The holy St. Nimoe, Protector of the Defenseless

You all know them, the clawed beasts of the Naldar, the terror of the mountains and the small villages. Bloodthirsty servants of Aeris, who devastate our houses, tear the bodies of the few sheep we have left, and with their screams drive fear into the hearts of all those who are not willing to serve Aeris. All too often these monstrosities of hatred for everything foreign travel to our villages, towns and battle lines to offer the bodies of the unlucky to Aeris as a bloody sacrifice. But these beings fade against this one female griffin that once hunted from the northern mountains of Terra Ankor. And her hunt was terrible. She towered over every other griffin by two lengths of her foul head. She was armed with razor-sharp claws, which were able to penetrate the thickest steel plates and tear them apart. She could reduce whole villages to rubble and ashes.

But this monster hunted not only for herself, but for her damned, many-headed brood. And yet it seemed as if it was feeding on the cries of the captives, for it did not kill them as other griffins do when they carry their prey. She let them live until their young ones ripped the bodies apart while they were still alive. This hurt the Undead in his soul and so it happened that one day Nimoe's husband was called to arms to kill the beast. When her husband returned to her in a new body, he was another. Restless, plagued by bad dreams, he kept seeing the last moments of his final death before him. The cruelty of Aeris' brood was too great. When Nimoe was awakened again one night by the screams of her husband, the spirit of the mistress filled her. And she heard an order.

„We will no longer tolerate the souls of Our children being harmed. For they are eternal and forever they are under Our protection. For We are eternal.“ Those were the words Nimoe heard. And she went forth, an apothecary by her side, to slay the beast, and with her, all her wicked offspring. She armed herself with her husband's heavy plate armour, grabbed his weapons, and at dawn she climbed the steep slopes of the mountain on which the griffin's lair lay. When she reached the ledge, she saw in the light of the dawn that the mother had flown away. So she attacked the gryphon's brood, but when the first deadly blow fell on one of the three gryphon cubs, their horrible mother returned, seized Nimoe and hurled her against the flank of the mountain. Her shattered body was crushed and her soul wandered for days in the cruel confusion between being and nothingness, the eternal darkness.

She wandered restlessly until she felt the glory of the queen herself, and was awakened. Again she arose, for the griffin brood was still alive and the mother herself had not stopped doing her terrible work. Again she climbed the mountain of the beast and prayed to the Mistress. After she had purified herself, she soaked herself with a deadly poison that contained the essence of death itself.

The touch alone would be fatal for all those who had not yet left death behind. And as she continued on her steep path, all doubt fell away. The beast saw a figure climbing the mountain, grabbed it, took it to its lair and threw it into the mouth of its spawn. Her body was hacked and torn to pieces and she happily left it. Once again her soul found no rest and wandered through the turmoil of forgetting. So it happened that Nimoe heard the bells of an apothecary and followed the call.

When the apothecary had captured her soul, he heard about her deed and he set out to see if the beast was really dead. And he entered her eyrie and saw that Nimoe had killed them all, had touched them all. Her bones were scattered everywhere. The beasts had eaten themselves to death. But the griffin was still alive. Her unholy energy still pulsated through her flesh. The apothecary was unarmed. But Nimoe was not. Without the apothecary's intervention, she smashed through the wall of the vessel and plunged into the body of the gryphon to seek revenge. She tore the gryphon to pieces, just as her brood had torn her husband and herself apart. When the gryphon was finally dead, the apothecary went forth to announce the glory and bravery of Nimoe to all.