Kra'ar Xoc

Kra'ar Xoc narrowed his yellow eyes. Talishi, a young neophyte of his den, stood opposite him. She was focused on the large toad that sat on the gray flagstones between them, blood weeping from a cut on its arm. Her mouth moved silently. Her forked tongue flicked at the cold air in the vaulted chamber. An olive-green glow formed in the palm of her hand, and she smiled, revealing two long fangs.

“Consssentrate,” Kra'ar whispered.

Talishi's smile faded. She knit her brow in concentration, and the glow solidified into a translucent orb. When it had grown to the size of an apple, she rolled the orb between her two fingers and thumb, examining it. Satisfied, she hurled the orb at the toad.

The creature gave a pained croak as the blast hit it. Its skin sloughed away as its body dissolved, leaving only a putrid, viscous mess pooling on the flagstones.

Talishi's shoulders sagged and she released her breath with a long sigh.

“That isss not good enough!” Kra'ar hissed, and the end of his stave hammered the ground and reverberated about the chamber.

He waved his stave, and its assortment of tiny skulls and totems clinked together as his sibilant chanting echoed through the chamber. The gruesome remains of the toad began to coagulate, its decaying death reversed in a most jolting, obscene manner, with bones crunching and bodily fluids sucked back into its warty skin until the creature was whole again.

A long tongue licked mucus from its eye, and the toad let out a cheerful croak.

“Now.” Kra'ar raised an eyebrow at Talishi. “Try again.” Kra'ar Xoc was a young shamanic neophyte when he was compelled to embark on a pilgrimage which took him from the Burning Lands' Sskah City to the frontiers of Praetoria. He bid his family, his peers, and his elders farewell and set sail on a Ferexian galleon bound for the Great Lowlands.

And so began Kra'ar Xoc's transformation from young neophyte to master shaman.

Upon his arrival, he quickly adapted to this new world, a land full of potential and rich with magic. He wandered the wilds, learning from the people and beasts that called the frontier home, absorbing all they taught him with relish.

Many years passed before he returned to Sskah City, not the frightened youngster those who knew him remembered, but a powerful shaman steeped with wisdom and a deep inner calm.

Kra'ar shared with them an impressive display of his powers: feats of restoration, hexes that dampened the magic of his opponents and increased his vitality, and even a mastery of blending into his surroundings until he was all but undetectable. They were amazed by what he had learned.

Kra'ar petitioned the shamanic elders of Sskah City for a congregation of neophytes to return with him to Praetoria, so he could start a new den and teach them all he had learned, with the promise that, one day, they would return to the Burning Lands and spread their knowledge among the serpentine of Sskah City.

And so, Den Xoc was born from the pilgrimage of one bold, young neophyte; Kra'ar went on to lead and teach many who, like him, dared to risk the comforts of tradition for the raw, untapped potential found within the wilds of a new world.