K'aresh

K'aresh was the original homeworld of the K'areshi people - later known as the ethereals - before they evacuated to wander the Twisting Nether. The planet was attacked by the void lord Dimensius the All-Devouring and his void armies, the All-Devouring.

Rise of the K'areshi
The natural arcane energies of K'aresh gave rise to the K'areshi: a race of intellectual scholars and acolytes who soon came to master the very powers which led to their evolution as a species and civilization.

Empire of Anh'zir
One of the first rulers of the K'areshi race was Nexus-King Anh'zir, who, in an effort to display to his people the power of the arcane, founded his nascent empire - which would later go on to be known as the Ethereum - amidst the dunes of Ves'perath. His kingdom was shielded by an Eco-Dome, allowing wildlife to thrive and prosper where there would have otherwise been miserable heat and desiccation. In his mind, if the K'areshi could bring life to where there was not without even the slightest mastery of druidism, there was little they could not accomplish.

Over time, a group of arcanists amidst Anh'zir's court would grow apathetic towards the arcane, seeking a greater deal of power beyond their grasp. They reached out into the cosmos, and discovered a most fascinating form of magic: the Void.

As soon as word reached Anh'zir of these happenings, he had those who dared to meddle with such darkness exiled to the wastes of Ves'perath, never to be heard from again. Although the Nexus-King had successfully banished the practitioners of shadow from his court, whispers and murmurs would allow the knowledge of the Void to live on in secrecy amongst the K'areshi people.

Empire of Salhadaar
Generations later, those who had kept alive the secrets of the Void had found their way into the advisory of a descendant of Anh'zir himself: Nexus-King Salhadaar. Where Anh'zir had been dubious and scathing, Salhadaar was intrigued and disposed. He was prepared to allow the arcanists of his court to begin tapping into the realm of the Void, but found that, for whatever reason, they were unable to do so within the palace Anh'zir once ruled. Surmising that the late Nexus-King had managed to place a curse upon his kingdom which prevented the use of shadow magic, Salhadaar and the Ethereum would journey to the northern reaches of Ves'perath and found a city-state known as Hadaaron, where Salhadaar would rule from the Nexus-Throne and where the scholars fascinated by the shadow were finally able to tap into the Void. After siphoning shadow magic from the otherworldly dimension and comparing it what the arcane had to offer, many among the Ethereum found the latter to be relatively lacking.

One exception to this, however, was a K'areshi arcanist known as Nexus-Lord Kelruun. He chastised Salhadaar for going against the law of his predecessor, surmising that meddling further with this dark energy would lead to the downfall of the K'areshi people, and perhaps even K'aresh itself. Salhadaar blatantly ignored the words of Kelruun, to which the Nexus-Lord promptly imposed self-exile upon himself and his closest followers. These K'areshi would go on to found their own tracts of land to the west of Ves'perath, and would form a group known as the Leywalkers: a group of arcanists who refused the art of manipulating the Void under any circumstances.

Over time, this divide would cause the Ethereum to excel further in the advancement of shadow magic, while the Leywalkers excelled in the advancement of arcane magic. Where the Ethereum managed to bind the Void into their very physiology - creating what would later be known to others as nexus-stalkers - the Leywalkers continued to create greater mana-based works, forming a small counter-civilization almost entirely dependent upon the arcane.

Salhadaar and the Ethereum's meddling into the art of shadow magic did not go unnoticed by the malicious void lords. One among them, Dimensius the All-Devouring, was the first to reach out to the Ethereum's scholars. He promised them a magnificent deal of power, the likes of which could elevate them to greatness beyond the scope of everything they had ever known. All he asked of them was to conjure a magical rift between K'aresh and the Shadowlands via the Twisting Nether, that Dimensius would be able to grant them the full extent of his might. Warily, yet eagerly all the same, the Ethereum began hastily making preparations to forge the rift in question. Unbeknownst to them all, Dimensius had much more ulterior motives...

First Invasion of K'aresh
Upon successfully creating a vortex known as the Shadow Rift in the skies of Hadaaron which Dimensius had asked of them, the Ethereum was met not with power or strength, but instead darkness. Seizing control of the rift, Dimensius ordered countless void-spawn - the armies of the All-Devouring - to begin bathing the surface of K'aresh in shadow, and it was not long before a full-scale invasion was underway. The Ethereum made many attempts to close the Shadow Rift - or at least gain control of it - but their efforts were fruitless. Dimensius was more than a mere master of the Void; he WAS the Void, and he sought only to widen the gap between their reality and his own.

Making one last effort to save his people, Salhadaar ordered arcane shielding - similar yet different to the Eco-Domes used to conjure nature from nothingness - to safeguard Hadaaron from the shadow Dimensius sought to unleash upon the planet. Although the dark energies were blocked, the unimpeded flood of arcane energy tore away the K'areshi's corporeal shells and infused their souls with enough energy so that they could subsist without a body… barely. Now called ethereals, the survivors of the ordeal took to binding themselves with enchanted strips of cloth to provide their souls with enough structure to live on. The action had just barely manage to protect the integrity of the K'areshi race, as those who were outside the barrier when K'aresh was flooded with Void were instead transformed into the abhorrent: monstrous and aberrant shells of their former selves who were plagued with minds of nothingness of veins of shadow, as well as bound to the will of Dimensius. This altered state also proved to be a blessing in disguise, as their enhanced minds and magical abilities allowed the ethereals to fight Dimensius and his limited forces to a standstill. Over the years, however, Dimensius eventually grew powerful enough to summon armies of fellow void creatures, forcing the ethereals to flee into the Twisting Nether and the Great Dark Beyond, using magical portals and an intergalactic, space-faring vessel, the Stygiax, respectively to do so.

In the wake of the ethereals' flight, Dimensius and the All-Devouring took control of K'aresh, managing to subvert the arcane shielding and subsequently bathing the entirety of the world in darkness and shadow. In doing so, many if not all forms of sentient life were corrupted and transformed by the Void, and any and all resistance to the void lord's efforts were quelled by the sheer magnitude of both his armies and his powers. The former city-state of Hadaaron was transformed into a tenebrous den of darkness known as Voidheart.