The sky had wept fire, they said, though no eye remained that could truly recall the sight. It had been millennia since The Shroudwake first marred the earth, an epoch lost to the fog of time, where truth mingled with legend until neither could be discerned from the other. What all could agree upon, however, was that the world before The Shroudwake no longer existed, and whatever existence followed was a mere shadow of its former self.
The Shroudwake began as a whisper—a tremor in the bones of the earth that grew into a chorus of calamity. From the ancient, sacred groves to the towering citadels of stone, every creature, great and small, felt the rumble beneath their feet, the quiver in the air. At first, it was the storms—tempests of such fury that the sky itself seemed to rend asunder, baring to the world the dark, hollow recesses of some ancient, forgotten abyss.
But it was not the storms that changed the world. No, it was what came after.
As the storms waned, leaving behind a world drenched and broken, the true horror began to unfold. From the gaping wounds in the sky and earth, a force emerged—a spectral, tumbling mass, as thin and fragile as the morning mist yet relentless as the tide. It rolled across the world, consuming everything in its path. Yet it was not a force of destruction but of transformation.
For days it spread, a veil that covered the world, not choking life from it, but altering it in ways no mind could comprehend. Where once stood grand forests, now twisted, monstrous thickets loomed, their branches writhing with a life that defied natural order. The seas churned with unnatural vortices, swallowing ships and beasts alike, only to spit them out transformed—creatures born of nightmare and shadow.
Weeks passed before the tumbling mass receded, evaporating into the ether from whence it came. The world, now swathed in an uneasy stillness, was left to reckon with the aftermath—a world irreversibly altered, a reality where nature's laws had been rewritten.
The first to notice were the hunters. They spoke of beasts no man had ever seen, creatures with exoskeletons as pale as bone, moving with a grace that belied their grotesque forms. Farmers, too, told tales of their lands overtaken by thorny, tentacled growths that pulsed with a malevolent life. Sailors returned from voyages with eyes wide in terror, recounting seas that had turned against them, vortexes that drank the oceans dry before their very eyes.
But the true horror was yet to reveal itself.
In time, the people of the world began to change. At first, it was subtle—a sharpening of senses, a hardening of skin. But soon, more drastic mutations began to surface. Men and women, once ordinary, found themselves blessed—or cursed—with abilities that defied reason. Some grew stronger, faster, more resilient. Others... changed beyond recognition, their bodies morphing into twisted caricatures of their former selves.
But all mutations, no matter how minor or severe, shared one common trait—immortality. Immortality. The word rolled off tongues with a mix of awe and dread. For with this unnatural gift came a terrible price. Death, it seemed, was no longer an end but a gateway to further transformation. Those who perished did not remain dead for long. Their bodies, infused with the essence of The Shroudwake, reanimated, adapting to the cause of their demise in ways both miraculous and monstrous.
Some returned with their minds intact, grateful for a second chance at life. Others were not so fortunate. As their bodies mutated further, their minds began to fray, giving way to base instincts and primal urges. Some became little more than beasts, their humanity stripped away with each successive death. And yet, they could not truly die—at least, not until their bodies could no longer sustain the relentless mutations.
The few who reached this final stage were forever lost, their forms twisted beyond recognition, their minds shattered. Some faded into nothingness, their essence dissipating like so much mist. But others... others became something else entirely—demonic entities, driven by insatiable hunger, devoid of will or reason. They haunted the dark places of the world, remnants of a time when the line between life and death had been irrevocably blurred.
In the end, the world was left to endure—changed, scarred, but enduring nonetheless. The Shroudwake had rewritten the laws of existence, leaving behind a world where survival meant embracing the unnatural, where death was but the beginning of another cycle of torment or power.
And as the centuries passed, The Shroudwake became a distant memory, its true nature obscured by the sands of time. The world it had left behind, however, bore its mark—a world of endless possibility, where every shadow hid a secret, and every life was but a stepping stone to something greater—or far more terrible.
In the end, the truth of The Shroudwake, like so many other truths, was lost to history. All that remained were the stories, passed down through the generations—stories of a time when the sky wept fire, and the world was remade in the image of chaos.
And so, the world turned, ever teetering on the edge of the abyss, ever tumbling towards an uncertain future, where the only certainty was change.
--Thalrath
Mighty, Dwarven, Shaman, with the Elemental Power of Water, the Esoteric Potential of a Naga, with the Legendary Blood of a Dragon!