Legends

The Legend of the Five that Sleep - by T.A. Saunders ©2009 v1.2

In the last days of the War of Twilight, before the Asyndi and the Astral Wyrms fell from grace, there had been six of the Archfiend of Chaos that still roamed the world, wreaking havoc at will and decimating the massed armies of the Old Gods wherever they assembled. Gods in and of themselves, they could not be defeated in battle. The Six drew strength from both each other and the carnage of the battlefields across the world and in the growing weakness of the Asyndi's faith in the Old Gods. Even with the armies of Chaos scattered and vanquished elsewhere, these Six could not be defeated so long as they could feed upon the blood and souls of those who fell and were sacrificed to them.

It was decided that the Old Gods themselves had to enter the field, to rally the broken spirits of their children with so many having turned to the calling of Chaos' temptations of power and many more Asyndi falling in battle. On this fated day, said to have taken place off the coast of where the city of Anthalas stands today one of the Six, Gurhjuua the Witchflame was slain by Zorah the Moon Huntress' gleaming war-spear in a thunderous strike that shook the foundations of the world and moreover, broke this strange symbiotic power relationship the Six had.

The Six, now Five were weakened by this, but by no means defeated. Even with this symbiotic chain of power broken, the Five that remained were still quite powerful. The battles across ancient Imarel waged on, but in this weakening an opportunity was found. Kaal, the Sun-Father, with the aid of a divine relic known as the Dreamer's Eye, was able to weave a great spell upon the Five, who were gathering for a great retaliation in vengeance for slain Gurhjuua. This spell, said to have been a great word of power that carried across Imarel put the Five in a deep slumber for all time.

The Five were slowly forgotten in the great many ages of Imarel as the Asyndi and the Astral Wyrms fell from grace, thanks to Hazaad's Curse and their knowledge lost as time passed. It would not be for many eons, before the Five that Slept would be remembered at all and quite by accident. It was during the War of Eternals between the Shar`Vaire and the Tallis-Shei that so much death was wrought that the blood spilled and the souls released so violently began to stir the Five.

Strange events across the globe began to occur; subtle things, like odd weather patterns or abominations coming from the sea or the ground. Most of these things went unnoticed during the tides of war, save for a single Shar`Vaire Theocrat who could sense the stirring. Vashi Mir'sah, ancestor of the infamous Duke Vex'anar Mir`sah, had an innate sensitivity to such currents and could feel the swell of evil growing in the dark places in the world and sensed this change in the dark currants of the world.

Vashi, who most of the Shar`Vaire disregarded as insane took it upon herself to seek out these currents of evil, that pulsed like sores upon Imarel with the continuing slaughter and calling forth of infernal power by the Shar`Vaire. In the Five that Slept, she saw a weapon that she thought she could control with the help of others. In her adventures across the world, she discovered three of the Five slept in the deepest parts of the ocean and two remained buried under eons-worth of rock and dirt. Brashly, she sought their names: Rok'tah the Devourer, Ghurzaj'atahk the Usurper, Naja'thar the Death-Caller, Uiros the Condemner and Xiatu the Hate-Drinker were all weapons in her eyes that could be unleashed upon the Tallis-Shei Elves to wipe them from Imarel forever.

But these Forgotten Ones as they came to be called more out of derisive humor than out of reverence, were not so easily awoken; the sorcery of the Old Gods and the ancestral Asyndi was strong and meant to keep the Five entombed for all time. She could not wake all five, she discerned but one could be roused. One could be turned loose upon the Elves and bring a long-awaited defeat to their enemies. Of the Five, she chose Rok'tah the Devourer; she had discovered Rok'tah slept not far from Anthalas Harbor and was the closest to waking on its own because of the tides of this great war with the Elves they were embroiled within.

While the ritual was stopped by Mourne Dur`lane and a band of Voraath rebels that followed him at the height of the Cataclysm of D'Mir, the damage was done. Over the next several thousand years, whispers persisted about these Forgotten Ones and cults that worshiped them across Imarel began springing up throughout Tal`Rah. Humans especially seemed attracted to the notion of these powerful beings and many attempts were made to draw power or rouse the Forgotten Ones. Chipping away as these cults were at the ancient magic of the Old Gods, eventually a bond would be broken.

In 1110 AC, Rok'tah was the one of the Five that woke in large part to the efforts of a radical group of Shadow Elves and Humans that called themselves Zorah's Dawn. Rok'tah began a march towards the city of Anthalas. In the single greatest mobilization in Imarelian history, Shar`Vaire, Quar'Vess, Dragons, Elves, Humans and Voraath all cast aside their differences and fought against this ancient evil. Many lives were lost during this conflict, decimating over a third of the standing Shar`Vaire Royal Airship Fleet, nearly all of the Quar'Vessian Dragonriders, half the Windsong Navy and nearly two thirds of the collective Voraath Battle Horde that came to do battle. Rok'tah was stopped however, if only because it did not have the power of the other Four to sustain it.

Later, in 1322 AC Ghurzaj'atahk the Usurper had begun to wake from its Dreaming, where it had slept for aeons, off the coast of the city of Sundown. With the use of the Dreamer's Eye, the very artifact used to put the Five to sleep, heroes from the city of Sundown ventured into Ghurza's dreaming and slew it within its own mind, as a manifested nightmare, before it could fully wake. Doing this destroyed the ancient fiend, but in the process also destroyed the Eye.

There are three that remain, somewhere in the dark and forgotten places of the world. Little is known of them, save that one more resides somewhere in the shadowy deep of Imarel's seas and two remain unfound buried within the heart of the world, waiting to be called from their slumber to finish what had begun so many ages ago.