Heart-stone

A red diamond, lost in the past.

Many have searched for it,

few have returned.

None have succeded.

The heartstone is one of the most famous and highly priced gems to all the seven mortal races. It is said to be of perfect brilliance, shining with its own inner light. And any other light it would reflect in even greater splendor.
Yet none live today that have ever laid eyes on it. Nor is anything known about its true origin. But each race has their own myth about this stone. For many of the mortal races, the myths of the origin of this stone are deeply connected to their own nature.

Significance

Amongst the humans, the origin of this gem is most commonly told in the Tale of the girl who had a diamond for a heart.
In this tale, a noble man prays to the gods to grant him riches and power. In order to punish him for his greedy and selfish wishes, they grant his wife to give birth to a beautiful and strong daughter that is named Kalite. But where others have a heart, she has a diamond and it shone ever from within her with its own radiant white light.
But she is cruel and wicked from a young age on. When she comes of age, the diamond suddenly turnes from white to red, maturing as she does. She attemts to proclaim herself sole heir to her fathers riches and estates.
As she threatens to kill her father to force this decision, her brothers come to his aid but to late. They kill her but she has dealt their father a deadly blow with a dagger. It is said that, at the will of the father, the red diamond was taken from her chest and carried by the sons deep into the mountains, where it lies hidden now, wating for a worthy champion to claim it.
Some believe, that the one who will find the gem, is the one worthy to rule over all mortal creation, as had the Godking done during the Second Order.

Amongst the dwarves, the stone is believed to be the heart of their most sacred mountain. In the earliest days of creation they claim to have found it deep in the caverns of their first home in the Sundering Mountains. They treasured it host highly of all their gems and stones and it shone ever from the highest pillar of their biggest crafting chamber, filling the vast cave room with its radiant light. Many other gems where also set on smaller pillars. Beeing hit by the light of the heart-stone they too shone, lighting the chamber in various colours. Thus it was named "Rainbow cave" and "Cave of radiance".
In its light the craftsmen where encouraged by the brilliant light and their minds aspired to the shaping of many wondrous things. Their hands working as lightly as a soft breeze on a green meadow, they built swiftly and with ease what their minds conceived.

But in their wars with the dragons the chamber was taken by the monsters and the heart-stone was lost forever to the greed of the scaled beasts. Some say one of the dragons swallowed the stone and bore it far away to some hidden hoard. Others say that by the great heat of these creatures it was taken by the tide of melting gold and silver and stuck to the scaled skin of one of the beasts.

The gnomes however, tell a very different story.
They believe the heart-stone to be the tears of all those weeping at the loss of a close kin or friend. As their tears fall, taking a part of their hearts with them as their loved ones pass, they capture the light of the sun. And wetting the soil at their feet the tears will go into the ground and there join the mass of the heart-stone. There under the earth the tears will rest and with them the memories of all the gnomes that have trod the land and passed away.
As the years pass, the sorrow will pass. And as the generations pass, those mourning the passing of their kin will also pass away. As they do the tears they have shed will dry up within the heart-stone and over time make their way back to the surface as grains of sand or small stones.
This is the reason why many gnomes carry threads with small red stones around their necks and arms. It is a remainder both of their long history on the Eastern Plains and of their believe in eternal change.

The mages however, believe the heart-stone to be no stone at all but a sea-pearl of the depths of the southern ocean. For many of them claim that after the shattering of their homeland they drifted through the ocean at a great speed. And as they where at their most desperate - for even they in their great knowledge of deep magic seemed unable to stop the isles from drifting ever further apart - one of the isles brought up a huge sea shell from the ground of the sea. And the force of the moving earth was so great that the shell broke apart, revealing a pearl of such splendour and light that the mages took hope again and wove one last powerfull magic together. And this attempt was successfull. However by the time the isles finally stopped moving, they had already passed the place where the pearl had fallen back into the sea. It lay now on the bottom of the ocean and by now power or magic it could be brought to the surface again.
Yet if they travel between the mainland and their isles these days, the sun will guide them at day and the stars at night. But when clouds or fog cover the sky, a soft red light will begin to shine, guiding them ever safely back to their isles.

The light elves of the southern forest believe none of these stories, also - like the mages - they do not believe the heart-stone is a stone at all. However they do tell stories of a certain red fruit which was given to one of the first of the elves by their god. Each of the seven seeds of that fruit was planted somewhere within the elven forest land and soon strong saplings grew from each of the seeds. These trees are tended by chosen guardians that are trained from a youg age on to tend to the tree and to protect it. But neither what is the true importance of these trees to them nor where the trees stand has been revealed to any other mortal race. That secret the light elves guard as closely as no other.

The dark elves still living in exile from their ancestral home, believe in the heart-stone as a token of hope. Having to leave their homeland after the imprisonment of the souldestroyer there, a seeping darkness could be seen on many days ever after. This darkness is believed by many - and not only the dark elves - to be manifestation of the Void, where the souldestroyer has its origin.
And over the years, this darkness has been growing. Only a little every century. To the humans - the only other mortal race living in the regions bordering that cursed forest - this change happens to slowly to be realised by any generation. Only the dark elves, having longer live spans, have noticed that change.
Yet as great was their will to sacrifice so much for the good of all the mortal races, so great is also their faith in the gods that they will send a light to keep the growing darkness in check. This light they believe to be in the heart-stone.
Other than most of the mortal races, the dark elves do not believe that stone to exist on the Land yet. Instead they look up to the stars. Their in the heavens they point to a red star, praying to the gods to finish their shaping of the light and to send it down to the Land, in the hands of the dark elves. With this light, they would finally be able to return to their homelands. There they would set it before the cave of stars, where the souldestroyer is imprisoned. And by this light the darkness would be quenched and the land healed.

Last of all, the trolls are the only ones that believe in the heart-stone beeing a thing of danger. In their tales, the heart-stone was once found at a strong spring, where the water poured out of a crack in a mountain.
Beeing curious and not centent with simply beeing gratefull for the clear water, a young troll once begann to hew at the crack, intending to find the source of the spring within the mountain. He broke down many pieces of the mountain, until his eyes caught something glittering. Soon enough he laid bare a red gem, brilliantly reflecting the sunlight. And as he stared at the gem the sun set behind the high peaks of the mountains, yet the stone kept on shining. As the light poured out of the stone, love for it grew in the young troll´s heart.
Proud of his find the young troll forgot about his former plan to find the source of the spring in the mountain. Instead now he went home to his village to show around his precious stone. But it was a dark and starless night and the bright red light of the heart-stone irritated his eyes more than it aided him. Loosing his way in the steep and narrow valleys he kept on stumbling through the night. No fall, no scratch, no hurts could lessen his urge to show the stone in the village. For such a find would bring honour to him and his family, he was sure.
And indeed he finally saw lights in the distance as the night drew to an end. But it was not his own village nor that of any trolls. It was a camp of three human miners. Already they were awake and preparing for the days work when the young troll, tired, bruised, hungry but proud, stumbled in their camp. Little did he care that this were humans and no trolls. Over the passing of the night he had grown so full of love for the stone that he could not imagine anyone feeling any diferent at the view of it. Nor did he now remember the warnings of his elders about the greed of humans.
And the miners, seeing the precious, shining gem, where full of greed. Yet they pretended to be friendly and bade the troll sit and eat and rest. But as the troll rested and fell asleep there, the men slew him. At first only arguing then about who would get the stone, they soon began fighting over it. The stone fell to the ground and splintered in three exactly same sized parts. But as it did so, the light vanished from the stone and what was left behind were three simple red stones.

Item type

Unique Artifact

As different as all the stories of the heart-stone are beween the mortal races, some core believed are shared by all:

• the light of the heart-stone cannot be outmatched by any darkness, however great it may be
• when touched, the heart-stone will fill the person with a feeling of warmth like that of a loving embrace
• only when used with purest intentions will the heart-stone be used for good. All others will be corrupted by its promise of wealth and power
• if used correctly, all the sorrows of the Land could be healed by the heart-stone