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Wars broke out immediately as the magical races fought for dominance. So much destruction was wrought that humans found themselves at the edge of extinction. When all seemed lost, it was King Doric, the leader of the united human tribes himself, who made the long trek to Arah, the city of the gods, on the Orrian peninsula. He gained an audience with the creators and begged them to help, to stop the wars and bring peace to the land once again.
The forging of the world was complete. As their final act, the gods gathered back their gift of magic from all the races and trapped it inside a tall stone. They smashed the stone into five parts—four equal but opposing stones of magic, and one keystone. Without the keystone, the other four couldn’t be reassembled.
Each of the first four stones was the embodiment of a specific school of magic: preservation, destruction, aggression, and denial. Magic would still exist in the world, but the devastating power of all four types together would never again be at the command of one single creature. Those who accepted the gift would have to cooperate if they intended to use it to its fullest.
The gods told King Doric that since he had asked for peace, he and his descendants must carry the burden of protecting the stones. As an additional precaution, they used a drop of King Doric’s blood to seal each of the stones.
Then the stones were dropped, one by one, into the volcano off the southern shore of the Kingdom of Kryta, and the gods left this world forever, confident that they had balanced out their gift and circumvented greed.
Things were good for a time. No one race gained dominance over any other, and the world was once again at peace.
Over the next hundred years, the human kingdoms prospered. Powerful groups grew up within each nation. These were known as guilds. It was these groups, these guilds, that held the real power in Tyria. Though there were kings and organizations that made the laws and regulated the land, it was the guilds that enforced these laws—or didn’t—as they saw fit. As these guilds grew, their influence began to overlap.
As is ever the case with peace, it once again came to an end when the volcano erupted, spitting out the five stones and scattering them across Tyria. The magic they embodied seeped out into the lands around them. Though the Bloodstones, as they are called, have never been reunited, the power that they possess was enough to re-ignite the desire in the hearts of men.