The Fiend Flood
The Fiend Flood was a massive demonic invasion that, around the year 731, nearly dragged the world back into the Age of Chaos. It is remembered above all for the destruction of the kingdom of Loreshia - and for the sacrifice that ended it.
Loreshia
Loreshia was a nature-worshipping kingdom founded around the year 700, set between the sea and the forest in the lands that would much later become the Hub. Its brief era of peace was cut short by the Flood.
The Invasion
The invasion was spearheaded by the nine Archfiends of Mictlān themselves. Among its horrors, Temeria, Mother of Evil Dragons, raised armies of fear dragons to wipe Loreshia from the map, sowing havoc on an unimaginable scale.
The resistance was led by a priestess named Asandrea, daughter of Brangien in historical accounts and Bryngwen in bardic tradition. Alone among the defenders, she was immune to the fiends’ corruption. She rallied the surviving armies and even commanded nature itself against the invaders. So grave a threat did she become that the Archfiends intervened personally to assassinate her.
Information below was supplied by the Mask Of Asandrea and is not public knowledge
Loreshia’s government collapsed rapidly. Ordinary demons continued to kill in vast numbers, while the Archfiends concentrated on securing broad and lasting influence. They empowered a small circle of mortal Apostles who advanced fiendish plans on the ground, supplying the connections, knowledge, and cunning their patrons lacked in the mortal world.
By the time she acted, Asandrea considered her own kingdom lost and sought above all to prevent other nations from suffering the same destruction.
Asandrea deceived Mara into accepting her as his Apostle. The fiends gave her the sentient Mask of Asandrea as both a source of power and a safeguard capable of reading her mind. She persuaded the mask to reject its creators, then used its mental protection and transformative powers to infiltrate, impersonate, sabotage, and kill the fiends’ mortal agents. Together they killed seven historical Apostles active during the first Fiend Flood. These were past holders of the offices, not the Apostles of the present age.
The seven deaths severely disrupted the Archfiends’ designs and bought time for the gods to intervene. The First Apostle survived and recruited successors in later centuries. According to the mask, Asandrea’s apparent immunity was not an innate gift but the result of deliberate deception and the mask’s protection.
Not all the dragons sided with fear. A safety dragon named Fazen chose to aid the gods against the fiends and the fear dragons, raising an army of safety dragons; for leading them through countless battles he was in time elevated to godhood, becoming the divine counterbalance to Temeria.
The End of the Flood
Asandrea’s death caused such overwhelming grief among the people that it summoned the Gods back into the physical world. With their returned power, the Gods imprisoned the fiends once more, sealing away Mictlān. The world was saved - but Loreshia collapsed utterly in the aftermath. Centuries later, the wandering alchemist Kaios would raise the city of Kios atop the ruins of the Loreshian capital.