Hail the Storm King

The origin of Shamos's ambition for war and his transformation from a placid king to a tyrant looking for conquest.

The king of Dinnel, King Shammos, had always been known to succumb to his people’s wishes if it was something he could grant them. He was a bit of a people pleaser, but in terms of vanity, so long as they chanted his name in greatness. He absolutely adored it when all he had to do was lift a finger, and his people would worship the ground he walked on. King Shammos may have been full of himself and pretentious to a certain degree, but the people of Linnel could at least rely on him being rather easy to read, so it allowed the people to be aware of their wishes and may be overstepping some boundaries. It was basically a balanced truce that was easy to keep track of.

It would be a little over a decade ago in 1988 that a certain event would forever change King Shammos into the tyrant he is today. During a gathering routine with Shammos present, as he’d occasionally attend, his fleet stumbled across a sighting of the Lightning Region’s mobile Gate hovering in the clouds. This being a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Shammos and his fleet could not pass up the urge to approach the Gate and behold it from a closer distance. The Gate revealed something to Shammos, deducing something in the sovereign amidst the crackling lightning and roaring winds. Or at least that's what is believed. And so it granted him a blessing. Perhaps it was a sort of gift of goodwill and peace. It allowed Shammos to peer into the Elemental Plane.

After that event had transpired, King Shammos had never been the same. His usually pompous and vain self had been replaced with a greedy and driven mindset. However, this would lead Shammos to gather his soldiers in preparation for war, as he declared their first act of sharing their greatness and conquest with their neighboring regions. Starting with the Air Region, Astana. Many were taken aback by the sudden declaration, especially with their king’s newfound resolve. However, sharing and showing their great region to the rest of the world is how Shammos presented it, bringing the world together into a new era. Their era.

During the event of King Shammos peering into the Elemental Plane, with the aid of the Lightning Gate, a wicked spirit strayed too close to the opening between the two planes, effectively splitting it in half and placing it on the brink of oblivion. And so the spirit forced itself into Shammos’ body, overtaking his lesser soul and consuming it with no trouble. Thus, the spirit was able to narrowly avoid its own end. The Lightning Gate immediately detected the bad magic permeating from the newly infused being and fled the area, not wanting to do any more damage than it already had done by possibly doing anything that might aid the wicked spirit.

With its other half most likely gone, the spirit would have to find other means in order for it to become whole again. The spirit would look towards the Lightning Gate to undo what it had done, but after that event, the Lightning Gate had gone into hiding, where it would be difficult to find. The Spirit observed and detected that the Air Region has its gate very much out in the open, so finding a way back into the Elemental Plane was easy enough. But in its current vessel, the spirit is weakened. And so the spirit now assumes the role of King Shammos, guiding his people through a ploy to fulfill its own selfish desires.