---
title: "Background Story"
description: "The founding myth of the world: gods, free will, and a board of bishops, kings and dark pawns."
kind: "site-page"
dateLabel: "Date not recorded"
completeness: "complete"
sourceSite: "darkpawns.com"
sourceUrl: "http://darkpawns.com/background.html"
captureUrl: "https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://darkpawns.com/background.html"
recoveredAt: "2026-08-14T00:00:00.000Z"
textKind: "verbatim"
canonical: "https://darkpawns.labz0rz.com/archive/background/"
---

*Transcript note: generated from the capture `background.txt`. Site navigation, the recent-topics sidebar and advertising are omitted.*

The gods have always been, and always will be. And having free will, given to them by
Chaos, they created their own and brought forth likenesses, who strive to become as gods,
and join them in their omnipotence. Like a great game of chess, the world has become a
board filled with bishops and kings, stately queens, white knights and dark pawns striving
to rise through the ranks into godhood.
The races of the world have become holed up in their cities and towns, hiding behind
mortar walls and fending off the forces of nature (and other races) with cold steel and
blood spilt by the persuasion of gold.
Outside those thick walls that enable "civilized" persons to sleep so well
lies an untamed land, some partly still ruled by the power of fangs, claws, and magic. The
other parts of the savage land are not ruled at all, twisted and warped by forgotten times
into a vision that would make any sane man's nightmare seem like a pleasant summer
daydream.
Beware the unseen, adventurer. The power is there, cloaked in a forgotten tomb or a
dragon's hoard, but it is there.
\-The letter of Friar Drake to the cities of Kir Drax'in, Kir-oshi, and Alaozar, circa
185