Immortuos

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Indeed, Prevara’s Western Valley’s of The Outlands and The Ravaged Expanse were once free of draconic legend and terror,” Elder Caelynn wrote. As she writes this, surrounded by centuries of fragmented history collected within the ancient halls of the Atheneum, it’s difficult for Elder Caelynn to imagine a time where names like Aravax the Calamitous or Vasilya the Maleficent and her Children of Ruin were not ubiquitous in almost every household. There was once such a time, however, now almost lost and forgotten to a seemingly endless cyclical turmoil. Almost. “Centuries of archeological discovery indicate that the absence of menacing creatures in Prevara’s history applies to numerous other species besides dragons”, Elder Caelynn continues. “Even the Kammena Ladova Mountain Range, infamous for its populations of Deathbound, Ice Specters, and Shadow Tempests, was once only known to tame and natural creatures.”

Elder Caelynn glances up from her tome and notices that the natural lighting in the halls is beginning to fade away, producing a subtle expression of surprise and slight annoyance. When she arrived today in the pre-dawn hours, The Atheneum was scarcely lit except for the fireholders of a few scholars. A few hours passed, and then a morning light of golden essence poured in through the paned windows, illuminating the white marble columns and an inestimable number of dark-brown wooden shelves. As the rich light hits the scrolls and tomes of The Atheneum shelves at sunrise and sunset, it seems as though the gathered knowledge itself radiates with a lifeforce of its own. Elder Caelynn looks over to the fireholder on her desk, a cylinder of carved marble, supported by four short legs, standing at about the length of an adult human forearm. With a quick motion of her left hand, the fireholder comes to life, a gentle blaze is born out of nothing, emitting a helpful glow over the contents of the desk. Glancing around, some scholars begin to do the same while others pack up their belongings and return the contents borrowed from the Atheneum.

The Atheneum of Concordances is the most important place and well-kept secret in all of Prevara. As an Elder Scholar of the Order of Prevara, Elder Caelynn has authored numerous volumes of Concordances throughout her elvish lifespan. The Concordances are the oldest surviving encyclopedias and the only source of comprehensive knowledge of Prevara’s history. These volumes represent a culmination of the Order’s centuries of work and are collected here in The Atheneum. Shrouded in absolute secrecy from the rest of the island-continent’s inhabitants, the Concordances are preserved and protected by the Order of Prevara. For centuries, Elder Caelynn’s role as a scholar in the Order of Prevara has been to conduct research, interpret findings, and record Prevara’s objective history. Only in the last three hundred years has her research gone uninterrupted, for the most part. The perpetual warfare between the Elemental Coalition and Divinist Empire surely hasn’t made understanding the past any easier, however, intracontinental conflict is a familiar challenge. A navigable one, at that. Yet through it all, an opportunity to answer one of Prevara’s most fundamental questions has finally arisen. “If my findings are correct, I can not fathom the elation of the previous Elders,” she thought. “Of mother and father…”, she whispers. Traversing the past and brooding over how far her research has come reminds Elder Caelynn of another familiar yet navigable challenge: fighting the Mares who greet her after exhausting hours spent composing thoughts and recording findings. “Finishing this Concordance is of the utmost importance”, she reminds herself. “The other Elders must see this. Back to work now, before dreariness completely sets in”, Elder Caelynn resolves.

“From what the Order has been able to acquire, Prevara’s skeletal excavations reveal an unprecedented turn of ecology a little over a thousand years ago”, she continues to write. “Before this point in time, findings indicate that many of the monsters that currently and have continuously tormented Prevarans existed on the island. Instead, a plethora of other creatures existed along with more robust populations of species that are today near-extinct. After this point, the fossil records of the latter creatures immediately begin to disappear en masse while the disconcerting creatures’ becomes more prevalent. These findings suggest that a single moment in time extensively changed Prevara’s ecological makeup. The Order’s proposition to explain this unnatural phenomenon is that a vast majority of the diabolical creatures that inhabit Prevara are not native, but invasive species. The findings correlate to additional recent archaeological findings encountered throughout Prevara, which indicate that monstrosities relatively new to the fossil record appeared in Prevara immediately following The Arrival almost three hundred years ago.”

“If the people of Prevara knew this…”, Elder Caelynn paused and thought. There are many things Prevarans do not know. This is not without good reason though, as the liberalization of the continent’s history has been attempted in the past, resulting in disastrous consequences. The Order of Prevara has its justifications for secrecy, and under no circumstance shall this secrecy be breached. Especially not for an Arrival.

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Elder Caelynn’s fireholder illuminates her efforts late into the evening until her fleeting energy can no longer support the weight of her eyelids. Satisfied with the progress made today, she begins to pack up the contents of her desk and stores her unfinished Concordance in a restricted section of the Atheneum only accessible to Elders. An aging elvish woman nearing the last century of her expected lifespan, Elder Caelynn has a slender but stable figure with an ashen skin tone and long, gray-stained white hair flowing down to her lower back. Clearly identifiable as an Elder, Caelynn’s fortified robes are a mixture of gray and black strongly-woven cloth with gold trimmings worn open over a dark-silver breastplate with purple gemstones on display. Light green gloves extending to the center of her forearms cover the remainder of her body below the neck and complete the scholar’s appearance. Exiting The Atheneum, she is met by a brisk northern breeze and several towering goliaths that guard the entrance. Clad in gleaming plate armor and black cloaks with light green trimmings, the ancient guardians of the Order rise well above Elder Caelynn, who stands at around five foot seven. The goliath guards are present more so symbolically and ceremoniously rather than for actual security purposes, as The Atheneum of Concordances is located high above Voraria on the Citadel. Before making the long descent down the winding streets and passages of the Citadel to her chambers in the Elder District, Elder Caelynn strays towards the battlements of the citadel and takes in the view. The northern chilled breeze coming off of the seas bites at her exposed face, causing her to temporarily tear up. After clearing her eyes, the view before her is a full moon illuminating a dark and turbulent ocean, a violent sea of black, stretching for as far as the eye can see. Although a supernatural feat for a mere human, her elvish eyes all but beat back the darkness; even so, the extent of the northern sea remains completely out of sight. Behind her to the South lies the massive island-continent of Prevara, just a few miles off the southern coast of the smaller island she is currently located. Voraria, considered a small island of the greater Prevara, has been her home for centuries, protected from the continent's wrath. It’s no wonder why the Order chose it as its home. Isolated and easily defensible, there was no better place to protect the world’s most confidential information.

As she gazes out over the ocean, the cold breeze refreshingly washing over her body and mind after another day pouring over tomes, Elder Caelynn walks to the notices a dark outline beginning to obstruct the view of the full moon. Not thinking much of it, she continues to gaze out into the vast emptiness and multitude of stars shining brilliantly in the clear night sky. The outline continues to grow though, and now begins to cast a shadow over the glare of the full moon reflecting off of the ocean's surface. Her superior darkvision reveals to her a winged shadow that approaches Voraria. A look of deep concern immediately overtakes Elder Caelynn’s otherwise concentrated yet melancholic demeanor, and just as she is about to shout for the Citadel Watch, a series of alarm bells begin to sound. “There’s only one creature large enough to cast that observable of a shadow from this distance, '' Elder Caelynn reasons. “Approaching from the North, though… Why would a dragon be approaching from the North?!” A battalion of goliaths begins to line the battlements around Elder Caelynn, drawing their gleaming silver longswords, equipping runic longbows, and readying their shields. A booming, vicious roar interrupts the numerous alarm bells sounding across Voraria. Elder Caeylnn immediately recognizes that roar, a sound fearfully ingrained into the memories of many western Prevarans. The draconic legend and terror of Vasilya the Malificent hastily approaches…