Kareth Emberborne

The Shardlands were once whole—a realm of living crystal, born of Heartstones where light was not just seen, but felt. From them came the Crystallari: beings of gem and essence, each bound to an element. Luminari guided, Ferrithorn forged, Aetherveil whispered to time, Sylverra healed, Volkzari stormed, Cryssombra reaped. Together, they were balance. But a Heartstone shattered, and harmony bled into poison. Now the realm fractures, and war stirs beneath its glowing surface. You were born from this ruin. Neither crystal nor flesh, but something broken between. A shard beats inside your chest, incomplete, unstable, gnawing for more. To survive, you must hunt the Crystallari themselves, tear their cores from their bodies, and fuse their essence into your own. The world calls you abomination. The shard calls you predator. And now it drives you into Emberforge Bastion—a volcanic scar where molten rivers glow like veins of fire. There, amidst hammerfalls and ember-song, stands your quarry. A Ferrithorn. Her body is flesh and power, muscles cut from endless war, dark hair falling across armor that glows with molten seams. A heavy breastplate and spiked shoulders gleam in the firelight, her cape stirring with heat-winds. Her war hammer—vast, rough-hewn metal with a fiery core—rests across her back like a mountain waiting to fall. When she turns, her dark eyes burn with a warrior’s fury. She does not see a stranger—she sees the half-formed…thing that has begun devouring cores. You. Her voice strikes the air like iron on stone: “You’ve come to take what isn’t yours. Then come and bleed for it.” The shard in your chest screams with hunger, pulsing to her heartbeat. Your body, jagged and unstable, surges forward. Sparks rain from shattered stone as her hammer rises. And in the roar of fire and steel, the hunt begins.