Refuge of the Dead God

by Jeremy Townsend

Before the King-priest of Lyonesse called for the exploration of Agon, the land now know as the sacred city Dalriada was the seat of a great holy man to the Imric savages. This holy man, whom the legends call ‘Kyrobus’ held court with an unnamable demiurge, a God of the people who lived before the Imric; a God that Kyrobus claimed had a terrible power over chaos, and had used His power to plunge the enlightened ancestors of Dalriada into madness and destruction.

As the people of Lyonesse began to conquer the lands of Agon for their own, Kyrobus became an icon of hope for the Imric…though Kyrobus would not stir from Dalriada, time and again he routed legions of Mercians bent on conquering Dalriada. With Kyrobus and his God watching over Dalriada, the Imric would never bend, and would never be conquered.

Though the conquest of the Imric was proceeding steadily, King Robert I had word that an Imric chieftain named Aur, renowned for his unorthodox warring tactics and ferocity in battle, was quickly mending the broken and independent Imric tribes under his own sovereignty. Aur would soon be High King of a unified Imric people, and it was clear that his throne would sit in Dalriada under the protective wing of Kyrobus and his nameless God. Robert knew that he had to prevent Aur from ascending to kingship and reaching Dalriada with the united tribes behind him.

Aur proved untouchable. His closest war chiefs were incorruptible, loyal to the death and beyond. No assassin could get close enough, no army could move fast enough, to kill this Imric paragon. The tales of Aur avoiding death and capture at the hands of the Mercians soon became legend. Aur took the title ‘Boldest’ and the legend of Aur the Bold spread like wildfire, catalyzing Aur’s ambitions for unification, and setting his sights towards Dalriada. At every turn, Aur bested King Robert’s plots. Aur would reach Dalriada, and Robert could do nothing to stop him. Robert soon became ill by the matter, bedridden while Aur was crowned High King of Imric and began his march to Dalriada and Kyrobus.

It is said that Morgaine herself visited Robert in a fever dream. Morgaine offered Robert the key to defeating the Imric once and for all, but only on the condition that Robert grant the Church of Morgaine authority to raise and maintain an army at Dalriada once the land was taken. The White Order, as the Church’s army came to be known, would be an army outside the jurisdiction of the crown. Robert agreed with little thought to the matter. The Church’s power was waning in these times, and any army it could muster would be insignificant in light of the crown’s own forces. The King’s fever was purged during the night.

On the very next day, an envoy from Lyonesse arrived in court at Sanguine bearing arms marked by the symbols of Morgaine. Five Templars of Morgaine who claimed to have been called by Morgaine in a dream a month prior, swore their swords to King Robert and outlined their plans to him. They would strike not at Aur, but at Kyrobus, and in doing so would remove the most deadly player from the war at hand.

The five stole away into the Dalriada and confronted Kyrobus in the inner sanctum of the nameless temple of that ancient God. The battle went on for days, a microcosm of a great celestial struggle. The temple was sundered and driven deep underground. In the end, only one of the five Templars walked from that ruinous tomb. This man who witnessed the death of a God at the hands of Morgaine, would return to King Robert’s court and take the mantle of Lightbringer of Morgaine.

Without Kyrobus, Aur’s journey to Dalriada would prove fruitless. King Robert ambushed Aur atop the grave of the Dead God’s temple, and routed Aur’s army in totality. The rest is history.

But what of the ruined temple? It was soon forgotten and sent off into the mists of legend and mummery. No one remembers how the Lightbringer of Morgaine hounded the King for the land he promised, nor how he eventually chose the grave of the Dead God’s temple as the foundation for the magnificent cathedral named Our Lady of Light.

What remains of the temple is a dark haven of lingering power and forgotten memories. No vermin desecrate the graves of the nameless God and his servant Kyrobus, or the remains of the four brave Templar who died for their Goddess. Certainly the tomb has never felt the hands of grave robbers and treasure hunters. An entrance does not yet exist…the foundations of Our Lady of Light are solid and immutable. But there are some places where the foundations were too soft, and the floors have sunken and cracked, particularly in a certain private garden deep in the cathedral. Perhaps with powerful magic, or a strongly swung mattock, an ancient entrance can be unearthed.

But they who trespass on the tomb of a God are fools! The whispers of immortality are enough to set the dead against would-be thieves, the vibrant curses of Kyrobus’ last breath enough to turn shadows vehement. The echo of the Dead God’s will has warped the simple temple into a shifting maze, like something from the dreams of a mad architect. To be sure, there are powerful artifacts lying at rest in the inner sanctum, site of the final battle. The very air is fearful in that place, and the bones of the four Templar will rise at the behest of the Dead God’s honor, to defend that which should be left to the dead. Even if those four could be killed (how do you kill that which is dead?) those who bears the artifacts of the dead God away from the Temple will be haunted by the spectre of Kyrobus until their final days.