Hecarim (Heck-ah-rim)

The Shadow of War

“Break their ranks, and ride them down without mercy. Crush the living. Feast on their terror.”

Biography

Hecarim is a spectral fusion of man and beast, cursed to ride down the souls of the living for all eternity. When the Blessed Isles fell into shadow, this proud knight was undone by the destructive energies of the Ruination, along with all his cavalry and their mounts. Now, whenever the Black Mist reaches out across Runeterra, he leads their devastating charge, reveling in the slaughter and crushing foes beneath his armored hooves.
Born into an empire long since gone to dust and forgotten, Hecarim was a lieutenant of the Iron Order—a brotherhood sworn to defend their king’s lands. As Hecarim won victory after victory from the back of his mighty warhorse, the commander of the Iron Order saw in him a potential successor… but also a growing darkness. His obsessive hunger for glory was eroding his honor, and over time the knight-commander came to realize this young lieutenant must never lead them.
When he was told this, Hecarim was furious. Even so, he bit back his anger, and continued in his duties.
When they next rode to war, the commander found himself surrounded by enemies, and cut off from his fellow knights. Hecarim, seeing his chance, turned away and left him to die. At battle’s end, the Iron Order, oblivious to what Hecarim had done, knelt on the bloody ground and swore allegiance to him.
Hecarim rode to the capital to take his formal oaths, and met with Kalista, the king’s most trusted general. She recognized his prowess and leadership, and when the queen was wounded by an assassin’s poisoned blade, Kalista was comforted to know the Iron Order would remain with the king while she sought a cure.
Gripped by paranoia, and seeing new threats in every shadow, the king raged at those he believed were trying to separate him from his dying wife, and dispatched Hecarim to quell dissent throughout the kingdom. The Iron Order earned a dreadful reputation as ruthless enforcers of the king’s will. Towns and villages burned. Hundreds were put to the sword.
With grim inevitability, when the queen died, Hecarim chose to sour the king’s grief into hatred, seeking sanction to lead the Iron Order into foreign lands. He would avenge her death, while earning yet more dark renown for himself.
But before they could ride out, Kalista returned. She had found what she sought upon the distant Blessed Isles—and yet it was now too late. The king would not believe this, and had Kalista imprisoned as a traitor. Intrigued by what he had heard, Hecarim visited her cell, and they spoke of the pale mists that protected the islands from all invaders… and also of the inhabitants’ immense wealth, including the legendary Waters of Life.
Knowing only Kalista could lead them there, Hecarim eventually persuaded her to guide the king’s fleet through the veil that concealed the Blessed Isles from mortal sight.
They landed at the city of Helia with the queen’s body in solemn procession. The Iron Order led the way, only to be met by the city’s masters, who now refused to help. Enraged, the king ordered Kalista to kill them, but she refused, and Hecarim smiled as he made the decision that would damn him for eternity. He drove a spear through Kalista’s back, and ordered his knights to ransack the city, looting its vaults of arcane treasures.
Amid the chaos, a lowly custodian agreed to grant the king access to the Waters of Life—but not even this could distract Hecarim from the revelry of bloodshed, and so it was that the Ruination of the Blessed Isles would take him almost completely by surprise.
A blastwave of magical force tore across Helia, shattering every last building and leaving the fragments suspended in searing un-light. In its wake came the Black Mist, a billowing hurricane that dragged every living creature it touched into its shrieking, roiling embrace. Hecarim tried to rally the Iron Order, hoping to make it back to their ships, but the mist claimed them one by one as they fled.
Alone, and defiant to the end, the knight-commander was taken by the shadows. He and his mighty steed were fused into a monstrous, spectral abomination that reflected the darkness in Hecarim’s heart—a brazen creature of fury and spite, at one with the Black Mist and yet utterly enslaved by it.
Bound forevermore to these Shadow Isles, Hecarim has spent centuries in a sinister mockery of his former life, cursed to patrol the nightmarish lands he once intended to conquer. Whenever the Black Mist reaches out beyond their shores, he and the otherworldly host of the Iron Order ride out to slaughter the living, in memory of glories long passed.

No One Lives

Icy waves crashed on the bleak shore, red with the blood of the men Hecarim had already butchered. The mortals he had yet to kill were retreating over the beach in terror. Black rain doused them and stormclouds boiled in from the mourning heart of the island. He heard them shouting to one another. The words were a guttural battle-cant he did not recognize, but the meaning was clear; they actually thought they might live to reach their ship. True, they had some skill. They moved as one, wooden shields interlocked. But they were mortal and Hecarim savored the meat-stink of their fear. He circled them, threading crumbling ruins and unseen in the shadowed mist rising from the ashen sand. The echoing thunder of his hooves struck sparks from black rocks. It gnawed at their courage. He watched the mortals through the slitted visor of his helm. The weak light of their wretched spirits was flickering corposant in their flesh. It repulsed him even as he craved it.
“No-one lives,” he said.
His voice was muffled by the dread iron of his helm, like the corpse-rasp of a hanged man. The sound scraped along their nerves like rusted blades. He drank in their terror and grinned as one man threw down his shield and ran for the ship in desperation.
He bellowed as he galloped from the weed-choked ruins, lowering his hooked glaive and feeling the old thrill of the charge. A memory flickered, riding at the head of a silver host. Winning glory and honor. The memory faded as the man reached the dark surf of cold breakers and looked over his shoulder.
“Please! No!” he cried.
Hecarim split him from collarbone to pelvis in one thunderous blow.
His ebon-bladed glaive pulsed as it bathed in blood. The fragile wisp of the man’s spirit sought to fly free, but the mist’s hunger would not be cheated. Hecarim watched as the soul was twisted into a dark reflection of the man’s life.
Hecarim drew the power of the island to him and the bloody surf churned with motion as a host of dark knights wreathed in shimmering light rose from the water. Sealed within archaic plates of ghostly iron, they drew black swords that glimmered with dark radiance. He should know these men. They had served him once and served him still, but he had no memory of them. He turned back towards the mortals on the beach. He parted the mists, revelling in their terror as they saw him clearly for the first time.
His colossal form was a nightmarish hybrid of man and horse, a chimeric juggernaut of brazen iron. The plates of his body were dark and stamped with etchings whose meanings he only vaguely recalled. Bale-fire smouldered behind his visor, the spirit within cold and dead yet hatefully vital.
Hecarim reared as forking traceries of lightning split the sky. He lowered his glaive and led his knights in the charge, throwing up giant clumps of blood-sodden sand and bone fragments as he went. The mortals screamed and brought up their shields, but the ghost-knights charge was unstoppable. Hecarim struck first as was his right as their master, and the thunderous impact splintered the shieldwall wide open. Men were trampled to bloody gruel beneath his iron-shod bulk. His glaive struck out left and right, killing with every strike. The ghost knights crushed all before them, slaughtering the living in a fury of thrashing hooves, stabbing lances and chopping blades. Bones cracked and blood sprayed as mortal spirits fled broken bodies, already trapped between life and death by the fell magic of the Ruined King.
The spirits of the dead circled Hecarim, beholden to him as their killer and he revelled in the surging joy of battle. He ignored the wailing spirits. He had no interest in enslaving them. Leave such petty cruelties to the Chain Warden.
All Hecarim cared for was killing.

The Despoiler of Havenfall by Michael Haugen Wieske

The fog had come in swiftly, eclipsing the afternoon sun over the crossroads. Jonath had tried to find his way between the thick tendrils, the world around him darkened by an impenetrable shroud. Shapes pushed at the fabric of the mist, grasping for purchase. Reaching for him from beyond. He fumbled with the reins in his hands, trying to find the nerve to do what he had to. So he could mount up and ride for safety.
“Don’t do this, boy. We all have a duty.”
Jonath blinked the fear from his eyes, fixating on the knight slumped over the steed. He had found her like this, still mounted but unable to even right herself in the saddle. Her armor was pierced and slick with blood, although Jonath didn’t know what manner of weapon could have inflicted these wounds. The knight was dying all the same.
In her eyes, he saw judgment—they found him weak. Unworthy. She gripped the reins firmly in one plated fist, pulling him in close.
“We must carry word to the capital. You... the heir must know. Tell Prince Jarvan what is happening here, the garrison cannot hold them off.”
Faint sounds of battle from the south told Jonath that the beings in the mist had reached Havenfall. The air around him grew colder, darker. The inky mist pulsated, inching close. Havenfall’s knights were none of his business. The supposed elite of the crown had never done anything for him. And the people there...
Screwing shut his eyes, Jonath ripped the reins from the knight, trying to ignore her pained gasp as she rolled out of the saddle and hit the ground.
“Protector forgive me,” he whispered, his voice wavering. This was no worse than the other times he’d taken horses, he tried to tell himself as he mounted.
The war steed’s bulk instilled a measure of calm in him. Running a hand down the stallion’s muscled neck, Jonath looked around the crossroads to get his bearings. The eastbound road led to the Great City, with its high walls and countless soldiers. What warning did they need? Surely, whatever foul magic urged the claws and voices in the mist would be no match for the capital’s defense of stone and steel. Just to the south lay Havenfall, his home. Moments ago, he could see its glinting rooftops and rows of masts from where he now stood. Behind the town lay open country, as far as a horse could carry him.
Jonath had spent days beyond count riding across those rolling hills, racing incoming ships along the white cliffs overlooking the bay, letting the sea stiffen his hair with salt, rejoicing in the thrills of unchecked freedom. He’d never kept any he took. He was no thief who deserved to be exiled to the Hinterlands. He borrowed horses, always returning them at the end of his excursions, tired but unharmed.
How will I return this one? If I leave her to—
No. It wasn’t his fault she had gotten in the way of this mist and squandered her chance at survival—for Jonath to take his did not make him guilty of her death. No matter what he did, he had always been deemed insufficient. He had a hand with horses and the will to work, but even his elders—horse breeders and traders—had shunned him for his unwillingness to put the demands of others ahead of his own needs. No use in talent if he couldn’t be relied on, they said. No use in the approval of people who didn’t value true freedom, thought Jonath. Not to mention the garrison, who glorified obedience above all else, sneering at him down gilded lances even when he came to prove his mettle on the recruiting fields.
Well, out in the hills, chasing the wind on the back of an unbroken steed, he was the exemplar. He would outrun this unnatural mist, and lose himself among the ranging herds.
Jonath spurred the stallion, making for the southern path, as time slowed down around him. The stallion flattened his ears, suddenly rigid under Jonath. Whatever had scared it was beyond the natural din of battle, something that didn’t belong here; Jonath felt it, too. Primal fear seized him, squeezing his chest with an unyielding grip. The mist pulled close, then pulsed clear of the crossing, as if limbs within were pulling the veil aside. Jonath heard nothing in the deathly stillness.
Then came the sound of steeled hooves on hard-pack road.
As the veil parted, Jonath made out riders in the gloom. Even though he could hear the mounts at full gallop, the clatter of plate armor, and the whipping of stirrups, the echelon appeared immobile—like a framed tableau of nobles on the hunt, or the crown’s elite on the charge, come at the last second to defend the citizenry against the dangers beyond the border. But these were not Demacian knights, nor saviors from fairy tales. These riders were not here to protect. They were girded in black-iron plate, and an evil light glowed in their motionless eyes. A bannerman carried a still pennant, the beating fabric audible nonetheless. A hornblower, lipless mouth deadlocked around his instrument, sounded the attack.
The mist shrieked. Heeeecaaaariiiim.
It was a name—somehow, Jonath knew. The mist heralded his coming.
It was the name of death itself.
As this realization staggered Jonath, he noticed the rider at the lead. He was gigantic, towering over his retinue, shaking the ground with each unmoving stride. His eyes, bright with inner fire, took in all before them. Even staring ahead, they seemed to bore into Jonath, searing through him, filling him with an ancient dread.
The rider turned his head, and smiled.
Jonath let out a cry, recoiling with instinctual fear. He flailed, kicking back to stay in the saddle, startling his stallion. The mount reared, throwing Jonath to the ground with a dry thud. Galvanized by the shock, the animal bolted into the darkness. Jonath groaned, his head ringing with the impact. He pressed his forehead against the dry earth, dust packing his nostrils with each panicked breath. He wished he could pray away what he would see when he looked up.
“Rise, squire,” a grinding voice said, a smile pulling the syllables taut. “Find your courage... Look at me.”
The words were guttural, each syllable slowly surfacing as if rising from the depths of a furnace. Jonath could not place the accent, but he had heard its mocking tone before. A sting of old spite made him raise his head.
Crudely shod hooves burned the soil where they stood. The rider’s horse seemed to be made entirely of blackened iron, glowing from within with green fire. Jonath’s breath caught in his throat as he saw the rider was not saddled on this unnatural steed—he was fused with it. What was he? Had he come as punishment for Jonath’s crime? The monstrosity laughed, slowly raising an infernal glaive.
Tears ran down Jonath’s face, his mind seizing hold of the only thought it could. Protector forgive me. Protector forgive me.
But the blow never fell. Instead, the monster called one of his ghostly riders closer. The rider, too, was not a horseman at all, but fused at the midriff with the body of a horse. The entire echelon was deformed like their leader. Hecarim gripped the rider’s neck and slowly, effortlessly, ripped his torso from the equine trunk. The rider, trailing green smoke, made no sound, twitching erratically. Where his body had been, there was now the head of a withered, armored destrier.
“We’ll be back for you later,” the leader chuckled as he released the rider’s spirit. The spirit floated mid-air, aimless now that it had been severed from its animal half. The rest of the undying echelon remained utterly motionless, frozen in time.
Hecarim turned his gaze to Jonath.
“I claim this land by decree of King Viego, regent of the Shadow Isles. Let my loyal knights witness that Hecarim, Conqueror of Helia, Grand Master of the Iron Order, honors his foes with a fair fight.” The words twisted around his smirk. “So, find your courage, noble squire, and mount up. War has come.” He presented the reins of the spectral destrier to Jonath.
Jonath took in Hecarim, the tone of his offer betraying it for the lie it was. He looked around him, the echelon of knights looming, immovable rictus grins carved into their skeletal faces. His mind screamed in tune with the whispers behind the veil. Let soldiers deal with these monsters. He grabbed the reins and, with one motion, swung up into the saddle.
The steed’s body was solid yet incorporeal at the same time, the heavy barding hissing where it moved against the beast’s bulk. Where he would sense a horse’s character, Jonath felt only emptiness. Where he should feel a union of kindred minds, he teetered on the edge of a ravenous void. Jonath let his fear take over and hammered his heels into its flanks. He ripped at the reins and turned south, piercing into the wall of black mist...
Hooked nails scoring my skin. Long-dead grimaces accusing me.
...and bursting out the other side into the clear. Ahead, the path was open. The sun was setting over the bay, the sea glittering calmly beyond the cliffs.
Behind Jonath, hollow, furnace laughter echoed through the crossroads.
“Give chase,” he heard Hecarim order.



Jonath clung to the steed, speeding down the path faster than he had ever seen any stallion gallop. In his wake, a thin trail of the unnatural mist lined the packed earth. The sun was setting into the bay, giving way to the deep blue of dusk. It had been a beautiful day for a ride; if he kept its pace, he might see another. Looking up, he saw the Protector’s Shield coming into view in the darkening sky. Jonath’s smile at the constellation turned stale as he heard the long call of a hunting horn.
His heartbeat quickened as he saw thick tendrils of mist closing in behind him. The monstrous Hecarim and his Iron Order rode within. Tendrils of darkness flanked Jonath, and he thought he could see shapes coalescing inside. His mouth fell open in horror, his vision blurring from sudden tears. He could see her nonetheless. The knight he had left to die, now a ghostly form trapped in the mist. She raised an arm that ended in a ragged stump—the hand that had held the reins, missing.
“You have no honor,” she wailed. “You are no true Demacian!”
“Please, no,” Jonath whispered, forcing his gaze ahead. He frantically kicked the steed’s flanks, willing it to get him away from this horror. He glanced down at the reins. The knight’s severed fist was gripping them, yanking the mount into a stall.
“Flee, coward,” the voice echoed from the mist.
Whimpering in anguish, Jonath ripped the reins out of the fist and threw the plated gauntlet toward the riders at his heels.
“So quick to take offense, squire,” Hecarim jeered. “I did not think you had the courage. If you are challenging me to a duel, then I accept. We noblemen have a code to follow, after all.”
Jonath raised his arm in front of his face as Hecarim closed to striking distance, but instead of being beheaded by the glaive, Jonath was engulfed once more in cloying darkness. The faces of the dead surrounded him, their scornful laughter an anthem to their twisted master’s trickery. Jonath spurred his spectral steed, and as he burst from the mist, Hecarim and the riders disappeared from view.
Night had fallen over the coast as Jonath passed the stables at the edge of Havenfall. The sound of battle had stopped, and the approaches to the town appeared largely untouched. He felt a brief wave of relief. He would find soldiers here who could fight. Commander Tyndarid and his garrison would see off the riders on Jonath’s trail—for all his imperious arrogance, the castellan was an indomitable warrior.
Jonath saw war horses, some half saddled and barded, some still tied to their hitching rails near the trough, lay dead. His heart sank.
As Jonath’s destrier carried him further into the settlement, the true horror of the black mist around him became apparent. Jonath slowly turned around. All of this... couldn’t be real. It had to be a figment of his troubled imagination, or some dark sorcery worked by a vengeful hedge mage.
But his eyes told him otherwise.
In the streets, the spirits of newly dead townsfolk lingered above their own corpses, cowering in fear, wailing silently, reliving the instant they were ridden down by the Iron Order. Proud knights of the crown stood mute where they had died battling. As Jonath passed, one by one, spirits fixed their hollow eyes on him. A knight, his killer’s spear still pinning his shield to the shade of his body, made a step toward Jonath. A gasp escaped his lips as he recognized Commander Tyndarid. A group of dead shipbuilders haltingly gained their feet and tumbled toward Jonath in agitation. He kicked his steed and made his escape. A voice inside him whispered that even in death, they knew he didn’t belong.
Wraithlike raiders coursed through the merchant quarters, corralling survivors and putting torches to the roofs of the smithies and trade posts. Green fire engulfed the buildings and cast a deathly light across the square—the thatching and wood somehow remaining untouched by the flames. The townsfolk inside... Jonath looked away as he rode, willing himself not to hear.
By the harbor, fishing boats and river barges lay low against the white-stone pier, scuttled and ablaze. Jonath looked out over the bay, his gaze drawn across the still water by the long, mournful note of a hunting horn. A squadron of spectral riders raced across the calm water in the moonlight, lowering their spears as they neared the last sailship still afloat. The charge hit home, followed by the faint clash of weapons and the cries of sailors dying. The ship disappeared from sight in a mass of writhing fog.
The entirety of Havenfall was under siege—who knew how much of Demacia was affected by this invasion.
Circling his mount, Jonath tried to control his fear and find a way out. Perhaps he should race his own steed off the pier and ride the waters across the bay. He was unable to outpace these deathless monsters, but he might slip away unnoticed and escape this terrible nightmare...
Jonath was brought back to the present by the sound of footfalls. He noticed a gaggle of survivors picking their way through the ruined market square. There were four of them. A pair of brown-haired youths, clearly siblings by their features, held on to short blades, their eyes darting fearfully across the square. They protected an elderly woman who followed in their wake, dressed in the garb of the Illuminators and carrying a steel cudgel. Jonath knew the powerfully built figure at the head of the group—it was the blacksmith Adamar. He held a heavy blade and shield, still unadorned and blackened with the soot of its forging.
“Jonath!” Adamar called out quietly. “We thought we were the last ones left alive. We’re getting away from here. You are welcome to joi—” The blacksmith fell silent as he saw Jonath’s steed. His eyes hardened with fury, and he ushered the others behind him, soot-matt shield held high. “You’re in league with these monsters!”
The old Illuminator placed a hand on Adamar’s shoulder. “Look at his eyes, Ada. He’s just as afraid as we are. He’s not with them.” She addressed Jonath directly. “Get off that abomination, child, and come with us.”
“I wish I could,” Jonath heard himself say. The guilt of his actions washed over him, making his head swim. He saw the dying knight’s face again, accusing him. “But Adamar... he’s right. I don’t belong here, and I don’t deserve your mercy. You don’t know what I did today, who I really am. I am no Demacian.”
“Enough of that. You are Jonath of Ropemaker’s Row, not some stranger. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you pray at the Protector’s shrine after dark. I know your heart wants to lead you back to righteousness. I cannot tell you if it will, but tonight all that matters is survival. There are not many of us left here, and you are one of us. One of the living. Now get off that... thing, and let us leave this place.”
Jonath grabbed the saddle, swinging his leg up to dismount. “Thank the Protector for your mercy—”
Coils of mist ripped open above the town square, spectral riders bursting forth. Hecarim was at the fore, galloping through thin air, swinging his jagged glaive wide. Before Jonath understood what he was looking at, the blade struck the Illuminator in the chest, cleaving her in two. Hecarim’s riders unceremoniously ran through Adamar and the two youths, before cantering to a halt. Like the first time Jonath saw them, they became completely still—their spears held rigidly upright, their banners and pinions frozen, only the sound of their motionless regalia piercing the deathly quiet.
Ever the first of their number, there was Hecarim, hooves scraping the ground, his animal body pacing back and forth, his eyes burning with ancient intellect. Grand Master, conqueror. Despoiler of Havenfall. How was Jonath meant to stand against the might of this infernal warmaster? How was anyone?
Hecarim closed the distance, riding up alongside Jonath until they stood shoulder to shoulder. Slowly, he reached down toward the bridle of Jonath’s borrowed steed, arresting it in place. The Grand Master was taller than Jonath by half.
“You acquitted yourself well today,” Hecarim said, the deep, furnace-roar softened to a growl. His gaze wandered, settling on the moonlit bay behind Jonath. “I have seen kings lose their minds when faced with the Black Mist and the eternal anguish that it brings. Everyone you ever knew perished this night, yet your will to survive remains unbroken. Who else are you willing to sacrifice so you can live? Are you willing to let even your liege die?”
Jonath’s heart pounded, his vision blurred as tears of helpless panic threatened to overwhelm him. Moments ago, Hecarim had slain the last survivors of his hometown, and now he was conversing with him as if they had sparred in some practice duel on the training grounds.
“The... the king is already dead. The crown prince, Protector guide his hand, is next in line, and there could be no one more deserving. I... do not want to put him in peril for my own gain.”
Hecarim remained still for a moment, then scoffed with soured mirth. “In the line of succession, the crown does not always go to the most fitting heir. And what do I care for the frail kingdoms of the living. We all have to make do with the hand fate deals us.”
Up close, Jonath could see the countless pits and scratches in Hecarim’s armor. He could see endless years of conflict scored into the black-iron plates encasing the flames that made up his body, and understood a fundamental truth about this creature... He had been created by war, and he was made for war. He had done nothing but battle for centuries, condemned to relive his worst transgressions. Whatever crimes he had committed in life, this was his punishment.
And he relished every interminable second of it.
Wherever the unnatural mist went, Hecarim and his Iron Order followed—pillaging, killing, and reveling in the atrocities they inflicted on the living. What would become of Demacia if no one stopped this evil? Jonath finally understood something that had eluded him his entire life. Courage wasn’t some unique quality infused into true Demacians at birth, or a measure of his worth to the world. It was a question of realizing what must be done, and choosing to do it no matter what. He felt calm for the first time since the crossroads. He remembered the wounded knight’s dying words, one last time.
There were no soldiers left in Havenfall to warn the crown prince, and soon there might be none left in the entire kingdom. Fixing the Grand Master with his gaze, he pulled the reins from Hecarim’s mailed fist, taking control of the destrier. Hecarim indulged him, his posture changing from introspection to curiosity.
Jonath wheeled, gaining a few paces of distance. “I have seen how you ride down defenseless villagers, reveling in the screams of the helpless. I know you are bound to your basest instincts for eternity, but there is more to you. If a shred of your living self remains, if you have any honor at all, abomination, you will let me pass!”
He collected himself. He knew he would not make it to the Great City, but he was going to try. The bulk of his tireless mount tensed as it sensed what was about to happen. With all his might, Jonath gave it the spurs, and his spectral steed charged. For the first time in his life, Jonath truly believed the words as they sprang from his lips.
“For the uncrowned king! For Demacia!”



Hecarim smirked with delight as the boy charged willingly toward the spears of the Iron Order. The folly of youth had stayed with him until death, a flaw all too common in Hecarim’s experience. But as long as Viego chased his own foolish obsession across the oceans of the world, trailing the Mist in his wake, Hecarim would enjoy the spoils of war.
Around him, as far as he could see, his riders spread terror and death. A cast-iron grin widened across his burning skull.
“If but our hands were not bound by fealty...” he mused, as he watched the last living soul of Havenfall perish.

The Princeling’s Lament

Scrape the bench of sunless moss, And harken to this tale of loss. A princess lies below the soil, A king’s pride and joy, a beauty divine. Now food for worms, her flesh to dine. Skin once fair, now left to spoil.
A Princeling came, a suitor fair, To press his cause, to wed the heir. The marriage feast like none before was blighted by a deed most foul. A poisoned cup, the king did howl. To find a cure, the Princeling swore.
His ship set sail, crossed ocean’s deep, With knights all pledged to end death’s sleep. Through tempests fierce and unknown miles, Drawn by wind from a land undying, The very storm its name seem’d sighing. A place men named the Shadow Isles.
Like the hound abroad with bloody scent, Drawn ever on by forlorn lament, To a night-veiled isle on no man’s chart. No wind was heard, no bird nor beast, Only spirits summoned by death’s priest. Onward knights to this island’s heart!
Through black-thorned trees on crooked path, A clash of steel, a cry of wrath. The Shadow of War wrought bitter defeat, The Princeling’s men were slain. He ran in fear; they died in vain, His love of life too bright, too sweet.
Lost in darkest, haunted night, Pursued by spiteful wraith and wight. He chanced upon a moonlit field, And a ghastly monk assailed by the mist. “Aid me!” cried he, “With sword and fist! The spirits are cruel, their hearts unhealed.”
“Here, all men are equal, all sins forgiven, But pride hath made this land corpse-riven. The dead we’ll fight, our lives as the prize. Shepherd them onward, and then come the dawn, Triumph will teach you secrets long gone, But vanquished, we fall and then rise.”
They fought as brothers on cursed battleground, Atop the bones of scholars renowned ‘Gainst spirits in black, with hunger infernal. Dawn never came, but the battle was done. The monk and the Princeling had won! “Speak, fellow! Tell secrets of life eternal.”
The monk told tales of a time forgotten An ancient queen, now dead and mulch-rotten. Of her king brought low by sorrow and woe, Who came to this isle to bring back her life, But damned the world to endless strife, Spirits of death and carrion crow.
His magic unleashed a terrible scourge; Grim prelude to the Deathsinger’s dirge. Black mist rose up and doomed all to death. But spirits arose from every dead thing, Cursed to undeath by this grief-maddened king. He begged it all end with his very last breath.
A land once blessed, was ripped asunder, Split with lightning and beaten by thunder. Phantoms now mutter in graves enshrined. And banshees throng its haunted streets, Shrieking their woes of black defeats, A boundless curse upon all mankind.
The Princeling listened, all aghast, To hear this tale from the grim outcast. He spared this ancient king no boon, But tales of death and grim disaster; Unmask all, from slave to master. The Princeling’s lies laid bare by the moon.
The goblet supped by his new wife, The Princeling poisoned to take her life. Her father’s wealth and crown he craved; No cure he wished, but existence deathless, No succor for his queen, forever breathless; His soul was dark, his mind depraved.
And yet his bride had one last curse. A fatal spell of bitter verse. Justice sought with dying breath, Set the Spear of Vengeance on the hunt To punish him for such great affront And bring about his bloody death.
The mist closed in and called his name, A huntress aglow in mist-wreathed flame. Her spears of light pierced his breast, A cold ground yawned wide and deep, The Princeling fell to blackest sleep, Never to wake from his victim’s bequest.
Smothered in darkness, dying in pain, No crown for his brow, never to reign. Buried forever in earth’s dark womb, Heed the price of ambition’s dark call Be not ensnared by its artful thrall, The Princeling’s greed was his doom.
A pallid light waxed cold and bright, Borne up through the earth, his soul took flight. No reprieve was this, but torment afresh, The Warden of Chains drawn by his scent. Dancing to the Deathsinger’s lament. “Your soul is mine,” said the beast called Thresh.
So heed this fate and learn it well, Shun the Isles where the dead still dwell. Seek ye all the things to cherish, And pass the years in time well spent. A life full-lived, a soul content. And know you all are doomed to perish...

Current Location

Shadow Isles

Species

Human

Conditions

• Ruiniation

Ethnicity

Camavorian

Age

~1000

Birthplace

Camavor

Place of Death

The Blessed Isles

Pronouns

He/Him

Sex

Male

Gender

Man

Aligned Organization

Kingdom of Camavor

Other Affiliations

• Iron Order