The Dark Fae

Long ago, before the Second War for Reality, there was a movement within the young Fae to better understand the Undead.  They began to examine their innate connection to life and Magic.  Some among Fae society spoke out against their study, but the prevailing belief was that more knowledge of the enemy could only help the Fae in their efforts to protect Reality as it was.  They moved into a great fortress on the edge of the border between Fae and Undead lands and set to their research.

The young Fae, convinced they needed to examine their subjects from all angles and captured several Undead, ranging from weak individuals to a powerful commander.  The young Fae, who had begun calling themselves the Kilandrans, tested the captive Undead.  They pushed the limits of their prisoners, and sought the source of their connection with death.

None know just what the Kilandrans discovered, but the results of it were clear.  They tapped the powers of the Undead, and as a group fell out of communication with their fellows.  The fortress they had claimed for their own fell silent with the doors barred.  Suddenly, it descended into chaos.  Strange lights appeared throughout the fortress.  The laws of Reality seemed to flow awkwardly from the normal into twisted half-truths.  Sounds of battle and madness echoed into the nearby forests.  And then the doors opened.

From it emerged a group that still appeared Fae, but tainted with chaotic energies.  They seemed to have mastered them, appearing calm and focused.  But they were cold in a way their fellows rarely were.  There was a sense about them of restrained rage and joy.  The Fae welcomed their fellows back into their society, but watched them closely.  As a result, the Kilandrans began to use a second epithet: the Dark Fae.

As the Second War neared, the second generation of Dark Fae rose and neared the age at which they would join the forces that would fight alongside the rest of the Fae nation against the Brutes and Undead.  Each of them, at almost the same time, went mad.  They lashed out at all others around them, warping and twisting the world and their allies.  The Fae wanted them killed, but the elder Dark Fae drove them into exile.  Months it stretched on.  A year.  Two.

And then they returned, like their forefathers, restored to sanity.  The second generation of Dark Fae were the first to describe this period of madness as being Berserker.  The Fae had come to realize that this state was a natural state of progression of the Dark Fae's life cycle.  During the years-long Second War of Reality, the third generation of Dark Fae came of age and their Beserker state was used as a weapon against the Undead, Brutes, and Kobolds to great effect.  It had a mighty impact upon the Fae's Human allies, as well, with some learning to enter a fugue state similar to that of the Dark Fae's Beserker state, creating their own berserkers.

From then on, the Dark Fae were an integral part of the forces of the Artifacts of Fate, often working closely with She that Wields the Shadows.