The Legacy of the Void

By Sir Kaldwell the III

The entity named the Void, if indeed it is truly a living creature and not some abomination borne out of a mind overindulged with madness, is a thing not of any known origin. I first learned of its supposed existence from a traveling minstrel by the name of Jellical Mersell, who’s mental state I must say was just this side of Pandemonium, while traveling abroad as I was wont to do in those days. I met him upon the road one dark and moonless night and he seemed to be of the opinion that the very Gates of Hell were opening in the direction that he had just traversed from. Seeing as I had no true desire to see the Gates of Hell or its inhabitants we quickly left that place. It wasn’t until that dawn that he told me his tale and I began to suspect that his mind may perhaps be of the same consistency of the watered down oat meal that we had for breakfast that very morning.

The following tale, or as much as I could comprehend from the ravings of a minstrel with such impaired faculties, is as follows. It apparently all started one dreary, chilled evening just before the final advance of the cold winter. Jellical and his companions were at a local tavern, as the first flakes of snow were beginning to drift down from the heavens, trading tales of great deeds accomplished as we are all wont to do on long cold nights in the companionship of fellow travelers. It was during this time of revelry that Jellical and his companions first heard the rumors of a thing that existed only to destroy. They tracked it not by sound or by smell but by the vast trail that can only be described as a complete lack of existence that it left in its wake. Everywhere that they followed the entity they found nothing. Not the type of nothing that you find in an empty room but in the type of nothing that you would find if you couldn’t find the room. As the troupe of stout adventurers, with more than a few adventures under their collective belts, continued to follow the complete annihilation of everything, they discovered to their dismay that according to all known maps where there should have been three villages there was, indeed, none at all. It was during this time that the entity gained its infamous name “the Void,” for it seemed to swallow up all that came into contact with it. According to my delirious companion it seemed that the creature fed off of living matter and magical energy, growing ever stronger and larger the more it found to devourer. It was when the minstrel’s cadre met the creature for their final engagement that they witnessed the creature’s true destructive abilities. The Void struck out with tendrils of the darkest of night and simply winked anything it touched out of existence. Armor, shield, weapons, flesh, anything that came into contact with the beast simply vanished as if it or they had never existed. Poor Jellical was the sole survivor of that ill-fated encounter.

Reports of the Void are now beginning to filter in to the capital city. By all accounts, the abomination has grown in size and encompasses half the Barony of Halurn. It seems that the Baron’s own elite forces cannot even contain this horror as man and steed both cease to exist. The priests say that they cannot even resurrect the dead as it seems even the spirit of anyone slain by the creature is also lost. I fear that the King’s advisors may have underestimated the threat that this thing represents as they continue to ponder the problem at hand.

The Void now encompasses all the northern provinces. It is inconceivable how quickly this thing is able to spread. However, the King’s advisors say they may have a way of dealing with the Void. I find their plan preposterous, however, it seems to be the only plan that anyone has been to come up with. They intend to entrap the creature within what they refer to as a magic — antimagic containment field. I don’t even put up the pretense that I comprehend what they are blathering on about. I just pray that what they intend to do works as they say it will.

After immense research into the Void I have come to the conclusion that this entity is not a unique phenomenon as it first appeared. It is quite possible that these things may very well exist on other planes and worlds within the prime material plane. I have concluded that the creature, even though it feeds upon magical energy, may very well be susceptible to magic or items that cancel out magic.

The King’s advisors are ready to implement their plan but I fear that too much time may have elapsed since the introduction of the Void to our world. If the creature had been successfully dealt with in the early stages of its spread it is very possible that it could have been destroyed. I am casting this journal into the astral plane in the hopes that it may someday save another world from suffering the same fate as our own.

Found in the Great Library of Greyhawk.