The Prophecy, a grim vision of the world's end, foretold ages ago by the Oracle, is slowly beginning to come true... Chaos and war have engulfed both the Mortal and Immortal Planes. If the Oracle was correct, the end is near for both the gods and mortals of Towkryn...
Talrune -- the god of valor and light, and king of the Havannus Realm -- struggles to keep his influence on the many people of Towkryn, but his sister Dulaaka -- the goddess of evil and darkness, and queen of the Underworld Realm -- continues to draw more and more souls to the dark side. It is not the way of Talrune to manipulate the mortals to do his bidding, but Dulaaka has no qualms about it.
The Order of Sorcery -- the most powerful wizards' guild on all of Towkryn -- has split apart. Five new guilds (one for each of the magical elements) have replaced it. The five Gods of Magic (Saikor: God of Fire; Bala: Goddess of Earth; Volak: God of Wind; Althana: Goddess of Water; Sun'lak: Deity of Spirit) are at war with each other, and their followers, the magi, have declared war on each other. If efforts for peace continue to fail, magical war, the worst kind of war, will come to Towkryn.
The elves, who have been split into three factions for countless centuries, too, face the problems of war. Having been split into three factions (Tarlanesti; Pailonesti; Dernzonesti), hostilities continue to grow between the elves.
The Pailonesti, exiled from Tarlanost (the homeland of all three factions) countless centuries ago for breaking off of the Tarlanesti church, and practicing different rituals to honor Talrune, "heresy" as the other elves called it.
The Dernzonesti, commonly referred to as "drow" or "dark elves," chose to honor Her Dark Majesty Dulaaka, as opposed to Talrune, whom they consider to be weak. The Dernzonesti Drow wish to take back their homeland, and banish the Tarlanesti to the underground hell that they were forced to live in for so many millenia. Their king, however, was cowardly and fearful of the Tarlanesti. His oldest son, the prince and next-in-line for the throne, has very different feelings -- most of them anger and hatred -- towards the Tarlanesti elves.
Plans were made to assassinate the current king, so his son could take the throne and so the drow could take back the homeworld. The king was blessed, however, by Dulaaka, and the blessing could only be broken with a magical artifact that had been lost ages ago in the sands of time: the Shadowblade.
The Tarlanesti and Dernzonesti factions are rather evenly matched. The Pailonesti, who, too, wish to be allowed back into the homeland of Tarlanost, will join the war. Whichever side they choose will most likely win the upcoming war, for the manpower they provide should be enough to tip the balance.
All that the Oracle foretold in the Prophecy has come true up until this point. Talrune and Dulaaka have been saving the souls of their followers in the Havannus and Underworld Realms (respectively). When the final battle between darkness and light comes, these souls will return to Towkryn and fight for their deity. No winner to this epic battle has been predicted in the Prophecy. The winner will be chosen by the decisions of one warrior: you.
The chaos that has engulfed the Planes has yet to disturb your peaceful life, but it soon will. The fate of Towkryn is in your hands. Make your decisions wisely...
Shadowblade is the working title of a roleplaying game which will utilize the Coldstone Game Engine [more info on the CGE here] (which is being developed by Beenox, Inc. and will be published by Ambrosia Software, Inc.). At the moment, Shadowblade is planned to be Mac-only and freeware, but, if the game is any good, we may go shareware with it. And, if it is any good, cross-platform is also a possibility. We'll worry about all that once we have the thing finished, though.
There are currently three members of the Shadowblade development team: Gavin Hardy (aka: Gaviiin), Donovan Hunter (aka: _skyblade), and Josh Michalski (aka: Desert Fox). Although the Coldstone editor will come with a good-sized graphics library (or so we've been told), it is quite possible that the Shadowblade team will need a graphics artist. If you are interested in doing some graphics (or have some other special talent that we might find useful in developing our game), please contact me by e-mail (skyblade500@hotmail.com) or contact me on AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), where my handle is skyblade500.
