Keybearers, Heartless and the Keyblade
Where the Warriors bear weapons of bone to steel to Mithryil and beyond, and Mages call upon great reserves of force to cast their spells, the 'Keybearers' toe the line between the two. They are people who have created a singular way of focusing the powers of the mage into a stable weapon, and using the techniques of the warrior, weild it in battle.
These people are called 'Keybearer's in honour of the first recorded instance of this class. Who this person was, and why they chose a key as their weapon form has been lost to the sands of time. There is no formalized training for Keybearers, and why some people are, or are not is a complete enigma. However, keychains are still the focus of the Keyblade, but they can be anything. A Supreme Gem could be the focus for an Ultima Key, while a magnifing glass is the focus for All Seeing Eye. As the Mods, we are not required to tell the character what is or is not a viable Keychain.
The Keyblade has no unusual characteristics beyond its normal combat abilities. There is nothing to do with the Heart of the World. The Keyblade is a weapon formed by force of will. There is no special unlocking capability for the Keyblade either.
Those Keybearers who wield magic are mages who have learned to forge thier own Keyblade, but at the cost of most of thier magics. Those lost magics are what drive the Keyblade.
The Heartless are a corruption. Thier creator was a mad mage who sought to use the void to create an undestructable army at his disposal. His process failed him, consuming his heart to create the first heartless. Some people nearby attracted by the unusual events were surprised at the presense of the creature later to be called the Shadow. Their weapons proved to be less than effective against this foe, and some fell to this creature. The rest regrouped, and after getting reinforecments, they attacked again, only to find more Heartless. This larger group exterminated the Heartless, discovering thier weakness to magic in the process. However, they did not realize that some Heartless had escaped. As news of this new monster spread, as well as thier evolution into more powerful forms, the rulers of the nations they appeared in commisioned a study to try and find a way to counteract this threat. Even low level mages were effective against them, but they could not keep the battle up forever. They also discovered the ability of the Heartless to generate other Heartless from those they fell. It was a horrifying revelation.
It was also around these events that a solitary Keybearer was working for a city guard when Heartless attacked. Called to battle, the guard fought a valiant but vain battle against the Heartless. Rushing back from a patrol, the Keybearer entered the fray, where she found herself beset by the monsters. Loosing her blade, she threw herself into the battle. But something strange began to happen. The Heartless began to abandon their other battles against the city guard, and began to focus their attacks upon the Keybearer. But her weapon proved efective against the Heartless. Every blow destoyed one of the monsters, where a greater fighter would take three. She stood her ground, a dervish, focusing solely upon her survival, she did not notice when the last of the Heartless was destroyed, and she stood alone in the middle of an empty square.
Intruiged, those assigned the Heartless problem examined the Keybearer, but found nothing out of the ordinary. But they did form a theory as to her sucess. It was a known fact that the Keyblade was formed of the persons inner magic, their spirit, and that magic was effective against this threat. They deduced that the stable form of the Keyblade allowed for the effectiveness of Magic to be combined with the long term endurence of a warrior. A prefect tool to use in the war.
Armed with this knowledge, an active hunt of the Heartless began. They were driven away from civilized areas and for a moment, the star of the Keybearer rose. They were hailed as heroes, saviors against the darkness.
But some questioned. They wondered if there was more to connect the two than met the eye. They questioned the close proximity in both time and space of the first Heartless and the first Keybearer. And they asked if the Keybearer created the Heartless to make them accepted in the eyes of the world. Paranoia soon followed as those with power heard the whisperings, and they to feared. The Keybearers were shunned, and soon the drive to exterminate the Heartless slowed, and stopped entirely.
Because they were not destroyed in the fullest, the Heartless slowly grew in power and stature. They occasionally re-emerge to assault a small villiage, or try to pick off adventurers. But this is no more so than any other species of monster. Today they are considered a threat to small groups, but nothing a prepared party can't handle.
And only time will tell what is to come...
