In a dark and wooded forest there is a shrouded and ageless entry to the gates of the underworld protected by a maternal yet barren character know as the guide.
One day with the offer of a glossed apple the guide is given the chance to bear a child from a traveling mystic later known as the shadowed stranger. (this particular story ends up being the misconstrued story of adam and eve). The guide agrees, eats the apple and soon bears a child only to realize that the spirit energy in the air of the underworld is poisonous to the half mortal child.
Going against the will of the king of the underworld or god of death “Karaba”, the Guide finds a powerful and imprisoned enemy of Karaba a dark and powerful witch king named hexus that can protect her and hide her and her new born son from Karabas view. She promises to help the witch king escape in exchange for the protection of her and her son.
The ominous witch king hexus agrees and they flee to the valley of shadows for refuge until his strength can grow from the consumption of sacrificed souls.
The witch king forms a kingdom of loyal followers trading them the ability of prolonged life, spells, black magic and power in exchange for sacrifices and the gathering of souls for him from which he derives his power.
This valley of shadows hidden by spell to the underworld has become known to the surrounding villages and towns as a place of evil, death, magic and wealth to those who have survived or traded with the individuals with in.
Enraged by the escape and betrayal of the guide and hexus, the god of death set undead guards on the entry to the underworld and sent out scouts to find the missing traitors as to allow vicious undead assassins to kill or bring back their souls by any means necessary.
But as long as no blood descendent of the underworld passes through the witch kings spell barrier of the valley of shadows they remain undetectable to these scouts.
As the guides son grows up fathered by the witch king he becomes malicious and evil realizing at a young age that his abilities meant power. Although in a sense of irony her son cannot go out side of the valley of shadows as he has been warned that to do so will release a plague of the underworld upon them.
The child who grew to a towering man with illuminated eyes and a black heart known as the tyrant had many wives all of these wives met violent ends by the tyrants hand except for two. One of which bore him a set of evil and violent triplets connected telepathically to one another. His other wife many years later bore him a son and the rightful heir to the kingdom of shadows.
The daughters when not neglected or abused by the tyrant had the guide watching over these children hoping for a better out come then that of her own. As the 3 sisters grew they developed a natural skill for the dark arts taught to them by the witch king and a passion for vicious and violent killings. The 3 sisters longed for the absent admiration of their father to which he only gave neglect, disappointed they had not been born males.
The 3 adolescent sisters one day decided to disregard the old warnings of their father and ventured out past the spell barrier of the valley of shadows and into a near by neighboring town. The sisters wanting to test the limits of their abilities massacred the entire town men women an children burning it to the ground and getting a taste of their dark abilities for the first time.
Upon returning they were met with an enraged tyrant who savagely beat them for several days to what would have been death if they weren’t bordering immortal. After this response to the desecration of another town the sisters began to perceive the king as fearful and weak and unworthy to rule, not knowing the true horrors of what they had unleashed by crossing the spell barrier. Coming to this conclusion the sisters devised a way of witch craft to kill their immortal father and take the throne for themselves, to conquer and feed upon the world of men.
At this same time knowing what the children had done and the horror of consequences that would ensue the guide worried for the young infant, son of the tyrant and brother to the tripplets, in an attempt to try and save potentially the only untainted one of them she goes to the oceans edge and sends him to the other side of the world in the belly of a whale.
Back at the valley of shadows on a full moon night the sisters slipped the intoxicating venom of a liquid back spider into the drink of the tyrant paralyzing his body. As he lay paralyzed on the floor of the tower they carved an ancient symbol into his chest raising his immortal spirit from his fleshy body. Then taking a jagged and enchanted blade they drove it into his heart killing the physical form his spirit possessed. Releasing the spell his soul had no where else to return except to the dead corpse. Bonding to it, the soul and corpse deteriorated into statue of ash.
The queens egger to announce their new reign try to leave the tower only to realize that the tyrants mother the guide fearful the witch king would kill him had put a protective spell on the tyrant locking any one who killed him within the castle. Enraged they have her caught, brought to the tower and tortured for a way to break it, unwilling to talk the sisters proceed to saw off her head.
They supply the guides dripping and newly decapitated head to a witch priestess named the collector who collects decapitated heads and skulls from which she can feed on their soul energy for prolonged life and also to gain ancient wisdom and information from them. The queens trade the collector the head in exchange for information on a way to break the spell. The collector conjures out the guides soul to have her unwillingly give them the riddle
“when flesh is fresh a soul youll find,
eat the meat of the same kind”
a fishes belly sea to land,
moonlight shows whats in a man”
which is deciphered by the collector to mean that the sisters must eat the living flesh of their brother the rightful heir to the throne, that they will have to cross seas to do so and that only by moonlight will you be able to find what you seek.
Upon receving this information the sisters search for the where abouts of the child within the tower, unable to find them they question the mothers of the tower suspecting they have hidden him. Once neither one is able to provide the where abouts they were sacrificed to the witch king.
The blood thirsty queens unable to leave the tower hire a set of mercinaries to capture 7 pure and wholesome virgins who they then blind, gag and posses as to bestow their dark traits between them so that the virgins now housing the evil of the queens can be the dark manifestations of the queens outside of the tower walls. They then also hire assassins, mystics, scouts and theifs to seek out the child searching for whispers and tales of a child whos eyes glow with the light of the moon.
In the mean time word and stories of evil spirits with glowing eyes massacring a village had spread and made its way to the scouts of the underworld alerting the god of death to the whereabouts of the witch kings location and so the hunt began.
The god of death Karaba, must reclaim and bring back all souls of the blood decedents of the underworld in order to close the broken loop of souls to the underworld and to gain his full strength in order to be able to recapture the witch king hexus. Hexus is ever weakening the kingdom by consuming the souls of the sacrificed instead of allowing them to return to the underworld.
After many battles between opposing sides and a long and arduous search for the child, one of the assassins fulfills the task and brings the child to the queens. However upon the feverish consumption of the childs flesh and the breaking of the curse they are quickly betrayed by a long awaiting and now fully powerful hexus who then impales their fleshy bodies and consumes all three of their souls, the remaining souls of the blood decendents to the underworld, allowing him the ability to pass through the gates and reenter the spirit world seeking to conquer and enslave newly dead and lost souls.
The God of death long suspicious of his intentions since escaping as it was why he was originally imprisoned, has recruited and army of mercenaries, assassins and league of undead warriors to battle the witch king and his vast following of witches and assassins.
Upon hexus arrival to the underworld there is a dark and violent battle, after which the soon to be beaten Karaba threatens to destroy all of the the underworld and the souls within it as to not let it fall into the hands of the witch king. The witch king realizing this would in turn vanquish his power and collection of souls proposes a deal to split the domain of the underworld and to which he will be allowed to enslave and torture all deserving and damned souls and that Karaba would watch over all other enlightened souls, Karaba agrees.
Once the agreement is decided upon and order is restored within the spirit realm the witch kings following become the generals of what would become known as hell. And within hell their consumption of damned soul energy morphs them into horned and undead creatures that would become known as demons. And from there these stories became myth and legend and would lead to the infrastructure of most modern day religions.