🌑 The Cataclysm of Draintheim
The Whispers Beneath the Mountain
Since time immemorial, the Draintheim Mountains were feared for their bottomless chasms and forbidden caverns. Legends spoke of an Elder God, chained beneath the stone, banished by the divine after a forgotten war. Its bonds were not forged of iron, but of seals woven into the fabric of reality itself.
Over centuries, its whispers seeped through the rock, luring fragile minds and dark-hearted seekers.
The Awakening
When the seals began to crack, strange omens plagued Draintheim:
beasts born with too many eyes,
snow that fell black and hissed like ash,
miners who dug too deep returning altered, chanting prayers in a language no mortal should know.
It was then that Varan, a warlock outcast hungry for forbidden power, descended into the mountain. Guided by a voice he believed his own, he ventured where no mortal dared.
The Confrontation
As the Elder God strained against its prison, a rift tore through the mountain. The sky darkened, rivers boiled into mist, and boulders floated in defiance of gravity as if the world itself was unraveling.
Varan realized he was not merely a pawn, but the only vessel capable of sealing the being. In an act of sacrifice and desperation, he carved away part of his own mind, binding it to the Elder God and reforging the prison into a living seal of consciousness.
The backlash of this struggle shattered Draintheim, leaving behind a colossal crater, a wound in the world still echoing with the remnants of that battle. Survivors would come to call it the Scar of Draintheim.
The Forgotten Price
But this victory bore a terrible cost:
Varan lost all memory of his role, believing himself merely a survivor of the disaster.
His dreams are plagued by broken visions of chains and countless eyes, fragments of the truth buried deep within.
None realize that his memory is the key: should it ever be restored, the seal would shatter, and the Elder God would claim his mind as its vessel, finally breaking free.
The Legacy of the Crater
Today, the Scar of Draintheim is shunned and cursed:
nearby villagers speak of phantom lights and voices that beckon at night,
the very stones are etched with shifting runes, remnants of the living seal,
some cults forbid even speaking its name, fearing to awaken what still stirs beneath.
Scholars dismiss the crater as the result of a natural cataclysm. Only a handful of mystics whisper the truth: the Scar is not a place, but a living battlefield, where a broken mind still fights to hold back the unthinkable.