DISCLAIMER: I have no ownership of the Rosario Vampire franchise or any other elements that may appear in my story.
Prologue: Tales of a Time Long Since Past
Our world has always been divided. Split down the middle into two very different groups, humans and monsters. Through out history they have always been at each others throats and it seemed fate was content to let it happen. Yet despite what many monsters say peace can exist between the supernatural and humanity.
But how? You may ask, can there ever be peace with humanity's fear of things they do not understand and the monsters' penchant for violence?
Simple, because it has happened before.
Long, long ago, in a land since forgotten there existed a kingdom by the name of Erros and it was a place the likes of which you will not find in the world today. With rolling fields of green grass and vast forests stretching farther than the eye could see it was a place practicality untouched by industry. It was a place of knowledge and invention, where the brightest of minds would gather together at universities and share new thoughts and ideas. Disease was practically non-existent due to the flourishing fields of medicine and science. Money was of no issue for anyone as wealth was abundant, the markets overflowed with trade, fine silks and spices and precious gems pouring in from all over the world. Truly Erros was a place of peace and prosperity.
But this isn't what made this kingdom so special no far from it, places like this or at least places embodying at some aspects of it have existed throughout history. No what made this place special, made it unique, was it's people.
Humans and monsters. Living together, working together, two so very different peoples coexisting in harmony. Together they built sprawling cities unlike any other and at the center of it all was Lorderan. A shining becon of hope carved into the side of a mountain standing proudly for all to see for miles around.
However despite everything, all was not well in the kingdom of Erros. There were those, on both sides mind you, that seemed determined to upset the balance between monster and human for their own reasons, whether it was because of some sense of superiority, hatred, or even simple greed.
So to protect the people of the realm, an order made up of both humans and monsters was formed with the purpose of defending the people of Erros from threats both foreign and domestic.
But wait a minute, how can a simple human stand against a monster? Well while it is true that today's humans possess no great strength or speed, the humans of Erros were different. Unlike their modern descendants, the humans of Erros were special as they could manipulate an energy that simply became known as the Light for the golden glow it gave off when in use.
The Light was an amazingly versatile tool: it could aid in healing the sick and injured by stitching wounds together so it was as if they never even existed or purge diseases and poisons from the system. It was also a means to defend one's self, when a weapon was infused with Light it becomes, for lack of a better word, stronger. Blades become sharper, blunt weapons hit harder, armor becomes tougher to pierce and the best part was that every human of Erros could manipulate the Light. While most could only use the Light to an extent where they could heal moderate wounds or sharpen a dull blade, there were those who defied all expectations and obtained what could only be described as a true mastery of the Light.
These champions of humanity became to be known as 'Paladins', and they were the wall against which the darkness broke. There power was simply astounding, they would march against their foes and strike with all the fury of a hurricane. So great was there might that even the proud vampires of the monster world came to respect them as a worthy opponent.
And so it came to be that the Knights of the Dawn came into being, monsters and men fighting side by side to protect the peace.
For hundred of years the knights watched over the realm and peace continued to flourish. However after so many years of uninterrupted tranquility they grew lax in their watch and failed to notice a new threat growing in the shadows.
They came from the north, swarming down from the frozen tundra like locusts. They attacked without provocation or warning, with no offer of surrender or parley. They were the Scourge, and they had come to exterminate life from the face of Erros.
The Scourge was an army unlike anything the people of Erros had seen before, playing host to twisted mockerys of life, of abominations born of flesh and bone, towering skeletal constructs, and hulking war beasts stitched together from rotting corpses. Leading the slaughter was a mysterious figure known only as the Lich King, wether it was man or monster no one knew, only that it was a being of emense power.
But the people of Erros would simply lay down and die? No, men and monster rallied together to drive back the darkness that sought to overwhelm and destroy them; with the Knights of the Dawn leading the charge they succeeded, at first.
Ultimately, it was a losing battle for Erros. Their soldiers would need time to recover after their battles unlike the undead horrors of the Scourge, who needed no food or rest and could fight on regardless of whatever injuries they sustained; even if they were killed they would only raise up again a few days later courtesy of the Lich King's necromancers. And for every Errosian that fell, the Scourge would swell in numbers as the slain would raise and turn against their former comrades. It was truly a bleak the people of Erros had one saving grace however, it was the human paladins. As fate would have it the Light seemed to shatter the Lich King's hold on his undead thralls preventing those who had been slain by the Light from being brought back again.
The Lich King was as cunning as he was intelligent however. Whenever the Errosians thought they had gained an advantage against his ravaging horde, however slight, the Lich King would find a way to render it useless either through a new tactic or the birth of a new undead nightmare. The paladin issue was no different. While paladins are powerful, they are by no means invincible and so the Lich King set about his terrible task. Using the corpses of fallen paladins, he forged a new breed of evil, an undead monster created with the sole purpose of hunting down and eliminating their former comrades. Armed with powers over disease, ice, and a vast arsenal of dark magicks they went forth to carry out their mission.
They were effective, terribly so. Riding into battle atop their skeletal steeds those abominations laid waste to anything in their path, and not just paladins. So effective at slaughter were these monsters that even the whisper of their name was enough to inspire terror: Death Knight.
With his new weapon of war the Lich King and his army of nightmares mowed down the defenders like wheat in the field, with the dreadful Death Knights leading the way. One by one the free cities of Erros fell to the Scourge until only Lorderan remained. Surrounded on all sides, the last of the kingdom's defenders rallied together determined to fight on until their last breaths. Within the walls of Lorderan, they stood their ground and waited for the armies to arrive.
They waited…
And they waited.…
And they waited.
For two weeks the people of Erros awaited the Scourge, and yet they hadn't heard so much as a whisper of their presence. Cautiously, they ventured out of their walls, and what they found was baffling. Laying in the fields were the rotting corpses of the Lich King's soldiers strewn about haphazardly like puppets that had their strings cut. What was even more confusing was the fact that they seemed to have been in the process of marching north, away from Lorderan, before they died.
Weeks passed by and the people of Erros slowly began to rebuild, keeping a weather eye out for any sign of the Lich King, but it was as of he had vanished from the face of the earth. Once they were certain that danger had passed, life was finally starting to return to normal for the survivors of the newly dubbed Lich War.
Then it all came crashing down around them once more. After nearly six months of peace, a band of watchmen along the northern border of Erros came across a young vampire stumbling through the snow in the midst of a blizzard.
Exhausted, starved, and frozen to the point of near death the poor soul was in dire shape. There was clear evidence of torture, his body was adorned with numerous bruises and untreated cuts that were clearly septic, his arm was quite severely broken if the way he cradled it was any indication. He was also sporting burns across the majority of his body caused by the melting snow, with the most severe being concentrated on his hands and feet.
The watchmen quickly brought him to their encampment set up in a nearby cave for treatment, drying him off as best they could and starting a fire to warm him up. The group, composed entirely of monsters, sent one of their men to fetch a medic from a nearby outpost, thankfully some of the surviving paladins were quite skilled at healing. As they waited for their comrade to return with the doctor the watchmen did everything in their power to keep the vampire alive. Since vampires can drink blood to heal they took turns feeding him by cutting themselves and letting the blood drain into a cup for him to drink so that the vampire wouldn't accidentally drink them dry in his hunger, taking care to keep the amounts small so that he could keep it down. Fearing he wouldn't wake up again if he fell asleep they kept him talking.
Apparently the young vampire was taken captive towards the end of the Lich War. He was held in a Scourge fortress some seventy miles from the northern border where he was tortured for information after which he was experimented on. Towards the end of his tale the vampire's eyes clouded over as his voice became deathly quite. Before the watchmen could coax more out of him the runner they had sent returned with the medic who set quickly to work on his patient. The young vampire barely even acknowledged the doctor's presence as he was treated, that is until he removed his hood.
Upon seeing that the doctor was human the vampire began to panic, scrambling back from where he sat as he screamed over and over how 'the Lich King had come to take him away'. The doctor quickly backed away as the other youkai tried to calm the man down however it proved to be useless, in his terror filled state the vampire knocked away the monsters into the cave walls when they came near him before sprinting out of the cave and into the blizzard.
The watchmen raced after the vampire, but the blizzard was so bad that tracking him was near impossible. It wouldn't be until hours after the blizzard had past that they would find his body curled under a pine tree where he had been apparently trying to find shelter from the snow. The exact cause of death was difficult to determine, but ultimately it was chalked up to Yokai depletion caused by the water in the melting snow, the subsequent burns and the cold weather only hastened the process.
When the watchmen went to report what had happened to their superiors it only served to unsettle the Youkai. It wasn't that the vampire was tortured or his that unnerved them but the fact that he only started to panic when he realized that the doctor treating him was human. The vampire's rantings about the Lich King further puzzled them, why would a vampire be so terrified of a human? Slowly doubt began to creep into their minds, the humans couldn't have been responsible for the Lich War, could they?
Weeks past by, and tension between humans and monsters started to grow. Somehow the incident regarding the vampire at the northern border became public. Despite the fact that the vampire was suffering from sever fever and hypothermia his actions were enough to cause doubts among the monster population, some even began to openly blame the humans for the Lich War. Finally the situation reached it's boiling point. An ogre, in the midst of a drunken rage, attacked a paladin. Having no choice the paladin had to kill the ogre when he started threatening nearby civilians that happened to include the paladin's family.
Despite the fact that the paladin was not only acting in self defence but also protecting innocent bystanders the monsters became enraged over the death of the ogre. The more vocal of the anti human faction started baying for blood and a mob mentality set in as more and more monsters began to turn on the humans. Some of the monsters tried to calm down their brethren but they were accused of being a 'Human Sympathizer' and were threatened with death if they didn't sever ties with the humans. The situation quickly dissolved into a 'Them or Us' mind set as the monsters geared for war.
Now the last thing the humans wanted was another war let alone a war amongst themselves. They tried to reason with the monsters, tried to talk them down, but when they started attacking innocent civilians they were forced to act. Despite their weakened state the humans were by no means defenceless; there was a reason why they were considered one of the powerhouses in the Lich War.
The civil war that followed was just as devastating as the Lich War if not more so, although genocide might have been a more apt description. The monsters were determined to rid themselves of the humans, one way or another. After months of brutal fighting the war came to a conclusion. The monsters had pushed back the remaining humans into a small pocket along the northern border, seemingly trapping them amongst the mountains. In a last ditch effort the remaining paladins banded together to hold back the monsters to buy time for the others to flee. Despite knowing they were marching to their deaths the paladins stood firm. For three days they managed to hold out, but eventually the paladins were overwhelmed by the sheer number of monsters and on that day the last paladin of Erros h fell. But their sacrifice was not in vain, the others had managed to flee into the barren north. The monsters, heavily weakened from their fighting were forced to let them go.
Once the fighting died down, the reality of what they had done set in amongst the monsters, some celebrated their victory over their enemy while others were shocked and appalled at what they had done to those who had once fought and died to protect them. The monsters began to go their separate ways, the remains of the once mighty kingdom of Erros reduced to litte more than squabbling tribes.
But at the end of it all after the world still turned and time went on. Eventually the events of the Lich War and the Human Monster Civil War were forgotten, reduced to mere legends. Even the kingdom of Erros was lost, turned to dust in. the wind. The monsters eventually lost their hatred of humanity after the the humans of Erros died out and the Light was lost to the world. But humanity would continue one way or another, and eventually the world saw rise to a new race of human which would one day drive the monsters into the shadows.
Yet through it all no one ever solved the mysteries of the Lich War. Who or what was the Lich King? Where did he come from? Why did he wage war on Erros just to vanish when he was so close to victory? And just how is it that I know all of this? Well my friends, that is another story entirely..