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Once upon a time there was a curious young boy who lived in a tiny town. With no mother or father the boy relied on the kindness of strangers and the bounty of the forest to keep him fed and sheltered, but still he was so lonely. Though grownups always said it was dangerous to walk the woods at night, he was far too hungry to go to sleep. So with basket in hand and cloak around his shoulders he went looking for mushrooms and berries to fill his empty belly. The woods were dark with shadows like the claws of monsters, but the boy wasn't scared: the stars could always point the way home. The trees creaked and the wind howled like a banshee, but the boy wasn't scared: he thought the forest was singing to him so he sang back. A pair of strange eyes peered from a tangled thicket of briars, but the boy still wasn't scared. He stared back at the eyes and smiled as he held out a handful of berries.
"Are you hungry too?"
The eyes did not answer.
"It's ok, you can come out." the boy said. "Have something to eat, there's plenty for both of us."
He watched a shadow black as spite creep from the undergrowth. Even the stars were hidden as it loomed over him, and yet the boy still felt no fear. The shadow scarcely believed its four eyes: so many years of men and beasts running from it that it had almost forgotten how to speak.
"Why do you not fear me?"
The boy laughed. "If you were a scary monster, you'd have already gobbled me up!" The boy smiled wide, wiping the berry juice from his face. "I like to eavesdrop too when I'm lonely."
The eyes blinked, but still the boy smiled.
"Maybe if we're both lonely be friends? I could come visit you here in the woods!"
The shadow stared back in disbelief; hundreds of years and nobody had spoken so kindly to it.
"... I would like that, child of man."
Long before the first dragons took to the sky mankind had feared the shadow and its dark dreams. Yet the boy always came back, always listened, always told it his stories and dreams in kind. A great yearning was born in the shadow's heart, new feelings hot as wildfire. Now the shadow dreamed of the boy staying by its side for all time. For years the boy and the shadow remained friends, but the shadows dreams only grew bigger. As the boy grew older he found new friends in the tiny town and visited the shadow less and less. The shadow grew jealous and longed only for its own dreams to come true. It sought power through a rite older than the forest's most ancient trees.
It lured the boy and his friends deep into the woods and bid them gather bones and sticks to light a great fire. With ash, dust, and a sacrifice of 7 great trees the shadow wove a spell that transformed the children into beasts that would serve her. Only the boy was spared, and finally he knew fear of the shadow as it took his hand. A green mark grew around his ring finger and sealed his fate: midsummer of his 23rd year he and the shadow would be wed. The memory faded, but the pact remained.
With the union of fey bone and mortal flesh would come powers the shadow had only dreamed of. With a king by its side, the shadow would have the power to bend the waking world to its every dream. It dubbed itself the Queen of Boughs.
12 years would come to pass and the shadow would return to claim its groom. New heroes would have to rise to end the reign of her dreams before it even began, and to slay her at long last.
~~~The big villain for my first ever campaign, finally revealed! Since my last story focused a lot more on undead I wanted to try another type of creature, and fey fit the magical forest setting... But i can't resist making stuff bony, hah...
Category Artwork (Digital) / Fantasy
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 1300 x 1800px
File Size 942.9 kB
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