------------- Famous Mages: Legend of the Tallivian Guard

It could be said that there are two Mages almost everyone on the planet knows about, Shang the Necromancer, and his opposite number on the now disbanded Council of Wizards and Council of Lords, Lord Mordikai Tallivius. Those who know the legend of their beginnings will tell you of a secret plot by Tiamat to raise a Godling in our world, so she had a son by Asmodeus, in secret, and hid him with a failing noblemen in Carellon. That nobleman already had a son, a Paladin of virtue and unshakeable discipline. The noble's name was Dallathir Tallivius, father of Mordikai. The baby Godling he was given to raise as his own, was Shangallor.

As they grew, Mordikai looked after his adopted baby brother. He would allow no evil to befall him. It almost worked. Shang grew up with a desire to see justice, to see discipline and the rule of law applied evenly to all. But the drive for justice is a razor's edge. Shang's diabolic blood called to him as he reached manhood. He learned the secret of his true parentage and his fate to bring all of Arrallon under his mother's rule. Dallathir was sacrificed in ritual to Tiamat, and Shang's path towards evil was complete. Mordikai returned home to see the aftermath of Shang's transformation into a monster, and was almost killed as well.

In an instant, he lost his good name, his faith, and all his worldly possessions to Tiamat and Shang's devious plot against him. He fled across the sea to Clinomaru, where he learned the arts of oriental masters, transforming himself from a Paladin in the King's private guard to a sorcerer. Shang left Carellon for Calladon in the north and began to cement his power in a secret base beneath the city streets.

After thirty years, Mordikai returned. He was no longer a holy warrior, but a wizard. He had a new name, Mordenkainen, and a new face, and he had discovered the secret of agelessness, so that he might go down through the years side by side with Shang, watching him, poised for revenge against him. They spent three hundred years playing a cat and mouse game, both holding seats on three of the governing bodies of the Council of Wizards, the Council of Lords, and the Combined Councils. Following the War of Arrallon, after the Councils were dissolved, Shang saw his opportunity to take control. For years in secret, he had been building the mightiest army and navy ever seen. With a lightning stroke of assassinations of key world leaders, and a series of magical assaults that leveled many of the major cities of southern Callona, the Second Orc Wars began. At the climax of the war, in Shang's floating citadel above a volcanic cauldera in the Dead Lands of Damia, both Mordenkainen and Shang died.

But legends never really die. A century passed and a band of adventurers came across one of Mordikai's old spell scrolls in the necropolis of Vorhingaard. The spell thereon could bring one ancient hero back from the dead. They just had to choose which one they needed most. The Kingdom of Carellon was in grave peril once again, so Mordenkainen was resurrected. He immediately divested himself of the assumed name and became once again Mordikai Tallivius. He returned to the capitol and rebuilt the Tallivian Guard, this time as a secret organization watching for dark forces moving within the government, an elite cadre whose charter it was to defend the kingdom and the king.

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