Revelations Of Melech

This page refers to both the tome of ancient Star Pact lore, now owned by Lavinia Malith, and ocassionally leant to trusted senior students of Coroleuis Acedemy and the fan made suppliment of the same name, written by Camille Dinesen in an attempt to flesh out the cosmic evils which lurk on the foul edges of reality, for roleplaying purposes.

History Of The Revelations
A Place Holder for a Brief history of the book.

Chapter One: The Baleful Thirteen
Warlocks and sages know that when one looks up at the stars, some stars glare back with hunger. Some scholars theorize, or fear, that every star in the night sky is an entrance way for some unknown horrors of the Far Realm, a space beyond, below, and between the world we inhabit. Strange beasts walk beside our world, unknown to us, and those distant points of light are their eyes. Of the infinite stars, and infinite possible entities, The Baleful Thirteen are the most known to us. Allabar the Opener of the Way, Acamar the Maw, Caiphon the Dream Whisperer, Delban the Winter Star, Gibbeth the Unnamable, Gat-Nyabok'thil the Firesighted, Hadar the Ember, Khirad the Prophet, Nihal the Dancer, Ulban the Messenger, Zhudun the Corpse Star and Thuban the Emerald Sea.

These thirteen stars are older than the world, older than magic, and older than the gods we mortals worship. They watched the ancients fall and the wall between worlds thinning. For eons they have waged their silent wars among themselves. For eons they have screamed and sung to the audient void. Waiting for their secrets to be heard by those with minds sensitive enough to listen. Their demands are often painful and bizarre to those who hear them, the secret truths they reveal enough to drive most to madness when deciphered. But those few brave enough to seek their council can unlock the very fabric of the universe.

Allabar is often thought to be the mightiest of stars. Unlike other stars, Allabar burns freely through the night sky, unhindered by a fixed orbit, its patterns erratic, although the warlock Thulzar had began to see a pattern emerge. Some believe that Allabar is a trickster star that merely spreads havoc between the world and its kin for its own amusement; a strange being from beyond the world, some believe its goals are greater, and it manipulates the lesser stars to its own end. What that end could be, none as yet can guess. But when it crosses paths with any of its twelve brethren, tragedy follows, for Allabar is the Opener of the Way, the key to let the star-spawn walk our world. Despite its great power, Allabar does not patronize. Those who know its true name are few, for unlike its siblings it does not scream into the void. It has no great secrets to tell. It only laughs as it plots and streaks through the edges of the Astral Sea.

Ulban is Allabar's greatest foe. Often thought to be one of the kinder of stars (although its kindness comes in strange forms), Ulban the Messenger comes from a thousand eons, hence a remnant from the end of time. The bright blue light appears in the sky at times of great distress and great importance. Warlocks have watched, marking its path and its frequent crossings with Allabar and other malevolent Far Realm beings as it seeks to lessen their influence and disrupt their star spawn.

It claims to be searching for one who can alter its past and prevent the end of all things, and so seeks out the strongest minds and the most gifted magicians to turn to its cause, demanding complete loyalty of its followers. It manipulates its mortal instruments to enact its meticulously crafted plans, schemes so elaborate and far-reaching as to span generations. This makes Ulban a strange force among the stars, for few are so direct in their contact with their followers, or so direct in their orders, although careful calculations of the sky and the star's position in the heavens are still required to speak directly to the Messenger.

Caiphon is another oddity. In the guise of a simple guide star, this distant point of purple light lurks on the horizon and watches the world day and night. With each passing year, it bides its time, providing guidance. When times grow hard and a community is beset by famine, plague, or oppression, or when a person grows desperate enough, Caiphon grows bright, as if to remind people of its reassuring presence. When prayers to gods fail, people offer whispered pleas to the star for help. And Caiphon listens, sending its emissaries to lead or granting people the power to help themselves. Its boons come at a price, though, for rebellion and strife often linger in its wake. For this reason, Caiphon's status as a guide star is debated. It has been theorized that the purple star merely wishes to observe how smaller beings react, or that its intentions are earnestly good but warped by the limited minds of the recipients of its kindness.

Like all stars, Caiphon whispers its songs into the night, a gentle and constant music, pulsating with the ultraviolet. But to the chosen few it sees as its students, it instructs through dreams, nightly walks away from the body on the shores of distant worlds. While these dreams are rarely peaceful, the dreamer awakes with new knowledge burned into their mind.

It is said The Dream Whisperer pays more attention to the world than any other of its ilk. It might have a plan and a part to play in the world’s final destiny, but what role it plays and what the star's intentions for our world are remain unknown.

Not all stars plot, some are merely portals of madness and hunger, best not thought of or contacted. One such star is the Mad Dancer Nihal, the crimson beast who jumps and slithers around the place it should occupy in the sky dancing to the wild heartbeat of the universe, often called the Serpent Star, or the Father of Worms, Nihal's hunger is ceaseless, its voice the hissing of a million furious serpents.

Nihal's mortal servants are few, for it takes no special interest in this plane, but the warlocks who dedicate themselves to the Red Star wield wild and powerful magic and are driven to madness more swiftly than most. Or perhaps the mad are more drawn to Nihal's wild piping. It does not speak directly to its servants, though, leaving them to interpret its distant hissing and frenzied motions how they will.

For its madness, though, Nihal does not demand blood. Only one star does: Gat-Nyabok'thil the Firesighted. Born in the depths of darkness in the center of the earth, it now holds a place in the sky, watching the world through flames and molten lava. Its cults are old, although the ancients knew the star by other names. It speaks to its followers through fire, demanding sacrifice in exchange for great secrets, granting its followers limited control of its domains of fire, blood, and shadows, and its champions immortality.

Gat-Nyabok'thil's classification as a star is tenuous, but it now burns in the night sky, having escaped its subterranean home. Its nature as a being on the edge of the sky means it must be one of those eldritch things that watch the night. Its close ties with fire and the underworld, however, often lead otherwise infernal pact-bound warlocks to beseech its aid.

Perhaps the most dangerous of stars is the living madness known as Gibbeth. Forced into slumber by Zhudun before the world was born, the Endless One dreams, sleeps, and hates. At the core of the foul green star is said to be an unknowable beast, whose thousand eyes will one day open to plunge the world into a holocaust of madness. It is best not to think overlong on this baleful point in the sky, for those who do suffer tortured dreams.

Its rage is a force so potent as to be made physical, forced from the minds of those who know it, a plague on those who would oppose the star's will. Those chosen by Gibbeth to share its image with the world are haunted by its ceaseless screams. Those who choose to obey are mad.

Zhudun was once the wisest of stars, the oldest, the most powerful and beneficent, and its glorious light fell upon the great monuments of Aegypt before they were swallowed by the sands. It clashed with Allabar, then but a young star, and Zhudun's light was no more.

Now and forever known as the Corpse Star, Zhudun lies as a quiet observer, cursed only to cast its pale light on scenes of great destruction and tragedy, to watch its ilk destroy worlds through careless squabbles and machinations. The planets that surround this star have had once-great cities reduced to rubble, and the star's face is forever twisted into an expression of hideous agony.

Zhudun's mournful sobs echo out into eternity, only to be heard by those touched by tragedy and death as their patron star has been.

Almost as old as Great Zhudun is Hadar the Ember. One of the two stars cloaked behind the Ihbar Nebula, Hadar's dull red glow is barely visible in the night sky. It was once the brightest star in the sky, but during the fall of the ancients, it surged as a blinding light seen throughout all reality before fading to its current state. A blood red ember, Hadar hangs on the edge of nothingness and hungers constantly for the life it once had. It does not patronize, although its dying gasps drift through the void of space and reaches many ears. Its only wish is to feed, devouring the energy of anything within its feeble and withered grasp.

Hadar shares its home with Acamar, a great corpse star that has collapsed in on itself in its hunger, and now seeks to devour the rest of the universe. It feeds on the light and matter of nearby celestial bodies, pulling them ever closer to its empty core, the Maw is kept in check only by the slowly expanding Ihbar Nebula which it calls home.

The Ihbar Nebula is in itself a living being, a grasping expanse of pure darkness. Star pact warlocks often dream of the eternal blackness as it spreads to devour all things. Ihbar speaks to many, inviting them to join it, to make it whole, to make everything whole, a single mind for all the universe, devoid of pain and loneliness and hunger.

Delban, the Ice Star, lives on Ihbar's edge. Known for its frigid light, it appears on the horizon in the winter months. This is no coincidence, for the blue star's light is so cold, its touch chills us even here on Urth. Its presence is felt in every frost and snowflake, a dire warning of the depths of space. Scholars claim to see through telescopes and dreams that Delban must once have been a normal star, before the calamity that accompanied the fall of the ancients, breaching the walls between our world and the outside. They speak of the planets that surround the Ice Star, lined with grisly statues of what once must have been daily life, now encased in ice for all eternity. Even their orbits have halted entirely, an entire solar system now eerily still.

What it once was matter not, for the star now radiates cold instead of warmth and death instead of life. It chooses its followers from those who hear it in the winter months, making demands that seem random and disconnected to the casual observer. Those who would ignore its call or disobey its wishes meet swift and fierce punishment. There are many stories of men and women in its service found frozen in the streets, minds still functioning inside the icy prisons of their bodies.

People living in fear of Delban will often avoid leaving their home in winter months, in hopes the cruel star won't see them, or pray to Gat-Nyabok'thil for warmth and protection.

Khirad, the patron of oracles and prophets, watches the world and sees all possible futures. Existing at once both outside of and in all points of time, the star guides as it sees fit, granting its many loyal followers visions of things that may or will be, futures to either prevent or bring to fruition. Khirad has no direct control over the free will of mortals, except in compelling them to action or speech through powerful mental messages.

Khirad is popular among scholars for its seemingly benign nature and its habit of providing people with means to work towards immediate good and answers to questions it provides. It has many organized cults, and just as many servants who know not who they serve.

The final star among the Baleful Thirteen is Thuban of the Emerald Seas, at once a planet, a star and a life force in itself, Thuban drifts lazily through the skies, slower than other stars and without planets in orbit of it. On the brilliant green surface of Thuban, beneath swirling seas of dense gasses strange and semi aquatic many-tentacled beasts make their home. These lesser aberrations are often used as familiars by arcane masters that know how to find them.

Time itself seems to crawl around the emerald star, coming ever closer to a halt as you reach its gaseous surface. Scholars have studied this effect to the best of their limited abilities in hopes that unlocking this secret would lead to a world without age or death.

Thuban itself is often depicted as but a larger version of these great creatures, its voice is low and steady, its humming barely audible. Thuban does not select students or restrict access to its songs, but lets all those who can hear study from its wealth of knowledge.

While the baleful thirteen are the most powerful, the most active and the loudest, they are not the only far realm entities to have pushed their way into our world. It is possible the number of minor patrons is infinite, but three deserve special mention for their frequent interest in our world.

Alhazered is theorized as one of the youngest stars, as the fragmented records of the ancients show no stars in the position it occupies. Common theory states that the star was born during the Middle Age of the ancients, although it rarely made contact. Alhazered is often called a patron of poets and the creatively sensitive, communicating through dreams and visions of morbid splendor and breathtaking terror. It shows a peculiar frequency for contacting humans over other intelligent species. Those warlocks contacted by it often develop an acute and inexplicable fear of the sea. Alhazered is often seen to clash with the Demon Star Algol.

Algol is a truly ancient star, known as a demon even in the time of the ancients, a winking evil light whose brightness fluctuates on a regular cycle, caused not as some astronomers think by it wavering in and out of touch with our realm, but because the star known as Algol is two entities, circling each other in a celestial waltz. Both these small stars claim Algol's followers as their own, and because of this, those followers receive erratic and often contradictory messages,  leaving the twin star's mortal servants confused.

Lastly Zh'az-Clo'th'oth, a strange being from beyond our or any universe. Represented not as a star but a hole in the fabric of reality, through which dull grey is visible. Zh'az-Clo'th'oth seems not to have any plans or motive for our plane, or interest in planets other then Urth, instead contacting it's followers only to ask questions. A fair exchange for the interstellar knowledge the being grants.

Chapter Two The Starspawn
TBA