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Encyclopedia Dransikia is an old project that was originally a guild activity for the Trade Association. It's an in-character, although sometimes tongue-in-cheek catalog of events, objects, and characters within the MMORPG Ashen Empires. For purposes of storyline, Dransik Classic is considered to have taken place in an earlier time than Ashen Empires, and a smallish overview of Lothgar's single-player RPG Zorak is used as the starting impetus that led to many of the events in both games' history, although much liberty is taken to reconcile it. Zorak is assumed to have taken place during the far distant past, long before the Time of Gold. The legendary warrior Arcus, weilder of the famed Darksword, defeated the Rune Warriors led by the Dark King Zorak, a victory that led to the rich days of the Time of Gold in which the entire world stood united accross barriers of race and culture as a single alliance to assure that the Runes would never again endanger the world. Between Zorak and Dransik Classic lies the time that marked the decline and end of the Time of Gold. Talazar defeated the Rune Warriors in a second massive war. Even on the eve of victory, Talazar himself fell to the power of the Runes, and began to prey on the peoples he once served and sheltered, and slowly the fabric of unity that united the races broke apart. Dransik Classic is assumed to have taken place early on during the Time of Ash. A time when evil was a way of life for many, and the Runes were carried by many and desired by many more, ignorant of their effects. Talazar is an everpresent threat through this time, and the time between Dransik and Ashen Empires. Between Dransik and Ashen Empires are the long, cruel generations of the Time of Ash, and the final - or at least most recent - Rune Wars, in which Talazar led his followers on a war that many feared would be the end of the world - and for many, it was. This time, there was no great hero forthcomming, and although the peoples of Dransik fought valiantly and won many victories, the world was forever changed. Entire empires were erased without a trace, cities burned and were forgotten, and civilizations vanished. This apocalypse thrust old enemies back together, and united as they were in the past, they won their victory, at immense cost. Ashen Empires takes place as is laid out in the game's scant official storyline, in the Time of Renewal, where the world is being rebuilt and people are finally beginning to believe that perhaps the world can again be restored to some semblance of sanity and order. Many of the old races which made up the world-spanning empire of Dransik have vanished, possibly gone forever, possibly fled to lands unkown. Those that remain stand barely united. Some still cling to old hatreds, while some forge new ones. Others seek peace for the war scarred world. What happens from there, of course, has not yet been written...
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