Kalassus Foundation Myth
From upon the Mighty Parnassus, Parnassus Rex Victorinus waged war against the hardy folk of the Tarn. Years have those wars been waged, until on the Eleventh month of the Eleventh year, Parnassus Rex Victorinus conquered all of the mountains. As Mountain King, Victorinus demanded tribute from them: 11 sets of 11 bushels of the finest meats, the most lustrous of metals, and the sweetest of meads from all under his dominion, except for one.
From Tarnum, he demanded its King's second daughter as tribute. Appia Tarnum, on her eleventh nameday, was given to Parnassus Rex. Under the Parnian King's command, Appia was given every luxury, every comfort as she was favored above any of this many concubines.
It would come to pass that Appia would bear the Parnian king's child, named after the Great Bear Kala, due to his great wails that roar like the mighty bears of the Parna. On his tenth nameday, now called Kalassus Regulus, his renown in armed combat was spread across the mountains. Able to best ten men at once, could he. And Parnassus Rex was pleased.
But on his eleventh nameday, upon the eleventh hour, the Auguries of the Goddess of Civilization foretold that on the sixteenth year past his birth, Kalassus would lead great armies against his own father. He himself would put the head of the mighty Parnassus Rex upon a pike and march it with his host as he claimed all the mountains as his own. All would hail Kalassus Rex Regum, King of Kings, for ten upon ten upon ten years.
Parnassus was distraught. He could not allow his throne to be usurped, but he could neither bear to slay his own son. Instead he commanded his closest confidants, those of his guard, to ensure the auguries do not come to pass.
All the while, Appia still bore hatred for the man who took her from her home. She had ears within the palace walls as she waited for an opportune moment to free herself from the freezing Parnian court. She heard of the auguries, and of the command given to the guard. They were to poison his meals with hemlock, slowly weakening him until he was too weak to rise.
With haste, Appia entreated her son to flee with her, away from the court of the Mountain King. The guard was alerted to their flight, and would scour the land for Kalassus and his mother.
The guard would call for the King's equestrians whose great steeds could scale the steepest of mountains. They would ride forth to catch the fleeing pair, following their tracks to the foot of Mount Femuria, on the southern-most tip of the Parnassus.
Appia secured a carriage among a caravan to the land of Mir, south of the mountains to live hidden from the reach of the Mountain King. But the King's equestrians were clever, and would find the carriage. However Appia was cleverer still! She had disguised a homeless boy with her son's clothing and likeness, while Kalassus worked as a caravan guard, wearing commoner's trappings and hide.
Kalassus lamented the loss of his mother, and the sacrifice of the boy. But he rode forth as a guard to relatives of the Queen of Lavinia, and escorted them back to their lands within the Mir.
It was on this journey that the caravan was beset by jackals. The beasts were feral and starving, savaging the caravan guards with a desperate ferocity. But among them was Kalassus who fought with a matching wild fury. To his surprise, his spear, nor the spears of his fellow guardsmen would not pierce the beasts.
These were no mere jackals, but fey creatures glamoured with the magic of faeries. By sheer chance, Kalassus would draw his iron dagger as his spear shaft split in twain. As the other guardsmen were felled one by one, a heavily wounded Kalassus valiantly fought the mighty pack to all but his last breath. Victorious, but the brunt of his wounds would render him close to unconscious.
The jackals circled the beleaguered Kalassus, with full intention to rip off his throat. As one of the canines leapt for the final blow, every single one of them were frozen as if time itself had stopped. Fabled masters of the arcane arts, the Magi Diminuti, as they were called by the mountain folk, were moving their hands in incomprehensible patterns. One of them approached Kalassus, and with a single touch, enveloped him in a soothing warmth. To his surprise, not only did his wounds start to close, but he floated up into the air as if he were upon water. Then he was moved, without any apparent guidance as he completely lost consciousness
As he awoke, Kalassus found himself in the halls of the Kurerans of Longossus. Those that the mountain folk called the Magi Diminuti. They saw great potential in the young boy and raised him in their stone halls underneath the Longissian Mountains that bordered the west of the land of Mir.
Within those halls, Kalassus was taught the secrets of the Ritma--a discipline and a language that gave the Kurerans access to the raw magics of the world. They told him that these would allow him to attune to the Rhythmes of the Planes, and would grant him the power to perform great miracles.
As he grew in age and in power, Kalassus would also grow in anger as he would see for himself what the Auguries have divined. He would judge that the short-sightedness of his father had cause the needless death and suffering of his poor mother and vowed revenge.
On his twelfth nameday, Kalassus would leave the halls of the Kurerans, and would ride forth to claim his birthright. In order to do so, he would travel to the court of Lavinia Regina Maxima for aid. He regaled her of his adversities and lamentations.
He told her of how his mother thwarted attempts at his life.
He told her of the death of his mother at the hands of the Mountain King's equestrians.
He told her of the glamoured jackals that massacred the members of her relatives' caravan, and how he almost lost his life to save them.
All he asked of her was a century of her finest legionnaires to fulfill the Augury by his own accord.
The Queen of Lavinia was pleased with his resolve, and with his cause. She would agree but with a condition: he must serve her for eleven upon eleven upon eleven days. In that time, he must teach her and her magae the secrets of the Ritma. In turn she would grant him her legions.
Kalassus agreed, and taught the Queen and her magae all that he knew. After eleven upon eleven days, he and the Queen would fall in love, and Aemillia Lavinia Regina Maxima would be wed to Kalassus Magus Maximus, the Mage Supreme.
Meanwhile, in these eleven upon eleven upon eleven days, Parnassus Rex would become indolent, secure in the knowledge that his son would never return, and his throne remained secure. So it would come to pass that on the day that the Auguries have foretold, the Lavinian Legions would march forth up the slopes of the Parnassus. At the head of their host would be the great Lavinian Magae, and Kalassus himself.
In a display of great skill in the art of Ritma, he would raise his hands as walls would rise up from the ground to separate the innocent masses apart from the Mountain King's host. Without hesitation, the Lavinian Legions would slaughter those loyal to Parnassus Rex as they clashed within the stone walls.
As the battle ensued, Kalassus, his voice amplified by spirits of the mountains themselves, spoke with a thunderous force:
O those of you who are yet bound
By chains of tyranny, shackled
Slaves to the Mad King of Parna
You shall be set free, chains broken!
Hark! Behold! He who was foretold!
Favored by Minerva herself
Here I come for the tyrant's head
Whose maleficence I'm to end.
A rain of blades and arrows poured, and balls of fire roasted the Mountain King's host. Each one given a mercifully swift end as they marched ever closer to the throne that Parnassus Rex hid behind. At the threshold, the voice of Kalassus once again boomed forth:
Woe to thee father, once revered Unwitting to the Augur's Curse As thou tried to snap at mine throat As thou killed she, thou claimed to love Ensnared thyself in Fate's cruel trap For if thou had used thine good sense If thou hadst stayed thy murdrous hand What comes today might not have come. For an Augur may see but one A single branch amidst the trees Thy hast chosen to climb one broken This augury seen through thine eyes Eyes of one treacherous and blind Chose to kill the stead of love Thou is laden on broken branch So by thine own kin, thou shalt fall
As that final word echoed across the mountains, the soul of Parnassus Rex itself untethered itself from his body. That which linked them together was severed by the harshness of the word as it was carried into the wind by the powerful tone of the Ritma.
So it came to pass that Parnassus Rex, the Mountain King, was no more. The mountain folk wept in glee as they beheld the head of their tyrant mounted on a pike at the head of thost of Kalassus Rex Regum, King of Kings.
The tears grew into the mighty river Diber which flowed from Parnassus, across the land of Mir, through the heart of the city of Lavinia. Kalassus would ride down the river triumphant, with the innocent masses with him into the city of his great love.
Upon their reunion, Queen Aemillia Lavinia Regina would bow to her husband, and King of Kings. She would declare the land to be called Kalassus in honor of his triumph and great return. For tens upon tens upon tens of years, their land would rule all the world.