Omydia's Chalice

AN ANCIENT ACCURSED GOBLET

The richly ornamented goblet known as Omydia’s Chalice has for centuries carried with it a dark reputation. Carved of polished stranglewood and bejeweled with small carats of manastone, it is said to have once belonged to Lady Omydia, the wife of Jasuke, one of the seven Praetors of Gran Valeyra. While Jasuke was renowned throughout Valeyra as general of the Ist Auric Legion, Omydia was reclusive, rarely seen in the public eye. On the rare occasions that she was spotted outside their lofty villa, she was draped in layers of black and her skin pale as snow. Rumors circulated that she was the gyre carline of a vast coven of witches hidden throughout the Viridian Hinterland, or that she was one of the last true adherants of the Gods of Heaven and Hell. Still others said she was a bloodmage who had succumbed to the curse of vampyrism. Whatever the truth may be has been lost to time, but it is known that on the eve of the Plague of Valeyra’s onset, Omydia uncharacteristically hosted a great feast for her husband and his fellow Praetors. One by one, they drank from her chalice, from which she abstained. Within a fortnight, all seven generals had died of the plague, along with the Emperor and nearly all the citizens of Gran Valeyra, save Omydia herself. What happened to Omydia is unknown, but the chalice has changed hands many times over the centuries, each successive owner meeting a worse fate than the last.

Omydia’s Chalice currently sits within the watervaults beneath the island prison of Bitterill. It had at one time come into the possession of the cruel magistrate, Madrazo, who would force the prisoners to drink from the goblet, wishing to see the curse in action. However, the tables were turned during the first Bitterill Riot when the escaped prisoners caged Madrazo in the watervaults with nothing but saltwater - or a sip from Omydia’s Chalice to quench his thirst. It has remained within the vaults, clutched between Madrazo’s barnacled finger bones, to this day.

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