Seekers

History:

The Founding

It was during a time of turbulent change and ceaseless war that the Seeker organization was first created. It was during the final years of the Age of Humanity, with humankind's achievements falling apart around them, magical secrets that they had unearthed from abandoned Dragina cities once again buried in the rubble of war, and the Mage-Kings of the Noble houses dragging the world into anarchy as they betrayed one another.

It was perhaps the most honored human and most powerful mage of the age that discovered the Heart of Fate. Mage-King Dobar, of house Nyruvial, who had crusaded against the winglies and driven them into seclusion on their island home of Sohar, was one of the few planeswalkers ever to walk Fou Lu. It was his desire for his noble house to rise to dominance above all others that led him to seek powerful artifacts upon other worlds. What he discovered, out across the planes, during his travels through the various worlds, was described by the man himself as "A hole punched through the planes, something that connected them all, something I could sense every time I chose to Travel to another world." What the Mage-King found, on an abandoned world of dust and ruins, looked to the eye to be an orb of gray flame, which Dobar named the Heart of Fate. Using its powers, Dobar renamed himself Rotlord, and erected a humongous tower, from which he sent his armies across the world. Indeed, Dobar would have been the victor in the War of the Houses, and the world would look very different today, if Althena had not called upon the champions of the age to strike him down.

Dobar was stripped of his power, reduced to a mewling, pathetic shell of his former self, while the Heart of Fate was offered up unto Althena as a sacrifice. She cast it across the planes once more, onto yet another dying world.

It was in response to this that the Seekers were founded. Composed mostly of avid supporters of Dobar, they claimed their goal was to retrieve the Heart of Fate and finally claim victory for their noble house and humanity. Dobar, their lord, did not survive long enough to ever see hope of finding it again. He did, however, do one thing before he died.

He had a son.

The Drought

For the next thousand years, the Seeker cult weakened, its membership dwindled. The world was remade in the war between the noble houses-many laid claims to nobility that held no truth at all, and many of the true noble houses were destroyed and forgotten. Humanity found themselves pushed off to the side, no longer the masters of the world, as the gods, elves, dwarves, and finally Rein stepped forth to lay claim to Fou Lu. Being the most populous race, however, meant that they did most of the fighting, and a burning resentment, a feeling that this is not how it should be, built up for generation upon generation. Many humans accepted their new place in the world, but a significant portion of them remembered the days when humanity ruled the world, particularly those among the Dzanatorian isles.

The Resurgence

Meanwhile, the house Nyruvial survived, its former glories forgotten by all but the Nyruvials themselves. It was Kyrak Nyruvial's infernal curiousity that led him to, as a young man, explore some of the ruins of the house Nyruvial's ancient holdings. It was there that he found the tired and weary remnants of the Seeker cult. It was there that he had his soldiers slaughter them, and it was there that he found the book that damned the world to slaughter and war in less than a century.

It was not a particularly evil book. It had no title and was bound in black leather, the hide of some animal that no one could specifically identify. Within it spoke of the history of the Seekers, and of house Nyruvial, and of the ancient Mage-King Dobar and his armies that had very nearly marched across the entire world before he was slain.

It was this that led Kyrak to, once he arrived back in his manor, to forge close alliances with several other noble houses, through marriage or through force, and unite them under the banner of the Seekers, and most of all, of human supremacy. For of all the humans that remembered the Age of Humanity, and who hated the other races for their arrival on the stage of the world, none remembered more clearly, nor hated more fiercely, than the humans of house Nyruvial.

The Tyrant

It was Kyrak's son, however, who led the Seekers to the slaughter, war, and cruelty that they are most infamous for.

Asmodean Nyruvial was born mad, with a penchant for cruelty towards both humans and animals, a reputation of mind sickness that he earned when he was very young. Schooled by the Cosmologists, witness to his own father's violent death at age eleven (Kyrak was slain by dwarves and his head sent to his manor, and Asmodean happened to find it), Asmodean was undeniably brilliant, and undeniably insane.

Unfortunately, the council of the nobles that led the Seeker organization at this point felt that his brilliance far surpassed the threat posed by his insanity. They let him into Seeker governance at a very young age, and always conceded to his demands-first to form a militia, then to make that militia larger, than to use that militia to purge the city in which the Seeker base was located (Nurimber) of all non-humans, then to build a warfleet, then to build an airfleet, then to launch attacks against other noble houses. And when the council decided to dig in its heels and try to rein in Asmodean, they found that they could not, for he controlled the Seeker militia. And when they demanded he stop, he had them all killed.

Which left Asmodean Nyruvial, who crowned himself Supreme Seeker, solely in charge of the resources of five of the most powerful noble houses in the world, with all the soldiers stationed at home and across the world at his command.

The Empire

Asmodean was frightening, in both his insanity and his brilliance. He unlocked magics long thought dead, and his creations enabled him to travel the planes and regain the Heart of Fate. It was he who created the being known to a few now as the Gray Man, and Asmodean used this creature as a key between Fou Lu and the world the Heart of Fate resided on.

With the Heart of Fate in his hands, Asmodean cast the Gray Man aside, and though he had already begun his war upon the world, he renewed it with frightening violence and cruelty. Tergata hailed his banner. Cree'Ar Vong crumbled before his forces. Duskwood was burned to ash. Thousands upon thousands of non-humans were executed mercilessly. Asmodean even did what his ancestors could not and destroyed the winglie homeland of Sohar, sealing their doom. And always would he find a new war and new soldiers to fight it. Such was the strength of the Heart of Fate.

At their height, the Seekers occupied most of Deisach, nearly half of the Dzanatorian isles, had holdings in Ercus and were waging a new war in Andriath.

The Fall

There are many reasons why the Seeker Empire lasted less than a decade, expanding quicker than any known and collapsing as it did. Some say Asmodean's wars simply bled the land of all able to fight. Some say he lost control over the Heart of Fate as the Gray Man stepped forth to lay claim to it. Some say Rythe and the Red Empire had simply been letting him have his fun before crushing him like a bug.

What is known is that the Seekers did fall in the end, under the pressure of bothe the Red Empire and an Elven retaliation force. But all land that they gave up was burned to cinders and all the cities left with not one stone atop another before they left.

In 259 AR Asmodean Nyruvial was killed by the Gray Man as his capital city of Nurimber was under siege. The short-lived Seeker Empire was forever shattered.

The Endurance

The Seeker Empire is gone, but the Seekers themselves are not. Asmodean's forces did not surrender, they melted into the civilian population if they did not kill themselves during the war. And Asmodean was able to forge an Empire because many humans did support his views. Hate such as theirs is not easily forgotten, nor is the glory they once knew. There are many across the world, but especially within the Dwarven kingdom of northern deisach, who secretly vow to destroy all non-humans and purge the land of all they see as animals. House Nyruvial was utterly destroyed in the collapse of the Empire, and all Seeker officers captured and executed, but they endure. They have not the leaders, or the power, that they had in years past, but the hatred and the Eye is still there. And it will probably be there forever.