Sorcerer-King

In the days after the Godfall and before the formation of the six city-states of humanity, there was the largely unknown period of time during which ruled the Sorcerer-Kings, mighty tyrants and despots whose very thoughts could reshape the reality around them. They were the first to tame the Tapestrum Arcanum and harness its energies towards what is now known as magic.

Kings of Old

During those elden days, a slew of lesser Sorcerer-Kings rose into and fell from power but five of these individuals who held immense power could have been considered to be the true, genuine holders of the title, each ruling their own corners of Nascindor.

The Hierophant

A diviner, prophet and an auditor of the minds of men, the Hierophant ruled his kingdom that tales tell was situated where Pluthem now stands.

Nothing was hidden from the Hierophant, so awe-inspiring was his power of divination. Entire battles were decided before they even began and any would-be attempts at rebellions or assassination were thwarted before their conspirators had even formulated the thought. It was no surprise, then, that his kingdom was one of constant surveillance and that any and all perceived slights against him were punished with cruelties beyond imagination.

It took the uprising of his entire kingdom against his rule to overwhelm his ability to see the future. After he had been restrained, he was banished into the roiling dunes of the Varlem Desert, never to return.

Curiously, he begged not to be exiled into the sea of sand, the only time the mighty Hierophant had seemed scared.

The Master

The Sorcerer-King known simply as the Master ruled in the frigid far north, his kingdom encompassing the Mistclad Cordillera and beyond.

Those who wandered into his domain were promptly slain by his subjects, as his kingdom would not abide the living. The Master was enamored with death and the first life he ever took was his own, and as he rose from that dreamless sleep through the unexplored corridors of the Tapestrum, he returned with a vision. A vision of a world devoid of the burdens of life, where all mortal woes would simply not exist. To this end, he would launch frequent raids from his mountain halls, harrying any and all who would cross their path and granting upon them the gift of death.

The forces of the other Sorcerer-Kings eventually broke his undead army and he was sent back into the void for which he aspired to.

The Astrologist

Reclusive and rather benign, insofar as a Sorcerer-King can be such a thing, the Astrologist obsessed over the great darkness that stretches in the spaces between the stars. Through his studies, he learned how to manipulate space itself and, by relation, gravity. Those who defied his armies were crushed under their own weight or flung away effortlessly.

But the Astrologist had no interest in conquering Nascindor for himself. He had his sights set on the mysteries of the greater cosmos and he conjured the phenomena he observed in the night skies in his great observatories situated in the flatlands that are now known as the Mourning Plateau.

Then one day, he discovered a peculiar black orb in the infinite vastness of the great dark. He simply had to study this phenomenon, so he conjured an approximation of it in his grand observatory. It was fortunate for the entirety of Nascindor that his facsimile had not been a perfect recreation and fizzled out after having swallowed the majority of the Astrologists kingdom, an entire empire simply vanishing in a brief, catastrophic singularity.

The Redeemer

The exception to the rule, the Redeemer was a Sorcerer-King who ruled with a gentle, benevolent hand. A healer and a soothsayer, people flocked to and pledged themselves to his service out of their own volition.

He himself claimed he was in contact with the Progenitor itself, that his powers came not from the Tapestrum but from the presumed dead god. To this effect, he took on a messianic role that was so convincing that even the early precursors of the Resounding Truth accepted his status as a divine messenger. His rule was characterized by a strict but fair justice system and equity of both status and resources, no doubt aided by his kingdom being situated in the fertile land that is now known as Haven.

This all came to an end when he claimed he had been commanded by the Progenitor to destroy the Adversary and thus personally led an attack into the Black Forest, at the Heart of Hate itself. When these forces reached the harrowing artifact, every single one of them, including the Redeemer himself, were struck dead where they stood as their very souls were simply destroyed in the presence of the dread radiance of the Heart.

The Overlord

The longest ruling and only Sorcerer-King to survive the end of their rule, the Overlord was a despot in every definition of the word. Notoriously cruel, he was a slavedriver without equal. To live in his kingdom was to endure back-breaking toil constructing his wicked ziggurats and monuments along the border of the Great Forest. The only two people who had a place in his hardened heart were his daughter and the concubine he had sired her with.

When the forest was eventually corrupted by the Adversary's poisonous presence, he did all he could to appease the fell god in an effort to spare his kingdom its horrid hate. To this end he decreed that one person each day, chosen at random by his court mages, would be exiled into the forest.

These senseless sacrifices continued for years before, in a karmic twist of fate, the dice roll landed onto his very own daughter. Before he could halt the now largely automated procedure, his daughter had been whisked away into the forest.

The Overlord executed his court mages to every last man and woman and spent the next few months combing the parts of the forest that men could still relatively safely enter and explore for his little girl. As time passed, despair turned into sorrow turned into rage.

And so, the longest ruling Sorcerer-King relinquished his position and the rule of his kingdom to his most senior advisor and their son out of his own volition, vowing to destroy the Adversary.

After his departure, those he left in power were even crueler than he had been, and would lead to the downfall of the kingdom when they attempted to invoke a curse that would prevent people from abandoning the kingdom.

The curse did work, but it worked too well, even. Not even death was a release from the kingdom that the two had created, and soon they would rule an empire of ghosts, the once great towers and halls of the realm falling into ruination.

Possible Survivors

It is possible that some of the lesser Sorcerer-Kings that once sat on thrones built on suffering still draw breath. However, they would have to keep a low profile now that the order of the Mageslayers exists.

Some believe that the Sullen Council that rules over Druvenia is a group of such individuals.

All life races towards death, as if to throw itself into the comforting embrace of a lover.

– The Master

Status

No longer in use

Form of Address

Varies

Source of Authority

Magical

Length of Term

Until usurped, killed or overthrown

by Midjourney

_{The Hierophant}

by Midjourney

_{The Master}

by Midjourney

_{The Astrologist}

_{The Redeemer}

by Midjourney

_{The Overlord}