The Ancient One

In a time long before this, and then even longer still, when the land was still untamed, primal, emerging, there was a tale of a king. In these times far beyond the pages, many wild clans walked the earth, small nomadic and one with the seasons. They knew small comforts and were humble with little opportunity for greed.

In these times there were magics and mages skilled unlike anything we know today. Magic was different because the politics were different, the stakes unimaginable. Large behemoths shaped the earth with mighty earth shaping magic, oceans and currents were called by large magnificent serpents; the land flourished with creativity and natural force.

Of all the wild clans and kingdoms, the largest, perhaps the most notable was Corvatia. The first self proclaimed city, or so they called.

A bright young man, whose name is truly lost to time was a skilled magician, and could peer into the stars to scry into the future, as he said.

He promised a world where they needn’t fear, for the wild beasts that roamed these lands would be fewer and fewer. That he could protect the peoples and anticipate the large beasts every move.

Ove time, he gained favour of the people, and it was true, he could forsee and know all. The harvest, the moons, all that was to be known, he peered deep behind the stars.

And so, as time moved on, so to did the peoples, they came from all corners of the continent to settle under his protection - named him a king. They erected a city around him. The deeper he peered, the further he fell.

Theories of corruption didn't mean anything in this day, to him, ne neared closer to greatness every time he scryed the stars. Peered into the depths, the cold, the light behind them and the absence of light all together.

But what happens when you look too far? Go too far? Is there any way to turn back? No. And so the tale was that the king had looked into deep and dark places that no one should see. Ancient forbidden knowledge that no mortal mind can understan. The existential dread of the deepest depths of space overcame him as did the raw spatial power - and so the king turned. His form shifted into a shimmering dark raven, tears constantly pouring from his eyes and dark snakey appendages streaming from his back.

The king hovered above the city, forever changed. His dread and sadness seeped into the earth and so to the people fell into the deepest sadness imagineable. And they never woke up again.

once the people perished, their attention turned away, their influence gone for good, the once mortal king too fled, faded some say absorbed back into the inkly dark.

And he was never seen again.

Some say the stars are marked by his hide - I long and hope that he does not return.