Milas and the Jezharrain Legacies

Cy 4820 the month of Octarius - Glaramir Rorna

The Jezharrain transformation began with the rise of emperor Vlaslavii and the emergence of the new Skoorlian Empire. The world had never seen the unique craft and sorcery of the Jezharrain and it was by a quirk of Fate that Barrios set Milas on a path to greatness. The Daywalking lord of the Jezharrain harboured many secrets, earned by centuries of study of the weirdest, most incredible and most inaccessible of the arts of magic. He delved where many sorcerers dare not go and from the darkest quests he took the abilities that would liberate him from the clutches of Barrios, king of the Daywalkers, lord of the Menelothians.

Milas was an arch mage of great power. At one with undead and the living he was a shadow that co-existed in two distinctly different worlds as if born to both. He had uncovered a lost art of magic – dismissed by the academics and mages throughout the five millennia of Grayhawk as being myth, a figment of the rantings of some possessed lunatic. A fragment of a work by some obscure wizard thousands of years earlier it alluded to a lost art – the Tenth Art of magic – but evidence was rare and widely disregarded by the great and the good (including Chael).

Milas uncovered the truth of the fragment…it was encrypted within a seemingly insane study and it was Milas who deciphered this work…the work of a brilliant mind. He discovered the un-abridged thoughts and studies of Quizet Daesil, The Lord of Chaos, Father of Doctor X, and Ruler of the Abyss. The God of Chaos created (discovered?) a fabled tenth art, a way of using magic that owed its existence to the great warrior/sorcerers of the Abyss. No-one on Grayhawk could accept such power because its roots were from the Abyss itself, the channelling of the awesome power of Chaos it was the source of the great demonic lords such as Melkor, Beremoth and (of course!) Loramas. Loramas had children by both Sirath (Lord of Law – father of Kiruk) and Quizet Daesiul (father of Doctor X) and the resultant offspring became the Bloodlines that set Grayhawk on a three thousand year path to the present.

Unlike the primal arts where magic is derived from the mystical and impossible tenth layer of magic that only a handful of sorcerers can reach, Quizet Daesil developed a formula of casting that owed its power to the truly random and chaotic events that all beings encounter without realising. Rather than the controlled, disciplined art of the sorcerer where control of voice and gestures create a pre-determined effect Milas was able to reach a place where few beings had ever sought. A place in the deepest recesses of the mind that only a handful of beings had ever reached.

Your father, Arval Rorna, was one of a handful of Jezharrain sorcerers that Milas took under his wing to teach the Tenth Art and indeed was one of its leading exponents. His aptitude has past to you, Glarimir Rorna, the ability to reach a place in your mind that most sane individuals fear to go. Your father once said; “My son you have the gift of the Tenth Art, the gift to stare into a place within that would send normal mortal souls to insanity…on the very edge of that insanity is the place where our magic dwells, the place where no man can look, the place where no soul can live…it is the very core of what Milas taught us. There are only a handful of us left – a few wielders of this power left to continue what our true master gave us…the power of the Tenth Art.”

All your life you have known that you were different. Even with an illustrious father who was constantly in the court of Milas, Jezharrah’s greatest king you felt that the world was somehow yours to explore, yours to own. Perhaps this is Jezharrain arrogance or ego surfacing but you have always felt thus…even as a child. Before the constraints of a sorcerous academy you felt your teachers were missing the point. Sorcery is not a series of hand gestures or fancy words; it is a calling to the very basic urges within you – urges that you have manipulated from the cot. Urges that took the life of your own mother!

“It is within you, my son,” your father said. “The great Lord Milas has opened the door of your mind and you cannot close it behind you. There will come a day when a dark shadow will enter your mind…it will grow until there is nothing else. If you can overcome this darkness then the Tenth Art will be before you…it is the greatest gift I can bestow.”

Your father was slain shortly after your graduation into the mainstream of sorcery on Grayhawk but there is a burning desire to uphold all that he believed in…all that he had witnessed under the tutelage of one of Grayhawk’s greatest arch mages.

The shadow grows even now. Without a spell cast in anger there is a lingering doubt at the back of your mind that the shadow itself may overwhelm you and drive you mad…many of Milas’ students have succumbed to such insanity but you (arrogantly?) believe that you will surely follow in your father’s footsteps and keep alive the art of Milas, Jezharrain king and god.

DM: From a gameplay point of view the shadow is upon you. If you manage to reach 5^th level you will have the same choice as any other sorcerer – only your choice will involve the chance of staring into the madness of Quizet daesil…