Cruxborne Legends

A strange tension filled the world of Valtir. For centuries, prophets have spoken of a coming calamity that spelled doom and torment though not to lose hope as the gods have heard their descendants’ pleas. They spoke of people who shall descend and save the world from the Calamity yet have abilities granted to them by the gods themselves. These people shall have no knowledge of their world upon first entering, but they would not be without help. The pantheons of Valtir will have granted abilities that set them apart from even the strongest kingdoms in the land though not without costs. As to what these costs happened to be, the prophets did not say.

For over six hundred years since this prophecy had been uttered by the First Prophet, there had been no signs of this coming Calamity or anything about these strange foreigners that could change their world’s fate as observed by dedicated scholars. Most historians of Valtir argued that this prophecy held no relevance in the modern times and that the whole thing was made up to discredit the Emperor’s reign, but not all historians agree about its validity. These debates between historical scholars bled out into politics between all of Valtir’s feudal kingdoms and caused the Schism War almost two hundred years ago. In the present time, only scattered remnants of these ancient kingdoms remained and a barren wasteland where the final battle of the war still produced its scarred embers.

Thousands of the ancient Empire’s finest soldiers and battlemages were massacred in that devastating final battle where the Necrotic Wasteland now resides. Only the strongest heroes in the land could have a chance to survive within the ancient battlefield, but even fewer could thrive with death waiting for a chance to reap their immortal souls.

Unbeknownst to the scholars and powerful figures in the land, there had been five different iterations of the same prophecy written by five different authors. All of them spouted propaganda of the prophecy based on their ancient kingdoms’ political beliefs and perverting the original ominous message that the First Prophet uttered all those years ago. No one in the current political structure knew what had been written within the original telling and instead referred to the false writings, but there was one sect who knew. Their name was lost to Valtir’s history and it had been designed that way by the First Prophet himself.

Forewarned of the damage his prophetic message would cause by an elf-like stranger who walked the paths of History, he had created a secret sect of historians forsworn into secrecy in perpetuity by bloodline contracts that protected his original message from those who sought personal gain. No mortal would remember his name or this secret sect once the prophet died, but the festering damage merely added a strain on the reputation of the gods’ saviors that compounded into the modern era. Wars and theological battles are waged in every capital of Valtir in the present day though for one seemingly insignificant village on the fringe border plains of the Western Kingdom, everything the gods have planned has been set into motion.

There in the horizons of future dawns, a Calamity looms.

The old withered gaze of this ancient enemy promises doom for all and cares little.

Cries of men, women, and children alike rang most clear as if a crystalline bell tolled through ancient paths warning any who could hear that hope was lost.

Fires burned and blood spilled where this coming of darkness treaded its inescapable path.

To who or what this harbinger was, none knew for its face held nothing but shadows darker than a starless night sky.

It appeared that none of our Realm could defeat this harbinger and even the gods could not defeat them, but there was hope.

Upon the bell striking midnight where monsters fear to tread and the endless seas of corpses that sing their silent eternal cries, a new age shall be heralded by strangers from a world not of our own.

The Cruxborne-in their infinite deathless forms-shall be led by their Progenitor into the decisive battle where this harbinger shall forever know fear.