Zalatas

In the time before history, before Golarion's skies bore the scars of war and prophecy, there lived two celestial twins born of the stars—Algolon, guardian of balance, and Zalatas, the shining flame of righteous fury. Where Algolon sought to preserve the cosmic scales between creation and destruction, Zalatas grew disillusioned by their impartiality. It was not evil that first stirred in him, but outrage.   During the Age of Legend, Zalatas descended from the firmament to witness the suffering of a human tribe enslaved by serpentfolk. He watched as mortals cried out for salvation, but the laws of heaven forbade intervention. That silence, that divine indifference, was the fracture through which the forgotten Mad God, Tharzduun, whispered.   Zalatas listened. And Zalatas chose.   He destroyed the serpentfolk not in mercy, but in defiance. In that moment, he severed his bond with the celestial order and became the Breaker of Chains, a being sworn to tear down the foundations of a universe built on passive observation. He did not turn to evil—he turned to revolution.   To carry out his crusade, Zalatas forged seven powerful relics known as the Fragments of the Void. Each was a crystalized expression of his wrathful ideals—freedom, power, foresight, suffering, and defiance—distorted into volatile, orbiting stones. Imbued with the essence of his divine rebellion, these artifacts were never meant to be mere weapons. They were blueprints for unmaking the world.   Alarmed by Zalatas' crusade, Algolon called upon the Wind Dukes, the stewards of planar law, to halt their wayward brother. Zalatas shattered their legions and scattered their ranks. Only seven Wind Dukes survived the battle at the Gates of Twilight. In desperation, these seven uncovered the Wyrmstones and the divine hammer Requiem, relics capable of sundering beings beyond mortal reckoning.   In the final conflict, the Dukes fell upon Zalatas with the full force of the multiverse’s condemnation. Requiem struck true, and Algolon himself sealed his brother's essence within the Soul Stone of Imprisonment, casting it beyond time’s reach.  

Legacy of the Fragments

Though Zalatas was imprisoned, his influence endured—not through cults or followers, but through the Fragments of the Void, which he had created before his fall. These sentient relics, thought lost or scattered across the planes, retained a spark of his philosophy and power. Though they no longer served a master, they acted according to the code Zalatas once embraced: rebellion, escalation, unshackling.   In the centuries that followed, each Fragment emerged in turn.   The first surfaced in the hands of the dark wizard Lasdolon, who used it to amplify the gifts of the drow arcanist Nolveniss. Twisting the mage’s talents into something unnatural, the Fragment drove Nolveniss to madness and slaughter before his eventual death at the hands of the Guardians of Golarion. The Fragment vanished soon after.   Another Fragment, cast into the Ethereal Plane by Guardians, remains unrecovered to this day.   A third came into the possession of the ancient lich Nhamking, who mistook it for a forgotten necromantic relic. Deep beneath the ruined city of Enkiral, he brought the stone into proximity with a noble copper dragon he had long kept imprisoned as a specimen. The Fragment responded. Without conscious will, it twisted the drake into a monstrous Void Dragon, warped in both form and purpose.   The Guardians of Golarion once again intervened, slaying the corrupted dragon. In a desperate attempt to survive, the Fragment sought to possess one of the Guardians, but divine protection denied it. With no vessel to contain its power, the Fragment dissipated into nothingness. No one is certain what became of the Fragment afterward.