Forbidden_Lands_Legends.pdf

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CLAY’S ROSARY
It is said that Clay was much fatigued after having bridled the winds over
Ravenland in ancient times. He needed to rest, but could not leave the newly
tamed winds unattended. He therefore created a rosary of Maha signs that
could control the weather and gave this to the maiden Thousand-Heart to
use while he slept. Gargal, behemoth of the seas, who was used to playing at
sea with the gales, was cross that his playmates had been taken from him
and wanted to free them. While Clay slept, Gargal let himself rise from
the sea foam at Maidenholm in the shape of the beautiful noble, Adembre.
Thousand-Heart was so enamored that she forsook her duties to frolic with
her guest. But Gargal let crabs sneak ashore to steal Clay’s rosary while she
was distracted.
When dawn broke, Adembre returned to the beach, where the crabs had
hidden the rosary under a rock. He was just about to go into the sea with his
loot when Clay woke. The god discovered the theft and turned the beach into
a mire, trapping the thief. When Adembre found himself trapped, he threw
the rosary into the ocean. But before Gargal’s gargantuan shape could catch it,
it was snatched up by the mischievous dolphin Puld, who absconded with it.
Clay furiously ripped Adembre to shreds, which can still be seen in the red al-
gae that lines the shorelines of the ocean. The god let the shores of the sea, rivers
and lakes partially remain as mires henceforth, as protection against thieves.
It is said that Thousand-Heart wept so profusely on the shore for her lover that
the sea has been salt ever since, but since Clay had woken he no longer needed
the rosary. After mastering the winds, he bestowed them on the goddess W
ail
to use as she wanted.
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legends
QUEEN AGATHA’S TWIN TABLETS
Queen Agatha of Dragon’s Tooth was once a beloved queen of the dwarven
Crombe clan. She wished to favor the stone singers of the clan so that their
skill would rival that of the Belderans. When the gifted apprentice, Torwyld
Gravel, by chance managed to return a slab of agate to its primordial, living
form – the feat has never been reproduced – and the masters saw how the
veins of agate surged beautifully like northern lights in the mountain, they
decided to shape a tablet for the queen from the living rock, thanking her for
her faith in them.
The work was done with a degree of anguish, for the living stone screeched
and cried when cut, but after some time, the beautiful tablet could be presented
to the regent. To the embarrassment of the stone singers, the agate veins would
no longer surge, but it was discovered that when someone managed to move a
vein on the stone tablet the same change appeared on the slab from which it had
been taken. Master Homb realized that the stone tablet was missing its other
piece and set out to form a second tablet from the remainder of the slab. Once
it had been completed, and the tablets were brought together, they seemed to be
more at ease and the agate veins became more fluid. They assumed the same
pattern, and it soon became clear that if the pattern was changed by hand on
one tablet, the same change immediately appeared on the other. Master Homb
noticed that this occurred even if the tablets were separated, and realized that
they could be used to send messages across long distances. After some years, one
of the tablets was lost, however, at which time the other was forgotten, since it
no longer served any purpose. The second tablet eventually went missing, too,
lost to the unknown.
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legends
BARKHYDE
Barkhyde is believed to be an old, sacrificial mask in honor of the goddess Heme,
and is also known as Heme’s Devouring Mask. If placed over the face, tough
tree roots will slither from it, enfolding the wearer in minutes, while they are
subjected to a multitude of harmless, but unpleasant, pin pricks. The custom at
the temples of Heme is to then remove the mask and sacrifice the individual.
ARROWS OF THE FIRE WYRM
It is said that the volcano god Horn first awoke when the demons that Zygofer
let loose had already laid waste to Aslene. So awful was his rage that magma
and ash were spewed across the heavens. Brought before the god were three
snakes, who had bitten three prophets to death. These prophets had seen
the coming of the demon flood, and had wanted to warn the people and
wake Horn. The snakes groveled before Horn and opined that they had not
intended the desolation of the land, that they had only followed their nature
as the gods had created them. When Horn’s priests still wanted to punish
the reptiles by throwing them into the magma, they writhed, cried out and
begged to atone for their crime by bringing vengeance to those who were truly
responsible.
Horn listened to them and called his servant from the magma depths of the
volcano, the mighty fire wyrm, Erinya. She breathed on her lesser kin, where-
upon they turned into arrows. These arrows would, when shot from a bow,
mark the butchers of Aslene so that Erinya could find and devour them.
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legends
FEROXA’S CLAWS
Within the Rust Church, the tale is told of how the gods Rust and Heme first
celebrated their wedding before the exultant fathers of the Rust Brothers and the
praising mothers of the Sisters of Heme. From the divine embrace was eventu-
ally born the daughter, Feroxa, a beautiful child of the blackest hematite with
freckles of rust on her stone skin.
But their happiness made the Raven god jealous. The bird of carrion swept
down, stole the child from its cradle, and settled on a high cliff to devour it. Despe-
rate and furious, the god Rust let his limb lengthen into an arrow of iron and the
goddess Heme sacrificed a finger to form a bow, strung with Feroxa’s umbilical
cord. They sent their ironclad servant Teramalda to the crag and she shot the ar-
row at the Raven god, who gravely injured and terrified, fled to the woods. Raven
took off with such force that Feroxa was pushed off the cliff and fell to the ground,
shattering into shards beyond count that spread across the world as pieces of hema-
tite. Teramalda tried to break her fall but was mortally wounded by the weight of
the stone child. Feroxa’s decapitated head came to rest next to Teramalda. It was
bereft of sight since the raven god had already pecked out its eyes, but the god-child
sensed its helper’s lips and breathed her spirit into her. Ever since that day, Tera-
malda roams the world in search of vengeance on the Raven god and his followers.
The god Rust wished to bury the head of his dead daughter, but his wife Heme
said that now was the time for vengeance, not sorrow. Together, they forged a set
of hematite claws from Feroxa’s remains, to be worn by the champion of the Rust
Church in the hunt for the scum of the Raven god. The claws were lost, however,
when their wielder – Gardkan, captain of the Iron Guard – fell in battle during
the Alder W
ars.
The claws were forged during Teramalda’s invasion of Ravenland, but the
legend of the gods and their child is just a myth. Teramalda’s suit of armor came
to life when the dwarven lord Garmar Four-Beard had the woman cooked over
embers in it, and it is possible that it was the god Rust who woke her. Anyhow, she
prefers to hunt dwarves rather than worshippers of the Raven.
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legends
SCARNESBANE
The legends tell of how Scarne, the ancient mother of dragons, ruled in
Ravenland when the dwarves arrived in an age long forgotten, and that her
armor was of impregnable obsidian that she herself had melted around her
body. But Oramund, the commander of the dwarves, prayed to the god Huge,
who sent him a hammer the blows of which could crush anything. With
it, Oramund slew the she-dragon. The dwarves then chased the serpent’s
offspring up into the mountains from whence they still plague the land. Ora-
mund named the hammer Scarnesbane. The weapon has been lost for many
years.
In fact, the hammer was never used against Scarne. Nor is the dragon
dead, but merely imprisoned far below the dwarven fortress of Stonegarden.
According to the dragon, the god of the dwarves, Huge, cowardly beat her pro-
genitor to death in her sleep, possibly using Scarnesbane.
CARSKENFOOT’S BOOTS
Five hundred years ago, the renowned stone singer and prospector Aras
Carskenfoot of the Belderan clan forged a pair of climbing boots to help him
traverse difficult mountain terrain. The boots worked perfectly, but since
Carskenfoot suffered from a severe case of foot sweat, he slid out of them when
the fastening straps broke half-way up a sheer cliff, and the stone singer fell to
his death. The widow handed the boots off so as to never see them again and
neither she nor anyone else has since.
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legends

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