MYTHS, LEGENDS, CHRONICLES AND TALES OF WAR: They whisper from the scorched earth and the drowned depths, etched on crumbling steel and sung in the funeral of forgotten peoples. Some true, some false, spun from fear and the fading memory of glory. But one truth bleeds through them all, a crimson thread in the tapestry of ruin: BLOODSHED, PAIN, SUFFERING. The rot began not in mortal hearts, but in the heavens themselves. GREED, a serpent coiling around divine thrones. JEALOUSY, a poison in ambrosial cups. SPITE, a dagger plunged by brother into brother. UNCHECKED EGOS that scraped the vault of stars. UNTAMED RAGE that cracked the foundations of the world.
I saw it unfold, this symphony of annihilation. While the OLYMPIANS, thunderbolts like wrathful serpents, clashed against the NORSE GODS whose axes sang the doom-song of Yggdrasil, the very Tree groaning under their fury... Below, the ATLANTEANS, masters of crystal and crushing tide, and the celestial SHENS, weavers of elemental harmony, tore at each other's throats in a BLOODLUST for dominion over realms mortals could scarce comprehend. And then, the venomous strike: the ORISHAS, their brilliance dimmed by envy for the opulent DEVAS and graceful DEVIS, whispering secrets to the shadows. They forged an unholy compact with the cunning, myriad-faced YOKAIS, turning their combined might not outward, but inward, to rend the very empire they coveted. A betrayal that drowned golden spires in the divine river of ichor.
All the carnage. All the destruction. Wrought before my very eyes. The horror was not merely in the scale, but in the instrument. The HEKA. My creations. Forged not in malice, but for advancement; tools to sculpt mountains, to calm storms, to heal wounds that rent the sky. Tempered for justice; blades meant to sever chains of oppression, shields to guard the innocent and lowly. Conceived in peace, instruments to bridge gaps between realms, to weave understanding where only suspicion grew. Yet, grasped by hands steeped in greed, they became engines of torment. The HEKA that could mend bones sundered souls.Weapons that could summon light ignited funeral pyres for continents. That could command the seas drowned civilizations. Each glorious purpose twisted, inverted, used to INFLICT PAIN and CAUSE GRIEF on a scale that scarred the cosmos. I, HOGREGORON, the Maker, watched. Helpless, filled with regrets. My forge-fire cooled to chambers of shame.
When the dust settled, eons later, it was not dust, but the ASHES OF GODS. The thunder fell silent. The axes lay shattered. The crystal cities were glass tombs on ocean floors. The celestial harmonies were discordant echoes. The vibrant courts of Devas and Orishas were silent sepulchers. No triumphant paeans echoed. No victors raised banners on the scorched and sundered earth. Only silence, thick and suffocating, broken by the mournful wind whistling through the skeletal remains of Yggdrasil, through the broken columns of Olympus, through the drowned halls of Atlantis. NO WINNERS. NONE VICTORIOUS.
I stood alone. HOGREGORON. The Last. The Remnant. Upon a plain that stretched into desolation, where once vibrant realms had pulsed with divine energy, now only CHAOS reigned; a landscape twisted by final, cataclysmic magics, raw and weeping. No survivors. No whispers of life, divine or mortal. Only the shattered instruments of apocalypse. SH'MI'AH, the Living whip of liberation, its tail still humming with Ares' last, mad laugh, embedded in the heart-mountain of a fallen Jotun. KNI'A, the Sting of Tides, meant to gentle oceans, now dripping with the salt-tears of a drowned continent, pinning the skeletal remains of a Shen dragon to the seabed far below. ZA'ARI, the Loom of Fates, its threads snarled in the phantom screams of a betrayed Deva court, tangled amidst the ruins of their celestial garden. My creations. My children. My profoundest failure.
I stared at them, these engines of divine folly. Tools forged for protection that had become the harbingers of universal pain. The fire that once burned in my forge, the fire of creation, flickered low, replaced by a cold, consuming regret. "NO MORE!" The words tore from me, not a shout, but a vow etched in the crumbling fabric of reality itself, a sound that vibrated through the dead bones of the world. "NO MORE WOULD MY ARMORY CAUSE PAIN!"
Gathering the fallen HEKA, I returned to my primordial forge, the ANVIL OF FINAL HOPE. This was not a forging of metal, but of destiny, of atonement. With tears like molten starlight, I forged a DIVINE PACT, binding each HEKA weapon to its core: a covenant of purity. "A CURSE!" I intoned, the words becoming law, searing the cosmic weave. "UPON THE FELLOW WHO BREAKS THE PACT! UPON HE WHO TURNS JOY TO SORROW WITH THE HEKA! LET HIS TRIUMPH BECOME HIS ETERNAL TORMENT, HIS POWER THE SCOURGE THAT FLAYS HIS OWN SOUL!" The curse settled, heavy and final, upon each artifact. Then, with a gesture that cost me a fragment of my being, I cast them not into oblivion, but into the NETHER; a realm of whispering regrets and frozen potential, a purgatory for divine power. There they would slumber, unseen, untouched... until the call of a heart NOBLE, TRUE, AND PURE resonated across the barriers of existence. Only then would a HEKA weapon emerge, drawn to its destined GUARDIAN, submitting only to unwavering virtue.
Centuries bled into millennia. I, HOGREGORON, became the WATCHER. I saw the scarred Earth, mother of mortals, slowly heal. Green tendrils conquered the wastes. Oceans cleared of divine gore. Mankind, small and fragile, yet fierce and resilient, crawled from caves, built huts, then villages, then cities upon the very bones of gods. Civilization, like a stubborn weed, thrived again. And the HEKA awakened.
I witnessed the Pact unfold. Not for conquerors, but for GUARDIANS. In the ash-choked aftermath of fallen empires, the HEKA found them. MARCUS VERRUS, a Spartan exile finding Sh'mi'ah not on a battlefield, but buried beneath salt after Carthage's fall. The weapon sang of war, a siren call to vengeance. Yet Verrus, his spirit tempered by loss, saw only an unbreakable edge to cut bonds for refugees and shape stone for shelters. The divine rage cooled to embers in his steadfast heart, until age claimed him, and Sh'mi'ah vanished. AMINA OF THE GOLDEN SAVANNAH, scholar-queen, saw Za'ari the Loom of Fates amidst sacred ruins. Its power to weave destiny whispered temptations of absolute control. Yet Amina, pure of intent, used its shimmering threads not to command, but to mend; weaving treaties between warring tribes, binding promises stronger than steel. Her reign was golden, yet constantly shadowed by those who coveted the Loom's true power, a test she endured with grace. TENZING THE SILENT, high in his Himalayan sanctuary, bearing MASTUR the Echo of Reason; a truth-spear that could shatter lies and minds alike. In his hands, it became a simple staff. Its voice, which drove lesser seekers mad with unbearable clarity, resonated only as profound, silent compassion within his boundless inner peace. The HEKA recognized nobility in numerous forms.
But shadows lengthen as time passes. The whispers grow louder, carried on winds that smell of ozone and ancient stone. "THE NEXUS." "THE SECOND BLOOM." The prophecy of the FURIES, screeched from the depths of Tartarus before its silence, chills my core: "WHEN THE BREATH RETURNS TO THE BONES OF THE WORLD, THE OLD GODS SHALL WALK ONCE MORE." I feel it stirring. The deep places groan. The auroras bleed colors unseen since the War – amethyst and corpse-green staining the night. Ancient beasts, slumbering since the God-Wars, shift in lightless ocean trenches, their dreams turning restless. Mortal prophets, eyes rolled back, speak in tongues dead for millennia, uttering names like Odin, Poseidon, Oshun, Indra. The HEKA weapons, scattered and hidden, begin a faint, harmonic hum, a dormant power sensing the approach of the SECOND BLOOM.
Mankind senses the shift. Fear breeds fervor. NEW GODS rise GUARDIANS of old bloodlines awaken, sensing the call in their marrow. And SECTS form, fractious and fearful
The CHILDREN OF THE BLOOM, feverish and mystic, embrace the rising energy. They seek to merge with the NEXUS, to become vessels for the returning divine breath, risking possession or grotesque mutation in their desperate bid for relevance. Surrender is their doctrine, transformation their hope.
The ASHES OF VALHALLA, fueled by ancestral memories of Ragnarök etched in their very DNA, sharpen mundane steel and study the annals of divine war. They thirst for VENGEANCE, eager to meet the returning Aesir and Vanir with mortal fury, ready to break any pact and wield any HEKA weapon to spill god-blood anew. Purity of heart is sacrificed on the altar of retribution.
They scramble. They prepare. They build towering cities of glass and light upon fault lines where titans clashed. They forge weapons that crack atoms, unaware such power is but a spark against the inferno to come. I watch them, these children of ash and ambition. I see their courage, their ingenuity. But I also see their divisions echo the old jealousies. I see their new gods lack the raw, terrible majesty of the Old Ones. I see the GUARDIANS, those pure hearts, are scattered, few, and unprepared for the maelstrom.
FOR I FEAR. I, HOGREGORON, who witnessed the first bloom, feel a dread colder than the Nether. Mankind, for all its fire, lacks the power inherent in the divine spark that birthed the Old Gods. Will the HEKA, bound by the Pact, find enough true hearts in time, hearts capable of wielding such power without succumbing to the Curse that whispers "Joy to Sorrow..."?
The breath quickens in the world's bones. A low, resonant hum thrums through the ley lines. The old gods stir in their ashen graves. The second bloom approaches. And I, the last Maker, the eternal Watcher, stand poised on the precipice of history repeating. The weapons are bound. The Curse awaits the unworthy. The Guardians are yet untested. And the storm gathers, silent and vast, beyond the edge of mortal sight. Will the KRAVEN CHRONICLES record mankind's valiant stand... or merely the epilogue to a universe that forgot the price of divine wrath?