Winning Entry 5: The Fragrant Branch of Kine
Jun 3, 2018 4:29:37 GMT
Post by sevicler on Jun 3, 2018 4:29:37 GMT
Hi again. This is my 10th submission to the Sword Design Competition and the second winning design from me. This is a bonus winner rewarded by Paul Southren for my considerable contribution to the LEGENDARY SWORDS website. However, the sword itself does not have a manufacturer as of this writing. As such, any suggestions, opinions, and criticism towards its design can and may be used to improve the sword with credits given to those who wrote them.
#10 The Fragrant Branch of Kine / Kinebranch -- the Godslayer.
THE LEGEND (you can skip this one)
This shapeshifting sword deeply ingrained the fear of True Death to the immortal angels, and existed long before the Heavenly Swords themselves.
Long ago, long before the War in Heaven, the Fragrant Branches of Kine were forged by the Deathless that dared to speak out against the gods. Wielded by their deific manifestations in their attempt to sever the bridge between the world of gods and mortals, the swords reaped a bloody harvest from the ranks of both Angels and Demons, before disappearing from the annals of history in the wake of its creators’ defeat.
Only to return to the realm of mortals once more during the darkest days of the War in Heaven, offering their incredible power to both conflicting sides of the war…
In the beginning, the Universe was created from nothing. Soon after, the world of Elatreus was created by the gods, and became a home for Elves, Dragons and other Fae creatures. All was fine and dandy.
And then a trickster god came from another plane of existence and created Mankind in the direct image of the other gods as a part of his greatest joke. This was widely regarded as a terrible decision and made a lot of people very angry.
The resident dual gods of Elatreus, the Allfather and the Sky-Mother, decided to let mankind live in Elatreus alongside the Elves. Yet unlike the Elves, the Allfather created the Heavenly Host, a court of powerful seraphim who were to be the guardians and guides for mankind.
For a little while, the people who were angered were silenced by the gods’ decision. But things were about to take a turn for the worst.
1000 years after the creation of the Heavenly Host, The Allfather and Sky-Mother senses the possibility that one day they might lose control over humans and that the humans might cease to worship them given time. Both gods began working on the Book of Fate to shackle mankind into a deterministic fate before ultimately overriding their free will and turning them into mindless automatons that will ceaselessly worship the gods for all eternity.
In order to justify this, the gods claimed that they were doing this for mankind’s own protection. A lot of people rejoiced and shed tears of happiness. Including half of all mankind.
The other half could not even complain. They knew that their children and grandchildren would not have freedom, let alone be able to make their own decisions. All they can do is wait until the book is inevitably finished and their free will overwritten.
Finally, one man dared to speak out against the gods’ decision. He wanted to save mankind’s freedom at any cost. He was granted audience by the Church, a terrible decision on their part, and passionately spoke at length in defense of mankind’s free will. The Church disagrees, citing that the Gods are wiser than any mortal and any decision they made is absolute and beyond reproach. They defended the Book of Fate with all their verbal might.
At first, it was one man against an entire court of pontiffs, clerics and priests. Soon others followed, until the Book of Fate’s defendants were almost overwhelmed by the tide of men and women who wanted to be free.
Before a riot broke out, the Heavenly Host intervened and dispersed the crowd. They proclaimed that the decision to create the Book of Fate was final, and no other input from any other source will be heard or accepted.
The disappointed mass left the church. That man was the last to leave. Before he does, he made one unforgivable remark that offended nearly everyone who defended the Book of Fate.
One overzealous cleric jumped from his spot and assaulted the man. He acted in self-defense, but the cleric died before the Heavenly Host could intervene.
Appalled by the first man that died by the hands of another man, the Heavenly Host immediately brought the defiant man to heaven to be judged. He was proclaimed guilty of the first murder, and as a result he had been irreversibly cursed by the gods and exiled. His fate was sealed, but he sought to shed the yoke of fate nonetheless, an act that compelled him to travel to the furthest reaches of the world.
A ruined land far across the seas bore the fruits of the god-forsaken man’s efforts. Here, he found the shattered remnants of beings that had once ruled the skies and the ether beyond long before the coming of the gods, but finally vanquished by them; and he knew, without a shadow of doubt, that these remnants were the key to his salvation. He vowed to carry their power away with him, for he had long believed that the mortals of Elatreus should no longer be bound by the will of the gods and should decide their fate for themselves, just as he is about to do.
From this bounty, he sacrificed many for his ambition. At first, men and women both good and evil disappeared, then members of other species, before he moved on to the Elves, jealous of their biological immortality. Finally, even Angels and Demons did not escape the cursed man’s ire and were captured and experimented on like their mortal brethren. And after countless test subjects and experiments beyond the scope of ethics and morality, the cursed man was no more.
Domas Rahm, First of the Deathless, took his place. But his rebirth was merely the first step of his plan. For the lands where he was reborn were also the lands where the weapons that were once wielded by these primordial entities were also buried, each blade made of metals that defied any attempts of classification and so large they could vertically bisect a Titan.
The newborn deathless could only manage to carve off a sliver by striking the broken weapons with a concentrated burst of his incredible power, a section minuscule in comparison to the host metal but larger than the great gates of Silverleaf itself.
For months on end he labored, drawing on all his ancient and arcane knowledge from his days as a mortal man before his rebirth as well as new techniques that were invented by the High Elves of Elatreus. Much of the metal was ruined, reduced to brittle ceramics or frozen in unnatural shapes, but after a year and a day had passed, Domas Rahm finally quenched the blade in the only substance capable of binding its incredible qualities; Elven Quicksteel in liquid form.
His blade was finally finished. A blade unlike any other in existence; one that is capable of slaying both Angels and Demons with equal measure and any mortal regardless of their alignment unlike a natural Quicksteel blade that refuses to harm the innocent. Its blade was the silver of Elven Quicksteel, yet flames of cobalt and vermilion dance upon its edge. Its guard, pommel, and half its handle was blackened, coiled and twisted like the primordial host metal that it was built upon, glowing red embers spark to life and fade away upon it like kindling.
All it needed was a name, and Domas Rahm called it Kinebranch – the Godslayer. And as its legends and deeds became known to the people of Elatreus, the Kinebranch earned many names. To the elves, it was called the Fragrant Branch of Kine, named after the branches of an accursed tree whose scent could invalidate their immortality that once grew within their homeland. To the Aleutian Empire, it was known as the Rubera Mors (Red Death) or Coerula Mors (Blue Death), named after the most common recurring color of its flames upon killing an angel or demon, respectively. To the Northmen and the people of Stormwater, it is called the Angurvadal (Stream of Anguish), named after the profane flames that dance upon its edge. This particular name was allegedly given to the blade by the Smith God Valkha himself, impressed by the blade’s power and superlative construction.
The dark genesis and birth rites of this weapon he carried back to Elatreus, and there he forged more, until a dozen were created for himself and his most loyal of followers; all were made Deathless upon touching its hilt. Still, the First of the Deathless did not intend to wage war against the gods upon his return. He had simply forged these weapons to defend himself and those who chose to follow his beliefs. His vengeance against the gods will not come from violence. Instead, he chose to undermine the current perception of gods as infallible and omniscient by proving that he had shed the yoke of fate, which was the curse thrust upon him by the gods. And to encourage others to decide their own fates as well without the guidance of what he perceives as inept gods.
But upon hearing of his return and the weapons he had forged, the gods did the absolute worst thing they can possibly do; they chose to destroy him and his followers before their newfound ideology can further ‘corrupt’ the mortals they ruled.
Seraphim and Archons stepped down from the heavens to ‘judge the unworthy’ and to ‘redeem the pure’. They destroyed anyone who dared follow or even so much as heard Domas Rahm’s words, in fear that this new ideology could overrule the worship of their gods. Mortals were killed by the thousands, the rage of angels unstoppable.
Driven to defend what was left of mankind, Domas Rahm and his most loyal of followers unsheathed the Kinebranch. And for the first time in history, Seraphims and Archons died in battle, their immortality invalidated by the unnatural blade. Angels fell, lifeless, their very souls consumed by the Kinebranch’s unnatural powers.
The corpses of Seraphim and Archons littered the earth. And as he stared across the field of dead and dying, something inside Domas Rahm’s mind snapped. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the only way mankind would ever be free from the meddling of the gods would be if he were to sever the bridge between the world of deities and mortals.
The Deathless took the fight to the gods themselves, seeking to sever the bridge between gods and mortals or perhaps to seek vengeance for their lost kin. Each newly forged blade the Deathless reforged in the blood of his foes both mortal and deific as his armies tore the forces of the Divine, growing in power with every single mortal and angel that fell to its edge.
Each reforging and blood quenching made the Kinebranch more and more powerful until both heaven and hell quaked at their unsheathing. The First of the Deathless would not stop until the bridge between the world of the gods and mortals were severed. Even the Heavenly Host were left helpless and reeling in the wake of his assault. In desperation, the gods manifested themselves in Elatreus for the first and only time in history just to stop him, and even then they only barely managed to cut short his conquest.
But they were too late. Domas Rahm had destroyed the Book of Fate.
And to the horror of the gods, Domas Rahm could not be killed, for his apotheosis had far removed him from the laws and cycles that govern the universe. Realizing this, the gods elected to seal Domas Rahm across the black seas of infinity and beyond the mists of time, where his ‘evil’ could not threaten the bridge between the world of the deities and mortals forevermore.
The gods still had one more problem, however; the dozen Kinebranch blades still exist, and anyone tempted to bear their edge will inevitably become a threat to the heavens themselves. All the members of the Heavenly Host were gathered by the High Archon Shemhazai the Wise, and with their combined might attempted to destroy the Kinebranch.
They failed.
The Twelve Branches of Kine absorbed every last iota of energy the Heavenly Host unleashed to destroy them, and generated a wave of unholy energy that killed or badly injured many of the Archons and Archangels present, destroyed the heavenly building they were in, and then slipped out of time and space, vanishing before the Heavenly Host could react.
But the story of the Twelve Branches of Kine was far from over…
———————-
A thousand years and a day after the First of the Deathless was imprisoned, Shemhazai the Wise, former high archon of the Heavenly Host, betrayed the gods and sought to rule over the mortals of Elatreus.
Thus began the War in Heaven.
It was during the darkest days of this war that one of the Heavenly Host, a novice archon who was badly injured in a battle against the Fallen accidentally came upon a Kinebranch Blade as it reappeared in the material realm near the battlefield, yet did not recognize the sword for what it was because he did not yet exist when the Heavenly Host had attempted to destroy the Kinebranch Blades so many years ago.
Another surviving member of the Fallen spotted the injured Archon, and immediately rushed upon him, seeking to run him down and present his head to Shemhazai.
Injured and unarmed, the novice archon had no choice but to take up the Kinebranch to defend himself. As he wrapped his hands around the accursed blade, cobalt flames flared to life upon its edge and the blade shuddered and writhed as if it were alive.
As the Fallen bore down upon him, the Kinebranch had taken on a different shape; the shape of the Archon’s own heavenly blade he had lost in the earlier battle. His weapon readied, the Archon assaulted the Fallen in self-defense.
What he saw next would forever burn into his memory. As he defeated the Fallen, the Kinebranch did not simply banish the Fallen from the material realm like the weapons of his kin does, instead it flayed the flesh from the Fallen’s bone, and then the bone from his marrow as it utterly consumed its victim down to his very soul.
Nothing was left of the Fallen that had attempted to kill him, and the Archon was left in shock. The Kinebranch then used the energy it had absorbed from the Fallen to heal its wielder, rejuvenating him and bringing him back to full health.
To the novice archon, this was a weapon that could not be ignored; a weapon that could turn the tide of the war by preventing the Fallen from resurrecting their defeated soldiers.
The Archon then took up the Kinebranch as his primary weapon. With it, he reaped a bloody harvest upon the ranks of the Fallen. Many of Shemhazai’s finest warriors and greatest creations fell to the Kinebranch’s edge as the war progresses.
That is, until said Archon met his end at the hands of another Fallen during a battle so cataclysmic it shattered the skies, damaged the moon itself, and destroyed both duelling Fallen and Archon; sending fragments of the moon down to Elatreus. Yet another Fallen spotted the Kinebranch as it fell to the ground and embedded itself in the middle of a crater caused by fragments of the moon that had fallen upon Elatreus. He took up the blade, just as the Archon did, and became its newest bearer. And like the Archon before him, he killed many of the Heavenly Host with the Kinebranch. This time, it took on the shape of a black spear pulsating with dark energy. Vermillion flames danced upon its blade as it consumed the soul of the holy angels.
That was just one of many Kinebranch blades that returned during the War in Heaven. Each forged their own dark legacy over the course of the War, constantly switching hands between the side of The Fallen and the Host, each time taking up different forms and killing the forces of good and evil in equal measure, all the while growing ever more powerful. Beneath the carnage and blood it spilled, the Kinebranch nearly lost its own name, and abandoned its original, default form, making the blades nearly impossible to identify. It was merely known as the Immortal-Slayer by those who wielded it. The more it kills, the more it can kill, as its abilities are unlocked one by one with every soul consumed. Each time a thousand thousand put to the sword.
But over the course of the war, the Kinebranch Blades only had one objective given by its creator before he sent it back to the material realm; kill as many divine and demonic beings as possible, and cut down the length and intensity of the War in Heaven. As such, it never bestowed its divine bearer with its defensive powers other than healing, and always engineers its bearer’s fall when it grew tired of them, switching sides whenever it wants.
Until one day, Abdiel; High Seraphim, leader of the Heavenly Host and younger brother of Shemhazai, learnt of the Kinebranch’s return and presence in the war. Although the accursed blade had killed so many of the Fallen, carved a path straight to Shemhazai himself, and perhaps cut down the length of the war by its sheer power, it had also killed many of his brother angels, and he could not allow this blade to exist any longer.
Nothing should ever threaten the Dominion of Heaven over Mortals.
This time, the current bearer of the Kinebranch was a member of the Fallen that calls itself Duothwu, High Champion of the Fallen. Abdiel took to the field and personally dueled this Fallen, risking his very existence in order to stop the accursed blade from gathering more power.
Sensing Abdiel’s presence, the Kinebranch unleashed many of its abilities against the High Seraphim, shapeshifting into the form of a greatsword as large as the parent blade it was forged partially from, which well suited Duothwu’s massive size and strength. Its edge met the Seraphim’s holy flesh many times, but it could not consume his soul like so many others.
For Abdiel had used a gift given to him by the Lord of Light himself; a talisman of pure sunlight wrought by His hand. The holy sunlight consecrated the ground and air around Abdiel, robbing the Kinebranch and Duothwu from a measure of their power. And protecting his soul from the Kinebranch’s endless hunger for the divine.
Even with this advantage, it was all Abdiel could do to counter Duothwu’s mighty blows and resist the accursed blade powering him. And to his dismay, the Kinebranch began hammering away at Abdiel’s mind, crying out for release and promising a swift end to Duothwu, if only he would accept. The Seraphim stoically ignored the screams of the blade.
For days Abdiel and the Bearer of the Kinebranch duelled until Duothwu noticed his blade began to weaken and run out of energy. Totally focused on slaying Abdiel, the Fallen had ignored the possibility that the Kinebranch was so weakened by holy sunlight that it was no longer powerful enough to fight a High Seraphim. With a final curse and a promise of grim retribution, Duothwu was banished from the mortal realm by Abdiel’s own angelic blade.
The Kinebranch fell to the ground amid the blood and corpses of that terrible duel’s aftermath, shifting back into its default form and leaving its hollow, mocking laughter in Abdiel’s mind. It then congratulates Abdiel for his victory, and once more offered its power to destroy the Fallen once and for all. And bring an end to the War in Heaven forevermore.
None could say for certain what would happen if Abdiel were to take up the Kinebranch and used it against the Fallen. Some believe that had he became the Kinebranch’s next bearer, the Cataclysmic Wars never would have happened, the Fallen and their creations would have been entirely destroyed, and the Flame of the Host and Brand of the Fallen would not have existed. This meant that by extension the Cataclysmic Wars never would have happened. Still others believe that the Kinebranch’s very presence corrupts its wielders, and not even a Seraphim such as Abdiel could withstand its unrelenting whispers for long. They reasoned that had he taken up the blade he would not have been better than the Fallen he had fought. And he would have most likely been consumed by the Kinebranch like so many of his brethren, once it had engineered his fall.
Whatever the possibility may be, Abdiel refused. Instead, he called down all the powers of the Allfather, Sky-mother and the Heavens themselves upon the accursed blade, intent on eliminating every trace of its existence from reality.
The Kinebranch’s blade was shattered into eight pieces, but was not completely destroyed. Abdiel took three of its shards away, intent on bringing it back to Heaven where they would be safe and could not influence anyone forevermore.
But before he could obtain the final five pieces, which constitutes the lower half of its blade and its hilt, the Kinebranch’s Fragments slipped out of time and space once again, the other eleven Branches of Kine followed suit, never to reappear in the mortal realm.
With the disappearance of the other Branches of Kine, Abdiel was convinced that the legacy of Domas Rahm the First Heretic is finally over.
Or so it would seem…
For Abdiel had made a mistake. He only damaged one. And he was incapable of the destroying the other eleven.
And now, a prophecy had just recently came down from the Oracles of the Aleutian Empire. A prophecy that foretold the coming of the End Times.
And of the eight signs of the End Times, the first of which would be the return of the Kinebranch. The second would be the return of its creator; Domas Rahm, First of the Deathless….
THE SWORD ITSELF
As I've mentioned, the Kinebranch Blades has no manufacturer as of this writing and its very design is not yet set in stone. I haven't even finished designing a scabbard for it. Paul and I originally discussed having Darksword Armory as its manufacturer, but after I gathered some feedback in this thread I told Paul I would not risk my having my design break under intended use.
I envisioned the Kinebranch to be the exact same size as a DSA Anduril, clocking in at 48 inches in total length; 36 inches of blade length and 12 inches of handle length.
The weight is currently unknown but it should not be too unwieldy. Price point is also unknown, but expect an $750+ price tag at the very least, measured against Darksword Armory's comparable designs.
#10 The Fragrant Branch of Kine / Kinebranch -- the Godslayer.
THE LEGEND (you can skip this one)
This shapeshifting sword deeply ingrained the fear of True Death to the immortal angels, and existed long before the Heavenly Swords themselves.
Long ago, long before the War in Heaven, the Fragrant Branches of Kine were forged by the Deathless that dared to speak out against the gods. Wielded by their deific manifestations in their attempt to sever the bridge between the world of gods and mortals, the swords reaped a bloody harvest from the ranks of both Angels and Demons, before disappearing from the annals of history in the wake of its creators’ defeat.
Only to return to the realm of mortals once more during the darkest days of the War in Heaven, offering their incredible power to both conflicting sides of the war…
~The Wolfhall Scrolls, recently found fragments of the Elder Tomes.
In the beginning, the Universe was created from nothing. Soon after, the world of Elatreus was created by the gods, and became a home for Elves, Dragons and other Fae creatures. All was fine and dandy.
And then a trickster god came from another plane of existence and created Mankind in the direct image of the other gods as a part of his greatest joke. This was widely regarded as a terrible decision and made a lot of people very angry.
The resident dual gods of Elatreus, the Allfather and the Sky-Mother, decided to let mankind live in Elatreus alongside the Elves. Yet unlike the Elves, the Allfather created the Heavenly Host, a court of powerful seraphim who were to be the guardians and guides for mankind.
For a little while, the people who were angered were silenced by the gods’ decision. But things were about to take a turn for the worst.
1000 years after the creation of the Heavenly Host, The Allfather and Sky-Mother senses the possibility that one day they might lose control over humans and that the humans might cease to worship them given time. Both gods began working on the Book of Fate to shackle mankind into a deterministic fate before ultimately overriding their free will and turning them into mindless automatons that will ceaselessly worship the gods for all eternity.
In order to justify this, the gods claimed that they were doing this for mankind’s own protection. A lot of people rejoiced and shed tears of happiness. Including half of all mankind.
The other half could not even complain. They knew that their children and grandchildren would not have freedom, let alone be able to make their own decisions. All they can do is wait until the book is inevitably finished and their free will overwritten.
Finally, one man dared to speak out against the gods’ decision. He wanted to save mankind’s freedom at any cost. He was granted audience by the Church, a terrible decision on their part, and passionately spoke at length in defense of mankind’s free will. The Church disagrees, citing that the Gods are wiser than any mortal and any decision they made is absolute and beyond reproach. They defended the Book of Fate with all their verbal might.
At first, it was one man against an entire court of pontiffs, clerics and priests. Soon others followed, until the Book of Fate’s defendants were almost overwhelmed by the tide of men and women who wanted to be free.
Before a riot broke out, the Heavenly Host intervened and dispersed the crowd. They proclaimed that the decision to create the Book of Fate was final, and no other input from any other source will be heard or accepted.
The disappointed mass left the church. That man was the last to leave. Before he does, he made one unforgivable remark that offended nearly everyone who defended the Book of Fate.
One overzealous cleric jumped from his spot and assaulted the man. He acted in self-defense, but the cleric died before the Heavenly Host could intervene.
Appalled by the first man that died by the hands of another man, the Heavenly Host immediately brought the defiant man to heaven to be judged. He was proclaimed guilty of the first murder, and as a result he had been irreversibly cursed by the gods and exiled. His fate was sealed, but he sought to shed the yoke of fate nonetheless, an act that compelled him to travel to the furthest reaches of the world.
A ruined land far across the seas bore the fruits of the god-forsaken man’s efforts. Here, he found the shattered remnants of beings that had once ruled the skies and the ether beyond long before the coming of the gods, but finally vanquished by them; and he knew, without a shadow of doubt, that these remnants were the key to his salvation. He vowed to carry their power away with him, for he had long believed that the mortals of Elatreus should no longer be bound by the will of the gods and should decide their fate for themselves, just as he is about to do.
From this bounty, he sacrificed many for his ambition. At first, men and women both good and evil disappeared, then members of other species, before he moved on to the Elves, jealous of their biological immortality. Finally, even Angels and Demons did not escape the cursed man’s ire and were captured and experimented on like their mortal brethren. And after countless test subjects and experiments beyond the scope of ethics and morality, the cursed man was no more.
Domas Rahm, First of the Deathless, took his place. But his rebirth was merely the first step of his plan. For the lands where he was reborn were also the lands where the weapons that were once wielded by these primordial entities were also buried, each blade made of metals that defied any attempts of classification and so large they could vertically bisect a Titan.
The newborn deathless could only manage to carve off a sliver by striking the broken weapons with a concentrated burst of his incredible power, a section minuscule in comparison to the host metal but larger than the great gates of Silverleaf itself.
For months on end he labored, drawing on all his ancient and arcane knowledge from his days as a mortal man before his rebirth as well as new techniques that were invented by the High Elves of Elatreus. Much of the metal was ruined, reduced to brittle ceramics or frozen in unnatural shapes, but after a year and a day had passed, Domas Rahm finally quenched the blade in the only substance capable of binding its incredible qualities; Elven Quicksteel in liquid form.
His blade was finally finished. A blade unlike any other in existence; one that is capable of slaying both Angels and Demons with equal measure and any mortal regardless of their alignment unlike a natural Quicksteel blade that refuses to harm the innocent. Its blade was the silver of Elven Quicksteel, yet flames of cobalt and vermilion dance upon its edge. Its guard, pommel, and half its handle was blackened, coiled and twisted like the primordial host metal that it was built upon, glowing red embers spark to life and fade away upon it like kindling.
All it needed was a name, and Domas Rahm called it Kinebranch – the Godslayer. And as its legends and deeds became known to the people of Elatreus, the Kinebranch earned many names. To the elves, it was called the Fragrant Branch of Kine, named after the branches of an accursed tree whose scent could invalidate their immortality that once grew within their homeland. To the Aleutian Empire, it was known as the Rubera Mors (Red Death) or Coerula Mors (Blue Death), named after the most common recurring color of its flames upon killing an angel or demon, respectively. To the Northmen and the people of Stormwater, it is called the Angurvadal (Stream of Anguish), named after the profane flames that dance upon its edge. This particular name was allegedly given to the blade by the Smith God Valkha himself, impressed by the blade’s power and superlative construction.
The dark genesis and birth rites of this weapon he carried back to Elatreus, and there he forged more, until a dozen were created for himself and his most loyal of followers; all were made Deathless upon touching its hilt. Still, the First of the Deathless did not intend to wage war against the gods upon his return. He had simply forged these weapons to defend himself and those who chose to follow his beliefs. His vengeance against the gods will not come from violence. Instead, he chose to undermine the current perception of gods as infallible and omniscient by proving that he had shed the yoke of fate, which was the curse thrust upon him by the gods. And to encourage others to decide their own fates as well without the guidance of what he perceives as inept gods.
But upon hearing of his return and the weapons he had forged, the gods did the absolute worst thing they can possibly do; they chose to destroy him and his followers before their newfound ideology can further ‘corrupt’ the mortals they ruled.
Seraphim and Archons stepped down from the heavens to ‘judge the unworthy’ and to ‘redeem the pure’. They destroyed anyone who dared follow or even so much as heard Domas Rahm’s words, in fear that this new ideology could overrule the worship of their gods. Mortals were killed by the thousands, the rage of angels unstoppable.
Driven to defend what was left of mankind, Domas Rahm and his most loyal of followers unsheathed the Kinebranch. And for the first time in history, Seraphims and Archons died in battle, their immortality invalidated by the unnatural blade. Angels fell, lifeless, their very souls consumed by the Kinebranch’s unnatural powers.
The corpses of Seraphim and Archons littered the earth. And as he stared across the field of dead and dying, something inside Domas Rahm’s mind snapped. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the only way mankind would ever be free from the meddling of the gods would be if he were to sever the bridge between the world of deities and mortals.
The Deathless took the fight to the gods themselves, seeking to sever the bridge between gods and mortals or perhaps to seek vengeance for their lost kin. Each newly forged blade the Deathless reforged in the blood of his foes both mortal and deific as his armies tore the forces of the Divine, growing in power with every single mortal and angel that fell to its edge.
Each reforging and blood quenching made the Kinebranch more and more powerful until both heaven and hell quaked at their unsheathing. The First of the Deathless would not stop until the bridge between the world of the gods and mortals were severed. Even the Heavenly Host were left helpless and reeling in the wake of his assault. In desperation, the gods manifested themselves in Elatreus for the first and only time in history just to stop him, and even then they only barely managed to cut short his conquest.
But they were too late. Domas Rahm had destroyed the Book of Fate.
And to the horror of the gods, Domas Rahm could not be killed, for his apotheosis had far removed him from the laws and cycles that govern the universe. Realizing this, the gods elected to seal Domas Rahm across the black seas of infinity and beyond the mists of time, where his ‘evil’ could not threaten the bridge between the world of the deities and mortals forevermore.
The gods still had one more problem, however; the dozen Kinebranch blades still exist, and anyone tempted to bear their edge will inevitably become a threat to the heavens themselves. All the members of the Heavenly Host were gathered by the High Archon Shemhazai the Wise, and with their combined might attempted to destroy the Kinebranch.
They failed.
The Twelve Branches of Kine absorbed every last iota of energy the Heavenly Host unleashed to destroy them, and generated a wave of unholy energy that killed or badly injured many of the Archons and Archangels present, destroyed the heavenly building they were in, and then slipped out of time and space, vanishing before the Heavenly Host could react.
But the story of the Twelve Branches of Kine was far from over…
———————-
A thousand years and a day after the First of the Deathless was imprisoned, Shemhazai the Wise, former high archon of the Heavenly Host, betrayed the gods and sought to rule over the mortals of Elatreus.
Thus began the War in Heaven.
It was during the darkest days of this war that one of the Heavenly Host, a novice archon who was badly injured in a battle against the Fallen accidentally came upon a Kinebranch Blade as it reappeared in the material realm near the battlefield, yet did not recognize the sword for what it was because he did not yet exist when the Heavenly Host had attempted to destroy the Kinebranch Blades so many years ago.
Another surviving member of the Fallen spotted the injured Archon, and immediately rushed upon him, seeking to run him down and present his head to Shemhazai.
Injured and unarmed, the novice archon had no choice but to take up the Kinebranch to defend himself. As he wrapped his hands around the accursed blade, cobalt flames flared to life upon its edge and the blade shuddered and writhed as if it were alive.
As the Fallen bore down upon him, the Kinebranch had taken on a different shape; the shape of the Archon’s own heavenly blade he had lost in the earlier battle. His weapon readied, the Archon assaulted the Fallen in self-defense.
What he saw next would forever burn into his memory. As he defeated the Fallen, the Kinebranch did not simply banish the Fallen from the material realm like the weapons of his kin does, instead it flayed the flesh from the Fallen’s bone, and then the bone from his marrow as it utterly consumed its victim down to his very soul.
Nothing was left of the Fallen that had attempted to kill him, and the Archon was left in shock. The Kinebranch then used the energy it had absorbed from the Fallen to heal its wielder, rejuvenating him and bringing him back to full health.
To the novice archon, this was a weapon that could not be ignored; a weapon that could turn the tide of the war by preventing the Fallen from resurrecting their defeated soldiers.
The Archon then took up the Kinebranch as his primary weapon. With it, he reaped a bloody harvest upon the ranks of the Fallen. Many of Shemhazai’s finest warriors and greatest creations fell to the Kinebranch’s edge as the war progresses.
That is, until said Archon met his end at the hands of another Fallen during a battle so cataclysmic it shattered the skies, damaged the moon itself, and destroyed both duelling Fallen and Archon; sending fragments of the moon down to Elatreus. Yet another Fallen spotted the Kinebranch as it fell to the ground and embedded itself in the middle of a crater caused by fragments of the moon that had fallen upon Elatreus. He took up the blade, just as the Archon did, and became its newest bearer. And like the Archon before him, he killed many of the Heavenly Host with the Kinebranch. This time, it took on the shape of a black spear pulsating with dark energy. Vermillion flames danced upon its blade as it consumed the soul of the holy angels.
That was just one of many Kinebranch blades that returned during the War in Heaven. Each forged their own dark legacy over the course of the War, constantly switching hands between the side of The Fallen and the Host, each time taking up different forms and killing the forces of good and evil in equal measure, all the while growing ever more powerful. Beneath the carnage and blood it spilled, the Kinebranch nearly lost its own name, and abandoned its original, default form, making the blades nearly impossible to identify. It was merely known as the Immortal-Slayer by those who wielded it. The more it kills, the more it can kill, as its abilities are unlocked one by one with every soul consumed. Each time a thousand thousand put to the sword.
But over the course of the war, the Kinebranch Blades only had one objective given by its creator before he sent it back to the material realm; kill as many divine and demonic beings as possible, and cut down the length and intensity of the War in Heaven. As such, it never bestowed its divine bearer with its defensive powers other than healing, and always engineers its bearer’s fall when it grew tired of them, switching sides whenever it wants.
Until one day, Abdiel; High Seraphim, leader of the Heavenly Host and younger brother of Shemhazai, learnt of the Kinebranch’s return and presence in the war. Although the accursed blade had killed so many of the Fallen, carved a path straight to Shemhazai himself, and perhaps cut down the length of the war by its sheer power, it had also killed many of his brother angels, and he could not allow this blade to exist any longer.
Nothing should ever threaten the Dominion of Heaven over Mortals.
This time, the current bearer of the Kinebranch was a member of the Fallen that calls itself Duothwu, High Champion of the Fallen. Abdiel took to the field and personally dueled this Fallen, risking his very existence in order to stop the accursed blade from gathering more power.
Sensing Abdiel’s presence, the Kinebranch unleashed many of its abilities against the High Seraphim, shapeshifting into the form of a greatsword as large as the parent blade it was forged partially from, which well suited Duothwu’s massive size and strength. Its edge met the Seraphim’s holy flesh many times, but it could not consume his soul like so many others.
For Abdiel had used a gift given to him by the Lord of Light himself; a talisman of pure sunlight wrought by His hand. The holy sunlight consecrated the ground and air around Abdiel, robbing the Kinebranch and Duothwu from a measure of their power. And protecting his soul from the Kinebranch’s endless hunger for the divine.
Even with this advantage, it was all Abdiel could do to counter Duothwu’s mighty blows and resist the accursed blade powering him. And to his dismay, the Kinebranch began hammering away at Abdiel’s mind, crying out for release and promising a swift end to Duothwu, if only he would accept. The Seraphim stoically ignored the screams of the blade.
For days Abdiel and the Bearer of the Kinebranch duelled until Duothwu noticed his blade began to weaken and run out of energy. Totally focused on slaying Abdiel, the Fallen had ignored the possibility that the Kinebranch was so weakened by holy sunlight that it was no longer powerful enough to fight a High Seraphim. With a final curse and a promise of grim retribution, Duothwu was banished from the mortal realm by Abdiel’s own angelic blade.
The Kinebranch fell to the ground amid the blood and corpses of that terrible duel’s aftermath, shifting back into its default form and leaving its hollow, mocking laughter in Abdiel’s mind. It then congratulates Abdiel for his victory, and once more offered its power to destroy the Fallen once and for all. And bring an end to the War in Heaven forevermore.
None could say for certain what would happen if Abdiel were to take up the Kinebranch and used it against the Fallen. Some believe that had he became the Kinebranch’s next bearer, the Cataclysmic Wars never would have happened, the Fallen and their creations would have been entirely destroyed, and the Flame of the Host and Brand of the Fallen would not have existed. This meant that by extension the Cataclysmic Wars never would have happened. Still others believe that the Kinebranch’s very presence corrupts its wielders, and not even a Seraphim such as Abdiel could withstand its unrelenting whispers for long. They reasoned that had he taken up the blade he would not have been better than the Fallen he had fought. And he would have most likely been consumed by the Kinebranch like so many of his brethren, once it had engineered his fall.
Whatever the possibility may be, Abdiel refused. Instead, he called down all the powers of the Allfather, Sky-mother and the Heavens themselves upon the accursed blade, intent on eliminating every trace of its existence from reality.
The Kinebranch’s blade was shattered into eight pieces, but was not completely destroyed. Abdiel took three of its shards away, intent on bringing it back to Heaven where they would be safe and could not influence anyone forevermore.
But before he could obtain the final five pieces, which constitutes the lower half of its blade and its hilt, the Kinebranch’s Fragments slipped out of time and space once again, the other eleven Branches of Kine followed suit, never to reappear in the mortal realm.
With the disappearance of the other Branches of Kine, Abdiel was convinced that the legacy of Domas Rahm the First Heretic is finally over.
Or so it would seem…
For Abdiel had made a mistake. He only damaged one. And he was incapable of the destroying the other eleven.
And now, a prophecy had just recently came down from the Oracles of the Aleutian Empire. A prophecy that foretold the coming of the End Times.
And of the eight signs of the End Times, the first of which would be the return of the Kinebranch. The second would be the return of its creator; Domas Rahm, First of the Deathless….
THE SWORD ITSELF
As I've mentioned, the Kinebranch Blades has no manufacturer as of this writing and its very design is not yet set in stone. I haven't even finished designing a scabbard for it. Paul and I originally discussed having Darksword Armory as its manufacturer, but after I gathered some feedback in this thread I told Paul I would not risk my having my design break under intended use.
I envisioned the Kinebranch to be the exact same size as a DSA Anduril, clocking in at 48 inches in total length; 36 inches of blade length and 12 inches of handle length.
The weight is currently unknown but it should not be too unwieldy. Price point is also unknown, but expect an $750+ price tag at the very least, measured against Darksword Armory's comparable designs.
Things have changed!