Fable Retrospective: Backstory

Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Children of all ages! Welcome back to the Assassin's Den!

Today, I'm going to tackle some of the backstory in the Fable series.  Most of this is taken from the Fable wiki, which was taken from a previous version of the Fable websites.  And if you truly want to verify anything I'm going to say, the Lionhead forums have this information somewhere.

That said, on with the show.

Centuries before the events of Fable 1, before even the Old Kingdom of legend, there were three demonic beings known as the Court from a realm outside Albion known as the Void.  The Court consisted of three powerful entities: the Knight of Blades, weakest of the three; the Jack of Blades, and the Queen of Blades, most powerful and highest of the three. They came to the world seeking dominance over its people, demanding that they bow down in obedience. The people refused, and in turn, Albion was burned until the earth was as black as the smoke that filled the sky. Once again, the Court demanded total obedience, and again were refused. The result was the raising of the sea into the sky and the flooding of the world. After this next disaster, the Court asked for worship again, this time promising peace, but met the same result. Angry at being refused by lesser beings, the Court twisted the minds of the people of Albion until the entire land was insane. Finally, after many years of suffering, the people bowed down. The Court had won.

 As time went by, there came a challenge from one of the denizens of Albion: a man named William Black, who wielded the Sword of Aeons, rose to the highest peak of Albion to fight for the freedom of his people. First to answer the challenge was the Knight, who was quickly slain by Black. Next came the Jack, who proved to be more of a challenge than the Knight. However, the Jack met the same fate as his ally, yet was still able to cheat death by having his essence escape into his mask. Finally, Black challenged the Queen of Blades. Their titanic battle was waged for weeks on end, with mountains and valleys forming as the result of their seemingly endless fight. At last, William threw down the Queen, ending the reign of the Court over Albion.

Once he had vanquished the Court, the Archon set his mind to unifying Albion into a great kingdom. His powers of Will were so great that it seemed the world reshaped itself in accordance with his wishes. Cities were built in a week's time 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 the world had ever known. The Archon had many descendants during this age of fortune, all of whom shared his powerful Will abilities through his bloodline. These descendants were also called Archons.

But without an enemy to vanquish, the Archons grew petty and cruel. They called themselves Heroes and used their powers of Will to terrorize the people. The first Archon might have stopped them, but his battle with the Queen and his time in the Void had infected his body and mind with a wasting illness. To combat this illness, he returned to the Void and cast it from his body, fearing that it would one day control him and use him to rule Albion and twist it to the dark wishes of the Void. William successfully managed to cast out most of this illness, which became the Corruption and its leader, The Corrupter, who would repeatedly try to take over Albion. With remnants of the disease still decaying him, William wrapped his body in golden mail and a royal blue cloak before vanishing.
Thus began the corruption of The Kingdom.

A descendant of the Archon later constructed a great tower that stretched thousands of feet into the sky. This tower was named the Spire, and it had the power to concentrate all of Albion's Will into a single area. This caused a rift to open between the Void and Albion, a rift through which the Crawler, the Corruptor's chief lieutenant, attempted to invade Albion through. The Old Kingdom's greatest Three Heroes, Stone, Sol, and Blaze responded by combining their power and targeting the Spire. Though they managed to imprison the Crawler within Shadelight dungeon in Aurora, the explosion also destroyed the Old Kingdom, wiping out William Black's empire in an instant.

Black returned centuries later as Scythe (which is speculation, mind you, but Lionhead has pretty much "confirmed with out actually saying it officially"), and began to council a bandit named Nostro. Young Nostro was not without a sense of decency, but could not reach his full potential until he met Scythe took an interest in him. Scythe saw in Nostro the power of the Archon and his descendants, the former masters of the Old Kingdom, and believed that with proper guidance, Nostro could perhaps even unite Albion and undo the damage that Archon's children inflicted. With Scythe as his teacher, Nostro founded the Heroes' Guild, and using his newly taught powers of Will, he raised an army and enforced peace on Albion's people.

Nostro's reign was a glorious one, marked by a return to peace enforced by the Heroes of the Heroes' Guild. Nostro commissioned the Witchwood Arena in order to solve disputes between Heroes, and had the Avo's Tears created to further defend Albion. Unfortunately, he was eventually corrupted by a courtesan named Magdalena. Seeing her chance to acquire power, Magdalena became Nostro's wife, and through him undid all of Nostro's great achievements. Under her influence, the Arena degenerated into a source of violent spectacle provided for the masses, and the once-mighty Heroes' Guild was reduced to a house of mercenaries. Scythe, disgusted by the slow erosion of Nostro's achievements, left him to his fate: death by the hands of an assassin who slipped poison into his food. Seeing how his power had corrupted him, Nostro called upon Scythe to stand vigil with him in his final hours, at peace with himself. However, a warrior at heart, Nostro's soul haunted Lychfield in perpetual torment, seeking a Hero's Death with sword in hand.

And yes, I did directly copy most of that from the Fable wiki.  It took less time than typing it out myself, though I did fix a LOT of spelling errors.

Now, for Heroes, they are extraordinary humans with knowledge and the power over the three heroic disciplines of Strength, Skill, and Will.  It is very rare that a Hero may possess control over all three of the Hero disciplines. The Hero of Oakvale, Hero of Bowerstone and the Hero of Brightwall (who are the protagonists of the three games I own.  The only other Fable game that's canon at this point is Fable Journeys, but that is Kinect only, and I don't own it, not do I want to. Fuck motion control) possess control over these three disciplines as they belong to the Archon's Bloodline, and are descendants of William Black. Only a true descendant of the bloodline can master all three disciplines. That said, there are exemplars of the individual traits; Twinblade and Hammer are exemplars of Strength, Reaver and Ben Finn are exemplars of Skill, Maze and Garth are exemplars of Will.  You also have hybrids like Briar Rose (who shows some Strength and Will), Thunder (also Strength and Will) and Whisper (whom looks more like Strength and Skill, since she shows no Will). 

As for the "disciplines", Strength is built around melee combat, Skill is built around ranged combat, and Will is about magic.  It's my theory that all Heroes are technically Will users, but not in the same way; their blood born affinity for their chosen discipline, like Garth, Hammer and Reaver in Fable 2.   Some manage to become hybrids, like those I mentioned, but all channel their Will to enhance themselves and affect their surroundings.

The amusing thing is that most of the backstory is not presented in the games, not is it hinted at.  We get vague information the Old Kingdom, Jack, the Archon, Scythe and Nostro in the first game, a little bit more in Fable 2 about the Old Kingdom, and a little bit of vague info on the Void and Corrupter in Fable 3.

And with that out of the way, I can talk about the games individually, not worrying about the lore except when how it affects the story of the game I'm focusing on!

Until then, Happy Gaming!