The Elysian Empire’s Legend of Creation

In ages long past, there existed a glorious walled city by the sea, unlike any other of its time. The city was called Adamaris, and within its walls lived a young fisherman by the name of Silas. Silas was born to a poor family of fishermen whose work he continued and eventually grew into a man without a mother’s touch. His life was often filled with days where he would give up whatever food he could afford to his aging father, but despite the hard times, his life still had some joys he deeply treasured.
One such joy was the daughter of a foreign nobleman from Patavinum, Valeria. She had often caught his eye from afar as a child, but one day she had somehow become separated from her guardian in the city’s market. Silas had considered it his destined moment, and spoke to her for the first time when he offered her help. The two continued to secretly meet every night when the moon was full from then onward, and they became entangled with romantic feelings.
However, now fully grown, they could no longer deny the difference between their social status. Valeria’s father had decided to marry her off to another nobleman named Adrianus from their homeland within the coming months. In his despair, Silas left Adamaris and spent a night by the Syra River. It was there that he heard voices too haunting to be human. He followed the sounds to the peak of a ravine, where he saw the outlines of giant figures having an argument within the night sky.
Silas was able to overhear the words “crown,” “right,” “war,” and “mine” with little effort. It seemed to him that they were discussing who deserved ownership of some sacred item. He stepped toward the edge of the ravine, nearly falling to his death, but not before catching himself on a vine and hauling himself back up. A silence fell over the ravine as the figures began to glow brighter and addressed Silas with booming voices.

“What mortal dares to listen in on the dealings of gods?”

Deeply embarrassed, Silas realized such things could only be gods, and quickly fell to his knees in a deep bow.

“Forgive me,” the young fisherman pleaded with his head against the rocky ground, “it was never my intention to disturb a conversation meant not for the ears of mortals.”

The gods broke the heavy silence to once again converse amongst themselves, this time in hushed voices about the human in front of them. When they had come to a decision, they moved the clouds from the night sky and revealed themselves to be Yviany, the Goddess of Dreams, Ulvan, the God of Judgement, and Bymos, the God of Wisdom. The three commanded Silas to raise his head, wherein between them he saw a crown shining unlike any gold or jewels he had ever seen. With his full attention, the gods gave Silas the choice of who would be bestowed the crown.
Unable to choose otherwise, each of the gods offered gifts to Silas if he were to give them ownership of the crown. Ulvan promised him that his foes would face righteous judgement. Bymos offered him all knowledge known to mankind. Yviany whispered that all of his dreams and desires would become reality.
Silas, lacking any true enemies, had no need for judgement. Being young and naive, he did not yet understand the true value of knowledge, so he rejected wisdom. However, as a young man, he did have many desires--one of those being Valeria. And so it came to pass that he chose Yviany, the Goddess of Dreams.
As a thank you, and to uphold her end of the bargain, Yviany allowed Silas to borrow the crown for fifty years. Such a time equalled that of a blink to the gods, and she was willing to wait for her treasure. She explained that it was known as The Crown of Truth, for it would allow the wearer to charm anyone who saw them. They could then command anyone without the affected realizing--even have them happily admit their darkest secrets. The most interesting fact was that the crown worked on the Fae--a race that was otherwise notoriously immune to all types of charm.
The last words Yviany uttered to Silas were ones of warning:

“Do not succumb to the darker lusts of your mortal heart.”

Barely acknowledging her words, Silas gratefully accepted the crown and used its power to command Valeria’s father to allow the two to marry. It worked, and they were wed. Silas became happy, for a time, using the crown to gain riches previously unimaginable to him. He managed to buy a title of nobility and, at first, he graciously shared his wealth with his wife and father. However, Silas soon fell into the all-to-common trap of greed. Believing the noble house and land he commanded others to give him were not nearly enough, he set his sights on the throne. With the power of the crown, it was a simple affair for Silas to walk into the royal throne room and charm everyone into submission until the king willingly gave up his own crown and title.
Silas was a despotic ruler who forced his subjects to pay unimaginably high taxes to him. As time passed, he hoarded his rapidly growing wealth even from his own blood. He spent very little gold on a funeral for the father he once cherished, and considered his wife’s mere existence a drain on his treasury. Angered by both Silas’s familial disrespect and his previous decision regarding the owner of the Crown of Truth, Ulvar appeared before Adrion, the prince of Patavinum. Ulvar ordered Adrion to sneak into Adamaris without revealing his identity and steal the crown. Adrion made a magical pact with the god under oath that he would never reveal his true name, lest his entire bloodline be cursed with misfortune for eternity.
Adrion did as he was told, and managed to enter the walled city disguised as a merchant. He spent a week gathering gossip on the king--figuring out a way into the royal palace, and he was making steady progress toward his goal. On the seventh day, tragedy struck, and the prince was dragged before Silas as a criminal--for the simple crime of refusing to pay an entire year’s worth of citizen taxes. Silas declared that as long as anyone was within the walls of his city, they would pay the full yearly tax. Still, Adrion refused, courageously declaring that Silas was not, and never would be, his king.
Enraged, Silas ordered him to be publicly executed as an example. Adrion did not speak a word of his name, nor where he had come from, and faced his death without succumbing to fear.
Across the sea, a young blacksmith named Theodosius awoke from a dream of his heart being shot by two arrows from a lion-headed man. It was then that a messenger delivered the news that his lover, Prince Adrion, had been executed by the king of Adamaris. Theodosius was overcome by righteous fury alongside the king of Patavinum, who quickly gathered soldiers in the name of his fallen son. Theodosius was the first to volunteer, despite the pleas of his mother, who had received a divine revelation from Yviany that he would die in battle if he were to leave. Theodosius could not bring himself to fear death due to the depth of his grief. Before leaving, he forged a sword that would later be named Ulvarnius, Bringer of Judgement, and brought it with him on his journey.
Patavinum’s forces lay siege to the city for seven years, leading up to the climactic battle where Theodosius was finally summoned to a one-on-one battle as his homeland’s prized champion against Adamaris’s. With a shout of unending sorrow, Theodosius won the battle, but was stuck down by an arrow to the heart after both armies were released. After his death, King Silas was killed by an arrow through his skull that knocked him from his horse during the same battle.
Unfortunately, Silas had left the Crown of Truth within the city walls, ordering his son, Modestus, to wear the crown should he die. Modestus did as he was told and discovered the true source of his father’s power. The two cities reached a stalemate, until Citrio, Patavinum’s greatest shipbuilder, arrived with a fleet of his newest ships reinforced with magic. After years of trying, the Patavinumans were finally able to break through the walls of Adamaris that had been strengthened by layers of protective Guardian magic. The Patavinum forces broke into the city in the dead of night after a festival, when guards were scarce, and easily fought their way into the royal palace. Citrio had heard about the true power of the king’s crown from a priestess at a temple for the god Bymos. When Modestus approached Citrio, the shipbuilder revealed a mirror that had been enchanted by a powerful witch made to reflect both the king’s reflection, and the crown’s powerful charm magic back onto him. Citrio used the reflection spell to his advantage and commanded the prince to give up the crown.
While this was happening, a son of Adamitrix, Goddess of the Sea, and an Adamariusan man named Gavius awoke to the sounds of fighting outside his home. Seeing the city being consumed by flames, Gavius used his innate fire resistance to find survivors within the city and escaped with one of the remaining Adamariusan ships. He would later go on to found Ostia, the homeland that would later give birth to the twins Ladislaus and Cassandra.
After Adamarius burned to the ground, Citrio took the Crown of Truth to an oracle who received divine revelations from the god of Light, Amarus. The oracle told Citrio the crown was much too dangerous for mortal hands, and should be destroyed before greater calamity struck the world. Having resisted the crown’s charismatic pull on human greed, Citrio managed to use the deceased Theodosius’s sword to destroy the crown--breaking it into ten pieces.
The oracle warned that the crown could not be fully destroyed--as it was created by godly hands, and it would be possible for one to remake it by combining the pieces. They advised Citrio to hide the shards where no one would ever discover.
Knowing even he would eventually be tempted by the pull of the crown, Citrio decided to have select representatives each take a piece of the crown and scatter them across the continent. To this day, the locations of the ten pieces of the Crown of Truth remain hidden, unknown to even the rulers of the land--lest they fall victim to the fate of Silas--but it is said that a piece was given to the Sirens, the Faunus, the Vampires, the Tieflings, the Elves, the four seasonal Fae Courts, and the Humans.
Many heroes and rulers have attempted to find the pieces, but none have yet succeeded in their quest. And so the crown has become one of many mysteries that have fallen into the mists of legend, until now...