Albion's History

[Aiden]

(Adapted from: fable.wikia.com/wiki/Albion )

Part 1: The Court

Reign of The Court
The history of Albion is one that is constantly reforged in revolution and blood. The earliest accounts of Albion are purely legend, stating that it was a place of beauty and tranquility. Then three came from The Void: the Knight, the Jack & the Queen of Blades. They became known as "The Court". They coveted Albion and demanded that all men bow down before them. When the people of Albion refused, The Court burned Albion until the earth was black and the air was choked with smoke. They demanded obedience a second time, only to be refused again. As their next of punishment, The Court raised the ocean into the sky and flooded the land. A third time The Court demanded that men worship them, promising to usher in an age peace and end misery. But the few remaining people stood strong against The Court, and refused a third time. So The Court twisted their minds, until brother slew brother, parents abandoned children and friend killed friend. Finally the people of Albion conceded, and bowed to the court. Thus the The Reign of The Court began, where the few people who survived (and their descendants) toiled for many years, erecting structures and monuments to glorify those who came from the void.

Birth of William Black
In the days where people suffered under The Court's cruelty, a humble blacksmith and his wife had a boy. They named him William Black, and he would become the key to Albion's salvation. Little is known about William's childhood, but as a grown man he amazed many with his powers of mind, by which he was able to protect his village and perform feats that a dozen other men could not equal. These acts came to be celebrated as The Powers of Will.
William eventually grew obsessed with overthrowing The Court and ending their tyrannical rule. One night when he was consulting an old and mysterious tome, he was suddenly transported into The Void. Here he met Jack, who was sat on a throne surrounded by ghastly figures. Jack attempted to enslave William with the powers of an ornate sword, but William fought back - stealing the sword and escaping safely out of the netherworld. The sword spoke to William, it called itself the Sword of Aeons, and promised to help him defeat The Court, but only if he were to offer up his soul in bondage. With the Sword of Aeons, William set off to find The Court.

Fall of The Court
William scaled the peak of Ruon (Albion's highest mountain) and challenged The Court to combat. The Knight of Blades was the first to appear, and with the Sword of Aeons, William destroyed him completely. Jack was the next to appear. They fiercely struck at each other, until William broke Jack's body. Jack escaped into the Void, to fight another day. The Queen was the last to appear. For weeks their battle raged across Albion. Mountains were raised and valleys were formed by their mighty blows. Finally William slew the Queen, freeing the people of Albion from their yoke. They acclaimed William, who took the title Archon, as their king.

[Aiden]

Part 2: The Kingdom

Rise of The Kingdom
With The Court vanquished, the Archon set his mind to unifying Albion into a great Kingdom. By this time his powers of Will were so great that the world seemed to reshape itself in accordance with his wishes. Cities were built in mere weeks and marvellous machines were constructed that ran on Will alone. Through a thousand years of peace, Albion reigned as the greatest centre of commerce and philosophy that the world had ever known. This was their golden age.

Exodus of the Archon
Without any enemy to vanquish, the Archon's children, who called themselves Heroes, grew petty and cruel. They used their powers of Will, inherited from their father, to terrorize the people of Albion. A younger Archon might have stopped them, but his time in the Void and his battle of the Queen had infected his body and mind with a wasting illness. Faced with this decay, the Archon wrapped his body in gold mail and a royal blue cloak before seemingly vanishing from the land. Thus the corruption of the Kingdom began.

Corruption
With the Archon gone, Albion descended in anarchy. Three out of every four people were slain in the wars, or died from disease or starvation. Meanwhile, the Archon's many descendants vied for power and the kingship. These new rulers were not as kind as the first. Each passing Archon, fearful of coup, brought fresh tyranny to Albion. A giant wall was constructed around the city, to keep citizens in and undesirables out.
The Archon's personal guard, who were encased in armour from birth, enforced their harsh paranoia-driven decrees: no citizens allowed out after nightfall, every citizen must appear when an alarm bell is sounded and any who opposed the Archon's rule were killed along with their families. The people witnessed these cruelties from behind masks that signalled their status while concealing their fear.

Fall of The Kingdom
At the pinnacle of the Kingdom, where it had grown to its greatest extent, the latest incumbent Archon demanded the construction of The Spire - a giant tower used to focus all the Will power in the world, to grant the user a single wish. Just after The Spire's completion the sky was filled with a bright light, and all of Albion shook. In the morning the tower was gone and the Old Kingdom lay in ruins, all its inhabitants gone, except those who lived beyond the walls. Some argue that The Spire backfired, others say that The Spire actually fulfilled the wish of the user - to rid the Old Kingdom of corruption and start anew.

Darkest Times
After the fall of the Old Kingdom, the few villagers that survived fell into isolation and Albion was plundered into a state of anarchy. Distance bred suspicion, which grew into bloodshed. Villagers fought for food, land, livestock and fresh water. Soon, they were even fighting over women of child-bearing age. Mercenaries sold their sword to the highest bidder and fought in a series of petty squabbles. If they did not like the price being offered, they extracted payment by threatening villagers. The Fallow Wars begun, an age of darkness and blood, which would bring Albion very close to extinction.
Human scavengers poked through the ruins of the Old Kingdom, finding and trading objects they did not understand as mere trinkets. Eventually the forest grew over the ruins. It was as if the rich heritage of Old Albion had never existed. The population dwindled, and those who survived would wake each day to a darker world.
Then out of the east, hope arrived in the most unexpected of forms - a Bandit and mercenary by the name of Nostro. He pledged to bring peace and prosperity to Albion, once more.

[Aiden]

Part 3: The Guild

Rise of Nostro
In his youth, Nostro was a bandit and mercenary driven by an ambition to leave his mark on the world. He was, however, not without a sense of decency. He did not reach his potential, however, until he met a wise old man, by the name of Scythe. Scythe was a wraith of man, wizened and stern. He carried an ornate sword and shrouded himself in the now tattered royal blue cloak and tarnished gold armour worn by the first Archon. He seemed to appear out of nowhere and took a profound interest in Nostro.
Scythe saw in Nostro something more than a mere bandit. He sensed that Nostro unknowingly possessed the power that all the first Archon's descendants shared. Scythe hatched a plan: if he could properly guide Nostro, this bandit could achieve great things. He might even once again unite Albion and undo the damage done by William Black's children. And so Scythe began to tutor Nostro in how to be a leader of men.

Establishment of The Guild
Following Scythe's counsel, Nostro set about returning security and prosperity to Albion. First, he gathered men and women throughout Albion and founded the Guild, where they could train to become real Heroes. Meanwhile Scythe tutored Nostro in the ways of Will. Using his new found power, along with Scythe's sage counsel, Nostro forced peace on the warring people of Albion. However, any hopes of restoring Albion to its former greatness were in vain.
While the Guild was still taking shape, Nostro commissioned a number of other great creations. One of which was the Witchwood Arena, a giant Colosseum intended to be a venue for which anyone could settle disputes in public. At the same time, Nostro's blacksmiths forged a sword known as the Tears of Avo, patterned on reports of the Sword of Aeons, which had been lost with the Archon's disappearance.

Fall of Nostro
However, Nostro fell increasingly under the sway of a power-hungry courtesan named Magdalena. Eventually she corrupted Nostro to the point where the Arena was debased into a source of popular entertainment and the Heroes' Guild became nothing more than a house of mercenaries driven by a lust for profit and fame. These developments disgusted Scythe, who could only watch as Nostro and the Guild fell into disrepute. Finally he vanished, leaving Nostro to his fate.

Death of Nostro
Near the end of his life, Nostro could finally see how power had corrupted him, and how far short he had fallen from his youthful ideals. By then his followers and even his wife had long since abandoned him. Isolated, he was easy prey for an assassin who slipped poison into his food. Nostro knew that he was dying, so called on his old mentor Scythe, to sit vigil with him in his final hours. He died, in peace with himself, with dawn's first light. However, Nostro's spirit, discontent with the un-heroic nature of his death continued to haunt the world, longing for a death that would fit his image.
After Nostro's death, Albion continued to grow and thrive, as did the Heroes' Guild. The Guild came to be led by a succession of Will users, who individually varied from well-meaning to cruel in their intentions. The Guild itself adopted a simple code: complete the quest to the letter, ask for payment up front, and obey the local law enforcement unless a Hero is on a quest.

[Aiden]

Part 4: Avo and Skorm

Creation of the Churches
400 years prior to the events of Fable, a trader uncovered two sites where the Will energy was exceptionally strong. One site seemed to heal people that visited it, the other, however, inflicted pain and gave thoughts of blood lust. The trader decided that he would create two opposing temples and collect the tithes that people came to donate. Eventually, people actually came to believe in Avo and Skorm as real deities. In Fable: The Lost Chapters, the Oracle of Snowspire reveals how Avo and Skorm are nothing but false idols. Despite the Oracle's statement, however, a disembodied voice can be heard scolding the player if they kill the acolytes of Avo or Skorm in their temples.

War of the Churches
As revealed by the description of the Holy Warrior Helm and Daemon Warrior Helm (found in the Northern Wastes), 200 years prior to the events of Fable, a holy war erupted between the two churches. The outcome of the war is unknown, but it should be noted that both churches are present in Fable.

[Aiden]

Part 5: The Hero of Oakvale

When the Hero is a child his village, Oakvale, is raided and destroyed by bandits on his sister's birthday; it seems the Hero's entire family perishes. An old hero named Maze arrives on the scene, rescues the Hero, and convinces him to join the Heroes' Guild to be trained to become a Hero; Maze sees great potential in the boy. The Hero then embarks on a journey to discover the reason behind his village's destruction, discovering his destiny, and the true fate of his family along the way.

After a time, and after honing his skills, Maze informs the Hero of a blind seeress living among a bandit camp near Oakvale, and advises the Hero to infiltrate the bandit camp. To the Hero's surprise, the blind seeress is actually his older sister who was taken in by Twinblade, a former Hero and the present Bandit King. After a showdown with Twinblade, the Hero spares his life.

Later on in the Hero's life, after he has gained more recognition among the people of Albion, he is invited to fight in the Arena, where he meets the legendary Hero named Jack of Blades, who is running the arena battles and, as a final show, issues a challenge against the Hero and his rival and friend Whisper. When the Hero defeats her, he spares her life, paralleling his battle with Twinblade.

It eventually becomes clear that it was Jack of Blades himself who hired the Hero's mentor Maze to destroy the Hero's home. Aided by his blind sister, the Hero makes it his mission to defeat Jack of Blades one way or another. The Hero tracks down his mother, and attempts to rescue her from Bargate Prison, where Jack has kept her since the day of the Oakvale raid. However, the Hero is captured and spends a year in the prison. When he finally escapes with his mother, the Hero attempts to track down Jack. Maze, however, turns against the hero and kidnaps his sister. After defeating Maze, the Hero is led into a final confrontation with Jack, and after defeating him, casts the Sword of Aeons--which his mother was killed to create--back into the void.

One year later, the Hero of Oakvale travels to the Northern Wastes to battle a resurrected Jack of Blades again, though this time his foe is in the form of a giant dragon. He prevails once again and casts Jack's mask--which contains his soul--into a pit of lava, destroying him forever.