MTG Fantober Week 1: Dieskrad
Dieskrad and her sister Higfherath were princesses of the great elvish kingdom of Ardar. The country was highly devoted to their gods, who were to gift them great boons in response to the faith. It had been many generations since the last of the boons was bestowed by their gods, and the kingdom was suffering for it. While the wealthy and elite enjoyed their frivolous lives of devotion and hedonism, everyone else suffered for scraps of their own hard work.
The sisters, with inward disgust and longing to bring something back to the people, sought out ways to uplift the population. After finding a hidden chamber in the royal library, they found tomes and scrolls centered around inner enlightenment that could cure oneself of mortal weakness. The sister spent years mastering the techniques depicted in the ancient writings. Eventually, they decided they were ready to bring the works to the populace.
Higfherath went to the the epicenters of high society and began to preach and speak about how their indulgences had betrayed them. She would debate, advise, and teach all in the hopes of bringing her people to entreat the morals and higher powers she had unlocked in her studies. Those who did not join her at first began to once their peers did. In a wave of either divine desperation or earnest enlightenment, Higfherath found her people.
Dieskrad went to the lowest slums and far off edges of the kingdom to convert her followers. With shows of might and control over herself and her surroundings, Dieskrad would convince many to learn at her presence. To increase how fast she could do so, she would use such powers to take control and imprint the the techniques into the minds of followers. Many still after would not be able to use such techniques for fear of over exertion or death, but would follow all the same.
Hearing about this new wave of dissent for the established ways, the High Queen and mother of Dieskrad and Higfherath, Hanyukag, order the pair to cease their foolishness and accept the world ruled in her way. The two sister would find that the gods had not stopped sending boons, but that their mother was directing them to specific places and people to secure her rule and empower her subordinates. Outraged at the complete misuse of power the queen was doing, the two tried to tell the rest of the country the problem but were silenced by their mother and her guard yet again.
The two spent years locked in the royal castle until one night Higfherath awoke to find her sister’s bed empty. As she went out the investigate, she found Dieskrad standing over the catatonic state of their mother, many a guards knocked out along the way. Dieskrad had planned this for awhile, it seems, putting subconscious hints and triggers amongst the guards and probing her mother’s defenses. Her mother was immune to most magic and physical attacks from the outside thanks to her connection with the gods. Unfortunately for her, the attack was one from her own mind. A seed of a psychic intrusion that would blossom into her own doom.
Dieskrad’s inception worked, taking all the inherent power and knowledge from her mother and transferring it to herself, leaving the mother an empty shell. Dieskrad told her sister about her plan to take over the country, weeding out all who benefited from their mother’s favoritism and turning the kingdom into an empire of meritocracy and dominance. No more royalty who sat on their hands, no more nobles who don’t benefit the people, no more gods to unbalance the people within.
Outraged with grim understanding and clearity, Higfherath called out the warped being her sister had become. Dieskrad was shocked. Isn’t this what they were hoping for? A new beginning for their people? Dieskrad pleaded with her sister to reconsider, but Higferath held onto her belief of the gods to still help the people and of the people to help one another as they saw fit, not anyone else.
Feeling betrayed by her own sister, Dieskrad went to use her powers against Higfherath. The gods were watching however, as the mental absence of their devotee had caught their attention. The power of protection once afforded to her mother fused with the old techniques to protect Higfherath from Dieskrad’s onslaught. Fighting back, Higfherath stripped Dieskrad of the power she stole and banished her from the realm.
Dieskrad, embittered by her humiliation, went out to find a solution to the problems she saw the gods as. She would meet with many adventurers, using them as a ways to access people and places usually unseen under the guise as one of them. Eventually, Dieskrad would encounter a monster tamer who was causing trouble. He was somehow immortal, due to some seal he had made. Using her powers, she, along with her entourage at the time, would find the source of the spell and destroy it.
It was a mistake, though, as that’s what was keeping the horde of monsters under control. The tamer made a mad dash for a hidden room, but was quickly crushed by falling debris as the behemoths under his control broke free and terrorized the surrounding countries. Examining the hidden room, they discovered a huge beast; partially mechanical, partially flesh, brought together by some crazed machinations. The creature was made just as a failsafe if anything went wrong by the tamer. Now Dieskrad had to use it.
Consulting the manuals and blueprints left behind, Dieskrad figures out how to pilot the monstrosity. Within the creature, she launches out the side of the mountain base where the tamer had kept himself. She directs in across the countryside exterminating the huge creatures the tamer’s seal had under it’s hold. The surrounding kingdoms made their gratitude know, and Dieskrad sold off copies of the design in pieces and part to those country’s high wizards and potential creators. She now sits on a treasure trove of knowledge and resources, piecing together her new solutions for the future.
