The Domdred Grimoire - Shattered stories from the dark past.

Updating my past thread that was on a different account.

Shardfall and the Village of the Damned. (Intro)

Ravicus glanced with a steel cold look over the Shard covered plains. as he looked on, the images flood through his mind, of what has been done, and what yet has to be done......
The memoirs of his family have passed from generation to generation in a blood covered grimoire made of flesh that had been rendered and stretched to cover the insidious pages. The grimoire talks of how the Shardfall was the ruin of the land, depriving the villagers of bird and beast. Nothing grew, not grain nor grass. Trees where non existent after the pummeling of the shards.
It is this that leads to the blight that has perpetuated the present circumstances. After the loss of food, be it flora or fauna, the people became desperate, and in desperate times, people do desperate things.
On a trip foraging for food, It might have been fate, or a curse that brought the villagers to an unknown area. A mausoleum lay in ruins, cracked open with the force of huge stones thrown from the heavens. Spirits that were trapped in the mausoleum where not kind, nor friendly. One of them was especially sinister. The undead quickly felt the desperation and hunger in the villagers and quickly moved to possess them, bending their minds to the will of the evil necromancer that lay in the tomb.
The mind of the necromancer was full of dark and forbidden magics and alchemical formulas.....all stemming from the death, and flesh of humans.....(which are printed in blood in the grimoire).
Powerful was this necromancer, commanding raiding parties to scour the lands, rendering flesh and bone, for feast, potions, and the beautifully corrupt art of his evil craft.........
Ravicus jolts, steering his thoughts from the past, and smells human flesh, nearby, and just in time too, for the hunger is upon him......Muhahahahahaah.

~Ravicus Domdred~ Circa 2014

Shardfall and the Village of the damned........Pt 1 (The Curse of Ravicus Domdred the Hungered)

While stirring restlessly in wait, after laying the bait for some unfortunate passerby to notice.......he again turns to the dark crimson text in the Domdred Grimoire, and begins to revisit the tale of the origins of the City of the Damned....

.....As starvation took hold of the villagers, formation of scouting parties where fully attended in hopes of finding some means of sustenance. One party in particular, led by a young lean farmer's son, struck out eastward, for it was in that direction that laid unexplored areas since the massive shardfall that decimated the region. With watchful eyes the group journey toward the rising sun, up and around the huge pillars of stone which littered the plundered soil in every direction. Crawling across the lowest point of one of the horizontally laying pillars, an eerie image presents itself.

Shattered stone pieces of what resembles a crypt, a mausoleum of ancient craftsmanship lay in tangled piles earth and stone. Upon closing in on the ruins, a foul must lay in the air, stinging the nostrils and setting in an itch that could not be rid of. It was a mist, a mist sort of like what you would see viewing through a piece of thin black satin. A mild distortion of the rabble strewn about.

With trembling lips and cautious advancement, the farmers son pierced the opaque veil and was stilled in his steps, the breath escaped his lungs as he tried to force out a warning. Instantly, vise like grips of twin skeletons grabbed at his arms, forcing him in place. Out of the debris, a shadow stirs, then becomes visible, an apparition of unspeakable horror! It glides closer, with tattered rags flailing around him. Within an inch of his nose, the ghostly eyes of the necromancer stole into his own, reaching in to his very core. It was with no more than a whisper that his very soul was ripped from his body and absorbed into the shifting form of the undead lich. He closed his eyes.........

The skeletons quickly released the body, which for a brief second slumped, then quickly animated back to form! The body seemed to double in size, perhaps an illusion. He then spoke and with the voice of the young man abruptly stated: "I, Ravicus Domdred , have arisen once again!" With saying that, he turned and walked back into the mist, onward toward the unknowing remaining party members......muhahahahah.......

~Ravicus Domdred~ circa 2014

A remembrance of the past, or the future, oh who the hell knows with time!

A Passage from the Domdred Grimoire:

Through the ages, through times lost, are fragments of thought. Piecemeal works of an dangling mobile, an unfixed vision that changes with the hint of even a soft caressing breeze. Tonight, as well as many night the memories of nostalgia sting in a remembrance of a recent, distant past.

It seems as now I feel somewhat like a shipwrecked man, drawn down through a whirlpool, and found in an underworld......that was scribbled in a manifest so long ago, in a distant land.... Like this fellow conjurer of magic, who seemed to twist the arm of fate, and to find his destiny, is succumbed to a new and changing surroundings. Ahhh, but I digress...... That is another tale, in another time.......I have some fleeting thoughts on this.......ahem.....*cough*

Toeing the mark (another phrase lost in time), I step up to the line. Contrary to some in limited capacities of perception, being a Lich in my order does suffer passions, memories, and loss. On the contrary these are a force of compulsion, of sustaining, and of longevity. My actions, although maybe sometimes misguided, perceived as evil, and loathed in existence of paladins, in my eyes are truth etched on granite! Albeit not the truths some hold dear and devote, but truths none the less. Is not perception of truth a trickster in itself? Addled minds twisted by Order could be just as.......skewed.......for lack of better utterances. What gods do you do bidding! Are you devout and steadfast! Yet I am to be judged! Forked tongues wagged at passerby's with idle minds looking for gossip, and are easily turned into sheep. Do not be deceived, idle brains lead to addled decay and infect more so at every dusk to dawn cycle. This must be culled, and I have a cleaver to help clean up this mess. Only through destruction will this world be reborn in truth. My Lords have spoken, I have read the prophesies, I know what I must do. I must venture into the Underworld....but first, I must find followers, and then sacrifices........I know what must be done......I just need to find and gather some shattered pieces from a gem of lore.......Muhahahahahaha!

~Ravicus Domdred~ Circa 2015

Ravicus sits and stirs.....the endless hunger rages inside......

Stooped over his desk he frowns.............a forsaken soul............in a forsaken world..........

Going through the Domdred Grimoir he is pulled once again to a dark passage scribbled in crimson long ago, but seemingly fresh at a glance. The story of how the Lich Lord traveled from old Britania to Novia pre-dating the shardfall..

......Ravicus the Hungered looks around at the remains of the twisted lifeless forms on the ground. It drew rare smile upon his newly acquired flesh, stolen from one of the foolish mortals that dared to venture onto this un-virtuous landscape. It had been ages since he had been able to take a physical form, as he had been trapped in the mausoleum for countless ages. Instinctively he drew his hand to his decrepit pack, making sure of the contents, making sure that the power that rested in it was still intact. It was...........and he knew it...they... must be protected at all costs...........for the prophecy to come true.

Summoning up memories from another time, Ravicus recalls the day he acquired this....curse. He recalls it being an unexpected adventure through some sort of Maelstrom, he recalls a frigate and some companions.......oh the cost of it all.......The visions, the nightmares, the killings.......love lost, betrayal, corruption.......


He had gone by a different name in those days, but fails to recall it, for the blood that sealed his fate bound him to a new form. He wandered around the catacombs for years in search of escape, but there was no escape, non from what he has done........

Death has a price for one such as he, and he has shared and mixed blood with some fragments of a gem, a gem that has stolen his humanity. Shards which sliced his hands at the grasp, and murdered his friends, his lover.........blood entwined, and manifested......

Being not alive, but not dead, it just happened one day. A glimmer in the dark, that barely emitted through several layers of dust..... What could this be? Reaching down he hastily grabs at the source. What he discovers is something profound. It is a coin, but not an ordinary one. This one bears the markings of a royal minter from the lands he has been banished from...
As he began to polish the coin with his palm, a strange hum started emitting........and then a crackling sound of thunder as a blue mist appeared in the form of an oblong circle. He stepped through.......

He steps out of the pale blue mist into a cavern, not knowing how or why he is here, only knowing that fate, or destiny brought him here. In the center of the cavern lies a pool, surrounded by stone. The water is still as a glass, a perfect mirror. Looking past the reflection the water looks deep and endless, almost spellbinding.

The voices in his head start to whisper again........."set us free", "we will show you how", "walk to the water"..........

He does as instructed, as he has always done, since the time of turning....since the fateful day....*cough*........

"Say these words of power" chanting voices fill his head and he slowly starts repeating them...... The water stirs and starts to froth, changing color slowly and randomly, in chaotic patterns.....then after many minutes, or hours even, a vision is produced...

A brilliant glow emits from the vision, and a book fades into view.... Bound in leather and gold, this book is beautiful, and on its cover looks like some kind of sacred seal......He feels like he should know this....but cannot recall.....

"open the book the voice whispers, and all will be told..."

Reaching for the book, the light stings and burns.....but he presses on.... Opening the book letters form and produce a poem....

Your home is Novia, but underground
Three shards of gems there will be found
For the world to burn
Search every twist and turn
of the catacombs and all that surround

These shards have fallen from the sky
buried with hate, cowardice and lie
to be reborn
and three to form
Human sacrifices three times must die......

to be continued.....
Ravicus Domdred circa 2017


The chill, meaningless. Biting winds bellow but rail in futility against the unearthly lich's undead skin. Slumped against a splintered stump that must have one time been stalwart against the ungodly elements, but proven time tolls the bell from which all living things must succumb.

Ravicus stares meaningless into crimson letters....no need for words.....the grimoire speaks for itself. Another fragmented tale of the tortured family history.....

With memories stirring, and recognition fleeting, Ravicus tries to brush away the fog of history forgotten. "The hunger consumes the village, villager against villager, pitting family against kin, for the hunger is all consuming..." Ravicus trembles at the thought of those times, when mindless obsession takes hold, and no words are told....... procession of being damned. Futility, apathy, numbness....for they are lost, in this village of the damned......

Ravicus Domdred
Circa 2017

 

The undead never really leave us. They only linger in the dark hoping the living forget of their existence.

Eventually they all must feed.

Welcome back.

 

The chill, meaningless. Biting winds bellow but rail in futility against the unearthly lich's undead skin. Slumped against a splintered stump that must have one time been stalwart against the ungodly elements, but proven time tolls the bell from which all living things must succumb.

Ravicus stares meaningless into crimson letters....no need for words.....the grimoire speaks for itself. Another fragmented tale of the tortured family history.....

With memories stirring, and recognition fleeting, Ravicus tries to brush away the fog of history forgotten. "The hunger consumes the village, villager against villager, pitting family against kin, for the hunger is all consuming..." Ravicus trembles at the thought of those times, when mindless obsession takes hold, and no words are told....... procession of being damned. Futility, apathy, numbness....for they are lost, in this village of the damned......

Ravicus Domdred
Circa 2017