ARCHRONICUS

THANKS TO

COMPILED BY 3 Three
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Upon these hallowed pages are writ the last remnants of a once-great
body of knowledge. Copied and recopied by generations of scribes,
translated by scholars and encrypted by mages, the chronicles found
herein compile the lost histories of the contested lands, its rules and
guardians, higher-learning and ancient magics. The texts draw from
many cultures across many ages, enshrining for all time those
fragmented recounts of scholars long dead, and hidden truths more
powerful than any sword or spell. Sealed now with an encryption spell
only worthy eyes may read the book, and by deed alone reveal the
truth. And only with the blood of heroes shall new pages be written.
— 'Archronicus'

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 The Mad Moon and the Ancients

WHEN A WORLD was still a cooling blob, it captured an eerie

companion--a glowing crystalline sphere that came to be known in lore
as the Mad Moon. This small orb was full of violent radiance--a visual
reminder of conflict in the heavens, bright enough to compete with the
sun in daylight.
But the Mad Moon was no inert rock. It was more truly a prison, in
which two warring ancient intelligences had been captured and flung
into exile aeons before, once the vast Primordials that underlay
creation had tired of
their endless strife. The
punishment for these
Ancients was to be locked
together in one form,
forever falling through
infinity...and thus it
went until our
unfortunate world
captured that wanderer.
For ages, primitive
The Mad Moon societies rose and fell
beneath its weird glare;
creatures of varying intelligence and sophistication gazed up in wonder
and curiosity, to whatever extent their sentience allowed. Meanwhile,
orbital stress and tidal forces allowed the Mad Moon's inhabitants to
begin exploit what were at first the slightest of weaknesses, as they set

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to work prying open their prison. The cracks spread slowly, from the
tiniest fractures, until at last there were millions of fissures, vast and
aglow with weird energies.
On one apocalyptic night, the moon finally shattered, torn apart from
within. Most of the moonstuff was flung into space or consumed as it
hit the atmosphere. A few rare fragments fell to earth, either as fused
molten lumps or as jagged crystals. The shards lay where they had fallen,
and gradually the land around them recovered. As the survivors of the
prehistoric cataclysm
recuperated, flourished
and developed
civilizations, the Mad
Moon became less a
memory than a dream,
with the night of its
destruction woven into
their myths.
The fallen shards of The Mad Moon rising
primal matter had
fractured into their original composites: Radiant and Dire. In its pure
form, each type of stone gave off a peculiar energy. For those who
settled around the sites, they found themselves feeding on this
unearthly power until they had not only harnessed the energy but made
themselves dependent on it. They built shrines around the Ancients and
revered them, ironically, as godlike entities that had fallen to earth.
The Ancients, both Radiant and Dire, provided many benefits: kinetic
energy, mana, protection, even resurrection. But the emanations
changed everything in their influence. Around the Radiant, the effects
were bright and colorful, evoking lightness and charm. Around the

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Dire, a sinister radioactive glow, a visual seepage indicative of poison
and decay. Neither force was neutral; they were both perfect
complements and total contradictions that could never be at peace.
As each stone's cultural influence
spread, it eventually came in conflict
with the societies of its rival.
Interference between the Ancients
was cause for war, as the presence of
one caused a corresponding fall-off in
the energy of the other. Each stone
could only be restored to full power
with the destruction of its Foe-stone. The destruction of the Mad Moon
And so the enthralled creatures rallied
to protect their land by destroying the neighboring Ancient, and from
far and wide the Heroes heard the call to battle and came to join, hardly
realizing that in some sense both sides were the same.
*

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 Chronicle of Thesos: A Folk of the Keens

A rumour reached the High Bell some days ago of two strange beasts
felled at the edge of the grainstock lands. Either by disease, or sword,
the stories varied, but always it was spoken of two dragons, dark blue
in color and very much dead.
I set out immediately and found their scaly bodies charred on the
property of a grain farmer three day's travel along the ridge road. One
great, one small, the dragons lay where they died, surrounded by the
footprints of a much larger beast
whose marks on the soil were large
enough for a full grown Keen to lie
down in; and so I did, imagining the
impossible scale of the animal in
whose track I lay. A grand dragon
true, like the stories of old, and like
some say still live in the southerly
wastes.
The tracks crossed the land for some
distance and ended where the beast
took flight at the edge of the field.
So not by blade or pathosis had these
The anatomy of a dragon, drawn young beasts met their end, but from
by Thesos an attack by one of their own kind.
With the good faith of my father's name, and the promise of immediate
removal, I was able to purchase the rotting corpse of the lesser of the
two dead dragons. The specimen being nowhere near to full grown, I

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was able to drag it behind my trusty zonkey for several hours to my
father's lands. Several days of disarticulation and boiling commenced,
followed by a full nights' inurement in wax, until, at last, the entire
skeleton was laid out before me in the great hall, available for study.
Here I draw my observations with careful ink, noting the shape and size
of every bone.
The structure of the wing surprised me.
As did the curious architecture of the
shoulder. The bones themselves,
though very strong, were much lighter
than I had expected. More like the
bones of a bird than a creature with
scales and teeth.
Most unexpected of all was the
remnants of an old shield found in the
beast's insides. Dragons are known for
carrying steel in their gullets, to help Seal of the Scaled Knights of
gnash and grind their food. If a dragon Uthorian, drawn by Thesos
(conventionally) breathes fire, how
does it keep steel in its stomach, or any such material? But this one
carried a most unusual form of gullet iron, and on it the mark of an
ancient order seen only rarely in these parts today, a dragon crest, and
the seal of the Scaled Knights of Uthorian. Woe to the knight who
carried...
*

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 The Summoning Sea

Beyond the reach of Southward's End,

Where summer's warmth dares not to roam
Songs tell of ancient treasures lost
Worth more than titles, lands and home
At night skies streak in ribbon's glow
Chill ocean's maze of jagged frost
Gem of True Sight
Wild winds betray the best of men
Where boldest captains fear to cross
Within 'tis said's a hidden coast
Unknown to neither map or man
Where once there died a seaborn fiend
Washed up along its sandy span
Inside this corpse, the legends claim
A gem lay hid away from sight
And who dares hold this stone unique
Shall see all hidden forms of fright
From whence the single frigate sailed
No soul still lives to dare recall
Brave voyage launched into the cold

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 Afraid of neither gale nor squall
To southern ice and wind they forged
The dauntless crew did plot their trek
In times the fields of floe and berg
Gave glimpse of land to all on deck
Upon an arctic shore they spied
Frost touched remains of monster vast
Old marks from briny wars they saw
And ice locked teeth to dwarf their mast
On darkened beach was set a host
To excavate this mortal coil
Their picks and tools they lifted high
Then dug into their grisly toil
For days and days they hacked and crawled
As stained was beach in ancient gore
Through rib and tissue, deep they delved
And wrought their path to monster's core
From humid depths came glowing dim
Strange spectral light of emerald hue
Great gem matched size with finder's fist
Worn crew rejoiced; old songs proved true
Returned to deck with treasure held

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 As one all crew did choke their breath
For ringed they were by wraiths of yore
Ghost ships long sunk, and those past death
For hidden from the common eye
Are ones who drift when lifeblood fails
Bright gem grants truth to sight they learned
Then set with fright to raising sails
Yet ghastly shades no harm intend
But warning men whose air's still drawn
To bring sight's stone on waters wide
Would raise the wrath of deep Maelrawn
A day and twelve on ocean waves
Passed laden, anxious crew's retreat
When came long shadows in their wake
Maelrawn the Tentacular
Lord Maelrawn's servant, come to eat
By haste and lucky breeze they sped
Four dawns the scourge kept far at bay
Until a wisp of earth drew far
When fickle fortune's winds betrayed
As beast drew under ship to strike
Rowboats were filled with man and loot
Then loosed were heavy chain and weight

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 To crashed ship's anchor on sea's brute
Then deck leaned port as seabeast scaled
Wild tendril fury came aboard
In frenzied panic three boats fled
With ship entangled, kraken roared
Through tree thick feelers twist and squeeze
Wood hull made vent to frozen surge
As half-ship sank, death's master called
The gem still moved, and neared shore's verge
In rushed pursuit the kraken swam
To overtake the first boat of three
When drowned men froze and wreckage sank
Did hunter learn its charge stayed free
As second crew in horror rowed
Slick grasping fingers closed around
Yet once again gem was not there
And third boat's band set foot aground
So terrified of Maelrawn's rage
Did thrashing scourge set out anew
Then breached itself upon the surf
As kraken flailed, its foe withdrew
Of fated crew's last port and call

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 No grey account still deigns to say
Some firm believe they made toward home
Though others tell of hangman's sway
Of gem and tidal deepgod's hunt
Vain quest goes on without reward
Its servants blindly come to shore
To kill and raze, be put to sword
For no thrall creature of the depths
Nor spirit bound in drowning's keep
Nor Maelrawn the Tentacular
Shall rest till seas, gem comes to sleep.

Maelrawn's wrath upon

seeing the Gem of True
Sight

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 The Death Bounty
The ancient Death Bounty Text, as it has since come to be known, was
first discovered among the ruins of the great Stonehall Cartularium.
The document's significance went uncrecognized for years as it lay
untranslated and forgotten, sealed away behind locked the doors of the
Historic Archive of Sennos. It was not until scholars studied the
document in detail that they came to understand what it represented.
This decaying bit of parchment was nothing less than a possible source
of martial tradition of Last Strike, now common among all the
kingdoms of the contested lands.
Translated from Page:
Royal Proclamation
By order of Lord Regent Urthic Laste of Stonehall
Henceforth shall all fellows of the Armies of Stonehall adhere to the
statements below:
1. Fellows of the Stonehall military shall now be paid for each killing
blow struck against a foe in battle. This reward shall only be granted to
the fellow who strikes the killing blow.
2. Following the course of battle, each coterie shall be responsible for
the tallying and dividing of payment amongst themselves to cover
expenses, including equipment purchase and upkeep.
3. In the event of a dispute, fellows may challenge one another to duel.
The victor shall be awarded the total share held by the vanquished.
4. Should a duel conclude by the death of a fellow recompense shall be
made to...

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 *

Cycle of Solstices

On the longest night of the year, the dead do not always sleep. For
centuries, the learned aesthetes of Keyturn studied the skies from their
mountain keep, where generation after generation, they tracked the
movement of celestial bodies, copying down their arrangements in the
great Book of Heavens. It was they who found the wheel of the world
was a thing of many moving parts--a clock of strange rhythms and
irregular meter. It was they who counted the number of dawns in each
season. It was they who calculated the day of longest night.
And it was they who first discovered the great cycle within the cycle--
a periodic shift whereby in one solstice among many, the barrier
between the planes wears thin, the aurora blazes green in the sky, and
the undead rise from their graves. And it was they who were destroyed.
Now we have only fragments of their long studies. The great Book of
Heavens is lost to history, though copied remnants of certain passages
are sometimes found in the ruins of ancient temples, or in scholarly
works of moldering libraries. These fragments are the last view into a
lost civilization.
*

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 Wraith-Night: The Longest Night of the Age

Young prince Ostarion was thrust upon the throne by the death of his
royal family. The swift, rotting disease that took their lives nearly
claimed the prince as well, but the court's mage took desperate
measures--submitting the youth to a ritual that pared away all the
vulnerable flesh, transforming him into a being of animated bone. The
young king emerged from the scouring, convinced that having defied
death once, he would never submit to it.
With a deep mistrust of all things fleshy, Ostarion began to recast his
parents' legacy in forms imperishable. Every stone of his kingdom was
replaced with its equivalent in bone. Skeleton King's army took
dominion over neighboring lands, and as he extended his reach, he
extracted the bones of his enemies. Eventually he came to rule over a
land cold, white and brittle--and to yearn for something more.
Never having trusted flesh, nor wishing to clothe his bones in it, he
finally settled on pursuit of wraith energy, a form of pure spirit given
off by certain dark souls at death, and taken up by ghosts and other
revenants when they need a form with which to walk the earth. Should
he shape himself from the wraith essence, he though he might create a
body as luminous and eternal as his ego.
Consulting the ancient mage who had saved the young prince's life,
Skeleton King learned of a rare opportunity--a night foretold by
certain old sages who had grappled with the unruly and in most ways
unpredictable cycles of nature--the solstice known as Wraith-Night,
when the dead would rise in such great number that their souls could be
harvested and captured in sufficient quantity to complete another
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ritual. Should he manage to harvest the wraith energy of the undead
horde, he could rise once more transfigured--King forever, but this
time of the Wraiths.

From the journals of Azorszos the Bony. Mage-Physik to Ostarion, eldest

subject of that ungrateful wretch whom I must hail as King, and who will
gladly lead the throng in cursing himself for the role he played in placing
our so-called Skeleton King on the throne of bones.
In this ninth century of imprisonment, I can hide the truth from him
no longer. Somehow word has carried to the king that on this year there
shall fall another of the encyclical Wraith-Nights which ancient texts
portend. He came to me last night and it did not take him much in the
way of threats to extract from me the last bit of knowledge I would wish
to have willingly given him. And yet with the threat of further
longevity, he did wrest it forth, and I pointed him toward the books that
lay out all elements of a successful harvesting.
Only one other, if we are to believe the Eldwurms' sagas, has winnowed
the ill-aspected essence that lights the eyes of revenants and
ambulatory souls--collected and condensed it in such quantity that
from if they could form a new physique. The name of that one, and its
presence, is lost to history; perhaps this world could not hold it for long.
But Now my King, my lord Ostarion, is determined to be the second.
I fear for the world should he complete the Wraith-Night ritual. Those
who dreaded him in his skeletal form, what will they think of him once
he bears the power of the Wraith? What fate awaits the subjects who
unwillingly fight for his cause, or otherwise align themselves with his
decree? For few can resist his challenge. Our all too errants knights, a
pox of our age, consider it noble calling to take up arms form whatever
king comes along.
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But this king may well make them rue their code of honor. As the armies
of night close in, they might be wise not to defend their king--my King-
-but think instead of his true motives and consider that the cost of
allegiance might be greater than that of rebellion.
I did win one small boom, assuring all goes well. The king has promised
me that if his ascension succeeds, he will reward me for my assistance
with my own demise. Perhaps he will add my own meager wraith
essence to his own--a cursed thought, but a welcome one if it means to
end this suffering. On the day I committed to the rite of ossification
that saved his life, I had no idea that by standing so close I would be
afflicted by a measure of the effect...enough to strip away flesh but not
nerves. My bare nerves wrapped like withered ivy around these leprous
bones, sticking at every blast of cold, every chafing fabric, nothing but
raw pain for centuries. He has promised me death before, and nothing
has come of it. But perhaps now, if I have nothing left to offer him, he
will let me die. Call me an optimist. Not an eternal one, certainly, but I
have had almost a millennium to practice. I live in hope.
And now...I hear his arrogant laughter, as he climbs the tower steps. It
is time for the final preparations...wish me luck.
*

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 ADDENDUM
The Mad Moon and the Ancients
For all this time, the Ancients had been patiently working to resume the
timeless war that had been the cause of their initial banishment. And as
Heroes from all over found themselves drawn into the fray, none
suspected that they were taking part in the ultimate battle of a conflict
that had raged since the beginning of time.
*

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