End of Time

The Outer Planes

Word runs through the Planes, leaving most settlements in turmoil. The Devourer of Worlds runs amok. A creature most ancient, it puzzles and frightens exemplars and powers alike. The Devourer appears to be immune to any kind of divination and scrying attempts. Wherever it goes time and space suffer terrible distortions that could send the unawary berk tumbling through different planes and eras. It appears to have no definite form, but changes constantly, emanating primal wild magic.

Graybeards affirm that the creature known as the Devourer of Worlds appears every sixty seven years, remaining active for a period that can vary between a few days and several years, before vanishing for another sixty seven years. When active, it goes on a wild rampage, phasing in and out of random Outer and Prime Material Planes, laying waste to entire civilizations that may be in its path.

In Sigil, a bizarre prophet announces the end of times. He would be but one among crowds of new era prophets if it weren't for a few peculiar traits. First of all, his appearance can easily make him stand out. Extremely pale, he has slightly pointed ears and his head is bald. He doesn't wear any type of clothing and his whole body is covered with strange alien symbols, painted in red. But his most striking feature are his eyes, or the lack of them. His eyebrows are sewed, leaving his eyes forever closed and apparently useless. The nameless prophet has been been appearing from time to time, for the last sixty years or so. His predictions always hit the mark and his cunning always kept him out of the Harmonium reach. He has been quite active lately, speaking about the end of time as we know it.

A shadow stirs in Khin-Oin the Wasting Tower. Considered mad and unpredictable even by yugoloth standards, the ultroloth Shodree is feared by his kind. Some whisper that even Mydianchlarus prefers to avoid dealing with him. Little is known about him. Traffic of information is his business and black magic and bribery are his tools. Every now and again he vanishes from Khin-Oin, sometimes for decades. He is often seen with Xilandra the night hag and Motur, his euphoric imp familiar, renowned as a chess master and hopelessly addicted to hallucinogenic substances.

Shodree was last seen dealing with an undead entity that calls itself Death. While most sages in the know consider the undead being more than slightly insane, no one is brave enough to contest the creature's claim to be death itself. One can't deny that Death is an immensily powerful necromancer. The limits of its might are yet to be tested. No one knows where it dwells, but sometimes it can be seen in the Lower Planes or the Prime Material. Death is served by an even stranger entity, the Phantom Train. Some speculate whether the Phantom Train is sentient or not, but few doubt that it is alive , whether that concept is fit for an undead being or not. It travels through Prime Material Worlds, emerging from its ehtereal borders to snatch the souls of the dead before they travel to their resting place and depart with them. The train is managed by ghosts and fueled with the rotting corpses of zombies. A band of melancholic spectres can always be seen playing funeral melodies within the carriages of the train. The fiends that witnessed Shodree's encounter with Death claim that they were in the middle of a blasted plain in Oinos. Shodree watched as Motur and Death played a bizarre chess game, using real creatures in a giant board.

The dark of it- Sixty seven years ago the Devourer of Worlds attacked two places of importance. First, it ravaged petitioner settlements in Ysgard. The Norse Pantheon united its most powerful proxies to deal with the threat. In Thor's halls they prepared for the impending conflict. Their leader, his original name long forgotten, prepared a powerful spell that he hoped would seal the creature in a magical prison. The details of that epic battle are lost to most records, but only the leader of the team of proxies survived. The Devourer of Worlds vanished for sixty seven years after that and the proxy turned stag on his patrons, fleeing to Xaos in the Outlands, where he became known as the bitter and excentric Sculptor of Golems. The real dark of it is that the Sculptor saw a most mysterious and disturbing being that day. A lithe figure of undefined gender clad in seamless black leather with both its eyes and mouth sewed and forever closed. It never spoke or moved, it merely stood there, its body twisted in an awkward angle. And the Devourer of Worlds was no more.

Shodree receives advice and information from a foul and disease-stricken fiend, most ancient than all others. A demented Baernoloth' They are in search of the lost fragments of the Alef, also known as the Language Primeval. In the last few centuries Shodree visited lost old ruins in the second layer of Pandemonium, long forgotten dead god isles in the Astral and a colossal creature known as the Embryonite in the Ethereal, among other places. Events that could shake the Outer Planes in their entirety would soon begin to unfold if Shodree's patron had access to the Language Primeval.

Unknown to Shodree, the Prophet of Sigil has access to one of the fragments of the lost Alef. Parts of it are inscribed on his own skin. The prophet actually dwells in a demiplane known as the Forbidden Citadel, one of the greatest focus of magic in the entire multiverse. The Citadel was raised by the Ancient Brethren, the ones who first mastered the Language Primeval. They left the demiplane soon after, leaving their descendants in charge. Sixty seven years ago the Citadel was entirely destroyed by the Devourer of Worlds, the only structure that survived the assault without any harm was the central tower, that goes up into the sky as far as the eye can see. The prophet was the only survivor. He believes that his life was spared by a strange being clad in black leather with both eyes and mouth sewed close. The being didn't move or talk, but with its appearance the Devourer of Worlds left. After that the prophet sewed his own eyebrows, permanently rendering his eyes useless. Ever since, he began to have visions about the past, the present and the future.

The Forbidden Citadel lies in ruins, surrounded by a strange forest, haunted by spirits and ancient illusions. Its central tower, a great focus of arcane magic, has its inner walls inscribed with alien symbols, the same that mark the prophet's body. Its colossal stairway shoots up into infinity. Three different forces are aware of the Citadel's existence and crave its powers. Graz'zt often sends his thralls to discover the location of the site. The Planar Inquisition serves as a facade for a cabal of dark wizards that act as witch hunters but are actually after arcane power for themselves. Alandelon is a golden lord of Sigil, clad in purple and gold. He is an exile of the Forbidden Citadel, he was banned before the arrival of the Devourer of Worlds for killing a couple of lovers out of jealously in the forest surrouding the citadel. He struck a pact with dark powers of Baator and now wants to conquer the Forbidden Citadel and its secrets.

The Prime Material

Terra. A Prime Material World ravaged by a forgotten event of cataclismic proportions. The ancient ruins of the long gone Elders still stand here and there, their lasting legacy. The most impressive of those is Mathghamhna the College of Wizardry. Run by Japheth and the Arcane Order of Enchantment & Exposition, the college is the greatest authority in Terra when it comes to the arcane arts. Mathghamhna is composed of three gigantic and massive towers that are interconnected and appear to have been built out of entire mountains. The Arcane Order maintains friendly relations with its neighbors, a mine of dwarves and a village of tinker gnomes.

In a distant corner of Terra exists a strange land, the Island of the Serpent. A highly magical wooded area, it is the home of a primitive culture of humans that worship an entity known as the Serpent. They are ruled by a cloaked figure that they revere, known to them as Diabolique the Daughter of the Serpent. Diabolique's face is never seen, covered by a silvered glass mask. It is unknown whether she is actually a female, but it's a known fact that she works powerful magic, being an expert in divination, illusion and mirror magic.

The dark of it- The Elders of Terra and the Ancient Brethren are one and the same. They once used the full power of the Language Primeval against a fallen power that threatened their land, calling forth the Dragon of Shades against their foe. The Dragon defeated their enemy, but also turned against them. The few survivors fled to the Outer Planes, leaving behind one of the fragments of the Language Primeval in the forgotten catacombs of Mathghamhna.

Japheth found that fragment and now hunts the rest of the lore that can give him full access to the Alef. His emissaries in the Planes are three witch sisters collectively known as the Triad. Nahemah, a linguist, is the eldest. Her sisters are Luana and Cinelli. They have been on the track of the second fragment of Alef ever since they met Veric, a bleaker historian that was fleeing Sigil, chased by an ultroloth known as Shodree. Veric died soon after, in deep fits of melancholy, but not before she told them about Sigil and the Planes, as well as her own studies about a race of beings she called the Ancient Brethren, that built many wonderful sites such as the Forbidden Citadel in the Ethereal and the Observatorium in the Astral. Nahemah believes these Ancient are actually the Elders that managed to escape Terra and settle in the Planes beyond. The witch sisters have been watched by dark fiends ever since their arrival in Sigil.

The real dark of Diabolique is that she descends from a long line of extremely powerful arcane conjurers that colonized the Island of the Serpent, demanding worship from the locals. The natives didn't abandon their ancestral worship of the Serpent, but saw the new arrivals as the sons and daughters of their patron. Diabolique's ancestors captured the Great Unicorn of the Isle, binding him magically and drawing power from his very existence ever since. At some point in her life Diabolique was kidnapped by the Nerra, the mirror people. In a complex plot she managed to turn the Nerra against her fellow sorcerers in the Isle, only to backstab them later. When all was done, she was the sole survivor and undisputable ruler of the Isle of the Serpent. Diabolique's stay in the Plane of Mirrors is unrecorded, but it is known that she returned as an Incantifier, avid to drink all the magic in the entire multiverse.

The Inner Planes

Somewhere in the Deep Ethereal they sleep and dream. The entire race of the Terithran, strange humanoid creatures that only wake up when strong magic is cast somewhere close to them. They appear to hate magic and its users, attacking them when they are awoken. Recently more and more Terithran are seen awake. Mysterious robed figures travel between the Inner Planes and the Ethereal, while a disturbing being was seen watching it all from afar. The being, that appears to be a naked five years old girl with green hair and eyes devoid of pupils, doesn't speak nor move. Those who have tried contact with her were utterly obliterated by primal energy.

In the Paraelemental Plane of Magma it rests. The greatest of all mysteries. The Monolith. It sits there and it waits. It waits for the End of Time.

The dark of it- The mysterious robed figures travelling between the Inner Planes and the Ethereal are the members of an obscure sect of excentric wizards known as the Primals. They have discovered an unsettling dark about the Terithran and now they want to awaken the entire race by casting a single epic spell in their domain. They have been on the edge because of the strange girl that watches them from afar and more than a little paranoid. Soon they will have the power to put their plans into motion.

Meanwhile, a lonely and ill Terithran shifts uncomfortably in his sleep, troubled by his nightmares. He dreams about a creature most frightening, made of raw chaos and wild magic. He calls it the Devourer of Worlds.

The End of Time

This is it. The Great Unknown. It shouldn't be called the End of Time though, for it is both the Beginning and the End. The beginning of time and space, as well as their end. A creature used to rustic concepts such as sight, smell and form would be at a loss here. Here is Nothing at its very core, shrouded by blackness and silence. Every possible configuration of time and space come together here to begin a new multiverse, that will eventually collapse into itself and return here when it ends. One with enough willpower could, in theory, forge his own multiverse from this place. From here one can access different realities. Imagination is the only limit. Do all these multiverses and realities exist beforehand or do they just spring to life fully formed when one enters them' This question is devoid of meaning, as are all questions in this place.

But behold. Alien entities lurk just around the corner. The first is a lithe figure of undefined gender, clad in a suit of seamless black leather, with slightly pointed ears and pale skin. Its eyes and mouth are sewed close, rendered forever useless. It doesn't move nor speak. The second has the form of a very young girl, undressed and with tangled green hair. Her eyes have no pupils. She doesn't move nor speak. The third is composed of two humanoid torsos that connect with each other just below the waist to form a grotesque creature. One torso is completely black, the other completely white. And it moves , propelled by its four black and white arms. Does it speak though'

The Monolith is believed to exist here, for those who can find it. Or perhaps this is the Monolith. Maybe the Monolith exists in all multiverses and all realities, the point that connects them all to the Beginning and the End. But since questions and theories have no meaning here, speculation is useless. Besides, our primitive comprehension of the cosmos is too limited by the concepts of time and space to be able to grasp the true secrets of this place, known simply as the End of Time.

OOC: See also The First Creature and Ur'rdrasul the Black Manor for more.