King Absalon Discusses His Past

“Many years ago when I was young and only a prince, a second son at that, with no claim to the throne, I started to grow bored of the politics of Androtia and I seeked a greater power than simply ruling the kingdoms. I was fascinated with the Gods, beings who live on this world, influence our every day life, but are so rarely talked about and so rarely seen. In my younger years the relationship with the House of Bjornn was much better. While we still disagreed with each other, they respected the crown and I grew up quite close with Radford and his now wife Elizabeth.” The King flips through a large volume and reminisces. “Oh the hours I would spend down here with them, reading through these ancient texts, learning the history of our world. I learned of the fragments, and the gods, I learned of the decks of wonder and Freya’s curse. It was not long before I set off on a Journey across the sea, to God’s rest. It became my goal to meet these Gods and fulfill some of my family’s history to continue the collaborations between the benevolent Gods and mankind. My forefather Andre De La Prue personally knew Michloix, and the abslaons have always been direct descendants of the Bjornns as you know.”
I arrived at the island and made my way through the woods. I saw amazing creatures there and almost died multiple times, but as a young wizard, I was prepared with enough spells and cunning to make my way to the grove in the center of the island. There I met Freya and Sashela. I spoke at length with Freya about this world, about the fragments and what they could do, about the current wielders, about the decks of wonder. Freya recruited me into her ranks much like you elf.”
Much like you, this is my first go around, the servants of Freya are to some degree, immortal from what I understand. Resurrecting again and again in service of Freya for eternity. I knew I had to help the fragment wielders and I knew I had to find as many Decks of Wonder as I could. Around this time, I set off south into the hard mountainous land of Caldria to try to track down what I believed to be the most powerful fragmant wielder. A man who was alive for thousands of years, Gamal Haroun. He was near impossible to find, but eventually I persisted and met with him. We discussed his fragment, we discussed the powers he had learned through practicing divine magic. He told me of his plans to imprison chaotic gods in mortal forms so that we could better track them. He gave me a way to contact him should I ever encounter a chaotic god or need assistance regarding a fragment.”
Because Gamal exists outside of time, all he had me do was write on piece of paper a specific phrase. He would appear next to me in those moments almost instantly. Im sure to him, he was constantly traveling the world throughout different moments in time and would just check to see if I had written the note. He never explained to me too deeply how he manipulated time, but I could tell that it was extremely difficult for him to actually impact events on a large scale or alter the main timeline we live in.
I returned to my kingdom with new resolve to stop chaotic evil where I could. Over time I became complacent and did not notice that Citri had not only left her thousand odd years of hiding, but had arrived at Androtia and went to Vallee Yotul. The brief civil war, the War of the Khim’taleur Pass, was caused almost entirely by Citri’s meddling. During this uprising, I contacted Gamal Haroun. The orcs of Valee Yotul were generally peaceful towards cote dprue before this event and no one thing seemed to start this conflict. I suspected some kind of manipulation. Gamal uncovered Citri in the battle, found her and managed to contain her spirit in the form of a halfling. That halfling would grow to be Theodore Sharpe. The issue was, Gamal’s magic was unpredictable, he only realized after casting that he had no idea where or who citri would occupy. It turns out Citri’s spirit had occupied an unborn halfling child who then grew up to be Theodore. During this battle. My brother was killed and I then had a whole new set of responsibilities, I would take the throne. The Khim’taluer Pass was closed and a new time of unease between the different Androitan states began. Vallee Yotul cut all trade with the country.
I assumed the throne and within a few years had brought Theodore on as hand of the king. This is the part that get’s fuzzy as Citri within him immediately began corrupting my mind. The last 30 years or so are a haze of bad decisions. I remember not promoting Belize Kilgaard. I remember forcing her to take on a role as the Master of Coin despite her protests, despite her unwillingness, she accept the job. The laws that were passed under my administration targeted only the poorest of our city. Quickly we saw the rise of the Port Raiders and Belaid Chabane was unchecked in the center commercial expanding endlessly forward.
Tensions with the House of Bjornn only rose as Theodore provoked the arguments between our houses for years. Radford saw an opportunity and attempted to use my weakened state many times to make a play on the throne. Power had corrupted him as well, he forgot our past, he forgot our childhood and his duty as a descendant of Bjornn to stop the evil In this world. When I discovered that Radford had acquired a Deck of Wonders, I knew he could not be trusted with this power. In a rare moment of clarity through the haze of Citri’s corruption, I was able to message Gamal and let him know that we had to recover the deck. This is why he was there that night. I apologize that he did not trust you all, I did not have the prescence to tell him of your arrival. When Gamal arrived at the city, he sensed that something was wrong with Theodore. He realized that this person bore magical remanants of his own making, and then understood that Theodore was Citri. He had to recover the deck and get it away from Citri while also finding a way to stop her from taking the city. Clearly he failed at this task, it was a great deal to ask of one man, even a man as great as Gamal Haroun.
Now that Gamal is gone, we can likely save him by collecting the pieces and getting some deity to reforge the Continuance Pendulum. We need Gamal, we need all of the wielders if we are to stand a chance against Naito. We will also need him for his ability to contain Chaotic gods in the way he did with Theodore. This power, though unfocused, is clearly extremely effective at dampening their abilities and restricts them to a mortal form that can be killed.
Chaotic gods are returning to this world and we must stop it. Naito is the catalyst that has shown them the forces of Order in this world are losing control. Now, everyone thinks I am dead, everyone thinks you are murderers, We have 5 or 6 parties vying for the throne, the entire city is ablaze with chaos, and the council arrives tomorrow. What do you all want to do?”