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A grey mist whirled around the ground; it tugged and pulled at the broken stone and ruined echoes of former buildings. Time had no meaning here under the sallow skies and dancing air. It was a desolate painting of the world as it would be at the End of All Things. It was caught at the final moment where everything was ruined and only two stalwart guardians remained to keep the status quo, more a curse than a blessing.

The Shroud, the Hestonian Death God and his spectral partner of sorts, the wolf Fathriir, the Devourer of the Dead held court in this bizarre landscape. The Shroud cut an imposing figure as much as the mystery of his deep cowl provided. He was tall, well over six foot six inches and muscular. His upper torso was bare save for the tatters of a grey cloth cloak that wafted around his feet. He wore leather trousers that were slightly scuffed and tucked into heavy black boots. His clawed fingers were thin and ended in sharp fingernail-talons.

A thick broad-belt encircled his waist and a single talisman hung from his neck, a black metal wolf head in a circular surround. His frame was well defined and his skin was tanned. A pair of large bracelets encircled his wrists; these were inlaid with small gemstones. Lastly a pair of silver coloured eyes glinted from under the shadows of the god's cowl.

Fathriir was a massive coal-black wolf with large red eyes and a permanently hungry-looking expression. Drool dripped down from between slavering jaws like sticky ectoplasm, dropping on the ground and leeching the soil into a grey colour. His fur was a lustrous shade and his large paws ended with white claws. His teeth were as large as daggers and his tongue rolled out in a sinewy pink-red as he licked one in contemplation.

When the Shroud spoke it was as if a thousand tortured souls whispered along with him, crying, begging, and pleading for mercy, mercy from his demonic-looking bestial partner. Fathriir's answer was a simple snap of his jaws, pulling apart the ethereal essence of ghost and spectre alike. The soul rent into nothing but an appetizer for the Devourer of the Dead. In truth there was a reason that the Shroud and the wolf were bound, the chains that held the monster in check were firmly in the hand of the death god.

It was written in the Book of the Anshada that if the chains that bind were ever broken, then Fathriir would be free to travel from Hestonia's future and enter its past bringing an age of doom upon the world. The giant wolf would fall upon the lives of others and drink deeply of their immortal essence, rending soul after soul in an endless hungry rampage that would see everything reduced to nothing. The Doomsayers of the Eastern Temple kept records of sorts, those records spoke of a time when Fathriir was unbound for but a single hour and a whole kingdom vanished from the face of reality.

The Dark Hour as it was known resulted from the previous death god, the Taker, and his defeat at the hands of a transcended mortal before the events that were chronicled in the building of the City of Wyrden. The Taker, so angered by the failure broke the chains that bind Fathriir to the Lands of the Dead and let him loose upon the world, fortunately for Hestonia - the City of Wyrden was activated and the demon kind that were on the physical plane were eradicated in an instant.

Due to his unique nature, Fathriir was spared and simply bound once again to the Lands of the Dead. A new younger, crueller and smarter death god was given the mantle of power and held the chains of the wolf tight, for he knew that without mortals to reap he would also be without a purpose, for it was his task to bring life to an end and to do as he wished with those souls who found their way to his realm. He judged them on a case by case basis; the strongest of the dead became his agents known as Wraths. The weakest were an ethereal banquet offered up to appease the wolf.