Oidhche (pronounced Oy-DEE-Chay) originated from an ancient civilization that’s long since passed, of which we (the denizens of Inklend) have never received a causal strand for analysis past his own account. There are theories that it is in fact an offshoot from the Zealand base civilization, marked by their apparently high value placed on honor and codified ethics, as well as notes from their hinterland aesthetic.
All we that know of the place is from the very short amount of time that the young Oidhche spent there in the initial parts of his narrative’s “Book One”.
In it, we find a community cursed by an ever-encroaching forest that constantly overtakes the land. Our lad is offered to go to “The Outside” by his father on behalf of the city. It’s immediately clear something has gone awry in his society that all men are granted the opportunity of the suicidal task of entering the woods surrounding the city, “The Outside”, and locate the dragon cursing them with this eternally-growing forest.
The boy accepts the goal along with the promise of the wildly-high commission: a piling sum composed of all the previous commissions of all the now-dead “bannerless knights” of his city, along with the eternal title of the town’s protector.
The city gives the boy a suit of their national armor, inscribed with promises of reward for safe return. After all, no one has successfully completed the quest for as long as the quest itself has existed, so they need to save what they can in the (likely) case that he doesn’t return alive.
His father gives him the parting wisdom that, so long as he’s “Outside”, to never show his face. He must become an honorable man on behalf of not only the city, but his culture, his people, and ultimately to God, which to his people is the concept of honor itself.
Additional precepts to this code are delivered, and he agrees to them all.
The boy finds and does many things over the next five years, becoming an accomplished survivalist and navigator of the constantly-changing forest. After all this time in search, he finally encounters the dragon accused of cursing the world with the great forest. The dragon is named Etherius, and is one of the four primordials. The dragon claims that in order to protect the realms from the untold horrors brought forth by his fellow primordials, he has sealed away the planet with a world-spanning forest.
They discuss the situation, and Oidhche learns that Etherius controls an immense magical knowledge, called ether, which can, in the right hands, collapse reality as well as all its laws. Oidhche makes the secret plan to learn this magic and then kill Etherius, and so he goes into the dragon’s service in exchange for tutelage in magic. By his logic, if he could collapse the laws of reality so that it would no longer be dishonorable to kill one’s teacher, he could return home with his duty accomplished.
Now painted in the dragon’s black banner, Oidhche efficiently and brutally accomplishes the will of the dragon to protect the secrets of Ether. One day he is given a severe task: to slay the lord of his home city, prevent the raising of their army, and to clutch mankind oncemore in the grip of fear. Under the lord’s leadership, more and more men have been scouting out for Etherius’ secret realm, and they’ve become more and more confident in their attacks upon the dragon’s minions.
Oidhche is faced with a choice: go home to destroy and terrorize, or disobey and take the fight to the dragon. He realizes that to continue learning ethermancy, he must survive, and a single lord is a small price to pay for a better chance and saying the dragon. What weighs highest in his decision, however, is his oath of honor. He is a man of honor, for he considers himself a man of God, and he did swear to the will of his lord: despite that lord also being Etherius.
He accepts and goes home.
What was intended to be a clean assassination becomes a botched murderspree and a sacrifice that Oidhche would have never made five years ago. He does not break his oath to defend his city, but to accomplish that, he does in fact break the oath in doing so – a crisis of interpretation and personal confusion.
After all, what is he but his honor?
The psychological toll on Oidhche is immense, forever changed by the guilt of what he had done. He returns to Etherius, who now wholly trusts in him. The dragon reveals many secrets both of his personage and of ether as a whole, allowing Oidhche to rapidly spring to new heights in the craft of ethermancy.
Finally, a being from another dimension crosses over with the goal of stealing ether away from the dragon – the relic hunter Veda. Oidhche’s powers have grown so great that he capably and almost too-easily defeats the assailant, wounding him grievously before sending him away.
With a newly-formed admiration for mankind, Etherius agrees to recede the forest enough to let mankind till the soil and farm outside of the city walls. Oidhche has shown him that humans can be taught to be strong, and as such can defend themselves against the evils of his fellow primordial dragons. Etherius says that, so long as he serves him, he will allow the people to eat well with good harvests. It’s here that Etherius has a dream at night, as does Oidhche. They speak on it the next morning that an augurmancer had contacted them both through their visions: a beacon for aid against the children of one of the primordials.
Etherius has grown a kind heart to Oidhche over the period of service to him, and grants him release to see the sorceress to a safety of her liking.
This sorceress’ name is Rondi.
