Curse of Ravana

The Curse of Ravana is an ancient energy found at the Ravana Ruins, predating The Avari by an undetermined period. It distributes itself among people present when released, grants immortality, and causes progressive physical degradation. All five shares are currently entrenched in the earth at and around the Castillon Rift.

What It Is

An ancient power found at the Ravana Ruins. Its origin is unknown — it predates The Avari by an undetermined period, and the ruins suggest it has been accessed before.

The energy is not a substance or conventional force. It distributes itself, moves when its host dies, and appears attracted to things with accumulated history — long-lived people and ancient landscapes. Severin Falkenrath’s solo attempt before 1282 nearly killed him and left him permanently scarred.

Rules & Mechanics

Distribution: When released in the presence of multiple people, it distributes automatically — one share per person present. It cannot be directed or assigned. At the Ravana Ruins in 1282, all five Avari present received one share each.

What a share does:

• Grants immortality — the holder does not die of natural causes.
• Slows ageing — but does not stop it.
• Accelerates physical degradation — the energy sustains life but takes a toll on the body. The longer a share is held, the worse the deterioration.

Degradation by share count:

Shares	Effect
1	Immortality. Slow, manageable physical decline over centuries.
2	Noticeably accelerated deterioration.
3	Severe physical decline. Increasingly difficult to pass as fully human.
4	Catastrophic. After 600+ years, nothing recognisably human remains in appearance.
5 (theoretical)	Unknown. Possibly lethal even for an immortal host.

Degradation rate: Not fixed. Varies person to person and is influenced by mental state and mental strength.

Transfer on death: When a holder dies, the energy flows to the nearest entity capable of receiving it — typically the person in closest physical contact, or the land if no suitable person is present. A holder cannot die without transferring the share. This is why Severin Falkenrath held Leopold von Lachsenhausen and Victor von Lachsenhausen as they died at Mount Kings, and why Elias Castillon deliberately chose the Castillon Rift so the land — not Severin — would receive his share.

Attraction to history: The energy is drawn to things with accumulated history. This quality is shared by long-lived people and ancient landscapes alike.

Current State

• Four shares — inside Severin Falkenrath, who is fused into the earth at the Vulcan Islands.
• One share — Elias Castillon’s, also in the earth, entrenched at the Castillon Rift since 1365.
• All five shares are now in the ground. What this means for the world of Lichdenstein is undetermined.
• In the Frangfurd era, the village of Great Question was the first to contact the energy (~c. 2510), which spread through it as an unnatural disease that nearly wiped it out. The Pioneers later studied the energy at Camp 0, their research base at the Ravana Ruins in the Wet Lands, until the research concluded around 2640.

Open Questions

What built the Ravana Ruins, and did they use the energy the same way? Is the energy’s attraction to “accumulated history” the full explanation for where it flows, or is there something more specific about what Elias was, or what the Castillon Rift had become? What does it mean that all five shares are now in the earth? Why did contact at Great Question manifest as disease rather than the distribution of shares seen at the Ravana Ruins in 1282?