info hub @chyertsar - Tumblr Blog

🏰 . . . hello and welcome to koschei's info hub ! to make navigating this a bit easier, i've created a little road map here with links added to the bullets. any without links are posts that i have drafted and/or planned for the pipeline. if there's anything in particular that you'd like to learn more about, i am more than happy to discuss !!

𓆩 ♔ 𓆪 THE RED FAIRY BOOK koschei's main verse which i will default to unless plotted otherwise. these are the notes which will apply here more specifically

world-building •➤ verse biography •➤ world reference & plot guide •➤ the nine clans •➤ the kara han & the golden bough

koschei's magical & physical ascensions •➤ the true magician / weaver •➤ the dragon •➤ the blood mage/lich king

𓆩 ♔ 𓆪 GENERAL LORE primarily applicable in his main and other fantasy verses, but may be taken as the basis for his lore across others as well

buyan : the country of life •➤ isle map and pre-history •➤ the tree of life •➤ holidays and customs •➤ chyerti factions

the chernosvyat : buyan's royal palace & citadel •➤ general attributes, history & denizens •➤ koschei's apartments & duties •➤ the citadel & beyond

re. koschei's regional epithets ( & variations of his fairytale )

i'll touch on the origin of these epithets a bit more in koschei's full chronology & magical ascension metas, but essentially i want to get the idea across that any tales that your muses might hear about koschei prior to meeting him will vary greatly and also be a bit regionally dependent, the reason being that: 1) koschei's impact on certain areas and their tales are dependent on where he was and what he was up to during certain chapters of his life; and 2) that's just the reality of how folklore and mythmaking works. it's almost a game of telephone where each mouth and ear that passes down the tale could get a detail wrong or embellish the iterations as they go, but over all the gist is this:

•➤ in the central lands ( those closest to where he was born, the isle of buyan, and where he currently reigns ) his main epithet would be the flame king or dragon king since this is where his appearance as a dragon was/is most frequent & apparent. the radius of his dragon sightings have been relatively kept within his home base because, as a lich, he can't conjure or sustain the transformation without the availability of the chernosvyat's bloodroots / exterior mana stores. i mean... technically he could, but then he'd be completely reliant on his own mana for one spell/transformation which makes him subsequently powerless for longer than he's willing to risk or tolerate.

•➤ in the western lands ( think of it as the dark wood or where most of the grimm fairytales take place-- or any land pretty removed from where he originally came from ) his main epithet would be the steel man or iron-bones. in his earliest lich days, when he was exiled by dazhbog and still formulating his plans to become king in buyan, the tower of bones ( his main residence / magic fortress ) would have been located within this dark wood. many of his confrontations with the locals were in an era of his life when he was still adjusting to and testing the limits of his lichdom as well as the changes to his magic. he was captured and killed a lot during this time, so most folks here witnessed the body horror of a man that couldn't be struck down with normal weaponry or whose skeleton often walked off from the witch pyres to wreak havoc.

•➤ in the eastern lands ( pretty much the areas more predominantly dominated by the nomads clans, desert empires and far-east kingdoms ) he'd be known by a couple epithets including the kara han meaning "ruler-of the land", the red wind or the red horseman. before officially becoming king in buyan, he unified a great portion of the nine horseman clans. to this point, koschei was in possession of one of the fastest mythical horses in all folklore and was also the last surviving son of a khan, which helped legitimize him as the kara han ( essentially the sanctified leader of multiple clans ). the red horseman epithet then came from his riding with a red cloak ( like his mother's ) and similarly the red wind was an epithet derived from his speed on the field and eventually his appearances as a dragon-- though the connotation here was more positive and protective within these allied regions.

( building off of part i ) out of the chernosvat's five towers, koschei's rises in the south, farthest from the castle's entry and dominating the sister towers in both height and grandeur. functioning as an entirely separate estate within the fortress itself, it's separated from the more public and ceremonial wings through three open cloisters framing its two adjoining courtyards: one centered around a fountain encircled by a shifting hedge maze and the other housing a green house. behind the tower you'll find buyan's sacred orchard. this remains surrounded by high brick walls, constantly patrolled by elite sentries since at the heart of the orchard lies the tree of life.

as for the tower's interior, its halls share the strange aesthetics found throughout the castle, albeit more pronounced. blood roots and blighted flora creep more wildly and the gallery walls are filled with paintings and relics more specifically curated to koschei's tastes. within the innards of the tower are a plethora of staircases and tiny passages used by the domoviye domestics. this is a wizard castle though, so ofc you can expect there to be magic tree-trunk elevators, enchanted carpets, and shifting stones scattered around for quicker passage through the floors.

𓆩 ♔ 𓆪 the audience chamber

starting from the bottom we have a small throne room where koschei receives courtiers and holds private audiences with his advisors. there's a side chamber that allows for more closed-door discussions, particularly when negotiating with other nobles or getting reports from his spymasters. diplomats and visiting envoys would be received in the main chamber, or in the greater throne room if he means to make a statement. public events and petitions would also be held in the greater throne room.

𓆩 ♔ 𓆪 dearest gentle reader . . . i don't know what to tell you about this regency verse, except that your beloathed is coming, coming, over the hills, on his red horse and straight to london so he can ... scheme, test the sanctity of your marriage, goad the gentry into dueling him and eat hot chip. i have two different options ( both historical fantasy based ) for how he manages to get here, so i'll just give you the gist so far and if either catches your interest, we'll build on it !

the final layer to this yap session, and most relevant to koschei's direct canon !! should start by mentioning for the unfamiliar that russian fables often involve a man named ivan as the protagonist. he's typically seen as the "everyman" archetype or stand-in for the average joe so as to make the fables more relatable. however, these fables weren't multiple adventures within a single ivan's life, but multiple ivans undergoing different adventures. within ivan's hero archetype, you'd typically see one of two different tropes:

#1 ivan the fool : the more common trope. all ivans start out as the youngest of three sons, seeming simple or naive, but ultimately always come out succeeding against stronger or more clever figures through displays of kindness, humility, or even luck. he's the underdog / folk hero who reflects the value of kindness ( heart ) over cunning ( mind ). #2 ivan the prince : on the flip side to the simple fool, we have ivan tsarevich, the noble hero. this ivan is brave, clever, divinely destined to defeat monsters, win the hand of a princess, and/or journey through epic quests that involve magic and mythic figures like baba yaga ( the witch ), zmey gorynych ( the dragon ), the firebird ( enchanted animals ), and koschei ( the wizard king ).

so if koschei is primarily an antagonist set against ivan tsarevich, why do i claim ivan from the firebird fable as his origin story ?? i'll go into my reasons in depth under the cut, but tldr; explanation comes down to these main points:

•➤ firebird ivan's fable is heavily steeped in turkic / shamanistic symbols, and given the etymologies we dove into before, i think the fable's themes and motifs make associating that specific ivan with koschei's origin story pretty intuitive.

•➤ as a protagonist, firebird ivan also stands out as a bit of an outlier from the two tropes described above. he's almost like a secret third thing, or an inverted combination of the two-- more in tune with koschei's moral alignment

•➤ i'd like koschei's story to highlight how two ivans put through the same journey might see their choices and fates play out very differently simply because they started from different social / cultural standpoints ( in other words... "are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them??"); and finally

•➤ because i'm not the first to present ivan and koschei as two halves of the same man ( it's heavily implied in both deathless and the winter night trilogy ) . . . now, if i haven't lost you yet . . . please dive into this charlie day conspiracy board with me

𓆩 ♔ 𓆪 MAIN VERSE : WORLD REFERENCE & PLOT GUIDE

the thrice-nine lands : russian fairytales tend to start off with some variation of the line "beyond thrice-nine lands, in the thrice-tenth realm" as a way of saying that the story takes place in a land far far away, or rather, detached from our ordinary world. essentially, that's what i've done here. koschei's main verse is a completely fictional fantasy world, and within this fantasy world the inhabitants refer to their natural/material world as "thrice-ninth" or "the thrice-nine lands". you can think of it as referring to a continent or a planet or whatever suits plotting best, but the idea is that within the thrice-nine lands there are multiple kingdoms and factions, primarily all human civilizations with magical beings living more in the outskirts.

if your muse comes from a mortal land of some sort, it can very easily fall somewhere within the thrice-ninth world map. it's also possible that they could come from a different world entirely, as thrice-nine can easily refer to something like earth-27, or the understanding that this is a world within a multiverse.

the thrice-tenth realm : going off the above, "thrice-tenth" or "the thrice tenth realm" is the magical plane, a sister dimension that parallels thrice-ninth, sort of like the feywild in dnd. this is where the chyerti and other such magical daemons originally came from. there used to be hundreds of portals that allowed for easy access between the sister dimensions, and so interactions between magical beings and mortals were far more commonplace. this allowed for the first mages to come into being. important to understand that magical beings here are mostly nomadic in nature, but much like humans, they're capable of both good and evil, and there are some factions that have their own kingdoms and civilizations too.

i'll refer to beings from slavic, turkic, and persian folklore here, but the world is our oyster, so any fantasy/magic-based land can be plugged in here. the civilized parts of the realm are mostly broken up in aspects of nature, a bit like faerie courts, so often you'll see the rulers of called tsars and tsaritsas of that certain aspect/country ( i.g., the tsar of life, tsar of birds, tsaritsa of wind, etc. )

the isle of buyan : the isle of buyan, being the place where the tree of life was planted, is an axis mundi, or the world navel that connects these two sister dimensions. buyan floats on the black sea or "inhospitable sea" which is regarded here as the world ocean, a.k.a. a body of water that sits in both dimensions. from ancient times to about 200 years prior to koschei's time, the isle of buyan (via the black sea's magic) would oscilate between the two dimensions, sometimes appearing in thrice-ninth with the sunrise and disappearing at sunset. buyan's entry into thrice-ninth creates a phenomenon known as "the green flash".

IF WE WERE VILLAINS : THE DELLECHER YEARS

final notes and a ( not so ) little run down of the roles he plays through graduation. i've left some slots open, this is literally just a default we can shift things around however !! same goes for the plot points. i'm not set on all of it, and how he ends up coming into his own i think ends up being heavily dependent on the folks he interacts with along the way, so consider this just some food for thought! also his post-dellecher days i've got the headcanons but again, open to go in whatever direction suits plotting best. i think the one thing that remains is that he'll choose to chase fame and tour internationally after dellecher no matter what though. ( pre-history & family background can be found here )

𓆩♔𓆪 freshman year : king kaschei

♔. for the winter show he lands a role, but it's as king kaschei in the firebird suite. it's not much of a dance role and he was mainly chosen for the aesthetic of his height and lankiness. all he was tasked with doing was standing on stage looking like an ogre in a ridiculous mask and costume. ( reference: the infernal dance 4:08 )

♔. during the dress rehearsal, instead of standing in his corner, he did his own interpretation of the infernal dance that likho ( the school's ballet director ) ended up wanting to keep. from then on she refused to acknowledge him as ivan and only called him koschei so the nickname stuck throughout his four years.

♔. for the spring show, he lands tybalt in romeo & juliet which angered some of the upper classman. koschei's ego was still bruised though. he felt like his technique was well beyond his years, certainly better than the chosen romeo, and that he was being pigeonholed into antagonistic character roles that lacked much dancing.

𓆩♔𓆪 IF WE WERE VILLAINS : MOODBOARD & BACKGROUND

koschei's mother, danika krasnova, was an aspiring ballerina born in new york to russian-serbian immigrant parents. in the 1960s, she spent her first summer out of school performing in the saratoga performing arts center along with her cousin ravijojla ( lebedeva's mother ). one of the center's benefactors was a major patron of the saratoga race course. he took an interest in danika and asked her to join him for the full summer meet claiming it would be a valuable opportunity to network with new york's elite — including the directors of the NYCB and ABT. it soon became clear, however, that he was less interested in facilitating introductions and more interested in prancing her around as an ornament.

𓆩♔𓆪 UPYR VERSE : MOODBOARD & LORE NOTES

based on turkic & eastern slavic lore, the all souls trilogy, the winter night trilogy, and various other vampiric tropes ! under the cut, i have a default background for how koschei became an upyr, but will leave the journey afterwards open for plotting. also have a full set of headcanons here regarding the lore differences between upyrs and vampires, what it looks like for a witch to undergo the transition, and how daemon ancestry affects all this ( totally subject to change for plotting purposes or to make more compliant within other vampire universes ):

to understand the nature of koschei's house of horror, it's important to remember that the isle of buyan is considered an axis mundi which makes it a primordial and immeasurably ancient place. all of its inhabitants recognize this, though much of its ancient history can only be inferred through hieroglyphs, oral traditions, and the ruins that still linger across its landscape. beliefs and mythologies surrounding the origins of the isle vary too.

however, nearly all share a core understanding: that the palace which sits at its heart was once the temple of an elder sun god, referred to as the sun-father or tsar sun. this deity, if he ever did exist as such, no longer lives on the isle. in fact, for over thousands of years since the creation of his temple, the isle has been ruled by a handful of wizards and witches. presently, and for the greater part of the last millennia, the isle's ruler has been referred to as the tsar of life, but it's possible that previous ones were not.

as for the temple itself, it has evolved over the centuries, shaped and built upon by the mages who dwelled within it. from that nexus of life-sustaining magic, it has grown into a living, breathing structure with a mind and will of its own. it holds sentiments and secrets of its own too, some that it may choose to share and others it guards within magic doorways and hidden passages. it would seem to obey only one master: whoever claims its throne. and while its architecture clearly bears the marks of its long history, as any true dwelling, it gradually comes to reflect the spirit and taste of its master more singularly as their reign progresses.

the castle has gone by many names. there are few who may remember when the palace was called the belosvyat ( the white beacon ) during dazhbog's reign, but under koschei's rule it has transformed into what is now known as the chernosvyat ( the black beacon ). -svyat is a slavic root word that conveys the concept of something holy, sacred or saintly. i'm using "beacon" to convey a less christianized idea of a "guiding light". there is, however, something to be said about dazhbog's reign aligning with a "white saint". he was the merciful king who valued pacifism through isolationism, seeking to protect the isle by keeping it apart from the world.

whereas koschei's reign aligning with a "black saint" is not seen as an evil one by his own people ( not at the start, at least), but more as a dark messiah or even a dragon-guardian, akin to ladon or bükrek. while koschei's stronghold is an openly monstrous thing, the rest of the isle seems to remain lush and paradisal. most of the chyerti accept or even revere this incongruence because they understand it to be a dark but necessary force meant to protect and restore the isle's old balance. his kara han epithet among the nomads also touches on a similar duality as it could mean either "the black ruler" or simply the "ruler of the land".

koschei's cursed birth chart (and respective tarot), if you care

capricorn sun / the devil : koschei’s main operating system runs on ambition, endurance, and a relentless need to remain pragmatic no matter the emotional cost. above all things, he craves control and the power to build lasting stability. his cap sun also means he places high standards on himself and those around him, is constantly calculating for the long game, already moving ten steps ahead, and rarely losing sight of the mountain he's climbing. however, beneath that stony armor lies an innate sense of duty and responsibility for others, even if his way of expressing it seems cold or becomes too authoritative. core belief here is that when the world around him is falling apart, he trusts no one but himself to be the immovable rock that keeps it together.

leo moon / the sun : representing his emotional core or who he is when he feels most open, his leo placement initially expressed itself through warmth, generosity, idealism, creativity, being highly protective of loved ones, and the desire to make them proud. there was once no greater joy than to merit the reputation of a hero. however, the horrors have subverted and warped all of this into his current dragon persona. his moon now feeds on pride, ego, and the scarcity mindset of one who came from nothing and perpetually lost everything.

it's the rags-to-riches pitfall: he now seeks a life of excess and exuberance to insulate himself from the resource insecurity that deeply scarred him. similarly, having once had no better agency than a dog, he not only finds emotional fulfillment in being his own authority, but finds satisfaction in lording over others too. couple this with the darker aspects of his capricorn sun and instead of getting a benevolent leader, you basically get a survivalist who retained his charisma and competence, but inherently pursues a position of power for his own selfish and vindictive reasons.

aries rising / the emperor : unsurprisingly, this is how the world sees him: the red horseman, the war lord, the scourge. his impression is undeniably commanding, aggressive, decisive, and terrifyingly alive. he radiates the sort of fiery determination that strikes fear and uncertainty in the hearts of all who come to face him in battle. however, it's also the sort of confidence that rouses armies and inspires the trust of his subjects. he may not be likable, he may even be too fearsome, but when all seems hopeless and daunting, they follow him because he seems like the guy with the direction and drive to get them out of this unscathed.

re: koschei's philosophy in the context of war

he is the worst and i will be the first to say it, but i also want to emphasize that his sense of principles and overall mentality ( in almost every context tbh ) is of someone in the middle of war, whether real or perceived. thus, his behavior and mode of operating isn't to be evil, it's for the sake of surviving, winning, enacting his view of justice, and/or saving his country/faction. and quite honestly he is a tricky bitch first and killing machine second. meaning, his philosophy is very machiavellian rather than one that revels in destruction or makes a show of his full military force with little regard to their damage ( this is actually where his ego is not at work ).

granted, he is not selfless. he will let the world burn down before he does, but if he didn't look out for his own soldiers and chyerti, there is simply no way he'd be a successful usurper capable of rallying them to his side the way he has. he is not nice, he is authoritative and militant, but he is nonetheless effective and appealing to them because his tactics are centered around: a) knowing when to have no mercy or hesitation to strike at an enemy when he feels bloodshed is required (in his mind, being ruthless now means avoiding a bigger or prolonged struggle later and depending on the context of this..... he may actually be correct ) but more importantly; b) when to use wits and deception to avoid the death and unnecessary bloodshed of his own forces.

" all warefare is based on deception. hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; [...] hold out baits to entice the enemy. feign disorder, and crush him [...] pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant [...] if he is taking ease, give him no rest [..] if his forces are united, separate them [...] attack him when he is unprepared. appear when you are not expected. " ( the art of war, sun tzu )

this is above all else koschei's go-to stategy. essentially, have the enemy be the fool who takes themselves out, or let another force exert the effort to destroy them before he or his army needs to step in. minimal damage to them is in fact the priority because the bigger force typically wins, but also... he's not entirely heartless and disloyal. at his core, koschei hates feeling alone; comradery among his realm and military is very important to him; and avoiding as little grief and loss as possible is essential to him, even if he won't ever openly admit that to others or sometimes even himself (your boy is perpetually stuck in the denial stage).

this particular yapfest is nothing new, just a deeper dive into koschei's mythic etymologies and a more organized argument as to why he ( primarily in modern retellings like deathless ) is very lucifer-coded, or rather becomes the demonized replacement of the slavic god of sun and fire, dazhbog. to start off, i will reiterate that myths and fables are like nesting dolls !! you have to peel back the outer layers to find what original narrative lies hidden within all the retellings and reimagined symbols.

northrop frye's framework for this is what i've leaned on the most for figuring out what tf is up with this lich, but generally it's an excellent a gage for analyzing any myth in a critical manner. for the myth geeks after my own heart, frye presents us with three categories to weed through:

1) the authentic myth. the raw psychological / physical / spiritual truth or experience which a myth attempts to explain or represent to us by way of more digestible metaphors and symbols. these are narratives featuring archetypes and themes that appear in cultures across the globe regardless of distance or interaction because they speak directly to universal human realities. 2) the ideological interpretation. here, the authentic myth is retold in a way that serves specific worldviews. storytellers ( whether consciously or not ) may embellish or alter details of the original myth to enforce their moral values, political agendas, power structures, or cultural norms. this creates a new layer of meaning and purpose to the myth that wasn’t originally there. not a good or bad thing, just something to remain conscious of. 3) the demonic parody. here we enter the possibility of an ideological interpretation distorting an authentic myth so egregiously that it opposes and/or inverts the original narrative completely. the hero now becomes a villain. themes of renewal, harmony, justice now focus on chaos, profanity, and nihilism. we often see this with divine creation myths that are demonized into a source of evil — especially when the original myth no longer aligns with the dominant ethos or belief system.

in koschei's case, you can take his fable as the demonic parody of khan könchek's true history ( which i went into here ), but also as the demonic parody of dazhbog, who went from a divine creator figure to a lucifer-esque fallen god after the christianization of rus’. this theme is HUGE in deathless and one of the many reasons why i love the book! it really is a master class in presenting a demonic parody in a way that actually seeks to reclaim the authentic myth ( as far as a writer’s ideologies may allow, of course). anywho, we've fully lost the plot — back to the etymology !!

if you're a geek for breaking down and analyzing myths like me or are wondering where the hell i'm pulling koschei's narrative from, please grab some tea and get ready for this yapfest of a series. there's too much to discuss in one post, but i want to start with his historical etymology because in order to understand any myth/fable ( especially in regards to the antagonistic archetypes ) you have to understand the broader cultural and historical circumstances that begat them.

as we know, koschei is widely depicted in fables as the undead sorcerer / draconic king. he’s immortal, greedy, and cruel. he's a rival to the hero, who flies in from no where to burn your village and steal your bride for no particular reason other than the fact that he's evil. but i think it's much more appropriate to interpret koschei's fable in a way that views the caricature more critically and honors the fact that his is a figure borne from and made to represent a cultural fear. koschei's trope touches on multiple, but in this post, we're looking specifically at a fear derived from the turkic nomadic presence that once defined the steppes of rus' during the 12th century.

THE TREE OF LIFE & THE QUEST FOR THE FIREBIRD

beyond thrice-nine lands, in the thrice-tenth realm, there once lived a mighty wizard-tsar named dazhbog who reigned from a gleaming palace upon the magical isle of buyan. during his reign, it is said that to have reached its shores was as if to be born again — within a dream of summer — for everything bloomed so brightly it burned the eyes. mountain peaks reflected the breath of the sun; orchard boughs lied heavy with jewel-colored fruits; rivers surged, thick with silver fish; and sprites would sing drunken arias, supping at flower nectar so indulgent it left streaks of gold trailing down their chins. everything wanted to be taken in. everything commanded wonder. the tsar's garden most of all.

in the garden grew many rare and marvelous trees, but none so grand and magnificent as the green oak tree. the tsar cherished and tended to it above all others, for this was the tree of life; the last living relic of an elder god: the benevolent creator of the thrice-tenth realm. it happened one day that a firebird named konrul began to visit the tsar's sacred garden. every night she came, stole a single bough from the green oak, and vanished to her hidden roost. when the tsar took notice, he doubled his guard hoping to catch the culprit. however, not even his finest archers could strike the thief down, for konrul's copper feathers gleamed like the sun by day, shimmered indigo-dark by night; and if ever an arrow flew, she would shift her shape and slip swiftly into the cover of buyan's forests.

one night, the firebird broke off a golden bough from the crown of the green oak tree and was never seen again. greatly troubled by this, the tsar summoned his subjects to his grand hall of white stone and declared: " which one of you will set out into the world and fetch me the firebird ? whoever captures her alive shall have half my tsardom in my lifetime, and the whole of it upon my death ” his best guardians, the twin mage disciples, gagana and garafena, stepped forth and answered in one voice: “our master, your majesty, we will gladly fetch the firebird for you.”

setting out on their journey, gagana took to the heavens as a bird, while garafena swam through the blue sea as a serpent. when they both reached the fringes of the thrice-ninth realm, garafena did not find the firebird, but she found her nest and the golden bough tucked between her clutch. she had a mind to at least return the bough to the tsar, but could not resist taking an egg into her hungry jaw first. the long journey left her so famished. in a stroke of perfect timing, a khan who settled his clan near the firebird's roost came upon the scene, slayed garafena and saved the egg. in his hand, the frightened thing trembled until it finally cracked, and the hatchling cried out for his mother.

when the firebird returned to her roost and heard of what had happened, she plucked the shell pieces from her hatchling and reassembled them into a boon. " you saved my son, and for this i shall grant yours a blessing. " to the khan she gave the empty egg, a golden marvel beset with rubies and diamonds, capable of holding anything one could imagine. " by the blood moon this night he will be born. it is no easy fate he falls into, but gift him this talisman, and it may someday earn him a tsardom and save his life in turn. "

a retelling of koschei's fable with influences from "deathless", "uprooted", and "the all souls trilogy", but more closely aligned with his canon from andrew lang's "the red fairy book" and alexander afanasyev's "russian folktales". easily compliant to other universes. thrice-ninth ( a land of mortal kingdoms ) and thrice-tenth ( a land of magic ) does not dwell in the real world, but does refer to an understanding that there are other lands, countries, kingdoms, and planes that may exist beyond with gateway portals to each ( meaning, his reality can still be stumbled upon by modern/non-fantasy folk, similar to narnia and the wardrobe )

ARC I: THREE BROTHERS, THREE ROADS

our tale starts centuries after a holy war forced the realms of thrice-ninth and thrice-tenth to be warded off from one another, when koschei was still known as ivan yurovich, the youngest of three sons born to danika, a witch from the secluded pagan village of yaichka, and yürek khan, a shaman chief of the konrul clan ¹ from the forest of altynûva. when their village defied and failed to pay tribute to a distant tsar, moroslav of zimorod, a battalion was sent to banish the clan and reinforce the tsar's tithe and holy laws. in the fight that ensued, yürek was killed and his family was taken as slaves to the capital of zimorod, where they were forced to renounce their magic in a conversion rite known as spellbinding. ²

years later, during moroslav's brutal winter campaign against a nearby kingdom, ivan and his older brothers, vuk and finist, were conscripted into the vanguard. though their powers remained spellbound, each retained a unique gift which allowed them to survive despite their unfortunate odds. vuk's gift of scent could sense the false and deadly enemy; finist's gift of sound could hear the birds of paradise sing riddles of their future; and ivan's gift of sight could see the hidden world beyond its glamours as well as all the magical threads of the earth. while keeping watch one night, this gift led ivan to the abode of a frost demon, who offered him food and a place at their hearth, but forbade him from taking anything out from beyond the threshold. disobeying this, ivan brought about the deaths of his brothers.

in the aftermath, ivan deserted the war and came upon a gray wolf, who turned out to be a shapeshifting vila and mage named inna lebedeva. inna was on a quest to reach the realm of thrice-tenth and offer to let ivan join her as her vilanik ³ if he could manage to complete three impossible tasks. with the tasks completed, this quest ultimately led them both to a tree-portal connected to the green oak, a primordial "tree of life" and magical conduit rooted in the isle of buyan. the isle was ruled by the tsar of life, dazhbog, a powerful wizard who took them under his wing, removed ivan's spellbinding, and offered him a position as his apprentice and second hand. ivan accepted, but asked to return to thrice-ninth to buy his mother's freedom, bring her back with him to buyan, and then complete his initiation.

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