Noria
GM Only. Noria is a foreshadowed antagonist. Players know the name and the legend. They do not know her true nature.
| Nature | Cross-world manifestation from Saphine via Dark artifact |
| Serves | The Destroyer (who does not understand what she is) |
| Commands | Shadow giants, dark orcs |
| Location | The Shadowlands crater — pentagram city |
| True Purpose | Unwitting instrument of The Dark's cross-world alignment plan |
True Nature
Noria is not a goddess and not a native of Zoratha. She is a manifestation from Saphine — a cross-world entity who reached Zoratha through one of nineteen artifacts The Dark planted in Saphine's prehistory.
On Saphine, The Dark seeded a prophecy: nineteen artifacts exist, each capable of allowing the wearer to manifest as spirit in a different world. The artifacts are individually powerful and individually forbidden — their true collective purpose is so deeply obfuscated that even Saphine's gods struggle to understand what they are building toward. Evil entities across Saphine's history have been drawn to them anyway, as evil entities are drawn to power.
Noria was one such entity. She found her artifact, wore it, and manifested on Zoratha — a being of Saphine expressed now in a different world's material plane.
Her Position in Zoratha
The Dark offered Noria to The Destroyer as a gift — a ready-made commander for his domain, capable and loyal. The Destroyer accepted. He gave her authority over his shadow giants and dark orcs, and she has held that authority since.
From Noria's perspective, she serves The Destroyer and rules his domain. This is correct as far as it goes. What she does not fully reckon with is that she is also, in the process, serving The Dark's alignment plan — preparing the conditions The Dark needs without knowing she is doing so.
The Destroyer is in the same position. He believes Noria is his instrument. He has not asked who gave her to him or why.
The Pentagram City
Noria's seat is a city built in the crater created by The Destroyer's asteroid strike. The city's layout follows the geometry of a pentagram — a deliberate structural opposition to the City of Courts on Saphine, a force of good built on an equivalent geometric principle.
The pentagram city is the administrative and spiritual center of the Shadowlands. Shadow giants hold authority within it. Dark orcs mass at its outskirts. The crater's necromantic energy sustains both.
Dark Orcs
The orcs who remained in Maelia after the asteroid strike were gradually tainted by the crater's necromantic energy across generations. They are recognizably orc in form — surface orcs like Mori Okimoto share the same root species — but fundamentally different in nature. Dark orcs serve The Destroyer through Noria. They do not have free will in the way surface orcs do; the taint has narrowed them toward destruction as an end in itself.
Dark orcs staging through Lighthouse Island in 4724–4725 AR represent the first material push toward Ardentis since the Exodus. Noria has not moved from her city. She does not need to. The armies move without her presence.
Related Pages
- The Destroyer — her nominal master
- The Dark — the force that brought her to Zoratha
- Zoratha — The Shadowlands — the crater and pentagram city
- Master Timeline — Exodus, current dark orc staging