Forces of WARMACHINE: Retribution of Scyrah Mk I (SC)

Forces of WARMACHINE: Retribution of Scyrah Mk I (SC)

Four and a half thousand years ago, the elves were the undisputed masters of Caen.  From the Lyossan Empire far to the East of the Iron Kingdoms, their culture, technology, and magic reigned supreme.  In their greatest work, the elves built a great edifice known as the Bridge of Worlds, a device that would allow their gods to travel to Caen and live amongst their people.  It took over two hundred years to build, but just as the bridge was completed, the their Gods had crossed over, something went horribly wrong.  Whether it was an act of sabotage, or a flaw in the grand design, no one will ever know, but the bridge exploded, trapping the elven gods on Caen, and dooming the Lyossan Empire.  In the instant of destruction, earthquakes rocked the continent and lightning lanced down from storm-wracked clouds. The land was laid waste, and most of the elven people were killed.  Where the Lyossan Empire had stood collapsed into a great abyss.  A great wasteland known as the stormlands still exists to the East of the Iron Kingdoms to this day, testament to the scale of the destruction wrought that day.

The elven gods, along with those few elves who had survived fled West and founded a new homeland, the kingdom of Ios.  For three thousand years the elven gods ruled over their people.  But all was not well.  Cut off from Urcaen, heaven, the spirit realm, the Gods were losing their power.  Eventually, the Gods left Ios, searching for a way home.  Only two were ever seen again.  One group of elves, known as the Nyss, left for the North, following the footsteps of their god Nyssor.  As time passed, they lost touch with the Iosians.  In 140BR, seven hundred thirty hundred years ago, the elven clerics of every god save Scyrah went mad in a single night.  In their madness the priests destroyed themselves and took many elves with them.  Since that time, only the Scyran priests have kept their divinely granted powers, but even those powers have been fading.  The goddess Scyrah returned alone to Ios.  She spoke to none of what had happened, and barely made it back to her temple before falling into a coma-like state.  The Nyss found the god Nyssor entombed in ice in the far north, and guarded him ever since.  The Iosians knew nothing of Nyssor's fate until recently.  With the disappearance of the elven gods, even more tragedy fell upon the Iosians: children started being born without souls.  These soulless children are emotionless.  They do not cry when born, and are more akin to automatons than to people. Most of these soulless are killed at birth, but a very few are taken by the Retribution of Scyrah.

The Retribution of Scyrah is a faction within Ios that holds the belief that the soulless and the disappearance of the gods are a result of human-practiced arcane magic.  They believe the humans are siphoning power away from the elven gods and that all human wizards must be killed to save the elven race.  The Retribution has historically been seen as a fringe element within Iosian society.  Knowledge that the god Nyssor had not only been found, but had been taken by wizards of the Khadoran Greylords Covenant sent shockwaves throguh Iosian society and catapulted the Retribution to the forefront of Iosan politics.  Now, their forces work openly, striking back at human wizards, and most of all at Khadoran forces.  Their goal, to rescue their God, and to save their people.