|
Ravis was a woodcarver in Kur Maeth during the height of its evil. A plain and simple man, Ravis wanted no part of the foul darkness that raged around him, but he had no choice in the matter. His sister Andrea had been hooked on koblik at an early age, and to support her habit, did whatever she could to earn money to pay for it. Ravis turned a blind eye to Andrea's habit, and her means of income. He provided her with a roof over her head at night -- when she came home. He made sure she had food -- on the rare occasions when she was hungry.
As Andrea wasted away, the woodcarver wasted away inside. The priests of the city could do only so little, and Ravis had not enough to afford the help she needed. He poured his grief and his misery into his carvings, and they fetched enough money to support the two siblings. Utilizing his talent for art, Ravis tried his best to paint, capturing on canvas the wealthier members of Kur Maeth. As he painted the rich slavers' wives and the egomaniacal smugglers' sons, Ravis saw the wealth of the city paraded before him. He raged inside at the power and money they flaunted, and at the drugs and slavery they dealt in. Andrea died a little bit more each day, as the prostituion and the koblik took its toll. The artist raged at the world around him, cursing even the gods themselves. His horror and his inner turmoil showed in his work, vaulting him to prominence within the circles of Kur Maen society. And Andrea rose with him, wasting away even faster. Caught in a viscious circle, Ravis had nowhere to escape, but his paintings, and his carvings. He began to use his carving knives on himself, cutting himself in his despair. His blood flowed onto, and into his works. The only thing that kept him from suicide was the determination to help his sister. Andrea was on the verge of death, her eyes sunken in and her body little more than skin and bones. The koblik had begun to eat at her sanity, and she began to hallucinate. Latching onto an idea borrowed from the histories, Ravis tried to paint her hallucinations, as she described them in vivid detail during her more lurid moments. Blood, sweat, and tears were poured into his works, and the epaintings of her hallucinations sold well. And still he toiled, spiralling tighter and tighter into the circle of destruction that he and his sister were forced into by circumstance. And in one corner of his workshop was an oaken picture frame that he slowly continued to labor on, his blood and tears ground into the pores of the wood. Kur Maeth seethed with magic as the War of the Undead unfolded. Beneath the foundation of the city lay the Key Vault of Galgiran. The first undead raised by Demik Coruth stalked the sewers beneath the city. During the Storm Wars, Kur Maeth was a funnel for Nathelian forces. The Inquisition itself became corrupt and vile within the twisted labrynths of Kur Maeth's streets. Before the Storm Wars, the greatest transmuters and enchanters in the world trained and studied in its evil heart. Ancient pools of stagnant magic flowed beneath its flagstones. The blood of sacrifices from centuries of worship of Argunas flowed through the rock beneath the city. The island the heart of the city lay on, had been built by The Four during the Shaping Wars. The frame Ravis made became enchanted with some deeper magic. As he continued to work on it, more and deeper enchantments fell upon it. And then the Nabrolians invaded. They had fun with his sister, who hoped to pick up enough money to help support her increasing koblik habit. They had a little too much fun with Andrea. She hemoraged to death. When Ravis found her, he wept, and ran home through the pouring rain to his workshop. There, he painted one last picture; it was the image of Andrea, as she had been, before their lives had spiralled down to hell. The Nabrolian warriors tore Kur Maeth apart, looking for anything of value in the stormy weather. They found the painting. An antipaladin that travelled with them claimed the frame, seeing it as a beautiful work of art, moving the soul and the heart. He quickly ripped out the painting, throwing it into the gutter. Then he ran the weeping Ravis through, ending his misery once and for all, sending him into the bosom of his god, Whalin. The antipaladin, Krikthoklan, brought the frame back to his 'appropriated' house in the richer district of Kur Maeth. There, perhaps sensing its power, he set about to study the frame in greater detail. His studies were interrupted by the Fourth Crusaders. The crusaders tore through Kur Maeth, fighting from home to home, destroying the Nabrolians that got in their way. The hill giants the priests of Nabrol used went down quickly to the holy warriors, and the Nabrolian knights were torn apart by the priests of Yatindar. The Nabrolian priests fell before the paladins, and the city dissolved into chaos rather quickly. Krikthoklan's notes lay beside his body, spattered in the antipaladin's blood. During the clean up operations that began under the guidance of the paladins, Krikthoklan's explanation of the frame's powers were discovered, as well as Ravis' frame. The frame had hundreds of souls and ghosts carved into its surface, and one of the carvings was Ravis' sister, Andrea. Whenever blood was smeared on the relief image of Andrea, the frame would paint whatever image was seen in the empty frame, within moments (1d4 rounds). The painting would last, phantasmal canvas and all, until more blood was placed on the correct area of the frame. Ravis' frame proved invaluable to the police of Yatindar in Kur Maeth. The frame was stolen by the master thief Arkumil in 1423 Avard, when the frame disappeared from sight.
Next Item from the Items List |