The Night of the Opal Bloom

Centuries ago, during the reign of the Blood Duke Vorlag the Insatiable in the secretive Duchy of Tyrros, the Sanguine Priesthood was commanded to undertake its most audacious ritual. Not content with the wealth of his house, Vorlag sought to awaken every blood-opal vein in the peninsula simultaneously, believing the surge of power would grant him and his lineage unparalleled strength and longevity.

The rite, theatrically called by the Duke as “The Grand Unveiling”, was performed on a moonless night and was fueled by a tithe of blood drawn from every soul in the duchy through a vast, sympathetic ritual. As the final incantation was spoken, the earth trembled. The ritual succeeded, but in a way no one could have foreseen: the blood-opal veins deep underground pulsed like a great, beating heart and then cracked open. From these fissures, a wave of crystalline creatures emerged, born of the union between the living blood of the people and the ancient, hungry essence of the opals. These were beautiful, terrifying beings of razor-sharp, translucent crimson that moved with a silent, unnatural grace. To this day, most scholars still believe that they were some sort of geological immune response, a living crystallization of the pain and sacrifice offered to the earth. For a single, horrific night, they swarmed from the mines and crevasses, slaughtering thousands with scythe-like limbs, and silently rampaged across the country.

Fortunately for the Tyrrosian, as the sun rose, the magical energy that sustained the opal spawned creatures dissipated. The constructs froze, shattered, and crumbled into a fine, glittering red dust that coated the jungle floor. The duchy was saved, but its population was decimated and its faith shaken. Since that night, the Sanguine Priesthood has never again attempted such a grand ritual, their practices now governed by fear and rigid adherence to tradition.