Kairn | Liberation
FREEDOM | SKIES | SUN
REPRESENTED BY GRYPHONS AND SPEARS
When I first stepped above ground, there were two things that I knew with absolute certainty: that I would never forget the first time that the evening breeze in spring caressed my face; and that the God that held dominion over the Oraccan Peninsula was not the same one that my family prayed to each morning and night. I knew Kairn’s name, as my nanny was a woman from the surface who invoked his name whenever I was particularly frustrating. But even when I stumbled upon the forgotten temple dedicated to both he and the God of Pride, I did not know him. I only knew my patron’s broken heart wore his name impressed upon it, and that the revenge that I had promised to exact would be on his behalf.
But I learned of Kairn in my travels. First, I knew of the man. Revered as a liberator, Kairn had fought swarms of Hikkal’s most favored servants to free Oraca of the Imperium’s rule. I heard songs and attended festivals in his honor that were awe-inspiring. And in the festivals, I learned of the King, who ruled for one hundred years over a prosperous and peaceful kingdom. It holds its own to this day, borrowing from his rumored wit and iron will to stave off an ancient neighbor that would love to absorb it once more.
In the stories told by his clerics and paladins, I learned of a martyr who disappeared in the middle of the night. They believed he was stolen, for the millennia that passed in his absence. Mortals twisted the truth into rumors of Nehesh’s jealousy, (first of his most favored servant, and then of the stranger that had liberated the people of the old Gods’ rule). But the truth was that Kairn first served Nehesh; and then, they fell in love; and eventually, as time passed, the difference between mortal and divine became glaringly obvious. Nehesh would stay the same for as long as worshippers prayed to him; and Kairn would age and die. And so, the first Great King of Oraca took the God of Pride’s hand, and the two of them sealed themselves away in a realm all their own. There, time stood still, and the Gods could not find their missing brother. There, they spent centuries together, blissfully unaware of the passage of time and happenings in the mortal plane that they’d left behind.
Sudden separation brought Nehesh back to the mortal plane. He was the only one who could know that this new energy came from his lost love. Kairn hadn’t needed to be present for his ascension in order to attain Godhood. His pass from mortal to divine happened all while he was sealed away. When he emerged once more, it was with a power that would allow him to stand face-to-face with the foe he’d faced all those years ago.
And I have no doubts that he will face Order again. His ascent is something that has never been done before. The winds whisper Hikkal’s fears when the King of Oraca shows his face:
If this mortal can become a God, then any mortal could.
-From the Oracle Notes of Kaelmorn Teverin