I M M E D I A T E G O A L S
Important: Successfully make it to Riverfall.
Important: Regain economic stability, and a home.
Important: Learn new magics, such as Malediction.
Important: Get into contact with someone important, such as Rhaenon, Gallagher, Aoren, etc.
I M P O R T A N T L O N G T E R M G O A L S
Eventual: Aid in the freeing and protection of at least one slave in a major city.
Eventual: Perform a great deed in service of Rhysol.
Eventual: Become a powerful sorcerer and use this to successfully fight for important ideals . . . regardless of these ideals.
Eventual: Own a nice home in a major city.
Eventual: Visit Ravok for a period of time.
R A D I C A L G O A L S
Risky: Install the Black Sun in a major city.
Risky: Begin a slave revolution in a major city, such as Kenash.
Risky: Kill mark-wielders of opposing Gods.
Risky: Sabotage the structure of Sahova and destroy its hierarchy.
S K I L L G O A L S
Imperative: Become an Expert Reimancer. Then, become a master.
Imperative: Become an Expert Hypnotist. Then, become a master.
Imperative: Eventually master all of these magical trees: Reimancy, Hypnotism, Auristics, Shielding, Glyphing, Malediction, Magecrafting, Flux, Animation, Familiary, Summoning, Dominion, Devouring (self-made), Morphing
Imperative: Become a Competent Bodybuilder.
Imperative: Become Competent in several useful physical skills: running, acrobatics, a weapon (most likely longsword), etc.
Imperative: Become an Expert at all social skills that revolve around infiltrating, sabotaging, lying, and manipulating others.
D E S I R E B A S E D G O A L S
Wanted: Restore positive relations with two important people: Rhaenon and Aoren
Wanted: Adopt former slaves as children and begin a family
Wanted: Have a large network of important friends and contacts.
R E L I G I O U S G O A L S
Believed: Gain a mark from Rhysol.
Believed: Gain a mark from . . . Ssena maybe?
Believed: A mark from Akajia would help with my devious plans.
Believed: Perform ten acts of devotion for Rhysol, such as betrayal, sewing chaos and lies, so on and so forth.
M A J O R A C H I E V E M E N T S
Performed: Left Ravok permanently, abandoning the life of a slaver.
Performed: Self-actualized after becoming a slave, becoming capable of fighting for himself.
Performed: Freed himself from slavery by manipulating with Hypnosis.
Performed: Entered a strong bond/romantic relationship: fell in love with Noah Amuel, becoming his bondmate.
SPECIFICS
Name: Damien
Race: Human, Druvin
Date of Birth: 290 AV, 3rd of Winter
Place of Birth: Sunberth
Date of Death: 326 AV, 18th of Spring (Age 36)
Title: Rhysol's Bloodletter
SKILLS
Malediction 89
Weapon (Longsword) 77
Leeching 65
Flux 55
Acrobatics 45
Damien was a Druvin Enforcer who served Rhysol’s will, under the directive of Myleena Vos, the Voice, who spoke His orders to the others of Damien’s kind. During the short period of time living as one of Rhysol’s marked followers, he quickly rose in prominence and was marked Druvin by the blood of the Dark God. While he only lived as a Druvin for three years, he caused unbelievable entropy wherever he went and was thus a beloved of Rhysol. From the very beginning of his life, Damien sought greatness at the end of a sword, and he accomplished his goals and more.
The Druvin was known for his spellsword-esque fighting style and his radical desire for self-improvement, perhaps self-perfection. He would constantly improve in abilities, forge artifacts, and then use them to spread his master's agenda for their singular purpose until they were spent.
His personality was always calculated but cruel. Honestly, despite being a part of the group paramount to the church of Rhysol, he was always very adrift from his peers and imagined himself to have a relationship with Rhysol that was unbound by them. He did as he was ordered to, he spoke when spoken to, and he clearly expressed loyalty - but there was a detachment, and because of this, he was not popular amongst his peers.
The man's personality could be described as idealistic and fanatical. Originally simply acting as a scion of chaos, he eventually shifted his thoughts to a belief that Chaos was liberation and that Rhysol was the benevolent of the pantheon. He served his purpose with zeal that made him cruel to his enemies, though he was far too pompous to be kind to his servants. He was a man that made many enemies, and so the death that came so swiftly after becoming a Druvin was one expected by his white-eyed kin.
BIOGRAPHY
Damien began his life collared, the son of a slave, no last name to bear and two parents sold to Sahova like livestock. Much like many in Sunberth, he never once experienced the idea of autonomy. Some people were ruled over by gangs, and others by wealthy masters who simply used them for the sake of pleasure or household duties or, sometimes, practices to pay back on their investment. One of the opportunities of wealth in Sunberth came with the Blood Pits, a sort of gladiatorial arena pitting the desperate and the owned against each other for coin. From the time he was very young, Damien was trained to be an excellent fighter in the arena. He was chosen for this role due to a natural strength and healthiness that the other slaves of his generation did not possess.
From very early on, a peculiar fact noticed by all in his life was the exceptionally positive relationship between he and his master. The two were exceptionally similar – they both enjoyed wealth, prestige, pleasure and violence. Damien was easily appeased, given pleasure slaves, fed well, taught history and information about the world around him. From very early on in his life, he was forced to return on his investment. It began with battling other young boys to the death - he fought well for his master in mock arenas, slaughtering other young warriors, garnering much coin, and making a name for himself and the wielder of his lock and key. As he grew older, he had become an exceptionally skilled fighter – one of the best to ever wield an longsword in the Blood Pits, and a strong and sturdy man with a skilled stance and exceptionally tricky series of battle maneuvers. He slaughtered many of his enemies by means of confusing their rationality with their adrenaline – making warriors attack fake openings, appearing much weaker and easier to defeat than he really was, even sometimes allowing himself to get injured to make his opponents believe he was beatable by someone of their means.
One thing he was known for very well was his exceptionally cruel and sadistic method of dispatching opponents, picking away at them for long periods of time. During one of the most prestigious fights in the Blood Pits, where he fought one of the gang leaders of Sunberth, he cut off every single one of the man’s limbs and fed him his own genitalia. He would very frequently cut opponents dozens of times, weaken their limbs by sawing through their muscles and bones, and assaulting areas with large concentrations of nerves. The result was always pools of blood filling the grounds of the arena, and exceptionally mangled cadavers. Due to his violence, he was nicknamed ‘The Bloodletter’ by the audience of the Blood Pits, and his reputation filled much of the ears of those in the city.
Unfortunately, Damien began to grow exceptionally curious on the subject of magic after a mysterious woman introduced him to Malediction, a self-proclaimed seeress and fortune teller who his master employed to introduce Damien and the man to a variety of magics. The studies were discreet, and the yields were kept away from all situations. They had plans for guests, hiding their tables full of malediction symbols and the bones of animals and monsters that lurked the wilds. All of their plans were performed with absolute perfection. No one ever discovered their infatuation.
And then, Damien committed his first sin that would forever place him within Rhysol’s sight: betrayal. He left the city of Sunberth abruptly, abusing the autonomy his master had given him out of trust. Of course, before he left, he left anonymous messages at prestigious gang headquarters about the location of his master’s secret magical studies and the chests with which he’d store his maledicted artifacts. The man was inevitably executed cruelly, and he knew in his dying breath that it was his most beloved slave and trusted friend that ended him. Why?
He did not know. He didn’t know why he did it . . . he just found the thought enchanting, wildly entertaining. The picture of his master, who he’d been bound to for so long, dying in shackles and painfully as Damien could’ve been – it was enjoyable for him, sensual even. As he left the city, there was much more that he did. Considering he had become a skilled maledictor by this time, he had left dangerous artifacts in explicitly public places– artifacts that would explode and kill dozens, ones that would poison the air and pull away oxygen. Artifacts of extreme power, and extremely chaotic nature. He made dozens of these in his lifespan, and always they ended up ‘accidentally’ slaughtering tens of people. Always, whatever institution he found himself problematically engaged with would lose several of their enforcers. He was a prodigal son, someone who wandered all over the world feasting on depravity and disorder.
And he didn’t even know that Rhysol existed.
The two of them were perfect for one another, and the God had his eye on Damien for a long while. When his path finally took him to Ravok, the young man had already become unstoppable. With the bones of what he said to be a ‘mouthless monster,’ he carved and maledicted a legendary longsword that was known for its ability to cut through nearly any physical material effortlessly, as well as regenerate damage done to it and evolve over usage, eventually growing in applications based on the one who wielded it. By the time Damien met the end of his life, the weapon was said to be capable of dispelling magics and levitating at the user’s whim.
Upon entering the city and causing the typical chaos, Rhysol did not punish the man with death but instead pushed him on the path to eternal life. He marked him once, and then gave him tasks to perform. Each and every task was always performed successfully, and always with lies, betrayal, violence, cruelty. Each action he took rippled down the chain of entropy and tugged at the strings of Gods. He killed those marked by Yahal, Priskil, Knights of Sylir, and he always instilled terror in those who discovered their corpses and personal items.
Not long after their relationship began, Rhysol offered him more power and he offered the God something back – his soul, to make him Druvin, make him Rhysol’s. The two of them entangled then, and he shortly afterwards became the God’s most active agent. He was the bane of the civilized world, with power to match every drop of prestige. After he became a Druvin, he picked up more forms of magic, eventually mastering Leeching and becoming highly proficient in projection. His form was unrelentingly perfect, and thus leeching came freely to him, its drawbacks nulled by his superior natural state. He became a force to be reckoned with, maledicted artifacts supplying him with brutal strength and utility and the ability to annihilate mages and physical foes alike.
For years, he served his master well, until eventually he was tasked with one of his most important missions – killing one of reincarnations of Velis Igraal, one infinitely hunted by his Dark Lord. And so he consented, and he engaged in this task typically. He found the man in the sea of grass, in the mobile city of Endrykas. The man was a Knight of Sylir, though circumstances brought him to Cyphrus. The two of them became exceptionally close, with Damien playing his part well, morphing to appear as if a regular human, perfecting his ability to lie without feeling a single rumble in his conscience. He weaved his way into the Drykas’ heart and from there he would destroy him.
It began with a curse. It was followed by a knife to the chest, and the Djed of the Drykas being drained and his body being filled with poison from Damien’s maledicted knife. He was dying, fast. He was dying so fast that he couldn’t possibly fathom what had happened – every last inch of him was being filled with numbness, the void. Reactively, the man fought back and gave it everything he had. He fought extremely well, and was Damien’s greatest opponent even despite all that befell him.
The man died, and Damien accomplished his goal. He believed he was finished – but as he turned to leave, the man’s precautions were set to use and a network of glyphs activated at the hands of a sentient artifact and killed the Druvin where he stood. In his last moments, he simply chanted his Dark Lord’s name.
MAJOR ARTIFACTS
As a maledictor, the Druvin had created hundreds of artifacts as a part of his obsessive nature. Unlike most maledictors he didn’t strive for the perfect item but for the most fiendishly chaotic ones. However, he did create several artifacts in his lifetime that were absurdly potent, whether by accident or determination.
Dark Father – This was his primary creation, one he claimed to have been off of the corpse of a mouthless humanoid that shifted forms during combat. The bone Arakh was known to be unbelievably sharp, capable of rending through nearly anything in an instant. It was also known to be indestructible as it would endlessly self-regenerate. Over time, the blade bonded with his energy and began to dispel magics near him that he deemed unwanted in his presence. The artifact was, most likely, sentient.
Kind Mother– Another sentient item. This bone helmet was made from the corpse of a master auristic and shielder, and would remain quiet and stationary during meetings and then reveal the intentions, aura, emotions and most likely outcomes of interacting with a certain person. Using this knowledge, the artifact would adapt based on the target observed and make the one to wear the helmet essentially invulnerable to all of the target’s primary combative functions.
Dubious Son – A necklace made from the corpse of a Druvin. The bones seem to have been plucked from the spine and carved. Simply put, wielding this necklace would mirror the effects of becoming a Druvin – exceptional strength, long lifespans if not agelessness, invulnerability to the vast majority of poisons and illnesses, and even strong resistance to all forms of curses. If a Druvin wore this necklace, all of their benefits would be effectively doubled.
Cruel Sister – His final artifact, Cruel Sister was made from the same Druvin’s bones and shaped into a bracelet. Wearing this bracelet would – simply put – result in the conversion of all Djed foreign to the wielder’s body into non-toxic Djed. This includes Wild Djed. Any leecher to ever hear of this artifact would surely pursue it to the end of their days.
Important: Successfully make it to Riverfall.
Important: Regain economic stability, and a home.
Important: Learn new magics, such as Malediction.
Important: Get into contact with someone important, such as Rhaenon, Gallagher, Aoren, etc.
I M P O R T A N T L O N G T E R M G O A L S
Eventual: Aid in the freeing and protection of at least one slave in a major city.
Eventual: Perform a great deed in service of Rhysol.
Eventual: Become a powerful sorcerer and use this to successfully fight for important ideals . . . regardless of these ideals.
Eventual: Own a nice home in a major city.
Eventual: Visit Ravok for a period of time.
R A D I C A L G O A L S
Risky: Install the Black Sun in a major city.
Risky: Begin a slave revolution in a major city, such as Kenash.
Risky: Kill mark-wielders of opposing Gods.
Risky: Sabotage the structure of Sahova and destroy its hierarchy.
S K I L L G O A L S
Imperative: Become an Expert Reimancer. Then, become a master.
Imperative: Become an Expert Hypnotist. Then, become a master.
Imperative: Eventually master all of these magical trees: Reimancy, Hypnotism, Auristics, Shielding, Glyphing, Malediction, Magecrafting, Flux, Animation, Familiary, Summoning, Dominion, Devouring (self-made), Morphing
Imperative: Become a Competent Bodybuilder.
Imperative: Become Competent in several useful physical skills: running, acrobatics, a weapon (most likely longsword), etc.
Imperative: Become an Expert at all social skills that revolve around infiltrating, sabotaging, lying, and manipulating others.
D E S I R E B A S E D G O A L S
Wanted: Restore positive relations with two important people: Rhaenon and Aoren
Wanted: Adopt former slaves as children and begin a family
Wanted: Have a large network of important friends and contacts.
R E L I G I O U S G O A L S
Believed: Gain a mark from Rhysol.
Believed: Gain a mark from . . . Ssena maybe?
Believed: A mark from Akajia would help with my devious plans.
Believed: Perform ten acts of devotion for Rhysol, such as betrayal, sewing chaos and lies, so on and so forth.
M A J O R A C H I E V E M E N T S
Performed: Left Ravok permanently, abandoning the life of a slaver.
Performed: Self-actualized after becoming a slave, becoming capable of fighting for himself.
Performed: Freed himself from slavery by manipulating with Hypnosis.
Performed: Entered a strong bond/romantic relationship: fell in love with Noah Amuel, becoming his bondmate.
Safekeeping :
DEVOURING (POTENTIAL NEW MAGIC)
The discipline of Devouring is one that was, essentially, lost to the ages. It is a magic that is exceptionally personality-based. The function of a Devourer can either be to infinitely empower the self or infinitely feed their own vitality to others. There will always be a trade. In a way, it is considered a sibling magic to leeching, but Devouring’s purpose is quite distinctive – it does not draw Djed from other things, but health and life.
Some might imagine witches and wizards to be power-hungry beasts that seek immortality, youth and prestige. This is a perception common among those who fear and dislike magic, although there are no actual magical disciplines that supply a mortal with these qualities inherently. They are all doorways that lead to more doorways in the quest for these things. The Devouring supplies the beneficiary with youth, immortality, strength and intellectual capability naturally. All that it requires is that equal or more is taken from someone else.
HISTORY
It is unknown when or where this discipline of magic came to inhabit Mizahar, and all records of it have been lost through history. Even before the Valterrian, Devouring was a nearly extinct form of magic. The reason for this was its insidious nature. If you can imagine a witch – a beautiful witch, one of extreme power and infinite youthfulness and energy, but only supplied this by four young girls in a dungeon beneath her home . . . the four girls are only children but have wrinkles and deformities, illnesses that will soon consume them, and extreme mental depravity to the point where escape is impossibly distant – you can then see the evils of Devouring. While this magic was always kept in secret circles, eventually it was discovered and tales of its cruelty were spread. The result was a great extinction of the study and all of its followers . . . save for the Devourers who knew caution and hid their potential, invisible to the eye, never allowing suspicion to grow.
One particular Devourer wrote a sort of ultimate grimoire describing the magic and its functions. He wrote of how to learn it, how to perform it, how to drain from others or direct your own life force to them. The grimoire was a powerful magecrafted item that would bestow upon its knowledge to those who read it – though unthinking or uncaring of the peril it may bring.
OVERVIEW
Devouring is a simple act if you were to describe its purpose but an extremely complicated act when actually performed. First and foremost, while it is famous for its ability to drain from others to benefit a singular person, there is more to Devouring than just that. Devouring is the act of creating a perfect link of energy between something and something else. This link is refined enough to almost bond the two targets in a way – as if they were extensions of the other, with vitality going from one to the other like blood flowing through a long ethereal vein. The Devourer can quite literally see a tether to the person they have formed the link with, and an Aurist would also be able to see this tether as well. Generally the tether appears as a multi-colored string directly driving into some opposing direction. The string cannot be disrupted by other forms of magic, at least not for a long period of time, as it will automatically restore itself whenever the disruption ceases.
Devouring is a magic of many uses. While one benefits from another’s degrading, the amount of energy being supplied to the beneficiary can be tweaked to be so tiny that it won’t mean a thing, or so large that it would kill the one being drained in a matter of seconds, to the great but short lasted benefit of the Devourer. It can be used solely for the purpose of having a tether leading you to another person – or it can be used solely to kill people and drain them for bursts of vitality.
Devouring at its greatest is something that will almost, you could say, evolve a mortal over time. The more you advance in Devouring, the more refined the link, and only a small degree of suffering may lead to a great and consistent boon. With enough links formed, a human being could become something far above their mortal status – their cells could reproduce consistently and without a degradation through mitosis. This could lead to agelessness. The muscles in their body, the skin, the blood, could be enhanced to be more durable or capable of faster regeneration. Their mental processes would increase, improving their natural intelligence, reaction and learning capabilities. Their physical strength could increase. Their body’s joints could become more efficient and refined, increasing movement in general and reducing strain as well as other inconvenient stresses that come from the imperfect mortal form.
If you tweak the Devouring to withdraw an exceptional amount of energy from the target at once, by killing them for example, you could speed up these processes so quickly for a period of time that you could regenerate exceptional wounds. Some Devourers in ancient history would set up links between people they hated and people they loved: one would slowly decay, and one would be given the physical fortitude to survive an extremely dangerous illness.
As you improve Devouring, the number of links, the scales of benefit and loss, and the ability to tweak the link will all improve for the betterment of the Devourer.
INITIATION
Initiating into Devouring is a process that is extremely dangerous. It is also unknown how to initiate someone without the grimoire as of current, with nearly all information on Devouring lost. The grimoire – which is in itself a sentient magecrafted item – initiates by means of magical symbols. The first page of the book, upon looking at the symbol, will force the reader into a state of complete ecstasy for hours. They’ll feel empowered and exceptionally healthy, and their functions will improve dramatically. Then, the book will take back from the wielder everything that it gave them, leading to a rapid decline in functions and illness for several days. While inevitably they will return to their original self before reading the grimoire, the result is still a period of sickness that only those with strong mental fortitude will survive.
LEARNING
Every page that follows the first is simply a series of more and more arcane symbols. The book itself is of amazing magical ability, with each symbol inflicting the knowledge of Devouring into your body - so naturally that one will almost see it as a function of their natural self, like eating. The wielder will learn a new function from the grimoire, and then enact it. It begins with the knowledge of forming the link between yourself and someone else, then continues to tweaking the link, then refining it for more benefit, then deeper into the range, resonating Djed with the link, how to improve vitality, so on and so forth. All of these abilities are learned early, then mastered over time. Becoming competent in the magic is a process of simply learning its uses and then applying them.
One initiated into Devouring can teach others the function of the magic without the grimoire, but a method of initiating others without the book has not yet been rediscovered. All that would be assumed is that the book was made by a Devourer, so clearly there is another way to initiate someone otherwise.
Actually refining the abilities taught to the Devourer is complicated, and very tiring. Forming the bond itself is something that is very dangerous for a first-time user, considering you’re drawing energy from another person into yourself. This energy may not mesh well with yours, and negative effects similar to that of Leeching may be incurred, where your body’s condition is weakened, even though it’s vitality and not Djed being drawn. The best way to avoid this is by very slowly and carefully forming the bond. When you first form the link, you will have a direct feel of their energy before drawing it to you. You may use this to your advantage and, through meditation and patience, can turn the link into a sort of harmonizer so that your energy will be well acclimated to theirs.
MAINTAINING THE LINK
Maintaining the link is as simple as burning Djed. Djed will never transfer from one person in the link to the other. However, more Djed must be burned to simulate greater effects and draw more vitality. Eventually the Djed taken will surpass Djed naturally regenerated and one party will begin to slowly tire, overgive and die. Maintaining the link is extremely important and it requires vigilance, especially while it is being tweaked.
If the link is becoming corrupt or the other half of the link is dying, the Devourer will notice this change and must act accordingly. If the other end of the link actually dies, a painful sting will be felt by the Devourer.
One important note in maintaining the link is that while the link is maintained, the beneficiary ages slower and the victim ages more quickly. This will instead simply become an increase in lifespan if the target is drained abnormally quickly, which will help you maintain peak physical condition and the appearance of a young adult for a while longer, though eventually your process of aging will return to normal and you must sacrifice more victims and their vitality.
RISKS
This is one of the riskiest magics for beginners, and one of the safest for advanced users. Firstly, never ever draw energy from a different species. Don’t even draw it from different races unless it’s just a human and a human sub-type. The change in biology from one race to the next makes the bond extremely dangerous. A human bonding with an animal will have, at best, a minute to break the link before the bond hideously morphs their genetic make-up and they be forever ruined as a result. You could be completely healthy one moment and have stage four cancer the next if you don’t realize the difference of anatomy and energy quickly enough. For a master, though, they’ll notice the risks before the link manages to draw anything.
As a beginner, if you draw too much too quickly, you won’t be able to refine the energy to respond well to yours. The result is essentially the same thing as linking to an animal – except worse. Because of how rapid the link is drawing from the target, you’ll be unable to break the link before enough hostile Djed or vitality is drawn into you. The damage is similar if not worse, with diseases and deformities flowing rapidly into your body.
As a beginner, you can never form too many links without them beginning to corrupt and damage you. Permanent damage may be sustained if you form more than however many links your expertise allows.
As a note, Kelvics have an extreme difficulty in using this magic properly due to the risks from connecting to other species. It is actually nearly impossible for a Kelvic to use this magic properly, though a new method may eventually be discovered.
OVERGIVING
The primary cause of overgiving with Devouring is not correctly maintaining the link with Djed. The link will slowly drain Djed over time, but skilled Devourers who have refined the bond may make it draw extremely little, and even draw the Djed from the non-Devourer only.
Devouring is not very taxing if you’re very skilled, i.e., developed experts and masters. It’s extremely taxing if you’re giving your own energy to others instead, and this can result in overgiving. Generally a Devourer will only draw or offer enough Djed to where it regenerates exactly as quickly as it deteriorates. Still, for the loser in the situation, that means that they won’t ever recuperate the Djed lost for casting a spell. This makes overgiving come about extremely fast.
One way to overgive using Devouring is by making the link and then rapidly tweaking it. While this is acceptable to do as an Expert or Master, less advanced users always draw slightly more than they gain in return: thus, if their goal is to kill someone, they will use more Djed than they are draining and will kill themselves if they don’t abolish the link.
Overgiving from devouring is very common in actuality, mainly due to the hostile and unstable nature of links by beginning devourers. It is overgiving of the more physical nature, and can lead to death if you are not vigilant.
FORMING THE LINK
Forming the link is always done by physical contact. Ease of forming the link comes with progression. At Novice, you may form it only by physical contact that is kept for a long period of time, as in an hour at minimum. This time is used to resonate your Djed and, in a way, configure the “layout” of their energy. This can be done through successive contacts instead of a single occurrence. For example, you could hug someone for thirty seconds every day for a hundred days and you would eventually configure how to properly link to them.
Upon reaching Competent, it requires physical contact from skin-to-skin for only somewhat brief periods of time. At Expert, skin-to-skin contact can immediately place a link. At master, you can form a link from three inches away by releasing a small amount of Djed. This is generally used to place links through clothing.
Breaking the link is as simple as willing it to be done at any rank other than Novice, where you have to deeply focus and be within twenty meters of the target.
SKILL PROGRESSION
Novice
The Devourer can form a bond with a single target and draw from them. At this stage, you and the target are both drained. There is no beneficiary. However, you are only drained of Djed whereas they are drained of vitality and Djed. This means that training must be done productively and swiftly if you are to not overgive and your ‘subject’ is to remain in any sort of livable condition. You will learn over time how to tweak the bond, extend the range of the bond, and abolish the bond quickly, but as of right now you will generally draw enough to make the target sickly, feeble and dumb. Novices offering their own vitality will generally never move from it, as they might forget how one even breaks the bond. At this stage, the beneficiary will begin to regenerate slightly quicker but this must be done intelligently or they’ll just overgive and far outweigh the healing.
The link may only extend fifty feet.
Competent
At this stage, the beneficiary receives two thirds as much health, function and lifespan as they draw. An increase of strength leads to a great weakening in their target. They may form two bonds, and if both are adequately harvested, they will age much slower, they will increase in strength to very noticeable degrees, will improve in intelligence, and they will also become healthy enough to survive wounds and poisons much longer than your average member of their race. They have learned how to tweak the bond to various degrees, and know all of the functions of this magic listed in the grimoire.
Generally a competent user will not be able to maintain the bond for long, and will be forced to severely harm or sacrifice those they linked if they wish to regenerate to a decent extent or increase their lifespan.
You may extend the link a kilometer.
Expert
A great change comes at this stage. You may form three bonds, and gain as much as you draw. You meet the penultimate of all benefits. An average amount of drawn vitality based on an average number of links will lead to barely aging at all, appearing unblemished and exceptionally healthy, and becoming much stronger and more intelligent. The big change is that your body will now become more efficient in all of its uses – a sort of evolution. Your joints will become perfectly refined, increasing movement speed, flexibility, strength and durability. Also, your refinement of the link has gotten so advanced that you may now rapidly tweak the link in either direction. As such, you can drain the vitality and Djed out of a bond in a matter of seconds and leave them near death or dead. This makes the magic extremely lethal if the practitioner is a physical combatant.
While you may keep all of your links sustained by draining equivalent Djed from the victims as they regenerate naturally, it is difficult to maintain all of your links, and actually benefitting from them substantially will lead the target to slow decay and eventually death. Still, a great sacrifice of their life force will - at this stage - rapidly increase your regeneration for a time and increase your lifespan.
At this stage, you have learned how to specifically focus your draining of vitality to something you desire. For example, you may not drain a shred of intellect or physical strength from a target but drain their lifespan considerably, or if you would like to reinforce your bones and joints you can do only that and nothing else. This is often done to maintain benefit from a target without killing them, or because you are in specific need of a particular benefit.
You may extend the link a mile.
Master
At this stage, you may link with four people and will improve as such. You gain a quarter more than you take, and assuming you utilize all four links, you will become ageless and nearly impervious to mortal illnesses. You will become very physically strong and much quicker than the average member of your race. You will dramatically increase in intelligence, with your memory and learning abilities improved to great extent.
You will regenerate wounds noticeably, with non-lethal and non-extreme damage to your body being mended in front of the very eyes, cuts and bruises disappearing as if days had elapsed in their progression. By drawing nearly all of the life force from a target, you can potentially even recover from mortal wounds, and inevitably push them to the brink of death.
A master can sustain these links indefinitely and still benefit, though ‘indefinitely’ only if the targets are generally healthy individuals. Interestingly enough, a master may actually form a link without the target ever noticing it if they draw just a small amount and don’t tweak it.
The discipline of Devouring is one that was, essentially, lost to the ages. It is a magic that is exceptionally personality-based. The function of a Devourer can either be to infinitely empower the self or infinitely feed their own vitality to others. There will always be a trade. In a way, it is considered a sibling magic to leeching, but Devouring’s purpose is quite distinctive – it does not draw Djed from other things, but health and life.
Some might imagine witches and wizards to be power-hungry beasts that seek immortality, youth and prestige. This is a perception common among those who fear and dislike magic, although there are no actual magical disciplines that supply a mortal with these qualities inherently. They are all doorways that lead to more doorways in the quest for these things. The Devouring supplies the beneficiary with youth, immortality, strength and intellectual capability naturally. All that it requires is that equal or more is taken from someone else.
HISTORY
It is unknown when or where this discipline of magic came to inhabit Mizahar, and all records of it have been lost through history. Even before the Valterrian, Devouring was a nearly extinct form of magic. The reason for this was its insidious nature. If you can imagine a witch – a beautiful witch, one of extreme power and infinite youthfulness and energy, but only supplied this by four young girls in a dungeon beneath her home . . . the four girls are only children but have wrinkles and deformities, illnesses that will soon consume them, and extreme mental depravity to the point where escape is impossibly distant – you can then see the evils of Devouring. While this magic was always kept in secret circles, eventually it was discovered and tales of its cruelty were spread. The result was a great extinction of the study and all of its followers . . . save for the Devourers who knew caution and hid their potential, invisible to the eye, never allowing suspicion to grow.
One particular Devourer wrote a sort of ultimate grimoire describing the magic and its functions. He wrote of how to learn it, how to perform it, how to drain from others or direct your own life force to them. The grimoire was a powerful magecrafted item that would bestow upon its knowledge to those who read it – though unthinking or uncaring of the peril it may bring.
OVERVIEW
Devouring is a simple act if you were to describe its purpose but an extremely complicated act when actually performed. First and foremost, while it is famous for its ability to drain from others to benefit a singular person, there is more to Devouring than just that. Devouring is the act of creating a perfect link of energy between something and something else. This link is refined enough to almost bond the two targets in a way – as if they were extensions of the other, with vitality going from one to the other like blood flowing through a long ethereal vein. The Devourer can quite literally see a tether to the person they have formed the link with, and an Aurist would also be able to see this tether as well. Generally the tether appears as a multi-colored string directly driving into some opposing direction. The string cannot be disrupted by other forms of magic, at least not for a long period of time, as it will automatically restore itself whenever the disruption ceases.
Devouring is a magic of many uses. While one benefits from another’s degrading, the amount of energy being supplied to the beneficiary can be tweaked to be so tiny that it won’t mean a thing, or so large that it would kill the one being drained in a matter of seconds, to the great but short lasted benefit of the Devourer. It can be used solely for the purpose of having a tether leading you to another person – or it can be used solely to kill people and drain them for bursts of vitality.
Devouring at its greatest is something that will almost, you could say, evolve a mortal over time. The more you advance in Devouring, the more refined the link, and only a small degree of suffering may lead to a great and consistent boon. With enough links formed, a human being could become something far above their mortal status – their cells could reproduce consistently and without a degradation through mitosis. This could lead to agelessness. The muscles in their body, the skin, the blood, could be enhanced to be more durable or capable of faster regeneration. Their mental processes would increase, improving their natural intelligence, reaction and learning capabilities. Their physical strength could increase. Their body’s joints could become more efficient and refined, increasing movement in general and reducing strain as well as other inconvenient stresses that come from the imperfect mortal form.
If you tweak the Devouring to withdraw an exceptional amount of energy from the target at once, by killing them for example, you could speed up these processes so quickly for a period of time that you could regenerate exceptional wounds. Some Devourers in ancient history would set up links between people they hated and people they loved: one would slowly decay, and one would be given the physical fortitude to survive an extremely dangerous illness.
As you improve Devouring, the number of links, the scales of benefit and loss, and the ability to tweak the link will all improve for the betterment of the Devourer.
INITIATION
Initiating into Devouring is a process that is extremely dangerous. It is also unknown how to initiate someone without the grimoire as of current, with nearly all information on Devouring lost. The grimoire – which is in itself a sentient magecrafted item – initiates by means of magical symbols. The first page of the book, upon looking at the symbol, will force the reader into a state of complete ecstasy for hours. They’ll feel empowered and exceptionally healthy, and their functions will improve dramatically. Then, the book will take back from the wielder everything that it gave them, leading to a rapid decline in functions and illness for several days. While inevitably they will return to their original self before reading the grimoire, the result is still a period of sickness that only those with strong mental fortitude will survive.
LEARNING
Every page that follows the first is simply a series of more and more arcane symbols. The book itself is of amazing magical ability, with each symbol inflicting the knowledge of Devouring into your body - so naturally that one will almost see it as a function of their natural self, like eating. The wielder will learn a new function from the grimoire, and then enact it. It begins with the knowledge of forming the link between yourself and someone else, then continues to tweaking the link, then refining it for more benefit, then deeper into the range, resonating Djed with the link, how to improve vitality, so on and so forth. All of these abilities are learned early, then mastered over time. Becoming competent in the magic is a process of simply learning its uses and then applying them.
One initiated into Devouring can teach others the function of the magic without the grimoire, but a method of initiating others without the book has not yet been rediscovered. All that would be assumed is that the book was made by a Devourer, so clearly there is another way to initiate someone otherwise.
Actually refining the abilities taught to the Devourer is complicated, and very tiring. Forming the bond itself is something that is very dangerous for a first-time user, considering you’re drawing energy from another person into yourself. This energy may not mesh well with yours, and negative effects similar to that of Leeching may be incurred, where your body’s condition is weakened, even though it’s vitality and not Djed being drawn. The best way to avoid this is by very slowly and carefully forming the bond. When you first form the link, you will have a direct feel of their energy before drawing it to you. You may use this to your advantage and, through meditation and patience, can turn the link into a sort of harmonizer so that your energy will be well acclimated to theirs.
MAINTAINING THE LINK
Maintaining the link is as simple as burning Djed. Djed will never transfer from one person in the link to the other. However, more Djed must be burned to simulate greater effects and draw more vitality. Eventually the Djed taken will surpass Djed naturally regenerated and one party will begin to slowly tire, overgive and die. Maintaining the link is extremely important and it requires vigilance, especially while it is being tweaked.
If the link is becoming corrupt or the other half of the link is dying, the Devourer will notice this change and must act accordingly. If the other end of the link actually dies, a painful sting will be felt by the Devourer.
One important note in maintaining the link is that while the link is maintained, the beneficiary ages slower and the victim ages more quickly. This will instead simply become an increase in lifespan if the target is drained abnormally quickly, which will help you maintain peak physical condition and the appearance of a young adult for a while longer, though eventually your process of aging will return to normal and you must sacrifice more victims and their vitality.
RISKS
This is one of the riskiest magics for beginners, and one of the safest for advanced users. Firstly, never ever draw energy from a different species. Don’t even draw it from different races unless it’s just a human and a human sub-type. The change in biology from one race to the next makes the bond extremely dangerous. A human bonding with an animal will have, at best, a minute to break the link before the bond hideously morphs their genetic make-up and they be forever ruined as a result. You could be completely healthy one moment and have stage four cancer the next if you don’t realize the difference of anatomy and energy quickly enough. For a master, though, they’ll notice the risks before the link manages to draw anything.
As a beginner, if you draw too much too quickly, you won’t be able to refine the energy to respond well to yours. The result is essentially the same thing as linking to an animal – except worse. Because of how rapid the link is drawing from the target, you’ll be unable to break the link before enough hostile Djed or vitality is drawn into you. The damage is similar if not worse, with diseases and deformities flowing rapidly into your body.
As a beginner, you can never form too many links without them beginning to corrupt and damage you. Permanent damage may be sustained if you form more than however many links your expertise allows.
As a note, Kelvics have an extreme difficulty in using this magic properly due to the risks from connecting to other species. It is actually nearly impossible for a Kelvic to use this magic properly, though a new method may eventually be discovered.
OVERGIVING
The primary cause of overgiving with Devouring is not correctly maintaining the link with Djed. The link will slowly drain Djed over time, but skilled Devourers who have refined the bond may make it draw extremely little, and even draw the Djed from the non-Devourer only.
Devouring is not very taxing if you’re very skilled, i.e., developed experts and masters. It’s extremely taxing if you’re giving your own energy to others instead, and this can result in overgiving. Generally a Devourer will only draw or offer enough Djed to where it regenerates exactly as quickly as it deteriorates. Still, for the loser in the situation, that means that they won’t ever recuperate the Djed lost for casting a spell. This makes overgiving come about extremely fast.
One way to overgive using Devouring is by making the link and then rapidly tweaking it. While this is acceptable to do as an Expert or Master, less advanced users always draw slightly more than they gain in return: thus, if their goal is to kill someone, they will use more Djed than they are draining and will kill themselves if they don’t abolish the link.
Overgiving from devouring is very common in actuality, mainly due to the hostile and unstable nature of links by beginning devourers. It is overgiving of the more physical nature, and can lead to death if you are not vigilant.
FORMING THE LINK
Forming the link is always done by physical contact. Ease of forming the link comes with progression. At Novice, you may form it only by physical contact that is kept for a long period of time, as in an hour at minimum. This time is used to resonate your Djed and, in a way, configure the “layout” of their energy. This can be done through successive contacts instead of a single occurrence. For example, you could hug someone for thirty seconds every day for a hundred days and you would eventually configure how to properly link to them.
Upon reaching Competent, it requires physical contact from skin-to-skin for only somewhat brief periods of time. At Expert, skin-to-skin contact can immediately place a link. At master, you can form a link from three inches away by releasing a small amount of Djed. This is generally used to place links through clothing.
Breaking the link is as simple as willing it to be done at any rank other than Novice, where you have to deeply focus and be within twenty meters of the target.
SKILL PROGRESSION
Novice
The Devourer can form a bond with a single target and draw from them. At this stage, you and the target are both drained. There is no beneficiary. However, you are only drained of Djed whereas they are drained of vitality and Djed. This means that training must be done productively and swiftly if you are to not overgive and your ‘subject’ is to remain in any sort of livable condition. You will learn over time how to tweak the bond, extend the range of the bond, and abolish the bond quickly, but as of right now you will generally draw enough to make the target sickly, feeble and dumb. Novices offering their own vitality will generally never move from it, as they might forget how one even breaks the bond. At this stage, the beneficiary will begin to regenerate slightly quicker but this must be done intelligently or they’ll just overgive and far outweigh the healing.
The link may only extend fifty feet.
Competent
At this stage, the beneficiary receives two thirds as much health, function and lifespan as they draw. An increase of strength leads to a great weakening in their target. They may form two bonds, and if both are adequately harvested, they will age much slower, they will increase in strength to very noticeable degrees, will improve in intelligence, and they will also become healthy enough to survive wounds and poisons much longer than your average member of their race. They have learned how to tweak the bond to various degrees, and know all of the functions of this magic listed in the grimoire.
Generally a competent user will not be able to maintain the bond for long, and will be forced to severely harm or sacrifice those they linked if they wish to regenerate to a decent extent or increase their lifespan.
You may extend the link a kilometer.
Expert
A great change comes at this stage. You may form three bonds, and gain as much as you draw. You meet the penultimate of all benefits. An average amount of drawn vitality based on an average number of links will lead to barely aging at all, appearing unblemished and exceptionally healthy, and becoming much stronger and more intelligent. The big change is that your body will now become more efficient in all of its uses – a sort of evolution. Your joints will become perfectly refined, increasing movement speed, flexibility, strength and durability. Also, your refinement of the link has gotten so advanced that you may now rapidly tweak the link in either direction. As such, you can drain the vitality and Djed out of a bond in a matter of seconds and leave them near death or dead. This makes the magic extremely lethal if the practitioner is a physical combatant.
While you may keep all of your links sustained by draining equivalent Djed from the victims as they regenerate naturally, it is difficult to maintain all of your links, and actually benefitting from them substantially will lead the target to slow decay and eventually death. Still, a great sacrifice of their life force will - at this stage - rapidly increase your regeneration for a time and increase your lifespan.
At this stage, you have learned how to specifically focus your draining of vitality to something you desire. For example, you may not drain a shred of intellect or physical strength from a target but drain their lifespan considerably, or if you would like to reinforce your bones and joints you can do only that and nothing else. This is often done to maintain benefit from a target without killing them, or because you are in specific need of a particular benefit.
You may extend the link a mile.
Master
At this stage, you may link with four people and will improve as such. You gain a quarter more than you take, and assuming you utilize all four links, you will become ageless and nearly impervious to mortal illnesses. You will become very physically strong and much quicker than the average member of your race. You will dramatically increase in intelligence, with your memory and learning abilities improved to great extent.
You will regenerate wounds noticeably, with non-lethal and non-extreme damage to your body being mended in front of the very eyes, cuts and bruises disappearing as if days had elapsed in their progression. By drawing nearly all of the life force from a target, you can potentially even recover from mortal wounds, and inevitably push them to the brink of death.
A master can sustain these links indefinitely and still benefit, though ‘indefinitely’ only if the targets are generally healthy individuals. Interestingly enough, a master may actually form a link without the target ever noticing it if they draw just a small amount and don’t tweak it.
Safekeeping 2 :
SPECIFICS
Name: Damien
Race: Human, Druvin
Date of Birth: 290 AV, 3rd of Winter
Place of Birth: Sunberth
Date of Death: 326 AV, 18th of Spring (Age 36)
Title: Rhysol's Bloodletter
SKILLS
Malediction 89
Weapon (Longsword) 77
Leeching 65
Flux 55
Acrobatics 45
Damien was a Druvin Enforcer who served Rhysol’s will, under the directive of Myleena Vos, the Voice, who spoke His orders to the others of Damien’s kind. During the short period of time living as one of Rhysol’s marked followers, he quickly rose in prominence and was marked Druvin by the blood of the Dark God. While he only lived as a Druvin for three years, he caused unbelievable entropy wherever he went and was thus a beloved of Rhysol. From the very beginning of his life, Damien sought greatness at the end of a sword, and he accomplished his goals and more.
The Druvin was known for his spellsword-esque fighting style and his radical desire for self-improvement, perhaps self-perfection. He would constantly improve in abilities, forge artifacts, and then use them to spread his master's agenda for their singular purpose until they were spent.
His personality was always calculated but cruel. Honestly, despite being a part of the group paramount to the church of Rhysol, he was always very adrift from his peers and imagined himself to have a relationship with Rhysol that was unbound by them. He did as he was ordered to, he spoke when spoken to, and he clearly expressed loyalty - but there was a detachment, and because of this, he was not popular amongst his peers.
The man's personality could be described as idealistic and fanatical. Originally simply acting as a scion of chaos, he eventually shifted his thoughts to a belief that Chaos was liberation and that Rhysol was the benevolent of the pantheon. He served his purpose with zeal that made him cruel to his enemies, though he was far too pompous to be kind to his servants. He was a man that made many enemies, and so the death that came so swiftly after becoming a Druvin was one expected by his white-eyed kin.
BIOGRAPHY
Damien began his life collared, the son of a slave, no last name to bear and two parents sold to Sahova like livestock. Much like many in Sunberth, he never once experienced the idea of autonomy. Some people were ruled over by gangs, and others by wealthy masters who simply used them for the sake of pleasure or household duties or, sometimes, practices to pay back on their investment. One of the opportunities of wealth in Sunberth came with the Blood Pits, a sort of gladiatorial arena pitting the desperate and the owned against each other for coin. From the time he was very young, Damien was trained to be an excellent fighter in the arena. He was chosen for this role due to a natural strength and healthiness that the other slaves of his generation did not possess.
From very early on, a peculiar fact noticed by all in his life was the exceptionally positive relationship between he and his master. The two were exceptionally similar – they both enjoyed wealth, prestige, pleasure and violence. Damien was easily appeased, given pleasure slaves, fed well, taught history and information about the world around him. From very early on in his life, he was forced to return on his investment. It began with battling other young boys to the death - he fought well for his master in mock arenas, slaughtering other young warriors, garnering much coin, and making a name for himself and the wielder of his lock and key. As he grew older, he had become an exceptionally skilled fighter – one of the best to ever wield an longsword in the Blood Pits, and a strong and sturdy man with a skilled stance and exceptionally tricky series of battle maneuvers. He slaughtered many of his enemies by means of confusing their rationality with their adrenaline – making warriors attack fake openings, appearing much weaker and easier to defeat than he really was, even sometimes allowing himself to get injured to make his opponents believe he was beatable by someone of their means.
One thing he was known for very well was his exceptionally cruel and sadistic method of dispatching opponents, picking away at them for long periods of time. During one of the most prestigious fights in the Blood Pits, where he fought one of the gang leaders of Sunberth, he cut off every single one of the man’s limbs and fed him his own genitalia. He would very frequently cut opponents dozens of times, weaken their limbs by sawing through their muscles and bones, and assaulting areas with large concentrations of nerves. The result was always pools of blood filling the grounds of the arena, and exceptionally mangled cadavers. Due to his violence, he was nicknamed ‘The Bloodletter’ by the audience of the Blood Pits, and his reputation filled much of the ears of those in the city.
Unfortunately, Damien began to grow exceptionally curious on the subject of magic after a mysterious woman introduced him to Malediction, a self-proclaimed seeress and fortune teller who his master employed to introduce Damien and the man to a variety of magics. The studies were discreet, and the yields were kept away from all situations. They had plans for guests, hiding their tables full of malediction symbols and the bones of animals and monsters that lurked the wilds. All of their plans were performed with absolute perfection. No one ever discovered their infatuation.
And then, Damien committed his first sin that would forever place him within Rhysol’s sight: betrayal. He left the city of Sunberth abruptly, abusing the autonomy his master had given him out of trust. Of course, before he left, he left anonymous messages at prestigious gang headquarters about the location of his master’s secret magical studies and the chests with which he’d store his maledicted artifacts. The man was inevitably executed cruelly, and he knew in his dying breath that it was his most beloved slave and trusted friend that ended him. Why?
He did not know. He didn’t know why he did it . . . he just found the thought enchanting, wildly entertaining. The picture of his master, who he’d been bound to for so long, dying in shackles and painfully as Damien could’ve been – it was enjoyable for him, sensual even. As he left the city, there was much more that he did. Considering he had become a skilled maledictor by this time, he had left dangerous artifacts in explicitly public places– artifacts that would explode and kill dozens, ones that would poison the air and pull away oxygen. Artifacts of extreme power, and extremely chaotic nature. He made dozens of these in his lifespan, and always they ended up ‘accidentally’ slaughtering tens of people. Always, whatever institution he found himself problematically engaged with would lose several of their enforcers. He was a prodigal son, someone who wandered all over the world feasting on depravity and disorder.
And he didn’t even know that Rhysol existed.
The two of them were perfect for one another, and the God had his eye on Damien for a long while. When his path finally took him to Ravok, the young man had already become unstoppable. With the bones of what he said to be a ‘mouthless monster,’ he carved and maledicted a legendary longsword that was known for its ability to cut through nearly any physical material effortlessly, as well as regenerate damage done to it and evolve over usage, eventually growing in applications based on the one who wielded it. By the time Damien met the end of his life, the weapon was said to be capable of dispelling magics and levitating at the user’s whim.
Upon entering the city and causing the typical chaos, Rhysol did not punish the man with death but instead pushed him on the path to eternal life. He marked him once, and then gave him tasks to perform. Each and every task was always performed successfully, and always with lies, betrayal, violence, cruelty. Each action he took rippled down the chain of entropy and tugged at the strings of Gods. He killed those marked by Yahal, Priskil, Knights of Sylir, and he always instilled terror in those who discovered their corpses and personal items.
Not long after their relationship began, Rhysol offered him more power and he offered the God something back – his soul, to make him Druvin, make him Rhysol’s. The two of them entangled then, and he shortly afterwards became the God’s most active agent. He was the bane of the civilized world, with power to match every drop of prestige. After he became a Druvin, he picked up more forms of magic, eventually mastering Leeching and becoming highly proficient in projection. His form was unrelentingly perfect, and thus leeching came freely to him, its drawbacks nulled by his superior natural state. He became a force to be reckoned with, maledicted artifacts supplying him with brutal strength and utility and the ability to annihilate mages and physical foes alike.
For years, he served his master well, until eventually he was tasked with one of his most important missions – killing one of reincarnations of Velis Igraal, one infinitely hunted by his Dark Lord. And so he consented, and he engaged in this task typically. He found the man in the sea of grass, in the mobile city of Endrykas. The man was a Knight of Sylir, though circumstances brought him to Cyphrus. The two of them became exceptionally close, with Damien playing his part well, morphing to appear as if a regular human, perfecting his ability to lie without feeling a single rumble in his conscience. He weaved his way into the Drykas’ heart and from there he would destroy him.
It began with a curse. It was followed by a knife to the chest, and the Djed of the Drykas being drained and his body being filled with poison from Damien’s maledicted knife. He was dying, fast. He was dying so fast that he couldn’t possibly fathom what had happened – every last inch of him was being filled with numbness, the void. Reactively, the man fought back and gave it everything he had. He fought extremely well, and was Damien’s greatest opponent even despite all that befell him.
The man died, and Damien accomplished his goal. He believed he was finished – but as he turned to leave, the man’s precautions were set to use and a network of glyphs activated at the hands of a sentient artifact and killed the Druvin where he stood. In his last moments, he simply chanted his Dark Lord’s name.
MAJOR ARTIFACTS
As a maledictor, the Druvin had created hundreds of artifacts as a part of his obsessive nature. Unlike most maledictors he didn’t strive for the perfect item but for the most fiendishly chaotic ones. However, he did create several artifacts in his lifetime that were absurdly potent, whether by accident or determination.
Dark Father – This was his primary creation, one he claimed to have been off of the corpse of a mouthless humanoid that shifted forms during combat. The bone Arakh was known to be unbelievably sharp, capable of rending through nearly anything in an instant. It was also known to be indestructible as it would endlessly self-regenerate. Over time, the blade bonded with his energy and began to dispel magics near him that he deemed unwanted in his presence. The artifact was, most likely, sentient.
Kind Mother– Another sentient item. This bone helmet was made from the corpse of a master auristic and shielder, and would remain quiet and stationary during meetings and then reveal the intentions, aura, emotions and most likely outcomes of interacting with a certain person. Using this knowledge, the artifact would adapt based on the target observed and make the one to wear the helmet essentially invulnerable to all of the target’s primary combative functions.
Dubious Son – A necklace made from the corpse of a Druvin. The bones seem to have been plucked from the spine and carved. Simply put, wielding this necklace would mirror the effects of becoming a Druvin – exceptional strength, long lifespans if not agelessness, invulnerability to the vast majority of poisons and illnesses, and even strong resistance to all forms of curses. If a Druvin wore this necklace, all of their benefits would be effectively doubled.
Cruel Sister – His final artifact, Cruel Sister was made from the same Druvin’s bones and shaped into a bracelet. Wearing this bracelet would – simply put – result in the conversion of all Djed foreign to the wielder’s body into non-toxic Djed. This includes Wild Djed. Any leecher to ever hear of this artifact would surely pursue it to the end of their days.
Safekeeping 3 :
In his dreamworld, there was an exceptional haze that couldn’t be breeched. The deeper into it you went, the more crimson its shade, the cloudier the skies and the louder the environment became. What would begin as singing like that of a choir’s would move further into the sound of chains clacking, wails, moans of need, cries of liberation and chanting of a most ominous name. The haze was lined with red cords running through it like flashes of lightning, blood being pumped through one ‘vein’ of the air and moving towards another. Everything became more and more violent the deeper you went. Eventually the haze itself was like pools of blood that were overflowing everywhere, consuming you, drowning you. And – in their essence, suggestions would take place. Thoughts would overflow your system, the calculated longings of a voice that was different than Caesarion’s, yet the same in some difficult way.
Chaos. There was surely no description for it, as it was vast in its meaning. Chaos wasn’t just a word that could be defined by a scholarly man wielding a book. It wasn’t a word that could be laid down as trivia and explained away by a few wise words or comparison. Chaos is an element of the universe that is and isn’t what it is. It wasn’t good, it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t nice or mean . . . it wasn’t a red cord of blood or the transparent water going down one’s throat. It was everything and it was nothing. It was the world at its base, and it was suppressed due to agenda and fear.
One might call Caiyha the Goddess of Nature, but was nature itself not chaotic? Did it not reign in tedious anarchy, impossible to control for all fell underneath it? Humans and their peers were a part of nature. Caiyha, in her arrogance, claimed that nature was her own when in reality she simply had a penchant for animals, dirt and grass. There was a true God of Nature, and he didn’t dare interact with the world as she did – preserve or discontinue as others did, each and every God that dared to pretend like they left mortal affairs to mortals when they were constantly flooding their cities with rules and laws and order. Sylir for example. How could he claim to favor his followers when he believed himself and his teachings essential to their survival? Did he not pity and doubt humanity, and sadistically tease their shortcomings?
All of the pantheon hated humans. They judged them and they spited them and they picked and chose which one they would keep and which they would kill. They abandoned and betrayed the majority of those they claimed to care for. If Priskil was the Goddess of Hope, why was there so much hopelessness? Because she wasn’t strong enough. She didn’t try hard enough. She was weak and fragile like the rest of her ‘exalted’ peers whereas there was one God . . . who did his job well, who never faltered, who always reigned.
Everyone knows his name. Everyone calls for him. Everyone longs for him in the night, beseeching that he return them to the base of their nature and destroy the abominations that suppressed their free will. He believed in humans more than any other God did. He made the Voice from a mortal each time, he gifted mortals immortality in exchange for service, he blessed those in Ravok with peace and prosperity. Everything he did was for his children, the most devout people of the city of canals, and surely any who would follow Rhysol in his aspirations. It wasn’t that he was evil – this was just a label by the lesser Gods to make him the ‘other’. He was simply their enemy and the only one who would abolish their marionette over the creatures of this world. In his gaze, all is set free and liberated. No one is nothingness, no one is cursed to fall away from the graces because of what they determined long before their lives were made flesh.
Beyond the pools of blood and their associated thick red haze, there was a city of shackles and collars. Every structure was made from one, the other or both, and every person was turned around with their backs bent and possessing outrageously frail bodies. Nothing about this place was of beauty, all of it leaving the impression of eternal desolation and a desperate desire for something greater to consume it all. The deeper you went, the more chaotic it became. Structures disappeared, and eventually it was trees of collars and shackles, with the men and women of the environment bound against them, unable to move. If you were to pass by them, then you would hear them faintly whisper a name, though it couldn’t entirely be made out from its first hearing . . . Dam… Dami… Damie… Damien. Their expressions that were so desperate shifted to elated grins as they finished the words, their frail and hideous faces letting loose screams like a beast calling for blood. A battle cry, but not for their own engagement. Instead, a creature that lurked within.
And then, past the trees and the dying slave, you might have the displeasure of seeing him. A man caught between two giant walls, one built by shackles and one flat stone but with the Black Sun symbol carved into it. He had chains running to him from one side, keeping him locked into position, and a man on the other side of him whipping him senselessly. Whispering into his ear. A man with the darkest of black hair, of ominous attire, of radiating power and pure white eyes. The creature between both walls was white-eyed too, with a red sphere of blood stained on his chest and a sword running through it. If you dared to look at him for too long, he would look back at you, barely being able to rise his head from all the pain . . . the endless lashes that filled everywhere from the top of his spine to the bottom.
Interestingly enough, the look that he would offer was not one of fear or pain, but extreme sensation. Pleasure. He would gesture with his shackled hand that you come closer, smell the blood that flooded the ground all the way to the trees that preceded him. So much blood. But no hopelessness. The expectation that his legacy, whatever that was, would live on. And, if you could translate such ideals, you would be able to find past him the manifestation of that legacy. Caesarion . . . his entire body painted crimson with blood, pure white eyes and a clean blade in hand. Behind him was the same man that whipped the Druvin for eternity, a creature of boundless evil and a deep connection to Caesarion, his life, his dreams. Rhysol, if one could possibly fathom how he looked. He haunted him in the night, whether he even knew it or not.
He made a child of chains into a flail of God, and never in any incarnation would Damien forget the eminence of His place within his life. Even in death, the soul longed to be owned again. He had already surrendered himself to an eternity with his God, and desperately wished the bond reformed.
Chaos. There was surely no description for it, as it was vast in its meaning. Chaos wasn’t just a word that could be defined by a scholarly man wielding a book. It wasn’t a word that could be laid down as trivia and explained away by a few wise words or comparison. Chaos is an element of the universe that is and isn’t what it is. It wasn’t good, it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t nice or mean . . . it wasn’t a red cord of blood or the transparent water going down one’s throat. It was everything and it was nothing. It was the world at its base, and it was suppressed due to agenda and fear.
One might call Caiyha the Goddess of Nature, but was nature itself not chaotic? Did it not reign in tedious anarchy, impossible to control for all fell underneath it? Humans and their peers were a part of nature. Caiyha, in her arrogance, claimed that nature was her own when in reality she simply had a penchant for animals, dirt and grass. There was a true God of Nature, and he didn’t dare interact with the world as she did – preserve or discontinue as others did, each and every God that dared to pretend like they left mortal affairs to mortals when they were constantly flooding their cities with rules and laws and order. Sylir for example. How could he claim to favor his followers when he believed himself and his teachings essential to their survival? Did he not pity and doubt humanity, and sadistically tease their shortcomings?
All of the pantheon hated humans. They judged them and they spited them and they picked and chose which one they would keep and which they would kill. They abandoned and betrayed the majority of those they claimed to care for. If Priskil was the Goddess of Hope, why was there so much hopelessness? Because she wasn’t strong enough. She didn’t try hard enough. She was weak and fragile like the rest of her ‘exalted’ peers whereas there was one God . . . who did his job well, who never faltered, who always reigned.
Everyone knows his name. Everyone calls for him. Everyone longs for him in the night, beseeching that he return them to the base of their nature and destroy the abominations that suppressed their free will. He believed in humans more than any other God did. He made the Voice from a mortal each time, he gifted mortals immortality in exchange for service, he blessed those in Ravok with peace and prosperity. Everything he did was for his children, the most devout people of the city of canals, and surely any who would follow Rhysol in his aspirations. It wasn’t that he was evil – this was just a label by the lesser Gods to make him the ‘other’. He was simply their enemy and the only one who would abolish their marionette over the creatures of this world. In his gaze, all is set free and liberated. No one is nothingness, no one is cursed to fall away from the graces because of what they determined long before their lives were made flesh.
Beyond the pools of blood and their associated thick red haze, there was a city of shackles and collars. Every structure was made from one, the other or both, and every person was turned around with their backs bent and possessing outrageously frail bodies. Nothing about this place was of beauty, all of it leaving the impression of eternal desolation and a desperate desire for something greater to consume it all. The deeper you went, the more chaotic it became. Structures disappeared, and eventually it was trees of collars and shackles, with the men and women of the environment bound against them, unable to move. If you were to pass by them, then you would hear them faintly whisper a name, though it couldn’t entirely be made out from its first hearing . . . Dam… Dami… Damie… Damien. Their expressions that were so desperate shifted to elated grins as they finished the words, their frail and hideous faces letting loose screams like a beast calling for blood. A battle cry, but not for their own engagement. Instead, a creature that lurked within.
And then, past the trees and the dying slave, you might have the displeasure of seeing him. A man caught between two giant walls, one built by shackles and one flat stone but with the Black Sun symbol carved into it. He had chains running to him from one side, keeping him locked into position, and a man on the other side of him whipping him senselessly. Whispering into his ear. A man with the darkest of black hair, of ominous attire, of radiating power and pure white eyes. The creature between both walls was white-eyed too, with a red sphere of blood stained on his chest and a sword running through it. If you dared to look at him for too long, he would look back at you, barely being able to rise his head from all the pain . . . the endless lashes that filled everywhere from the top of his spine to the bottom.
Interestingly enough, the look that he would offer was not one of fear or pain, but extreme sensation. Pleasure. He would gesture with his shackled hand that you come closer, smell the blood that flooded the ground all the way to the trees that preceded him. So much blood. But no hopelessness. The expectation that his legacy, whatever that was, would live on. And, if you could translate such ideals, you would be able to find past him the manifestation of that legacy. Caesarion . . . his entire body painted crimson with blood, pure white eyes and a clean blade in hand. Behind him was the same man that whipped the Druvin for eternity, a creature of boundless evil and a deep connection to Caesarion, his life, his dreams. Rhysol, if one could possibly fathom how he looked. He haunted him in the night, whether he even knew it or not.
He made a child of chains into a flail of God, and never in any incarnation would Damien forget the eminence of His place within his life. Even in death, the soul longed to be owned again. He had already surrendered himself to an eternity with his God, and desperately wished the bond reformed.
