The Fourth Horseman

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The township of Korosa was a sheltered place, a village of shut-ins, with no desire to leave their community. The town itself was seated near the Eastern waters, so the importing and exporting of goods was far beyond that of satisfactory. The road South was a long one, a several mile stretch of open road before anything worthy of note. Stretches of forest blanketed the North and West, sheltering the isolated town further more. Significant most of all was Korosa’s sentinel, the legendary paladin, Ragnos. A pure servant of God in every facet, Ragnos devoted his life to the protection of that township. Because of this, no form of evil, be it man or beast, thief or murderer, ever imagined disrupting the quiet peacefulness of Korosa.

Eventually unrest set foot in Korosa; it was the nature of chaos. A hunting party in search of food for an annual Korosan feast had gone missing for several weeks. Frantic, the council deliberated, and ultimately the paladin Ragnos was sent to retrieve the presumed deceased hunters. Loyal to any cause, Ragnos agreed and set off through the gates of Korosa to the North Forest.

A single day passes. The silent morning was consumed by the wood of the North gates, moaning as they opened inward towards the once peaceful settlement. A crowd gathered. Eyes focused on the silhouette of a broken figure bracing itself on the now open gates. The figure began to shamble towards the gathering. A heavily armored figured was now distinguishable. Ragnos. A woman ran to his aid, but stopped mid-way.

Ragnos’ war hammer was no longer in his hand, but rather a large sword, alarming in appearance, it looked as if it were put together from the pieces of a demon’s bones. The broken Ragnos could barely carry the weight of his own armor and thus dragged the great sword in his wake, cutting a large gash in the soil as it trailed behind him. Limping ever further towards the mass, head hung, eyes concealed beneath his hunched posture, Ragnos advanced. The closer he came, the more the alterations became evident. His pristine, white armor was now the color of burnt coal. His cloak depicting the holy cross was split down the middle and scorched on the ends. The few areas of skin left uncovered by his armor were now covered in scars.

The curved figure, still advancing, slowly raised its head. Beneath the helmet’s lifted visor was a face torn nearly in two, leaving only one pupil-less, red eye intact, somehow staring into the soul of every onlooker simultaneously. With each footstep, the foliage beneath Ragnos decayed.

Ragnos did not go out of his way to slaughter the observers, only those in his path from the North gates to the South entrance. Never straying from that path, he left Korosa.

All this time, amongst the quietude and stillness of Korosa, a silent war was being fought, one unknown to man. However, the source of this conflict resided in that very quaint town. The Pure sought the untainted soul of that precise Paladin, while the Damned needed it for its own fiendish motives. The Ruined got to it first and with the acquisition of such a pure soul, the balance of good and evil shifted. This shift allowed sin to manifest itself physically as abominations walked among men for the first time in millennia; they took full advantage of the situation. Ragnos himself became a literal Pandora’s Box of sorts.

The purest soul possessed by the wickedest fiend, both the key and the cause of what has come to be known as the Imbalance. And thus, a new war begins.

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