WORLD BOOK WORLD BOOK WORLD BOOK 0126 0126
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Kings had their volumes filled with bard’s tales and
more poetic legends such as this one below.
Six primary villages emerged where people gathered to
trade and exchange ideas. In one of these, a simple herdsman and his wife welcomed a girl who became such a
beauty that clouds never dared come between her and the
sunshine. Eloisa was her name, and as she matured her loveliness was surpassed by an inner beauty that gladdened the
hearts of everyone who knew her for many miles around.
She was the pride of her village, an unselfish, caring young
woman who drew suitors from distant cities and nations.
When the Dragon King Chroma’ano met Eloisa, he was
immediately smitten. As a test of her character, he appeared to her masquerading as a humble but terribly
disfigured mortal youth.
“Forgive my ugliness,” he said, pulling a cloak over his
face. “Please pass by quickly so you need not look upon me.”
“Nonsense,” Eloise insisted, pulling the cloak aside and
greeting his hideousness with a friendly smile. “Please,
share these berries with me here by the side of the road.”
“Doesn’t my face frighten you?” he asked, re-doubling
his magical disfigurement, but her smile never wavered.
“Not at all. Come, sit here with me.”
The warm sun was a candle against the blaze in the
Dragon King’s heart.
After weeks of unfaltering friendship and kindness,
the hobbled youth and Eloisa grew closer. It was then
Chroma’ano revealed himself in his true form. He confessed his unreserved love for Eloisa, which she returned
in full measure. The Dragon King and mortal wed that
very year and lived in gentle harmony for many decades.
The light of great love can unintentionally throw shadows that foster great jealousy. Vittarris, an Attite landau,
or elder, from another village, nurtured unprovoked hatred for the Dragon King. To his eyes, Chroma’ano lavished attention on Eloisa’s home village to the neglect of
the others. This was untrue, but he believed it nonetheless. Vittarris hid his pettiness inside, biding his time
until he could envision some revenge.
On the couple’s 50th wedding anniversary, the Dragon
King made an announcement and Vittarris saw his opportunity. “My love for Eloisa grows with every passing day,”
Chroma’ano announced to the gathered celebrants, “and I
never want that to end. So, this evening, she and I will share
a drink, a potion to extend my wife’s mortal life indefinitely.
This is my gift to her, to all of you, as well as to myself! Our
happiness shall ever be mirrored in your own!” While everyone else cheered, Vittarris devised a terrible plan. He
stole into the couple’s chambers and tainted the potion with
lu’urat poison, rendering it ineffective. The pair later drank
the potion, but within a few years Eloisa succumbed to old
age, left mortal by Vittarris’s terrible action.
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Blinded by grief, the Daragkark Chroma’ano only divined that an Attite poisoned his wife’s potion and
sought no further clues to his identity. He shunned all
his Attite subjects, forcing them to migrate over the
decades to live under other Dragon Kings. Chroma’ano
never again emerged from his grief, now truly neglecting his innocent Makadan subjects. He drifted into obscurity, nursing his broken heart.
Left ineffective by sadness and guilt, the Dragon King
devised a plan for his permanent departure from Khitus. To him, he summoned the elders of the villages for
a final gathering.
“I have failed you,” he announced. “I have changed,
and the world has changed, so I will forever depart this
place. On my departure, a feast shall come to every farm
and every village. Eat, drink, and remember me as I
once was, and remember as once we all were.”
With that, Chroma’ano was gone, dissolving into a pulse
of magical energy that spread slowly across his lands like
fireflies, following the elders back to their homes and
coalescing into sumptuous feasts before all his subject
peoples. Unknowingly, Chroma’ano’s subjects ate his very
body. Rather than truly depart Khitus like other Daragkarik, Chroma’ano transformed his physical substance
into the food they ate and wine they drank. In doing so,
he dispersed his complete essence into the people he
loved so well. After the feasts, learning what had truly
happened, his people rejoiced and vowed to keep their
beloved Dragon King alive within their own persons.
Shadow Continued:
The Vittarrans
All made that vow except for Vittarris and his kin, who
railed at this betrayal. Others embraced their roles as
carriers of a super-magical being who might one day
re-manifest himself in this world through them. The
Vittarris clan sought all means to purge themselves of
the Dragon King’s essence. They employed deadly toxins to scrape the blood clean. Vittarris directed wizards
to intervene in unions so the bloodline was not directly
passed through the generations. They even dispersed to
the furthest reaches of the world to dilute Chroma’ano’s
heritage as thinly as possible. But despite their efforts,
they could not rid themselves of his taint as they saw
it—they merely perverted it to the ruination of their
own line. Today, the widely scattered Vittarrans are of
thin blood, often diseased and malformed from birth,
but still resolutely hateful of Chroma’ano and the Trakeen who now worship the “Dragon King in us” that is
descended directly from him.
