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Map
Key:
Mountains are the points, partially shaded.
Volcanos are signified by curly smoke above a mountain (see southwest of map).
Deciduous forests are little vertical ovals, with some trunks sticking down here and there.
Coniferous forests are the shaded triangles with trunks.
Marshes are signified by curled shading (see center of map, around small lake).
Lakes are outlined darkly and shaded, with rivers feeding into them.
Rivers are just lines on the land. You get it.
Hills are gentle curves going horizontally.
Desert is shown by wavy lines running horizontally, with some shading behind it (see southwest of map).


Territories marked:

Languages
Places: Latin
English (humans): English
Elvish: French
Elemist (nymphs): Spanish
Demoni: Italian

English is the Common Tongue, spoken among peoples of different races. Amongst themselves, the older beings often use the native tongue, and it is always used in the court and in official proceedings; however, in this time of war, many of the younger beings use the Common Tongue for everyday speech, though all know their native tongue. In battle, when the races must cooperate, it is important that the Common Tongue is used of information must be relayed to people of multiple races.

For posting purposes, we will all write in english; however, please write in the post if your character is speaking in the common or native tongue. Ex: "I think we're being follwed. Don't look, but he's off to our right, about ten feet behind," he muttered in his native tongue, not wanting to be overheard. This does not apply to humans, of course.

The Clans of Nymphs
Lux: Masters of light.
Tenebrae: Masters of darkness.
Ignis: Masters of fire.
Aqua: Masters of water.
Terram: Masters of earth.
Fulmen: Masters of electricity.
Aeris: Masters of air.

Profile Skeleton

The Puppet Master: Tentatio Pravus

Tentatio is the most evil creature to walk this earth. She was born when elves were the only creatures alive, at the height of their power. Her mother, whose name has been lost to history, did not want the child, she felt from the start was not quite...natural. The child was born on a night of no moon and no stars, a bad omen, certainly, for the people of the stars. She abandoned the girl on a small island to the northeast of her home island, that of the Sidera, her people.
On the island, Tentatio rapidly faded into darkness, and by all likelihood, she should have become the first shade, though darkness and sorrow had not touched the people of the world yet. However, rather than rejecting the darkness that crept upon her, she embraced it, and became as one with it. The darkness festered in her heart, and her eyes became dark and terrible. She named herself then: Tentatio Pravus.
As the years passed, her presence began to frighten away the animals of the island. Robbed of their company, she built herself a crude raft and sailed to her home island. Walking among elves, she quickly picked up their language and customs, being one of them by birth. She wandered the island, not speaking to anyone, simply searching for the one she knew she must find.
Though she had only seen it for a short time as a small child, Tentatio knew her mother's face, and found her in the capital. There, she murdered her own mother. No one ever knew how it happened, but evil had certainly entered the hearts of the elvish people. Tentatio was never suspected of the crime, of course, and entered into Sidera society, saying she was simply one of their people who had gone away long ago to study the stars. Though her dark eyes, swirling with shadows, gave them slight pause, the Sidera accepted her, and taught her much. Tentatio became a great student of the elements, rapidly conquering both shadow and air; as well as a master of the bow and the sword. In addition, she was a master of her mind, from her long isolation and many years spent pondering nothing and everything, and her use of her emotions in her endeavours made her more powerful still. Many were impressed by her, but she never grew attached to any of them... except one. There was a young male, by name of Cordis, another who excelled at using all parts of his mind mind, but also a master of fire. The intensity of his emotions turned her attention to him, and she convinced him to come away to the north with her, where they could study in private. They took a few of the elves from each race with them, and built a great foretress there, at the roots of the mountains, where they could be close to the heavens and breathe the clean, cool air of the night.
In their great foretress in the forest, she delved deeply into the secrets of the mind, and learned to delve into his. They were close before, but using this new power she seduced him, and they became lovers. She gave birth to a son, and named him Caries. This child became the subject of her experiments with the mind, and she made him into the first telepathic demon. When Cordis discovered what she had done, the way she had affected his mind, he attempted to flee, to tell the others what she had done; but she slew him in her halls. The rest of the elves, she made into telepathic demons alongside Caries; and they began to train them as an army.
When many years had gone by, and the demons were growing strong, Tentatio left her son there to oversee their training and traveled back to the world of elves. There, she found they had created the nymphs in her absence. These new creatures intrigued her, and she became closest to the Tenebrae, for they were born of her main element. As with her first lover, she seduced a nymph of exceptional quality, this one called Umbra, and took him to the north along with one nymph from each of the other elements. Their daughter was named Furor. On the very night of her birth, Tentatio gave the girl of knife, and placed caged hawk before her, flapping futilely in an attempt to escape. By contorting her mind, she made the girl kill the bird, its blood spilling over her. From the evil of this act, Tentatio drew the spirit of the hawk from the air and bound it to her daughter. Once again, her lover tried to flee, but Umbra, too, was cut down. The other nymphs were bound to animals, like Furor, and their animalistic side was cultivated to be used in the art of war.
Then her plans were nearly complete, but Tentatio still felt that there was something missing from her army, a force she needed to create to complete them, to make them strong enough to take the world. For that had always been her goal, in the back of her mind, growing there from a small spark into a roaring inferno which consumed her. And now, as she continued to grow her armies over the centuries, men appeared in the east. Mortals with short, fleeting lives, they were always flawed, and easy to convert to dark ways. Their hearts were weak, and they were easily corrupted. The race of men grew, and four kingdoms arose, but they were always threatened by raiding demons and bandits who were turned to evil practices by the influence of Tentatio's mind. Thus, men became a warlike people, always thinking of defense and fighting above all other things.
When they were still headed towards their peak, not yet reaching a golden age, Tentatio began to walk among them. In men, with all their flaws, she saw a way to create something beautiful and terrible. She always felt that the spirit demons were lacking in power, not as perfect as the telepaths were. Thus, with men, she wanted to create a race that would play on all their flaws, embracing them, just as she had embraced evil and darkness at her own birth.
Tentatio passed easily through Mortem, for the men there were already so evil that it took little coaxing to turn them to her side. Still, she found no one that offered enough in the way of resistance to her charms; rather, being what she was, they felt drawn to her already. No, she needed someone she could play with, could turn slowly. She needed a challenge. Heading south, bypassing the island kingdom, Tentatio came only to the borders of Solis before learning that it was a religious, democratic center for men. Seeing these things as foolish and weak, she turned away from them in disgust and passed around the kingdom to the east, sailing along the coast until she came to Virtus. There, she found only a rabble of farmers; they were weak and had few skills, not people to be turned into warriors of evil. Beginning to doubt whether men had any worth to her at all, Tentatio came, finally, to the island kingdom of Vitam.
Though it did not match the grandeur of Solis in those days, she found that she rather liked the city built around a great foretress that made up the capital. When she presented herself to the king, Sanguis, she discovered, at last, the heart she was searching for.
Sanguis was a powerful mage, the most powerful of all men. He had a fine grasp of the elements, to the extent that humans may understand them. Furthermore, his mind was strong and sharp, ready to be tested. After many months, Tentatio was able to seduce the young man. As his lover, she became queen of Vitam, and bent it to her will, letting it quietly fall into complacency, though no one would know it. When she firmly in control, Tentatio took Sanguis away to the north on a one-year holiday, leaving Caries in control of the city. The people did not question her choice of a replacement, as they had grown to love their beautiful and charming queen, with her dark, swirling eyes.
In the north, Tentatio and Sanguis had a daughter, who they named Avaritia. They soon took the girl back to the city, and Caries went back north to live with his sister. Avaritia was raised to feed on the flaws, the moral lapses, the greed, the lust for power that festered in the hearts of men. Her father taught her to be a great mage. Using the elvish part of her mind and her own desire for power, Avaritia soon surpassed Sanguis, and began to dabble in the use of blood as a power. Thus, with little guidance in that direction, with only the flaws of men running through her veins, Avaritia became the first blood mage, the final race Tentatio needed to wage her war.
While her mother kept the people of Vitam in a happy stupor, Avaritia, as a young woman, converted the leaders of the gangs of Mortem into blood mages as well, rallying them to Tentatio, and stopping their greed from overcoming them, so they would not cause trouble when the invasion began. While Avaritia was away to the north, Sanguis began to break through the fog of lust which had consumed him since Tentatio had taken control of his mind, and she was forced to kill him. She called her daughted back to the city, and she came swiftly. Then Avaritia used her father's body like a puppet, animating his body, so it did not seem to the people that he had died at all. As daughter of the king, it was not odd for her to be around the court much of the time; and thus Avaritia took control of the kingdom of Vitam.
Tentatio, meanwhile, went south and corrupted the mind of the king of Virtus with little difficulty; and she had Furor come south to control those men. Finally, there was only one free kingdom of men: Solis, the land she hated. Knowning she had to control men if she was to defeat the other free peoples, Tentatio reluctantly entered the bright city by the lake, and came before the king. After a mental battle of many weeks, slow coaxing and cultivation of all that was evil in his mind, she overthrew the mind of the president of Solis, and the democracy was plagued by corruption. Finally, it collapsed into chaos, and a shaky oligarchy rose from its dust.
Her long battle with the king of Solis had left Tentatio weak and exhausted, and she fled northward, to her foretress in the mountains. There, she slowly regathered her strength, over the course of a year; but in her time of weakness, the Virtues appeared in the world, to bring knowledge, innocence, and hope back into the hearts of the free peoples, and to prepare them so they might rise up and defeat the evil which now threatened them. The Virtues began to move among the oppressed peoples, the goodness stirring within their hearts once more, a ray of light through the dark clouds which hung heavy on their hearts. One, too, helped to slow the rate at which elves were fading into shades, with the shadow pressing in upon them.
All too soon, Tentatio had recovered, and she led her armies in a rapid campaign to capture the seven clans of nymphs. All the while, she continued to convert men into blood mages and nymphs into spirit demons; and the size of her army continued to grow, despite heavy casualties inflicted by the nymphs.
When the clans had all fallen, Tentatio moved north to the headwaters of a river which ran west towards the Aequora, her first targets. By the roots of the mountain, she gathered her full strength to wage the final wars.
But before she could launch her first attacks against the kingdoms of elves, the Virtues rallied the free peoples they had awoken, and gave them the courage to face their enemies in battle. Pinned against the mountain, Tentatio's army was choked and defeated. The Sins, her children, who commander her army, were defeated in single combat by the Virtues. Despite her best efforts to control the minds of the Virtues, she could not touch them.
In fear, the family fled north to their stronghold as their army was cut down around them. When Tentatio and her children had reached their own lands with the last of the demons, the Virtues caused the mountains to grow tall and wild around them, so that none would enter or exit those lands. They choked the northern seas with ice, never melting, so ships could not pass that way. With the evil contained, the Virtues passed away, and Tentatio and the Sins passed into myth and legend.
Today, most have forgotten them, but there are some who remember the old tales. There are even elves who were at that battle, thousands of years ago, when the Virtues walked among them. There are some who believe that her mind still influences all creatures, calling them to the evil ways. Fewer still believe that she will rise up again and try to cover all the world in shadow... But who may know who is right?