Steem Monsters Fantasy Lore // ⚡The Legend of Uhlgar and the Lightning⚡

On a salty beach of ΛZMΛRÉ, a herd of small Uman children are wildly committed to their evening play as a tired old fisherman attempts to wrangle them in for bedtime preparations. He hopes to get off the beach and back to the island family’s cozy home before dark. A couple of the older kids are attempting to feed the smallest one, Curtis, to a large and curious Tortoise that is poking its massive head out of the water. The fisherman is not worried; he knows the Tortoises are vegetarians and there is little likelihood the boys will succeed in their sadistic plan.

After swimming offshore to recover the little red-headed one (who for some reason always swims toward the Dark Water), the old fisherman’s patience has expired. All the children know there will be no more delays, and they gather round their Papa as he inspects the riggings of his boat.

The children stand in silence, a tiny crowd around a huge man. They know that it is time for the bedtime story, and Papa’s stories never disappoint. The old fisherman is silent for several long moments, trying to decide whether or not the children are old enough for the Legend of Uhlgar the Wicked. Finally deciding they are not, but that they need to hear it anyway, the fisherman begins to tell the story.

Have I ever told you kids about the lightning? Didn’t think so. You see those clouds over yonder, forming on the horizon. Those are the lightning clouds. They come every night about this time, they spread, they cover, and before long, the world that you know is a blanket of hazy, wet darkness.

Inside those clouds, there is a force that is beyond any of us, the lightning. It lives and it destroys, and it hunts the air-breathers. This is why we never go out at night. Night is the time for much bigger monsters to play.

The lightning in those clouds is special. It carries a treacherous hatred, a destructive hunger. That hunger, like everything in ΛZMΛRÉ, can be traced back to a story.

This is the story of Uhlgar the Wicked.

Uhlgar was a great sorcerer of the ancient world, long before the Splintering. He was known for his incredible abilities to harness the power of the weather, sometimes even control it. Uhlgar loved the lightning more than anything, eventually worshipping it as a god. He would stand on a great cliff overlooking the Outer Ocean and make prayers and sacrifices to the lightning.

Uhlgar pretended to serve the lightning, but in his heart he wanted only power for himself, and dark, mysterious forces came to answer his pleas. One stormy night, Uhlgar’s sacrifice was accepted and he was granted a small fraction of the lightning’s power.

Uhlgar had made many enemies through the years, and he used his new lightning powers to travel the known world and track down those enemies, blasting them one by one to dust. Before long, there were no enemies left to destroy, but still Uhlgar wanted more power. He begged and cried into the storm on the great precipice, but the lightning would not grant him greater power.

Uhlgar traveled the world collecting secrets of the dark and twisted. Everything your mother and I tell you children to stay away from, he embraced. His studies and deeds during this time are long lost, and it’s a good thing. It’s as if Uhlgar went to the Dark Water and swam down. He just kept swimming, down into the endless black unknown.

Somewhere in his travels, Uhlgar learned that only a sacrifice of pure innocence would buy him the power he sought. They say it took him many long years, but finally he found the form of pure innocence. The Stories don’t remember what the form was, but my guess is it probably looked a lot like one of you, the little ones.

Uhlgar dragged that sacrifice of innocence all the way to the top of the same great precipice, they say in the most terrifying storm the world had ever seen. There, Uhlgar the Wicked succeeded with his ghastly plan, sacrificing innocence itself for greater power. Immediately after the fatal stroke, the storm swelled, Uhlgar’s blade was struck by a tremendous bolt of lightning, and he vanished.

Some say he simply disappeared. Others say he was vaporized. But I say the same as every fisherman of this great Archipelago: Uhlgar became the lightning. It was his blessing, his punishment and his curse for evermore.

Trouble is, now everything that Uhlgar the Wicked was lives on in that lightning. And if I were him, I wouldn’t like being trapped in there. So that’s the story of Uhlgar the Wicked and the Lightning. Let’s get you kids home.

As the sun disappears over the western horizon and the clouds gather in the distance, the herd of children could not be more eager to get home after the story. They basically pull their Papa all the way home like sled dogs while he wears a huge, victorious grin. Later that night, however, when half of the little ones wet the bed and the other half cannot sleep, the old fisherman gets quite the tongue lashing from their Mama. Apparently, they’re still a little young for that story. Too late.

---

Artwork by @candycal and Serge!
Edited, formatted, and text dividers by @carrieallen.

Lore written by @chrisroberts. He and his wife @carrieallen are currently finishing up the backstories and lore for all the Splinterlands, and working with @zipporah to complete the book. He will be offering sneak peeks, accompanied by brand-new artwork created by the Steem Monsters Team. Both Carrie and Chris prefer you refer to them as The Masters of Lore.😎

The Team is currently building up to launch a Kickstarter for the 150+ page campaign guidebook. Keep on the lookout for announcements and more inside scoops about the Splinterlands.

---

New to Steem Monsters? Check it out HERE

Meet us in Discord: https://discord.gg/jd8SKBq