Belgosch Lore
I see you are but lately born to darkness, child. You have already learned much: how to feed the Hunger that plagues us, and how to master fortitude, our greatest strength. How did you come to join us? Did you render yourself willingly, or was the Darkness drawn to you by your deeds? Ah, I see you still cannot remember: your name, your former life, even your birth form, all these are gone from you, swept away. Do you miss them?
Shed no tear, child. Rejoice! Do not be troubled by what you have lost: when the old flesh withered and turned to dust, the last touch of the foolish Gods was removed from you. Darkness, our mother and father, has sculpted you into perfection, and severed all the bonds that tied you to the grotesque world of the living. You need no race, no family. We who serve the Void, we Vampires, have wrought our own families: mighty clans, named for the four Ancients who first felt the cold glory of the Void, and learned to slake its hunger with hot blood.
Do you know the name of Baelgor? It is not surprising. He died to breath long ago, and the Elves that gave him first birth have spent millennia destroying all echo of him. But the Dead remember. Now Oblivion is unleashed, and the Nightborn are free to roam, even by day! I shall tell you of Baelgor, and the wisdom he was the first to learn. I am of the Belgosch, the eldest and purest of the four Clans. We are the Vampire Zealots, whom Baelgor taught the deepest secrets of our kind. Above all others, we hear the voice of the Dark, and know its unholy will.
Baelgor last drew breath ages ago. He was born into the Elvish race, and soon after the Hateful God divided the day from night, the Eldest learned his higher calling. In those times Darkness first raged against the world of the living, and the dead walked. The living named that time the War of Shadows. To this day, they never understood its true cause or its grim legacy. The Men of Ardan fought against the Dark, and the Elves sought to tame it. Both paths are folly. Doom cannot be tamed -- it can only be resisted ... or embraced. One path leads to annihilation, the other to rebirth. Baelgor was the first to see this, the first to learn the greatest secret of our race: the Void has a Name.
Baelgor was a mighty Priest, a devotee of Saedron who sought to heal the madness of the Silver Goddess. When the first plagues of undead ravaged the lands of Elves and men, he joined a hidden cloister of thirteen priests and wizards who sought to learn the true nature of their enemy. He was convinced that the walking dead were terrors born of Saedron's madness, children of the Mother of Nightmares. In time he learned the truth: that that Law and Chaos are only a beginning. Oblivion is the final force, the Darkness that annihilates all and balances creation born of Law and Chaos. It was Baelgor who first heard the whispers from the Void, who first learned that the Darkness has a will. He turned his back on Saedron and all the other Gods, for he had found something far greater than any God. What was the light of the pale moon next to the Darkness; infinite, omnipotent, and hungry?
Baelgor cast his mind out in meditation and prayer, and touched the Darkness. Baelgor heard the voice of the hungry Void, and brought back its message to his fellow visionaries. It was Baelgor's wisdom that gave Ghorgor the keys to the Void, allowing her to become the Queen of Blood, first of all Vampires. Baelgor soon followed her example, becoming the second being in all of Aerynth to be reborn to night.
When the Elves turned on the Thirteen and destroyed them, it was Baelgor alone who escaped the final battle, even as Ghorgor escaped into the Void. For thousands of years, Baelgor waited in the darkness, the sole link between the Void and Aerynth that remained. His black rituals and dark faith kept the Net that Ardan wove from closing tight -- thanks to our Elder, the Void's will was not blocked from Aerynth. It was Baelgor who threw Ithriana and Shadowbane into the Void. And now that Oblivion has come, it is we, the Belgosch, Vampire Zealots, who shall bring the voice of the Void to all flesh.
Would you join us? Learn to listen to the darkness in your heart as Baelgor did, and you shall learn to channel the will of Oblivion. Once you learn the Void's name, it shall set you free, and you shall learn the fullest measure of our powers. You will be able to call other souls to yourself, as the Void draws all spirit to its maw. You shall feast as no other of our race feasts, gorging yourself on the life of your victims. And as the Void has infused itself into our bodies, giving us unholy power, so shall you learn to send your essence out into others, strengthening them by giving them the power hidden in your blood. But be not too generous with your gifts, for they shall only intensify the Hunger that is the lot of our kind. The Void does not begrudge these gifts, for in time all life shall be consumed.
You have been reborn once, as Vampire. Be born again into the Belgosch, and you shall learn the true power of your blood.
