Amidst the realm of deities, monsters, and wonder, the heroes of the realm are involved in a grand-scale tale that will shape not only their futures but perhaps even those who experience them. Campaign format offers players an immersive experience in addition to the gameplay itself, and to complement that experience, the following sections encompass the lore associated with Havokk and its inhabitants.
When playing in a Campaign format adventure, the game's Lore Master decides what they do or do not want to include in their adventure, and that may include specific story elements, characters, or events - and that's great! The lore and information provided is to help guide you and your player party through the world designed for the game.
In each of the following sections below, the history and context of Havokk are available to use for your adventures.
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Current Conflict: This tab shows a summary of story content occurring during the game's launch (also known as "Chapter 1").
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Prologue: This tab has three sections, each containing different key series of events in Havokk's history, leaving up to the current period. Learn more about the events that resulted in Chapter 1's cards and content.
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Story Characters: Learn more about the main characters from Havokk's story and world. You'll find links to each Hero character's profile, as well as profiles for each of the pivotal characters who shaped Havokk's current realm.
The Current era of Havokk, and where the story of this generation of Heroes truly begins. Though the prior events occurring influenced these Heroes, never before have the stakes been so high for the fate of the realm. The renegade deities Aribus and Lylath have assumed control of the realm, despite Zhakul and Uutu's existence as the original deities of Light and Dark. Terrible champions of darkness have risen to assist the Void in its conquest of Havokk, and without Thanatos and the other benevolent Elder Dragonkind to protect the innocent lives, it is up to those driven by their innate sense of good to stop them. Lylath, despite the moniker of "the Matron," is only concerned with self-preservation and the destruction of the Void, specifically, leaving her followers and those who rely on her left to defend themselves in most cases, or submit wholly to her will and that of her Archons.
The "Era of Conflict" is defined chronologically per Havokk's timeline as beginning with the death of King Vincent, wife of Queen Valeria, and father of the current king, Damien. For roughly 20 human years following the defeat of Raxxus, there was a brief era of peace, although it was not true peace across all parties; the realm at large was calm. There were no world-ending battles or strife amongst species. Even when significant events, such as the arrival of Aribus, Lylath, and Ytaxia, occurred, the brief era of peace was uninterrupted and didn't cause major movement from each relevant party. Their arrival didn't begin to affect the realm at large until the transition of power from Vincent to Damien.
The transfer of power to a new, inexperienced King left an opening for the Chancellors of the Void to strike. Aribus planned this move alongside the other Void followers, using the slow corruption over time as the basis for the invasion, corrupting Havokk in pieces, allowing for multiple strike points across the realm. Many were not expecting widespread conflict because of the long era following Raxxus without any. This move is considered to be what truly started the current era of conflict.
Havokk endures. Scarred by deities, dragons, emperors, and the Void itself, the realm now stands in a fragile moment between recovery and collapse. The fires of cataclysm have not yet consumed all things, but neither have they gone cold. Across the continent and seas, the peoples of Havokk rebuild not because they believe the darkness has passed, but because they know it will return.
At the heart of this uneasy balance stands King Damien, last heir of Roselyn Valeria’s line, ruling alongside the Coalition of Unified Havokk. Born of unanimous will rather than divine decree, the Coalition was elected by the peoples of the realm to represent their voices, defend their lives, and preserve what unity remained after the fall of the Dark Emperor. In principle, it is Havokk’s greatest hope. In practice, it is flawed, but King Damien is responsible for this alliance whether he wants to be or not.
As Queen Roselyn aged and her once-unyielding fire softened beneath years of grief and compromise, opportunists crept into the Coalition’s Council of Elders. Some were driven by greed, others by ambition, still others by unseen patrons whispering promises of power. Though the majority of the Coalition still strives for peace and cooperation between species, corruption festers quietly in its shadows. Every major decree still requires the approval of King Damien, a safeguard that has delayed countless conspiracies. But delay is not prevention. The realm can feel it: the sense that something vital is being eroded from within.
The Mortal Provinces, once the backbone of Havokk’s prosperity, remain weakened by the legacy of Dark Emperor Raxxus. Trade routes are fractured, cities half-restored, and entire regions still bear scars where Void magic once bled into the soil. Though King Damien’s generosity and steady leadership have placed some provinces on the path to recovery, there is little time to heal. The Chancellors of the Void have returned.
Aribus, Zhakul, and their infernal allies have chosen this moment: when unity is fragile, and faith is thin to strike. Their objective is not conquest, but dissolution. To shatter the Coalition, to turn species against one another, and to let Havokk tear itself apart so the Void may claim what remains.
At the forefront of this new onslaught marches Rhogar Oathbreaker and Zhakul, commanders of legions forged in torment. Behind them works Xanathia, a cult leader whose devotion to Aribus has led her to perfect the creation of Voidstones. Smaller, more numerous, and more easily concealed than those used by Raxxus, these stones allow Zhakul and his lieutenant Amnon to create an ever-growing legion of "Scarred" warriors mangled by Void magic, stripped of identity, and raised again even in death. Each battle won against them feels hollow, for the fallen rise once more beneath a blackened banner.
The Nelven have not forgotten what was lost. After the destruction of Agnememnon, once the cradle of their civilization, their leader, Kinedas Liadon, led the survivors to Dhulahan, now the sole capital and ancestral refuge of their people. There, surrounded by ancient wards and guarded by High Mages, the Nelven rebuild cautiously. Kinedas is haunted by prophecy: tales of visitors from the stars, of ruin born from the heavens. To him, the growing presence of the Ytaxians echoes those dire warnings. He restrains his mages, forbidding open war, knowing that another conflict could doom his people entirely.
Yet not all Nelven walk the path of restraint. In the jungles near Agnememnon’s ruins, criminal factions and rogue miners seek to control the region’s resources, clashing with both the Squirks and the Ytaxians. They avoid Ytaxian lands when possible, as those who wander too far into them rarely return, but tensions simmer on every border. The Squirks, masters of industry and innovation, remain entrenched around the One Tree, its sanctity protected by air colonies, mobile fortresses, and machines unlike anything else in Havokk. Their technological revolution has armed the realm with wonders and cursed it with consequences. As Void forces overrun settlements, Squirk-made weapons often fall into enemy hands. Unable to match the endless tide of darkness, the Squirks have turned inward, fortifying their territory and defending what remains rather than striking outward. Their genius endures, but even genius cannot fight everywhere at once.
Upon the seas, chaos reigns. Most Sharkmen have turned to piracy, driven not by greed, but by desperation. Mako, self-proclaimed "Pirate King," has forged a vast armada through fear and extortion, enslaving his own kind to expand his power. In response, Captain Shank has risen as a defiant counterforce raiding Mako’s fleets, redistributing stolen wealth, and carving his own legend from blood and salt. The oceans of Havokk are no longer highways of trade, but battlegrounds of vengeance. To sail now is to gamble with one’s life.
Deep within the jungles and ruins of Agnememnon, Chimeraxion, and the Order of the Remnant labor tirelessly. Their goals are twofold: to rebuild what was destroyed, and to one day recall Ytaxia from the Void. Fascinated by Mortals, Chimeraxion has walked among them before, but trust has grown thin. Relentlessly hunted by Rhogar, Xanathia, and Zhakul’s forces, the Ytaxians fight for survival as fiercely as any mortal race. Chimeraxion’s strength is stretched thin, defending them from both Void incursions and fearful Mortal aggressors. As a result, it has withdrawn from the world, and the Ytaxians now greet outsiders with suspicion and drawn weapons. Hope, here, is guarded as fiercely as any fortress.
Yet Havokk is not without light. The Coalition of Unified Havokk, the Templar Order, and the Guiding Light stand as the last great defenders of the innocent. Avisary, leader of the Guardian Templar, has gathered a small band of heroes and ventured into the jungle to commune with Chimeraxion for a solution that befits all living beings. Alongside him is Maya Windriver, who believes the ancient being is not a harbinger of destruction, but another soul fighting to survive.
On the frontlines, Danika leads her archons against the advancing tide of Rhogar Oathbreaker, holding fast where others would flee. Teras, driven by vengeance, hunts Rhogar not for the realm, but for blood. Valda and the Wrathi tribe wage brutal war against Zhakul’s armies, their ferocity matched only by the darkness they oppose. Still, the Void does not tire. It's Scarred rises again and again, an inexhaustible horror born of blasphemous spellcraft.
And this is where you enter Havokk. A world fractured, yet unbroken. A realm where gods have fallen, but mortals still stand. Where hope no longer comes from prophecy or divinity, but from those willing to act when others cannot.
The age of legends has passed. The age of heroes begins again, with you.
As such, the Era of Conflict continues...
The universe at large is an endless chasm to which the infinite possibilities of existence all flow. No one is truly sure who or what created the universe; it is only known that from its creation, there have been countless variations of life and creation known throughout. What is known is that across unfathomable reaches of time and space, existence fractured itself into countless forms: worlds born and extinguished, lives imagined and forgotten, realities layered upon realities. Of these variations, across the fathoms of time and space, exists Havokk. A realm of mystery, danger, and wonder, Havokk has shown throughout time and tribulation that it is as resilient through conflict and adversity as it is exciting and wonderful.
When Havokk first took form, it was empty of life. There were only two beings who walked its endless horizons: Uutu and Zhakul. Uutu was bound to the Light, though not merely illumination, but revelation, growth, and the promise of becoming. Zhakul was bound to the Void, not evil as mortals would later define it, but absence, stillness, and the eternal unity found in nothingness. Together, they were stewards of a pristine world: vast landscapes of untouched wilderness, seas that reflected an unbroken sky, mountains unscarred by foot or flame. Yet despite their immense power, neither Uutu nor Zhakul was given purpose. They knew only that they existed, that they were bound to Havokk, and that something within them compelled observation.
Uutu watched the universe beyond Havokk and saw beauty in its chaos. He witnessed life bloom, struggle, adapt, and persist elsewhere, and from these observations came admiration. To Uutu, existence was meaningful because it was unpredictable. Growth, failure, joy, and loss were not flaws, but features of creation. Zhakul watched the same universe and drew a different conclusion. To him, life was a disruption: an endless cycle of suffering born from unnecessary complexity. In the Void, he saw perfection: unity without division, peace without change, eternity without decay. Where Uutu saw wonder, Zhakul saw noise. Each was bound to ideals they did not choose, yet could not abandon. For centuries, they existed in silent equilibrium. Then Uutu acted.
Communing with Havokk itself, Uutu reached into the essence of the realm and shaped it into form. From the world’s own will and substance, he breathed life into a being who would embody Havokk physically and eternally; Thus was Thanatos born. This event came to be known to Havokkian scholars as the "First Dawn" when translated from ancient Nelven scripts. Thanatos was not merely created within Havokk; he was created of it. His existence marked the first true life the realm had ever known, and through him, Havokk awakened. Mountains resonated. Energy flowed. The world became something more than a silent stage. In this explosion of life and wonder, Zhakul took grave offense. To him, Thanatos’ creations shattered the balance they had agreed upon. Where once there were two equals, now there were three. Worse, one of them was given life, given permanence. To Zhakul, this was betrayal, the poison that forever corrupted his being and gave a new purpose to what the Void represented. To Uutu, it was hope. From that moment, the eternal conflict between Light and Void began.
Thanatos, guided by Uutu and compelled by Havokk’s own voice, chose not to remain alone. Recognizing that no single being should bear the burden of an entire realm, Thanatos fractured his own Dragonsoul to create the Elder Dragonkind; beings shaped from his aspects and imbued with Havokk’s raw energies. The first of these was Kritikos, the Life Warden. From Kritikos flowed creation in all its forms. Where she walked, life followed. Forests grew, seas filled, and creatures were dreamed into existence through her raw power. Armanos, Barbatos, and Rhythmos soon followed, each capturing an essential aspect of Thanatos and embodying Havokk's wild and majestic form.
All species of Havokk trace their origins to Kritikos' visions of a world alive with diversity and thought. Gentle and patient, Kritikos became a mother figure to creation itself, earning the title Scale Mother from those who would come to revere her. Drawing inspiration from their own forms, she spawned offspring of her own: Dragonkind. Powerful beings, lesser than the Elders yet far beyond other Mortals as they would later be seen. Over generations, Dragonkind divided into lineages and cultures, each tracing their ancestry to one of the Elder Dragonkind and adopting philosophies that mirrored their progenitors.
From Kritikos’ communion with the realm came an unexpected creation: the Nelven. Unlike Dragonkind, they bore soft skin and delicate forms but possessed immense magical aptitude and long lifespans. They were thinkers, scholars, and architects of spellcraft. The Dragonkind were charged with their protection, and for a time, harmony reigned between these two species. The Nelven established the first true civilizations, erecting great cities: Agnmemnon and Dhulahan, at nexuses of magical energy. For nearly five centuries, they were the most advanced culture on Havokk, recording its early history in vast libraries and arcane archives that endure to this day. As their confidence grew, Nelven explorers set forth beyond the bounds of their twin capitals. These journeys were not driven by conquest, but by a desire to understand the greater tapestry of life unfolding across Havokk.
Their first and most profound early discovery was the One Tree, an immense living monolith whose branches vanished into the clouds and whose roots sang with ancient power. There, the Nelven encountered the Squirks; small, clever beings newly awakened to sentience. Where others might have seen simplicity, the Nelven recognized potential. Through patience and mutual respect, they taught the Squirks the use of tools, foundational Spellcraft, and methods of record-keeping. This exchange marked the first true interspecies alliance of the realm and laid the groundwork for the Squirks’ later technological awakening.
Along Havokk’s shifting coasts, Nelven cartographers charted tides and ley-lines, eventually crossing paths with the Sharkmen. That first encounter was tense, cautious, yet bloodless, and became a defining example of Nelven diplomacy. Though full relations would take centuries to solidify, the message was clear: the Nelven sought coexistence, not dominion.
However, not all Nelven felt equally bound to Havokk. Some Nelven departed their ancestral cities, dissenters seeking new paths. From these wanderers arose the first Mortals: shorter-lived, physically robust, and less attuned to magic, though still fairly capable with it. Misunderstood and ostracized by their Nelven progenitors, Mortals were initially seen as flawed Nelven rather than a new species entirely. Kritikos, however, watched them closely, fascinated by a species that evolved without her guidance. They were the first lifeforms to exist without her direct involvement.
In the long calm that followed the First Dawn and before the era of Mortal warring, when the great powers of Havokk still watched more than they interfered, Kritikos shaped a people unlike any who had yet walked the realm. From the refined currents of Havokk’s magical lattice, she wove the Nelven, beings of elegance and longevity, minds sharpened for memory and reason, and souls tuned to the living breath of the world itself. Among these firstborn were two whose spirits rang louder and clearer than the rest: Agnememnon and his sister, Dhula (short for Dhulahan).
They were not crowned by decree, nor elevated by conquest. Rather, the Nelven collectively gathered to them as water gathers to a deep and steady basin. Agnememnon embodied patience and foresight, a leader who listened first and spoke with compassion and purpose. Dhula was curiosity made flesh. Brilliant, restless, and unafraid to test the boundaries of what might be possible. Together, brother and sister formed a harmony that reflected Havokk itself. They strove to embrace the world with open arms and acceptance of all life, as Uutu, Kritikos, and the realm seemingly brought them in return. Thus began what later ages would name the Era of Prosperity, a span of nearly five centuries in which the Nelven rose as the first great civilization of Havokk.
Guided by instinct, study, and subtle whispers from Havokk’s unseen currents, Agnememnon and Dhula led their people to two converging nexuses of magical force, places where the world’s energy pooled like sunlight through crystal. There, the Nelven laid the foundations of their ancestral capitals. The city of Agnememnon, raised upon terraces of pale stone and living crystal, became a bastion of governance, philosophy, and law. Its structures were grown as much as built, shaped by Spellcraft that coaxed stone into graceful arcs and drew light into ever-burning lanterns. At its heart stood a great pyramid attuned to Havokk’s pulse, within which the elders gathered to debate the fate of their people and govern their species. Across the realm rose Dhulahan, a city of motion and innovation. Where Agnememnon’s streets were measured and contemplative, Dhula’s wound like flowing runes, constantly reshaped by magical experimentation and discovery. Libraries, academies, and spell-forges dotted the cityscape, and it was here that Nelven Spellcraft first began to resemble an art as much as a discipline.
Though separated by distance, the two cities were bound by their prominent central pyramids, meant to allow each sibling to stand atop them and commune with the other.
For centuries, the Nelven knew little of "want." Their long lives allowed knowledge to accumulate rather than vanish, and each generation built upon the carefully crafted groundwork of the last. Education was universal, with children apprenticed not only in trades but in history, ethics, and Spellcraft. To be Nelven was to be a steward of knowledge, of balance, and of Havokk itself.
Art flourished alongside this scholarship, and Nelven song could alter emotional currents; sculpture captured moments of history so vividly that observers claimed to feel echoes of the past. Festivals marked celestial alignments and seasonal shifts in Havokk’s energies, celebrating not dominance over the world, but unity with it.
Through their amalgamation of culture and magic, the Nelven infused every aspect of daily life with Havokk's mystical energy, though it was never treated casually. Spellcraft was governed by strict traditions, born from Dhula’s insistence on experimentation tempered by Agnememnon’s laws of restraint. Reckless magic was viewed as a danger not only to the caster but to the harmony of the realm.
Throughout the Era of Prosperity, the Nelven lived under the watchful eyes of the Dragonkind, as decreed by the Elder Dragonkind. Though the Dragonkind rarely intervened directly, their presence was a constant reassurance, a reminder that greater powers stood ready should true catastrophe arise. During this time, Havokk seemed almost idyllic. Conflict was rare, borders were fluid, and curiosity outweighed fear. The Nelven chroniclers of Dhulahan recorded these centuries with reverence, believing them to be the natural state of the world. This was the paradise that Uutu had envisioned in his earliest years. The promise of light and creation he witnessed when gazing out into the endless unknown.
Yet even in this golden age, subtle fractures formed. Not all Nelven felt equally bound to Havokk’s currents. Some questioned the rigid traditions of Spellcraft, others the quiet authority of the twin cities. These dissenters would, in time, leave the ancestral homes, an act seen as a tragedy by Agnememnon and as inevitable by Dhula. Neither could know that these small departures marked the first turning of the world toward uncertainty.
By the end of the fifth century, the Nelven stood unrivaled in culture, knowledge, and magical mastery. Their cities shone as beacons across Havokk, and their influence, both direct and indirect, touched nearly every emerging species. Later ages would look back on the Era of Prosperity as a lost perfection; a time before war, corruption, and conflict scarred the realm. To the Nelven themselves, it was simply the beginning; a proof that harmony was possible, and a standard by which all future ages would be judged.
The Era of Prosperity did not end in a single moment, nor did it collapse beneath one great calamity. Instead, it slowly frayed, its golden age unraveling thread by thread as Havokk itself grew more complex, and more strained, under the weight of its own success. As life flourished and civilizations expanded, Zhakul began to move in subtle ways. Where once he had been content to brood within the stillness of the Void, the unchecked spread of life now grated against his core belief: that creation was an aberration, and multiplicity an insult to cosmic balance. Outnumbered and unable to confront Uutu and his creations directly, Zhakul instead sought leverage. He found it within the Elder Dragonkind themselves.
Armanos and Barbatos were not corrupted overnight. Zhakul whispered to them through dreams, instilling fear and doubt, reframing their purpose, and filling their hearts and minds with dark purpose. To Armanos, he spoke of inevitability, that conflict was the truest expression of existence, and that struggle refined creation more honestly than peace ever could. To Barbatos, he offered justification that destruction was not cruelty, but cleansing, a necessary culling that would spare Havokk from stagnation and decay. These ideas took root slowly, warping their once-aligned duties into distorted reflections of their original roles.
Uutu was the first to sense the imbalance. Through his communion with the light and the flow of creation, he perceived fractures forming in the harmony of Havokk. He warned Thanatos, Kritikos, and Rhythmos that something ancient and patient was stirring against them. Rhythmos, peering across branching futures and collapsed timelines, confirmed Uutu’s fears: Zhakul’s influence would not merely threaten Havokk, it would seek to erase it.
Armanos was the first to act openly. Abandoning his role as guardian, he began interfering directly in the affairs of mortal and near-mortal species, stoking fear, ambition, and resentment. Mortals, born of Nelven dissent and shaped by shortened lifespans and limited magical affinity, experienced the world differently. Where the Nelven saw centuries to refine decisions, Mortals saw urgency. Where others trusted in balance, Mortals feared scarcity.
As their populations grew, they expanded aggressively, carving territories from wilderness and from one another. Greed, fear, and ambition, quietly nurtured by Zhakul’s unseen hand, drove them into near-constant warfare. Borders hardened. Old disputes flared into open war. Kingdoms that had once traded knowledge and culture turned to conquest and domination. Alliances formed, and loyalties were fractured. Where Armanos walked unseen, war banners soon followed.
Zhakul's sinister echoes of laughter could likely be heard across the realm. His plot to destroy Uutu and all of creation had been set into motion, and he was using Uutu's own creations to do it.
The conflict inevitably spilled outward. Mortal wars pressed against Nelven borders, threatening cities once thought untouchable. Some Mortals, remembering their ancestral ties, sought peace and offered aid against the more aggressive factions of their kind. The Nelven, wary and prideful, initially refused, but necessity softened doctrine. As attacks intensified, cooperation between Nelven and Mortal defenders marked the first true reconciliation between the two peoples.
The Dragonkind found themselves divided. Some adhered strictly to the will of their Elder progenitors, believing obedience was their duty. Others rejected this notion entirely, claiming that the Elder Dragonkind themselves had become the source of suffering. These dissenting Dragonkind wandered Havokk as mercenaries, guardians, or lone champions, intervening where they saw injustice rather than following any singular banner.
The Squirks remained insulated beneath the vast canopy of the One Tree. Havokk’s terrain itself seemed to rise in their defense; twisting roots, shifting stone, and ingenious fortifications turned invasion into folly. After repeated failures and heavy losses, Mortal warbands abandoned attempts to claim the One Tree, leaving the Squirks to their sanctified refuge.
Thanatos confronted Armanos, demanding he cease his interference and honor the balance they were sworn to protect. Armanos answered with violence. Their clash scarred the land, reshaping valleys and burning the skies. Thanatos ultimately prevailed, wounding Armanos and forcing his retreat. Barbatos and Zhakul intervened, spiriting the fallen Armanos away before Thanatos could strike the final blow.
For a time, the order returned. The influence of Armanos waned, and the Elder Dragonkind worked to restore what had been broken. But the damage had already taken hold among Havokk’s younger races, most notably the Mortals. Armanos, bitter and spiteful at his defeat, conspired to purge the realm. Zhakul still had his own ambitions of turning the Elder Dragonkind against their creator. Rhythmos withdrew deeper into his meditations, searching time itself for a way to avert annihilation.
As Havokk burned at its edges, Thanatos and Rhythmos sought a different answer. Together, they communed with a young Dragonkind named Kuzuryu, whose courage, restraint, and compassion marked him as something rare in a fracturing age. Where others sought glory or power, Kuzuryu sought protection for the innocent. His innate sense of good showed remarkable potential for a future leader of this ever-changing world.
Under their guidance, Kuzuryu founded the Temple of the Sovereign Leaf and its martial arm, the Defenders of the Sovereign Leaf. By channeling the refined energies of the Dream Flake, the order blended discipline, spiritual balance, and devastating martial prowess. For a time, they stood as living symbols of hope, champions who could arrive at the darkest hour and turn the tide without conquest or cruelty. Yet even as heroes rose, shadows deepened.
Among the Elder Dragonkind, unity continued to erode. Rhythmos withdrew further from the physical realm, spending prolonged periods astral-projecting through fractured timelines in search of a future where Havokk survived. Kritikos remained ever-present among the living, healing and restoring where she could, even as the cost to her essence grew heavier. Thanatos, burdened by leadership and betrayal, prepared for a war he prayed would never come. By the time Rhythmos returned from his longest absences, the future had narrowed. The choices ahead no longer asked whether war would come, but whether anything would remain once it did.
Before the sky burned and the land was scarred, before deities bled and mortals learned fear of the heavens, the Elder Dragonkind were not conquerors. They were stewards. Uutu and Thanatos had shaped them as living pillars of Havokk; beings vast enough to shepherd continents, yet wise enough to listen to the smallest life beneath their wings. For ages untold, Havokk flourished beneath their watch. From the depths, Zhakul watched as well.
Where the Elder Dragonkind nurtured life, Zhakul studied patterns. Where they sought harmony, he saw inefficiency. To him, Havokk was not sacred; it was an aberration. His hatred was not loud at first. It was patient, precise, and insinuating. Though this being of darkness did just that which shadows do, and found refuge in the dark. Zhakul had been hiding beneath Havokk in a series of tunnels (either natural or of his own construction), plotting and scheming. He created a network to allow him quick access to and from almost any location on Havokk. He did so because a direct assault on Uutu and the realm was foolish, even for a being of his power. Instead, he relied on tactics he had observed over the ages that were proven to destroy from within. The war did not begin with fire. It began with doubt. Zhakul’s first victory was not Armanos’s betrayal, nor Barbatos’s storms; it was division.
Armanos had always been fierce, his Dragonsoul resonating with dominance, wrath, and conquest barely restrained by duty. Zhakul whispered not commands, but validation. He spoke of Rhythmos’s ancient prophecy of renewal, twisting it into destiny rather than warning. He told Armanos that stewardship was stagnation, that Thanatos had grown complacent, that Havokk needed a ruler willing to burn away weakness.
Barbatos was different. She loved Havokk in motion: the wind through forests, the rains that fed rivers, the storms that reshaped coastlines. Zhakul exploited her compassion by turning it against itself. Mortals guided by Void-tainted spellcraft were driven to fear her. They hunted her, cursed her name, and blamed her for disasters she did not cause. When Barbatos struck back in defense, and eventually in grief and rage, Zhakul made certain she saw only confirmation. To Armanos, he said: See how the living rot the world. To Barbatos, he said: See how they will never stop. Thus, the dark schemer's first lie took root: That extermination was mercy.
As Havokk’s skies darkened with storms and its lands shook with unnatural tremors, the Elder Dragonkind grew divided. Kritikos, ever generous, continued to bless life even as conflict brewed, refusing to believe her kin could truly fall to Zhakul's dark influences. Rhythmos, haunted by visions half-understood, withdrew from the physical realm, walking the currents of time and possibility in astral form, searching for a path that did not end in annihilation. Thanatos, bound to Havokk itself, felt every wound inflicted upon the world as pain within his own Dragonsoul. He had failed the realm he was bound to protect; They were no longer unified stewards. They were a broken conscience struggling against itself.
When Zhakul turned mortals against Barbatos entirely, forcing her into isolation and fury, the final line was crossed. Thanatos, witnessing the slaughter of innocents and the corruption of his kin, pronounced judgment. Armanos and Barbatos were declared enemies of Havokk. The Elder Dragonkind War began. Not with ceremony, but with betrayal.
Roughly three years pass. Battles became more frequent. More open. Armanos would attack a caravan here, or a village there. Like a predator playing with its prey, he taunted Thanatos with his crimes against Havokk. Trying to provoke him and expose his vulnerability to take advantage. Armanos never truly believed he needed Zhakul or the Void's assistance in taking over Havokk, but he welcomed the support. Zhakul's "support" was often just a horde of mindless dead, but more fuel for his inferno of vindication. Zhakul was often away, working schemes, planting his dark seeds where he must to try and stop Uutu and his benevolent Dragonkind from the shadows.
Thanatos, pressured by ongoing strikes against Havokk's inhabitants and even himself, Kritikos, and Rhythmos, becomes desperate for a solution. Lives were being lost daily, dark abominations created from the dead, and no time to heal the land or wounds from the battle before the next began. Even if he left a battle unscathed, the constant conflict took a toll on his mind just as much as it did his body. He became obsessed with the battle and worked tirelessly to purge the conflict that he felt he was responsible for.
Zhakul's scheming was working perfectly, as a distracted Thanatos neglected to see that Zhakul's true agenda didn't involve Armanos and Barbatos alone, but all inhabitants of Havokk. In Noktaradmus, for many years, he had been influencing the events that would ultimately lead Raxxus into becoming the dark emperor. By the time that Thanatos, Kritikos, and Rhythmos were able to intervene, he was already lost to the Void.
Zhakul's dark influence over Armanos only elevated his already hostile nature and capacity for violence. Armanos began trusting all plans and strategies to Zhakul, believing him to be worthy enough to carry out his grand design. Barbatos was left out of the grand scheme in this dark alliance because Zhakul considered her untrustworthy, and his opinion, paired with dark magic, had control over Armanos's opinion. He sensed in her compassion for the inhabitants of Havokk and treated this as a weakness.
When Elder Dragonkind clashed, the continents trembled. Storms summoned by Barbatos scoured coastlines and drowned coastal civilizations. Armanos’s assaults burned forests to ash and split mountain ranges. Entire ecosystems collapsed beneath the weight of their combat. Where they fought, Havokk was rewritten: its ley lines twisted, its skies scarred with permanent auroras of magical fallout. Mortals fled. The Nelven retreated deeper into their ancestral sanctuaries. It was no longer a war for Havokk. It was a war upon it. Seeing Zhakul and the Void’s hand clearly at last, Uutu broke neutrality.
The ancient creator entered the conflict, standing beside Thanatos, Kritikos, and the distant Rhythmos, no longer observers, but defenders. In that moment, the peace between Uutu and Zhakul ended forever, and Uutu saw that despite his best efforts, the Void and its followers knew only consumption and death and would stop at nothing to achieve their goal of wiping out all existence as he had created it. Without any other options, Uutu was forced to enter the conflict. Taking up arms with the benevolent forces of Havokk, Zhakul realized that to claim victory, he would need to even the odds.
In response, Zhakul had already prepared his cruelest stroke, but with the arrival of Uutu, he was forced to act upon it. While Rhythmos’s consciousness roamed the astral reaches, seeking salvation, he directed Armanos and Barbatos to strike down his physical form. The assassination of Rhythmos was not merely murder; it was an existential wound. When his body fell, his Dragonsoul vanished from Havokk’s awareness. No echo. No rebirth. Only absence.
Thanatos believed one of his children had been erased forever, and that piece of him, too, was gone to the very Void he had sworn to protect his realm from. In his fury, he shattered Barbatos’s physical form in battle. He brutally destroyed her before Armanos as vengeance for Rhythmos. Thanatos's rage blinded him from seeing that he had destroyed his own creation in unbridled fury.
Her final thoughts, a painfully late realization: Zhakul had never trusted Barbatos. She was a tool, discarded once her usefulness waned. Kritikos, weeping for her sister even as she fought, bound Barbatos’s fading essence into a weapon; preserving what could still be saved, believing that she could one day be reborn and redeem herself.
As the dragon gods tore apart the world, Zhakul enacted his mortal contingency. He revealed himself fully to Raxxus. The Void tome. The Voidstone. All of it. The promise of eternity and power through the Void. With this revelation, Raxxus became not merely a tyrant but a weaponized extinction event.
He began by confronting Krul-Wrathi and the Wrathi tribes. However, he was stopped, temporarily. Defending himself and his people in an intense battle, though nearly devastated from the dark power Raxxus wielded, Krul-Wrathi dealt a decisive blow, and a small group of survivors escaped to regroup in their northern homelands. Even after this defeat, Raxxus's cruelty knew no bounds, and next, he destroyed Inegend and harvested its people’s souls to empower himself further and recover from his defeat at the hands of Krul-Wrathi.
As Raxxus's Soul Heist Repository fed on Havokk’s lifeblood, amplifying the Void’s reach with every stolen soul, Mortal wars multiplied, a harvest of blood and dark energy for Armanos and Zhakul. Eventually, the tension and bloodshed came to full fruition at the Battle for Havokk, centered on Noktaradmus, becoming the convergence point of every thread Zhakul had woven.
Uutu, seeing the disparity of the situation, empowered Krul-Wrathi and his Barbarian warriors to combat the dark forces before them. These brave warriors were forever honored as the mighty wall that held back the dark tide of the Void. Wrathi warriors, fearless heroes, and survivors of the dark emperor, empowered by Uutu, held the line against annihilation.
The opening created by Uutu and the Wrathi tribe allowed Roselyn, Krul-Wrathi, Kuzuryu, and several warriors to get close to Raxxus himself. During the encounter, Krul-Wrathi’s sacrifice broke the Voidstone’s hold long enough for Roselyn Valeria to end Raxxus’s reign. With the Dark Emperor slain, Zhakul lost his mortal conduit for pain and anguish. The war shifted back to the northern expanses where the Elder Dragonkind battle raged, and Zhakul's final gambit was Armanos, the Harbinger. Bringer of death and ruin.
Armanos, swollen with stolen power and prophetic delusion, confronted Thanatos and Kritikos directly. Zhakul joined him, not as master, but as a parasite feeding on devastation. The two dark beings prioritized their attacks against Thanatos, knowing that if they defeated him, Kritikos and Uutu would be unable to stop their collective might. Knowing what would happen if Thanatos fell, Kritikos chose sacrifice.
She gave herself willingly; her essence reforging Thanatos’s wounded form. Sensing this honorable sacrifice, Uutu claimed her Dragonsoul and preserved it within a sacred weapon. Even in death, she was gentle, and with her serenity and grace, it broke the will of even the most devout Void worshippers for a moment. Their mother had given herself for all her children.
In desperation, Armanos unleashed a cataclysmic blast meant to annihilate Havokk itself. Thanatos used his energy absorption abilities to hold as much of the blast as possible, for the sake of protecting his realm and these innocent lives. The blast scarred the world, leaving wastelands, shattered regions, and permanent wounds in the land.
In the wake of the aftermath, Havokk endured. Thanatos returned the stolen energy in a final judgment attack, destroying Armanos utterly. Thanatos, after boldly taking the brunt of this and finding the will to survive as Havokk had, had ended the conflict and the Elder Dragonkind war.
Outnumbered and alone, Zhakul retreats from Thanatos. Without the aid of Armanos and Barbatos, he couldn't hope to defeat Thanatos and Uutu’s combined strength. Zhakul skulked away into hiding within Havokk to devise new schemes, patiently waiting for another opportunity to strike from the shadows. Uutu, unable to truly purge Havokk of Zhakul because of their eternal bond to the realm itself, warns that this is not the last time the realm will face this monstrous evil.
With the mortal victory of the Coalition of Unified Havokk against Raxxus and Armanos defeated, the Elder Dragonkind War truly comes to an end. Roselyn Valeria and the remaining Coalition work to recover from the damage Raxxus, Armanos, and Zhakul inflicted upon the realm. For the first time, there is a just and benevolent ruler for the inhabitants of Havokk. A period of regrowth occurred on Havokk, lasting many years.
Thanatos requests that Kuzuryu become Havokk's guardian Dragonkind in his stead. He is tasked with finding others who would defend it as he had. The Defenders of the Sovereign Leaf are created, and Kuzuryu begins training a new generation of Heroes.
Following the war, Thanatos's injuries and exertion influenced his physical form, even for a being of his stature. When Thanatos absorbed Armanos's blast during their final encounter, it poisoned Thanatos’s Dragonsoul, leaving traces of the Void within him. Armanos's last jest against his "father" was getting one last jab, not just in pain or regret, but in character and purpose.
Thanatos could not risk exposing the lives of Havokk to a monstrous, dark Thanatos if he were to be consumed. Reluctantly, he went into stasis to prevent the darkness of the Void from consuming him until a time when he could be purged of the dark influence. Now hidden on Havokk, Thanatos slumbers, waiting for a time when it has fully restored itself to the rightful protector of Havokk.
The arrival refers to the beings Aribus, Lylath, and Ytaxia. Their appearance on Havokk irreversibly altered Havokk as a realm and its timeline. Referred to by some as the "Renegade Deities," these extraterrestrial beings have taken control of the realm since their arrival. Following the Elder Dragonkind War, Havokk experienced a period of cooperation and generally widespread prosperity. This was before a tragedy befell Havokk: a rift in the sky formed, and what almost appeared as a meteor emerged from the tear, smashing into the Nelven city of Agnememnon. The immediate effect of the impact annihilated any nearby inhabitants and injured countless others. Leaving a scar on the entire realm, this event would shape the events where the story of this age's Heroes truly begins.
Before the destruction of Agnememnon, there was a great battle in their home realm. A terrible being known as "H'Kon" had come for Ytaxia. Chimeraxion has said it only knows fear when speaking this being's name aloud. The being known as H'Kon is ultimately what led these beings to Havokk, but has been mysteriously absent since...
The rift tore open above Havokk like a screaming wound in the sky. Ytaxia arrived first, not by calm descent, but by a brutal impact. The sensation was not of falling, but of being driven, forced through space that resisted every fragment of its being.
The impact had caused a city to die beneath it. Agnememnon, once a living monument of Nelven mastery, was gone in a heartbeat. The main mass of the central pyramid shattered as Ytaxia’s mass struck it like a falling star, driving molten stone and shattered crystal outward in a cataclysmic wave. Towers folded inward. Streets ruptured like glass rods shattering. Havokk itself recoiled as the impact carved a vast crater where the heart of the city had stood moments before.
Pain took hold before form, intense awareness of what had been inflicted before even the instinct to breathe. Nerves burning, physically fractured, and bleeding chaotic energy as its form instinctively attempted to bond with the new realm so that it had something to hold onto besides pain.
Its form strained against Havokk’s laws, attempting to adapt to this strange new world. Essence bled from it in luminous streams, soaking into fractured stone and scorched soil. Chaotic energy surged outward in uncontrolled pulses, warping the ruins, fusing magic and matter in violent harmony. Ytaxia tried to rise, but could not. The battle with H’Kon had drained it beyond measure. What remained of Ytaxia clung to existence through instinct alone; to persist, to adapt, to endure. This new reality pressed in around it, foreign yet fertile, Ytaxia's consciousness resisting annihilation even as it was uncertain what it accepted and was spilled into it. Then came the others.
Aribus arrived next, his presence like a cold gravity that bent the air around him. Lylath followed, radiant and composed, already weaving patterns of light and sigil. Ytaxia recognized them both, her kin. She recognized them not as allies, not as enemies, but as survivors of the horror they escaped from: H'Kon. For a fleeting moment, hope stirred that it might survive this new world; It died quickly. What came next was not a debate of what to do in this new place, but stark betrayal.
Lylath’s spell struck like a lattice of light, anchoring Ytaxia’s fractured form to the crater’s heart. Its essence recoiled, struggling against the imposed structure. Aribus did not hesitate. His magic was invasive, corruptive, sending tendrils of Void-touched Spellcraft burrowing into Ytaxia’s core, tearing away fragments of power and the will to resist. Each extraction felt like being unmade piece by piece. Ytaxia screamed, and the land screamed with it, the ruins echoing with a sound that would linger in Havokk’s memory long after words failed. Still, Ytaxia endured.
Bound and broken, it understood what the others did not: this world was listening. With each breath it could take, Ytaxia released itself, not in defiance, but in seeding. Essence poured into the shattered foundations of Agnememnon, into the fractured realm, into Havokk's magical veins exposed by the impact. Lylath’s binding spell, meant to hasten destruction, instead granted Ytaxia vital time. This, along with Aribus's attempt at opening a new path to the Void, allowed chaos to root on Havokk.
Aribus found that Zhakul’s absence within the Void passage without resistance, as if he was opening a familiar door, but to a place he had never visited. He dragged Ytaxia into the Void, but something remained behind, something neither Aribus nor Lylath sensed amidst their perceived triumph. A pulse of life. A bloom of hope. A promise. When the crater finally fell silent, the ruins of Agnememnon were no longer merely destroyed. They were changed. And long after Aribus and Lylath departed, long after the sky healed and the dust settled, the land would remember what had fallen there. So would Ytaxia.
From the smoldering crater arose Lylath alone. Distraction from the trailing screams of survivors and the echoing chaos of rubble and debris settling allowed her enough time to retreat from this place. The warmth of the light renewed her, though it felt hollow. She embraced the light, moving through it, becoming one with it, and into the sky above. There she gazed down upon this new realm with wonder. With anticipation and ambition. She hid herself away until the dust settled, and the inhabitants of Havokk found themselves demanding answers for what caused this wound on their world.
It was then that Lylath returned. She named herself the Matron, a goddess of light and renewal, claiming to have come to replace the lost guardians of Havokk’s past age. She spoke of prosperity, unity, and protection against the Void. She spoke of the event that led her there, and the promise to protect them.
After ages of war, self-proclaimed gods, and cataclysm, Havokk was desperate to believe her. And so they did. Temples were raised. Faith spread. Hope returned. Yet even as Lylath basked in worship, she sensed Uutu’s lingering presence, watching, and yet unreachable. Wounded from her encounter with H’Kon and wary of exposure, Lylath withdrew to Havokk’s nearest star, cloaking herself while she recovered. Allowing her new followers to lay the groundwork for her true aspirations for this place.
With her brother, Aribus, sequestered away in whatever dark place he now called home, and Ytaxia contained within it, she believed the matter was controlled. She was wrong.
What Aribus and Lylath failed to realize was that Ytaxia’s arrival, however brief, had been enough. The chaotic essence it shed during impact embedded itself deep into Havokk’s magical substrata, particularly where Agnememnon’s ancient energies masked its presence. At the heart of this genesis bloomed a crystalline formation, a flower infused with and emanating Ytaxia’s essence. Bound to Ytaxia's will, its foundational existence, and fused with Havokk, this new creation is a nexus of boundless opportunity.
In time, and without much delay, arose Chimeraxion, not a rebirth, but an incarnation of chaos. A vessel shaped by Havokk, carrying fragments of Ytaxia’s will and memory, but also something new and akin to Havokk. By the time Chimeraxion fully manifested, Aribus and Lylath were too distracted by their own machinations, and neither deemed it worth immediate attention. Lylath dismissed it as a weakened echo. Aribus saw only future consumption. In their arrogance, they both had miscalculated.
What they both failed to understand was that the Ytaxia bloom birthed this strange amalgamation, and with it, the promise that Ytaxia once made; The promise to endure. The promise to remember what had taken place there. Alongside Chimeraxion and through his own inspiration, emerged the Ytaxian species, beings touched by chaos yet capable of balance. Within Chimeraxion was the promise of revenge and vengeance, Ytaxia swore, and the power to do so.
With Ytaxia imprisoned, H’Kon hunting across the cosmos, and false deities manipulating Havokk from the shadows, the realm entered its most precarious age. Chimeraxion formed the Order of the Remnant, uniting Ytaxians and converts dedicated to restoring Ytaxia and exposing the truth behind Aribus and Lylath’s deception.
Thus begins the Era of Conflict: not defined by open apocalypse, but by manipulation, resistance, and the slow realization that Havokk is once again a battlefield in a war far larger than itself. And somewhere beyond the stars…
H’Kon is still searching. Inevitability still approaches.
Heroes of Chaos & Disorder
Those who follow the path of chaos and the chaotic energies blaze their path on Havokk - they live on the edge, or would only know their path and refuse to follow others. Chaos permeates the universe, creating and driving the changes that occur so that life and existence can always find a way to propagate rather than become stale, boring, and repetitive. There are also the Ytaxians - beings comprised of chaos energy from their creator, Ytaxia. These beings are viewed as hostile invaders on Havokk, though their energy and their essence are known to create or destroy, leaving these creatures mysterious and feared by outsiders. With Chaotic characters, whether following their own path or their master's call, chaotic characters are wild and difficult to defeat because of their unpredictable nature.
Heroes of Darkness & the Void
The followers of the Void are dark, decrepit, vile, and ready to harm their master's call, or for pleasure. Not all Dark characters are followers of Aribus and Zhakul, but many end up in his service in exchange for the promises of power and glory that they offer. Characters who devote themselves to the Void are eternal enemies of creation, swearing to end the living world so that all is encompassed by the Void (their master's domain). Those who align themselves with Darkness in general are to be feared, as these characters are often a risk to others (and sometimes themselves).
Rhogar Oathbreaker, the Fallen
Heroes of Light & Hope
Though the followers of Light are often viewed as being good, kind, generous, or benevolent in general. The forces of Light are also accompanied by Lylath and her champion Archons, striving to enforce Lylath's grand design of purging anything and everything that would stray from the light. However, not all that would seek to do good do so by force. Characters that find themselves on the path of radiance are often those who seek to protect the innocent, heal others from injury, or generally do well for others, without being asked and without expectation of reward. These characters and forces of Havokk are often considered Heroes to most common mortals. Lylath has her agenda, however, that may threaten Havokk just as much as her opposition.
Heroes of Neutrality & Order
Amongst the various mortals and beings of Havokk, some wander their path of surrounding events, or feel that these events do not apply to them. Some are so removed from their kind and social circles that the influences of external factors do not phase them. Whatever the path, purpose, or destiny, those who remain neutral or who commit themselves to a personal sense of order in a world of ancient beings, dragons, and monsters are no less important than those who dedicate themselves to Light, Darkness, or Chaos respectively.
As Havokk matured and its peoples spread across the realm, the Mortal races proved to be the most volatile inheritors of its boundless opportunity. Where the Nelven pursued harmony with Havokk, the Sharkmen clung to coast and current, and the Squirks rooted themselves in the sanctity of the One Tree, Mortals were driven by urgency. Their lives were short, their needs immediate, and their ambitions untempered by centuries of memory. Kingdoms rose and fell in the span of a few generations. Borders shifted with every war season, and refugees became as common as soldiers. Other species watched from a distance, unwilling to be drawn into what seemed an endless cycle of Mortal bloodshed. It was during this age of collapse and civil war that a single figure emerged. One who would end a dark era even as he unknowingly sowed the seeds of a greater one.
Cut off from the outside inhabitants of Havokk and desperate for the civil war between nations to end, one Mortal rose to power: Raxxus of Noktaradmus. Raxxus was born the sole heir of Noktaradmus, a kingdom hardened by siege and ambition. From a young age, he showed a rare blend of charisma and strategic brilliance, commanding loyalty not through cruelty, but certainty. Leading his remaining band of soldiers from Noktaradmus in a decisive battle against the combined warlords of the Mortal species, Raxxus struck down the leader of the opposition and ended the long-standing conflict. In a victory following a decisive campaign, Raxxus unified Mortal-kind under a single banner for the first time since they had migrated away from their Nelven roots.
When his father succumbed to wounds taken during the war, Prince Raxxus ascended as king. The realm he inherited was exhausted; cities burned, trust shattered, faith in Mortal leadership nearly gone. Yet Raxxus spoke not of conquest, but of restoration. For a time, hope returned. Trade resumed. Roads were rebuilt. Other species cautiously acknowledged the possibility that Mortals might finally stabilize. This task, which seemed insurmountable to some, was in addition to restoring the faith in the Mortal species that most of Havokk had lost. But peace weighed heavily on a man who believed himself chosen to fix a broken world.
Raxxus was widely revered and loved by his subjects before and after taking the throne of Noktaradmus. He was a peaceful king and did everything in his power to ensure that his people were happy, healthy, and respected among the other inhabitants of Havokk. He brought peace between the Nelven and Mortals by assisting with the construction of the Temple of Dhula, a large sacred building designed to channel mystical Nelven energies using the technology of Noktaradmus. It was constructed in the center of Agnememnon, a capital city and focal point of mystical energy for the Nelven species.
With the newly renewed union with the Nelven, Raxxus made it his goal to reintroduce the Nelven way of life to the Mortal Populus. In his homeland of Noktaradmus, the Mortals relied heavily on the use of advanced technologies powered by steam and metal. Raxxus had hoped that using Nelven magic, Mortals could return to a simpler time of relying on Havokk instead of harsh industrial manufacturing and infrastructure, something that caused Mortals to war amongst themselves in the first place, as resources became commodities.
Despite his dreams of a simpler world, Raxxus's home of Noktaradmus was built on an industrial foundation that prospered from its countryside, which was rich with valuable metals and gems buried deep within its hills. Raxxus’ father had previously arranged a series of deals with the Squirks of the One Tree to build a steam-powered and industrialized nation using their resources and Squirk builders. With this technology, the people of Noktaradmus would know a life of lavish pleasures and simplicity. Raxxus knew these machines could help rebuild the world, though secretly he despised the machines and craved a life amidst the natural beauty of the realm
While visiting the Nelven provinces, Raxxus secretly sought answers in forbidden texts salvaged from ancient Nelven vaults. While skulking around their most sacred libraries, he encountered texts written in ancient tongues he recognized from his family's vault. Returning to Noktaradmus and locating the ancient tome hidden within, it was there that he learned of his father's true aspirations.
His father, he learned, had not sought immortality for Mortals, but dominion beyond death for himself. Obsessed with the idea that only an eternal ruler could truly protect his people, his father had acquired a tome that seemingly held these answers. The tome contained no mention of machines or industry, but instead, what appeared to be a trove of knowledge of old magic. Confused by these findings, Raxxus took the book to his most trusted advisors. Being told that the tome was only an ancient relic containing lost history by his court scholars, He was told to disregard this relic of the past as a resource to fix their broken world of the present. Raxxus knew the book was timeless and believed that its secrets held the answers to restoring all Mortals to their place alongside the Nelven progenitors. He was unaware of the origin of the book or who had provided it to his family years before...
Calling upon the most esteemed mages and scholars across the land, a ritual was translated from the book. The ritual spoke of a conduit that would feed the power of infinite life into the caster. Raxxus, with the aid of six powerful mages, began the ritual from the translations, not realizing the horror that was about to be unleashed upon Havokk.
“At the center of the circle arose a great energy, a terrible power from the depths of Havokk itself. I felt the air around me chill and draw out from my lungs as though all life stopped around me. I struggled to gain control of myself as I gazed upon the horror unfolding. I saw the lives of these noble men get taken from them. Their screams trailed slowly and ethereally from their gaping maw to the crystal. I watched as the life drained out of their eyes and their emptied husks dropped to the ground, lifeless, never to move again.”
-Raxxus, Journal Entry
The ritual, translated from the ancient texts, spoke of a crystal that must be created to store the energy required to invigorate the living being. The crystal hungrily devoured the life force of the six mages who aided him, transmuting their stolen essence into power. Shocked and mortified that his actions had caused the death of the mages, Raxxus attempted to destroy it; only to find that wielding it bound their strength to his own. Raxxus enacted the ritual meaning to bind life itself, but what he created instead was the first type of Voidstone of the modern era, and a step down the dark path Zhakul had arranged for him.
Though he had acquired power through sinister means, Raxxus found that through this power, he was able to do good with it, as well. At first, he used the power sparingly. He healed the sick. He saved the dying. Plagues vanished overnight. Soldiers rose from deathbeds. Children crippled from birth walked for the first time. These acts earned him worship from his people. Shrines were built in his name.
But the stone demanded constant nourishment, and each miracle weakened the next unless he submitted himself to it. Soon, a desperate logic took hold: sacrifices were necessary. And with that realization came unnatural temptation and self-preservation. What started as good intentions ended with the imprisonment and torture of his subjects. Raxxus told himself he was teaching Mortals the cost of survival. In truth, he was teaching himself how little their screams affected him when it was all for his greater good.
In the early days of his corruption, Raxxus did not abandon civility; he weaponized it. He continued to hold open court in Noktaradmus. Petitioners were welcomed into the throne hall beneath banners still bearing the sigils of unity and peace. Those who sought healing or justice were heard patiently, their pleas met with measured nods and sympathetic words. Then, when the court adjourned, names were quietly recorded. Some were summoned again, alone, to private chambers beneath the city, where the air was cold, and the stone walls pulsed faintly with sickly violet light. Those who returned spoke of miracles and salvation. Those who did not return were quietly erased from records, their homes reassigned, their families told they had “given themselves in service to the realm.” Raxxus told himself this was mercy. He would purge the vagrants. Criminals. The forgotten. These “undesirables” in society were the perfect sacrifices, as no one cared or was looking for them.
Deep beneath Noktaradmus, Raxxus constructed what later survivors would call the "Chamber of Transference." At its center hovered a large, dark crystal; chains of sigil-etched metal radiated outward from the central mount for the stone, anchoring victims in a ritual circle. The walls of the chamber were charred, as if burned by an unnatural fire. Wind would pass through the connecting chambers, creating haunting echoes of the screams from past victims. The rituals that took place here and the sacrifices made forever stained this place.
When they first began, the Mortal part of him still experienced regret. As the madness of the darkness took hold, Raxxus no longer watched these rituals in silence. He spoke to those bound before him. Sometimes he lectured. Sometimes he asked them questions about their lives, their regrets, their fears. As the Voidstone drank them dry, Raxxus would narrate the sensation aloud, describing the warmth he'd feel as their energy was leaving their limbs, the narrowing of their vision, and the moment they realized they were already dead. He gave himself to that darkness, wholly.
By the time Raxxus sealed Noktaradmus, it was a mausoleum of a city where the living existed only to be harvested. He ruled from a throne along with the repository he now carried as a dark reliquary, an array of jagged crystal fused with bone and metal. Veins of dark energy crawled up his limbs, permanently staining his skin like rot beneath glass. His voice no longer echoed naturally. It arrived a heartbeat before his lips moved, as though time itself recoiled from him. Those who were allowed in his presence and survived claimed to hear whispers in their own voices, seeing reflections of themselves dying in his shadow. But also, that he had also stopped eating and sleeping "mortal" food. The power of the Void did not grant him rest, only vigilance to further draw life into the repository.
Before marching on other kingdoms, Raxxus committed his most personal atrocity. He ordered that the bells of Noktaradmus rung continuously for three days and nights, calling any remaining citizens to the capital square. When they arrived, exhausted and terrified, he addressed them one last time. He thanked them for their sacrifices. For their loyalty. For giving him the strength to protect the Mortal world. Then he activated the Soul Heist Repository. When the city fell silent, Raxxus stood among the husks of his people and whispered, not in triumph, but disappointment: "Still not enough."
His body warped, his mind fractured, the dark emperor became something else entirely. Raxxus was no longer fully Mortal. His eyes no longer reflected the once brilliant reflection of light, but an absence like the blackness where his own soul was once found. He did not laugh. He did not rage. He was cold and calculated. The Soul Heist Repository had not turned him into a monster driven by chaos; it turned him into something worse: A ruler who believed suffering was simply another resource.
From Noktaradmus, Raxxus launched campaigns of annihilation. Cities fell and were repurposed as soul farms. His armies, empowered and controlled by fragments of Voidstone energy, marched without rest. In the north, and caught in Raxxus' Warpath were the Wrathi peoples. Nearly eradicated, their clans shattered, they were saved only by the intervention of their people's champion, Krul-Wrathi. After a daring assault, Krul-Wrathi survived a direct clash with Raxxus and forced the dark emperor’s retreat due to his fierce warrior intensity.
To replenish both his power and his pride, he turned on Inegand next, wiping it out in what he believed was retribution for Roselyn Valeria's sedition when he turned to the Repository once before. He wiped out the entire population, thinking that he claimed her life in the conflict.
When Roselyn finally returned to Noktaradmus, the city was silent. No banners stirred. No bells rang. The streets were lined with remains of those who had died to the Voidstone’s influence or Raxxus's pleasure. The air itself felt brittle, as though it might shatter if struck. Inside the throne room, Raxxus waited, but what Roselyn saw was not the man she had once sworn to protect.
He sat upon his twisted throne, his form elongated and warped, his armor fused into his flesh. Veins of purple voidlight pulsed beneath translucent skin. His crown was no longer metal, but a halo of dark, fractured crystals hovering just above his skull. His eyes, once sharp, once mortal, now reflected nothing. No torchlight. No movement. Only absence. His head lifted, and even without eyes, she felt his pierce her own. His expressionless face struggled to move naturally, and yet, when he spoke her name, he spoke it perfectly.
“Roselyn, you came back,” he said, not with malice, but relief. Roselyn felt the weight of every soul he had consumed pressing against her thoughts. Memories that were not her own brushed against her mind: final breaths, unspoken regrets, prayers that had gone unanswered. It was here in this moment that she had trained her entire life for. To purge this evil from Havokk and restore peace to the people she swore to protect. She raised her sword and rallied the Coalition behind her, charging the dark emperor with Krul-Wrathi, Kuzuryu, and other brave heroes at her side.
As the battle raged and heroes fell, Roselyn understood the terrible truth: Raxxus no longer knew how to stop. She knew he wouldn't stop himself if he could. The battle of Noktaradmus was catastrophic. Heroes fell. The Soul Heist Repository nearly claimed them all. In a final act of raw defiance, Krul-Wrathi grappled the dark lord, bearing his impossible strength and will against him. Krul-Wrathi tore the Soul Heist Repository from Raxxus’s grasp.
Destiny called upon her, and Roselyn struck the killing blow. When she struck him down, she did not do so in hatred but in mercy. The king she once believed in, finally released; his soul no longer captive in the prison the Void had placed him in. Raxxus died screaming promises of return, promises the Void would deliver upon him. They all revolted as his body, twisted into a near-demonic husk by the Void’s corruption, seemed to pulse and move even after his defeat.
His remains were sealed deep beneath Noktaradmus, bound by runes meant to prevent his resurrection. The location was known only to those who were necessary to bury, for fear that a marked location would invite trouble. Noktaradmus was not known for vandalism or even looting, as it was believed to be, "so cursed a place that not even the wicked tread there."
Following the events at Noktaradmus, Roselyn and the survivors of the battle discussed how to mend their broken world. With Raxxus defeated, the surviving peoples of Havokk convened a council and discussed how to prevent such tyranny from ever rising again, to determine who would lead them through this new era.
Thus was officially formed the Coalition of Unified Havokk, a governing body composed of representatives from every sentient species. By unanimous decree of each species's representatives, Roselyn Valeria was crowned Queen. Not as conqueror, but as steward. Under her rule, shattered kingdoms began to rebuild. Borders softened. Old grudges cooled. Though scars remained, hope returned.
Each of the surviving Heroes from the battle returned to their homes to rebuild. Roselyn returned to her home of Inegend and began the long process of rebuilding the Mortal realm. She spent a lot of time amongst the people, their road to recovery equally as challenging as the realm itself.
Shortly after her coronation, though, an unexpected ally from her previous life returned to her: Vincent of Phyreno. Swearing his allegiance and love interest, he revealed himself for what he truly was: the crown prince of the Phyreno. Roselyn wed her former sailing companion, and together they ruled with measured wisdom, raising two children: Camilla and Damien, whose bloodline would shape Havokk’s future in ways yet known.
Roselyn Valeria did not claim the throne of Havokk by right of conquest, but by consent and valor. She ruled not as an immortal, but as a reminder that power must always end. Her reign was marked by compromise, by laws designed to prevent another Raxxus rather than glorify another hero. For many years, Havokk was given a chance to rebuild and to flourish.
When she passed, she left no monuments in her likeness. Only institutions designed to continue the process of a just new world. Only warnings, wisdom, and the humble reminder to her children that Mortals are not gods, and they are sometimes driven to become something worse themselves when they lose sight of that. In her passing, the world remembered, at least for a time, that justice without mercy becomes tyranny, and mercy without courage becomes surrender.
The rise and fall of Raxxus marked a turning point in Havokk’s history. It proved that Mortals could both doom and save the world. It also learned that the Void’s influence, once tasted, never truly fades. There would always be schemers and evildoers in the shadows. Mortals knew they had Heroes who could protect them.
“If good is enough, then better is possible. We cannot leave the fate of our people up to the chance that everyone will do the right thing whenever it is called upon. We must do more, wherever able, so that the future of our people is built upon a sturdy foundation. We must support all lives as though they are equal, or we will become the lesser.”
-Queen Roselyn Valeria, the Unifier of Havokk
Roselyn Valeria was never the strongest warrior nor the most gifted spellcaster of her age. What set her apart, and what history remembers, was her unyielding refusal to look away.
Born to a minor noble line in Inegend, Roselyn was raised among soldiers, scribes, and civic stewards. From an early age, she showed a rare balance of discipline and empathy: a trait found in a commander who listened, a knight who questioned orders when they betrayed their purpose. Where others sought glory, Roselyn sought stability. Where others pursued victory, she pursued aftermath; what remained when the fighting ended.
As a young adult, Roselyn was the recipient of numerous accolades, including medals of valor and sigils of honor, and she was highly ranked and regarded among soldiers for her time served as a defender of peace and justice. Her rise through the ranks of the Commonwealth was swift but uncelebrated. She earned trust rather than fame, respect rather than fear. Soldiers followed her because she never spent a life lightly, and civilians trusted her because she never spoke falsely to comfort them.
When Raxxus first unified the Mortal kingdoms, Roselyn truly believed that she was witnessing the birth of a better world. Once crowned, he searched for a leader of the guard to protect him and his interests in a better and brighter Havokk. Chosen for her unshakable integrity and battlefield prowess, she served as Raxxus’ protector during his early reign, when his vision for Havokk still appeared just.
As Captain of the Royal Guard, Roselyn stood at Raxxus’ side during the earliest days of his reign. She saw the exhaustion in him before she saw the ambition. She heard the doubts behind his proclamations. When he spoke of rebuilding, of ending suffering forever, Roselyn did not hear tyranny; she heard desperation. That was his greatest deception.
When the disappearances began, Roselyn investigated quietly. When the sealed chambers beneath Noktaradmus were discovered, she confronted Raxxus openly. She did not threaten him. She did not accuse him before the court. She asked him to stop. He told her she was short-sighted. That history demanded sacrifices. That she, of all people, should understand the cost of peace.
After revealing the truth behind the Voidstone and confronting her king for the sake of their people, she then saw the darkness hiding beneath the surface. She worked quickly to find supporters who could help Raxxus purge him of this corruption from the Voidstone. In the end, it was too late. He had already given in long ago; she just wasn't there soon enough to try to stop him.
When Roselyn refused to kneel, she was declared a traitor. She escaped execution not because she was faster or stronger, but because guards who had once followed her looked away when she ran. This last show of respect allowed her to flee to her homeland of Inegend. She was later the sole witness and survivor, as it was destroyed in retaliation by the Dark Emperor himself.
Roselyn had returned home in hopes of warning her people. Inegend did not have time to prepare. Raxxus came in person. Still enraged from his defeat at the hands of Krul-Wrathi, he was especially brutal to Inegand. The city burned in a single night. Roselyn survived only because she refused to die screaming. She escaped, haunted by the trailing screams of her people and their home.
She traveled northward, bleeding, broken, and carrying the weight of every life she could not save. It was among the surviving Wrathi people that Roselyn learned what leadership truly meant - and what it cost. Krul-Wrathi did not kneel to her; he tested her. He tested her resolve, her honesty, her willingness to stand beside him rather than above him. When she passed those tests, the Wrathi followed her not as their queen, but as an equal. The Wrathi people agreed to raise arms against Dark Emperor Raxxus alongside Roselyn.
Believed to be broken but emerging unbowed, Roselyn forged alliances across species, sending word to Nelven councils, Dragonkind wanderers, and Mortal heroes alike. Her cause was not vengeance, but survival. Together with Krul-Wrathi and a coalition of champions, Roselyn led an assault on Noktaradmus.
King Vincent of Phyreno’s reign was brief, but his influence, as well as that of his warrior queen Roselyn, lingered long after each of their passing. Born a prince of the island nation yet raised among sailors and traders, Vincent believed leadership was not proven by titles, but by endurance beside one’s people. Even before he revealed his lineage, he was known among crews as a steady hand and a calming voice in storms both natural and political.
It was during one such voyage, when Queen Roselyn Valeria was still a knight of the Commonwealth, that fate intertwined their lives. Assigned to protect a merchant vessel threatened by Sharkmen raiders, Roselyn crossed paths with Vincent, who at the time concealed his identity to travel freely and without political burden. The voyage tested them both: storms, skirmishes, and long nights beneath unfamiliar stars. They spoke often of duty, fear, and the cost of leadership, unaware that those conversations would one day shape the fate of Havokk itself.
When Raxxus fell, and Roselyn was crowned Queen by the Coalition of Unified Havokk, it was Vincent who arrived at court to court her, not as a sailor, but as Prince of Phyreno. He sailed tirelessly for months after learning that Raxxus had been defeated and that he might now be able to sit beside his love. He arrived before Roselyn, plainly and wholly, where he formally pledged his allegiance and requested her hand. Their marriage united not only hearts, but land and sea, anchoring the Mortal Provinces with trade routes, diplomacy, and renewed stability. For a time, Havokk knew peace.
Not long after the birth of their second child, Damien, a plague swept through the Mortal Provinces. Its origin was never fully understood; some whispered it was a lingering echo of Void corruption, others blamed forgotten magic disturbed during the wars. Whatever the truth, it claimed King Vincent swiftly, leaving Roselyn widowed and the realm stunned. Roselyn ruled on.
She never remarried, choosing instead to devote herself wholly to her children and her people. Those who served beside her during this era remembered a queen who ruled not with iron, but with resolve and temperance. Laws were enforced, borders protected, and trade flourished, yet Roselyn was often seen among common folk, listening, judging, and remembering the cost of power. Her death came not by blade or betrayal, but by time itself. For many, it was the cruelest loss of all.
When Queen Roselyn passed, Havokk mourned as one body. Princess Camilla was sixteen, Prince Damien fourteen; both were too young to rule a realm still bearing scars from gods and dark emperors alike. Governance fell temporarily to a trusted vizier appointed by Roselyn herself, a steward sworn to uphold the Coalition’s ideals until the children came of age.
Camilla, the elder, carried her mother’s compassion and her father’s love of the sea. Though trained in courtly matters, she found little comfort in the politics of the mainland. In time, she traveled to Phyreno, where she found love and purpose among the island nation’s people. While she retained her royal title, Camilla chose diplomacy over dominion, becoming a bridge between Havokk’s mainland and the oceans beyond. Damien remained, honor-bound to uphold the legacy their parents created and the hopes of a better world.
Now eighteen, Prince Damien ascended not to a throne of triumph, but to one of responsibility. He inherited a realm held together by treaties, memory, and the lingering fear of returning chaos. Where his mother was a warrior-queen, and his father a sailor-king, Damien was forged in the aftermath; studious, observant, and deeply aware that Havokk’s enemies were no longer always visible. He rules knowing that though deities have fallen, and dragons have bled, the Void has never truly withdrawn. The crown he upholds remains mortal, the weight it bears is anything but.
To the people of Havokk, the royal family is not a symbol of divine right, but of endurance. They are proof that even in a world shaped by gods and monsters, mortals still choose order over chaos, hope over fear, and that the world is not ruled by deities alone. It is held together by those who remember what was lost, and choose to stand anyway.
There are beings spoken of as gods, and then there are beings whose existence renders gods irrelevant. H’Kon is not destruction incarnate; destruction is merely a function of what it is, a consequence of deviation from the grand design. Across the endless cosmos, its arrival has never marked the fall of a civilization, but the confirmation that it should never have existed at all. Worlds do not prepare for H’Kon. They are not warned. They are corrected.
Unknown whether it existed, it was forged, or appointed by a power beyond our reckoning, H’Kon serves as executioner to reality itself. It is dispatched when a realm, a species, or an individual deviates too far from whatever incomprehensible design governs existence. Where others bring judgment or punishment, H’Kon brings erasure. No trial. No redemption.
Nothing is known of H’Kon before its servitude to this grand design. There are no legends of its birth, no myths of rebellion turned into servitude. If it was ever something else, that truth has been obliterated along with the countless realities it has claimed. All that is known of H'kon now is its unrelenting fury and the decimation that follows. Even the little that is known was caught in the whispers of Ytaxia's deepest fears and Aribus's mutterings.
Its form reflects this purpose: a fusion of arcane geometry and cold, alien design, as though magic and machinery had been stripped of artistry and reduced to pure intent. A mechanical being, resembling something moving with life but not reflecting any evidence of having it. Those who behold it often describe the same sensation: not fear, but the certainty that their story has already ended. Built to annihilate any variable. Until Ytaxia.
According to the grand design, Ytaxia’s existence was a paradox, an anomaly that should not have persisted. Alongside Aribus and Lylath, it shaped its realm not through domination, but through chaotic balance, allowing contradiction, growth, and divergence to coexist. To the higher powers that govern this universe, this was unacceptable. H’Kon was sent, and the realm was torn asunder so that this divergence would meet a swift end.
The battle that followed was not a war: it was an extinction event in progress. Entire swaths of Ytaxia’s realm were annihilated in moments as H’Kon tore through reality with impossible precision. Even for these beings who shaped their realm, they were almost powerless to prevent H'Kon's onslaught. Even united, they were outclassed. In desperation, Ytaxia unleashed nearly all of its remaining power in a single, catastrophic discharge, hoping that if not to destroy H’Kon, but to interrupt it. Unexpectedly, the blast tore open reality itself, destabilizing the battlefield and briefly severing H’Kon’s momentum. For the first time, the executioner was delayed. The wounded deities fled through the rift, while H’Kon, temporarily awstruck at the intensity of this act of defiance, did not follow. For the first time in its existence, H’Kon failed to complete its task.
Failure shattered something fundamental within H’Kon. It had encountered resistance before, but never true opposition. This variable, this sign that there is a flaw in inevitability. This uncertainty metastasized into obsession. Was this part of the design? If this being could resist its power, was it meant to be that he, too, would eventually be erased when he no longer fit the machinations of its creators? When "he" becomes the variable? Driven to madness by its uncertainty, H'Kon abandoned its master’s directives. H’Kon sought answers. Its compulsion led it to the theft of the Chronicles of Niedrich, a codex said to contain the foundational laws of time, causality, and existence itself. A history of the universe, the answers to all queries, and yet the lack of resolution to the one that plagued H'Kon.
However, through the Chronicles, H’Kon learned forbidden truths. It learned how to absorb the essence of other beings so they can be transferred to another. How to sever itself from its creator’s command. How to rewrite outcomes instead of merely enforcing them. No longer a tool, H’Kon became a predator. Now it hunts not anomalies alone, but potential. Heroes, deities, champions, anything that might one day stand where Ytaxia stood. With every essence consumed, H’Kon grows closer to its final ambition: to overwrite the Chronicles themselves and erase all disruption in one singular, eternal correction. A universe without chaos. Without divergence. Without resistance. A universe where nothing can ever defy inevitability and his own grand design, ever again.
Thanatos’ true form is not merely large; it is architectural to the realm itself. To behold him is to witness a convergence of matter and energy that defies mortal taxonomy. His presence alone warps perception; distance becomes difficult to judge, and the eye struggles to determine where form ends and radiance begins.
His upper body rises like a living citadel, broad and mountainous, supported by layers of interlocking scales fused with crystalline outgrowths. Some are jagged and opaque like raw geodes torn from the deep places of Havokk. Some are smooth, translucent, and prismatic, refracting ambient energy into slow, shifting bands of iridescent light. Each crystal hums faintly, resonating with the energies of the realm, so that standing near Thanatos is akin to standing within a vast, living conduit of power.
When he walks, the ground does not merely tremble; it remembers his passing, cracked and reshaped by the weight of his stride. Extending behind him is a long, heavily ridged tail, each segment armored and reinforced, designed not just for balance but for destruction. Near its end, the scales give way to a crown of crystal that funnels energy inward, culminating in a crescent-shaped blade formed of bone and crystal fused into a single, lethal arc. This blade gleams with internal light and is capable of carving through stone, steel, or enchanted wards as though they were mist. In battle, the arc of this tail is said to leave glowing scars in the air itself, remnants of displaced energy.
From his back emerge two vast wings, titanic in span, so immense that when fully unfurled they can eclipse the sun over an entire settlement. Their structure is reinforced with dense bone struts and layered membranes of scale and hardened skin, each section capable of deflecting siege weaponry and cannon fire. When he takes to the air, the sky bends around HIM. Despite his overwhelming size and power, Thanatos does not move with crude force. Every motion is deliberate, heavy with purpose, as though the very act of movement must be weighed against the stability of Havokk itself.
Crowning his head is the most iconic feature of his form: a regalia of crystals grown seamlessly into his natural horn structure. Thanatos’ horns possess an almost regal feel, lending him an air of ancient majesty rather than raw terror. His face, though draconic, bears an unsettling intelligence, eyes glowing with condensed energy, endlessly observant, as though he is not merely looking at the world, but through it.
Thanatos can manipulate energy and, because of his unique link to Havokk, is capable of absorbing, transmuting, and transferring energy in all forms. This ability allows his physical form to adapt and change based on the energy it absorbs. Thanatos is timeless, meaning he does not age or diminish in power over time; As he continues to exist, he grows stronger as a being, and his connection to Havokk strengthens. Despite this boundless energy, Thanatos found that the responsibility of maintaining the realm was not his to do alone. Communing with Havokk for guidance, he fractured his Dragonsoul to create four Elder Dragonkind.
The purpose of these Elder Dragonkind was to serve as a council of beings who would govern the realm. These beings were created from different aspects of Thanatos to create a balance not just for himself, but for the realm. Life grew and prospered under their care, shaping Havokk into a hub of life and energy. Unfortunately, this era of prosperity did not last, and the ambitions of Zhakul crossed paths with one of these beings, Armanos, and the two began conspiring. The events ultimately causing the Elder Dragonkind War.
Thanatos was last seen during the events of the Elder Dragonkind War. Most Dragonkind historians believe that Thanatos would not reveal itself to the current state of Havokk, as there are too many who would try to abuse the power of an Elder Dragonkind for their conquests. Among the Dragonkind people of modern Havokk, there are temples and shrines where some Dragonkind communities are dedicated to Thanatos. At the very least, most Dragonkind agree if they have any faith in the Elder Dragonkind in the first place, some or most of it goes towards Thanatos.
Armanos’ physical form was not shaped by harmony or balance, but by conflict made manifest. His scales were obsidian-black and iron-dark, layered tightly along a lean, towering frame. Each scale was said to be scorched, cracked, and pitted, as though bearing the scars of countless battles. Between these plates glow thin seams of ember-red light, as though molten fire smolders just beneath the surface of his flesh. Heat radiated constantly from his body, warping the air around him into shimmering waves and filling his wake with the stench of smoke and burning stone.
His body was adorned with bladed bony protrusions, jutting outward along his shoulders, forearms, spine, and jawline. These protrusions are thin and cruelly sharp, honed to razor edges that gleam faintly with heat. His head was angular and predatory, crowned with backward-curving horns. When he opened his mouth, a furnace-glow burned within, and his breath rolled out in waves of heat capable of igniting stone and metal alike.
Armanos carried himself upright when engaged in war, standing on powerful hind legs to survey the battlefield below. This posture granted him a commander’s vantage point, though his stance was also a calculated display of dominance. He would often cloak himself in towering walls of flame and rolling clouds of ash that coiled instinctively around him, obscuring his form and turning the air itself into a weapon against approaching foes. Armanos’ wings were vast but skeletal in appearance, resembling the stretched, veined wings of a colossal bat. Their membranes were dark as void-shadow, and when unfurled, they blotted out the sky in a choking pall of smoke, shedding ash and embers with every movement. As he flew, trails of black smoke coiled behind him like funeral shrouds. The thunder of his wings carried the sound of distant explosions, as though battle itself echoed within them.
When Armanos moved, the land responded almost as if in fear. Stone fractures beneath his feet, magma stirred deep below, and the ground itself seems eager to obey his presence. Fire answered to him instinctively, coiling around his limbs, erupting in towering pillars, or detonating outward in explosive bursts at his command. He did not simply wield flame; he walks within it, untouched, as though it recognizes him as kin. Despite his colossal scale as an Elder Dragonkind, Armanos never fety slow or ponderous. His movements are sharp, deliberate, and devastatingly efficient. Every motion serves a purpose, every gesture an act of war. To stand before him is not merely to face death, but to feel one’s own anger, fear, and hatred reflected and amplified, drawn inexorably toward the violence he embodies. Armanos does not look like a ruler, nor a guardian. He looks exactly as he is: the moment before everything burns.
Able to influence the minds and hearts of beings, he drove many to war and madness through rage-inducing spells. In his presence, you felt your mind fill with every hate-filled thought you’ve ever had when you were angry, spiteful, or afraid. As your mind filled with the haunting chants of rage and visions of fury, you would find yourself gradually succumbing to infinite hatred and are driven to fight to your last breath. An eternal war waged from the darkest depths of one's soul, brought to life through the metal and flesh of the living world.
Eternally opposite of Kritikos, Armanos was driven by an innate purpose to destroy, not necessarily out of malice or with an agenda. Armanos' wave of destruction and turmoil was something he considered a natural part of the cycle of renewal that Kritikos so adamantly protected. Armanos was the first Elder Dragonkind to be tempted and deceived by the power of the Void. Zhakul easily convinced Armanos by speaking to his inherent nature that Havokk needed a realm-expansive purge of life. Zhakul used Armanos as a figurehead of destruction in the Elder Dragonkind War that followed his dark machinations, and it was Armanos who was responsible for a vast majority of the Dragonkind's population being decimated during the events of the Elder Dragonkind War. Armanos hunted and massacred many Dragonkind who refused to align with him, Barbatos, or Zhakul. He believed that he alone should lead the realm-expansive cycle of renewal, and that he had enough power to do so. His zealous beliefs and hatred were fueled by Zhakul, and when the Void turned him into a tyrant, there was no hesitation in destroying anyone who stood in his way.
During his final confrontation against Thanatos, Armanos used all his strength to cast a powerful spell that could have wiped out all life on Havokk. Thanatos had to consume the spell with its energy manipulation abilities and redirect the blast to defeat Armanos in the process. The dark influence of the Void that had filled Armanos’ Dragonsoul caused the absorption of his terrible blast to scar Thanatos’ Dragonsoul as well. The blast was so significant, even with Thanatos absorbing it, that a chunk of Havokk was disintegrated, creating an artificial valley at the base of a mountain, now known by the Wrathi people as “Drok Scurat’s Jaws”.
Barbatos’ frame was long and slender, carried by an almost avian elegance that made her colossal size easy to forget. Her body tapered smoothly from broad, powerful wings into a narrow torso and a flowing tail that trailed behind her like a ribbon caught in the wind. This elegant column supports a finely shaped head, delicate in proportion yet unmistakably draconic, with features softened by symmetry rather than dulled by gentleness. Her eyes were deep and reflective, shifting in hue from tranquil sea-green to storm-dark teal, mirroring the emotional tides that governed her power. At the crest of her skull arose a single, sweeping horn, curved like a crescent moon poised on the horizon. This horn was both regalia and conduit, an extension of her will through which wind, rain, and lightning answered her call.
Along her underbelly and the inner surfaces of her wings, the scales glows faintly, brightening and dimming with her emotional state; Appearing as though it was lightning casting shifting patterns of light through mist and cloud. When she moved, there was no sense of strain or effort; she glided, banked, and dove with the effortless precision of a seabird riding thermal currents, equally at home in open sky or crashing surf. In flight, her wings left rolling currents of wind and faint trails of mist that lingered briefly in her wake. When fully spread, they stretched across the sky like drifting cloudbanks, their movement stirring gentle breezes or violent gales depending on her mood.
When Barbatos entered the sea, her form remained unchanged, yet the water seems to accept her as one of its own. Waves rose to cradle her body, currents parted to guide her path, and storms gathered overhead as though drawn by instinct. She could skim the ocean’s surface as lightly as a skipping stone or plunge beneath the waves without resistance, her luminous scales casting ghostly light through the depths.
A gentle breeze followed her when she was at peace, brushing against sails and shorelines alike. When displeased, the wind sharpens, the sky darkens, and thunder cracks open the heavens in warning rather than immediate wrath. Only when her patience was exhausted did the storm truly descend; winds howling, lightning tearing the sky apart, and rain falling in merciless sheets. Unfortunately, her generally serene nature was abused by the influence of the Void.
Zhakul drove Barbatos to use its abilities for evil by corrupting the hearts and minds of those inhabiting Havokk; Dark influences caused them to hunt and persecute Barbatos. Threatened and chased, Barbatos began to create violent storms to wipe out these constant hunters and protect herself. The constant persecution secretly caused by Armanos and Zhakul eventually led her to accept the darkness of the void into her Dragonsoul. Even in her corrupted state, Barbatos never lost her grace. Her storms became more violent, her skies more unforgiving, but her form remained one of haunting beauty, an embodiment of nature’s cruel impartiality. To stand before her, whether in reverence or terror, was to understand a fundamental truth of Havokk: the sea does not hate the sailor, nor does the storm mourn the drowned. Together, Armanos and Barbatos summoned massive storms of wind, fire, and lightning to act as both a cover for Zhakul's followers and destructive, terrible forces that wiped out many Mortal lives.
During a decisive battle between Zhakul and Uutu's Elder Dragon avatars during the Elder Dragonkind war, Barbatos was mortally wounded. A compassionate Kritikos used her abilities to save Barbatos' Dragonsoul, containing it in a Mortal weapon. Since then, Barbatos has been worshipped by many of the Sharkmen as they started to evolve and develop their culture. Barbatos is memorialized as something of a “sea god” in their culture, and many markers for sailors and pirates out on the modern seas of Havokk are statues or vigils to Barbatos as a way of asking for a safe voyage across Havokk’s seas. The Dragonkind who base their lineage on Barbatos often find themselves in areas close to water, they can always detect where the nearest water source is and are empowered during storms.
Where her siblings inspired fear or reverence from afar, Kritikos inspired belonging. Her presence was more of a "mother" to all life on Havokk aside from the Elder Dragonkind themselves. The "firstborn" of Thanatos, she was vast in size, larger than any of the others save Thanatos himself. Her head was gently contoured, featuring a crown of branching horns that rose from her brow, shaped like antlers or living boughs; Moss, flowering vines, and bioluminescent growths often took root among these horns. Along her head and horns grew a mantle of silken fur that rippled like fields of grass in the wind, changing color with the seasons of Havokk.
Her wings were immense and multi-layered, combining broad, feathered expanses with scaled supports, resembling the wings of an impossible, primordial bird. When unfurled, they cast shade like a drifting cloudbank, cooling the land below. When she beat them, pollen, spores, and motes of life-light scattered across the sky, carried for leagues on the wind.
Her scales shimmered with an opalescent sheen, refracting light in soft, pearly hues, shifting subtly with her movement against the light. Her posture was naturally low and grounded, as though she preferred to meet the world at its level rather than tower over it. Her very footsteps coaxed life upward; grass sprouted where her claws touched stone, and flowers bloomed in the wake of her passing.
Instinctively aligning with Uutu and Thanatos based on their quest to propagate and protect life, Kritikos was a pacifist and aligned with them out of mutual respect for all living beings. When Armanos and Barbatos became corrupted by Zhakul's influences, her kin's acceptance of the Void and what it represented was a deep blow. The Void is the antithesis of her entire being, and Kritikos turned this pain into righteous fury during the Elder Dragonkind War.
Despite her gentleness, Kritikos was not fragile. Her body was immensely strong, her limbs thick with quiet power. When she chose to take up arms during the Elder Dragonkind War, the land itself seemed to rise with her; roots tearing free of the earth, forests hardening into shields, and living growth forming natural armor around her form. Her wrath, when finally unleashed, was unyielding, a force that smothered corruption and starved the Void of its hold.
Kritikos' power sustained Thanatos as he led the offensive during the war, but the constant use eventually left her vulnerable. During the final battles of the Elder Dragonkind War, Kritikos gave her life to shield Thanatos long enough to deliver a fatal blow to Armanos. She knew her sacrifice would ultimately end the Elder Dragonkind War; Fulfilling her dreams of Havokk entering an era of peace lasting many years. Thanatos was devastated with the loss of his "daughter", but vowed to one day honor her sacrifice by restoring the realm.
Rhythmos’ form was not easily measured, nor easily remembered in exact detail. Those who claim to have seen him often disagree on his size, his distance, or even the direction in which he moved. This is not deception, but consequence; for Rhythmos did not merely occupy space, he unfolded within that time. His body was long and serpentine, stretching in slow, graceful arcs that seemed to slip between moments as easily as water flows around stone.
Along the length of his spine arose a vast, luminescent frill, composed of tall, sail-like ridges that ripple gently as he moved. Their surface resembles deep cosmic space flecked with distant stars, drifting nebulae, and slow-moving constellations that subtly shifted position over time. His scales were smooth and dark; colored like polished onyx or deep twilight, yet somehow faintly translucent. Beneath them, threads of starlight pulsed in slow rhythms.
From his narrow, contemplative head extend a long, delicate whisker each side, drifting weightlessly like ink suspended in water. These whiskers move independently of wind or motion, swaying gently as if stirred by thoughts rather than air. Rhythmos’ eyes were vast and luminous, filled with swirling cosmic energy rather than pupils. Unlike the other Elder Dragonkind, Rhythmos bore no obvious marks of dominance or authority. His power was conveyed instead through the absence of urgency. His presence implied that destiny aligned your paths, exactly when it was meant to.
In his presence, time itself seemed to loosen, sounds stretched, movements blurred at the edges. Even emotions feel elongated, as though each moment was being gently examined before being allowed to pass. Wherever Rhythmos traveled, he left behind a faint starlight trail of cosmic dust that lingered in the air before slowly fading; These motes hovered briefly in place before dissolving into nothingness. He would glide, coil, and uncoil with meditative precision, sometimes appearing to pause entirely, only for observers to realize later that time itself had slowed around him. His voice, when he chooses to speak, did not always align with the movement of his form. Words sometimes arrived before his mouth opened, or lingered after it has closed. His speech carried layered meanings, overlapping like echoes across a canyon of centuries. He spoke not in declarations, but in riddles, parables, and unfinished thoughts, because to speak plainly of time would be to lie.
Though Kritikos is credited with creating life on Havokk outside of their kind, Rhythmos would later be known for modifying her Dream Flake so that its unique properties continue to benefit the Dragonkind of the current Havokk. By enchanting this early vegetation, Rhythmos sought to take a creation of Kritikos and improve upon it: the plant's effects would last longer, it would stay fresh infinitely, and when consumed feel fuller, for longer. As a result, the "Dream Flake" is the foundation of many modern Dragonkind dietary structures.
Though Rhythmos was historically pacifistic, he believed in the greater good. Time and time again, Rhythmos used its abilities to aid Thanatos, Kritikos, and Uutu in protecting the lives of the innocent. Rhythmos could turn back time, slow time, and stop it altogether, temporarily. When his physical form was destroyed during the Elder Dragonkind War, witnesses reported a strange phenomenon: the sky dimmed briefly, stars vanished, and then returned, slightly rearranged. Seasons stumbled. Memories blurred. From that moment onward, time on Havokk was never quite as smooth as it once had been.
Some Dragonkind believe Rhythmos did not truly die. They claim his body was merely shed, like a moment passing, and that his essence now flows through certain plants, stones, and places where time feels thin. Others say he exists in every memory, every anticipation, every pause between breaths. If this is true, then Rhythmos remains what he always was: Not the master of time, but the space in which time learns to exist. Rhythmos' defeat was especially tumultuous and hard on Thanatos, leading him to lash out and cause the defeat of Barbatos as retaliation.
World of Havokk
Aside from the cards themselves, there is a vast realm of Havokk to explore. Each character traces their origins back to one of the game's main alignments and the specific locations within the realm of Havokk. Each character's origins are influenced by their species, world events, and faction affiliation, sculpting the game world that players are introduced to. In each of the sections linked below, you can learn more about what makes this realm dangerous and exciting!
Learn more about each of the game's four main alignments and the factions belonging to them! Each alignment has its own playstyle, abilities, and strengths!
Learn more about the significant locations of Havokk's vast realm, where the Heroes originate from! These story-specific locations and profiles contain all that you need to build a campaign-format world!
Learn more about each of Havokk's inhabitants and their origins in the realm. More will be added as game content is released.
Using the Cards
Included in this section are the rules and descriptions associated with card-related elements and using the game cards themselves. Characters, Events, Items, Skills, Spellcraft are covered in more detail, and the rules corresponding to them.
Expanding your Realm
Included in this section are the resources related to non-card game elements, such as the Player leveling system, Alignments & Factions, Movement, and other related items.
Lore Master Rules
Included in this section are the resources available to Lore Masters, expectations for their rule, and recommendations on running Campaign Format adventures.
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