approx. eleven thousand years before the present day...
Ebline de Merus, Heir Usserpant of the Stepping Dark, collapses, his mind cloistered from the concious world, into an unmarked grave. The legacy and children of the most powerful vampire to walk the world until that day are slain, spread as dust upon the wind. Unknowingly, Shiyen Demaru, the Betrayer, opens a pathway, a door that leads not, as he would believe, to the return of his master Crosis Demaru.
For the first time since the fifty eight millenia long battle to reign in the wandering, tangled matter of the multiverse, The Dreamer and The Nightmare is free to roam The Real...
War ensues - the world falls into turmoil as the Element Primes collapse the Prime Overlay, wresting free their support of it to channel more and more power into combat against the march of Illusion. Entire universes begin winking out of the fabric of existance as both The Real and The Dream begin to strain and fray, the warring powers within them tearing at the firmament of all things...
Both sides of the conflict desperately rush back to their own domains, weaving strange magics far beyond the comprehension of anything within the Realm. The multiverse and the somnaverse become stable once more, the wounds in their fabric coming together at the seems. Never again will the forces governing all matters engage themselves directly in the fray.
approx. two thousand years before the present day...
For the first time in all history, the mortal representatives of two Element Primes meet in open combat. As Seprose Misenti and Ebline de Merus clash wildly miles above the surface of Gaia, a raven circles above the dark spires of the floating castle-township Roxheim.
A darkness watches over the clash of two titans, its subtle manipulations finally having brought about enmity between the Primes. A mortal man gazes through the eyes of a raven, and grins, his snow-white, bleached bone teeth gleaming.
Soon, the Degenerate Gods would fall into turmoil, their champions set into chaos...
present day...
A back alley like many others in Durem plays host to The Raven Lounge, a high-class, low membership exclusive club. a strenuous screening process keeps out any undisered elements - the roster of 'gentlemen' engraved on a wall mounted tablet in the main lounge is quite short, and for a reason, too - most of these men and, rarely, women, are members of the Ancient House Ragnarok, an order of very rich nobility devoted to the name of the Dreamer.
The solid steel doors of the club's back alley entrance, painted to verisimilitude of wood grain, open up into a small, cozey lounge room, overstuffed chairs and warm, puffy couches comfortably and liberally stationed about the place. A massive hearth fireplace stands at the far wall, a perfumed scent wafting lazily from its glowing flames. To the right, a barred and forbodingly chained door leads to stairs spiraling downward. To the left, a door opens up onto a small hall with two more doors - lavatories. A modest, but well stocked minibar stands almost unnonticed by the main doors.
Beneath the club, a small guard room leaves passers-through exposed to possible harm on either flank as they pass through three sets of barred, iron-gated archways. A small room furnished witha rough hewn wooden table, benches at its sides, serves sufficiently for more casual meetings. Beyond this, a room with two purposes - a grand, gothic cathedral-like cavern of a place to serve for official meetings, it doubles as place suitable for bringing forth a doorway, a tunnel out of The Real..
