Mask Plays a Game

Criminal Activity

Long ago, during the War of the Gods, the mischief of the Trickster and the Lady of Illusion led to the corruption of the heart of man, despite our long and good care with Lady Luck.   It began in the Tower of Fate, where Savras foresaw a plot coming to steal us away from our Mother. The Queen of Darkness and the Black Sun had a plan to steal us away to Hades, using their powers of dark and deceit, but the Knowing One consulted the Trickster and Lady of Illusion for aid. Although they turned him down, Mask and Leira began their own plot, out of sight of both the Divines and Umbrals.   Mask and Leira arranged a meeting with the Queen of Darkness, to inform her that the Divines knew of her plot, and dissuaded her from pursuing the plan any further. She refused outright, until the Lady of Illusion, in the guise of one of Mask's servants, presented Shar with a gift from Mask - what she wanted to desperately - a child like us, but this too was only an illusion. It is said that none can see through Leira's illusions, and indeed Shar did not perceive the trick.   The Queen of Darkness accepted Mask's gift, and also accepted his offer of love. However, once close to her, the Trickster seized his opportunity to get what he really wanted, a fragment of Shar's darkness. This dark shred of her heart contained all that we consider evil, and Mask stole away with it back to the home of the Divines, Mount Celestia. This was only the first part of Mask's trick though.   The Trickster returned home with the good news that we would be safe from the Umbrals. As he had hoped, the Mistress of Good Fortune herself wanted to thank him personally for saving her children. They grew close as the years passed, until one day Tymora invited Mask to see her child, still suspended in time, waiting eagerly for life to begin. At last Mask had what he wanted, and poisoned the child with the fragment of Shar's darkness, and sin coursed through the child yet to be, filling it with evil and turning it black. In her fury Tymora quickly began to expel the darkness and purify her child as best she could. When she demanded to know why Mask had done it he only laughed, being a god who reveled in trickery, but it was more than that.   Mask needed us to have greed in our hearts, for without it there would be no trickery and no thieving, and these things gave him his greatest joy and power. And he had done his damage. Tymora purified us as best she could, but there will always remain a memory of Shar's darkness in us all.   Now, when Kelemov came across the distraught Tymora, he determined that the Trickster had earned severe punishment, but death would be too fleeting of a punishment for Mask. So, he cursed the Trickster to hide his face forever behind a mask, thus ruining his pride, as he would fade into anonymity.