April 2025 Prologue

A chill lingers over Travance, deeper than the previous winter’s bite, heavier than the weight of time itself. It does not creep, it spreads, seeping into the marrow of the land, gnawing at the edges of warmth and life.

The dead stir. Graves once sealed with ceremonious rites now yawn open to the night. Spectral figures drift through the forests, their hollow eyes filled with an awareness that should not remain. The roads grow treacherous, not with bandits or beasts, but with things that do not belong in the waking world. The air smells of damp earth and dried blood, and whispers in archaic tongues slither through the wind.

But it is not just the rising dead that weighs on the people of Travance. The gods’ voices are becoming distant. The priests and clerics feel it first, a dulling, like a blade worn smooth. Their prayers do not carry as they once did, their divine blessings weaker, as though spoken into an empty room that does not answer. The Chosen work harder, their miracles faltering. The guardians of faith swing their weapons, but the righteous fury that once guided them is dimmed. And even the most practiced Ceremonialist seems to struggle to invoke the divine. It is as if they must shout with all their might to even be heard.

Yet for all that trouble, at least they are eventually heard. For one religion, all has gone silent. Draka’Thul’s presence has not been felt in days, and no responses are heard to calls to him. The moonlight, once a sign of his watchful gaze, now seems colder, more distant. The sacred places dedicated to him lie hollow, their symbols covered in unnatural rust and decay. Where there was once an unshakable connection, there is now only absence.

The world feels wrong.

Travance has weathered many storms, but this, this is something else. The people murmur in taverns, whisper in the dark corners of churches, glance nervously at the horizon. Some call it an omen. Some call it a curse. But no matter what name they give it, one thing is certain. Something is coming.