Biamhac, or 'Spirit Wind' Printable version

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Throughout Arethil’s history, an almost endless amount of powerful spells have been cast, from fire storms to the sundering of the very crust of the earth they walk upon; yet what comes of those magical currents that become so saturated with power that they no longer have the ability to sit mundane and placated until the next mage comes along to use them? For those few spells that seem to transcend mortal bonds, the most feared and legendary events in history, a magical fallout forms to punish mankind for its attempts to push the limits of power as they know it. This punishment, known as a Biamhac or ‘Spirit Wind’, are what remains, when the dust has settled and the flames are quenched.

First and foremost, a Biamhac is not a living entity. It is not a wrathful spirit, nor is it a sentient judgement handed down by the gods; instead, it is the fallout of excessively large rituals, echoes of magic past, and a force of nature far surpassing the destruction of contemporaries such as hurricanes or tornados. A Biamhac is not alive, nor does it understand the pain it hath wrought, as they are exclusively the remnant shadow of a mage's actions long past. To put it simply, a Biamhac is nature's natural response to aggrandized spells, more an oddity than anything else, killing and maiming all biological material where they are find presence.

A Biamhac is a magical anomaly unknown to the majority of the world, forming in the wake of extremely potent magical utilizations, such as an after effect of the ritual that made the Lost City of Valen into a lost ruin in the first place. In the aftermath of aggrandized magical attempts to alter the world we know, even the attempts to surpass the rules of magic, the natural response of The Herald is to create these supercells of magical energy that flare up and kill all mortal life around them with seemingly little effort. However, while it would be simple to blame The Herald for their formation, the general understanding is they are created by charging the air and matter around a spell’s formation with extreme amounts of magical current, though even as they are understood as this, they are generally considered a myth as most are unable to replicate them on any known level; nor would they want to.

To witness a Biamhac is to witness death itself, as they show no sympathy to dreams, age, gender, or even innocence; the great equalizer amongst adventurers, as it very simply kills and maims all those that come into contact with it. The current acts replicates a spell being cast, though with no intelligent effort to form it; it simply becomes a raw current of uncontrollable pressure, able to lift men up in full plate, and twist them like thin aluminum in a monster’s hand, leaving behind nothing but a mangled corpse, a memory of a once vivid life. It is because of this they are considered extremely dangerous, and avoided at all costs to the vast majority. Infact, they are one of the primary risks of traversing very old and powerful ruins, making the artifacts taken from them to be far higher priced than most.

These winds of magic, while electrified, tend to be docile without a magical conduit in an area. Meaning that they do not actually form until a mortal being walks into the field of conductivity, as their mere presence seems to give just enough energy to push a Biamhac to form. This is more notable with large groups of mages, for example, as their combined magical potential can flare a Biamhac in a moment’s notice, with little concern for who might be caught in the crosswinds. Those who cast spells in the presence of a forming Biamhac are also known to cause their formation to grow many times faster, as the act of saturating those winds in even the smallest amount can help to create an event horizon for the storm. Knights and the magically uninitiated are still susceptible, but are far safer in the sense it takes far longer for one to form in their presence; though how long is unknown to modern science, or if the difference is even measurable. Even still, while the vast majority’s simple presence is enough to flare a Biamhac, there are warning signs as to their formation.

The first of the warning signs is simple; for the magically sensitive, one can feel the magical currents in the area grow agitated, buzzing or humming in the soul. Often, the feelings has been compared to a powerful spell being cast in the distance, but with no identifiable source. The second is the hair on the skin lifting, pricking, raising up in a way that feels like one is about to be struck by lightning, only to be followed by the third warning sign; pain along the skin. While a sunburn might be comparable to how it starts, the pure amount of current in the air begins to overwhelm the sensitive nerves, feeling progressively more like daggers flaying the skin in layers than any cat scratch. It is the third sign that is final, and only know identification of what spells doom for the person; as the closer one gets to feeling the pain, the closer they are to death itself.

Despite this, the Biamhac are extremely rare, and the act of surviving one can often be regarded as legendary in itself. Few have, with stories of entire armies sundered in a matter of a minute simply for walking into the wrong mountain pass; yet the stories have grown so great, so terrifying, they are regarded as myth, legend to scare would be grave robbers from wandering into the lost halls of the primordial races, those who came before. For all that robbers and adventurers know, it is that gold is often not worth enough to risk their life, and certainly not to be mangled to death by an unknown demon storm.
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