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[indent][indent][color=ghostwhite][i]T[/i]he martial arm of the Undying's will falls upon the shoulders of the Voice of War, Tarkus. Tarkus once stood against the Undying, formally supreme commander of the Dominion's military he believed that the Dominion should go to Caesius' sons as he had willed not to some outsider. Tarkus would lead his forces with great renown and skill against the usurpers. In all of its history, Tarkus was the only man ever close enough to actually defeating the Undying and stopping the rise of the Endless before it began. In the end though he was defeated and brought before the Undying who gave him a simple choice, bow or all his men were to be killed, Tarkus bowed. In his return for his submission Tarkus was transformed from man to monster. By the Undying's embrace he became the Voice of War, his black armor fused and metal to his flesh become permanently attached to his frame, he became what the Undying needed him to be a weapon of war. His spared legions would follow him.

To this day the Empire of the Endless is divided into two very distinct groups within the Endless' ranks. The Legion and the Anthem. Both overseen by Tarkus' will but acting upon it in two very different fashions. Order and Chaos, Slaughter and Massacre, man and monster, Legion and Anthem.

The Anthem is the younger of the two groups composed of the forces gathered in conquest. An army of monsters, thieves, murders and the like. The Anthem gives purpose and a sense of belonging to those often thrown looked down upon. It tells them that what they are isn't just okay but needed and wanted. In the Anthem the strong survive, you want a higher position kill your superior and take his job. In short its supply a band of murders and thieves with the weapons and equipment needed to wage full scale war against those that once suppressed them. When the Anthem rolls through a town they gather up all the population within corral them like cattle and drop swords at their feet. The command is simple only those that would kill their fellows will survive. This act of slaughter serves a purpose twice fold. First it allows them to pick out the murders and the monsters of the bunch, those willing or wanting to kill those who prosper in the Anthem's ranks. The second is the breaking of the rest, those that happen to survive physically but not mentally. It allows the Anthem to secure dominion over them as they become consumed by guilt and horror, in short they are broken until all they want is death and then they are given simple weapons and used as meat shields at the front of the pack, all the willing to march off to die. 

The Legion stands as a different form. Once they were the armies of Caesius formed in the early years of his military reforms. They brought almost all of Nurban down beneath them and were once the most feared army in the Known World. The training in the Legion was done in such a way that the self-identity so cherished in the Anthem was all but wiped out from their ranks. They had become parts of a greater machine whose entire purpose was to be used as a tool. Where the Anthem may 'spare' a force that they had bested to gather recruits, the Legion will slay them to the man for if they failed to defeat them than what place did they among their ranks? Yet those that surrender were given quarter and allowed to return home. Their bloodshed had rules and orders. Those that stepped out of line were dealt with arguably more force than their opponents. And then Caesius died.

Many of the Legions would flock to Tarkus banner and would fight against the Endless and the Undying. They would fight the first of the Anthem and they would win, time and time again. But the Undying overwhelm them with powerful sorcery and soon Tarkus himself would be captured and changed. Yet the Legions continued brought back into the service of the Endless. Yet they refused to conform to many of the Undying's edicts, they refused to acknowledge Caesius as a God for even a great a man as he could not touch the Divine, but they fought all the same, they fell into line and conformed to the will of that which they had fought against and become maybe worse because of it. 

Over the years the Legion exists as broken remnant of its former glory. It's ranks have been thinned and broken by years of being thrown into the grinder to crush their independent desires. Yet they have never failed a mission, never had fallen in battle. The Legion holds and will continue to hold even as it's composition dwindles and falls. Young and inexperience faces now appear among their ranks, wearing armor cobbled together from the dead and gone. Months of training no longer available, no longer able to be selective in their recruiting, they instead offer the sword to anyone willing to take up the Banner. Surprising numbers due given the other option being to deal with the Anthem.[/color] [/indent][/indent]
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Sorcery as it is currently understood may very well be the cornerstone of civilization and yet its darkest aspect. Long ago scholars in Tebra discovered something, something which would change everything. The soul [i]existed[/i] it was quantifiable and it breathed great power. Soon afterwards it was discovered that blood was the medium upon which transference occurred with the least lost. It was not that one could just tap into a Soul one had to forcibly drain it from an individual willing or not.First attempts were made with lesser beings, creatures without the capacity to think. But the power drawn from them was minuscule at best, maybe enough to light a fire and nothing more. So practice moved on to other larger creatures. Eventually it was found that the blood of the Higher Races possessed the greatest strength. To tap into the greatest potential man had to kill man,  elf to elf,  et cetra.

Yet blood alone was not enough to bring sorcery into being. To harness the power of a Soul one needed the correct formulae. The blood must be drawn either upon the ground or the air following a set of specific runes. The bases of these runes are the same but modifiers are placed upon them (much in the same way an accent changes the pronunciation of a letter) in this manner sorcery is the study and application of intent. A sorcery comes into being because its user wills it.

There is but a singular exception to this rule. The power of the Undying and the Voices upon which it bestows.