Introduction.

Inch, a city. Inch, a cape of farms surrounding an ancient city. Inch the name of a long shear escarpment over which the city spanned. Inch had never been forgotten, instead the city had lost itself as century after century moved on, while wars shocked people into different lives. New dreams rose from the ashes of old, dreams that remembered the past differently, or held no place for the city. Inchs people are Valen. They build to last, the Valen live a long time, for even as they live to enjoy the moment they look ahead. Through the years they expect to live. Perhaps that's how Inch has survived. Even now, as a discarded shell of its former self, so much of it deserted. Still, a new verve had entered the city, those those born so long ago swept along as the change came to the city.
Valen, a race of people, that seem a mix of races. Perhaps they are. Perhaps they are not. They mainly appear part Elf, part Human. They have the mind set of neither Elf or Human. Their own. Perhaps they modelled themselves on other races. You could not put it past them. Valen are adept at pretending to be any other race. None of which has stopped their decline, one stretching back more than a thousand years. Living smong them are those that could remember the zenith of their race thousands of years before. Most Valen saw only three hundred years before the grave swallowed them. For the long lived the present seemed another interregnum, before greater and better things came. Or so few a thought, for never had a race fallen. The Valen had risen above all other races in their past, they had become gods to many. Now they stood small, fighting themselves, fleeing from history, destroying themselves and slowly degenerating.
Jacks Padoman. Adam Rassar Tutheric. Rives Dealt all one. Jacks, killer, mercenary has not managed to settle into Inch, the city he had grown up in and left six decades before. His plans were to build and grow the Sword and Federation, slow and sure. Typical Valen, steady building and planning. Jacks strived to stop the Valen disappear into a self made mire. Creating a Federation of Valen and others willing to stop Angand Empire mastering all the lands it can. He resurrected the old Valen border guards, the Sword to rally to. In part this had worked, providing a flag to rally to, though it left many lose ends. Jacks moved on, his plans changing. He ploughed a path, hidden away or in front of all, sometimes joined by many, somtimes following many, or sometimes alone. Alone he become this time, hiding in the background. He had begun to walk the Inch, trawling it, watching it, pulled along somehow. His old self lost to the discovery that he can use the power. Worse, he had become a channel. A rare freak that can use as much power as they like compared to anyone else. Able to draw on the power far and wide not just from within the environment nearby. One open for others to draw upon. He had no training, nor did he trust those around him to train him. He had spent his live not being tied to them, linked to them or part of what they represented. For once he felt lost, he had lost what he had been, lost who he is, becoming solitary and separate from the Federation he led.
In the wider world the Meiren have taken the chance that Jacks wrought when the Verrack and Sword forces to defeated Kantic and Angand armies in the Ore War. The Meiren had kindled war again with Angand, by re-securing the hill forts that have long marked the end of their lands. In return, Angand had turned its might west to deal with the Meiren nation. So once more the Valen have been left alone to bicker amongst themselves.