Cromax Moonblood

The moon has always held a fascination for the Elves of Teleria. Reverence for its light formed a core of the beliefs held by certain lunar cults of Aravia. These beliefs were among those that Siroth manipulated in his guise as the Dreamwalker, and another tool by which he slowly twisted parts of Aravian society to his own ends. Siroth fostered the belief that the moon’s light was a revelatory one – that it could be used to reveal the secrets of the universe to one wise enough to parse the shadows it cast. Many an Elf went mad seeking to divine the secrets of this lunar wisdom. Cromax Moonblood is one of the few Elves to survive his search for the secrets of the moon with body and wits intact – though the latter is a matter of some debate. Obsessed with the Dreamwalker’s promises of ancient wisdom, Cromax scoured Teleria for anything that might allow him to commune with the shadows cast by the moon. He delved into forbidden places, and made pacts with strange beings. He infused his flesh with raw stardust and fed upon the stuff of shadows, but none of it was enough. The answers he sought seemed destined to be ever out of reach. Frustrated, he turned his attention to the great observatories built and subsequently abandoned by the Dragonkin after the destruction of their empire during the Age of Hellfire. These structures straddled the heights of the Cloudspire Mountains, and it was said that from their star-platforms a trained astromancer might be able to see constellations otherwise invisible to the naked eye. Built and staffed by Elves, Dwarves, and Dragonkin, the observatories had been considered places of worship by some of the old lunar cults of the Elves, and it was from the surviving writings of those cults, long banned by the rulers of Aravia, that Cromax learned of them. Cromax sought out these observatories to plunder them for any secrets they might hold. He climbed the sheer peaks, battling cold and wind, as well as Dwarven sentries from the Skyiron Dominion, who watched over the peaks. These wardens guarded the secret passes that led to the observatories, for reasons known only to the Dwarves. Cromax’s encounters with these warriors became so regular – and so bloody – that the Dwarves soon placed a bounty on the Elf’s head. Bounty hunters flocked to the Cloudspire Mountains. Wherever Cromax went, he soon found himself under attack. But he refused to cease his quest, and set his sights on the highest and oldest of the observatories – a site abandoned long before the others. The scraps of information he’d been able to glean about the place in his search told him little about what might have happened, save that it had claimed the lives of the astromancers who had worked there. Cromax made the arduous climb to the ruin, unaware that a group of bounty hunters had picked up his trail. His pursuers tracked him to the observatory even as the full moon rose, and cast down its silvery gaze across the shattered husk of the observatory. Cromax found himself entranced by the light, for it was brighter here than anywhere else he had seen on Teleria – and the shadows it cast were darker. Within them, shapes of cosmic blackness danced. He didn’t notice the bounty hunters until it was almost too late. Forced to call upon the most dangerous forms of shadow magic to defend himself, Cromax found that it reacted strangely, as if he had tapped into some wellspring of power… one he could not control. No one knows what truly happened that night, save Cromax. What is known is that cold fire danced across peaks of the Cloudspire Mountains, and that the Elf who came down from the mountain was not the same Elf who’d climbed up. His features were hidden behind a mask belonging to one of the Elven lunar priests of old, and his manner was odd – gone was the determined wayfarer; in his place was a strange thing of moonlight and lunar cycles. Cromax now wanders Teleria, guided by the waxing and waning moon. He claims to be its envoy, though what exactly that entails none can say. Some believe him mad; but all know better than to stand in his way… especially when the moon is full.