The Black Knife Assassins

Ah, the Black Knife Assassins. They are a tale of shadows, treachery, and the utter ruin of the Golden Order. You ask about them? Good. It is a mystery woven into the fabric of this land’s decay, and one I have dedicated my failing efforts to unraveling.

I have spent countless hours poring over the meager evidence, and what I have found is a conspiracy far deeper than any mere guild of cutthroats.

The Night of Black Knives

It all began with that terrible night: the Night of the Black Knives.

On that night, their blades—said to have been chipped from the Rune of Death itself, thanks to a stolen fragment—were used to strike down Godwyn the Golden. It was the first true death among the demigods, and the event that served as the catalyst for the Shattering.

But listen closely, this is the crucial detail, the one that makes them so unsettling:

The Black Knives only slew the soul of Godwyn. His body remained, undead and whole, becoming the root of the twisted, death-cursed growths that now plague the Lands Between. This was the first sin, and the one that broke Queen Marika's rule.

Their True Nature

The assassins themselves are not just faceless mercenaries. The evidence strongly suggests they are:

  1. Women, all of them. Small, swift, and utterly silent.

  2. Kinsmen to the Eternal City of Nokron. This is the key. They share the same bloodline and perhaps the same master as those ancient, banished people.

Why would the people of Nokron, long ago cast out by the Greater Will, return to strike at its foundation? Revenge, perhaps. Or perhaps they were merely tools in a grander design.

The Ranni Connection

This is the most dangerous knowledge, the reason I am crippled and wasting away. The truth I sought led me straight to the Empyrean Ranni.

The Black Knives may have struck at Godwyn, but they were directed by a far more cunning mind.

  • The assassins, being tied to the Eternal City, would have been natural servants of an Empyrean who rejected the Greater Will, particularly one—like Ranni—who was born with a shadowbound beast from that very City.

  • More damningly, the very same night they struck Godwyn, Ranni the Empyrean orchestrated the death of her own flesh, killing her body but not her soul.

It was a ritual requiring two simultaneous sacrifices to Death: Godwyn lost his soul, and Ranni lost her body. By this profane act, Ranni escaped the shackles of the Greater Will, retaining her divine soul in a doll’s body, while Godwyn became the Prince of Death.

The Black Knife Assassins, then, were not just murderers. They were instruments of a celestial suicide, the agents of a brilliant, desperate ploy to escape destiny. I believe Ranni commanded them.

But who, or what, commanded her? That is the answer I pray you will uncover. Do you understand the scope of this conspiracy, Tarnished? It touches the highest thrones and the deepest secrets of this land. Tread carefully.