Hu’tod was born on Tilith during the final decades of the Dragon Conquest Age, when draconic overlords loomed large over mortal domains. As a Bovidea of immeasurable strength, he showed promise even before his horns had fully grown. Rumors whisper that in his youth, he could lift entire wagons and outrun swiftest steeds without breaking stride. Yet it was not only raw might that marked him; a hidden core of potent Murk magic surged within, waiting for dire need. Those early years foreshadowed a destiny neither he nor any of his kin could fully anticipate.
In the first major battles against draconic tyranny, Hu’tod distinguished himself by toppling monstrous foes with sheer brute force. He often forwent spells other Bovidea called upon, as if trusting only in the thunder of his hooves and the weight of his horns. Many wondered if his reticence to cast magic signified humility or a vow sworn in silence. Whatever the case, no dragon stood unbroken when Hu’tod galloped into view.
Despite this glory, historians remain baffled by his preference for physical brawling over the potent Murk arts humming in his veins. Some claim he feared losing control, for Murk power often came at a cost of self-possession. Others believe a certain pride in his race drove him: he refused to rely on “easy spells” that might cheapen the Bovidea’s inherent greatness. Whatever his reasons, he left behind a trail of shattered draconic corpses, hulking remains that dwarfed even the bravest of allies. By the war’s end, his might was so fabled that entire armies parted at the sight of him. And though his horns glinted with possibility, he rarely let that hidden mystic spark ignite.
When the Dragon Conquest Age finally crumbled, many champions returned home to shape nascent kingdoms or found new orders. Hu’tod, however, vanished into the swirl of cosmic rumor. Tales drifted of his departure to the Neft, a plane eternal in red twilight. No mortal domain would ever see him again—or so they believed.
The Neft was an unforgiving realm, steeped in tides of arcane storms and an eerie hush that devoured civilizations whole. Hu’tod adapted to its harshness by smashing down apex predators that prowled the crimson wastes, establishing a grim domain under his unyielding watch. In the early days, he took perverse satisfaction in proving that even in a plane built to chew lesser beings, his Bovidea heritage reigned supreme. Over centuries, his name became synonymous with unstoppable fury, and denizens of the Neft whispered it in hushed voices. Yet as decades merged into eons, his constant rampages gave way to an almost languid boredom, fueling a new ambition. Idle musings of fathering a lineage came next, born less of devotion and more of restless curiosity.
In those first generations, Hu’tod’s children spread throughout the Neft, each inheriting a sliver of his monstrous might. Their herds, bound by strange half-spoken oaths, erected fortress-camps along the plane’s shifting boundaries, half in awe of their legendary sire. Many tried to emulate his stoic refusal to call upon Murk magic, channeling only what small spells they’d gleaned from the environment itself. Even so, none matched the primal terror that followed Hu’tod like a silent shadow. He remained larger than myth, an unbreakable figurehead from another age.
Curiously, Hu’tod’s lineage tolerated his distant authority, aware he had little interest in daily governance. From time to time, he would stomp across their settlements, half to remind them he still existed, half to quell any rebellious stirrings. Those visits were quiet warnings—tusks lowered, eyes narrowed, no trace of humor in his glowering gaze. No one forgot his unvoiced claim on the land.
And then came whispers of an “Invisible Dragon,” a wandering apex that moved unseen and tore unsuspecting foes asunder. The rumor stirred something in Hu’tod’s soul, reminding him of the savage glories once tasted during Tilith’s darkest war. He announced, in typically blunt fashion, that he would kill the creature if it dared trespass upon his domain. But the decades rolled on, and no clash ever occurred. The Invisible Dragon’s habit of vanishing into the realm’s deep corners left Hu’tod indifferent after a time. If it would not show itself, he saw no sense in hunting a mere shadow.
Eons stretched, and Hu’tod’s apathy deepened. He busied himself with occasional “calibrations” of power—periodic tests meant to ensure no emergent warlords threatened his quiet rule. These tests often involved toppling beastly super-predators that wandered within a few day’s march of his lair. Sometimes, he ventured deeper, uprooting small enclaves that grew too organized, too quickly. Legends called it a dark mercy: Hu’tod’s presence kept the Neft in perpetual flux, preventing any single tyranny from stabilizing.
Rarely, he recalled the Dragon Conquest Age in visions of blazing horns meeting draconic maws. At such times, the faint glimmer of Murk magic would spark in his eyes, then fade. It seemed no memory could stir that slumbering power for long. Even the mightiest storms roiling above the crimson marshes failed to ignite a true outpouring of his arcane gifts.
One crucial chapter arrived when smaller societies approached him with tribute, hoping to sway his terrifying neutrality. They offered shaped crystals, Helix-laced harvests, or cunning magical artifacts gleaned from old plane-spanning wreckage. Hu’tod accepted these offerings more from curiosity than greed, piling them in a sprawling hall of trophies. Those who dared approach discovered a half-bored colossus brooding among relics older than their grandfathers’ lineages. He rarely spoke, yet when he did, his deep timbre reverberated through stone. Over time, these communities learned how to exist under his silent watch: remain unobtrusive, pay homage, and never presume to challenge him.
Most still wonder whether Hu’tod truly forgot the Invisible Dragon or simply lost interest in a foe that refused to stand and fight. Whispers claim that, in lonely hours, he stares across ridges of cracked basalt, secretly yearning to see that unseeable adversary appear at last. None have observed him carry out any hunts in pursuit of it, though. Perhaps his old thirst for confrontation waned with the turning centuries. Or perhaps he knows the creature bides time as well, content to let an equally ancient rival linger.
Much later, a rumor circulated: that Hu’tod once fathered a deviant brood with scales tinted by the Neft’s crimson haze. These descendants displayed uncanny prowess in controlling local storms, though their intellect was overshadowed by a savage cunning. Their domain lay near acidic swamps, thriving on danger. Hu’tod visited seldom, ensuring they bore no illusions of independence.
He has been seen wielding monstrous horns in the face of lesser warbeasts, while the powerful hum of his Murk essence remains a buried secret. Occasionally, a passing witness recounts glimpses of faint arcane flickers around his hooves during a rare, heated clash. Yet full spellcasting never manifests, as though some vow or invisible barrier compels him not to cross that threshold. Many recall that back in Tilith, he bested dragons with muscle alone, refusing arcane confrontation on principle. If any question him, they receive a thunderous snort and a flash of horns. So the true depths of his magical reservoir stay locked behind a stoic façade.
At times, newly arrived adventurers—perhaps from other planes—arrive and attempt to curry his favor or challenge his might. They soon learn that conversation with Hu’tod is as one-sided as tossing pebbles into the void. Occasionally, he glances down and growls a spare word or two, testing their courage. Should they amuse him, he might direct them away from lethal pitfalls of the plane. But it takes a formidable spirit or comedic folly to wrench more than a handful of syllables from him.
In that sense, Hu’tod has become the Neft’s silent axis: a specter of raw might, shaping the realm’s social and bestial structures by mere presence. He neither wages campaigns nor fosters alliances, yet whole enclaves adjust policies simply to stay on his “unremarked” side. Scholars who compile histories of the plane list him among the “Three Pillars of Strength,” equaled only by cryptic lords who manipulate planar energies at cosmic scale. None among them question his place in that revered or feared triad. They only wonder what might rouse him into casting aside all restraint, if indeed any restraint remains. And quietly, they speculate if the Invisible Dragon could ever spark such fury—an event few would live to see.
Legend says the last time he spoke of the Invisible Dragon, he implied it lacked the spine to meet him in direct combat. “A predator that hides,” he said with an indifferent shrug, “is no predator at all.” Since then, no mention has passed his lips. The realm waits, half in dread, for a confrontation that might rend the Neft’s fabric.
Millennia have turned the plane’s red horizon into a perennial stage for new arrivals and vanishing enclaves. Through it all, Hu’tod remains unmoving, the one constant in a swirl of lesser tragedies. Sometimes, a rumor surfaces that he’s grown weary enough to finally track down the invisible beast. But by the next season, the rumor fades, replaced by talk of him toppling a rampant war-horde or ignoring an entire city’s pleas. The plane’s inhabitants learn to keep their distance from his domain, lest curiosity transform into devastation.
Occasionally, a bored scholar attempts to piece together Hu’tod’s personal timeline. They discover contradictory fragments—accounts describing an unshakable champion who once toppled dragons, a Bovidea unstoppable in his prime. Then they read about a solitary figure in the Neft, half-lost to myth, controlling the region with no words at all. Each scrap of lore hints that he stands at the threshold between mortal and cosmic, harboring secrets none dare unearth.
So the story of Hu’tod continues, a half-told epic scrawled across Tilith’s ancient memory and the Neft’s ever-present gloom. He is an emblem of Bovidea potential stretched to unfathomable heights, unwilling to unleash the magic caged within. Time, to him, is but another tool—he can wait eons for a worthy contest, or simply roam in search of fleeting diversions. If the Invisible Dragon ever crosses his path, their meeting may well shake the Neft to its marrow, echoing the cataclysmic age when Bovidea and dragons shattered each other’s worlds. Until that day, Hu’tod’s hoofprints remain scattered through countless graveyards of once-great beasts and fleeting civilizations. And in the silence that follows him, the Neft holds its breath.
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