Storm Cloud
A veil of psychic energy which shielded the land below from the sunlight, but let the moonlight through without hindrance. This cloud was originally an unexpected by-product of the tremendous carnage at the end of the second age and was drawn down to Lowland by Pelham in 1093. In 1104, it was brought down by the Good Party and has since settled over the necropolis that used to be the city of Lowland.
History
Hades' storm cloud is a vast, black cloud that completely blocks out the light of the sun, but lets through the light of the moon with no hindrance. Its origin on this world is shrouded in mystery, but it seems to have emerged over the reconstructed ruins of the Dark Mage's castle shortly after the great explosion.
There it remained for centuries, powered by the Dark Mage's scepter and the great Luinmîr, the gem of Corellon. In 1093, this gem was recovered by Karelia and the storm cloud lost most of its anchor (having grown weak over the centuries of isolation).
Pelham, meanwhile, had wanted to control the storm cloud for his own purposes. When its connection faded, it swept off south and connected again over Lowland. There it was kept going by Pelham's magics and he devised the means to expand it over his enemies (Backbone and Pleven).
Beginning in 1095, Pelham (in disguise) went throughout the land convincing the various leaders that it would be in their best interests to construct a series of watchtowers “to watch and to protect” the lands from the orcs and other evils. With his mind-influencing powers, he succeeded in this endeavor splendidly. Once these towers were up, Pelham planned on populating them with hosts for special crystals. These hosts could then keep the storm cloud alive over thousands of square miles. Only the dwarves in Blanan were unconvinced by Pelham's logic, saying they saw little practical use for such a tower.
The crystals Pelham were to use were fragments from a great crystal of immense magical powers. When the Dark Mage emerged and contacted Pelham, he was enthralled by the telepath's plan. When his powers were built up to near full force, he took the crystals from Pelham, recovered many of the still-missing ones, and carried Pelham's plan to its “next logical step.” Whereas Pelham would have been content to enslave his neighbors, the Dark Mage would settle at nothing less than the entire world.
When the Dark Mage took possession of the crystal in late 1097, the eighth tower had been completed, but only two of them were populated: the one over the captured city of Bearly and the one overlooking Gnome Valley. Both were considered by Pelham tests and only the Bearly tower expanded the shadow any. At this point, the shadow (initially kept just over the cities of Lowland by Pelham's own magics) had spread to encompass most of the orcish lands of Qôc Larnaî as well as the city of Bearly and the surrounding lands for about fifty miles.
In November and December of 1097, the Dark Mage populated the towers in Leafgal and Torthorne, thus enhancing the cloud's strength over the entirety of Lowland, spreading it further into Backbone, though still not over any of the major cities. In January of 1098, the tower on the King's Island was taken by force and populated. This spread the storm cloud suddenly over the cities of Backbone. However, the wizard Edric made the connection between the King's Island tower and the clouds. In June, he sent his champion Lamar to investigate. Lamar succeeded in ousting the shadow host from the tower and so the cloud pulled away from Backbone and settled back to Lowland.
The Dark Mage, desperate for a strong host near Backbone, forced Pelham to become a shadow host on June 24, 1098. This was just the needed edge to restore the cloud over Backbone, though slightly weaker than before. A month and a half later, on August 1, a host was placed in the tower in Kinander, the orc-held city east of Larinday. This, combined with the already existent host in Gnome Valley, was enough to spread a thin cloud over all of Elfland.
With the cloud spread over more areas, the orcs were able to renew their assaults on Backbone and the elvish cities. Marsvan fell in late August, mainly due to the number of fleeing citizens. Hookridge followed soon thereafter when King Scardore ordered the soldiery to concentrate on saving the capital city. On September 2, 1098, a host was placed in Hookridge and the storm cloud's presence over Backbone was established without a doubt. The capital city fell under a concentrated siege on November 22. Though Edric and his wife Tacey fled to safety, both Lamar and King Scardore were killed. Their bodies were used immediately as shadow hosts for the city of Backbone and for the tower near the spire in the hills south-east of the city.
The next April (1099) saw the fall of Larinday, mainly because the Ainagûl Elsa had been killed a year earlier and the city's defenses were not formidable enough without her. The Dark Mage had saved her body to be used as a shadow host and with her in Larinday on April 26, 1099, the cloud grew stronger over Pleven.
In May of 1099, due to the mysterious disappearance of the protective dwarves in Blanan, the gnomes of Riprap had to concede part of their territory to the goblin horde. While the main city continued to operate, a shadow host was placed in a nearby tower on May 21. Meanwhile, the nation of Resh enjoyed an unexplained safety for as the storm cloud expanded with the renewed energy from Riprap, it seemed to come up to a protective barrier. Resh breathed a sigh of relief and thanked their gods for saving them. (See elsewhere for details as to why this protection came with a terrible price!)
By July of 1099, the wood elves of Wisewood had been forced to flee into Pleven (as had the elves of Larinday). Even the combined force of the three elvish kingdoms, though, could not face up to the ever-increasing might of the orcs under the storm cloud. On July 24, the orcs broke into the city and slaughtered all the inhabitants they saw. Surprisingly enough, the elves found represented only less than one percent of the elves expected. Somehow, the elves had all left. This sent the Dark Mage's plans slightly haywire as he could not find an appropriate shadow host for several months. Nevertheless, on October 31, the Pleven tower was populated, strengthening the cloud even more.
In a move to engulf Resh, two towers were populated within a day of each other. One, over Blanan, on November 11, 1099, and the other west of Resh, near a large marsh, on November 12. Much to the surprise of the Dark Mage, though, the cloud encroached the nation only slightly more. Instead, it held its distance at a radius of about one hundred miles. After repeated failures on the part of the orc armies, he abandoned attempts to capture Resh for the time being.
Wisewood and Lar Pelar were populated on November 26, 1099, and November 29, respectively. These were followed by the tower over the ancient Glekdin the following January 14. This, though, signaled the end of the main push for expansion.
The next expansion came over the mountain pass south of Backbone and into the great desert. The mountain pass tower was populated on August 8, 1101, and the first desert tower on March 27, 1102. By September 1, 1104, five other desert towers had been populated with no resistance. The nomads of the region simply fled south and west away from the expanding cloud.
All this time towers had been put up all over the Northern Continent as well, and by January 1103 fifteen were in place and populated. Three others were never completed (just as two in the desert).
On December 4, 1104, a man named Ashby was placed in the secretly-constructed storm tower on Midore Island, causing the cloud to spread up from the main continent. That night, the wizard Griswold Gildersleeve was enslaved in the recently-completed tower on Lendore and the cloud firmly established over the islands.
In perhaps his greatest mistake, the Dark Mage, on January 4, 1105, diverted the storm cloud from the hosts in the towers to the more powerful Scepter of Might. This expanded the cloud to encompass the entire plains of the eastern continent, all of the northern continent, and all but the south-west coast of the great desert. Only Grugach island and the southern mountains and coast of the main continent were spared. Though this greatly helped the Dark Mage's plans to defeat Rota, it also left him vulnerable. The next day, as fate would have it, the Good Party (quite by accident) stumbled across the Scepter (located in the tower on Lendore) and took it away, giving it to a Deva. Many of the storm hosts, by this time, had broken free of the cloud's influence and so the cloud faltered and did not reconnect to its original hosts. In one swift motion, the entire storm cloud retreated to its origin over Lowland.
After the defeat of the Dark Mage, the cloud began to dissipate. For some reason (perhaps it cannot be fully destroyed), the cloud (in its original size: less than one mile wide) drifted over the ruined city of Lowland where it remains to this day.