stillmore lore

Stillmoor

Once a heartland

When the northmen came down from their mountains, they found a green valley stretching from horizon to horizon, land rich as a king’s coffer. There they set down roots, and called the land Mathosia after their chief. The chief became a king, and the king built a kingdom, ruling it wisely from his keep at Caer Mathos. His children built an empire from this Mathosian heartland, as rugged and healthy as its crusading people.

Today, there is no Caer Mathos, no Mathosian Empire, nor even a Mathosia. There is only Stillmoor.

In Stillmoor, the sweet winds from the sea are silent. The mountains are brittle, the fields sodden swamps. Undead prowl where honest folk once went about their business, and the sky has given up all dreams of blue. The dead rule Stillmoor, and the living intrude. Only veteran Ascended can enter Stillmoor, there to slog through gore and misery in hopes of saving Telara.

 

Stillmoor

Eye of the Devourer

Guardians will remember the village of Ardenburgh, nestled in the center of Mathosia. King Aedraxis nearly summoned Regulos into Telara just outside its walls, foiled only by the doomed heroes who would become the Vigil’s chosen. The heroes perished in the world-shaking eruption of necrotic energy that followed the Devourer’s banishment, an explosion that burned the village and surrounding area into a gaping crater.

A Death Rift roils perpetually in this “Eye of Regulos,” and it is said that Alsbeth the Discordant searches the wreckage for pieces of Aedraxis’s body, hoping to revive the wicked king with energies from the rift. These same energies make entering the chasm suicide for anyone without magical protection.

The Endless Citadel

Silent as a hangman, a castle casts a jagged shadow across the valley it once protected. Called Caer Mathos in happier days, this is the Endless Citadel, the hard and blackened heart of the Death cult. The surge that carved the Eye of Regulos turned the entire population of Caer Mathos into powerful undead—a truly "endless" court.

The citadel itself is a terrifying stronghold of the walking dead, one whose perils the Ascended must face to enter Greenscale's Blight or the River of Souls. Baron Krevic leads the mortal knights who uphold their vows to what was once a living court, and it will take a large group of dedicated heroes to end his command.

Life in Death

To free Greenscale, House Aelfwar forces commanded by the elf Galnir encroached into Stillmoor. But Life cannot stand before such overwhelming Death, and the Endless quickly infected the Aelfwar wholesale with the curse of lycanthropy. So great was Galnir’s devotion to Greenscale that he overcame the curse and has taught his fellow cultists to control their shapeshifting. This is no comfort to Ascended, who must battle raging Lifetouched werewolves in their rare moments of respite from the Endless onslaught.

“Dragomir,” said Baron Krevic from the walls of the Endless Citadel, “Command your men to join us. Have the Sons of Mathos forgotten their honor?”

“It is you who have forgotten honor,” said Dragomir Rakovic. “You who serve the dead!”

“We swore an oath to defend this court until the day we die, no matter who they serve,” Krevic said. “Until the last of the Endless falls, I have my duty!”

“And so do I. My men will never yield until the Endless Court is ended, and our brother-knights are free!”

Krevic laid his hand upon his sword. Its hilt curved to his fingers, a reminder of duty. “And we who were once your brothers will all die before we let you harm our protectorate.”

“Then you will die. But Regulos will be stopped,” said Rakovic. “And death will grant you freedom.”