Windwyrm History
B.A. = Before Adeodatus, A.E.D. = After Elder Drakes
Era of the Five Kingdoms [72 - 369 A.E.D]
The First Tempest’s Reign [369 - 402 A.E.D.]
Tempest Eagle’s Reign [402 - 454 A.E.D.]
Tempest Glory’s Reign [454 - 500 A.E.D.]
Modern Day [500 A.E.D Onwards]
Ancient History [??? B.A.- 45 A.E.D.]
Thus, when the three moons of the Realm turned red and drove both the Drakes and windwyrms into a temporary, bloodthirsty madness, they rejoiced despite their own heavy losses that the Elder Drakes had destroyed themselves.
Their newfound freedom did not last long, for fifteen years after the fall of the Drakes, the moonvipers arrived in great numbers. There were not enough windwyrms left to resist them - not yet, at least - and their lands became a part of the moonviper empress Adeodatus’ growing empire.
It took another thirty years for them to recover from the Night of the Red Moons, but when they did, multiple revolts broke out across the land. They caused so much destruction that the moonvipers left after only a few days, fleeing their wrath, and suddenly they were truly, truly free.
In the decades that followed, five kingdoms of windwyrms formed to fill the shadow of the Elder Drakes and Moonvipers. The Bitterpeak Kingdom in the north, the Kingdom of the Crater in the east, the Roseglade Kingdom in the south, the Blackpine Kingdom in the centre, and the Whiteneedle Kingdom in the west.
Era of the Five Kingdoms [72 - 369 A.E.D.]
The end of this Era began in 335 A.E.D when the Tempest ascended to the throne of the Bitterpeak Kingdom. From a young age she had been incredibly ambitious and was determined to rule over all of the Kingdoms, and now she was finally in a position to bring her ambitions to life.
She accomplished this first by marrying Princess Ash, the heir to the neighbouring Kingdom of the Crater, uniting their territories. The histories do not speak much of the Princess other than that she and the First Tempest were a formidable pair who fought side-by-side in their wars of conquest.
Tempest’s next steps would be far from peaceful. With the united forces of two of the five kingdoms behind her, the young Queen saw no reason to hesitate to invade south, taking over the Whiteneedle Kingdom after a three-year war. Following their surrender in 341, Tempest allowed the former King to retain partial control of his territory, as a Baron ruling under her.
By this point the remaining two Kingdoms were growing alarmed, and the Roseglade and Blackpine families met to discuss what to do. It was obvious that Tempest and Ash intended to take over their territory as well, and they formed an alliance to try their best to stand against them.
For the next twenty-nine years they fought bitterly against Queen Tempest, doing all they could to avoid falling under her rule. Their soldiers, however, were nowhere near as skilled or as experienced as those of Bitterpeak; it was a slow, losing fight from the start.
In early 369 A.E.D, the heirs of both Kingdoms saw no point in continuing and letting Tempest destroy their families completely. They met in secret with her, and came to an agreement; they would provide information that would allow her to finish off her conquest quickly, and in return they would be made Barons rather than having their entire family be killed.
In less than a month, Tempest took over both the Blackpine and Roseglade Kingdoms. The deal between her and the heirs of the Kings and Queens of these kingdoms was kept secret, and thus the efficiency of her final days of conquest terrified those fighting against her.
She and Ash kept their end of the deal, ‘forgiving’ them for their parent’s bloody resistance and naming them as the rulers of the two new Baronies.
And so the Windwyrms united into a single Kingdom under the rule of the Bitterpeak family. While there would be a number of attempted revolts over the following years, Tempest retained her new power and would become a legendary, semi-divine figure to those who lived under her rule.
The First Tempest’s Reign [369 - 402 A.E.D.]
The Seraphim had long been spiritual advisors to the windwyrm ruling classes. They were born different, smaller and with a secondary pair of wings and beautiful crests, as well as a third eye that marked them as “touched by the spirits.” These were falsehoods, stories told by their kind to justify their mutations as being something of benefit rather than simple oddities. They manipulated the superstition of the monarchs before the Tempest to gain power.
When Tempest succeeded in uniting the disparate windwyrm kingdoms in 369, many Seraphim spoke out against her conquest and her claimed divinity.
But their manipulations would be tolerated no longer. Tempest was a true individual blessed by the spirits, marked for leadership, and she gave the dishonest Seraphim the punishment they deserved. They were driven from their positions of power and executed. Some few escaped, and Tempest formed an organization known as the Hawks to hunt them down and ensure they could never return to work their evil influence over the windwyrms again.
The books the Seraphim kept that recorded the forewarnings they had received from the spirits were burned, and Tempest ensured her scribes spread the truth of the strange dragons’ machinations across her territory. Never again would the common folk of the nation sing the praises of the Seraphim; they would know only of their evil deeds and dark plans to take power from the rightful rulers of the windwyrms.
Knowledge of the Seraphim’s status before the conquest faded. Tempest made sure of that. Anyone who spoke in support of them soon found themselves incapable of speaking at all… or simply disappeared entirely.
Tempest as the Tempest for thirty-three years. During that time, she killed off most of her relatives; many outright tried to challenge her for the position and others attempted to poison or otherwise do away with her.
In 402 A.E.D, Tempest’s last remaining female relative, a niece named Shrike Bitterpeak, challenged her to a duel for the throne. She initially refused, but Shrike called her out as a coward in front of her entire council, including the neighbouring Barons.
And so Tempest accepted the duel. It was a brutal fight to the death and all the onlookers expected that the Tempest, spirits-blessed as she was, would triumph. But Shrike struck a killing blow and dragged herself, bleeding and heavily injured, to sit upon the throne.
She declared herself the new Tempest and refused to accept the help of the court healers, demanding that everyone bow and remain still until she told them otherwise. Shrike never got that chance; the blood loss caught up with her and she died there, leaving the mantle of leadership to her older brother - Prince Eagle. He would be the first and only male Tempest.
Shrike’s status as a Tempest is disputed by many. Some say that she defeated the first Tempest in a duel and while she only ruled for perhaps an hour at most, that she should be counted as one of the windwyrm’s leaders. Others say that she was never coronated or had a chance to do anything with her power, and thus shouldn’t be considered among the ranks of the Tempests of the past.
Tempest Eagle’s Reign [402 - 454 A.E.D.]
The only male to hold the station of Tempest, Eagle is remembered as a weak and useless ruler who nearly ruined House Bitterpeak.
Eagle Bitterpeak was the older brother of Shrike Bitterpeak, and Tempest Bitterpeak's only surviving relative by the time of her death. He took the throne unexpectedly in 402 A.E.D after his sister succumbed to her injuries after challenging their aunt for the throne: Eagle was a shy, anxious individual, not well-suited to the demands of running a nation. Legend has it that he was seduced by a spirit of ice and sired many unnatural offspring with it. He died at age ninety-four in 454, after being challenged for the throne by his eldest surviving daughter, Glory Bitterpeak. He was no match for his daughter’s strength and was killed; the spirit of frost who had corrupted the already weak Tempest and their strange children followed him into the afterlife not long after. |
Early Reign [402 - 433 A.E.D.]
But on that evening in 402, as his sister’s body was brought down from the bloodstained throne in Peak’s fortress, Eagle was the last Bitterpeak. The survival of his family now fell to him and him alone. The next morning, he delivered a stilted public speech to the masses in the capital, all awaiting news of what would become of them now that their first, divinely appointed, ruler had died. Eagle left a poor impression then, and his visible shaking during his coronation as Tempest did little to improve it.
His first few years of leadership were quiet, just as he was. He kept to his inner court, preferring the company of scholars and artists to the soldiers that Tempest had held in high esteem. He pulled away from the strong bonds that she had kept with the Hawks, becoming estranged from the First Austringer who had once been the first Tempest’s closest ally. The only members of the Hawks who could earn his attention were the Jokin; he was fascinated with the outside world, and any who could bring him tales of it had his ear for hours. His curiousity about lands to the southeast did little to earn him the affection of the Bitterpeak nobility—a passion for such a taboo subject was hardly becoming of someone who was meant to be the embodiment of divine perfection.
If Eagle’s curiousity had been unseemly, his next act was nothing short of obscene; after years of planning behind the scenes, he arranged for an official meeting between himself and the diplomatic leadership of Ironbrook in 410. Crossing the Iron Run river, he travelled to the Brookian city of Fallford for the first of many meetings between the two nations during his rule.
During one of these delegations, Eagle met a conniving spirit of ice, a Fionn, who called itself ‘Frost’. The young Tempest quickly became entranced by its cold beauty and invited it back to his kingdom, making it his Queen in 412.
There was widespread outrage across Bitterpeak when Eagle and the Fionn announced that they’d had a clutch of eggs in 414. That Eagle should sully his bloodline with the influence of a foreign spirit was near-blasphemy to them, though they were to be saved by the quiet intervention of the great spirit Maura, mothering one of the three eggs. Months later, three princesses hatched; Glory, the daughter of Eagle and Maura, and the Fionn’s wretched spawn, Caldera and Squall.
Eagle was nothing short of ecstatic at the hatching of his daughters and spent the first few years of their lives doting upon them. Though Caldera and Squall bore the mark of the Fionn’s influence in the form of horns and spikes of curling, shimmery ice, Eagle was not the least bit disturbed by it. It did not take long for the trio of siblings to begin a fierce rivalry, each determined to prove themself the best possible heir. Although Eagle tried to encourage them to get along, he was never firm enough to stop their fights.
Though the mere existence of his daughters was a source of dismay and outrage for his nobles, the immediate years after their birth were quiet compared to what would come in 419. It was then that Eagle announced his intention as Tempest to re-open the kingdom to the outside world, and arranged for a summit of the most powerful Baronesses and Dukes to appear before him to discuss the matter. Traditionalists among the windwyrms found it suspect that the Tempest had waited until the death of Princess Ash Mistcrater—who had retired to rule the Barony of the Crater following the first Tempest’s death—and the rise of his childhood friend Kestrel to the status of Baron before holding it.
Regardless of the scandal his declaration sparked, after a few weeks had passed, important windwyrms began to pour into the capital. Baroness Thunder Blackpine, Baroness Canary Roseglade, Baron Kestrel Mistcrater, and Baroness Overcast Whiteneedle were all in attendance, as well as several influential Dukes and Duchesses from across the kingdom.
The grand summit would last a month, and during it, Eagle would attempt to gather support for his plans for the future. He had never been a strong conversationalist and, attempting to hold his ground before some of the most powerful and terrifying of his nobles, often found it hard to speak loud enough for the others to hear.
His supporters were few; Baron Kestrel stood by his friend’s side, while the Duchess of Petalport saw an advantage for House Ninebarks if trade with the outside world resumed. The rest of the attendees were ambivalent at best; Baronesses Thunder and Canary had little faith in Eagle’s ability to bring about any change at all, regardless of his intentions, while Baroness Overcast was so offended by the Tempest’s ideas that she abandoned the summit entirely and returned to Antler.
It was not an auspicious beginning for such a drastic change, but Eagle continued with his plans regardless. In 422, the first windwyrm diplomats in centuries were dispatched on behalf of the Tempest to Hovell, Ironbrook, and the Republic of the Spire. Around the same time, Eagle slowly begins stripping the First Austringer and the Hawks of their powers over the windwyrm kingdom and its citizenry, and attempts to disband the ranks of the First and Second Peak Guard, two groups of windwyrms trained from hatching to die unquestioningly for the Tempest. Eagle’s guards refused to leave their post—insisting that they knew their duty and had nothing else to return to—and Eagle relented, though ceased the process by which his aunt had ensured a supply of recruits to the Guard.
These acts further drove a wedge between him and the first Tempest’s loyalists. Even some common windwyrms, who had learned to regard the Hawks as their one route to real influence, questioned their leader’s judgement in his reduction of their powers. At its worst, Baroness Overcast began to refuse any and all contact with the Tempest, and only acknowledged messengers sent directly to her.
Eagle’s aunt would have punished such impertinence with brutality. Perhaps his sister might have as well. But they were both dead and the current Tempest was a gentle soul, and thus opted for a different solution to ease tensions.
Once his three daughters had reached age ten in 424, he sent each of them away to be fostered with a different Barony. Glory, always the fiercest of his daughters, was sent to live with the Whiteneedles. Caldera, who had a guilty fondness for books that she attempted to mask with aggression, to the Blackpines. And lastly Squall, ever quiet and watchful, was sent to the Roseglades in hope that she would flourish around friendlier and more open dragons. He promised his dear friend Kestrel that he and his Queen’s future fourth child would be fostered with the Mistcraters, though the Baron of the Crater needed no such assurances; he trusted his Tempest’s judgement.
In Blackpine, Caldera took some time to acclimate and realize none of the Baroness’ nieces and nephews would judge her for liking to read. She quickly found that she had a love for stories of great leaders and warriors of honour—and not just of her own line. When Baroness Thunder’s older siblings took them aside to tell them tales of their ancestors in the Blackpine Kingdom, she listened with just as much wide-eyed awe as any of the other children.
Squall was at first overwhelmed by how different Roseglade was from Bitterpeak; everything from the weather to the people felt like she had accidentally been sent to the other end of the world. After enough time had passed, she began to open up, and those who grew up alongside her speak of how she had been able to talk them into just about anything—meaning mischief, more often than not.
Conversely, not much is known about the time that the future Tempest Glory spent with the Whiteneedle family. In her words, the experience hardened her and taught her what it meant to be a true windwyrm. The Whiteneedles who still live that remember her time as their ward say little at all, though what they do speak of carries the faint undertone of something almost like guilt.
Contented by letters from his Baronesses telling of his daughters’ exploits and safety, Eagle returned his attention to his plans for the kingdom. And after years of work, in 425 the first foreign diplomats the windwyrms had received since the conquest of the First Tempest arrived in Peak.
While his Barons were sated by him trusting his daughters to them, other members of the nobility were not. On the same day that an apprehensive crowd welcomed a trio of diplomats from Hovell, Ironbrook, and the Republic of the Spire, a plot to save the kingdom from Eagle’s leadership began to take shape. In the shadows, tensions rose for years before they boiled to the surface.
The first signs of what was to come emerged in 429.
It was early August in Peak, and Eagle was sitting in at the Royal Tourney. Although the Tempest had no love for bloodsport, he knew what the tournament and its Champion’s Trial meant to his people… even if he could not help but see the still, bloodied form of his sister in the face of every casualty of the duels. Everything appeared to be going to plan before, in the middle of that day’s melee while all his attendees were distracted by the smell of blood and the sound of roaring and banging metal, one of the contestants—a knight in full armour—lunged sideways and into the stands.
The crowd did not initially react. Occasionally dragons decided to surrender and left the field of combat, or got confused and leaped out of the pit, but rather than settle down to cool off after their fight, the knight continued to charge away from the combat…
…and straight towards where Tempest Eagle and his Fionn Queen were sitting.
No one moved to intercept the rogue contestant. Perhaps no one understood what was happening, perhaps they saw last year’s Champion seated next to him and thought he was safe, or perhaps simply no one cared to intervene.
The windwyrm leaped into the raised dais sheltering the Tempest and tackled him off his throne. They tumbled down the stands, startled shouts following them out, and fell into the middle of the still-dueling windwyrms, interrupting the melee.
Eagle was pinned beneath the weight of the heavily armoured dragon, unable to do anything but stare up into the dark eye-slits of the dragon’s helm. Of all the combatants there that day, only one intervened to save the Tempest, and it was not any of the younger children of dukes and countesses or battle-hardened soldiers who had come to Peak hoping to win holdings of their own.
A blur of grey feathers shot out from the crowd of confused contestants, already ragged from fighting, and slammed into the armoured windwyrm. The dragon stumbled, losing his footing just enough for Eagle to slip out from under him—his slight physique made him nimble, if nothing else. The knight turned to continue their attack, but the grey windwyrm who had attacked him stood between them and the Tempest and did not move. He was young, small, and already injured, and the attacker only hesitated for an instant before they moved to shove past him to reach the Tempest once more.
But that was long enough for the Fionn that Eagle had wed decades ago to fall upon them. The screaming began for real when it landed on the dragon’s armoured back and breathed out a winter storm so fierce and so cold that the metal plate shattered.
Only then did Eagle’s guards intervene, apprehending the would-be assassin. The Tempest was left shaken and bloodied, but thanks to the intervention of the small grey contestant and his Queen, he survived.
After a minute to catch his breath, Eagle asked the young windwyrm his name. He introduced himself as Shoebill, a serf from Roseglade, who travelled all the way to Peak for a chance at the Champion’s Crown. In gratitude for saving his life, the Tempest knighted him on the spot and offered him a place in the Royal Guard—making Shoebill, at only fifteen, the youngest to ever achieve such an honour.
Eagle then turned to his armoured assailant and asked his guards to remove the dragon’s helmet. The Tempest’s heart fell when he recognized the face underneath; it was none other than Plateau Mistvale, the youngest son of the Viscountess of Overflow. In a remarkable show of mercy—or weakness—he did not sentence Plateau to immediate execution. Instead, he would be imprisoned within Peak’s dungeons.
That done, he finally obeyed his attendants and retired to his fortress to tend to his wounds. For the rest of that year’s Royal Tourney, the Tempest’s seat sat empty, and it was his Fionn Queen that crowned the eventual victor as his new Champion.
Eagle would come to treat Shoebill almost like a son. The young Royal Guard was present in 432 for the hatching of Eagle and the Fionn’s youngest and final daughter, Princess Sleet Bitterpeak, and would never stray far from his Tempest’s side until his death. While many criticized Shoebill’s high rank as being unbefitting a former serf, no one could claim that he lacked loyalty.
The Northern Rebellion [433 - 437 A.E.D.]
The revolt’s leaders were Viscountet Buckthorn Shatterspine of Wolfhill, an accomplished and powerful young hunter who had braved the Valley of Fangs many times, and the only recently-appointed Countess Stratus Spearcliff of Windbreak, who had served as a knight in the First Tempest’s armies and helped win the five kingdoms for her. They had worked tirelessly in the years prior to organize the rebellion entirely under Eagle’s nose.
In the week that followed, several other members of Eagle’s court sided with the rebels, and the countryside of Bitterpeak broke out into violence. The First and Second Peak Guard remained loyal to him and, after a months-long siege, saved the capital from falling to the onslaught of angry nobility. They are unable to stop the rebels from freeing Plateau Mistvale from the dungeons, and with his escape Overflow joins the rebels.
While Eagle received some support from Roseglade, Blackpine and the Crater, the Hawks and Whiteneedle hold back. The former sits by and waits for a call to help that will never come, while Overcast’s successor, Baron Victory, was widely known to have sympathized with the rebels.
For the next four years, rebellion rages across Bitterpeak Barony, severely damaging many of Eagle’s towns and cities. For their safety, the diplomats from other lands that Eagle had worked so hard to bring to his kingdom are sent home.
In Spring 437, the rebels strike two blows at Eagle’s heart. A group of highly trained soldiers, led by Plateau Mistvale, steal away into the Whiteneedle’s family estate and kidnap Princess Glory. Although Victory and his family claim that they fought to protect the Princess, no damage was done to their home and many suspect that the Baron simply handed Glory over. For the remainder of the war, Glory would be held hostage in Wolfhill, in the same narrow cells the town’s rulers used for common criminals.
With his daughter’s safety at risk, Eagle is paralyzed with fear. He orders that his soldiers remain in Peak and do nothing to provoke the rebels.
It is only months later when news reaches Blackpine that someone acts. Princess Caldera, eager for a chance to prove herself and practice the strategies she has read about, gathered a group of ambitious soldiers her age and travelled north to fight the rebels. She and her small force are intercepted by Countess Status in their attempt to cross the border. The Countess is older and more experienced by far, and Caldera was killed in the battle.
When Eagle heard news of his daughter’s death, his heart was shattered. Only days later, he surrendered to the rebels.
Although Plateau, Stratus and Buckthorn allowed Eagle to remain as Tempest, he is forced to agree to a humiliating list of demands before they agree to release Glory. Eagle pardons all those involved with the Northern Rebellion and is made to backtrack on all his efforts to open the kingdom up more, losing decades of work as the price of peace.
Later Reign [437 - 454 A.E.D.]
Having achieved what they had set out to do and more, Viscountet Buckthorn, Lord Plateau, and Countess Stratus return to their respective holdings, confident that they have saved the land from ruin and not worried in the least about retribution. Eagle had proved himself time and time again to be a spineless leader, so what reason did they have to fear?
The Tempest was disheartened, but tried to move on and put the Northern Rebellion behind him. In the months that followed, he would spend most of his time in the company of his Fionn Queen and his young daughter, Sleet. But while Eagle did his best to forgive and forget, Glory did not. She would remember the faces of the dragons who humiliated her father and took her prisoner.
For the time being she returned to Peak’s royal court alongside her remaining clutchmate, Squall. The last of their clutchmates, they develop a rivalry for their inheritance that ended only with a duel in 442. Eagle was reluctant to allow it, but his court pressured him to approve the fight; if both Glory and Squall are alive when he passes, a civil war might very well break out over who had the right to the throne. To safeguard his people, he must lose one more daughter.
Glory and Squall chose the skies over Thunder Lake as their battlefield. Líadan would bear witness to their fight and it would be by the spirit’s mercy—or lack thereof—that one of them would be found worthy of the title of Storm. Whoever was killed or forced to land on the ice would be the loser.
The sisters and a small group of witnesses arrived at the lake at dawn, and the duel began shortly after. The pair clashed for over an hour, clouds of ice and snow swirling around them, kicked up by their wingbeats, and blue blood sloughing through their feathers as the sisters clawed at each other. Evenly matched, it was only when the sun rose over the surrounding mountains and the surface of the lake began to shine that Glory gained the upper hand. Blinded, Squall did not see Glory coming until her jaws were around her throat.
Squall died long before the pair landed heavily on the surface of the lake. Glory stood over her sister’s still body, panting, and only kicked off the ice after it began to groan loudly. She had only just taken to the air when the ice split and swallowed Squall’s still body. In some tellings, the ice-rimed teeth of the spirit Líadan could be seen as it dragged the unworthy princess down, and in others, she twitched awake at the last moment and screamed before vanishing into the dark.
When only one daughter returned to Peak the following morning, Eagle mourned the loss of Squall deeply. A funeral was held for the princess despite the loss of her remains, and days later, a ceremony to officially recognize Glory as Eagle’s future heir.
That same year, as promised so long ago, Eagle and the Fionn sent Sleet to the Barony of the Crater to be fostered by the family of Baron Kestrel.
In the final decade of his reign, Eagle focused on slowly getting back to where he had been before the events of the Northern Rebellion. While there was some dissent, Eagle worked hard to introduce positive experiences with outsiders—new, exciting goods, public events that depicted their neighbours in a good light, and (reluctantly) fabricating a now-defeated Enemy that Tempest had been protecting them from in the past, but no longer any concern to them now. In 449, foreign diplomats are finally allowed back into Peak.
All the while, Storm Glory watches her father coldly, keeping her judgements to herself but clearly disapproving. While he continued to spurn the Hawks, Glory established a bond with them, and when a firm hand is needed in governing, she moved behind her father’s back to destroy potential insurrections before they could grow out of control. For another Tempest, this might have been an offence worthy of death, but Eagle simply chose to ignore his daughter’s actions. Slowly, the eyes of the windwyrm people began to look toward Glory, rather than Eagle, as a source of authority.
And then in 454, Glory challenged her father for the throne. Only Eagle and his Fionn queen were surprised; the rest of their court had anticipated such a move for years.
Eagle wanted to refuse his daughter’s challenge, having no interest in hurting his child, but she and his court were insistent. After he had taken his queen aside for a final, private conversation, he and Glory met in the grand hall of their family’s fortress to fight.
It was not much of a contest. Although decades older and larger by far, Eagle had never been a warrior and had made no effort to learn; in contrast, Glory had focused heavily on her martial studies from a young age and had gained plenty of experience in recent years. He was so sorely beaten by his daughter that many witnesses to their duel remarked upon feeling embarrassed to have had Eagle represent them for so long.
Soon enough, Eagle was dead.
Glory stood over the body of her father, the only blood dripping off her not her own, and turned toward the cheers of her people. The only one who remained silent was the Tempest’s young royal guard, Shoebill, who did not remove his eyes from where Eagle had fallen until long after his body had been carried away.
Tempest Glory’s Reign [454 - 500 A.E.D.]
Daughter of Eagle Bitterpeak and, according to the official histories, Maura herself. Glory Bitterpeak was a ruthless and violent individual, the opposite of her father in all ways, and extremely determined to do all in her power to preserve the windwyrms traditions and keep the outside world at bay. Her ruthlessness and brutality is remembered either as having saved the kingdom from depravity after the weakness of her father, or doomed them to decades of darkness when they could have rejoined the outside world.
Ruled from 454 to her sudden death in 500 A.E.D at the age of eighty-six. Many believe that she and her eldest daughter, Storm Rook Bitterpeak, were poisoned, though no perpetrator was ever found. The events of Glory’s rule will be expanded significantly in a coming lore update. |
Modern Day [500 A.E.D. Onwards]
Recent events in the windwyrm kingdom.
The Windwyrms have remained under the rule of the Bitterpeak family since Tempest’s conquests. Their current ruler, the Tempest Foehn Bitterpeak, is especially mistrustful of outsiders and has used all of their influence to punish and dissuade their subjects from interacting in any way with them. They are the second child of Glory Bitterpeak and her husband, Teton Talltrack. They were coronated as Tempest in the year 500 A.E.D after the mysterious and sudden death of their mother and older sister, Storm Rook Bitterpeak, in the night.
Some Windwyrms, mostly serfs or non-aristocrats, have fled their kingdom for better lives with the shipwreckers or stormheralds. This is a risky endeavor, however; for anyone caught trying to cross the border is killed without any chance to explain themselves. The events of Foehn’s rule will be expanded upon in a coming lore update. |
Return of the Seraphim [504 A.E.D.]
Through rolling fog on Lake Zela, an ancient island—the once thought-lost Isle of Ghosts—is glimpsed by Brookian sailors; weeks later, a group of ships cut through the mist to lay anchor not far from its shores, filled with scientists eager to study the untouched Elder Drake and pre-Tempest windwyrm ruins that can be seen breaking the canopy of the rocky island’s forest. With them are a handful of archaeologists and historians from the famed College of the Spire; Misstep, Cloud Barebranch and Luuzin. From Ironbrook’s esteemed universities are Professor Serafima Liouba Kovalchuk, Professor Aurora Sunscar, and a handful of Brookian soldiers under the command of Captain Andon Stanimir Ignatov. Together, the two nations establish the Eastern Camp on the eastern shore of the Isle. As the island was apparently uninhabited, not so far from their borders, and a Brookian vessel the one to rediscover it, Ironbrook attempted to lay claim to it.
When news reached the leadership of the windwyrm kingdom that outsiders were trespass and lay claim to an island they considered part of their territory, they were enraged and saw the foreign presence on their island as a direct challenge to the authority of the Tempest. It was quickly decided that they should send a group of soldiers and scholars themselves to the island to affirm the Tempest’s claim to the land, as well as investigate its history themselves, and set up camp on the northern shore of the Isle. The group was led by Baroness Thunder Blackpine, herself a relic of history, with Guard-Captain Shoebill and the First Black Guard under Captain Nighthawk Startower as security
Despite this less than peaceful mission, Baroness Thunder had no interest in fighting the outsiders if she didn’t have to, and managed to negotiate a temporary truce with the leadership of the Eastern Camp to prevent violence. For the following few weeks, there would be an uneasy truce between the windwyrms and those from elsewhere in Cyr; one not helped by the sightings of strange, many-winged dragons with gleaming eyes in the fog at the edges of both camps, or the creature known only as the “Grey Ghost” reported attacking those who wandered too far into the Isle.
With the scholars of Ironbrook came Sabien the Greenheart, a hired cartographer and artist; Adonis Rowan Keelan Deo, a travelling human come to work as a cartographer; Cleo the Inaurate, a wanderer come to work as a bodyguard for the scientists; Iskra Malyna Balabanov-Nikolaev, a Brookian scholar with an unusual amount of skill at arms; Kala, a wandering member of the Tähdet Perhe come to research Cyrian cultures; arriving together on a Brookian steamship were the two windwyrms, Mstislav Fireback Gildedbrook and “Grey Brightsprout”, come to investigate the Isle; and, lastly, Yaotl Zolin, who served as a bodyguard for those of the Eastern Camp.
With the Societies, Altair and Havoc, both of the Society of War, arrived with the security forces from the Spire to help protect the scholars of the Eastern Camp; Artemis and Elysian, come from the faraway Land of Rivers; Brisk, a member of the Society of Runesmiths, arrived to conduct research and provide those of their camp with runic tools; Pitohui of the Society of History arrived to study, along with their adopted child, the young darkling Chitter; “Lucky” of the Society of Medicine and their hired bodyguard, Arwin Rho, arrived to investigate the ruins and provide helpful potions; a shipwrecker named Capricorn came to the Isle to continue working on their personal bestiary; a shipwrecker and springsinger hybrid named Ketch arrived on the Isle, curious about learning more about the Realm’s history prior to the Night of the Red Moons; lastly, from faraway Theavia, the Moon Child Psychopomp and his hired travelling partner and guard, Firemaw, arrived at the Isle of Ghosts for unknown reasons.
Accompanying Baroness Thunder and her windwyrms was Asura, a hybrid with glowing eyes who approached the windwyrms and was eventually allowed to remain in camp by the Baroness, much to the surprise of everyone, provided he made himself useful; Caladrius, a Hawk in service to the Tempest; Cavalry, a former soldier; Morrigan Brittlepoint-Willowgrove-Fogpeak-Sunhallow-Frostpine, a Hawk with a name longer than most noble’s titles; Cemani Darkcrag, a soldier who only recently earned their place in the aristocracy; a young soldier named Esker; one of the Tempest’s own royal guards, Gyr Icepeak; an advisor to Baron of Roseglade, Peregrine Skycaller; Screech, a commoner caring for the Northern Camp’s messenger birds; Talvi, a windwyrm dragged along to help investigate the Isle; and lastly Whirlwind, a black-and-white windwyrm serving in the Hawks.
A handful of others arrived on the Isle as well; the wandering windwyrm hybrid, Morse; chasing a vision, the wandering voidseer Harbinger travelled from faraway Theavia with her friend, Arion, to seek the meaning behind her dreams; Harper, a seafaring wanderer; the Xocrian warrior Ameria Blakewood, her familiar Spectre, and the Harvest Mage Oliver Hakron with a group of scholars from Chrysos; and, strangest of all, the necromancer Lupu Grim and a small garrison of soldiers from the Hovellian city-state of Idothea… come to the Isle of Ghosts, having taken the name literally, to seek paranormal encounters.
The new arrivals to the Isle quickly began to settle into their camps, having a few encounters with their neighbours and the “Grey Ghost”, some of which are peaceful and others rather violent, as well as assisting with bringing in supplies from the mainland. As they grow more comfortable on the Isle, scholars and their bodyguards begin to explore, making sketches and taking notes on what they observe in their wanderings. Individuals from both camps have encounters with Harbinger, who travels the Isle attempting to spread a warning of… well. She’s not entirely sure what her vision is warning her about, but wants to share her dream with as many as possible, in hopes of influencing the threads of fate into a more positive outcome.
One particularly nasty encounter, early on, with the Grey Ghost resulted in the death of a Brookian man, Andrik, and a close call for one of Ironbrook’s scholars; they were only saved through the quick actions of their bodyguard, Cleo the Inaurate. Only bits of Andrik’s clothing and his weapons can be recovered by a patrol sent out hours later—doubtlessly the thing ate the rest of him. Cleo isn’t the only one to have a run-in with the Grey Ghost around this time, however. Caladrius and Gyr in the Northern Camp each run into it while out on their own, though both emerge from the encounter unscathed. From the Eastern Camp, Psychopomp loses some rather precious herbs to it, a researcher named Capricorn encounters the Ghost while out after dark and is forced to take shelter to avoid notice, and, lastly, Sabien narrowly avoids getting mauled by hiding from the creature in a narrow cave.
The next week comes with new challenges for both camps on the Isle. Luuzin of the Eastern Camp requests assistance with investigating the Elder Drake Castle and the ancient remains of its former inhabitants within, and multiple groups set out over the following days to do so. One of which, made up of the springsinger herself, Psychopomp, Rowan, Kala, Havoc, a fireworm-and-stormherald mercenary named Firemaw, as well as some others, encounter trouble on the way back when they stumble upon a confrontation between a group of windwyrm soldiers and some scholars. The disagreement, sparked by one of the scholars taking a windwyrm skull from the Eastern Islands, briefly turns violent, however both sides back down and go their separate ways quickly enough. The others—Sabien and Capricorn—have much less exciting expeditions to the Castle.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Altair; he and his patrol of Society of War members get caught in a violent clash with windwyrm soldiers with casualties—and deaths - on both sides. With the timely assistance of Morse, he was able to drive off the windwyrms and live to see another day. Though the stirrings of violence make those in both camps on the Isle… uneasy, to say the least.
The Northern Camp has troubles of its own, aside from violence with those of the Eastern Camp. The Baroness, having heard about windwyrm remains being present, sends a handful of dragons out to leave offerings for the dead; Esker, a common soldier, and Cavalry and Asura. Both have unexpected encounters along the way; Esker with two residents of the Eastern Camp, and Cavalry with a near-spectral figure with three eyes. Similarly, after having gotten lost trying to find a quiet place to get a break from all the noise back in camp and nearly getting corner by the Grey Ghost, Screech was guided back to camp by an odd stranger, one they failed to get a good look at. Finally, while out alone to get some air, one of the Hawks, Whirlwind, is attacked and nearly killed by the Grey Ghost. Only through the aid of a windwyrm from the Eastern Camp, Grey Brightsprout, do they make it back to the Northern Camp in time to receive medical treatment. Though they are badly injured, they are expected to make a full recovery.
Tensions on the Isle come to a head when one of Ironbrook’s scholars, the escaped windwyrm professor Aurora Sunscar, returned to the Eastern Camp with bleeding injuries and red-stained claws. While out investigating some of the ruins, they were attacked by a group of Hawks (a group of secretive police that keeps order in the windwyrm kingdom), out to kill them for the crime of having left behind the Windwyrm kingdom in their youth, despite the official truce between the scholars and Baroness Thunder Blackpine, and only barely managed to escape. Rather than try to settle things by contacting the Baroness and simply hoping it won’t happen again, Aurora has a plan; set an ambush for the group of Hawks and give them a reason to keep far, far away. Aurora will go out “alone” with a group of smaller, less-noticeable soldiers hiding nearby. If the group of Hawks shows their faces again, then they’ll get a nasty surprise when the Professor turns out to not be alone this time.
Aurora had no trouble finding volunteers from amongst the mercenaries and soldiers of the Eastern Camp—Arwin and his familiar, Morse, Psychopomp, and Oliver as well as many others—and led multiple ambushes against them throughout the following week. Unfortunately for the Hawks, they were all quite successful; the tales of the night that Maura walked the earth in the form of a blue-winged human, summoning a storm to punish those who stood against her, as well as the unfortunate windwyrm who exploded after getting shot would linger and be passed on to others, even after the Hawks left the Isle of Ghosts behind.
Aside from the unlucky Hawks facing Aurora and their volunteers’ wrath, most of the Northern Camp is… bored with current events on the Isle, with word of the fighting not having yet spread far, and Guard-Captain Shoebill most of all. Sure, it’s an honour and all to be able to represent the Tempest’s interests on the Isle, but Shoe is a soldier, not a diplomat or politician, and he has no idea what he’s doing aside from the fact that he needs a break. Of course, being a soldier, Shoe’s idea of a break isn’t a spa retreat; he’s looking for a good fight. The Guard-Captain has started drilling the soldiers and Hawks in camp and is more than happy to oblige anyone brave enough to ask him with a fight, and ends up crossing talons with a handful of the Northern Camp’s residents; a young soldier named Esker, the retired military knight Cavalry, and even another member of the royal guard, Gyr Icepeak.
Near the end of the week, individuals from both camps wake to find that a hastily-written note warning of impending misfortune has been slipped into their tent in the night, with a recommendation that it would be in their best interests to move to a different spot to avoid injury. Most of its recipients heed the warning and safely avoid what follows—rocks, a tree, or something else falling onto where their tent had been in the night—but in the Northern Camp, the young soldier Esker opts not to, and is injured a few days later when a large tree falls across her tent.
Soldiers from both the Northern and Eastern Camps have started to vanish. They go out on patrol and, later in the day, never return. The obvious cause for many is the people in the opposite camp or the increasingly agitated Grey Ghost, and the situation on the Isle grows more tense day by day; each camp has banned people from leaving its shelter without a suitable escort, and there have been a few small skirmishes in the ruins and the forest. Unless things start to calm down, a battle between the two camps is inevitable. Volunteers are found among the members of both camps to help look for the missing people. In the Northern Camp, one such patrol fell upon further misfortune when it was attacked by the Grey Ghost; its leader, the Austringer Aquila, was found dead by the rest of her squad, and her search partner, Cavalry, nowhere to be found. It was assumed by the rest of the windwyrms that Cavalry was killed as well, and probably dragged off to the Ghost’s lair as a meal; in reality, the former soldier was merely injured and brought into the Eastern Camp by those in it who recognized her.
More surprising than attacks by the Grey Ghost or vanishing members of each camp is the sudden appearance of three-eyed, double-winged dragons known as Seraphim, reaching out to those wandering out from their camp. Centuries ago they fled the windwyrm kingdom to avoid massacre and took refuge on the Isle of Ghosts to avoid their hunters, and since the first outsiders arrived on its shores have been waiting and watching to see what to do. Their leader, Lady Three-Eyes, fearing discovery or that the fighting on the Isle might destroy their home, finally reached a decision and asked her people to reach out to the strangers and invite them into their home, the Inner City, so that she can speak with them. From the Eastern Camp, Brisk, Harbinger, Morse, Cleo, Lucky, Capricorn, Psychopomp, Ketch, Sabien and Yaotl are invited—the latter of whom had to be rescued from the Grey Ghost and brought into the Inner City for medical treatment. From the Northern Camp, Esker, Peregrine, Screech and Caladrius all make their way into the Inner City, guided by one of the Seraphim. They each are given a chance to speak with Lady Three-Eyes alone and hear about the history of the Isle and the Seraphim who have refuged there since the rise of the First Tempest. She asks that they speak with the leaders of their camp and urge them not to fight, and tell them that the Seraphim simply wish to stay on the Isle in peace; most of those invited into the Inner City are moved by the Lady’s request and agree to do what they can to help.
The first request the Seraphim had outside of this was assistance with one of their own; the Grey Ghost—or Altai, as they were named at birth—was one of them. Hatched a Grey Seraphim into a strange and painful body, with the immense burden of protecting the Seraphim, they have been growing more hostile by the day, agitated by the number of strangers on the Isle and a few violent encounters with soldiers from both sides. All sides decide quickly that something must be done about the aggressive creature; the windwyrms want to hunt and kill them, Ironbrook’s scholars are curious and wish to attempt to capture and study them. The Seraphim fear that they may accidentally ruin any hopes they have of establishing peace with the outsiders. Although they have served them well protecting them in the past, their aggression—sometimes even directed at their fellow Seraphim—is pushing the other groups on the Isle to regard the Seraphim with suspicion. Lady Three-Eyes asked those who have been working and visiting her and the other Seraphim for assistance; she wanted to distract Altai, draw them away from the outsiders, and if possible, find a way to contain them within the Inner City for the immediate future so that they cannot harm any more outsiders.
Through the combined efforts of Brisk, Screech, Harbinger, Morse, “Grey Brightsprout”, Esker, Chitter, Caladrius, and some of the Seraphim, Altai was successfully lured into the confines of the Inner City. They would no longer be able to harm anyone else and would be safe from the windwyrms keen on hunting them down. Esker was injured after protecting Altai from a group of their hunters, and Harbinger was wounded by the grey seraphim themself after crossing into the city. Despite this, they were able to be trapped within one of the larger abandoned buildings, where, after days of hissing and snarling and clawing at their prison, Altai finally began to calm down.
Assisted by Screech of the Northern Camp and Ketch of the Eastern Camp, Lady Three-Eyes was successfully able to meet up with her old friend, Baroness Thunder Blackpine, and discuss the events on the Isle and what had happened to each in the years since they had last met. In each camp, sympathetic outsiders that had been won over by the Seraphim’s efforts managed to press their leadership into ordering their soldiers to stand down, and once again an awkward peace settled across the Isle.
With Altai contained and the fighting over, the Seraphim made contact with the leadership of each camp and arranged for proper negotiations to be conducted. It took days and many hours of discussion, but eventually, an agreement was reached; the Seraphim would remain as the neutral wardens of the Isle, and small parties from Ironbrook and the windwyrm kingdom would be allowed on its shores, provided they promised not to cause trouble. A secondary agreement was reached with the scholars of the stormherald Societies, championed by Misstep—seeing it as her big shot at setting herself apart from her family—with Cloud Barebranch’s guidance, allowing for them to continue their research into Elder Drake and windwyrm history on the Isle, provided in exchange they offer teaching for the residents of the Inner City.
Gradually, most of the outsiders who came to the Isle disperse, with Baroness Thunder and Lady Three-Eyes meeting in the Inner City one last time to bid eachother farewell—and to grand the former a favour. Desiring to continue the lost tradition of the leadership of the windwyrms keeping Seraphim advisors, the Baroness wishes for Captain Nighthawk to undergo the Ceremony of Fire, and the leader of the Seraphim grants that wish. During the next full moon, Nighthawk, Altai, and some others on the Isle undergo the Ceremony and emerge bearing the marks of the windwyrm gods. Both will have much to adjust to—Altai most of all, now freed of the burden placed upon them at hatching by the gods—in the weeks and months to come.
With that, the Baroness and her entourage departed from the Isle of Ghosts and returned to their homes in the windwyrm kingdom. Although nothing dramatic occurs immediately following their arrival back, for many of those who found themselves there during the events that occurred on the Isle—and those who heard the news later—a seed of doubt is planted in their hearts. The Tempest and their court decide to honour the agreement made by the Baroness with the Seraphim and Ironbrook, although make no offer to allow the residents of the Isle of Ghosts safe passage in or out of the kingdom, as some might have hoped.
The danger passed, the Greygale Stones are deactivated by Kara and Qin, and the heavy clouds of fog that concealed the Inner City and much of the Isle of Ghosts disperses, allowing sunlight to fall unfiltered on its shores for the first time in generations. Misstep, true to her word, begins the process of converting portions of the Eastern Camp into classroom spaces, recruiting other scholars from the Spire as teachers in exchange for the chance to study the Isle and its inhabitants up close. The reaction among the Seraphim is mixed; all are grateful for the outsider’s assistance in averting disaster, but while some are eager to learn, others have little interest in Misstep and her colleague’s teachings.
As time passes, things on the Isle of Ghosts settle down into a new sense of normalcy. The Isle’s residents are no longer forbidden from leaving by Lady Three-Eyes, and some even decide to travel away from its shores to see the rest of the world. Karakoram Greygale, unsurprisingly, is one of the first to do so, leaving home with a promise to write and return when she can, to study at the College of the Spire as she’s always dreamed of. Though, as there was no promise of safety in their old homeland, none of the Seraphim who hail from the Isle of Ghosts make a return to windwyrm territory, fearing that they might fall victim to Hawks or superstitious dragons.
With the Isle open to the outside world and news of the Seraphim spreading, they can only expect yet more curious visitors from across the Realm.