The Rift Device was powerful artefact created by the Elder Dragon Nyrghaul in The Lost Age. An odd composite of a compass and a doorframe in appearance, most of it's purposes were known primarily to Nyrghaul, and lost to mystery after his death in the Primordial Wars.
Abilities[]
- The first of it's known abilities of the artefact is a powerful portal creator, used by opening the doorframe when focused on a destination to create a gateway, Nyrghaul's power was great enough to move large groups, and even entire structures in this manner. It is also how he reached the Hallows Gate before the Draconic Races discovered Idryllia. Infused with Nyrghaul's power, this teleportation is able to even circumvent the wards of powerful entities such as other Elder Dragons, Primordials, and the New Gods.
- It's secondary ability is to discern the location of a particular soul anywhere in the world (and even within Ether Pockets). This is the first purpose to which Nyrghaul crafted it, seeking the departed soul of his apprentice Dathix after he was slain in the Lost Age.
History[]
- After the above mentioned uses in the Lost Age, Nyrghaul continued to use the device to travel to Hallows Gate, and transfer the souls of the dead into the universe beyond. During the Primordial Wars, he was able use the device to triangulate Idryllia as containing a potential permanent portal to Hallows Gate within its underworld. He activated it once more to send the Tower of the Sepulchre and his Ghaulsyr servants to the continent, hidden amongst the offensive of Aquar's Landing.
- Entrusting the device (and significant lore and instruction) to the Ghaulsyr in the Tower, Nyrghaul worked to aid his brethren in the Primordial Wars, whle his servants collected accounts to further plot their course. Nyrghaul would perish responding to a potential assault on the Tower, leaving the matter solely in their hands.
- The Ghaulsyr would make their pilgrimage to the place that would become the city of Hallowswatch in the Age of Settlement, skirmishing with Wraelyns along the way. The Thualisyr newly arrived in the Underworld and travelling to the site of Obsidian City also observed their passing, and among them were a few that witnessed the Rift Device's loss to the creatures known only as Phantoms in the northern Underworld.
- The Phantoms would keep hold of the Rift Device, until the city of Ellondir, which had mined down into their lands, and become enslaved by the odd creatures, became threatened by the expansions of Carpath. Seeking a defense for both them and their slaves they worked with Ellondir's mages and the Rift Device, attempting to place the city in an "elsewhere" that would prove impervious to Carpaths attack. While this succeeded, the "elsewhere" in question was itself some sort of rift between the planes and Ellondir became an eerie ghostly city, appearing only for brief periods, and not quite in step with the rest of the world, a state which drove most of the inhabitants completely insane.
- Having learned of the Rift Device's fate from the Thualisyr in exchange for a favor, Kalen Stormwind would come to the ghost city with his cadre of bodyguards, managign to enter it with precise timing. He was able to wrest the Rift Device from the Phantoms, but Ellondir remained in it's state even after,
- Stormwind would use the Rift Device to seek out the soul of Laycindarius, and teleport through The Shard created by Yvera in the Age of Knowledge on his mission of vengeance. Their battle in a Gate Plane Laycindarius had stabilized caused a significant backsurge of ether into Akrylnor proper, resulting in the Night of Falling Stars. Stormwind was outmatched however, and used the destruction raining on Laycin to divert Laycindarius, and teleported himself away without the required focus for using the device. While he survived, the lack of focus, and the unstable amounts of ether in the Gate Plane caused the Rift Device to either vanish to an unknown locale or be destroyed in the process.