Illuminating the Dark Prince

Prologue- The Crimson Crowning (Pt. 1)

Far beyond the shadowed veils of human perception, through intangible ether and ever evolving cosmic dimensions. Deep within the endless void of celestial space, lingered the blackened globe of a rotting world. A forgotten vestigial organ in the empyrean body of the cosmos. Where only the ashes and decay of the once ethereal remained.

Heavy tempestuous clouds swirled throughout it's glowering obsidian ionosphere, eternally cloaking it's undead lands in a nocturnal gown of abyssal darkness. Upon it's surface, sharp and mighty mountains pierced the ominous skyline like venomous thorns of desolation. Harrowing forestlands, haunted by the corrupted corpses of those who had long ago fought valiantly against the all consuming darkness, wove their roots deep within the world's rocky soil, and despondently reached for the heavens like labyrinthine veins of bough and bone. 

A vast tenebrous sea, filled with incomprehensible creatures of recherche horrors, covered most of the world. Upon it's opaque surface, bitter suffocating winds carrying miasmas of decay hissed across the deep waters like the reaper's putrid breath. The heinous gales created frightening waves, which violently crashed against formidable cliffs. And upon those cliffs rested the ruinous and ghastly kingdom of Tenveriel.

Below the sharp and jagged stone towers of the bleak yet formidable castle, nestled against the cliffside, laid a treacherously rocky beach. And there, a sacred circular platform made of dark disintegrative stones stretched from the shoreline, and out into the temperamental ocean waves. A platform upon which a sacrosanct sacrifice was soon to be preformed.

Elegant undead dancers adorned in silks of starless midnight twirled a melancholic ballet across the somber beach, using long sticks to gracefully draw magical symbols in the dark pebbly sands. While tenverian men, dressed in dark regal cloaks, used engraved bones to rhythmically beat on large nefarious sounding drums. Drums that were made from withered flesh and fearsome-looking alien skulls.

Tenverians and graiths alike all eagerly awaited the sacred ceremony. They watched with looks of malice etched onto their undead features, and hearts as cold as frozen stones. For their souls held no light, and they knew nothing of sorrow, compassion, nor empathy. They were cruel and savage. Both cannibalistic and vicious by nature. Both cadaverous species squirmed in anticipation, like writhing maggots consuming a festering corpse.

The mirthless lower class, consisting mostly of tenverians, with their decaying ash grey skin, pointy ears, razor sharp fangs, and eerie black and red eyes, stood crammed together atop and throughout the treacherous cliffside. Most were cloaked in black otherworldly robes, while others adorned more casual, but still very strange, almost medieval-like, black clothing.

While the entitled and elegantly robed nobles, consisted of mostly graiths. They had no eyes, tattered smoke-grey skin, short and sickly reptilian snouts, and three harrowing rows of sharp needle-like teeth. They were given the honor and privilege to view from the beach. Every so often a lowly peasant would lose their footing on the unforgiving terrain and fall from the cliffs, only to be violently ripped apart and devoured by the malevolent superior class.

An undead queen, dignified and magisterial, stood in the center of the platform, proudly on display before all her unloved citizens. The roaring seawater billowed out behind her as the waves angrily crashed against the rocks. Her elegant burgundy gown and regal cloak of shadows gently fluttered in the seaside winds. Long black hair, adorned with braids and small bones, blew across her cruel corpsen face. While her crimson irises, set in scleras of stygian darkness, coldly gazed down towards her favorite son.