Aetolian Game News
The Awakening of Dendara and the Shamans
Written by: Anonymous
Date: Friday, July 6th, 2012
Addressed to: Everyone
With the corruption of Dendara some decades ago, the councilors of the
Heartwood found themselves under siege from twisted aberrations and
ruinous beasts that sought only to devour all within their path.
Ethereal guardian after guardian fell to the corruption, consumed in its
wake or twisted into a monstrosity that could hardly speak.
The horror finally came to a head as Lleis, the Verdant, and Haern, the
Hunter, called upon the council of Duiran for one last stand against the
sentient corruption within the primordial Vintal Glade. A foul portal to
the plagued realm opened before the gathered masses and a terrible power
lashed outwards, bringing the already wounded Hunter to His knees as the
ritual faltered. Spectral beasts reached through the gateway, clawing
their way out with the intent of devouring all that lie before them.
Lleis, with the last of Her strength and compassion, flung Herself into
the awaiting maw and She was physically ripped piece by piece into
nothingness, Her very essence consumed by Dendara with the fateful
sacrifice.
With a whisper, Dendara surged outwards into the Great Oak, revitalizing
the tree and causing it to grow to heights far beyond that of any
mountain or peak in Sapience; Duiran had become a lofty home for the
councilors, no longer the village of Eleusis but an echo of Dendara
itself. The lash of power curled outwards around the unconscious Hunter
and the gathered masses within the vast forests, pulling them bodily
into a fragment of Dendara known as the Valley of the Ancients. The
order of the Praadi an-Kiar, the Shamans of Dendara, awaited them within
and greeted them with sorrowful news of the Verdant's death. Great
beasts in the form of raven, spider, cougar, bear, wyvern, and serpent
watched over the crowd, voicing their doubts that any among them
comprehended what lie in the deep forests and rolling valleys of
Dendara.
Vras, the Voice of the Seer, stepped forward to embrace the Druids as
kin for their ways once echoed the ways of the Shamans. With the
revitalization of Dendara, their old arts were now lost to the dregs of
time. The Praadi would extend their hand once more to teach to the
Druids of their rituals, oaths, and ways for the guardians had need of
voices in the mortal realm. Aishia Celaeno, once the Viridian Warden,
now was embraced as the Hand of the Praadi and stands amongst the
Shamans as a spiritwalker without peer. It remains to be seen what the
Praadi an-Kiar will ask of their brethren in Duiran, but bonds of blood
run deep and the guardians thirst for the old sacrifices once again.
Penned by my hand on the 4th of Haernos, in the year 365 MA.