EM.Lore Cyric's Proclamation

Across the Sword Coast, from Waterdeep to Durindale, and down to the distant jungles of Chult, the world around our heroes fades to greyscale. Color saturates from the world, like ink running down parchment, the words left written, but unreadable. The senses dull, a dim light shadowing the world, a dull buzz humming in your mind, you feel yourself separate from the world around you.   An apparition appears before you, a pure dark void outlining a figured in tattered robes. From within the darkness of their form, a skull stares back at you, its face angular, sunken, hollow. Eyes of piercing dark light shine, watching you beneath it. The figure is silhouetted by a black sun, like an eclipse of all the light in the world into shadow. Seven chains dangle taut from the figures arms, legs, and neck, binding him to a stone throne, which he hovers above as he glares down at you. An aura of despair and despondence, of fear and madness emanates from their visage.   "Enough! I have had enough! You petulant interlopers have interfered with my efforts for the last time. You swing your blades through the world blindly, chopping at the very hand raised to shield the world from annihilation. You are fools, flagrantly flailing, and I will see your folly finished."   "You are blind and bringing the world to the edge of devastation. You cannot see that which is beyond your sight, the End that is to Come in her ravenous hunger. I am the only one who can prevent it. And you impede the very salvation I sacrifice myself to secure. I will not stand for it, not after everything I have done."   "You wished to be a thorn in my side? Very well, congratulations on your myopic accomplishment. You are not so different from the gods you supplicate yourself before, prostrate and pathetic. Meanwhile, I shall pluck you from the thick of my flesh and flick you into the fires to be destroyed with all the others whose misguided sense of justice would see our universe decimated."   "But do not fear, Oh menace mine, your efforts have not razed my plans, merely set a fire beneath the kettle. But my machinations may operate in the shadow no longer. We must eschew caution in favor of certain victory, lest Her return doom us all before we are prepared to fight back."   "So, if it is conflict you wish, conflict you shall have. My Chosen shall bring upon you a war so fierce, you will have wished your gods never beheld your birth. You will beg for mercy and find only death, for you stand between me and the salvation of existence. You shall fail and fall before Draxhar and my loyal followers."   The incorporeal figure looms larger before you, the shadow and darkening visage spreading until it consumes your entire vision. The world is ash and smoke and shadow. In the sky hangs a dark sun, purple flames licking at the distant horizon, a cold chill creeping through an absent wind. You understand that the vision before you is now seen by everyone, everywhere.   "So, I say now, Rise, Oh, truthseekers mine! Rise and stand in the dark sun of revelation! Go forth and ensure the salvation of the many, with the slaughter of those who would stand against us! Make final the preparations for Ascension! Tell the world their savior approaches, and his name is Cyric, God of Madness."