The tale begins beneath the shrouded canopies of the Unknown, where the soil still recalls the thunderous tread of a titan which is crowned its king. On a night drowned in crimson moonlight, the beast known as Kul'Khan, the King of the Jungles, descended upon the scattered tribes of the Leonin. Ramune Leone, Razam, and Eremoz were some of the only known survivors of these seemingly indiscriminate massacres, torn from their people and left to a shamed exile.
Eremoz fled, sailing alone across Dragon's Reach bay, while Ramune sought refuge in the dragon City of Hojo, offering service and sword to the Dragon Emperor (Ryujin Hattori) before eventually journeying to Shariz, where he earned his nobility after years of fighting in the arena (recognized by Sultan Hakim Atis). But neither titles nor years dulled the roar that haunted their dreams.
Duel in the Pits
It was within the Fighting Pits of the Emris Adventuring Guild, years later, that Ramune found hope in a duel for tarnished honor. He met Kairus the Brass, a desert-born Dragonborn warrior whose strength and resolve was akin to his own. Their duel was ferocious and evenly matched—claw against warhammer, blood against breath. As both warriors stood, weapons to each other’s throat, Ramune lowered his stance and offered Kairus a proposition to help him hunt down the beast that slew his people.
Kairus accepted. Not with words, but with a solemn warrior handshake, where the two combatants blood mixed to seal their oath.
Hunters or Hunted?
To the duo, others were drawn. Zyla Nu Ten, a Sylvarin princess and huntress, whose arcane gifts traced back to her father—King Cernunnos himself. With her came her brother, Nika Nu Ten, soft-spoken but steady, whose presence was a balm to the fury that burned in the others. And from the distant Empyrean Brood, Zaigetsu—the Azure Gale—followed Zyla as he soared above the constricting jungle canopies.
They made landfall beneath tangled skies and dripping boughs, the jungle breathing heavily around them. Tortle encampments were found abandoned with sacrificial Saurus effigies raised in their stead. The hunting party would go on to track a band of Saurus hunters before learning of their blood rites which had been arranged to worship the symbol of a drowned moon that they called Unknown. Trekking further still into the jungles, they trudged through tar marshes and predator-infested jungles, until they found what they sought... Or perhaps better said, what they sought had found them.
After nearly dying during an explosive fireball caused by Nika igniting the methane surrounding a Tar Marsh, the hunting party trudged through a mud-swept river bank. Hearing stampeding feet rushing toward them, they pressed flat into the mud banks before noticing a fleeing herd of Triceratops rush past. A young male amongst them was caught out in the river after stumbling from grievous wounds, being then circled by a pair of hunting Carnosaurus which closed in the for the kill.
As this unfolded, the party then witnessed the Carnosaurus become the prey as a rampaging T-Rex made quick work of them and begin also feasting on the dying Triceratops. The horror was just beginning, however, as the hunters would then bear witness to the most fundamental law of the jungles... Survival of the fittest. The canopy beyond the river collapsed as Kul'Khan emerged and lifted the T-Rex before tearing off its head and roaring "ZYTHROZAL" as the moon above bled the color of blood.
Upon seeing this grisly display of dominance, the hunters choked back their fears and followed the titans tracks until eventually coming upon an ancient jungle temple covered in vines, having long-since been forgotten by time... It was here that they stumbled upon a host of Saurus warriors led by a cabal of warlocks amongst them which appeared to be performing an ancient ritual to a bone effigy in the center of the Ziggurat (see: Unknown).
Temple of the Drowned Moon
The final descent led them to the Temple of the Drowned Moon—a crumbling ziggurat lost to time and since swallowed by the jungles encroaching growth. There, Saurus Warlocks chanted in communion with the drowned god Zythrozal, attempting to bind Kul’Khan’s will to a fetid effigy made of decomposing bestial bones that were arranged to resemble a Saurus deity. Tentacled otyughs slithered through the rot, and green ritual light permeated the stone as thousands of Saurus chanted the name of Zythrozal.
It seemed that these slithering Otyughs, their Warlock masters, and the totem necklace which hung around Kul'Khan's neck served as some sort of telepathic tether to control the titan.
In the battle that followed, only chaos ensued. The party fought wave after wave of Saurus brutes as eventually they managed to slay the Warlocks whom wished to enslave the will of Kul'Khan. As they struggled to break the Saurus dominion over the ancient titan, Kul'Khan began rampaging against them as the totems around his neck gleamed with a sickening pale green aura.
The ritual of the drowned moon had begun.
The King Awakens
Kul’Khan steamed from a primeval exhaustion, his form trembling as his eyes radiated only an enraged yet supressed fury. As the party slew the last warlock, however, the psychic tethers controlling the titan were severed... This caused Kul'Khan to fly into a rage as he bellowed, smashing the temple to pieces and slaughtering countless Saurus in the process. Unfortunately, however, Eremoz was crushed beneath a boulder flung by Kul'Khan as Nika also perished under the collapsing Ziggurat.
The others barely escaped death as Zaigetsu, with wings spread wide, dove into the collapsing temple and bore Ramune and Kairus out on his back before flying to the relative safety of the southern shorelines where they had originally made landfall.
At the edge of the jungle, as the sun began to break over Dragon's Reach bay, Kul’Khan followed. Yet something had changed. He held in his massive claws the broken bodies of Nika and Eremoz—not as trophies, but with reverence. In addition, he released Zyla from his clamped jaws, having saved her when the party thought she was being consumed by the titan.
In a voice of deep Primordial, he spoke:
“Flesh to root. Soul to soil. Moon bleeds. Earth feeds.
Zythrozal… no more.
Breath of the Wild, once more.
You… are remembered.”
He laid their bodies gently on the shore before vanishing once more into the deep wilds.
Legacy
Ramune, mourning but fulfilled, gave his kin (Eremoz) a funeral pyre by the sea. Kairus wept beside him, and Zyla sang a song of the Sylvarin to commemorate Nika. The jungle was not tamed. Kul’Khan was not slain. But at last, he was truly known—and that mattered.
The hunt had not ended in conquest. It had ended in revelation.
Those who survived left with a newfound respect and understanding for the natural order... Not as they once believed it to be, but as they had now truly witnessed it to be.