Archmagus Ixar of the Tundra

Archmagus Ixar of the Tundra, last survivor of a long-forgotten religious order, bears the blessing and curse of power over the dead. Trapped in the Tundra, his only companions are rotting corpses and the howling spirits he attracts. His monstrous deeds hide a noble goal: free his home from a curse.

Raised in an old Red Hats community, he always had to fight to be accepted. While most kids his age played hide-and-seek, he made friends of a different kind: the spirits of those who had just died.

At first, this ability to see and hear the dead terrified him. Whenever someone died in the village, Ixar would lie awake at night, waiting for the terrifying cry of a new visitor. He couldn't understand why they tormented him, or why his parents believed the spirits were just nightmares.

Over time, he began to realize that these beings meant no harm. They were just lost and needed help to find their way to the afterlife. And since only he seemed able to see them, he decided to become his guide and escort them to whatever awaited them in eternity.

It was a bittersweet task. Ixar enjoyed the company of ghosts, but each one he laid to rest was a new friend he had to say goodbye to. To the dead he was a savior, but to the living, an outcast. The villagers only saw a disturbed boy talking to people who weren't there. Stories of his visions soon spread beyond the village, eventually drawing the attention of a small order of monks north of the holy pillars. His envoys traveled to the village of Ixar, convinced that he could become a tool of their faith.

Ixar agreed to accompany them to his monastery, where he learned the ways of the Twilight Friars and the true meaning of their symbols. Each monk carried with him a shovel, a symbol of his duty to carry out the funerary rites that guaranteed that souls would not go astray, as well as a clay egg representing the union of the dead and the unborn.

But no matter how hard he tried, Ixar never managed to gain the acceptance of the other monks. For them, it was the tangible proof of things that were only to be known through faith. They envied his ability to effortlessly perceive what they were only beginning to understand after a lifetime devoted to his study. Despised by his brothers, he found himself alone again.

One morning, while he was taking care of his chores in the cemetery, he was interrupted by the appearance of a cloud as black as coal that advanced devouring everything in its path. He tried to escape, but the cloud quickly caught up with him and plunged him into darkness.

All around him, all living things began to contort, corrupted by the unholy magic of the Black Mist. People, animals and even plants were transformed into sinister and vile creatures of their former selves. The turbulent air around them was full of whispers and his brothers began to break their mud eggs, as if they caused them deep anguish. An instant later, Ixar watched in horror as the souls of the monks were torn from their bodies, leaving nothing but cold, pale corpses behind.

Between the fading cries of his brothers, only Ixar could hear the times that sounded in the mist:

"Take it off. Join us. We will be one."

He felt his fingers seek to break the egg in his hands. Summoning all his determination, he removed his hands from his egg and ordered the souls to stop howling. The Black Mist shuddered violently, and darkness swallowed Ixar.

Upon awakening, the winds had ceased and the once fertile land had been transformed into the grotesque wasteland of the Tundra. Lone tendrils of Black Mist still clung to him, as if to seize the one living thing they hadn't yet managed to corrupt. But as the Mist curled around him, Ixar realized that the mud egg repelled him. His hands gripped it, realizing it was the only thing keeping him alive.

Over the next few days he scoured the Tundra for survivors, but found nothing but the twisted remains of its former inhabitants. Everywhere, all he could see were the wretched spirits rising from the corpses.

As he searched, little by little, he began to put together the pieces of the events that had led to that cataclysm: An archmagus had come to revive his dead companion in his experiments, but all he had achieved was to condemn all its inhabitants. .

Ixar would have wanted to go in search of that archmagus, to undo the curse he had caused. But he felt helpless in the face of the infinity of death that surrounded him. Almost lost in his sadness, he began to talk to the spirits around him, trying to find the same comfort he had as a child. But as he communicated with the Mist, corpses began to rise from their graves, drawn by his voice. Then he realized that the bodies he had buried on his day were now under his command. A glimmer of hope lit up in his despairing heart. To liberate the Shadow Isles, he would use her power and his strength.

To end the curse, he would be forced to use it.

Entered by: 0xdEF2…7A80 and preserved on chain (see transaction)