A Bard's days and years may be numbered,
Like rainwater in cupped hands
We all pay and fear the Fates,
Lest their icy hands give us no avail.
So today I sing to their omniscience,
I pray that their fingers
Will weave my Fate into grandeur,
So that I may weave this story into Legend,
And let no detail blur.

Winter's night had kissed the Basin,
Life moved in slowed down time,
And the hooves of Rollan Shamtuul
Carried through the vines
Of primordial Serenwilde.
Rollan was the first and only of his kind,
A Demigod.

His divine spark he had fanned through willpower,
As though his hands controlled the threads of his fate.
Yet this was not to be true,
As the hands of the Fates only truly do.
Rollan Shamtuul was Fated to be the greatest who ever lived,
And also the least remembered.
For memory is tricky in the least of times,
And has a rhythm for lies.
For some things that should be remembered
Are lost forever.
And some things that should be forgotten
Are never lost at all.

The image of Rollan Shamtuul was staggering in beauty,
And seething in power.
He a follower of the White Hart,
A Hartstone Druid,
Blessed with the fury and chaos of Nature.
He face, sculpted of gleaming ivory, perfect
And glittering.
His hair, white as the albatross.
A mighty rack of golden antlers rose from his head
Like lightning bolts.
Spiraling around these glorious horns were motes of white light.
These would occasionally slip into his pointed ears,
His eyes flashing veridian as they did,
before emerging from the other ear.

His left arm was gone,
Removed as he ascended to Godhood
In honor of the spirit of Sacrifice.
In its place a thorny branch now stood,
Grown from his very shoulder was
The Moonhart wood.
This branch moved as well as any arm could,
And ended in not a hand
But a mighty cudgel,
More wicked than any ever seen before.

Through the eons of time that he had lived,
His feet had grown cloven.
Now they remained as two ebony hooves,
Glittering with strength.

Rollan Shamtuul was walking through the greenery,
Now white with Blizzard's wrath.
His robes pulled tight,
For even Demigods get cold.
Then there was a flash of light,
And an emerald serpent erupted forth,
As though born from the snow.

Massive in size, it towered over Rollan,
Hissing into the frosty wind,
It's gaze full of glittering madness.
Wreathes of steam encircled its body,
The cold air clashing with fiery scales.

Rollan held his ground,
Hooves digging into the snow and soil,
And he spread his arm and limb wide
So to better embrace the snake when it moved for him.
He touched one finger of his hand to snow covered ground
And felt the earth erupt into life beneath it.
The forest around him shuddered into Life
so to better embrace the snake when it moved for him.

The snake hissed and struck at the same time,
Its body lashing forward like a whip.
Rollan pushed forward with his ebon hooves
Wrapping his arm and limb around the serpent in a tight embrace.
He twisted the creature to be beneath him
And slammed it to the ground,
Its emerald scales breaking like glass.

The forest came to life around its body,
Thorny vines lashing it to the earth,
As Rollan leveled his cudgel-arm with the monster's eyes,
And the snake began to speak,
Its voice dripping with lies
While its words were full of wisdom.

"Your Fate begins and ends here,
Rollan Shamtuul.
For I know the way to what you seek,
And I know the answers to the questions on your mind.
They are buried and hidden,
Both in his world
And into the far reaches of the Planes beyond.
But what will you trade for answers,
Rollan Shamtuul?
Your immortality?
Your divinity?
Your memory?
For I know the answers to the questions on your mind,
All that remains is for you to embrace them.
The Price may be too great in the end,
But will you not have followed your Fate?
I am the way, Rollan Shamtuul.
Embrace me, and your curiosity need not go unknown."

Rollan stood with his hooves buried in snow,
His fingers icy in the northern winds,
And this thoughts icier still.
His heartbeat slowed into minutes,
And world stood still.
"I will accept your offer,"
And his tongue held still.

The snake slithered from beneath its trappings,
And launched itself at Rolan's chest.
He dug his hooves in and embraced the snake again,
As it vanished into his breast,
And for the first time his eyes flashed red, then purple.
Visions danced wildly through his eyes.
He saw himself standing inside a mountain of smoking lava,
Wading through a bubble of frost and snow,
Transversing through infinite fields Water and Earth,
Beholding a bizarre land of sugar,
And ever stranger places still.
And he heard the snake whisper in the back of his mind,
"Now you know the way."

Rollan Shamtuul was Fated to be the greatest who ever lived,
And also the least remembered.