The Movers & Shakers of Éran
From Eran
The Mover and Shakers of Éran
What follows is a description of the most powerful beings active in Éran today. In Éran, unlike say Forgotten Realms where every major city has his own archwizard, the few powerful ones have a fate intimately tied to the history and development of Éran and none can deny the impact they have on the world and the responsibility that comes with it. Some of them may seem extremely powerful for a low-magic world, but these are in a sense, a step above NPCs. They are guardians or conquerers of the world and have been so for centuries (some millenia) because they at the best at what they do. As such, some of them are perhaps closer to being demi-gods than humans (Nayavi and the Triad of Celene are good examples of this).
Nayavi - The Blue Queen, Witch of the Amrê
In the Great Forest of Amrê, rumours have it that the forest is presided over by a powerful witch who holds the entire forest as her domain. The notorious but rarely seen Blue Queen of the Amrê remains an enigma to both the elves and phaerie that live in the forest. Though all phaerie revere her and acknowledge her rule thanks to her Sylvan Crown and the work she has done to protect them, few know her true origin.
Nayavi is probably the singlemost powerful being active on Éran and arguably the greatest seer ever to walk on Theras. Born almost 10.000 years ago, the princess daughter to a grey elven king and the matriarch of the mysterious Idyuni lineage, a special phaerie bloodline among the elves, to whom were granted extraordinary powers if divination, seeing and memory, Nayavi was prophesised as a guardian of the world from her very birth. That she would continue to do so today, no one anticipated. There is very little she does not know of, both presently as well as the past on Éran. She has inherited the memories of her Idyuni ancestors and remembers back even to the first Gathering. Even the future she can see into with strong accuracy. In 7380 BC, she broke both the purity of the royal bloodline as well as that of the Idyuni by marrying the human emperial heir of Isandor, Mendor, and thereby became queen of the great human empire, soon giving birth to her only son Kanto, the first wizard-king of Isandor.
Her marriage changed the fate of Isandor forever as she worked tireslessly to strengthen the relations between the elves and Isandor, resulting in the elves sharing their millenia of magical knowledge with their human counterparts, enabling them to reach heights they could only have dreamed of before. For nearly 2000 years, the Queen Mother was revered as the Great Ambassador of Isandor, never forgetting that when she married the emperor, she married into his empire as well. By 5500 BC, having already watched her last blood descendant die childless centuries before, she withdrew from human affairs and disppeared from the Isan records, disenchanted with the mortality of human life. Though still a venerated figure among the elves, she was still not 'one of them' having married a human. At 2500 years, extremely old even for an elf, she disappeared from the elven kingdoms to rest in Arvandor.
What happened there is known only Nayavi, but she appeared shortly after on the astral plane, eternal rest denied her, and set out to travel the extra-planar dimensions. She returned to Éran about 500 years after her disappearance, preferring to live in obscurity. Shortly after her return, she somehow got her hands on the ancient artifact The Sylvan Crown and three of the legendary Elementary Rings. With the Crown in her possesion, she adopted the mantle of Queen of the Phaeries (herself having phaerie blood), thus becoming the first phaerie queen not of pure phaerie decent. Some 40 years later, she donned her most powerful item, The Seer's Necklace, but whether she crafted itself, was granted it by some diety, or found it somewhere on the planes is unknown, but she is the only one known to ever have worn it. After the end of the First Era she settled in the Amrê Forest and claimed the entire western parts as the domain of the phaeries, thus giving rise to the myth of the mysterious Blue Queen, the Witch of the Amrê.
The phaeries' loyalty to their queen is unswerving. To most of them, she is timeless deity and protector of the phaerie, a manifestation of nature itself. Having worn the crown for over 7000 years and guarded them unfailingly throughout this time, it is understandable they might think so. Only the rarest and elder few are even aware that others have worn the crown before her and the even rarer few who can actually remember these times happily concede that they have never had a stronger and wiser Queen.
Though Nayavi's primary objective is her obligations to the phaerie, she is also one of the greatest guardians of the balance in Éran. Thanks to her powers of divination, she is always aware of major events unfolding on Éran and probably only the gods themselves have a greater awareness of the cosmic perspective these unfold in. Though she prefers to work behind the scenes, Nayavi's hand has prevented many disasters from taking places in Éran, without anyone ever knowing it. She was one of the major factors behind the fall of Aztlor in the First Era, and through her cunning plans, she managed to save the phaeries from the extinction Aztlor's schemes intended. And when Zoryl attempted to duplicate Aztlor's ritual for omnipotence, she ensured the mage guilds obtained the knowledge neccesary to stop him. She likewise had a strong (though quite invisible) presence in the formation of the Great Towers of the western mage guilds and continues to walk the halls of the towers freely and unseen today. All the while, she takes great care to ensure that as few as possible ever know of her doings. Nayavi found out long ago that anonymity usually gives the most freedom to act.
The Seer's Necklace - A delicate little object, the necklace is a skyblue diamond, with delicate ribbonds of silver wrapped to form a sphere around it, resting in a small silver chain. It grants the wearer extraordinary powers of seeing and divination.
Zoryl - The Deceiver
Perhaps the most powerful wizard of the third age, Zoryl has been a virtual ever present force in the history of Éran throughout the modern era, though few mentions have been made of him in the records. The old Isan wizard has always preferred to pull the threads behind the scenes, unseen, always lurking in the shadows of history. He has been a shadowy presence in the courts of most Brennae emperors and walked to halls of all the guild towers freely. Even in the demi-human realms has the deceiver managed to spins his intrigues and plots for power from time to time over the centuries.
The one time he did display his power for all to see in the Third Magewar (and even this, was nothing more than a deceptive ploy for an even greater plot), it led to his undoing. Zoryl survived nonetheless and and has existed since as a non-corporeal entity trapped inside his old secret fortress inside the lonely Mount Xanor, that functions like a gigantic magic jar, albeit a hermetically sealed one, his own protective magics keeping him imprisoned there. Though his influence on Éran today is severely limited, he keeps monitoring events to the best of his ability as they unfold on Éran. He has learned to project small shades of his beings outside his prison, but they contain only a fraction of his power and are quite taxing. He has managed to lure a few people inside Mount Xanor over the centuries in the hopes of possessing them, but to no avail. The nature of his being, as a result of the spells that nearly destroyed him were it not for his magic jar contingency, immediately devoured all lifeforce and vitality in their bodies, leaving him with nothing more than shattered corpses to possess. If Zoryl were to take physical form, he would need to devour thousands before his being was saturated enough to avoid destroying his body within minutes. And yet, as long as he has not found a receptory body to posess, he remains a prisoner of his own devices. It is a challenge Zoryl, in the 400 years since his imprisonment, has not been able to overcome yet.
Yarzul - The Sleeper of the Ages
Known to most as the ruthless undead wizard ruler of the dark lands of Rosgorth, the story of Yarzul is one of the longest running tragic sagas recorded in the history of Isandor.
Varran - The Grey
Varran lives in a forest tower deep in the X. He is one of the most knowledgeable people in Éran and has connections everywhere. His vast knowledge and ability to use that to his own advantage probably makes him more dangerous than his vast magical powers. Were it not for his lust for (magical) power and knowledge and his willingness to do everything to gain it, he would probably be true neutral, as he prefers to keep things balanced in the world, and he works extensively to that end, although he always prefers to work behind the scenes.
Varran is one of the most knowlegeable people in Éran when it comes to the more unknown fields of magic. He is an expert in the art of meta-magic, and currently dabbles with wild magic in order to explore its full potential.
Though he has declared himself independent of the guilds, he does from time to time involve himself with them and is not an unknown figure in the towers.
Laceila - High Court Mage
Laceila is the high court wizard of the elven kingdom of XXX and part of the almost as mysterious and enigmatic Triad of Celene, a circle of the most powerful elven magic-users dedicated to watching over and protecting the elven race.
Gretzl - The Prince of Entropy
CE - Demon Class: Wizard: lvl 28
Gretzl was summoned to Theras in his true form by Zoryl during the Third Magewar as part of the Chaos Horde. Son of Qruol'kla, one of the main Lords of Hell, Greztl's power and appearance in his true form was kept secret from Zoryl, in order for him to marshall an invasion on his own after the Third Magewar. Gretzl has been working towards this aim ever since.
Secret History: Unknown even to himself, Greztl is actually Aztlor, who survived the Day of Dread by escaping to a secret demi-plane of his own making, though incapable of leaving. Spending thousands of years in his own nothingness and slowly but surely, Aztlor became raging insane. When Zoryl attempted to duplicate his old master's ritual and become omnipotent, part of Aztlor's essence, fused with the lifeforce of slain phaerie spirits through his necromantic power, was released. Taking posession of a human host soon after, he soon realised like Zoryl, that his lifeforce consumed his hosts within minutes of him posessing it. He soon stumbled upon Greztl and took possession of his true form, which proved to be a vessel capable of containing his energies. So devastating was the battle between the demon lord and the weakened shade that their minds fused for a brief moment before Aztlor emerged victorious, but heavily damaged. He had lost all memories of his past except for the days leading up to the battle and though he knew he was not Greztl, Greztl's memories was all he was left with. He has kept up the appearance of being Greztl in order to retain the considerable power afforded to him by his 'father', but secretly plots to destroy him and cast of all ties with the entropic dimension. Already one of the most powerful beings on Theras, if he were to rediscover his memories along with his stark insanity and supplement his power with his arcane mastery accumulated through the millenia , Aztlor would surely once again prove to be the greatest threat known to Theras.
Aztlor originally hailed from Ranadar over 10.000 years ago and was an apprentice to Rai-veyr, the First Necromancer known in Éran and one of the original Sorcerer-Kings of that dark empire. Centuries later, it was he who tutored Brahliss in the dark arts of necromancy before he was betrayed by the Twin King. Imprisoned in suspended animation, he slept for over 3000 years before he was released, as Isandor approached its dark age. A thousand years later, the most accomplished necromancer the world had seen since Rai-Veyr himself and possibly the oldest sorcerer alive at the time was appointed emperor of Isandor, and from there conceived his quest for omnipotency that would eventually bring about the downfall of the great magical empire.
