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Red Gift

The Offensive Gift — wielded first by Kjeldin the Destroyer, whose obsession with reclaiming it was inherited by his son, Correries, who ultimately absorbed its power and became the first mortal to ascend through direct Gift absorption.

Overview

The Red Gift was one of the four Gifts Demmazon deliberately weakened relative to the White Gift.

Its profile was Offensive, expressed through the two schools of Evocation and Necromancy.

The Red Gift was originally wielded by Kjeldin, a scholar and wielder of the Gift during the Korvak War.

The Red Gift's Necromancy component was not understood during Kjeldin's lifetime. Necromancy had not yet been discovered as a magical discipline, so historical descriptions of the Gift from that period generally identified it with Evocation and offensive magic.

Much later, Riatin discovered Necromancy through his experiments with the Red Gift after Correries had acquired it. Because Correries had absorbed the Gift, the original artifact was no longer available for examination, leaving earlier historians unable to directly confirm what had been suspected.

The historical suspicion was correct: Red was always the Offensive Gift, encompassing both Evocation and Necromancy.

See The Five Gifts for the complete structure of the Gifts.

History

• Wielded by Kjeldin the Destroyer during the Korvak War.
• After the war, when the surviving Gift-Bearers agreed that the Gifts were too dangerous for casual mortal use, Kjeldin reluctantly surrendered the Red Gift.
• The Gift came into the protection of Alantarin the Wise, who withdrew into a hidden mountain temple to guard it alongside the Yellow Gift.
• The loss of the Red Gift affected Kjeldin profoundly. He became obsessed with recovering it and eventually entered the mountains searching for Alantarin and the hidden temple. He never returned and was presumed to have frozen to death.
• Kjeldin's children, Correries and Zaraleth, inherited his connection to the Gift and his obsession with recovering it.
• Correries eventually had Zaraleth steal the Red Gift from Alantarin's temple. The Heroes of Aegea prevented Zaraleth from obtaining the Yellow Gift as well.
• Correries discovered that a Gift's power could be absorbed directly into its bearer. He absorbed the Red Gift, destroying the physical artifact and making its power intrinsic to himself.
• The absorption was imperfect. A significant portion of the Red Gift's power was lost or bled into the world rather than transferring to Correries.
• The absorption made Correries the first mortal to ascend to godhood through direct absorption of a Gift.
• After Correries acquired the Gift, his crony Riatin used its power in experiments that ultimately unlocked the secrets of Necromancy.
• The Red Gift's absorption and Correries' resulting ascension set in motion the chain of events that became the Fall of the Age of Wonders.

Gift Profile

Offensive

The Red Gift's two schools are:

• Evocation
• Necromancy

The Gift's profile and its individual schools should not be treated as separate or competing descriptions. Offensive is the Gift's overall magical role; Evocation and Necromancy are the schools through which that role is expressed.

Related

• The Five Gifts
• Kjeldin
• Correries
• Zaraleth
• Alantarin the Wise
• Riatin
• White Gift
• Blue Gift
• Yellow Gift
• Green Gift
• Pantheon Overview

Sources

• Campaign Development III (2/27/2008)
• The Korvak War (7/30/2009)
• History of the World: Part I (5/12/2010)
• Author's definitive Gift table and worldbuilding (2026)