For centuries this academy trained the most supremely gifted sons and daughters of Albion, bound together by the blood that flowed in their veins.

Following the collapse of the Old Kingdom, the remaining population of Albion fell into isolation. Distance bred suspicion, which grew into bloodshed. Soon villagers were doing unspeakable things for freshwater, food, or even women of child-bearing age. Whilst mercenaries lived quite happily, selling their sword to the vast paranoid sea of vindictive people. Albion was brought to its knees, edging very close to extinction. Then, out of the East, hope arrived in the most unusual of forms - a bandit, by the name of Nostro.

In his youth, Nostro was a bandit and mercenary, driven by an ambition to leave his mark on the world. He was a giant of a man, who was not at ease without a sword in his iron grip. However, he was not without a sense of decency but didn't reach full potential until he met a wise old man named Scythe. He seemed to appear out of nowhere and took a profound interest in Nostro - for he saw something in Nostro, something more than a mere bandit. Nostro, unknowingly, possessed the power that all the Archon's descendants shared. So, 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 the first Archon's children. And so Scythe began to tutor Nostro in how to be a leader of men.

Under Nostro

Following Scythe's counsel, Nostro set about returning security and prosperity to Albion. First, he gathered men and women throughout Albion and established the Guild, where they could train to become real Heroes. Meanwhile, Scythe tutored Nostro in the ways of Will. Using his newfound power, along with Scythe's sage counsel, Nostro forced peace on the warring people of Albion. Thus, the Guild of Heroes was born. For a time, it seemed that Albion might return to its former greatness, but those hopes were in vain. Nostro commissioned The Chamber of Fate, but it is unknown if it bore the same title initially or was the original establishment for the guild.[1] The guild began recruiting sons and daughters of Albion and trained them to be real heroes. The recruits shared a similar bond of lineage and used their abilities to aid the common folk in crisis or dismay.

Despite Scythe's teachings, Nostro increasingly fell under the sway of a power-hungry courtesan named Magdalena. In time, she corrupted Nostro to the point where the Arena, intended to be a venue in which anyone could settle disputes in public, was debased into a source of popular entertainment and the Heroes' Guild became nothing more than a house of mercenaries driven by the 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.

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. He called out for Scythe, and his old mentor came to sit vigil with him in his final hours. Scythe with warm affection told him of the good things Nostro had done in his life. Finally, at peace with himself, Nostro died with the dawn's first light and was then buried in Lychfield Graveyard. Scythe disappeared shortly thereafter.

Even with the death of its first leader, however, the Guild continued to thrive and lived on, expanding in both structure and members.

Guild Rebellion

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. Eventually, the guild fell under a strict regime of only accepting law-abiding and virtuous quests. In the name of freedom, many Heroes revolted against this resolution. Two among them were young Will users, Weaver and Maze. Much blood was spilt in this short revolt, leaving the number of Heroes, already rare in a world of diminishing Will presence, at its lowest for centuries. Finally, the rebellion succeeded, and the civil war ended. Scythe returned to the guild and proposed Weaver as the new Guildmaster, seeing in him the serene and impartial man he would become. 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. The Heroes who graduated from the guild were at times admired and feared by the populace they served.

Hero of Oakvale

Time went on and new Heroes came and went, and the people of Albion lived in relative peace - that is until the evil being Jack of Blades reappeared. His ultimate goal was to regain the Sword of Aeons, which was stored within the Guild. He used Maze (who was in debt to Jack for saving his life) to extract information about the sword. It was soon discovered that in order to acquire the sword one needed an artifact called the 'Septimal Key' and blood from the royal blood-line of the Old Kingdom. Jack told Maze to organize a raid against the small town of Oakvale, where members of the blood-line could be found. There the woodcutter Brom was slain by Jack himself, the former Heroine and Arena Champion Scarlet Robe was kidnapped by Jack and taken to Bargate Prison. Her daughter, Theresa, was blinded and left in the woods, only to be adopted by bandits. However, the younger son that would later be known as the Hero of Oakvale, survived the raid and was undiscovered until Maze found him and saved his life from the bandits. In this young boy Maze saw a way to confront Jack and maybe stop the evil he had been twisted into once and for all.

As Maze sees great potential in the boy, he teleports himself and the boy to the Guild and convinces the Guildmaster to allow him to join the Heroes' Guild, where he would be trained for many years to become a Hero - the greatest of them all. The Hero leaves the guild for the first time since childhood and is given a Guild Seal by the Guildmaster. He 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, both the Hero and his sister can leave the camp.

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, with Whisper by his side, where his first encounter with Jack of Blades takes place. 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 or more 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 hunts down Jack as he travels to different parts of Albion to activate focus sites necessary to claim the Sword of Aeons. After activating all the necessary focus sites he and his minions attacked the Guild, injuring the Guildmaster in the process. Jack then made his way towards the Chamber of Fate, killed Scarlet Robe, and claimed the Sword of Aeons as his own, as it was many centuries ago. In the Chamber of Fate, the Hero had his final confrontation with Jack, and after defeating him, the Hero had to choose; either he cast the Sword of Aeons into the vortex created by Jack of Blades' death, ridding Albion of his evil forever, or, strike down his sister Theresa and use her blood to claim the sword and become as powerful as Jack dreamt of. Eventually, the Hero chose the previous and shattered Jack's dreams of the sword. The only remnant of Jack of Blades that remained was his mask that had become one of the Hero's trophies.

Return of Jack of Blades

An entire year passed, the world settled back into the monotones of life and the Guild was rebuilt. The Hero walked around Albion for a year as a legend seeking his new life. With Jack gone Albion experienced something close to peace and people didn't have as much need of Heroes. After the Hero was summoned back to the Guild by the Guildmaster and Briar Rose they receive a message from Scythe, who had resided in the Northern Wastes since the Hero had come to the Guild in order to recontact the lost land. He told them about gathering darkness in the north and of the Summoners. He also told them that the strongest of them should open the Primal Demon Door to the prophets and take the ancient relic called the Fire Heart to summon the Ship of the Drowned and travel to the Northern Wastes. All the great Heroes of the Guild asked the Demon Door to open, but he opened only to the Hero of Oakvale - the strongest of them

He then travels to the shore of Hook Coast, together with Briar Rose, and put the Fire Heart in the lighthouse, when suddenly Summoners attack the lighthouse and the two heroes have to stop them. When the summoners are defeated and The Fire Heart has charged up, The Ship of the Drowned appeared. With it, the Hero traveled to the Northern Wastes, and from its coast, he traveled to the Snowspire Village to talk with Scythe. Scythe's plan was to ask the local oracle about the evil cursing the Northern Wastes, but for that, he needed four glyphs to awaken it. Scythe sent him to Necropolis, a great city inhabited with ghosts. There he had to search and dig for the glyphs at the same time that he had to fight the monsters that lived in the decrepit town. After killing many creatures he found all four glyphs. He then awakened the Oracle who told him that the evil was in fact Jack of Blades, inhabiting a new form

The Oracle told them that Jack now dwelt in the volcano behind the door called the Bronze Gate. He also told him that if he wanted to open the gate he had to collect, with the mask of Jack of Blades, the souls of three specific Heroes; The King of the Arena, The Heroine, and The Oldest and put them in the Archon's Shrine. From then on the Oracle served as a source of ancient knowledge to the Hero. These descriptions could match with a lot of powerful heroes. The Hero could now, loudly, hear the thoughts of Jack of Blades. Jack tried to manipulate the Hero to kill the Heroes Thunder, Briar Rose, and the Guildmaster to fulfill the quota, while the Hero could as well take the souls of already dead heroes and leave others unharmed, taking the soul of an unknown arena champion, his mother, and Nostro.

After opening the Bronze Gate he faced Jack again, this time in the form of a dragon. Once again the Hero emerges victorious as he casts down Jack of Blades' newest form and absorbs Jack's own soul from the lifeless dragon body into the mask. Scythe telepathically explains to him that the Hero must cast the mask in the flames to destroy it forever, and all the while the mask strives to convince the Hero to wear him, thus being Jack's newest host. The Hero felt Jack's influence within him and his promise for power tempted him to the edge. Eventually, the Hero resisted Jack's temptations and cast the mask into the flames, banishing Jack from Albion forever.

Fall of the Guild of Heroes

After the threat posed by Jack was now gone forever, the Guild now thrived and grew once more. At some unknown date, the legendary Hero of Oakvale dies. Over time, the Heroes that the Guild trained became more arrogant and selfish, breeding resentment from the common folk. Since Jack was slain, the people began to believe there was no more need for Heroes. This sentiment eventually gave rise to organised movements such as the Anti-Hero League of Oakvale. One day a mob of villagers from nearby Bowerstone attacked the Guild. With the element of surprise, superior numbers, the newly invented guns from Samarkand, and the hesitation of most Heroes to attack the people they had sworn to protect, they managed to successfully destroy the Guild. The surviving Heroes fled into the woods and the Guild was no more.

Through the passage of time, what was left of the Guild sank into the ground and was buried beneath what would become known as Bower Lake. The Guild Cave would lie untouched, save for a few explorers who never unearthed its secrets, most notably the Hero of Southcliff who kept his treasure there. This continued until the Hero of Bowerstone, after training for ten years in the Gypsy Camp under the guidance of Theresa, came in search of the Chamber of Fate. It was at the time accessible from a shrine-like entrance on a small island unlockable with a Guild Seal, and later from a Cullis Gate on a hill called Hero Hill. It was in the Chamber that two meetings were held with the first two heroes recruited, who were Hammer and Garth.

50 years later both entrances are now cut off. The shrine has been demolished and is replaced with a white gazebo with a white bridge leading to the shore. The spiral path of Hero Hill had been sliced so the top is inaccessible and the region is now known as Millfields. The Hero of Brightwall as Monarch had a choice of either Reaver's request of draining the lake or Page's request of protecting it. If the previous was chosen then he/she is able to enter the mines. However, this does not lead to the Chamber of Fate and the mines seem to have no connection with the Heroes' Guild.