The Godbeast Nehnaxiir

Once, beyond the earliest dawn of the earliest day of the Age of Myth, before the realms coalesced into tangible planes, before the collapse of the World-that-Was, Nehnaxiir was a man. Remarkable only in his arcane talents, but physically, nothing but human.

Nehnaxiir was born of Khemri, a land of relentless sun and wide, sweeping crags and dunes. A desert, but a prosperous one at that. He witnessed the death of Settra, and adopted the deceased King’s quest for immortality. However, Nehnaxiir spurned the mortuary cult, believing that rituals and prayers would grant nothing. Instead, the old mage began to collect every tome and book he could, believing that, should he learn enough of the sum total of mortal knowledge, the secrets of immortality would be laid bare to him.

By this point, Nehnaxiir was middle-aged, and despite the longer lifespans enjoyed by the Gods-blessed peoples of Khemri, he knew he wouldn’t last forever. To slow his aging, Nehnxaiir bent the laws of time and space, forging a small, stasis-like pocket dimension with a reagent of his own make, called “Synder”. 

For untold years, he read and consumed knowledge in his space. Weeks passed to him, though he seemed oblivious to the fact that every sortie from his side-reality showed the changing not of hours, days, or even seasons, but the passing of long centuries. He noticed little, laser-focused only on returning with new lore. The changes of his world would not matter, after all, when he discovered the key to immortality. 

However, Nehnaxiir’s quest would be cut short on the day he stepped from his pocket dimension to see a wall of chaos energy rushing towards him, engulfing the now-desiccated empire of Khemri. 

This was the final collapse of his world. The end of the End Times. He leapt for his portal, but reached it at the exact moment the wave of unmaking washed over his crumbling tower.

He fell into the portal, and as the world and his dimension had both collapsed, Nehnaxiir, now infused with synder, was cast into an aeons-long daze in the void between worlds. He drifted the cold, dead vacuum of space, watching the lights of distant nebulae and galaxies play over his wan features, the synder keeping in a state of semi-life. 

Eventually, with the world-that-was destroyed, the Ruinous Powers began to grow restless, and cast their gaze about the cosmos. One of the many eyes of the Great Deciever, Tzeentch, fell upon a curious soul alone against a backdrop of cosmic majesty. Even stranger, this person was a mage, and reeked of the world he and his brothers had broken millennia prior. A favored son, a Lord of Change, was dispatched to attempt recruitment of such a rare find to his ranks of schemers and plotters. 

At some point in time, before Nehnaxiir, an avian form appeared as if from nowhere at all. This being, calling itself Stevvris, sought to make a bargain with the becalmed man. A game of riddles. Should Stevvris win, Nehnaxiir would be sworn to the service of Tzeentch, and would accompany the demon back ot the realm of the Great Liar. However, should the mortal win, Stevvris would provide him a way to leave this purgatory-like state, and a means to resume his quest for all knowledge.

Their game began with simple riddles, almost child’s play, and escalated to a truly philosophical affair. However, to the shock of Stevvris and the honest surprise of Nehnaxiir himself, the mortal man stumped the demon. He chalked it up to the untold ages alone with nothing but thought and ponderance for company.

Enraged, Stevvris bitterly agreed to hold up his end of the bargain – though in a way more cruel than death. Nehnaxiir was transformed, his body stretched to preposterous degrees, his flesh, bones, everything changing. He grew first by inches, then feet, then miles, and became a massive cetacean, until his form was rivalled the mightiest city of his lost world. His face, once sharp and inquisitive, distended and deformed into a kraken’s maw. His eyes moved to the sides of his head and grew in kind. 

He was no longer the mortal man Nehnaxiir. He was now a God-beast, free to move about the stars in his thirst for knowledge. And thirsty he was.

So thirsty in fact, that in truth, Nehnaxiir is tortured by it. The demon kept his bargain to be sure – but neglected to tell the mortal that the thirst for knowledge would, in his new form, become both a felt sensation… and utterly unquenchable. 

It is this trait which has most warped the Godbeast’s mind, and saw him travel the stars searching for any and all knowledge he could. Eventually, Nehnaxiir picked up the spoor of his own reagent, synder, and followed it, eventually discovering the Mortal Realms, and seeing his reagent having been worked into the very fabric of Ulgu. 

And so it is that the Godbeast Nehnaxiir has begun his quest of knowledge, though his oppressive magical influence drives the mortals below to extremes of ambition, vying for the favor of such a powerful creature, for to have such an ally would be a serious advantage for any warlord or noble. 

These squabbles are, of course, beyond the care of such a being. However, knowledge requires observation, and observation sometimes requires interaction…even if it is to cause strife. All the better to learn of cause and effect.

Already, Nehnaxiir has mad his mark on the Mortal Realms. The once-prosperous Dawnland, an uncommonly stable pocket of notoriously-unstable Ulgu, met its end due to events spurred by those attempting to curry his favor. All the while, the Godbeast watched, learned, and pondered. 

It is only a matter of time before another realm comes beneath his curious and manipulative eye.