Spotlight: Gauren and Iarmov in Exile


Daemoth remained imprisoned in the Hiyorugh for years unnumbered. During this time his sons and their fiendish offspring dispersed across the four worlds, bringing misery and avarice in their wake.

Gauren and Iarmov, his eldest sons, sojourned in Morvugol, the planet farthest from the new-made sun. There the shadow-children of Ulmhasa dwelt in black jungles. Gauren disappeared on obscure paths through the wilderness, while Iarmov became a hidden terror to the sunless beasts as he hunted and raped them from his stronghold Throlugaur. By the falling of the stones of Daemoth, the shadow-dwellers that first inhabited Morvugol were mostly gone, displaced by the unspeakable fruit of Iarmov's loins.

When the stones of Daemoth fell across the four worlds, two shards landed in Morvugol. The first struck ground in the jungles near Throlugaur, and the second plummeted into Ulmhasa’s stronghold Ekhmarai, blasting the great city at its center and carving a deep pit at its heart. From this tunnel the pure shadow that brooded beneath Morvugol's surface erupted and awakened the primordial goddess of shadow from her wrathful sleep. When Ulmhasa claimed the stone of Daemoth, her power over the Primordial Realm was magnified. The dreams of all living things were shadowed by a great malice, and many souls across the four worlds turned from fitful sleep to waking death as Ulmhasa devoured their minds.

Sensing the great power that had arisen beyond his lands, Iarmov bore his own stone to the foundation of Ekhmarai. The black magma sat in steaming pools where it had erupted from the pit. Marveling at the scene, Iarmov was set upon by Imbakhao son of Ulmhasa, who slithered around his throat and caught him in a deadly grip.

Fat with her supper, Ulmhasa rose from the pit and tortured Iarmov, dipping him in the raw, black magma until his body was shriveled and his flesh covered in weeping sores. Iarmov's metamorphosis left him maimed, but not powerless. The elders do not record how, but the stone of Daemoth itself became a part of Iarmov's putrid form, and his power was only amplified.

A desperate duel laid waste to much of Morvugol as Ulmhasa and Iarmov struggled for control of the remaining stone. In the end, the second son of Daemoth was driven from Morvugol into the Darkplane, where his connection to the stone guided him to the Hiyorugh and a reunion with his father. Upon discovering Daemoth's prison, Iarmov set to work drawing out his father's essence.

The records of the elders tell that 7,000 years after Iarmov's maiming, the jharethil saw the sun darken and knew the Hiyorugh had returned. The colossal stone plummeted toward Vinramar and the heart of their empire. All that remained of Anarthos was obliterated, never to be rebuilt. Many thousands of jharethil were slain at its fall, and the wave of destruction tore across half the world. Nothing was left where Jharus once dwelt but a barren crater, which today men call Vitollos.

The fall of the Hiyorugh was only a herald of the vengeance with which Daemoth descended on Vinramar. Fetid aberrations followed him and infested the waters and deep places. The jharethil and their fey cousins were all but obliterated in a rancorous vortex as the souls of many living things were dragged howling from their bodies into the void. Daemoth’s victory would have been absolute but for the betrayal of his eldest son.

At his father's onslaught, Gauren emerged from the jungles of Morvugol and fought alongside his father. He brought no armies of his own, but had learned in his exile to bind the souls of the dead into his service, and thereby turn fallen enemies into soldiers. When the initial incursion was done and all the lands near Anarthos stood in smoking ruin, Gauren demanded Daemoth grant him a boon for his service. He coveted Atiakha, the daughter of the moon, who by force had borne Omuel and the daemons. As condition for his service, Gauren demanded Daemoth free the primordial and grant him her hand.

Daemoth was enraged at the request. He opened his maws to consume his insolent son, but Gauren and his bound souls resisted. When at last the traitor was taken, Daemoth's rage was turned from Vinramar and he abandoned his conquest. Gauren was carried to the ruins of Maromutalcoth and dismembered in punishment for his treachery.

— From The Stonewar: An Assembled History by Bram Genning