselves summoned to the crucible of destiny. For from the shadows rises a common enemy, a force older than empires and more merciless than kings, whose coming threatens not kingdoms alone but the very order of creation. Upon its advent the world itself will tremble, balanced on the knife’s edge of oblivion. And in that final reckoning, the fate of all beings shall be forged—whether in the fires of annihilation, or in the fragile hope of unity born beneath the shadow of doom.