Archfae, Elemental, Lord of the Dying Light, Martyr of the Bleeding Lands
According to legend, his sire was the Wind of the Winter Solstice, and his mother was the Deathless Queen, godmother to the Alukah blood princes. Legend says he was born from a great egg of cinnabar crystal that hatched in the caldera of a sleeping volcano.
Owing to this lineage, the Prince possessed vast supernatural power. Part greater elemental spirit and part ethereal Archfae, it was said that he walked with one foot in the world of the living and the other in the realm of the dead, and for this reason he was known as the Dusk Prince...
When the Sidhe and other highborn Fae abandoned Duatha to return to their extraplanar worlds, the Dusk Prince was among those who remained, for due to the circumstances of his birth, his tether to the earthen realm was innate. While recognized as Archfae by the Faerie Courts of Duatha, he chose to stand at a distance from their entreatments, politics, and intrigues.
In the Age of Elvenkind that followed, he remained a shadowy, melancholy figure, feared and respected by both Seelie and Unseelie beings, as an entity that lived between day and night, and between Summer and Winter Courts. In this era, he grew in influence and began his quiet ascendency.
His was the domain of twilight, of drowsing strangeness, of endings... but also of reverie and bittersweet lament. There are tales of those who entered into pacts or bargains with him in return for favours, but never lightly, for while the Prince could be generous, his prices were always dear.
It was the star-gazing High Elves who augered that the Dusk Prince was destined for a terrible fate, and would one day bring about great tragedy. Due to this portent, the Elves viewed him as a Cursed Lord - both a figure of romantic sadness and terrible, looming inevitability.
During the Age of Blight, when the High Goblins asserted their dominance over the world, the Dusk Prince was neither cowed by their power, nor compelled to submit to their decadent whims. Instead they paid homage to him, and did not tread upon his domains without permission. Thus in this pivotal era of great struggle between Faeries light and dark, he remained a neutral, disinterested figure.
Following the darkness of the Blight, the Heavens finally took a side. When the Gods turned the Eye of the Divine upon Goblinkind, and cast them down for their meddling with the stuff of life, only then did the Prince shrug off his ennui.
In defiance of divine punishment, he offered sanctuary to those of pure Goblin blood. Although it was not enough to prevent their great fall from power, it indebted many Dark Fae to him. For the Prince it also served as a bitter reminder that those of the Faerie creed would never be permitted to rise as high as the Gods, and that this world of Duatha would never be allowed to belong to them.
The Dusk Prince was born of the material world, making him a rare Archfae bound to the fate of Duatha, and with no stake in the Faerie realm. It is perhaps for this reason that he felt entitled to challenge the will of the Gods.
The Dusk Prince was born of the material world, making him a rare Archfae bound to the fate of Duatha, and with no stake in the Faerie realm. It is perhaps for this reason that he felt entitled to challenge the will of the Gods.
THE FALL OF THE SILVER GLADE
The Silver Glade was a place of great significance in the Faerie world, sometimes said to be at the true heart of mystic Duatha. It was one of the four most important bridges between the Earth Realm and the Faerie otherworld, a place where wild, life-giving Fae magicks of Warp and Wend still flowed freely.
Legend says the moon always shone upon the glade, and turned all things silver in its light. The waters of its pools were so pure that they cured all sickness, and reflected only true images. Great primordial spirits who roamed there peacefully in the planar half-light. It was a domain sacred to all Fae, both light and dark.
In the present age, creatures of Faerie normally live apart from the burgeoning race of Common Men - those loved by the Gods. Some may share the land alongside human habitation, but will choose to remain hidden from their eyes. This is the lot of those we now call the “Fading Folk.”
But in times past, it was not always so... and not all Fae were willing to fade so quietly. In the waning days of the Age of Myth, when mankind was new, there were those who rejected the will of the Gods, and rankled against their fate. Thus was forged the Pact of the Silver Glade...
The Dying of the Light
At the closing of the Age of Myth, the First Men were in their twilight. A new tribe of men had emerged - petty, short-lived, and numerous. Although they were primitive and rough-minded compared to the Duathan, it was augured that these Common Men were chosen by the Gods to become inheritors of the world. In deference to the heavens, the last kings of the Duathan dynasties set about preparing the earth for its new stewards.
Over time, the strain of new men prospered and expanded - clearing forests, taming the land, building homesteads and temples. For the long-lived Fae, it was hardly a blink of an eye before these squalid creatures were pressing back the borders of the One Forest, and threatening their hallowed sanctuaries.
The Elves were said to be the wisest of the Fae. They were watchers of the stars, and they knew that the destiny of the Fading Folk had been written. They felt sorrow that their age would soon come to an end, but they counseled the Seelie Courts to step back from the world they had shared with the Duathan until then. Many returned across the bridges to Faerie, while others retreated to in-between places on the threshholds of the Veil.
But there was one great Fae Lord who would not accede to the will of the Gods...
The Dusk Prince's Rage
Unwilling to cede the world of his birth to the Children of the Duathan, the Dusk Prince instead claimed the Silver Glade as his bulwark against the encroachments of Common Men. He declared that no man would ever sully the beauty of the Silver Glade, unless they wished to nourish the soil with their own blood.
Then he called upon all the restless spirits of both Seelie and Unseelie Courts - all those who felt rancor at the unearned advent of men. War he whispered... and the chosen ones who heard his voice flocked to his banner.
This was how the Pact of the Silver Glade was forged. The Dusk Prince assembled an army unlike even those of the Goblin Kings; Sprites and Spriggans, Ice Elves and Alukah, Dryads of Blackthorn and Birch, Boggles, Bugbears, Harpies, Redcaps, and savage spirit beasts from both sides of the Veil.
At first, this army unleashed its fury on any humans who came forth, scouring them from the woods and harrying them from their fields. But the hearts of men did not break before this threat - the fear only ignited their furor. Their numbers swelled behind their walls. They called upon their gods and they gathered their heroes. They forged cold iron weapons, inscribed themselves in protective runes, and blew the horns of battle. Soon enough, the war that the Dusk Prince had desired came to be.
At first, this army unleashed its fury on any humans who came forth, scouring them from the woods and harrying them from their fields. But the hearts of men did not break before this threat - the fear only ignited their furor. Their numbers swelled behind their walls. They called upon their gods and they gathered their heroes. They forged cold iron weapons, inscribed themselves in protective runes, and blew the horns of battle. Soon enough, the war that the Dusk Prince had desired came to be.
The Army of the Pact thought they could not lose such a struggle, but the mortal children of the First Men proved bold, resilient and oh, so numerous. And at their forefront, Duathan champions led the charge, turning magicks they themselves had learnt or stolen from the Sidhe back upon the Dusk Prince's forces.
The humans rallied and pushed the Fae back, hounding them through the forests that once were their sanctuaries, fighting to the very borders of the Silver Glade. And when the lines of Fae were breached, furious Men clad in cold iron spilled through the Veil, and butchered the Dusk Prince's inner circle.
Even in this moment of crisis, the Dusk Prince remained unbowed. As the armies of Men surged into the Silver Glade, torches in hand, he stood alone against them in defiance. Drenched in the blood of his own followers, he faced his foes, and with his dying breath pronounced a terrible curse upon them -- one to shake the realms. He poured forth his seething bile, his hatred for mankind, and his spite for the Gods.
These words fell upon both the Men and the shining lands of the Glade -- searing the soil and bending nature itself to his ire. Gleaming pools ran red with spilt blood, and the silver leaves on the trees erupted into angry fire. The Prince's dying act slaughtered the armies of Men... and turned all that was once silver in the Glade to blackened char and mottled crimson instead. It is said all who stood there on that day, Man and Fae alike, perished horribly… and that the Silver Glade was no more.
The Dusk Prince had made good on his grim promise that no mortal would ever hold the Silver Glade… even if it meant destroying that holy place, sacrificing his kinfolk, and befouling the land for 4000 years.
* * *
