“Some storms drown you in rain. This one drowns you in regret.”
At the heart of Navar Forest hangs a wound in the sky: a cyclone of black cloud and violet lightning known as the Cursed Storm. It is the most infamous scar on the Continent of the Ancient Ones, and one of the clearest symptoms of the Convergence—not merely a weather event, but an aware phenomenon with mood, hunger, and memory.
It didn’t form naturally. It was thrown.
Long ago, the head council of Faladrim attempted a forbidden working to avert catastrophe. A Convergence-born storm—destined to devastate their own lands—was deflected and sent across the sea to their neighboring continent like a political “oops” wrapped in arcane denial. The spell succeeded… in the same way a man succeeds at putting out a candle by burning down the house.
The storm struck Navar Forest and stayed.
And over time, it began to breathe.
From afar, the sky above Navar Forest looks bruised—like the world took a punch and never healed.
Cloud Mass: A swirling crown of dark clouds that never disperses, rotating around an unseen center.
Violet Energy: Constant crackling arcs of violet light, like veins of living lightning crawling through the storm’s body.
Shadow Figures: During brighter flashes, silhouettes can be seen inside the clouds—humanoid shapes contorted in helpless motion, as if pinned to the storm’s ceiling like insects in amber.
The Fog Below: Trees nearest the storm are bent as if bowing under an invisible weight. The fog is thick, oily, and wrong—clinging to bark and skin alike, muffling sound until the forest feels like it’s holding its breath.
Those who approach hear faint echoes: distant wails, choking prayers, shouted commands—voices from expeditions that tried to “end it,” now trapped in its memory like flies in tar.
The Cursed Storm is sentient—or at least reactive in a way that makes sentience an uncomfortable guess.
It behaves like a living organism:
It “listens” to loud intent (battle cries, vows, desperate prayers).
It “learns” patterns (routes through the forest become dangerous after repeated use).
It “feeds” on strong emotional states—fear, hope, hate, devotion—especially when expressed in groups.
Many scholars argue it is not a storm at all, but a Convergence-entity wearing weather as camouflage: a living knot of reality that found Navar Forest convenient and decided to decorate.
Locals describe it as:
A predator that never needs to chase you because you walk into its territory yourself.
A judge that doesn’t care about innocence—only about how loudly you insist you have it.
A stage that forces reality to reenact a tragedy until the universe is bored.
Close to the storm, the forest no longer obeys normal nature. Paths spiral. Landmarks move. The same tree appears twice in opposite directions. Compasses twitch. Maps become suggestions. Fires burn colder. Shadows grow longer than their owners.
Flora twists into grotesque survival-forms:
Thorned vines that mimic arteries.
Fungi that glow with dim violet pulses, as if the ground has a heartbeat.
Flowers that bloom only when someone bleeds nearby.
Fauna either flees… or changes.
Of all the storm’s creations, none are feared more than the Night Stalkers: shadow-panthers that hunt the darkest parts of the forest like living absence.
At first, you don’t see them. You see the idea of them—a ripple in darkness, a gap where moonlight should be.
Then you notice the golden scales.
These scales protrude through their shadowy bodies like shards of molten coin, each one a condensed splinter of Convergence energy. In darkness, the scales faintly glow—not enough to reveal the creature… just enough to confirm you’re not imagining things.
Night Stalkers don’t pounce like animals. They stalk like consequences:
They follow silently for hours.
They wait until the party argues.
They strike when a torch sputters.
They retreat the moment you feel “safe” again—because fear is best when it has time to marinate.
Some hunters claim the golden scales are not armor, but anchors: keeping the creature tethered to reality long enough to kill you in it.
Ages ago, one group dared to push farther than all others: the Crimson Vanguard, a now-extinct order of knights sworn to destroy the storm or die trying. (They were very efficient.)
They reached the heart. They entered the eye.
And the storm accepted them.
Only one returned: Seraphine Vailmont.
No one knows how she escaped. Her whereabouts are uncertain, and stories conflict—because people who meet her never agree on what they met.
Common threads remain:
She speaks rarely, and when she does, her voice sometimes carries a second tone beneath it—like a whisper overlapping her words.
In deep shadow, listeners swear the “other voice” answers questions Seraphine never spoke aloud.
Her presence chills lantern flames and makes dogs whimper.
Those who travel with her report déjà vu, fractured dreams, and the sensation of being watched from behind their own eyes.
Whether she is cursed, possessed, or simply broken is unclear. But many believe Seraphine did not leave the storm so much as the storm sent her out—a message wrapped in a person.
Those brave—or foolish—enough to enter the storm’s center do not find peace.
They find a battlefield trapped in a perpetual time loop.
In the eye, the storm becomes eerily calm, but reality itself is loud. The ground is scarred and churned with ancient trenches. Broken banners snap in wind that isn’t there. The air smells like wet iron and old ash.
And the war begins.
Warriors—now rotting flesh and bone—rise and repeat the same tactics, the same screams, the same charges, over and over.
Across from them looms the enemy they cannot truly defeat: an Ancient Black Dragon, a monstrous presence that feels less like a creature and more like a memory of extinction.
The storm ebbs and surges with the battle’s “tide”:
When the dragon gains the upper hand, the storm above thickens, lightning intensifies, and the forest outside becomes more hostile.
When the memory of the knights pushes the dragon back, the storm softens—fog thins, the violet crackle dulls, and the echoes become almost… mournful, like a lullaby that forgot how to be kind.
Just as one side nears victory—
reality snaps.
Everything resets.
Wounds vanish. Positions rewind. The same scream is screamed again by the same dead throat. The dragon roars in the same cadence, as if the universe is trapped listening to its favorite nightmare on repeat.
This loop is not just a haunting. It is evidence that the Convergence doesn’t merely twist matter—it twists time, causality, and narrative. The battlefield is a living “scar” where reality keeps trying to heal wrong.
And worst of all: the storm seems to enjoy the suspense.
Use any of these as “whispers around the campfire” or quest seeds:
The Golden Scale Trade
Smugglers have begun harvesting Night Stalker scales and selling them as Convergence catalysts. The scales work… until they don’t. And when they fail, people vanish in shadow.
The Vanguard’s Last Banner
A tattered Crimson Vanguard standard occasionally appears on the battlefield—but only on loops where the knights “almost win.” Some believe capturing it could anchor the loop long enough to change the outcome.
Seraphine’s Second Voice
Someone claims Seraphine can teach a ritual that calms the storm for one night… but the price is “a memory you can live without.” Nobody knows which memory the storm will take.
The Dragon’s True Name
Scholars suspect the dragon isn’t physically “there.” It is a name bound into Convergence energy. Learn the name, and the dragon becomes killable. Speak it wrong, and the storm learns yours.
Faladrim’s Guilt
The council of Faladrim officially denies responsibility. Unofficially, they have assassins and archivists trying to erase every record of the deflection spell—because if the Ancient Ones unite the truth with proof, diplomacy becomes a funeral.