Our story begins a long time ago, in a time before time. This world was lush and new and humanity was just crawling out from an age of darkness and despair. The old king was dead and his lands were scattered among his many children like bread to pigeons from a park bench. The first kingdom was given to the eldest son, a brave and handsome knight with a heart like steel and a mind like a steel trap. He was given the lush farmland to the east of the river. The second kingdom was the domain of the second son. His heart was as cold as a winter's frost and he possessed great cunning and insight into the will of men. His kingdom was right next to the first son's and was a dark swamp, with a bit of lush farmland on the edges that had continued on from the first son's kingdom, but it was mostly swamp. The third son was given the third kingdom. He was, by all accounts, a pretty nice guy but he kept to himself mostly. But oh, he was wise! Not as practical or cunning as the first son, but he was book smart. If we had to rank the three sons in order of intelligence, the third son was probably somewhere between the first and second son. His kingdom was also a lush farmland. But with a bit of swamp mixed in and was unseasonably warm during certain parts of the year. These three sons ruled their conjoined kingdoms for forty intrigue-filled years. Theirs is a tale of cunning and danger and betrayal, finally culminating in the War of the Three that consumed the land. Heroes would rise and fall and it wasn't until an evil force from the north threatened to destroy them all that the kingdom was united under the one True King and the Great Evil of the World Whose Name Cannot Be Spoken was vanquished for all time.

But our tale is not about them. No, ours is about the long forgotten fourth son who was given the fourth kingdom but refused it and set about to the east in search of total enlightenment. He was a friendly boy with a very inquisitive mind. If we had to rank him with his other brothers, he would probably be the second or third smartest, depending on whether or not you consider the four years that the third son was rendered mentally incompetent after being kicked in the head by his steed after the Third Battle For the Gates of Steel before the coming of the Great Healer who restored both his mental capacity and the First Son's eyesight, which was taken from him by the Winter Hag's dark magicks.

But our tale is not about them... Anyway, the Fourth son's kingdom was on the far edge, overlooking the deserts to the east. Upon hearing of his father's death and the dividing of the kingdom, the fourth son, who had no stomach for an interesting life of politics and intrigue, set about to sell his worldly possessions and live the life of a nomad in search of Ultimate Enlightenment. He sold his horses to one of the local nobles for a fair price. The tapestries from the main hall of his manor were sold to a local art dealer for far lower than they were worth. However, the Fourth Son realized this and made sure to get a far better deal when he sold the tapestries from the dining room. He couldn't find a buyer for the tapestries in the antechamber. They were old and held mostly sentimental value and were frankly garish in comparison to the tapestries being created at the time. But the Fourth Son was not displeased by this and was actually relieved to unload any of the tapestries at all, given the fact that the market for tapestries in general was over saturated and awash in high quality knockoffs. Soon after the fate of the tapestries were settled, the Fourth Son set about selling the rest of his possessions which included a large number of ornamental statues of his favourite duck racers, a table shaped like a half moon with a full set of matching chairs, a table shaped like a full moon with a full set of matching chairs, a table shaped like a rectangle with a half set of matching chairs and two replacement chairs that were made after one particularly exciting evening, a set of golden polo mallets, various cookbooks, a few adventure novels, a gremblin-themed jokebook, the bookshelves these books rested upon, a few sweaters that didn't fit him anymore and were itchy around the collar, a hand mirror, an enchanted shaving kit, two of his five hunting dogs, the silverware, a broken artist's easel, and a hammock. The rest of his princely possessions were sold at an auction after he had already left on his journey of discovery and enlightenment.

Armed with only his wits, a ragged travel pack, and a team of elite bodyguards called The Crying Wind, the Fourth Son ventured out into the world. He travelled westward for a while until the road curved and he continued to follow it northward. He stopped for lunch of cheese and bread by the side of the road for an hour or so before continuing onward. He slowed down a bit for a while when a pebble got into his boots and eventually had to take a break to fish it out. By then it was evening and he had spent the entire first day walking. Night was coming and he knew it would be dangerous to be outside at night. For you see, horrible monsters inhabited these lands and came out of night to do unspeakable things to anyone too foolish to seek shelter. Indeed, that very night, as the Fourth Son slept by the side of the road, dark figures with teeth like razor blades and eyes forged in pure hate swirled around him. Death would have been certain were it not for his numerous, skilled bodyguards who ably destroyed every single one of these monsters in a mile radius around the sleeping Fourth Son. That morning, the Fourth Son awoke, stretched and greeted a beautiful day. After relieving himself behind a nearby tree, he went back to his sleeping mat and fell back asleep until around 12:30 or so when he was nudged awake by one of his bodyguards. After having a breakfast/lunch consisting of grilled horrible monster sandwiches, he continued on his journey. The road swung westward again and soon he reached the edge of his kingdom. With a contemplative sigh, the Fourth Son crossed the border into an unfamiliar territory. This was not the furthest he had ever travelled, but it was definitely in the top five furthest places he'd ever travelled. The journey was easy and he slept well and ate well.

In a week and a day and five hours he was at the edge of the town of Baydrich. Baydrich was a wild and adventuresome place. Adventurers from all over would converge on Baydrich's famed taverns and swap fantastic tales from their travels all over the world. One couldn't walk down the street without encountering some sort of barfight or bit of rogue dealings. There was an old saying, "If you can't find it in Baydrich, it doesn't exist." This quote was a little misleading, for a variety of reasons that we won't go into here.

The town was governed quite ably by a beautiful mayoress whose gaze could enchant any man who laid eyes upon her. Her hair and eyes were the same shade of silver and her perfect face was marred only by a small half moon shaped birthmark below one of her eyes. She spent her days in the grand tower that loomed ominously over the town and longed for the day when she could leave her post and see the world. She had to stay in the tower, unfortunately. Her cousin, the Dark Baron, was constantly conspiring against her and would send wave after wave of deadly assassins after her in an effort to remove his kinder and gentler cousin from rule, leaving the town of Baydrich entirely for himself and more importantly than that, he would finally possess the fabled Ring of Baydrich. The Dark Baron needed the ring of Baydrich the Mayoress possessed for a truly nefarious scheme. Only he knew of the ring's true power: controlling an army of stone rat demons that lay in wait in the miles and miles of ancient sewers beneath the town.

Baydrich was a wild town all right. So wild, in fact, that the Fourth Son decided it might be best if they just passed through as quickly as they could. He spent roughly a half hour in the town, avoided making eye contact with anyone of note, and managed to stock up on snacks and provisions for his travel without incident.

With the exciting metropolis of Baydrich behind him, the Fourth Son continued on his journey westward. Soon the gentle plains gave way to an endless desert. The sandstorms of this desert ripped at the Fourth Son's face and got into his eyes. Eventually, he was forced to take the clothes of one of his bodyguards in order to fashion a face mask. And yet, despite these hardships; the Fourth Son, his team of able and hardy bodyguards, and one bodyguard now in his underwear, continued onwards. Throughout all of this, the Fourth Son continued to look for a sign that his journey was nearing an end, and yet, even in this mystical desert land, it did not come to him.

Soon, the bodyguard in his underwear died of exposure and had to be buried. It was a sad state of affairs, indeed and the Fourth Son could not help but feel slightly responsible. At the funeral, he stepped forward and sung the now infamous "Lament for a Hired Thug" which he had composed himself in the hours leading up to the bodyguard's death.

O World, tell me a story
about this man who has passed away
"I have no story to tell about this man"
I heard the World say

O green fields, tell me a tale
about this guy who gets paid to guard
"I cannot help you" the fields sobbed
but I will send you a condolence card"

O blue skies, surely you've seen
this dead man lyin' here all corpsified
"I have nothing to say about him"
and the winds themselves did cried (sic)

O gentle sandstorm whipping at my face
surely you've got an anecdote to sing
"I totally didn't kill that guy
No seriously, you can't prove anything"

The song continued on like that for dozens of verses over almost that many hours. Finally, with tears streaming down his face he looked up and realized that his bodyguards had left him. For the first time in his life, except for that one time he accidentally got left behind at the castle while everyone else fled the Mauve Plague, he was alone. Utterly alone. Truly and completely alone.

As for the bodyguards, they made it perhaps a mile out before they were devoured by a great and terrible sand serpent. When they finally carved their way out of the beast, they were no longer in the desert. In fact ... they weren't even on the same planet they started on! They looked up in the sky in horror and realized they were staring at their home, but it was in the same place the moon had been and just as far away. They stepped out cautiously from the burst belly of the great creature. From out of a nearby space rock, a man as old as time itself stepped out. "I'm sure you have many questions, which is only right as these worlds are made of secrets and lies. However... I am here to give you the answers you need. And you will need to know a great many things before the real battle for good can be fought."

But our tale is not about them or the magical and wondrous world the bodyguards now found themselves trapped upon. No, this tale is about the Fourth Son, who was now sitting in the sands of the great desert waiting to die. The bodyguards had taken with them all of the food that he liked and all that he had left were a few brownies with nuts in them and a turkey sandwich, which would have been edible were it not for the mayo that some inconsiderate sandwich maker had spread all over BOTH pieces of bread. The Fourth Son decided he would rather starve.

Some old folks believe that the path to true clarity comes when you are on the edge of death in an extreme location. The Fourth Son was in just such a place and in such a condition. However, before he went into an enlightening delirium, he decided he could just pick out the nuts in the brownies and decided he'd walk back to civilization. He made it about halfway back to Baydrich before he decided that he'd rather cross the desert and turned around. He went back and forth like this for several days before accidentally making a quarter-turn and headed south instead of the usual west/east waffling. He was heading towards the dreaded Oasis of Endless Dreams at a rapid pace.

Fortunately for him, the Oasis Wizard was out of town when he arrived and the Oasis was generally pleasant. He drank from its cool lake, ate from its ample trees, and got a pedicure from the Wizard's friendly Jerboa mice. Relaxed, recharged, and armed with shiny and well maintained cuticles, the Fourth Son continued his journey westward. A week after he left, the Wizard came back to his now defiled Oasis and flew into a rage. The first thing he did was downsize his Jerboa workforce. The next thing he did was vow to the moon and stars that he would chase the Fourth Son across the ends of the earth and when he caught up with him ... they would battle to the death. Unfortunately for the Oasis Wizard, the Fourth Son was a very fast walker and the Wizard never actually caught up with the Fourth Son, but he really really tried. He might have caught up with the Fourth Son, when the Fourth Son was captured by the strange and beautiful Walrus men of the west and held prisoner, but the Wizard himself was eaten by a sand serpent and eventually joined the Bodyguards in their magical journey on another world.

But this story is not about any of them and while the Captivity and Flight From the Walrus Men is generally considered the most interesting part of the Fourth Son's tale, it is also the most lengthy, violent, and sexy portion of the story, so it shall be omitted from this narrative. After escaping from the Walrus Citadel, the Fourth Son found himself entering a territory for which there were no maps. Actually, there were maps, they were just in languages that he did not understand and the pictures were very vague.

The journey out from the Walrus Citadel was long and perilous. There were many times during said journey that the Fourth Son began to wonder whether or not he had made a good choice in bringing along one of the giant penguin mounts used by the Walrus Men as giant feathery toboggans for travelling down the dangerous snowy hills that surrounded the Walrus Citadel. The Fourth Son had realized that when the Walrus Men said that the dangerous hills "surrounded" their citadel, they meant that the hills surrounded the citadel on all but one side. This one side, the Fourth Son had discovered that, rather than a snowy wasteland, this side opened up to an arid desert, even less hospitable than the previously-mentioned desert.

The layout of the citadel, he realized, included a tusk-like wing that extended into the desert. At one point, the Fourth Son considered eating his penguin mount, but penguin mounts are very perceptive when it comes to their riders. When it learned of the Fourth Son's dinner plans, the enormous penguin spread its heretofore useless wings and flew away. The Fourth Son wondered at this, believing that perhaps all penguins can fly, provided that their wings have not been iced over by the harsh, freezing environment, which they almost always are invariably.

As dehydration approached, the Fourth Son began to hallucinate. In his mind's eye, he saw that he was in the far-away city of Bedshireburgton. It was a lovely city with a cumbersome name that was given to it by the great explorer, Frederick Bedshireburgton-Johnsonjonesmith III, esq. The Fourth Son had never been there, but he had given a rather exhaustive report on the town as part of his elementary school studies. Without even walking down to the harbour, he knew that the city boasted a massive fishing industry that generated revenue in excess of four million Bedshireburgton shekels annually. Even more impressive that the fishing in Bedshireburgton, however, was the amount of tourists brought in by the massive sculpture of the city's founder, which was crafted entirely of the city's leading export: weather-resistant chocolate.

As the story went, it took all five hundred of the city's chocolatiers ten full years to create the statue. Most would agree that the statue was visible from space, but still others wondered, "what is space?" The Fourth Son was one of those people. As he contemplated the nature of space, he soon realized that he was not standing at Bedshireburgton's famous "Circle Square", at the corner of Court Lane and Boulevard Street. Rather, he was knee-deep in the sands of the great Sand Desert. The name, he thought, was sorely lacking, but that is a completely different story. As he tried to come up with his own name for the desert, he passed out.

Colours swam before the Fourth Son's eyes as he lay unconscious in the desert. Some of the colours were brand new, having never before been used either as a house paint or the theme of an avant-garde art show. Just as he was beginning to think he could taste several of the colours, the Fourth Son awoke. In his stupor, he had been taken in by a kindly family of desert dwellers. The family, he learned, consisted of two parents, and a series of children, each measuring three inches or so taller than the child before. The father explained that in the daytime, the children would stand with the oldest, tallest child with his back to the sun. The other children would then line up, according to age, within the oldest child's shadow. This, the father reasoned, would be cheaper than hiring a babysitter. This revelation quashed the Fourth Son's plan to get himself hired as a babysitter in order to earn enough money to eventually buy himself some suitable transportation, but he remained positive and upbeat despite the setback.

The father of these boring children owned one of the desert's few usable boats. The mere idea of a boat being used in a place with no water caused the Fourth Son to laugh and laugh. His laughter wounded the father's pride, and so he insisted that the Fourth Son join him for a trip around his family's lands. Indeed, he had inherited many acres of dry, empty dunes from his father, and his father's father had won said dunes in a raffle that was being held at a recent gathering of desert-dwelling idiots. A local woman was impressed by the man's winnings, and so they vowed to crest the dunes of his newly-acquired lands together henceforth.

All this was explained to the Fourth Son in painstaking detail as he was driven around the desert aboard the strange boat, but he was more interested in the boat's operation than he was in the owner's lineage. The boat was propelled by a motor of sorts, which consisted of a very small pony standing inside of a wheel. When the driver wanted the boat to go forward, he would place a small desert carrot in front of the pony, but just out of its reach. The creature would then gallop rapidly within the wheel, which then caused the propellers of the boat to turn. The propellers themselves were enormous, so much so that the Fourth Son wondered how the small pony was able to turn them simply by galloping.

The owner continued to ramble on, and so the Fourth Son took to fidgeting. In his pocket, the Fourth Son found a small stone, which he turned over and over in his hand as he waited for the boat trip to come to an end. As the boat hit an unusually choppy patch of sand, the stone jumped out of the Fourth Son's pocket. When he reached down to pick it up, he realized that this was no mere rock. It was a piece of Walrusite, one of the rarest and most precious of the rare and precious metals! He knew then that his desert woes were over. He took the Walrusite and showed it to the owner of the boat (and desert). He offered the rare mineral in exchange for the man's unusual land-borne boat. The boat's owner was satisfied with the deal, and so he was no longer the boat's owner. He was merely the exceedingly wealthy desert eccentric. For you see, with that bit of Walrusite, he was able to buy many different luxury items, not the least of which was a small, handheld fan. Actually, that was the least of his luxury items, and it was only an impulse purchase from a desert supermarket.

Getting back to the Fourth Son, he had now secured the means with which to escape the Sand Desert without having to expose himself to the elements any more than he already had. He put the top up on his new boat, and drove off towards the horizon. The ride was surprisingly smooth, and the pony never seemed to tire of its Sisyphean struggle for the carrot. He was a fine pony, the Fourth Son thought. Once I am out of this desert, I shall have to free that pony and use it to travel the remaining distance. And he would have all the carrots he could eat, but only once he had arrived safely at home. Who knows what the pony would do once it actually obtained a carrot.

The Fourth Son was roused from reverie when a group of strange creatures leapt onto his boat. They were fat, lumpy creatures, so much so that the Fourth Son wondered how they had managed to fling themselves onto the boat. The foremost of these creatures stepped forward and announced that he and he companions were Desert Manatees. The Fourth Son had heard rumours of such creatures. Legend held that they were a gentle, curious sort, but the ones he faced now looked anything but. The manatee explained that he and his companions were taking action against the owners of such desert boats because the immense destruction they wrought on the Desert Manatee's habitat. One of the other manatees then admitted that this was only the second desert boat that any of them had actually ever seen before, but it was still no less serious a threat to them. Indeed, the leader of these manatees seems to have a small boat propeller lodged in his head. But the leader took offence to the Fourth Son gawking at his head wound. He lunged at the Fourth Son, snarling and gnashing his dull, flat teeth.

The Fourth Son dodged the manatee's lunge. As fast as he was, the manatee could not recover quickly enough, and smashed into the pony's wheel. The spooked horse then doubled its gallop, sending the boat ahead at dangerous speeds. The other manatees panicked and leapt back off of the boat, leaving their leader to an uncertain fate. The lead manatee struggled to calm the pony while the Fourth Son steered the boat. Looking ahead, he could see that the boat was fast approaching the edge of the desert. Were it not for the thick row of rapidly-approaching trees, he might otherwise have been happy. The Fourth Son looked for a safe place to crash it. He chuckled for a moment at the idea of a "safe crash" but he found such a spot all the same: the loading bay of a pillow factory. The Sweet Dreams pillow factory had maintained a second pillow loading bay for emergency orders, and for that, the Fourth Son was grateful.

The boat slammed into a mound of pillows, tossing the Fourth Son, the manatee, and the pony overboard. Luckily, there were three smaller pillow mounds waiting to catch them. Mounds, it had turned out, were the best method for storing such pillows. With no time to waste, the Fourth Son hopped onto the freed pony and fled the scene, expecting to leave the belligerent manatee with the bill for all the factory pillows they had compromised.

Instead, the manatee threw himself onto the pony as the Fourth Son rode past. He had to hand it to the manatee: the creature was great at catching fast-moving object. He raised his fist, intending to batter away the doughy stowaway, but the manatee begged for mercy. He claimed that for saving his life, he was now in debt to the Fourth Son. A manatee attendant, the Fourth Son wondered. Perhaps this would be worthwhile. He accepted the arrangement, but wondered what to call his new acquaintance. The manatee then took the time to introduce himself as Lahrd. And so began the adventures of the Fourth Son, Lahrd, and Hoofen (that was the pony's name).

Together, the three brave adventurers travelled far and wide across our great world. Whenever they stopped in a city, Lahrd took the time to mail his friends and family back in Sand Desert to let them know that he was doing just fine now, living the daring lifestyle of a freelancer do-gooder. They responded in kind, but it often took a while for Lahrd to hear of it, due to the frequent Mail Forwarding procedures the letters had to go through in order to reach him. Even so, he marvelled at the efficiency of the postal system that had been setup in the world outside of his desert home, and the Fourth Son taught him the majesty of the commemorative stamp, the joy of the postcard, and the horror of junk mail.

Though the Fourth Son enjoyed entertaining Lahrd with stories of the banal, he longed for something different. In adventure after adventure, he wondered what it truly was that he was after. He wondered and wondered, and then he would lose focus and start to wonder why he wondered so much, and what other words might be used instead of the word "wonder". It was this rambling line of thought that led him to the slopes of Mount Huj. It was said, someone once said, that high atop the mountain was a sage of unspeakable, almost sickeningly-vast knowledge. Surely this man would give the Fourth Son the direction he needed in his life.

None of the three brave adventurers was particularly adept at climbing. Lahrd used his leaping skills to flop from one rock to another, but eventually, his great belly became red and sore. The Fourth Son began to get quite bored with climbing, but it was at that very moment that Hoofen, his especially brave mount, spoke to one of the mountain goats. The goat taught Hoofen much, but most important of all, he taught him how to climb a mountain in leaps and bounds. The pony clopped his hoof four times, and both man and manatee knew there was no time to waste. They climbed aboard the pony just as he tore his way up the sheer walls and cliffs of the mountain. Along the way, they passed many other enlightenment-seekers, but they knew that they could not help them. It was important that they earn their own enlightenment.

A minute later, and three of them had reached the summit. There, they met the wise man, Weissman. The Fourth Son told him of how he could not think of another term for "wonder," and so Weissman gave him a thesaurus. The Fourth Son took the dusty tome and searched for "wonder". Though he found it, he did not care for any of the suggested words that appeared. Then, in a flash of enlightenment: he looked up "enlighten". "Teach," the book said. "Instruct," the book said. "Educate," the book said. That was it! The Fourth Son realized that through his travels, he had learned so much. He shouldn't keep such knowledge to himself; he should return home teach others how to be such bold adventurers. Moreover, he would teach them to avoid the mistakes he had made.

The Fourth Son sank to his knees and began to laugh. His quest was finally over. Lahrd took the thesaurus and looked up "desert", but all he got for synonyms were "cheesecake", "pudding", and "ice cream". When he realized his mistake, he too began to laugh. Hoofen joined in the laughter as well, his strange, braying pony laughter echoing down the side of the mountain. The noise triggered a small avalanche that swept the other mountain climbers back to the bottom of the mountain, but that was an important part of their journey, I assure you.

And so, the three adventurers returned to the Fourth Son's home. Plans had been made to divvy up the Fourth Kingdom in his absence, but those plans were swept aside at the sight of the kingdom's rightful heir. The Fourth Son was crowned king, and as his first act, he made Lahrd a Grand Duke, and to Hoofen, he gave the position of Secretary of Agriculture. The Fourth Son was a wise and fair ruler. Between his wealth of experience, Lahrd's rational civic planning, and Hoofen's mastery of logistics, the Fourth Kingdom became the crown jewel over the previous three kingdoms, and all the other kingdoms that came thereafter. That includes the Pirate Kingdom and the Ninja Monarchy, but those are tales for another day...

What's that you ask? What does this have to do with Psions? Oh, yeah, soon after he was crowned King, The Fourth Son hired and soon after fired a court jester who later went on to found our sacred order.