Years ago, while traveling through the forest, Corlan stumbled upon the Greenmarket, and made a bargain. He asked for wisdom, and his price was the sun. He went to sleep that night and has been cloaked in night ever since. When he next returned to civilization, he learned that the sun was only gone for him. Day and night continued as they always have, but to him it was as if the sun simple didn’t exist.

Everything is dark as night to Corlan, with only the light of the moon and stars coming from above. His skin, long deprived of sunshine, is a ghostly pale color, and he constantly shivers from the cold. However, his bargain was good, and though he payed dearly for it he did gain wisdom.

With the sun no longer hanging in the sky, Corlan is able to see stars and constellations during the day which no mortal has ever laid eyes upon. With single-minded dedication, he mastered the art of astrology in but a few short years, and has hired his services out as a seer ever since.

Encounrters with The Stargazer

A cult which worships the impossible entities beyond the stars kidnaps Corlan, believing him to be a prophesied vessel for their dark masters’ birth in this realm.

An ancient ritual the PCs must perform requires knowledge of the Morning Star, a star on the other side of the sun, which only Corlan can see.

The first time the PCs encounter one of the holes, it should be a thoroughly bizarre experience. A black sphere hangs suspended in the air like a melanoma on the fabric of space. It is firm to the touch, slick but not oily, as if your fingertips simply do not want to gain purchase on it.

Unliving matter, such as rocks, sticks and weapons, pass through the surface of the hole without resistance and are unharmed. If a living person tries to pass through, the surface of the sphere stands firm at first, but eventually yields to the pressure and swallows the proffered limb into its inky darkness. As it passes through, the person loses all feeling in the limb past the surface of the sphere. If they withdraw it, they experience intense pain, like a foot falling asleep and then waking up but magnified a thousand times.

Upon fully passing through, one experiences intense guilt and depression. It’s as if you’d just told a man with a sword, “No, kill my mother instead; I want to live! I don’t care about her anyways!*” The inside of the sphere is an entire world unto itself; dark and gloomy, yet you are able to see with more clarity than ever you have. At once you feel singularly alone and as if every fiber of your body was being scrutinized, and you are deemed unworthy.

Encounters with Innerspace

After tracking down some cultists, the PCs catch them fleeing into a hole and must enter to stop them once and for all.

In but a few seconds, a major city is swallowed up by a hole many miles in diameter. Within the hole, eventually the PCs find a shining crystal sphere containing the city and surrounding area. Within the sphere, all color has been washed away and everything is in shades of gray. The moment when the city was swallowed up is frozen in time; those near the epicenter are blissfully unaware, while those farther away have looks of horror as they attempt to flee from the tide of darkness.

*: This line is blatantly stolen paraphrased from book 3 of Richard Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, the Amber Spyglass

Inspiration for this post came from Super Smash Brothers Brawl

When its terrible hunger wells up, Unicron reaches out to the worlds of the mortals. It cannot go there directly, but it can play in the dreaming minds of the insane. There it delivers unto them terrible inspirations to create a type of artificial life, a being known as a starforged. The starforged, in turn, act as agents of Unicron and work in secret to summon him, to feed upon the world.

It so happens that on this world, there was a man the legends call Shaynis. Shaynis was an artificer of the greatest caliber, and none since have ever matched his ability. None could have suspected, though, that Shaynis got his inspiration from his dreams, from Unicron.

Shaynis was no fool, however, and saw Unicron’s plan. He used the knowledge that had been gifted upon him to create another line of beings, like the starforged, but in these he imbued the eternal light of goodness. He dubbed them the lifeforged, and set them to their task of preventing Unicron’s summoning.

The first and greatest of the lifeforged was known as Primus, and he lead the rest in battle against their kin. Collectively, the lifeforged and chaosforged were known as warforged, for they were forever fated to be locked in bitter war with one another. The lifeforged fought a losing battle, though, and were forced to the edge of extinction.

As the starforged prepared to summon Unicron, Primus rallied the few remaining lifeforged to stage a final, desperate attack. All seemed lost, but things are not always as they seem.

The great dragon god Bahamut had been following the plight of the lifeforged, and saw that they were a noble people fighting a selfless fight. In the darkest hour, when only Primus remained, Bahamut intervened. He transferred a bit of his divine essence into Primus, elevating Primus to the status of a god.

Even so, the battle was hard-fought, for Unicron had already begun to enter our world. Primus only barely managed to banish Unicron back to its foul home, and used the remaining bit of his power to destroy the spark of life animating the starforged. Spent, Primus faded away from the realm of mortals, to the realm of the gods.

In time, new artificers would find the inert warforged, star- and lifeforged alike, and learned to create new ones. Most of these new warforged worship Primus, but a few have rediscovered and reclaimed the banner of Unicron, which they believe to be their true father.

The mantles of starforged and lifeforged are a thing of the past, though, for modern warforged are all physically the same. Some choose to go by the old names, but most don’t even know of the names, never mind their significance.