Calamitous Argon'atsu

"Prince Calamitous Argon'atsu, second son of Zumaridi Argon'atsu III and Queen Khenemara, was a prince marked by misfortune from his first breath. His birth was heralded not by clear skies and blessings, but by a sandstorm of unusual ferocity, as if the very elements themselves sensed the turmoil that would surround his life. While his brothers, Iniquitous and Pernicious, inherited their mother's calm precision and mastery of Ankh’Tahar, Calamitous was born with a darker gift—one that blurred the line between prophecy and madness."- Passage from The History and Legends of Adyntia, by Sir Warth Fallow.

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The Visions of the Shattered Veil

From childhood, Calamitous suffered from episodes known as Sekhem’tul, or The Fracturing of the Spirit. During these episodes, his body would stiffen, his eyes rolling back until only the whites showed. His muscles would lock, contorting his frame into unnatural angles, and his voice would rasp in low, guttural tones that sounded not of this world.

Those who witnessed a Sekhem’tul said it was as though he became a vessel for another plane—his mouth spilling prophecies, curses, and secrets in languages both ancient and lost. Sometimes, he would mutter softly of distant lands and forgotten names. Other times, he would scream with such force that blood ran from his nose and ears, his words a chaotic blend of terror and rage. He spoke of fires yet to burn, of shadows swallowing cities, of betrayals so deep the earth would crack beneath them.

When the Sekhem’tul ended, Calamitous would be left broken, his muscles sore, his mind a fractured mirror. He would remember fragments of what he had seen, but they came to him as dreams—disjointed and nightmarish. The court healers could do little but offer herbs to soothe his body and prayers to quiet his spirit. His mother, Khenemara, tried to use Ankh’Tahar to stabilize his mind, to slow the flow of whatever force burned through him, but even she could not fully still the storm within.

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The Rage of the Unstable Flame

The madness within Calamitous also manifested in his temper. He was quick to anger, his moods shifting like desert sands. A slight whisper of insult, a sideways glance, or an imagined betrayal could send him into a fury. When his temper flared, objects shattered around him—sometimes by his own hand, sometimes by an unseen force that seemed to radiate from his rage. 

His brothers learned to tread carefully around him. Iniquitous, ever the strategist, spoke to him with a measured tone, guiding conversations away from sensitive topics. Pernicious, closer in temperament, sometimes joined him in bouts of reckless indulgence, but even he grew wary of Calamitous' unpredictable nature.

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Nefarious, however, found his brother's madness to be a tool. He would stoke Calamitous' anger, whispering of plots and slights, setting him upon rivals and turning his outbursts into political weapons. There were stories of nobles who had offended Nefarious and who subsequently found themselves at the mercy of Calamitous' wrath. One merchant, who had spoken against the Argon'atsu family, was found in his home with bones broken by a force no one had seen, his tongue cleaved from his mouth—a punishment fitting the prince's unpredictable violence.

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A Prince of Destruction

Despite his madness, Calamitous was not without purpose. His affinity for Ankh’Tahar manifested in strange ways. While he lacked the precision of his mother or the foresight of Iniquitous, he possessed a unique ability to unravel things—whether they were objects, minds, or destinies. He could quicken the decay of stone, reduce wood to splinters with a touch, and even accelerate the withering of a living being. His power was not creation but destruction, an entropy that seemed to bleed from his pores.

In battle, he became a force of chaos. When Adyntia was threatened by the Red Sand Raiders, Calamitous rode into combat, his presence a weapon unto itself. His enemies fell not only by his blade but by the air around him. Their weapons rusted, their bones ached with sudden age, and the earth beneath their feet crumbled to dust. His allies, however, often emerged scarred from the same storms he summoned. His power did not discriminate—it consumed all, friend and foe alike.

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The Isolation of Madness

As he grew older, Calamitous became more withdrawn. His outbursts made him dangerous, not only to his enemies but to his own family. He isolated himself within the eastern wing of the palace, where the architecture had begun to decay under his influence. The walls cracked, the gardens withered, and the servants sent to attend him often left with pale faces and trembling hands.

He took few lovers, for intimacy seemed to amplify his madness. Those who shared his bed often found themselves haunted by nightmares, and at least one woman vanished into the night, her name struck from the records as if to erase the memory of whatever had transpired behind closed doors.

In his solitude, Calamitous began to experiment with his powers. He would take small creatures—lizards, birds, and insects—and watch as their life ebbed away under his gaze. He studied decay, fascinated by how quickly things could be unmade. He kept journals filled with scribbled drawings and notes, some in his own hand, others in the spidery script that came during his Sekhem’tul. His writings became a dark repository of knowledge—part alchemical study, part prophecy, and part madness.

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The Living Curse

Despite his instability, Calamitous remained a prince of Adyntia, his position secured by blood if not by sanity. His father, Zumaridi III, viewed him with a mixture of pity and fear. His mothers, particularly Khenemara, never ceased their attempts to help him, but even she began to wonder if his madness was not a curse from beyond—perhaps a punishment for sins unspoken or a sign of dark times to come.

As Nefarious tightened his grip on the throne, Calamitous became an unpredictable force within the court. Some whispered that his madness might be the key to breaking Nefarious' hold, that his visions could reveal the truth behind the shadows. Others feared that if left unchecked, he might become a weapon against the kingdom itself—a prince whose powers of decay could bring down the very walls of Adyntia.

And so, Calamitous remained a specter within his own home—a prince whose legacy was written in crumbling stone, whose name was spoken in fearful tones, and whose future was as uncertain as the fractured visions that danced behind his hollow eyes.