KRAVEN CHRONICLES
MYTHS, LEGENDS, CHRONICLES AND TALES OF WAR: They whisper from the scorched earth and the drowned depths, etched on crumbling steel and sung in the funeral of forgotten peoples. Some true, some false, spun from fear and the fading memory of glory. But one truth bleeds through them all, a crimson thread in the tapestry of ruin: BLOODSHED, PAIN, SUFFERING. The rot began not in mortal hearts, but in the heavens themselves. GREED, a serpent coiling around divine thrones. JEALOUSY, a poison in ambrosial cups. SPITE, a dagger plunged by brother into brother. UNCHECKED EGOS that scraped the vault of stars. UNTAMED RAGE that cracked the foundations of the world.
I saw it unfold, this symphony of annihilation. While the OLYMPIANS, thunderbolts like wrathful serpents, clashed against the NORSE GODS whose axes sang the doom-song of Yggdrasil, the very Tree groaning under their fury... Below, the ATLANTEANS, masters of crystal and crushing tide, and the celestial SHENS, weavers of elemental harmony, tore at each other’s throats in a BLOODLUST for dominion over realms mortals could scarce comprehend. And then, the venomous strike: the ORISHAS, their brilliance dimmed by envy for the opulent DEVAS and graceful DEVIS, whispering secrets to the shadows. They forged an unholy compact with the cunning, myriad-faced YOKAIS, turning their combined might not outward, but inward, to rend the very empire they coveted. A betrayal that drowned golden spires in the divine river of ichor.
All the carnage. All the destruction. Wrought before my very eyes. The horror was not merely in the scale, but in the instrument. The HEKA. My creations. Forged not in malice, but for advancement; tools to sculpt mountains, to calm storms, to heal wounds that rent the sky. Tempered for justice; blades meant to sever chains of oppression, shields to guard the innocent and lowly. Conceived in peace, instruments to bridge gaps between realms, to weave understanding where only suspicion grew. Yet, grasped by hands steeped in greed, they became engines of torment. The HEKA that could mend bones sundered souls.Weapons that could summon light ignited funeral pyres for continents. That could command the seas drowned civilizations. Each glorious purpose twisted, inverted, used to INFLICT PAIN and CAUSE GRIEF on a scale that scarred the cosmos. I, HOGREGORON, the Maker, watched. Helpless, filled with regrets. My forge-fire cooled to chambers of shame.
When the dust settled, eons later, it was not dust, but the ASHES OF GODS. The thunder fell silent. The axes lay shattered. The crystal cities were glass tombs on ocean floors. The celestial harmonies were discordant echoes. The vibrant courts of Devas and Orishas were silent sepulchers. No triumphant paeans echoed. No victors raised banners on the scorched and sundered earth. Only silence, thick and suffocating, broken by the mournful wind whistling through the skeletal remains of Yggdrasil, through the broken columns of Olympus, through the drowned halls of Atlantis. NO WINNERS. NONE VICTORIOUS.
I stood alone. HOGREGORON. The Last. The Remnant. Upon a plain that stretched into desolation, where once vibrant realms had pulsed with divine energy, now only CHAOS reigned; a landscape twisted by final, cataclysmic magics, raw and weeping. No survivors.
