The Cakaphon Dynasty of In’eslae, which ruled from their (vaguely) just outing of the Raelei Family and all the way into the Middle Dawn and after it, was one plagued with trouble, fear, and deceit unseen in the decades before and after it in the myriad history of bat elven monarchy. Creatures like lycanthropes, vampires, and ghouls were placed into high positions within the Zthgnthaz Court due to their natural cunning and strength, and were even given special privileges that made them exempt from the most basic and moralistic of laws. Cannibalism, murder, kidnappings, and illegal experimentation were rampant during the later parts of the Cakaphons reign, and it was no injustice when the people began the Li’kaan Crusades that forcibly ended Girao-Jun’s rule and paved the way for a more peaceful time.
But even though the Cakaphons died out as penance for their actions, it was during the earlier reign of Ria-Na that a darker force was born into the world that was even more diabolical than they were. Remembered as the Decadent Queen, it remains indisputable fact that the future grandaunt of Girao-Jun had been born with the ichor of gods coursing through her veins. Her father, Forei’on-Kao (who most notably never took a woman to wife or mortal to bed), claimed that she was the blessing given to him by his greatest sexual conquest: the goddess Debalut herself. Although it will never be known if this exact claim was true or not, it is known that Ria-Na dedicated her gerency to her “mother’s” teachings and lived a life permeated with ecstasy.
The Whimpering Portcullis. The Carnal Cavities of the Cachexic Corridor. The Abirritating Well. These are but a few examples of the disturbing libidinous-architecture taught to the gerentess by Aphrosia, a lesser spirit and champion sent to her by Sh’aemi, and that she had commissioned to be built within the Grimstone Halls. Ria-Na’s tenure on the Rhetoric Throne was one upheld by primordial desire; a time where narcotics and hedonism was encouraged amongst the Exul and Omali alike. And while her citizenry suffered from substance abuse and sexual deterioration, the Decadent Queen never aged a day since she came of age and seemed to grow stronger from the chaos.
Until one day a simple man emerged from the shadowy populace, a Troubadour whose name was so unfortunately stricken from the historical record. A self-proclaimed suitor to Ria-Na and an accomplished bard, he wrote several poems and songs dedicated to the gerentess who had “stolen his heart”. The common folk adored him, even those that despised the Cakaphons, as he would often spend his time performing puppet shows and conducting festivals for the downtrodden during his lazy hours. But when Ria-Na realized that the Troubadour’s letters to her were dwindling due to his devotion to the peasantry, she bestowed upon the greatest and most terrifying of gifts: he was to become her personal jester and pamperer, to accompany her at all times of the night and day.
The Troubadour, for the most part, tried to make the most out of his situation and use it to his advantage. But these minor acts of independent thought and defiance were met with incredibly extreme punishments. Ria-Na had Aphrosia, who served as her Primaric Pishogue (pray to whatever god you worship that you never learn what that is), feed the Troubadour “food” derived from the remains of demonic and paranormal entities as his main punishment; the second punishment was much more psychological, by forcing the Troubadour to eliminate her political rivals and unsatisfactory consorts in torturous, vile ways. But the Decadent Queen, in her madness, had yet to notice that such physical and mental pain had begun to transform the Troubadour who had once been handsome of both body and spirit. Now? Now he had become a carrion-infested, bone-warped monstrosity with a splintered mind containing hundreds of different personalities. His jester attire, due to years of dirt and magical torture, had slowly merged with his fur and skin, and the chains that had once been used to restrain him now served to adorn his bizarre collection of instruments.
In time, the suitor began to write a series of tomes that became known as the “Pale Books of Riddles”, full of twisted jokes and odd songs that warped and muddled the mind, driving lesser souls to despair. Eventually, in due time, these horrid papers bound by blood would transcend the laws of time and space and be found in whens and wheres they couldn’t have ever been.
What could have become of the Troubadour, once a nice and caring man? Was he still mortal? Or had he become some sort of ghost, or lich, or even demigod? It is forevermore one of his mysteries, just as his true fate is. Cakaphon records that survived the Crusades mention that Ria-Na and the Troubadour met their demise within Cakre’uan Keep, the Decadent Queen’s personal pleasure house on Slea, when it suddenly erupted in a blaze of purifying flame one night. The Omali believe that the Council of Dull Chimes hired the Magus Legions (the precursors to the witch-hunter and exorcist organizations) of Pasa’vaga to commit the deed after they finally awakened from their drunken comas, while the Exul share a common legend of a Raelei Anarchist convincing a Hyu-Ket servant to sabotage the building’s furnace system.
But there are darker rumors and tales; rumors and tales that trace the arcane fire to the Troubadour himself, who for the first time in years was able to subdue and convince the various voices within in his mind to agree on a singular purpose: revenge. Tricking the gerentess to dance with him while played a melancholic symphony all on his own, the Troubadour slowly focused all of the foul magical energies that had forced inside him into a destructive force that eventually detonated in a ball of white fire, killing himself, Ria-Na, Aphrosia, and the majority of those that had been inside the Keep. Those that survived (the sane ones at least) would whisper that before the tragedy, they heard a mournful voice echoing out to the gods―”I’m sorry. Absolve me.”
And while Cakre’uan Keep still exists, crumbled and despoiled as it is, you will find no travelers there. No merchants trying to purchase the estate, or mages wanting to study the dormant mana that still permeates the soil. No, none of that. For superstition forces the belief that the Ghoulish Troubadour still roams those broken halls, entertaining the soul of the only woman he ever loved and hated more than anything else in the Mundus, and feeding off the divinity of her spirit in order to sustain himself into the songs of eternity.