It started with wars and kings, as most stories do. It strange, really, how people and events can cascade through time to affect other people and places thousands of years down the line. So truly my story does start about 3000 years before I was born. In a forest, not unlike every forest I’ve ever seen. It started with two kings, who history has forgotten. With a war no one remembers. At the time there were two types of people on the planet- humans and everyone else being Imoralan, The Long Lived Ones.

There was a boy, an Imoralan boy. He lived alone in the forest, and he was no more that fourteen years old. He ate berries, and caught an occasional rabbit, and he used the simplest magic to survive, fire. The boy’s father was a Nefar man- a species of shape shifting snakes, but only the women looked the part. Later he would find out that he had taken after his father’s side and that male Nefar children were particularly unwanted and that’s why he was left in the woods as a babe. Not knowing any of place he had simply stayed there. His mother was what was called a Pure-Blood off worlder- her blood line hadn’t been tainted since her people came from the stars. And the boy had never seen a human before. He’d made friends with some other forest people; nymphs and satyrs and other things, and for his small size they all simply called him Imp, although he was no actual imp.

Some miles off two kings were waging war on each other. One army won, and they chased the other army off and into the boy’s forest. The boy didn’t know what was happening, his forest was terrified. He climbed down from his treehouse and onto the forest floor just as the two armies collided again around him.

He was Imoralan, stronger and faster than humans, but he was young and knew he could get hurt by the humans’ weapons. He curled into a tiny ball at the base of his tree and tried to hide himself in her roots. A huge shadow blocked out the sunlight and he looked into the face of Death. The human man swung his sword at the Imoralan boy. Then another sword came out of nowhere and skewered the other man. A miracle, the boy thought and he searched for his savior.

A new human came into view. A tattered and bloodied man with dented armor and tired eyes. The man drew his sword from the other mans’ back, nodded to the young boy, and began to walk away. The boy jumped up from his hiding spot and grabbed the man around the wrist. The man tried to walk away again but the boy held his ground.

“I owe you my life, sir, and if you’re an intelligent person you’ll take me up on it.” The boy held his head high and back straight and spoke to the man without any fear in his heart.

“You’re only a child, you can do nothing for me. Get gone, before I make you get gone.” The man pulled at his wrist, to no avail.

“It is true, I am only a child. But I am an Imoralan child. I will outlive you in a blink of an eye. Do you understand me?”

The man eyed the boy up and down. “You’re a god?”

“Nay, sir, not a god, but closer than you’ll ever get. I swear that I will watch over you till your deathbed, and your sons’ deathbed, and your sons’ sons, until my final days. Will you take me with you?”

The boy released his grip on the man’s arm, and the man didn’t move away. The man smiled, and taking the boys hand walked out of the forest and back toward his home.

The boy grew strong, until he could defeat twenty humans himself. And with the boy’s help the man grew strong. It was only a blink of an eye, to the boy, until the man died. He had two sons, and they too died in a blink of an eye. The boy watched over many, many people. Until the seventh generation after the man declared himself a lord, and his son declared himself a king.

The boy, now a man himself, watched over a whole line of royalty that he was glad to have helped create. He played many roles in these kings’ lives- apprentice to soldier to general and then finally to high adviser. It was the last king who made him the high adviser. That king died with no sons to go on after him, and thus the man who was once a lost forest boy became a king.

He was an Imoralan king among humans. Sure there was a very high concentration of his people around him, but there were still too many humans. It was around the year 1000 A.D. and humans were beginning to turn on the Imoralan. In human eyes Imorali went from being idols to demons. And it was because of this that the Imoralan king asked his twin children and their spouses into his chambers.

He looked at his children, his daughter Aelas and his brother Errol. Then he looked at their spouses. His son’s wife, Maris, was a lady of exceptional beauty and strength. She was his daughter’s best friend, and probably the only person who was able to keep his son in line. His daughter’s husband, Eadric, was a strong man. He was son of the king’s general and the king was happy to have sold his daughter to him.

“My children,” he began, and holding up a parchment continued, “this has recently come to my attention. It’s a document detailing an attack on an Imoralan home last month in one of the outer cities. I have dispatched a few of my Imoralan soldiers to reprimand the human perpetrators. But it seems to me that these attacks are growing substantially in numbers by the month. Humans have started believing in one god, forgetting the real ones, and murdering the Imorali who refuse to take up false deities. I am at wit’s end, I cannot make the humans forget their god, but I can’t sit around and let my own flesh and blood be slaughtered.”

Imp took a deep breath, and settled himself after his brief tirade. “A man came to me the other day, a man unlike any I’ve ever met before. He claims to be of a race called Faerie. After much questioning he has told where he came from, and the state of affairs there.” The king looked at the questioning eyes of his children, inhaled deeply, and continued. “Listen to me carefully, children, and to the end before you make assumptions and accusations on me. These Faeries, two kingdoms of them, are at war with each other and have been for some time now. They’ve all but destroyed themselves, and so they have plenty of room to take all of our people in. All of our people, all races, and we can be free of the humans that will slaughter us. Some day, I hope, our two kinds can rejoin again and be at peace… someday.”

Imp, looking seriously tired around the eyes, and genuinely showing his true old age continued, “I would have you take their kingdoms. With the slightest bit of force you could storm their castles. This is where you need to listen carefully. Their own laws say that a king can only be dethroned, killed, by another royal to have his throne leave his family. And that, Errol and Eadric, is precisely what I want you to do. Subdue the people- minimum casualties, kill the kings, take their thrones, rebuild their lands to better suit our needs, and live on without fear of humans.”

“Father,” Aelas said, “the humans have sea crafts. Could they not simply follow us?”

“There, my daughter, enlies the beauty of my plan. These Faerie lands, a few large islands, are hidden by magic. A very strong magic, deeper than the rest of us Imorali possess, that protects the area. If anyone that isn’t faerie sails toward these lands they will feel compelled to divert their course and go around. I don’t imagine the journey will be easy, but afterward our people will have a safe haven. This is what I want my children, take the Imoralan soldiers and then send for everyone else. I will be along after all is said and done. I, first, need to appoint a king to take care of the humans.”

“Father,” Aelas protested. Her husband, Eadric, took a step closer to her and put a hand on her shoulder. Emboldened, she said, “humans have already stopped believing that we exist, even when we walk in their midst. Those that do believe call us demons and kill us. It will only get worse with time if we leave. I believe it would be best if we just stood our ground, let them know we aren’t going anywhere.”

A tear leaked down King Imp’s cheek. “I’d like to agree with you. However, I could not bare it if any of you died, or my grandchildren…” he gave each couple an accusing look, “if you’d get to having them. Don’t argue, just do what I’ve told you to.”

Imp sunk into his chair. He was exhausted and old. He’d fought too many battles in his 2000 years and he’d lost too many human friends. Imp had already lived longer that most of his Imoralan brethren, but he kept on because he felt that he hadn’t done enough yet. His children no longer children, but adults all around their fifth century, but still he couldn’t stand to leave them. But there’s only so long one can hold out.

“Go, my children, and forge a home for my grandchildren and our kind. I won’t be able to rest peaceably until you do.” By ‘rest’ the king meant die and his children knew it. They took it as a final wish and would do his bidding so he could go onto a peaceful afterlife.

And thus it was. Imp would never see his children again after that day, not as an Earth-bound creature anyways. It’s said that when Imp died that the gods looked down upon him, called him into their grace, and gave him godly powers. Imp, father of Aelas and Errol, was now known as the God of Kings or the more widely used, Kingmaker.