Simmering Souls

The great necromancer, **Aeron Zacharias**, secretly forged at least four simmering souls while he was still alive, a rite likely recorded in the lost, forbidden texts of the **Deathdredd**. Little is known about how he created the simmering souls. However, it is likely he was trying to supplant the great deity ***Death*** to avoid mortality and gain ultimate power as the new **god of Death**. However, Aeron Zacharias apparently failed leaving behind the simmering souls and the Deathdredd as his lasting legacies.

Simmering souls are the undead creations of Aeron Zacharias. They are powerful, ghoulish spectors that have the potential to provide great stregnth and power to the hosts they are bound to. Little is known about them except that they are immortal an so far can only be truly injured by a **Bloodbane dagger**, which is forged from the body of a captured Blightwolf.

All simmering souls enhance their hosts significantly. However, the toll of of sharing a bond with one of the simmering souls is a vast hunger for food, flesh, and violence. The longer a host is possessed, the stronger these urges become.

## The Simmering Souls

* **The Wraith King**: although his true name has long been forgotten, the legacy he left behind has not been. The Wraith King was a man who had conquered their lands centuries past. The man had "slaughtered their people and used them as slaves to build the massive Slaybourne Citadel... he had decimated any who challenged to his rule... The master of Slaybourne was no mortal man, but a man of war, blood, and fear. A man of murder, lawlessness, and chaos. Of pure evil..." The Wraith King was a talented necromancer in his own right yet somehow, lost to his own memory, his fallen mortal form was harnessed to create one of the four simmering souls. The Wraith King is now bound to the form of a formless ghoul who is forced to bond to a living host to continue "surviving." The Wraith King was previously bound to the tyrant King, Henry for over a decade, where he conquered and subjugated Saldia, until he was betrayed by one of his subordinates. Mortally injured, the King fled through a portal into an ancient ruin where he had the misfortune to run into Connor Magnuson, a drifter who was drawn to the cries of the child Henry accosted and terrorized while trying to perserve his own life. In a twist no one could have seen, the drifter bonded to the simmering soul, when Henry died.
	+ As the new Wraithblade, Connor Magnuson finds himself enhanced in ways he never thought possible. The muscles in his body bulked out impressively consequently increasing his natural physical strength. His senses of sight and smell also significantly increased. With the favor of his simmering soul, Connor gains the ability to manifest twin shadow blades as well as a similarly manifested shield. He also finds all his appetites multiplied as well. The cravings for food, sex, and violence become annoyingly persistent urge. While he indulges his increased appetite for food, Connor resists his other cravings, even as they grow stronger.
* **The Feral King:** less is known about this simmering soul. Bound to the alpha blightwolf **Farkas,** the Feral King is far more savage and animalistic in attitude and nature. It is not known what manner of creature Aeron Zacharias used to create the Feral King, though his appearance as a wraithlike wolf would indicate he has some further connection to the Blightwolves. Following his defeat in the Wraithblade, Zander Starling found himself nearly mortally injured. The only way he was able to survive when the Blightwolves came to kill him was enslaving the alpha with a **Bridletame helm.** By enslaving the alpha, the other blightwolves backed off leaving Zander safe from their savagery. However, he was in for a surprise during the events of *Wraithorged* when once he had made his escape the alpha was able to buck the control of the Bridletame helm. Raging against the events that had gone far beyond his plans. A mount breaking the helms influence should have been impossible, unless of course said alpha was possessed by the simmering soul of the Feral King. Impressed by the Starlings tenacity, the Feral king allowed Zander to challenge Farkas in a battle of life and death. Enraged by the defeat he had already suffered and furious at his circumstances, Zander had no choice but to submit to the duel, though he knew killing the host would inevitably mean he would become the new host to the Feral King. Conflicted, Zander considers the ramifications of those circumstances. He would be an abomination... yet he would potentially gain the power to be on even ground to defeat the Wraithblade who had unforgivably shamed him.
	+ During the events of Wraithforged, Zander Starling slays the host of the Feral King and subsequently becomes the new host of the Feral King. Instead of following the urge to find the Wraithblade and challenge him again on equal footing Zander finds himself forced to follow the directions of the simmering soul he is bonded to. A gathering of all the Blightwolf clans is to occur and although he is currently the Feral King's host he is warned that it may be a temporary thing. Zander must still prove himself worthy of being the Feral King's host to the hordes of Blightwolves that will be gathering soon. Zander has far more pressing concerns that seeking revenge as his very future and life is on the line.
* **Other simmering souls:** Not much is known about the remaining simmering souls. Allegedly, the Starlings had destroyed the simmering souls in a campaign decades before the events of the Wraithblade. However. with the emergence of both the Wraith King and the Feral King, that lie has been revealed. There is no indication that the remaining two missing simmering souls were captured or destroyed by the Lightseers. Though it seems likely that they too remain at large.