Peek: The Fall of the Sanctuary From Death

Ah, the tale of a tragedy second only to the Great Collapse.  The Sanctuary From Death was among the first of the sanctuaries after the First, and it was the first to discover how to keep its dwellers from the clutches of the Raven.

It loved its kobolds, and each that died, whether from age, sickness, or injury, was felt keenly by the sanctuary.  But there was little it could do.  Death is a part of existence, and even death aspects help keep the mana flowing.  And yet the sanctuary's heart broke with each kobold it had to lay to rest.

Until one day, a young kobold lay dying from an illness, and he begged the sanctuary to save him with his dying breath.  And the sanctuary got a resident request.  Curious, it accepted, and the freshly-deceased kobold stood!  At first, the sanctuary feared it had simply reanimated the corpse of a beloved kobold, but then he knelt and thanked the sanctuary for saving him.

He was neither dead nor undead, yet neither was he truly alive.  The sanctuary declared him to be everlasting, and it and its new resident were overjoyed to spread the news of what had happened.  The Raven could no longer prey upon the beloved kobolds of the sanctuaries!

Most sanctuaries only made a few of their kobolds everlasting, as they realized the drain on their energy, and the kobolds didn't want to weigh on their sanctuaries like that.  But the Sanctuary From Death cared not for the cost, and its kobolds were happy to be able to serve their sanctuary well beyond the limits of their mortality.

But their need to cling together lead to atrocities.  One made everlasting, a kobold stopped aging, and kept their body as it was.  Injuries could be healed, but chronic conditions like arthritis would remain.  And so, kobolds started to offer their lives to the Sanctuary From Death, so they could offer it their deaths as well.

And the sanctuary deliberately cultivated the ingredients for a deadly poison, so as to make the transition as quick and painless as possible for its kobolds.  The other sanctuaries and their dwellers saw and were concerned, but couldn't bring themselves to intervene.  All involved chose it freely, and wasn't it the actions of mutual love and respect?

As time wore on, however, the strain started to become more than the sanctuary could bear, but it couldn't bear to let its kobolds suffer or be taken by the Raven.  So it started to lessen the denizens, to allow the spawners to decay and wither, all in the name of keeping its dwellers everlasting.

And though the kobolds worked hard for their dungeons, denizens are more suited to repelling the invaders of the still mana.  Tiny invaders could nibble at their sanctuary's core and the kobolds could not keep them fully at bay, accelerating the decline of their home.

Until one day, a large invader arrived.  It was said to be a slavering beast, but its description is lost to time.  Whatever its true form, it was a creature of the still mana.  It wanted to destroy the sanctuaries that make the mana flow, and to destroy the intelligent races that stir the mana without proper control.

The everlasting kobolds rallied to defend their sanctuary, but they couldn't best the beast, and it made it to the core.  It devoured the core and its mana, and the sanctuary collapsed.  The remaining everlasting kobolds fell to dust, and so sanctuary and kobolds went to the Raven together.

As for the beast that laid the sanctuary low?  None know what happened to it.  Some say it left and died trying to consume some other sanctuary, while others say that with its job done, it laid down and joined the stilled mana it had created.  Some even say it became the first dragon.

I fear it may have laid down, but slept instead of joining the mana, waiting for something to disturb the stagnation and so rouse it from its slumber... and become its next meal.

-Aranya, High Priestess of Thedeim, telling a kobold legend.

Thanks to Druid of the Wolf for the idea for this, when asking about what happens when an invader consumes a core.  The short version: nothing good