A Legacy of Splendor and Ruin

In the Holy State of Manchel four elven houses served Varoc, god of matter and flame. Each guild embodied a craft and, for centuries, upheld rites that kept divine fire and mortal skill in harmony.
 

Aethelos

Jewellers who alone safeguarded a mountain‑heart crystal of Varocite. As leaders they were meant to guard, not exploit, the stone. Over generations they chipped fragments for courtly baubles, trading reverence for vanity.
 

Ferromus

Smiths whose forges once tempered blades for justice. Pride bent their purpose: they forged trophies for conquest instead of guardianship.
 

Skopangros

Carpenters who shaped living wood into sanctuaries. Hubris drove them to fell sacred groves for palaces that glorified patrons, not the divine.
 

Vinarius

Vintners who once bottled sunlight for sacred feasts. In time they chased excess, steeping nobles in luxury rather than gratitude.
 
The slow betrayal culminated in the Shattering of Flames. Varoc’s wrath tore through the reliquary halls. Each house received a curse reflecting its corrupted craft.

Aethelos became raven‑like beings, their black feathers symbolising jewels tainted by greed. As instigators they suffered an added doom: no Aethelos may live past sixty years.

Ferromus took on eagle traits, feathered wings that recall the war banners their swords had served.

Skopangros grew woodpecker crests and chisel‑sharp beaks, eternal carpenters condemned to tap at dead trees.

Vinarius were given swan necks and downy plumes, elegant yet forever mute in remembrance of wines that once sang with praise.

Portraits in their ruined castles still show Varoc looming above four kneeling figures, each half‑avian form a warning etched in paint and ash.
 

The Varocite Shard and the Scars of Pride

Many years ago the Aethelos held a mountain‑heart crystal of Varocite, a jewel of living fire. Each generation chipped away commissions until only a thumb‑sized shard remained. Ashamed of their greed the family sealed it in a rosewood reliquary, vowing never to blemish it again. It became a reminder of lost grace and the cost of dishonor.
 
When Kirkos Aethelos the Second was born the last shard was entrusted to him. Once he grew, he tied it on a silver cord around his neck, a quiet promise that the family’s greatness might yet return.
 

Growing Up Amidst Ruins and Gardens

Kirkos’s childhood passed among halls whose marble floors had cracked into herb beds. His father Eryndor Aethelos, a brilliant jeweler turned cynic, shaped every word into a jest that cut. His mother Myriah vanished when he was six, leaving a silence no sarcasm could fill.
 
Restless and curious he devoured every trade manual then turned to the wild gardens between fourteen and sixteen, cataloguing mosses, reeds and medicinal blooms. Botany was just one of many obsessions born of a mind that never sat still.
 

The Tavern and the Flicker

On his sixteenth birthday Eryndor’s gift was a taunt: “Go taste ale and see if the world loves geniuses.” In a lamplit bar a rag‑wrapped half‑orc with burn scars webbing his neck and one cloudy amber eye spotted the glowing shard. The brute lunged. Kirkos raised a pewter mug, panic and resolve clashing in metal on steel. Chairs splintered as the chaotic fight went on, but poor Kirkos was able to flee with his necklance into the night.
 
Outside Kirkos cradled the necklace, heart pounding. He gazed at his necklace as it glowed its comfortable glow. In the corner of his eye, he saw the same lights across the Forgeheart Crucible’s carved stone flourishes. All Varocite answered the call of those sacred forges. If the reliquary beckoned him there maybe fate still had work for him.
 

The Crucible Call

He followed the glow into subterranean halls aglow with molten metal and gemstone sparks. Beside a pillar of flame alighted a bronze‑plumed eagle. Master Aelor Ferromus bowed in greeting, explaining his belief in the line of Kirkos the First and his vow to guide the one who might restore honor. At Aelor’s side trained Hylora Virelith, a royal elf whose staff hid a razor knife at each end. As they got to know each other, Kirkos tried every mimicry trick his Kenku throat could muster yet never matched her cadence or laughter. Near her he could drop pretense and simply be himself.
 

Guidance of Aelor and Bond with Hylora

Five years Aelor taught him the ways of Varoc: the ritual prayers, the harmony of flame and stone, the balance of respect and strength. Kirkos worked as he always had, at the jeweler’s bench, but now each gem was a small temple of divine purpose.
 
Hylora sparred with him in corridors lit by molten glass. She laughed when he stumbled, scolded him when he rushed, and shared secret runes carved into her staves. Together they traced forgotten crucibles across Manchel, unearthing methods for melding element and art.
 
In the ruins of an ancient crucible at age fifty‑nine, Hylora held aloft a collapsing beam to save trapped miners, stanching the rubble long enough for them to flee. When the last cry faded she sank beneath the weight and light dimmed in her eyes. Kirkos’s mimicry could not recall the voice he never matched.
 

Loss and Last Chances

Feathers dusted his arms as his sixtieth birthday neared. Every ring he shaped, every gemstone he set, was a prayer to Varoc, God of matter and element. For years, Kirkos’s hands worked tirelessly, refining gold, bending silver, and setting fire-forged sapphires into bands meant to endure lifetimes. But on this day, he decided to try the Varocite as a final cry. While holding his dear necklace, a heat, not from his forge but from within, surged through his fingers. The Varocite bent slightly as if responding to their very will.
 
Kirkos stumbled back, breath quickening, staring at the hot Varocite in his palm. Had they finally been granted Varoc’s acknowledgment? Kirkos reached out to a chunk of unworked ore on their bench, willing it to soften—and it did, shifting like molten wax under their fingers without the touch of flame. A thrill ran through his feathery back. The years of faith, of tireless perfection in their craft, had not gone unnoticed. Their hands, once mere tools, were now extensions of divine artistry, shaping not only with skill but with elemental power. Had he broken the curse? The forge around them felt different, alive in a way it never had before, and as the embers crackled in approval, they knew, this was only the beginning.
 

A Legacy Set Aflame Again

Opening his eyes the day after, still alive, he knew he'd done it. A new chance to meld Aethelos's true legacy back with Varoc.
 
Kirkos roams Manchel in a robe split by a single seam, quarterstaff slung on his back with a hidden blade at its tip and a light crossbow at his hip. His ring of glows with promise. He carries a lucky origin feat in his bones and no memory of a mother to bind him.
 
With each commission Kirkos honors Varoc, mourns Hylora and remembers Aelor’s quiet nod. He is heir to splendor and ruin alike, determined that the next portrait hung in the castle will show artisans standing unbroken beneath silent stone.