The New Guard

The Five Princes in Shadow

The Five Princes in Shadow came from elsewhere and if they know their origins, they do not speak of it.

Himelin of the Silver Moon is the leader of the Five Princes and if they were to recognize a king, it would be him. They will not, and should one attempt to crown themself the King of Tir an Scathanna, they would make war against each other. Himelin's colors are black, red, and gold, his device is a silver hawk on a black banner with red fringe. He holds ancient Doomguard as his citadel, and the Court of Shadows is held in what was once the great hall of the Undead King. He has two 'cousins' or Lesser Princes of Shadow who had submitted to him, making his claim the strongest, and his fortress the most guarded and with the fullest strength of arms. The elder is Auldred Gesargent and is the Castellan and siege-master of Doomguard. His colors are black and silver and his device is a silver skull on a black field. It is now trimmed in red as homage to his lord, Himelin. The younger is Carminus the Bloody and is more a beast than a man, and only the strong hand and sorcery of Himelin can contain Carminus.

Regal of the Amaranthine Dawn, or the Prince of Hearts, is the second of the Five Princes and is easily the most charismatic, charming, attractive, and all of those other handsome words for flawless men with nary a fault in their appearance. His colors are purple and gold, and his device is a golden phoenix on a purple banner. He has taken Zizrigal Castle as his seat, and its former master has been defeated and sent into exile, his adoptive daughter Beatrix now a servant of the new Lord of Zizrigal. Within this fortress, Regal has made a great effort to bring the artisans, craftsmen, and other creative peoples of Scathanna together, and in doing so is turning Zizrigal into a sort of dark university, or art gallery. He is served by a single lesser prince, Heyir Enett. Enett was a man of great learning and of a clerical persuasion, and a founder of libraries and centers of education, and he was also perversely attracted to the scholarly excesses of heresy, sedition, and terrorism, and there is some speculation that his subservience to Regal is a form of punishment and that Enett is responsible for the Prince's appearance.

Alocon the Cyclopean Herald, the Prince of Lightning, is the most magically potent of the Five Princes, easily outstripping the power of a liche but still somehow a living, breathing, mortal being. Part of his face is gone, destroyed in a magical accident, and now he wears a golden mask to cover the ruined flesh. His colors are red and blue, and his device is a single blue eye on a red field, the field covered in a fine tracery of sorcerous glyphs and runes. Following their arrival in Scathanna, Alocon took over Ashfall and the surrounding blighted forests and fens, as well as the nearby Thaludad Reverse Mountains, Zandrard Wastes, and retains a foothold on Mount Ruin. He is served by no lesser Princes, and instead keeps a powerful cabal of spellcasters he has dominated into his service.

Dravis Payne of the Midnight Silence, the Prince of Darkness, is the most shadowy of the Princes of Shadow. He has settled into the great fortress cathedral of Lichelight, on the edge of Mount Ruin, and technically holds the great seat of power in Tir an Scathanna. He got there first and killed anyone who approached him or his new keep with exceeding violence unless they were heralded, or invited. This is a huge source of hostility between Himelin and Dravis, to which Dravis simply replies, Be Faster Next Time. His colors are blue, red, and black, and his device is a skull with bat wings in silver, on a blue and red striped field. He has the red fringe indicating that he accepts Himelin and the First Prince among the Princes of Shadow, but has zero intention of surrendering Great Lichelight. He has also gathered lesser Princes to his side as well. Lesser Prince Mournfall is a master of necromancy, and has ensured that Lichelight is impressively guarded by a vast undead host. His colors are black and green, and his device is a black healer's staves crossed behind a black shield on a green field, trimmed in red. He is also served by the lesser Princes Esul and Etim, both of whom are shapeshifters. These twin-princes have neither colors nor devices, as they are doppelgangers, and employ such in their service.

There are Five Princes but the identity of the fifth prince is either yet to be determined, or he is operating on an exceptional level of secrecy.

The Goals of the Five

The Five Princes in Shadow are currently consolidating their power in Tir an Scathanna, and dealing with local opposition. It has been a long time since there was a serious threat in the Land of Shadows.

1. Create a Unified Front - Scathanna is a land of monsters, blasted wilderness, ruined lands, and spilling over with necromantic energy. While this might seem superficially a good thing for necromancers, in the greater scheme of things, this is a serious problem and manifestations of necrotic energy are the magical equivalent of gangrene and necrosis on a planar scale. The Princes have yet to sort out if the new center will be Lichelight or Doomguard.

2. Determine what is causing the Cosmic Disjunction. If possible, correct it.

3. Figure out what all these fucking dungeons are about, why are there so many, and why do they seem alive.

4. Determine what agency or force drew them to Cridhedun, and why.

5. Domination of the local plane if returning home is not possible.

Drama and Jazz

While not actually fighting each other, the Four out of Five Princes of Shadow are 100% not working together, they are not on the same program, and are despite the listed goals, not working towards those goals.

Siblings, amirite?

Himelin of the Silver Moon is focused on conquest, first of his brother Princes and Scathanna, and then the rest of the continent. The mysteries can be sorted out when there are no more border disputes

Regal of the Amaranthine Dawn is enraptured with the mutable beauty of the land and is playing the role of the worst tourist, taking things left and right and making a sort of museum/gallery of the things he is finding. This ranged from food and materials to an ever growing harem and collection of slaves.

Alocon the Cyclopean Herald is completely obsessed with the magical underpinnings of Cridhedun, and is spending more time delving into the lore of the dungeons than anything else.

Dravis Payne is expanding his influence through civilized means, infiltrating criminal guilds and organizations across the continent, identifying who the power players are, who is important and who is not, and what the lists of vendettas and feuds are in the region. He is also working to dominate the natural evil races of Cridhedun and is fascinated with the mutagenic evolution of goblins.

The Five Princes of Shadow are causing quite a commotion in Scathanna. The Old Guard of liches, dragonlords, and dungeon cults have had their collective asses handed to them, facing foes who are organized, well-armed, and well-armored. Each of the princes has a suit of magnificent armor, and their own exotic weapons, which are few things on the continent are prepared to face. Only strong magical armors have the power to resist Himelin's golden spear, Regal's crackling swords, Alocon's thundering voice and command of magic, or the terrible claws Dravis Payne swings with wild glee.

So What is Going on?

The Fifth Prince is what is going on, and the brothers count him among their number and leave an empty seat for him when they call a council because of the brothers he was accorded to be either the favorite or the most hated, depending on how much their father showed him favor. The fifth Prince has been missing for some years.

He's living near Terrasquestone these days and has been in the DungeonVerse for nearly fifty years. Cadant Hadramiel is considered to be an exemplary country lord. He keeps a modest estate outside of the boundaries of the Gyre's influence, maintains a small stable of skilled knights, and a collection of curiosities and artifacts he has found. The estate has a sanctum and laboratory that has a number of strange and wondrous devices of a cosmic nature. These artifacts are sensor apparatus and Cadant is trying to map out the boundaries of the Gyre, tracking essence density and complexity, and tracking another strange phenomenon. He seeks to understand this new place and hopes to find out why he has been brought here.

The Numinous Road wrapped itself around Cadant Hadramiel when he was 'shadow walking' between places, as the Princes of Shadow are able, and was brought to Cridhedun. The Road deposited him near Terrasquestone in an attempt to deal with that specific problem, with the mindless road recognizing the analytical nature of Cadant's mind and the potency of his will.  His apparati are detecting the movement of essence through the region, and he can use it to triangulate the position of dungeons, calculating their depth and power, as well as documenting the movement of the Numinous Road, though he doesn't know it by name.

This has been a rather pleasant diversion for Cadant as it has removed him from the fratricidal court of his father's favor as well and unburdening him of being a general, warlord, and breeder of warriors. He has been free to pursue other interests other than politics and war. He knows this time is over, because he is aware of his brother's appearance, though he only knows that Dravis Payne is present through the stories coming out of Lichelight. The same force that brought him is apparently impatient and brought more of his kin because he knows that when a prince vanishes, there generally is not an effort made to find and recover them. Almost every time a prince has vanished, it was for their own purposes and nothing else.

Cadant also has an idea of what the Great Disjunction is, and that it strongly involves Terrasquestone. The central axis of Cridhedun is being moved, rather like how the magnetic poles of the Earth move. This isn't the regular meandering of a few hundred feet within a general circle. The central axis has moved several miles away from the central massiv of Tir Artach and towards Terrasquestone. This has been causing earthquakes and avalanches in Tir Artach, and the overall trajectory of the realm through the astral sea is being shifted. Volcanic activity across the continent is up, wave activity is increased, and there are climatic shifts occurring.

What isn't obvious is that the central region of Cridhedun and Tir Lauchmhar are not really being affected by this. Their climate and geology are becoming more stable. The further one travels from this region, the more pronounced the problems become. In the echoes and islands of reality spawned off of Cridhedun, things are bad. Entire realms are being decimated with massive levels of volcanic activity, or sundering earthquakes, seasons magnified beyond imagination, or being stuck and not changing. There are realms where the Sun has been damaged, or its analog is being disrupted or destabilized.

Things are getting fucked, and Cadant isn't sure what he is supposed to do about it.