Who Are The Tahmuras?
An Examination of the Mysterious Order and their Connection to Myurdin
Preface
Like much of our own understanding of the Old Magic , our knowledge of Myurdin is shrouded in mystery. Even her original mortal name has been lost, with the mortal who would become Myurdin being simply called the Witch. No sources exist from the Witch’s life, though many works of arcane literature claim to have been written by her. Many of these sources claim that the Witch was born in the Mithril Era, sometimes only a few years before the Reckoning of Temekan. Some believe the Witch was actually born during the Palladian Era, and that her birth is what triggered the Sundering Arcana. However, both of these interpretations rely mostly on apocryphal understandings of these periods and should not be given much merit by historians.Early Life
Based on what scraps of information we do have; the Witch is believed to have been born sometime during the final decades of the First Intermediate Period. She was born in Nioa, likely in what would soon become known as the Temekanian Empire. Most depictions of her during this type envision her as an aasimar or elf. Because so little is known about life during the First Intermediate Period, little can be said of her early life. She appears to have had some nascent connection to magic; whether that connection was divine, natural, or to the Old Magic itself is unclear.Journey to Ild
At some point, Myurdin befriended a Shanindar dwarf named Tahmuras. Together, the two of them joined a group of adventurers and journeyed far into the West. What drove them on this quest and much of what occurred along the way has been lost to time, though some local traditions found in Hakoa and Teroa may be linked to their arrival. What is known is that together the pair made first contact with the youngest of the mortal races, the First Humans. They were brought to their hidden cradle of civilization, the Lost City of Ild. There, Myurdin and her companions saw wonders beyond comprehension: floating gardens, canals lined with gold, and towers of greenstone and shadow glass. They saw men who never died and women that wove tapestries of dancing silk. Though only a century or so old, the First Humans had managed to craft technology beyond the imagination of any other mortal at that time. For after the gods of the Heavenly Council had crafted the First Humans in secret and isolating them from the other mortal races, they gave unto them a set of divine artefacts to guide them towards greatness. These artefacts were the fabled Time Tablets, and upon them the was written the Fates of all mortal beings. By possessing these Time Tablets, the First Humans had been able to write their own destinies and tap into the powers of the Old Magic. Upon witnessing the power of the Time Tablets and of the First Humans, Myurdin was overwhelmed and desired to learn this power. She learned what she could but yearned to bring this knowledge back to her people. So Myurdin stole the Time Tablets and fled along with the rest of her allies. Their escape proved costly, as only she and Tahmuras managed to return home alive.Apotheosis
Myurdin took the Time Tablets somewhere deep within the Valley of Shades. Here, beneath the caverns that would one day become the tombs and catacombs of the Temekanian pharaohs, Myurdin studied the Time Tablets and drew forth their power. Her connection to the Old Magic strengthened and as her power grew, so too did her hunger for knowledge. Soon she was no longer satisfied with simply learning of the world around her and of the things that had been. Myurdin desired to know what was to come and this desire soon consumed her. The power of the Time Tablets; the majesty of the Old Magic illuminated her mind and in its flashing light, blinded her forever more. At this point, sources diverge, with some saying she had not yet truly ascended to godhood but was merely a mortal blessed with unbelievable power. Others claim she did ascend but was simply not yet brought into the fold of the Heavenly Council. What is known is that she appeared to her friend and ally Tahmuras. A vision of Myurdin appeared to Tahmuras as he slept outside of the Valley of Shades. Tahmuras did not recognize her at first and fell down to worship the mighty and terrible goddess that had appeared before him. But Myurdin stopped him and told him that she was once the one he’d known for so long, now made anew. She told him of her new name, Myur’ahurdiin, which means “Fateborn”1 in Old Draconic and of her new power. And Myurdin, having cast her eyes towards the horizon, told Tahmuras of a coming struggle. She spoke of a great evil, a mortal wreathed in darkness, an heir who would follow her path to a vale of shadow. She saw the Old Magic perverted and the power of mortals stripped away to form the trappings of a new dark lord. And she saw fields of bones and rivers of blood and a new god born from the carnal pits of a dying world. And Myurdin told all of this to Tahmuras and asked him to become a ward against this threat. She told him that the power of the Time Tablets was not meant for mortals to fully comprehend but that the arcane and of the mysteries of the world must be wielded by mortals. For Myurdin foresaw that it would only be through the will of mortals upon the Astral Gates that this fate could be avoided.The Birth of An Order
Tahmuras agreed to do as Myurdin asked. He took the Time Tablets and sealed them within her tomb in the Valley of Shades. He then began to go out into the world and taught many the fundamentals of the arcane, so that the knowledge of these powers could be accessed by all peoples. And as he traveled, Tahmuras gained followers, masters of the arcane and of Tahmuras’s philosophy. They called themselves Tahmuras in his honor and became known throughout Holos as champions for peace and knowledge. And Myurdin created her own race of mortals, the aarakocra. She hoped to make them in her own image; to give them great knowledge and insight, and to give them the freedoms of flight that they may spread her ideals throughout the world. Many of them became the first to join Tahmuras and many more continued to carry out their progenitor’s mission in the centuries to come. For the next three thousand years, magic permeated the world. Kingdoms steeped in the arcane rose and fell and it was a time of gods and heroes and monsters. Throughout it all, the Tahmuras grew in strength and numbers, their reputations cementing themselves as stoic warriors and remarkable wielders of the Old Magic. Some Tahmuras strayed from the Order’s original teachings. These Dark Tahmuras dabbled in cutting through the barriers put in place by Myurdin and the Heavenly Council though blood magic and necromancy. Yet none gained a power for very long and were driven back into the shadows as quickly as they emerged. Myurdin remained on the fringes of worship, however, her power as a goddess derived from her connection to the Old Magic itself. Many saw her as a demigod and a source of inspiration as they continued to grow their own power through the study of the arcane. She remained uninitiated to the Heavenly Council and though many of the Council’s followers utilized magic, she remained an enigmatic figure cloaked in mystery and fear.A Dark Heir
It was around 3200 M.E. that the dark visions of Myurdin appeared to come into being. Unfortunately, as with the life of Myurdin, much of what follows has been pieced together from a variety of fragmented sources. Over the millennia, the Valley of Shades had become the final resting place for many of the Temekanian Empire’s pharaohs as they sought to emulate the Ascended Mortal. Here, a Temekanian noble said to have been named Soben, managed to gain entry into Myurdin’s tomb while attending his brother’s funeral. Some claim that Soben had once been a member of the Tahmuras. Others insist that he betrayed a Tahmuras ally to gain entry. And still others insist he stumbled upon the tomb through a luck or perhaps a preordained fate. Regardless of his means, this Soben returned to the court and shared his new findings with the people of Temekan. Soon after, the rest of Soben’s died under mysterious circumstances and the noble became the sole ruler of Temekan. Many Tahmuras are said to have disappeared as well, captured or slain, with only a few in Nioa managing to escape. Through his use of Myurdin’s work, Temekan prospered; its people growing old without sign of age and their lives enriched beyond compare. He took the royal name Ozha-Ban and his people worshipped him as a godking.Reign of the Godking
Yet soon, Soben was examining the Time Tablets and unlocking forbidden aspects of the Script, parts known only to the gods themselves. He learned dark secrets for siphoning the life-force of sacrificed victims to imbue the practitioner with great and terrible power. He shared this power with his most loyal sorcerer lords and turned all those that resisted to ash. First thousands, then millions of his subjects were slaughtered and in the end, Soben had unlocked not only the secret of revivification, but of immortality itself. Though his powers great, they did not satisfy Ozha-Ban. Like Myurdin, his desire for knowledge had only grown but where it took only the Witch’s sight, the Old Magic consumed Ozha-Ban’s very being. He summoned forth grim armies of thralls to every land in Holos, bringing back many millions more captives and plotted to sacrifice them all. He believed doing so would allow him to not simply become a god but become more powerful than Myurdin or any of the Heavenly Council.The Reckoning of Temekan
The retribution of the gods was swift, Telerashi rode down from the heavens on her thundering chariot and sent storms and blighting winds against the pharaoh’s sorcerer lords. The Temekanians fought back against the armies of the gods and many thousands died, even those innocents captured and brought before the battlefield. Uriah loosed blinding arrows upon Ozha-Ban’s twisted champions melting them away and turning the ground they walked upon to glass. Lacorré sent great waves from the Lazuli Ocean to drown the godking’s corrupted beasts. Balan and Ezrahil waded through armies of undead, shattering their broken bodies and leaving a swath of smouldering ruin int heir wake. Even the surviving Tahmuras arrived, along with a coalition of mortals who opposed Ozha-Ban. They decried him as a heretic and traitor to the magic arts. Yet the deeds of Ozha-Ban had already been too great and too terrible. While the Heavenly Council had stopped the rest of the world from becoming victims of the godking, the carnage of the battle impowered Ozha-Ban nonetheless. Many mortals died truly believing that the man behind all of this destruction was a god. With the land charged with Old Magic and the air filled with the final screaming prayers of the dead, Ozha-Ban achieved divinity. Those that survived looked through the ash and smoke to see a newborn god and their faith and fear made him the most powerful deity to walk upon the Material Plane. The gods of the Heavenly Council recoiled at this and Myurdin wept for all had been as she foresaw. She cast her gaze upon the future and knew what she must do. She told the gods of the Council to drive Ozha-Ban and his followers beneath crust of Holos, to the deepest Doom Caverns of the Underdark just above the earthen prison where Valdra still sleeps. As the Heavens pursued Ozha-Ban, Myurdin used her own command of the Old Magic to seal herself and all her power beyond the Astral Gate. With this, the Doom Lich’s power fell away from him and the gods were able to exile him within the planet’s surface, like the Great Old Ones before. And there he remained, forgotten by all but the wisest of sages and most devoted of cultists. With his presence emanating from the deepest caverns, the Underdark became warped and suffused with his dark presence. Those mortals that had followed him into this place slowly became marked and twisted things. We know them as the drow, the duergar, and the svirfneblin; though many more await vengeance in the shadows.A World Devoid of Magic
Following the dark days of the Reckoning of Temekan much of the mortal world was cut off from the arcane. The mortals rebuilt their world around the faith of the Heavenly Council or the veneration of the natural world. Those few that managed to summon the meagrest of magic were killed on sight or publicly executed to show mortality’s atonement for the Reckoning. Only the Tahmuras Order remained connected to Myurdin and to the Old Magic. They continued their mission of peacekeeping and diplomacy for many centuries, but now refused to share their knowledge of the arcane with anyone. They feared a return of the Doom Lich or of another like him and so maintained that only those within the Order could be taught the mysteries of the Old Magic. They even gathered the Time Tablets from the ruins of the Ghostdune Desert and hid them away at each of the Cosmic Pillars. And at each pillar, the Tahmuras built secret monasteries so that the Tablets would always be protected by the last keepers of the Old Magic. As the centuries drew on, the Tahmuras’s numbers shrank. Towns grew to distrust them and fear their power. Many leaders implored the Order to share what they had learned but the Tahmuras remained stalwart. At times they seemed to be nothing more than mercenary philosophers, stoic and without feeling towards the plights of their fellow mortals.In the Twilight of Palladia
In the last years of the Palladian Era, the Palladian Emperor Alcius the Wise was friends with the Order’s Grand Master, Chandria Baqtu. The Emperor had always had a keen interest in Chandria’s abilities as well as in the Old Magic in general. After years of trying to learn the secrets from her through their mutual friendship, Alcius asked Chandria to be taught by her outright. Chandria flatly refused, threatening that continued inquiry would result in the end of their friendship. The two soon parted ways, each devoting themselves more fully to their respective organizations. Yet Emperor Alcius’s arcane aspirations remained. He sent teams of explorers into the Ghostdunes and chased down leads in an attempt to learn the locations of the Cosmic Pillars. Little came of these expeditions but by the 980s, a new threat was on the horizon. Tension between the Palladian and Shanindar Empires was at an all-time high as the Palladians had ramped up the expansion of their plantation system and begun trading for dwarven slaves once more. At a summit in the Pyriki Arena in the southern Shanindar, the conflict reached its boiling point when a group of Palladian and Tahmuras diplomats were publicly executed. Thus, began the Gladiator Wars, a series of conflicts across Holos between the Palladian Empire and an alliance between the Shanindar and a number of colonized federations seeking independence from Palladia. Caught in the crossfire of that first battle, the Tahmuras sided with the Palladians and appointed many of their Order to serve as generals in the Palladian army. Many within the Tahmuras resigned and left the Order, for they felt that they were only contributing to a renewed cycle of violence.The Great Purge
For eighteen years the war dragged on with Palladian troops being deployed to colonies in Hakoa, Iroa, and Auloa. Hundreds of thousands died and the Tahmuras’s reputation as peacekeepers plummeted. Finally, around 996 P.E., when Palladian victory and expansion seemed all but inevitable, Emperor Alcius summoned Master Chandria Baqtu to his summer palace. He told her of his plans and hopes after the war and asked that she join him. He promised that they would rule as benevolent sorcerer kings, with all the power of the Old Magic behind their Empire Master Chandria was horrified by this and saw the error of her ways. She renounced Alcius and told him to abdicate the throne. Alcius was enraged and dueled with Chandria. The fight was a terrible one, collapsing much of Tzykanerion Palace. Chandria’s magic left terrible scars across Alcius’s body but in the end the Eldest Master fell to Alcius’s blade. Alcius then ordered his men to kill or capture every Tahmuras on sight, even those serving in his armies. This is what is now known as the Great Purge, when the last fifteen thousand Tahmuras were hunted down and slaughtered. Those that were captured were tortured for years by Alcius and his inquisitors, both for information on other Tahmuras, as well for the locations of the Cosmic Pillars.The Sundering Arcana
Eventually, in 998 P.E., a Tahmuras revealed the location of the Earth Navel the Cosmic Pillar of Nioa. The rapidly aging Alcius traveled to the provincial capital of Whitehill and using the information given to him by the captured Tahmuras, entered the Necropolis of the Saints on the Day of Dusks. Upon reaching the Gorgon Gate, the goddess Myurdin herself looked from her prison within the Astral Gates and saw another Ozha-Ban in the making. And as she cast her gaze forward to the years to come, she saw a great conflagration, a tumult that would remake the world. Such a fate was inevitable, yet there was one strand in the Weave that would give mortals all another chance. And so, the goddess Myurdin broke the seal upon the Astral Gates and allowed the Old Magic to return once more to the Material Plane. The once-dormant wards of the Gorgon Gate flared to life, and as Emperor Alcius approached them, he was consumed by flame. Great conflagrations broke out across Holos, as untamed magic spilled forth once more, wild and free. And on that first Day of the Dawn, the world entered the Sundered Era. Many wars and struggles soon followed, as those deprived by the world of magic threw off the shackles of the status quo. Even the Palladian Empire, who’s leaders had in some ways brought about the Sundering Arcana, fell away into ruin and fragmentation.A Sundered Age
Now, the worship of Myurdin has returned and she has joined the Heavenly Council fully as an integral member of the world of the divine. For though the Sundering Arcana prevented another from repeating history, it also has given the present new reason to fear the past. With the Astral Gates open once more, Ozha-Ban’s power grows, slowly returning to him after a millennium of hibernation. Many fear that his revenge is sure to come and that when it does, it shall set into motion the end times and a new Twilight Era. Today, the Tahmuras remain scattered and few in number as few trust them or their goals even all these years later. Yet they have returned to the Cosmic Pillars, which they guard in stoic silence, ever watchful for another who would attempt to corrupt the power of the Old Magic for their own purposes. Their vigilance appears well founded, as recent attacks on the Cosmic Pillars have resulted in the murder of many Tahmuras guardians and the thefts of the Time Tablets themselves. Only time will tell if the one behind these heinous acts, the one they call the Man in Black, will bring about the liberation of the Doom Lich, a second Reckoning or Sundering, or something else entirely.1 The literal translation for Myur’ahurdiin is “(one) born of unseen (or hidden) fate.” The title “Fateborn” does not appear until much later and is actually a closer translation to the modern spelling of the name Myurdin.
Comments