From time beyond memory, the isle of Albion lay shrouded in mists so dense and disorienting that many sailors said they were not ordinary drizzle and vapour but mists of pure sorcery. Some people, and many fine sailors amongst them, said that the isle of Albion was nought but mist and that the cloud and chill concealed only miserable grey water.

Yet all that time, and it was a long while even as Elves reckon time, Albion stood amongst the sullen seas hidden beneath its vaporous cloak. For century after century the sky was not seen, and neither tree nor plants grew, except the stubby bog grasses that cling to mire and mud. The land was sodden beneath a perpetual drizzle, and, because the sun's rays never reached the ground, it was cold and damp and always grey.

Thus was the ruin of Albion – a land polluted by sorcery in the distant Age of Magic. A land whose immense menhirs and arcane stone circles once served to control and contain the gateways between the worlds, which to this day might still open and bring ruin to the whole world. Yet thanks to the mists and the island's mysterious inhabitants, guardians of nature unimagined beyond those rocky shores, that possibility appeared as remote and mythical as the isle of Albion itself.