> [!infobox]+ Harkon > > <div class="infobox-coat-of-arms"> > <div style="text-align: center; padding: 5px;"> > <div class="character-name-container"><div class="character-main-name">Harkon</div><div class="character-epithet">the Crimson King</div></div> > </div> > </div> > <div style="text-align: center; padding: 0.2em;"> > <img src="HarkonSymbol.png" alt="Harkon" style="max-width: 250px; height: auto;" class="internal-image"> > </div> > <table class="infobox-table"> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Province</td><td class="infobox-data">Elder God of <a href="Harkaire.md" class="internal-link">Harkaire</a></td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Alignment</td><td class="infobox-data">Lawful Evil</td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Symbol</td><td class="infobox-data">A black orb wrapped in crimson wings beneath a crown of obsidian horns</td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Holy Day</td><td class="infobox-data"><em>None</em></td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Type</td><td class="infobox-data">Elder <a href="Deities.md" class="internal-link">Deity</a></td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Home Plane</td><td class="infobox-data"><a href="Harkaire.md" class="internal-link">Harkaire</a>, the sunless world he created and still rules as its sole god</td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Divine Champion</td><td class="infobox-data"><em>None</em></td></tr> > </table> ### About Harkon, the Crimson King, is an Elder [[Deities|Deity]] and the sole god of [[Harkaire]], a sunless world of his own making far beyond [[Aeborhia]]. He is one of only two Elder Deities known to have touched [[Aeborhia]], alongside the [[Luxon]], and by the accounts of his own people he is well over a million years old. Harkon is not part of the Pantheon and holds no province of his own, for [[Harkaire]] is his alone and he rules over all of it, from its crimson skies to the [[Vampires]] he created to fill it. To the people of [[Aeborhia]] he is known only because, in 2257 BD, the Archmage [[Vecna]] opened a gate to him. Though the [[Prime Deities]] sealed it within a day, his vampires came through, and with them they carried the scrolls of Harkaire, the histories and holy writings of their world. Almost everything known of the Crimson King comes from these scrolls, and to those who wrote them, [[Aeborhia]] was simply another world to conquer. ### Depiction No mortal of [[Aeborhia]] is known to have looked upon Harkon himself, but unlike the [[Luxon]], he has a form, and one his people know well, for he still rules [[Harkaire]] in body from his throne. The scrolls of Harkaire, and the monuments they describe, show a towering, muscular figure with skin of dark crimson and great leathery bat wings of the same colour. Horns of black obsidian ring his head, so many and so close together that they give the impression of a crown. His eyes are black as night, with neither iris nor pupil, and he wears only a long skirt of black, his chest left bare. A glimpse of this visage has been seen in [[Aeborhia]]. [[Wither's Edge]], the greatsword Harkon bestowed upon his high priest [[Jairus]], holds a fraction of his power, and through it he could speak to its wielder. Those who attuned to it were changed by it into a likeness of their god, their skin darkening to crimson and leathery wings rising from their backs. His holy symbol takes the same three marks: a black orb, like his lightless eyes, wrapped in crimson wings beneath a crown of obsidian horns. ### Divine Domains No domains of Harkon are known. The scrolls of Harkaire make no mention of clerics as [[Aeborhia]] knows them, for Harkon does not share his power through prayer as the gods of the Pantheon do. He rules, and his people serve. ### Holy Day No holy day is written in the scrolls of Harkaire, for to the [[Vampires]] every day is devoted to Harkon. Instead, the great festivals of Harkaire celebrate each Emergence. The vampires of Harkaire are infertile, and cannot bear children of their own. Every few hundred years, Harkon creates a new generation of around one hundred thousand vampires at once, known as an Emergence, and the whole of Harkaire celebrates their arrival. Each new vampire joins one of the existing clans, or the new generation founds a clan of its own. ### Commandments of Harkon - There is no god but Harkon. All other thrones are false, and every crown shall be laid in his hall. - Serve your clan as your clan serves the Crimson King. Rise by strength and earn his favour, for the weak are only prey. - Carry his night to every world he names. Let no sun rise where his gate has opened. ### Enemies of Harkon To Harkon, every god of every world is a false god, a crown waiting to be laid in his hall, and so all are his enemies in time. Of those in [[Aeborhia]], none stands higher in his ire than the [[Prime Deities]], and above all [[Pelor]], who rallied them against his gate and sealed it within a day. In all the ages recorded in the scrolls of Harkaire, no world had ever shut him out before. His people do not write of it as a defeat, but as an insult, and one that will not be forgotten. Nor does the Crimson King have any love for [[Vecna]], the mortal who opened his gate and could not hold it, and who fled to the [[Shadowfell]] to chase his own immortality, later taking the vampire [[Kas]] into his service. The scrolls of Harkaire end with the crossing into [[Aeborhia]], and so they say nothing of [[Balthazar]], the mage general who turned against [[Jairus]] in 3032 PD and sent his clan home rather than open the way for their god. Yet the [[Vampires]] believe that Harkon can look upon any world he wishes, and if so, the betrayal of one of his most favoured servants is surely known to him. ### History The vampires of Harkaire do not count years. They tell their history instead by the Emergences, recording how many generations of vampires were created between one event and the next, and by the forming of the clans. The figures given here in years are the translations of the [[Vampires]] who came into [[Aeborhia]], who reckoned the length of an Emergence so that the people of this world might understand their history. - #### The Forming Harkon was formed more than a million years ago. Like most [[Deities]], he was born alone and formless, and for millennia he drifted through the cosmos, looking upon the worlds of other gods and studying them, so that he might better picture the world he would one day make for himself. - #### The Making of Harkaire Some eight hundred thousand years before his vampires first entered [[Aeborhia]], around two and a half thousand Emergences by their own reckoning, Harkon created [[Harkaire]]. It is a sunless world, though not one of endless night, lit only by the thundering crimson light that flashes behind its clouds. There he took his crimson form, and there he created the first of his [[Vampires]] to people it. - #### The Crimson Reign Since the making of Harkaire, Harkon has ruled it in person, as its sole god. Monuments to him stand throughout his world, and his seat is the Throne of Ashkaar, a vast fortress carved into the great mountain of Ashkaar. Within it lies the Hall of the False Gods, where the Crimson King keeps the shells of the gods he has vanquished. Not all of them ever took a physical form, and what remains of each is no body, but the husk of its divine essence, long since extinguished. His people are divided into clans, each holding a city of its own, or taking the city of another. The clans war endlessly for power and for the favour of Harkon, and the most favoured among them are chosen to take new worlds in his name. One of these was Clan Vharoth, formed in an Emergence some one hundred and twenty thousand years before the crossing into [[Aeborhia]], around four hundred Emergences by their reckoning. Among the very first of its vampires were [[Jairus]], [[Kas]] and [[Balthazar]]. Over the ages Clan Vharoth fought its way to the height of Harkon's favour, and took for itself the city of Sanguvar, once the seat of Clan Sanguvar, whom they slaughtered to the last. - #### The Darkening of Worlds Throughout the Crimson Reign, Harkon has turned his gaze to other worlds. Unable to cross between worlds by his own power, he draws to himself the minds of mortal mages who project themselves into the [[Astral Sea]], and presents himself to each in whatever way they will trust, as a kind and generous god or as a dark and terrible one, as the mage requires. To them he makes promises of power, glory or life, and these promises are often kept, for however long the mage lives after. In return, he asks only for a gate. Once it is opened, his most favoured clan crosses first, and the world is covered in darkness before the Crimson King moves on to the next. Among the worlds the scrolls of Harkaire record as conquered are some of the greatest Harkon ever claimed: - **Ysmereth**, a world ruled by two Elder Deities, the twin gods of its sun and moon, Oruun and Vael. - **Calvanthe**, a world of endless seas, ruled by the Elder Deity known as the Pale Mother. - **Druum**, a world of stone and flame, ruled by the Elder Deity Kezharoth the Undying. - **Thessarine**, a world of harvests, watched over by a pantheon of three greater gods. - **Orrimund**, ruled by a single greater god of war. - **Nyxalar**, ruled by two greater gods of storm and song. Each of these worlds was darkened, and the extinguished shells of their gods now rest in the Hall of the False Gods. The scrolls of Harkaire that record these conquests have since been studied by the scholars of [[Aeborhia]], who believe them to be genuine. - #### The Aeborhian Gate To the scrolls of Harkaire, [[Aeborhia]] was just another world, and [[Vecna]] just another mortal hungry for power. In his search for immortality, the archmage sought knowledge from many otherworldly beings, and Harkon promised him whatever he desired if he would open a gate to the [[Material Plane]]. In 2257 BD, from a castle he had seized on the [[Crescent Isles]], [[Vecna]] tore open that gate, and Clan Vharoth poured through, led by Harkon's high priest and champion, [[Jairus]], and his mage general, [[Balthazar]]. But [[Aeborhia]] was unlike any world Harkon had found before. It was the first known to hold many greater [[Deities]], and perhaps even Elder Deities of its own, in the shattered [[Luxon]] and, some believe, the sealed [[Tharizdun]]. [[Pelor]] rallied the [[Prime Deities]], and together they sealed the gate in less than a day, denying the Crimson King himself entry. [[Vecna]] escaped to the [[Shadowfell]], and Clan Vharoth was left stranded in [[Aeborhia]]. Here the scrolls end. The vampires kept [[Vecna|Vecna's]] castle on the [[Crescent Isles]], and it became the seat of [[Jairus]]. The gate had been opened with a key, a component of [[Vecna|Vecna's]] ritual, and once it was sealed the key was broken into three pieces and lost. For over five thousand years [[Jairus]] sought them, so that he might open the gate once more. In 3032 PD, his plan was undone by [[Group 8274]], who gathered the three pieces, and by [[Balthazar]], who had believed the gate would only be opened so that his people might go home. When he learned that [[Jairus]] meant to release Harkon upon [[Aeborhia]], he turned against him. [[Jairus]] was slain by [[Group 8274]] on the 21^st of Dusk, 3032 PD. The key was assembled by [[Arjal Goldstein]] and [[Ian King]], and [[Balthazar]] opened the gate one way, allowing around three quarters of Clan Vharoth to return home to [[Harkaire]] without letting anything through in turn. The key was then broken into three once more, and its pieces hidden again. ### Modern Worship of Harkon Harkon is almost unknown in [[Aeborhia]]. He has no temples, and as most have never heard his name, no law has ever been made against his worship. The remnants of Clan Vharoth who chose to remain after 3032 PD have for the most part taken to travelling and learning of the world. Some may still keep the old faith in quiet, while others have turned from it, as [[Balthazar]] did. The vampires of Harkaire are not cursed, but a race of their own, born undead by the will of their god. They can, however, curse mortals, turning them into the vampires more commonly known in [[Aeborhia]], whose curse spread swiftly across the world after the gate was opened. These cursed vampires have never known Harkaire, but it is said that small blood cults among them revere the Crimson King as the source of their power. The scrolls of Harkaire were transcribed by [[Balthazar]] in his years in [[Aeborhia]]. After his death in the [[Battle of Rexsall]] in 3036 PD, they were donated to the cosmology team of Lorehold College at [[Strixhaven University]], then led by [[Professor Mogdon]], who has since died of old age. There they are kept under close guard. ### Known Worshippers of Harkon #### Champions - [[Jairus]] † - High priest of Harkon and leader of Clan Vharoth, who led the vampires into [[Aeborhia]] in 2257 BD. Slain by [[Group 8274]] on the 21^st of Dusk, 3032 PD. #### Other Worshippers *Not Known*