Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
Cyri'kazzen the Drow said:
I missed this when it was first asked. The relevant link is here, which links to another spot in the story hour as well. I'm happy to repost the relevant bits; the PCs are being spoken to by a blind elven shaman, late at night, high in the trees.
"I will tell you the oldest legend in the world. Before you humans were molded from the clay, even before Corellon Larethian shaped his perfect people, there are some who believe that the Old World was ruled by the Giantkin, the Dragonfolk, and the Scaled Ones in a time of High Magic. But there is a story that before the first dragon, and before the Gods of the Giants and the Lizards even arrived, the world was already here.
"Once it had been a home to races we can not even imagine, but that time had passed. For when the Gods first arrived here, brought by the voice of the last innocent screaming his death, they found a world in ruin. The whole world was worms, and worms were the world, and they cloaked it in darkness and foul vapors, and they ruled as Gods over the twitching bones of their dead victims. Ruins covered the world, but even the new Gods did not know who built them, and the worms had no Gods but themselves.
"So the Worms were foul in they eyes and nostrils of the Gods, and they took it upon themselves to cleanse the world. The worm spawn could not all be slain, so they were tricked, and banished through a hole in reality to a red prison beyond the stars. And around this hole the Gods set markers to keep the prison locked. When the Gods then set to rekindle the sun, it would not light, and when they looked they found that two worms had hidden from them. These worms were wrapped in bands of light and were cursed to stay bound and powerless while the new sun shone upon the world. Thus, the world filled with light and was remade in the name of the Gods, and was called Spira. In time, the world was cleansed enough for Corellon Larethian to shape his children, and in time the other people of Spira were shaped as well by their creators.
It's believed that one of these worms is chained deep beneath a temple to Imbindarla, far to the south-east on the Penngian Peninsula.* No one the group has spoken to knows where the other one is bound."Once it had been a home to races we can not even imagine, but that time had passed. For when the Gods first arrived here, brought by the voice of the last innocent screaming his death, they found a world in ruin. The whole world was worms, and worms were the world, and they cloaked it in darkness and foul vapors, and they ruled as Gods over the twitching bones of their dead victims. Ruins covered the world, but even the new Gods did not know who built them, and the worms had no Gods but themselves.
"So the Worms were foul in they eyes and nostrils of the Gods, and they took it upon themselves to cleanse the world. The worm spawn could not all be slain, so they were tricked, and banished through a hole in reality to a red prison beyond the stars. And around this hole the Gods set markers to keep the prison locked. When the Gods then set to rekindle the sun, it would not light, and when they looked they found that two worms had hidden from them. These worms were wrapped in bands of light and were cursed to stay bound and powerless while the new sun shone upon the world. Thus, the world filled with light and was remade in the name of the Gods, and was called Spira. In time, the world was cleansed enough for Corellon Larethian to shape his children, and in time the other people of Spira were shaped as well by their creators.
* At one point the PCs had possession of a cubic gate that went a couple of interesting places, including the mindflayer city where the damaged elder brain was and just outside of this particular temple. The first time the group went there (around 10th-12th lvl) they took one look at the crumbling and looming exterior - I tried to duplicate the mood of the temple from the original Temple of Elemental Evil module - and they wanted nothing to do with it. The looked at it for a few minutes, grimaced, decided there were more pressing problems, and buggered off to tackle another plot hook. Probably just as well.
