Rough earth grips me, scraping my scales. Jagged teeth of stone transfix my wings, wings that once fanned flame across eternity. They have entombed me, dull gray rock for miles before my eyes. Their crude magic drains my heat, dragging it far above, to ooze from the mountain whose weight has crushed me through millennia.

These Telarans. They have forced sleep and stillness on me. How I hate them.

In long-gone eons I blazed from star to star, far ahead of my sisters and brothers, the void screaming, scorching in my wake. I would tear the cores from living worlds and gulp them down like beating hearts.

And as the molten juice ran down my chin, warrior gods would come give me battle for the ashes of their dying creations. We would clash in the sky and the spaces between the planes. I slew them with great relish, and my triumphal roar blasted their brittle remains across the heavens.

The elemental planes have poured into our own reality. The skies darken and untold horrors pour through rifts reaping destruction wherever they go. We are on the defensive and a common cry from most Ascended is that they want to take the fight to the planes themselves. What a lot of us tend to forget however is that we already have taken our first tentative steps into these unknown realms. Brittle bones have cracked beneath our feet, stale air has filled our lungs, the Ascended have taken the battle to the Plane of Death and against all odds returned with a victory. So what exactly happened in the River of Souls and what does our conquest there mean in the long term?

When Alsbeth returned to Telara she was desperate. She had failed her master, Regulos and needed to do something big in order to stay his wrath. She had heard a legend of a man who had journeyed to the Soulstream in order to re-unite with his deceased lover. The man’s quest took him through the Plane of Death to it’s very edge, shared with the Plane of Life. Here he found the River of Souls and following in his footsteps so did Alsbeth. Just as the man was able to exploit this location to pluck his love back to the land of the living, Alsbeth was able to return an army.

One of the things I love most about Telara is the lore hidden all over the world. It is well known that books can be collected through quests, artifacts and even simply by exploring, but few people take the time to sit back and read the stories contained within. One of my favourite stories that I have stumbled upon recently is actually one of the first tomes I collected, way back at Terminus, as a newly formed ascended. Mistaking it for a quest item I quickly rushed to the book, it’s ancient leather cover seeming to glow upon my approach. However once I realised it was not essential to saving the world I added it to my collection, vowing that I would read it… one day. Months later, I finally learned the story of Phynnious Rothmann: Pyromancer.

I find that people either love Atrophinius for his drunken ways or hate him and wish he would stop talking so they get on with the killing.  The satyr has had a rough journey getting to where he is today, shifting allegiances and even a bad case of death have gotten between him and his precious mead, but now he stands before us, cup of Fae Wassail in hand, a champion of his people. So how did a drunk rise to such prominence within the Fae community and where could this path possibly be leading him?

No matter who you are on Telara you will have felt the impact of Regulos the Destroyer. The dragon of death does not tempt you with wealth, threaten you with endless chaos or seek to subvert your very will. His goal is much more simple and easy to understand although by no means any less terrifying. Regulos wants nothing more than the end of all things.

Regulos is the former leader of the Bloodstorm, the combined forces of the elemental planes that sought to control Telara 1500 years ago. However his brothers and sisters turned on him when their own ambitions for Telara conflicted with his vision of absolute destruction, after all why should Telara and its abundant supply of sourcestone be destroyed when it could simply be controlled? This betrayal caused the schism in the undefeatable alliance and allowed the heroes of old to gain the advantage and imprison the Bloodstorm one by one, eventually leaving Regulos alone. He was cornered and his body destroyed, his very essence banished back to the plane of death in the hopes of ridding Telara of his threat once and for all.

Greenscale and Akylios are dead. The Ascended have broken into their prisons and shattered them, their very essence now strewn across reality as elemental motes. Their treasures have been plundered, their followers weakened and Telara has become just a little bit safer. But what does this all mean in the long run for Telara and its inhabitants? Today we will speculate on what exactly is to become of the planes of life and water now that their masters have departed.

Are you tired of the daily grind? Are you seeking adventure and new experiences? Maybe it’s time you took a trip to exotic Ember Isle! The ancient home of the Kelari has much to offer everyone, from single adventurers to gigantic gatherings we have it all! But don’t take our word for it, take a look for yourself at a few of the famous landmarks you could explore.

The leader of the Defiants, Orphiel Farwind is one of the most enigmatic public figures in current Telaran Lore. For someone in such a prominent position he is rarely seen or heard from, avoiding leadership in favour of sitting in his observatory in Meridian watching the movement of the planes. In fact during the Defiant starting zone, twenty years in the future he is not even present at all having disappeared mysteriously many years ago. So who is this man, where did he come from and what does the future possibly hold for him?

With the release of “Ashes of History” we have been introduced to Telara’s newest threat, the Wanton Maw, an alliance formed by the union of the Golden Maw and the Wanton. Today we will have a look at the main players behind this alliance and speculate about their possible goals and motivations.

For those new to the lore, the Golden Maw is the cult associated with the dragon Laethys. It is a cult based on greed, its members lust for wealth and power at any cost. This includes making regular sacrifices to their fickle, golden goddess in an attempt to win her favor. They are a highly structured organisation of the wealthy and influential.

Extra Dimensions

Material existence in the Telaran universe is woven and shaped by the six Planes of reality. These planes are represented by dimensions, wherein each dimension can be thought of as a space filled with the fundamental forces of the elements; air, death, earth, fire, life, and water. In these spaces, the elements exist in a pure form, unhindered by the influence of extra-dimensional corruption. Dimensional planes can be thought of as violent, chaotic universes existing independent of, but parallel to, one another. Rifts originate from tears within the fabric of these dimensions. Tears are formed when the elemental power of a given dimension becomes too great to be contained, causing that dimension to spill over into the material realm.