We were once a peaceful, happy people who cared little for what went on outside of our borders. We lived with the land, content to tend to our olive groves and raise our families. There was strife of the usual kind of course, corruption in government and feuding with our neighbors, especially the villains in Hyphrates. Overall we had it better than the people did in most places, though. Our land was neither as decadent as Manreia nor as backwards and corrupt as our neighbors to the East. For the most part, we got along well with the world.

Once a student of the crazed inventor Herr Doktor Franken Von Nachtmachen, Aureliano De Acosta completed his apprenticeship shortly after the beginning of the Great War. As a recognized master inventor, he was a member of Manreia's tradesmen caste. It was his responsibility to see that the nation's trains ran effectively and to continue the development of Manreia's transportation system.

A Revenant may appear human at first glance, but a closer look reveals more of his Accursed nature. As one of the living dead, Revenants have a faint scent of rotting flesh around them at all times, and their eyes are a milky-white in color. Their flesh is often disfigured with mortification, and the wound that ended their former life is often the most prominent of their many scars. Due to their unsettling appearance, Revenants have a difficult time dealing with the people of Morden. Most citizens consider Revenants untrustworthy at best, and there are many who consider all living dead—Revenants included—to be horrid pawns of the Witches.

As one of the first areas settled in all of Morden, the earliest colonists had boundless opportunities to select an idyllic locale. These eager explorers chose to take advantage of the gulf sheltered by the southern extension of the Darkfall Peaks, and the bounty of the Iteru River. Finding fertile grasslands, a warm climate, and a navigable waterway, Ur-Xandria became a thriving city in only a few years. In short order, its culture expanded up the river, as the city grew and the population expanded beyond the delta. Agricultural and mineral resources both proved readily available, and only time and the size of the population limited rapid growth and development.

The Djinn's current status remains one of the greatest mysteries of Morden. When King Auberon's blade pierced her flesh, she vanished, taking much of her army, the forces of the Alliance, and even the Summerlands with her in a cataclysmic magical explosion. No human scholars know her ultimate fate, and even the Witches seemed unnerved by this dramatic turn of events. Though the Witch armies had essentially won the war, many of them left Morden with their armies, crossing the Darkfall Peaks to their homes that lay beyond.

The realm of Cairn Kainen once bore a different name. It was originally known as Caer Kainen and is still called that by many of its remaining citizens. At the time of its founding, Caer Kainen was home to many tribes of men that arrived in Morden (like many others) through the mysterious “lightning bridge,” about which very little is known. These tribes found a lush valley between high, arching peaks. The broad realm was composed of sweeping moors, misty boglands, and long stretches of wild heath perfect for grazing. The tribes looked upon the place that would be Caer Kainen and knew that this land was theirs to call home.

They came through the Outlands, boiling over the Darkwall Peaks in their multitude. Huge throngs of undead things and living creatures twisted beyond recognition by dark magics. Rank upon rank of hired soldiers from across the great sea bolstered their numbers. In the van were the Accursed–shambling Mongrels, plodding Golems, loping, gibbering Vargr, lithesome Damphyre, along with their fellows. At their head strode the great usurpers, the Witches of the Grand Coven. Cunning Baba Yaga, mighty Sanguinara, the twisted Chimera, and their sisters led their varied armies over the Darkwall Peaks and into the unsuspecting lands of Morden quick as lightning, taking the unprepared mortals completely unawares and easily sweeping aside the initial, hastily assembled resistance. The Witch armies spread out and the heroes of the Alliance gathered their armies to oppose them. The entrenched forces settled in for a savage war of attrition that would grind on for decades and only really end with the Great Betrayal, when the Grand Coven was broken and the Witch armies scattered to the winds.

The horrors of the Mummy Witchbreed originate with a foolish mistake made at the time of the initial Grand Coven invasion. As the Outlands began to fall before the Witches' armies, the other nations were scarcely aware of the dangers. For them, their daily routines were untouched by the political instabilities in far off lands. Consequently, the inhabitants of Hyphrates continued to scheme against one another, in hopes of gaining ever greater control over the fertile land. It was part of this scheming that led to the creation of these Accursed—and proved an early turning point in the war.

The northern realm of Valkenholm has long been seen as one of the most pre-eminent regions of Morden. Its vast, thick forests provide many benefits—amongst them rich lumber, furs, and food. Valkenholm sits astride the mighty Scythe River, itself a prime source of fish and minerals. To the southeast, the realm’s forests give way to a deep and largely unexplored series of bogs and swamps known as the Sunken Lands.

In the land of Hebron, legends tell of a powerful being made of clay that protects the people in their hour of need. Details vary by the telling, but most agree that the creature was formed from dust and clay by a powerful priest and given life through magic words carved on its body or by a magic formula written on parchment and placed in the creature's mouth. In some of these stories, the creature is little more than a mindless automaton; a powerful construct that possesses personal initiative and follows orders to the letter. In other stories, the creature is deadly and cunning; a monster requiring constant supervision and a danger to both its creator's enemies and the creator himself. These Golems, as they were called, existed in one form or another throughout Hebron's antiquity, being at once metaphor for man's hubris and a representation of man's power and his wish to protect hearth and home. When the Crone and her armies boiled out of the Mountains and entered Hebron, at their head strode massive, hand-built horrors. Automata of bone and clay, of iron and straw and pallid flesh, these horrific creatures cut a swath through Hebron's defenders. Those few who survived called the monsters Golems and fled before them, their ancient stories come to life at long last.