THREE YEARS BEFORE THE FOURTH GREAT STORM COVERED THE
WORLD OF MENNARA, THE SCRIBES OF TAMALIR PRESERVED THIS
TRANSCRIPTION OF THE KNIGHT CAPTAIN ALCARAN’S PLEA TO THE
DAQAN LORDS OF TERRINOTH.
Some say the dragons made them, but they lie.
The so-called dragon runes are pieces of a much older history. The dragons,
curse them, carved the runes, but they did not spawn the stones. Their
markings are blemishes on shards of far greater artifacts.
My Lords, I say we should not shun these objects as the mere baubles of
dragons, nor should we fear their potency. They are eminently more useful
to the realm of man than what you perceive. Our mages should study
them, harness their power, so that we may add their strength to our own
‘ere it’s too late.
Now, I’ve yet to hear word of my requested reinforcements to the North. In
fact, I’ve yet to see ANY effect of my countless letters to you. Thus I come
here in person to implore you to take action. To summon the banners of
Terrinoth and STRIKE while the initiative is ours. I come here in person,
though I’d rather fi ght the evil that encroaches on our land… before it
grows beyond our control, as it has done throughout history.
Thrice have great wars ruined the lands of our forefathers. Shattered
continents! Destroyed entire civilizations! Will you renege on the solemn
duty to, at all costs, prevent such travesties from scouring mankind again?
Shame! Shame on those who would!
My men. My knights. On the borderlands. They now fi ght with the last
of their strength. They have seen, they have defeated, horrors that you
cannot imagine. Barons of Daqan, I have seen horror that would curdle
your loins. Let this be my testimony before you. Here. Now. The seeds of
darkness are quickening, their roots taking hold.
If we gather our wits, if we muster our strength, if we use the dragon
runes, we may yet avert disaster.
Know this. The great shards which we now call “dragon runes” were not
always known by that name. A thousand years ago, pure, unblemished,
they were called the “Stars of Timmorran.” This may not ring familiar to
your ears, but “Timmorran” was a name once known by all. This truth
has been shown to me.
Timmorran Lokander! A name that should not have been forgotten.
He was the greatest wizard the world has ever known. A scion of
power that successfully united men, elves, and dwarves against the First
Darkness. Against Llovar of the Locusts himself.
After that fi rst war, that fi rst storm, Timmorran presided over a great
communion of peace. One that embraced Mennara for more than a
hundred years, from the wastes of Isheim to the jungles of Zanaga. Not
just peace in Terrinoth, or in the Torue Albes. Peace everywhere. In time,
the people forgot about evil and the war. Thought it history, myth. That
evil had been abolished forever.
But of course it had not.
Though stronger and older than any man, Timmorran was not immortal.
As he waned in years and felt his life ebbing to the end, he made a grave
error. It was his dream, you understand, that his students retain his powers
to sustain the peace.
To this end, he channeled all of his powers into a crystal artifact – an
orb he called the Orb of the Sky. It was his plan that after his death the
orb remain within his tower, managed by a conclave of lawful wizards. It
would be a shining beacon of powerful peace to last until the end of the
world. Some of Timmorran’s more senior students feared the responsibility
of being stewards of so powerful an object. They shuddered at the thought
of what would happen if the orb should fall into the wrong hands.
Timmorran dismissed their fears; fl esh was fragile, he said, only an object –
such as the orb – could be made to last forever.
On the Night of Betrayal, Timmorran fi nally came to realize the folly of
his creation.
That fateful night, Waiqar the Betrayer… Yes, you know him as Waiqar
the Damned, Waiqar the Necromancer, Waiqar of the Mists; he has
many names. That night, the great general stunned the world as he revealed
his true guise: as the heir of Llovar Rutonu.
Without hesitation, Waiqar struck into the wizard vale with a great army
to capture Timmorran’s orb.
Cornered, betrayed, heart-broken, Timmorran had no choice but to
destroy his creation. He hurled the orb against the steel fl oor where the
orb splintered into thousands of fragments, each one a sliver of the
wizard’s magical essence.
As Waiqar’s minions breached the tower gates, Timmorran gathered
the shards in a velvet bag with help from his acolytes. He entrusted
the bag to his most able student, Lumii Tamar, telling the frightened
youth to hide the shards across all the lands, to entrust each piece
only to the wise and the noble.
With the shards scattered in this way across the world,
Timmorran hoped their powers would stay out of evil’s reach.
As the great oaken door to his upper chambers fi nally began
to collapse under Waiqar’s assault, Timmorran walked to
a tall window at the rear of the chamber. With a whistle,
he summoned aid. Soon, a vast cloud of mountain crows,
stretching for miles, descended into the valley. The countryside
around the tower suddenly throbbed with fl ickering masses of
black feathers, the drone of their fl apping wings was as the
roar of a tempest.
Timmorran took a single shard from Lumii’s bag. Using it, he
transformed the acolyte so that he might escape. With a fi nal blessing from
his master, Lumii Tamar, now in the guise of a mountain crow, spread
his newfound wings and leapt from the tower window, escaping the butchery
that would follow.
Unnoticed in the cacophony of brethren birds, Lumii escaped the eyes and
the arrows of Waiqar’s forces. He fl ew across plain and mountain to do
Timmorran’s fi nal bidding, and he did not fail. His story is an interesting
one, but not one for this day.
Upon entering the upper chamber and discovering Timmorran’s fi nal
gambit, Waiqar’s howls of rage could be heard for miles.
Later, the Betrayer wrested a single crystal shard from Timmorran’s
tortured decomposing body. Clasping it, he swore a black oath; to not rest
until he had recovered every shard, to allow the fi res of his hate to burn
until he had hunted down every last one, even if it took him to the end of
time itself.
And so it came to be that Waiqar Sumarion denied death. He rules now,
in a deathless state, over the land of mist. He’s biding his time, waiting.
He will not rest, he CANNOT rest, until Timmorran’s Stars are his.
On the Night of Betrayal, evil returned again in force to the world. Under
Waiqar’s wrath, the second great war, for the Stars of Timmorran, roiled
the lands.
To our fortune, those we know as the Elder Kings won the war. Once
again, evil had been turned aside by the strength of men, elves, dwarves,
and the assistance of Lumii Tamar and the council of wizards. Yet,
the victory came at a terrible cost. Countless lives had been extinguished,
many of Timmorran’s Stars had been lost, and half a continent had been
swallowed by the sea. Many of the remaining Stars were placed under the
protection of the Elder Kings, who swore to keep them safe.
Of course, as you know, the Elder Kings were destroyed by the Dragons.
Margath, Levirax, Baalaesh, Zir, Gehennor... The Dragonlords unleashed
war without warning. They scorched the earth, fl attening entire cities, seeking
Timmorran’s Stars. When a star was found, the dragons would carve their
runes onto the crystals. Dragon runes. Marks of power, adding their fi ery
energies to that of Timmorran’s magic, amplifying their power.
In the expanse of those years, the dragons even split many Stars into
thousands of smaller fragments. They engraved these with runes of lesser
power and gave them to their human allies, such as the Black Legion,
the barbarians of the wastes, and the few living lieutenants of Waiqar.
These were the minor rune-stones, eagerly sought by our magic users to
this day.
It was Zir the Black who fi rst learned about the shards. In them, she
saw the chance to dominate the Dragon order. Zir may have thought
herself quite cunning in her plans, but it was Waiqar’s scheming
that truly was to blame. The Betrayer was the shadow who spoke
in the Dragon’s dreams, prodding her, luring her, not only to war
with Terrinoth, but into a war against her own kin.
Two important events ultimately turned the tide of war against
the Dragonlords. First, laying aside old hatreds, the orc nations
joined swords with the dwarven, elven, and human realms.
Second, in a grand turn of fate, the Dragon Rex, Shaarina,
killed Zir in battle. With Zir gone, Waiqar lost his ability
to lead by suggestion, and soon enmity grew rampant
among the forces of evil. Rather than face the loss of yet
another war, deathless Waiqar retreated to the fortress
Zorgas, an unholy fog falling over the lands behind his
forces. He still dwells there, deep in his land of mist.
And now, here we are! I don’t claim to understand what new evil stirs in
the bowels of the Ru Steppes. Demons, beasts, and vile things are crossing
our borders in ever-increasing numbers. The fog of Waiqar’s lands is
expanding. It has already engulfed our oldest bastion from which we have
now retreated. I personally led a raid into those land of mists where I saw
tell-tale signs of deathly mustering and preparations for war.
My Lords, we stand here in the hall of our fathers. Will you not heed my
warnings? Will you not sound the horns? I urge you to call our banners.
To send riders to the Latari and the Dunwarr. Yes, their arrogance has
only grown, but we may need their arrows and axes in the years to come.
This… This is our chance. This is the time. Let us act before we are
smitten, let us purge before we are sickened, strike before we are struck.
Will you heed me, my Lords? I implore you…
AS CAPTAIN OF THE NORTHERN BASTIONS, ALCARAN WAS KNOWN BOTH AS
“THE WISE KNIGHT” OR “ALCARAN THE GLOOMY,” DEPENDING ON WHO
YOU ASKED. IN HIS YOUTH, IT WAS SAID HE FOUND THE LEGENDARY ORACLE
OF THE HILLS, AND WHAT HE LEARNED FROM THE ORACLE UTTERLY
CHANGED HIM. WHAT IS CERTAIN, IS THAT ALCARAN DEDICATED MOST OF
HIS LIFE TO FIGHTING THE ENEMIES OF TERRINOTH, HIS ZEAL WINNING HIM
MILITARY COMMAND OF THE BORDERLAND REGIONS ALONG TERRINOTH’S
NORTHERN AND NORTHWESTERN BORDERS. THERE, HE FOUGHT BOTH THE
WALKI NG DEAD AND THE ABOMINATIONS THAT HAD BEGUN EMERGING
FROM THE RU, PRESAGING THE SECOND COMING OF THE UTHUK Y’LLAN.
TO HIS DEATH, ALCARAN SOUGHT TO WARN HIS FELLOW MEN OF IMPENDING
DANGER AND SOUGHT TO CONVINCE THE DAQAN LORDS TO ENGAGE THE
ENEMY WITH FORCE. HE WAS UNSUCCESSFUL IN HIS PLEAS.
CAPTAIN ALCARAN DIED FIGHTING A VAST MOLLUSK-WORM THAT
HAD BEEN FEEDING ON BOTH LIVESTOCK AND POPULATION OF
NORTHWESTERN ROUGHWARRI.
HE HAD NO LAST WORDS. HIS ACTIONS SPOKE FOR HIM.