“The Scourge ended, but not every shadow that lingers is a Horror.”— T'lanthyn the Talespinner
Once the land was green and quiet, and magic ran through it like groundwater — close enough to touch, gentle enough to trust. People built, and grew, and forgot to be afraid of the sky.
Then the Horrors came through from the astral deep, and the world learned better. They did not conquer so much as unmake: forests turned to ash, cities to rubble, and everything that had been safe went underground into the sealed kaers, where it stayed for four hundred years.
The Horrors never finished what they came to do. As the world's magic ebbed, their hold loosened, and one by one the kaers opened onto a world their people no longer recognized. Some found ruin. Some found each other, and started again.
Most of the Horrors have gone back to wherever they came from. Not all. And the land they leave behind is still full of things worse than what came before — bandits, tyrants, old grudges, and worse magic than the kind that built the kaers. This is the Age of Legend: the light is returning, but the dark between its pockets is real, and it is patient.