The Eternity Door

That damn story has swallowed up more lives than all the sharks in all the seas. But yeah, sure... you're gunna be different. Nice knowing you kid.
— Overhead inside a dockside tavern in Far Harbor

Far Harbor has no shortage of stories to tell when it comes to buried treasure, sunken ships, lost temples, and lurking horrors, but only one of them weaves together all these tired old tropes into a single tale. That being the myth of the Eternity Door and the seven keys to unlocking what lies sealed away.

Every lunatic, drunk, and seadog who knows the story has their own version to tell, but no matter their "personal spin" the core core details are always the same.

The Ancient Myth

Long ago, a race of creatures ruled the islands with magic beyond even that which the Elves could conjure. They controlled magic not with spells and formulae but with their very thoughts - just like the gods themselves. These old masters were more concerned with the heavens and with The Gates than any of Tairos' earthly happenings. Yet, despite this indifference, this power of theirs drew the attention of a distant and cruel kingdom who's jealous god set out to destroy them. This god believed only he knew what was best for Tairos, but this race of reptilian sages dared to claim otherwise. They told this divinity he misunderstood the awesome responsibilities that came with being a shepherd to mortal kind, and worst of all, that he betrayed the wisdom of his teacher. In his wrath this golden god unleashed his full might upon the entirety of the sages' nation. So devastating was his magic that their island was shattered into little fragments that would go on to be known as the Tairuk Pebbles today. The sages would perish and their servants would flee for the deep swamps where they'd devolve into brutish lugs or skittish pests. Content with the apocalypse he had wrought, the god returned to his throne to rest and to watch the ruins of his enemy sink into the ocean.

However; as the stories go, a small handful of the sages survived just long enough to lock away their greatest treasure behind a massive barrier known as the Eternity Door, which can only be opened with seven keys, each one forged using the life force of one of the survivors. With their dying breath they scattered these keys across the waters of the Tairuk Island Chain to be found by whomever was worthy enough to inherit what was left behind.

The Modern Horror

While the background of the story is filled with mythic creatures and divine fury, the more modern portion is where the dread settles in and scares off those who are weak of heart. This portion always begins with a man named Gervasio Salavar, the captain of a deadly ship-of-the-line named the Dark Dream. Gervasio was an actual pirate lord and a rather infamous one who sailed the region almost a century ago, pillaging as he pleased till his ship was lost at sea. Most historians attribute the vanishing of the ship to her captain's wicked nature toward his crew and an eventual mutiny that ended in disaster for both sides.

Where truth begins to give way to myth is that Gervasio supposedly found the location of the Eternity Door, but only then did he discover it required seven keys to open. He used a powerful witch to locate the door and forced her to transform his personal compass into a divining rod. It would always point to the Eternity Door when commanded, and more importantly, it would also guide its owner toward the seven keys. Once he had his powerful relic functioning ,Captain Salavar is then said to have gutted the witch so that no other could create such a tool. Rumors say that she was left laying in a pool of her own blood which the compass fell into as well, and that with her dying breath she muttered a final curse upon compass. One that would wither the user's mind and drive them to greater bouts of madness with each key collected. Gervasio Salavar, as the tale tells, managed to collected two of the keys before the witch's curse forced him to turn on his crew and set fire to the Dark Dream. A handful of survivors are believed to have returned to port, possibly with the captain's keys, and helped spread the legend from there.

However, Captain Salavar's story does not end there. Sailors continue to share stories to this day; claiming to have sighted the Dark Dream prowling the waters around the Tairuk Island Chain and nearby coastal villages of the mainland. His phantasmal ship consuming vessels and villages in its path with ghostly fire while the the Captain and his spectral crew slaughter their way to the resting place of the keys. It's said that he hunts for them now, even in death, believing that the prize behind the Eternity Door can restore him life or even make him immortal. No credible sighting of the Dark Dream has ever been recorded in modern times, but there have been a number of burnt-out hulks with missing crew found floating about the ocean currents over the last century or so. While it's more likely these acts are the work of pirate lords or slavers, the mere mention of them add fuel to the fire that keeps this legend alive.

Historical Basis

Gervasio Salavar was a real Pirate Lord operating in the region of the Tairuk Island Chain roughly a century ago. He was noted to be a particularly cruel man who frequently assaulted his own crew.

There is credible evidence to support an ancient pre-tribal(the founding tribes of the current major nations) civilization that seemed capable of building large-scale pyramid like structures. As far as their supposed magical capabilities or affinity for the stars, that is unsubstantiated. Regarding their demise, the only civilization powerful enough to have brought about their end is The Empire of Skyrir, a very distant nation whose timeline would have overlapped with this one. That said, each of these nations were separated by massive distances. It is unlikely they would have known of each other and that Skyriran navies would have survived the journey here. Corroborating the notion that Skyrir had an actual "Golden God" and that he personally laid waste to these people is impossible.

Spread

Some portion of this tale is told every day in some tavern, inn,or dockside shanty. Any historical facts as related to the core components of the myth are rarely known by the parties reciting them.

Variations & Mutation

Countless variations exist. Some of the more popular ones claim that the sages were time travelers or visitors from a world in the heavens. There are variants that replace the Golden God with Ephias, The Chain Maker or the Traveler. Some do not use a destroyer entity at all and claim the end of the sages came at the behest of a comet from the sky crashing into the island. That does match up with geological evidence regarding ash layers in the stone and a natural explanation for the sundering of an island. There are those that always find a way of making the Fae into the villains responsible though that is a far less popular addition.

Regarding the keys there are iterations that say each key possesses some individual power or level of awareness related to each sage who gave their life to make one. Some say that the keys were found by explorers from Melanthris and hidden away in their vaults so that no one will even possess a power equal to theirs.

In the case of Salavar some versions of the story say the witch was his wife. Others that the witch was a Siren; royalty perhaps or the last of her species. Many variations of the story say Salavar is a zombie rather than a ghost or some other physical form of Undead.

Cultural Reception

It's a common story and generally one known across different crews and in different communities. Its rarely taken seriously and often used as an excuse to gather around a campfire or at a table for drink and good company

Date of First Recording

The first versions of the story started cropping up almost 100 years ago, around the time of Captain Salavar's disappearance

Related Ethnicities