The Sundering marks the origin of Shadow Fen and the eternal war that binds its guardians. It began in a mythic age when five legendary warrior-mages confronted a force of absolute evil known only as the Dark King. To defeat this abomination, the guardians sacrificed their immortality in a powerful binding ritual, forging five enchanted bone sigils, each sealing a distinct aspect of the Dark King’s essence: hunger, wrath, voice, dreams, and sight.
The ritual took place in the haunted fenlands of ancient Britannia. As the Dark King’s spirit was torn from his body and embedded into the land, the unleashed magic shattered the veil between worlds. The result was Shadow Fen: a cursed mirror-realm born of the ritual’s backlash, a world of eternal twilight and festering nightmare.
Yet the victory came at a terrible cost. The guardians themselves were drawn into this newly created realm, becoming its eternal sentinels. Each was bound to their respective sigil and tasked with maintaining the prison from within. So long as all five sigils endured, the Dark King remained bound. But if even one should break, his fragmented soul could seep back into reality.
Over centuries—an epoch known as the Long Vigil—the guardians defended Shadow Fen from monstrous horrors, necromantic cults, and dream-born abominations summoned by the Dark King’s influence. One by one, three of the original five fell in battle. Their sigils went dormant, awaiting new bearers capable of taking on the burden.
Two such champions would eventually emerge: Kappa, a dream-haunted alchemist from a distant realm, who claimed the Sigil of the Drowned Star, and Thorin Stonebeard, a mortal ranger who uncovered the Sigil of the Withered Tongue buried in ancient ruins. Alongside the surviving founders, Hadron and the Technomancer, the guardians’ ranks were partially restored.
But as the sigils weakened, the Dark King’s servants launched a final assault. One year before the cataclysm, the Technomancer detected a breach and stepped into the mortal world in what became known as the Technomancer’s Leap. When the enemy struck with overwhelming force in the Battle of Shadow Fen, a rift opened between dimensions. Hadron, Kappa, Thorin, and the dormant fifth sigil—the Maw—were pulled into the mortal world, severed from the Fen they once protected.
They emerged in modern-day Britannia, reuniting with the Technomancer. Realising that the Dark King’s prison still required reinforcement, the guardians turned to a new form of arcane ritual: music. Forming a band named Shadow Fen, they channelled the power of mass human attention through heavy metal performances, each show a disguised warding spell.
The final sigil, the Maw of Hunger, remained unclaimed—until a mortal drummer, later known as The Forgemaster, responded to the sigil’s call and completed the circle of five. With all guardians restored, the sigils active, and music as their new weapon, the guardians continue the ancient vigil in the modern world—ensuring the Dark King remains bound in endless slumber.
