Crown’s End is a foreboding, wave-battered peninsula that juts into the cold northern waters beyond The Immortal Isle. It is a place steeped in sorrow and legend, for it was here that King Athelstan Valarion, the first monarch of the Valar, met his tragic fate. The land itself is rugged and windswept, its cliffs plunging sharply into the abyssal sea below, where the weight of history still lingers in the whispering winds and crashing waves.
The Fall of Athelstan
King Athelstan was once the greatest of the Valar, a visionary ruler who sought to elevate his people beyond their cursed existence. With bold ambition, he forged a grand kingdom, a utopia where the Valar could flourish without fear or restraint. Yet, in his boundless desire for power and transcendence, he accepted a crown from the Night Mother Nyx, the enigmatic deity who dwells in the ever-consuming darkness of The Shadowfell. The crown, meant to be a symbol of his supremacy, instead became his undoing—a cursed artifact that shackled his people to the Immortal Isle and condemned their fallen kin to rise as Draugr, cursed revenants that haunt the fog-laden seas.
When Athelstan came to realize the full gravity of his mistake, he cast himself from the edge of Crown’s End, plunging into the dashing waves far below in a desperate act of atonement. The cursed crown followed him, lost to the abyss, its power still tainting the Valar bloodline for generations to come. In the years following his fall, the sea remained a prison for his people, their fleets unable to venture far without being lost to the same fog that swallowed their king.
The Shattered Statue
In an effort to preserve his legacy, a grand statue of Athelstan was erected at the tip of the peninsula, standing vigil over the endless horizon he once sought to conquer. However, fate would not allow his story to be rewritten as one of triumph. On the very day of its completion, a black bolt of lightning split the sky, striking the statue and shattering it into ruins. Whether this was an act of divine punishment or an omen of his lingering curse remains a mystery, but the message was clear—Athelstan’s folly would not be forgotten.
The ruins of his monument still stand, broken and crumbling against the ceaseless winds, a grim reminder of the cost of his ambition. Pilgrims of the Valar often travel to Crown’s End to mourn their first king, yet none dare rebuild the statue, for fear of inviting the same wrath that shattered it.
The Crown’s Fate
For centuries, the crown of the Valar lay at the bottom of the abyss, untouched and unclaimed, a relic of doom that none dared to retrieve. The Valar, bound by their curse, whispered of its lingering power, fearing that should it ever be recovered, their damnation would deepen.
It was only in the Fifth Age that the legend took a final turn. Edward O'Bannon, a cursed Draugr, once a great Valar seafarer, embarked on a quest with The Sunsations to defeat the World Eater Serpent—a terror lurking within the depths. In the process, he recovered the forsaken crown and, after a long and arduous journey, destroyed it, severing its influence over the Valar once and for all. Though the scars of Athelstan’s curse remain, his final chain upon his people was broken, offering a glimmer of hope that the Valar may one day reclaim the seas that once defined their legacy.
Legacy
Crown’s End remains a place of melancholy beauty, where the howling winds echo with the regrets of a fallen king, and the dark waters below hide the remnants of a cursed past. The jagged cliffs stand untouched, and the ruins of Athelstan’s shattered monument loom in silent vigil, a symbol of hubris, sacrifice, and redemption.
Even now, when storms roll over the peninsula, some claim to see a ghostly figure standing at the cliff’s edge, gazing out toward the endless horizon—a lost king, forever watching the waters that once promised salvation, now cursed to be his grave.