Xandax the Feaster - vampire god, progenitor of vampires
Glorian the Renewer - human ascended to godhood, destroyed Xandax’ physical form and took over the pantheon
Greymane the Fang - werewolf god, convinced by Xandax to aid in his vision of the future
Minoto - god of change
Mother of the Wilds - nature goddess
The Silver Flame - deity of ???
The Kingdom of Eternal Night has ruled the western continent for two millenia, and it’s capital has been shrouded by the Eternal Night for almost as long. The royal bloodline is ultimately the source of all vampires in the world, with vampires being able to trace their sires back to one of the vampire kings. There have only been three vampire kings (four if you count Xandax as the first). Vampires have spread from the western continent to the eastern, but their numbers are nowhere near as prolific. Those on the eastern continent do not wish to associate with the Eternal Night despite being essential kill-on-sight in the lands of the Golden Empire.
While Xandax was an evil god and wanted to rule the world, he needed to protect it from the Swarm. He glimpsed a future where insectoid beings from another realm invaded and dominated the world, turning it one large hive for further conquest. That was one possible future he glimpsed. Another saw the population victorious but only just. Yet another saw the world dominated by vampires and werewolves, unable to be infected by the insectoid Swarm and thus unable to be transformed into further members of the Swarm. Xandax sought out Greymane, the god of werewolves, and convinced him to join his cause. With Greymane’s help, Xandax could spread vampirism and lycanthropy across the world. Thus it would be protected and also under his control.
A human by the name of Glorian had lost his family to mindless vampires. He set upon a quest to kill the vampire god, hoping to remove vampirism from the world. He successfully destroyed Xandax’s physical form with the aid of a handful of faithful companions. Xandax’s godhood was tied to a physical form and with its destruction, that godhood had to go somewhere. Glorian was the first of his party to gain godhood, absorbing most of the vampire god’s power. Glorian’s companions gained a fraction of that power, seeds really, that would eventually grow in potency, eventually becoming full gods.
The more vampirism and lycanthropy spread from their originators the more vampirism and lycanthropy turned into curses. Werewolves became slaves to the full moon, unable to shift any other time and turning into mindless creatures during the full moon. All but those vampires closest in lineage to Xandax grew increasingly susceptible to sunlight to the point of bursting into flames. Vampire archmages worked to rectify the problem and remove the curse but it was unavoidable. They switched tactics and focused on creating the Eternal Night. There were not enough lives on the planet to sacrifice to spread night across the whole world so they settled on creating night across a radius of three hundred miles, centered on the palace of the vampire kings. Alchemists created potions to give to new werewolves that would allow them to control their abilities. Or the potions would kill them. Given that unapproved werewolves in the Kingdom of Eternal Night are hunted down and killed, death by potion is preferable.
When Glorian returned home and before he moved to a higher plane to be among the gods, he gathered the nations of the eastern continent into a coalition under one banner. The people named him emperor, much to his chagrin. He accepted the duty but refused to remarry and start a new family. He would be leaving this plane eventually and did not want to lose another family. Once his time on the mortal plane came to a close, he chose his brother to become the new emperor. His brother was a paladin, his children were paladins, his grandchildren became paladins. While most of the imperial lineage followed other paths, there was never more than one generation without a paladin. It became a worthy tradition and divine orders had to in turn adopt rigorous oaths for paladins to adhere to so that people would choose to be something other than a paladin.
Conflict erupted between the east and the west over the centuries, each lasting several years. The last and bloodiest happened several centuries ago. That war ended in a stalemate, which led to the current cold war that has lasted ever since. The Eternal Night’s forces were gaining the upper hand, resorting to more brutal and vicious methods under the second vampire king. The Golden Empire was on the verge of losing and the emperor of the time permitted the creation of the warforged army by the empire’s master arcane smiths. Several hundred warforged were created. Though small, this army was a tireless one. Made of wood and steel and clockwork, arcane forces breathed life into these beings. The dark secret that has remained largely hidden since their creation is that these beings contain the souls of mortal creatures. An army of golems could be created more easily, but they would be limited in their capabilities - namely that golems couldn’t think for themselves much less anticipate what the enemy might do. With souls, these complicated golems would be alive and able to think.
The Kingdom of Eternal Night would have won had it not been for the warforged army of the Golden Empire. Instead, the war dragged on for another fifteen years. The stalemate came when the current ruler of the Kingdom slaughtered her sire and took his throne. She proposed a truce. It was really just an end to open warfare. While the queen doesn’t openly attack the Empire, she also does not rest on her laurels. Neither does the Empire. 320 years back.
As for the warforged, they mostly lost their main purpose for existing. Most continued to serve the Empire. Some requested to be turned off and some left the army without permission. While the magicks used to create them blocked the memories of their lives of flesh, there was a timer on that block. The idea was that after so many years of service, the memories of their previous life would come back to them. A number of warforged chose to be shut off before that time, unwilling to remember the lives they had sacrificed in order to serve their homeland. A handful of those that let the memories return went mad and had to be destroyed - if they couldn’t be shut off. The Collegium Arcanum offers to renew the memory block for those remaining warforged that want it.
The Golden Empire immediately outlawed the creation of new warforged after the end of the war. Any new warforged and their creator were sentenced to death. The warforged created for the war are marked and numbered by magical means. These number marks indicate that they are veterans of the war and allowed to exist. These marks also can not be removed, not even by dispelling, as they are tied to the soul of the warforged.
Recently, the Swarm that Xandax saw in his prophecies has finally arrived. Two hive ships arrived: one over the eastern continent, one over the western. The Kingdom of Eternal Night was swift in their destruction of the ship, sending only vampire and werewolf soldiers. The Golden Empire was not. When the bugs began infecting the soldiers, things became dire. The infected soldiers mutated, joined the insectoid Swarm, and shared information with the hive ship. The warforged still in active service were redeployed to fight the Swarm while those not still active were sought out and asked to serve once more. Eventually, the Swarm hive ship was brought down but the land became blighted. The outskirts of the area are patrolled by Golden Empire forces constantly to keep the Swarm in the area from spreading. The current Emperor has received several petitions to ask the Queen of Eternal Night for help - the empire spies having reported how easily they destroyed the hive ship over there - but has refused.