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Author Topic: The Treachery of the Black Rose  (Read 795 times)

ClosedGame

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The Treachery of the Black Rose
« on: January 22, 2020, 02:07:12 AM »
Around the campfire at Degannwy Redoubt, as told by Isobel di Mare, Solamnic Knight, Order of the Sword - later written down by same, and left for all to read on the explicit request of Redoubt Command.

"Thus follows the account of Lord Loren Soth, Knight of the Rose and his fall from grace and honour, as told to all squires and full knights of the three orders of Solamnic knighthood, the Crown, the Sword and the Rose respectively.

Three centuries hence, Loren Soth was known by the people of Solamnia as a true hero and a great man. His good deeds were innumerable, his courage indisputable and his loyalty unshakeable. Many owed their lives to his valiant actions, and he rose swiftly and steadily through the ranks of the knighthood, until he was admitted to the Order of the Rose, the most exalted of all Solamnic knights. Many knights who reached this vaunted position are past their physical prime, leaving the majority of fighting to younger, more impetuous men ... for at that time, only men were ever admitted to the knighthood ... of the Order of the Crown in particular, and to a lesser extent, the Order of the Sword.

But Soth was still easily young and spry enough to do his own patrolling, and he gathered around him a large following of truly loyal men ... conscripts, men-at-arms and even full knights of lesser standing, all willing to serve under his command.

While undertaking one such patrol, Soth's fate would be sealed, though at the time, none could have known.

While traveling the roads, he and his men came upon a group of Silvanesti elves, the most highborn of all the elven races of Krynn. They were on pilgrimage, but had been beset by foul ogres, who were intent on killing the fair folk, one and all. Spurring his horse forthwith, Soth charged into their midst and, with his men, killed most of the ogres and put the rest to a panicked rout. Most of the elves had been saved, but there were both dead and wounded despite the best efforts of the knights.

One of the wounded was a young maiden. Isolde, her name would turn out to be, and she was so fair of visage and, as it would later turn out, so innocent of being, that Soth was instantly smitten.

Carrying her on his horse back to his fortress at Dargaard Keep, he saw to it that she received healing and aid, and that she had the best surroundings in which to recover from her ordeal. Lovestruck as he was, he began wooing her almost immediately.

But in doing so, Soth forsook his sworn duty the first time.

All knights of Solamnia live by the Oath and the Measure. The Measure consists of thirty seven tomes, each of roughly three hundred pages, outlining proper living for a knight of any of the orders. It governs all aspects of everyday life, and is so complex that almost no one can truthfully say to fully know the Measure by heart. It is an ideal to strive for, however.

But the Oath is simple.

"Est Solarus oth Mithas".

"My Honour is my Life".

Loren Soth was a married man when he brought Isolde to his home, and not only that, but his wife, Korinne, a good woman of quality, was heavily pregnant with their child. To woo another while married is not an honourable act for a knight. Faithfulness is expected, required and demanded. Yet Soth barely spared her a glance from that day forward as he instead focused all his charms on his new paramour. In this, Isolde was more innocent than one might think. She was young, inexperienced in ways of the heart and swept away by a mighty knight who had saved her life, and who ... at first ... stayed within the boundaries of propriety.

But then Korinne gave birth to a boy.

He was horribly disfigured and misshapen, and Soth was furious, blaming his wife for this. There are numerous theories, most of them stating that either the child was a spawn of the abyss, or that he was cursed by the gods to show the horrific inner nature of his father's soul, but neither sound plausible. In all likelihood, he was simply a disfigured child, such as are born from time to time. But to Soth, it was unacceptable.

He murdered both his son and his wife, and then claimed they had both died in childbirth.

But rumours of foul deeds began circulating almost immediately, and they would eventually reach the ears of ranking knights of the Rose in Palanthas.

Six months after Korinne's death, Loren Soth married Isolde who, at this point, was already pregnant with his child.

Shortly thereafter, Knights of the Rose turned up in force at Dargaard Keep, arresting Soth for the murder of Korinne and his son.

But while this was taking place, to the east in the great city of Istar, horrific acts were taking place. Istar as a city and nation was ruled by the High Priests of Paladine, the foremost and preeminent god of good on Krynn. These Priest Kings did not pass their titles on to heirs by lineage, but by choice as new High Priests would be chosen upon the death of serving ones. Istar was a bastion of Paladine's teachings as a result, but over the years, because of the boundless fallibility of man, arrogance had taken hold within the nation itself. Believing themselves morally superior to all others simply because of their religious adherence and the nation they called home, Istarians grew increasingly conceited, and none more so than the Priest Kings who preached this superiority from the pulpit, and who instructed every priest of the faith in Istar to do the same.

Eventually, one man's arrogance and conceit would inevitably tumble into outright madness, and a great ritual was planned. A ritual invoking Paladine himself, not to humbly plead with the Great Dragon, but to demand of him.

To make a demand ... of any god or goddess ... as a mortal, was the highest and most profound sacrilege, but the Priest King's madness drove him to demand that Paladine, to ensure the ultimate victory of good over evil, simply destroy all things evil upon Ansalon ... as defined by the Priest King.

Thereby placing the mortal servant of the deity in a position of authority above the deity himself.

A higher form of blasphemy could not be imagined.

But in Dargaard Keep, none knew of this travesty yet, as Loren Soth was placed under arrest by his peers and brought to the city of Palanthas to stand trial for murder.

The trial was quick and just. The evidence against Soth was presented, he was convicted and sentenced to death. He was found to have violated the Oath and the Measure, and that was to be executed shortly thereafter.

Not swiftly enough, however.

Soths men, loyal to him still, broke him out of his imprisonment and allowed him to escape back to Dargaard Keep, chased all the way by the Orders, seeking his death. But Dargaard is the strongest fortress on Krynn, and was even then. Investing the keep would have cost so many lives that the Orders decided that containment was the better option. If Soth was contained in Dargaard, he could rot in his own misery, and at first that is precisely what happened. Indolent and unwilling to accept his guilt, he sulked and moped in his great hall as time passed.

Isolde, still pure of heart and untainted by Soth's increasing evil, gave birth at this time, to Soth's child ... another son.

He was physically perfect, a half-elven boy who rested soundly upon his mother's arm and Soth, for a time, had his spirits lifted. But soon, they would sink again, as no change to his situation happened.

His wife was the person who came the closest to saving him. Once out of bed and able to move around once again, she went down on her knees before the icon of Mishakal, lady of Mercy, wife of Paladine, the most benevolent and kind of all goddesses of Krynn. Isolde beseeched the deity to show her a way for her husband to redeem himself ... to reclaim his honour, and to be forgiven whatever crimes he might have committed.

So profound was her plea, so deep was her love for this unworthy man, and so fundamentally decent was her soul, that Mishakal was moved to act. While the gods and goddesses were witnessing the preparations of the great ritual in Istar, they also refused to take direct actions. These were the actions of men, and men should be responsible for their actions.

But Mishakal granted Isolde a terrifying vision of what was to come if the Priest King was not stopped. And she showed Isolde what could be done to prevent the disaster.

Lord Soth would have his one chance at redemption.

He would have to ride hard ... it is a long, long way from Dargaard Keep to Istar ... and he would have to confront the Priest King himself with his arrogance, his hubris and yes ... his evil ... right there, in the great temple. If necessary, he would have to strike the Priest King down.

Even if that would result in his own death.

This act would be the salvation of Krynn, prevent a catastrophe of unfathomable proportions and the redemption of Loren Soth. And so, Isolde went to her husband and beseeched him to act. She told him of the vision and for the first time since his return to Dargaard Keep, he was his old self ... prepared to act valorously and with expedient elan. And so he rose from his sulking and indolence, gathered his two most loyal knights to his side, and rode out.

Whether by divine will or unbelievable skill, he broke through towards Istar, and rode as hard as he could, for the road was very, very long indeed.

But fate would have it otherwise. Fate ... or Takhisis, the Dark Lady, ruler of the gods of evil ... would.

For on the road to Istar, Soth came upon the very same group of Silvanesti pilgrims as before, nigh a year since their first encounter ... and this time, their message was not one of kindness and hope, but of deceit, treachery and pain.

Isolde, they told Soth, had not born his child, but the child of another. Unfaithful, they called her. A strumpet, a harlot, no better than a lady of the night ... or so they said.

For how could they possibly have known? Had they been at Dargaard? Had they seen her since she was taken there to be healed?

No.

In truth, if these were even the same elves, they were certainly under the influence of Takhisis herself, weaving the skeins of fate and pulling on the threads of the tapistry of the world to set in motion her own plans for the downfall of Paladine, her eternal and mortal enemy.

But Soth ... a fallen knight, forsaken by honour and dignity, was all too ready to see betrayal and lies everywhere ... and he took them at their word.

Turning his horse, he rode back to Dargaard Keep, abandoning his quest.

And in doing so, he doomed his world to a dreadful fate. For as he galloped through the front gates of his fortress, the Priest King of Istar ascended to the altar and in a display of ostentatious and perfidious magics, he invoked the name of Paladine and made his unholy demand. So far had he sunk into depravity that he did not realize that to destroy all evil, he had become the vilest of villains himself. And he had taken his city and nation with him in his obscene fall from grace.

The Gods had no recourse but to act.

To destroy Istar and the unholy sacrilege it stood for, they hurled upon the city a flaming mountain, obliterating those living there and sinking the ruined detritus that remained deep into the bowels of the world. Waters ... washed in. In a deluge of godly proportions, it mixed with the red soil of Istar, to create the Blood Sea, thusly named for its colour.

It is still there ... a churning, hellish vortex at its centre.

No one knows how many died. Not really. But Krynn shook to its foundations as the gods, in disgust, turned away from the world of men, elves, dwarves, gnomes, kender and all the sundry other races left to rebuild some semblance of a life from the wreckage around them.

And mortals turned from the gods.

In Dargaard Keep, as the world shook, a fire broke out, amidst the furious accusations of infidelity that Soth had leveled at Isolde. Isolde, for her part, beseeched him to listen to her, professed her complete innocense, grieved for his failure in his assigned quest ... and then finally, as she was cut off from rescue by falling, burning timbers, she pleaded with him to save their son. Holding the infant boy out for Soth to take, saying that he, regardless of what Soth might wrongfully think of her, had no blame ... but Soth would not listen.

Having betrayed his first wife, having betrayed his knightly Oath, having betrayed the people of Ansalon and of all Krynn, having betrayed his second wife ... he now betrayed a helpless infant and refused to take him, to save him from the flames.

Finally realizing the insanity and the evil before her, Isolde's heart broke, and as the flames began to lick up her body, still desperately trying to shield her son from the invitable, she spoke her final words at the man she had loved so dearly and who had proved so unworthy of such a gift:

"You will live a lifetime of misery and pain, agony and horror for every life your deeds have cost today!"

And in the Abyss ... Takhisis, just waiting for her chance to exert some small measure of final influence upon the world ... listened to this hateful curse, and empowered it.

Isolde died. Her son died.

Lord Loren Soth died.

But come nightfall the following day, he rose again ... a charred, blackened corpse within his armour, darkened by soot, all gilding and finery burnt away and melted ... with but the outline of a once golden rose on his breastplate, now black with charcoal and malice, was all that remained.

There he stood.

The first and most powerful Death Knight of Krynn, loyal servant of Takhisis, doomed to walk the world until all else is cinders and ash, dust and desolation ...

He has hated the living ever since. None more so than the elves of Silvanost.

Dead with him are banshees ... the spirits of the elves who lied to him about Isolde's fidelity. Skeletal remains of his men-art-arms and conscripts still fight for him, and lesser death knights answer his call. But none rival him in power.

Red dragons cower in his presence. Blues retreat in deference. All others simply keep their distance out of fear. His blade never fails to kill. He can slay even the mightiest foe with but a word. Even the fearless fear him ... kender, the one race to have no concept of terror ... are nervous when he is near.

The dead obey him, knowing their master even if they themselves are mindless husks.

He cannot be slain. Only driven away. He can be held at bay long enough that he grows bored and goes back to his keep to sulk and begrudge the world his own follies. But as long as Takhisis empowers his curse ... he will always ... always ... rise again, even if struck down by the greatest magics or by the bravest warriors.

And yet we must fight him.

We must hold the line long enough for him to grow bored with the attempt.

And then take the offensive to reclaim what he has taken. We do that ... or we all perish.

It is a good cause. Worth fighting for.

Worth dying for.

Est Solarus oth Mithas.

By my hand, so signed and attested for veracity

Isobel di Mare
Solamnic Knight
Order of the Sword"