Mata Muram & Discord

A world called Kuua

Kuua was once an ordinary world like Norrath, until Discord, described as an ethereal poison, seeped into it. Its races turned on each other, and the sky filled with ash and embers. The most civilized of them, the dragorn, believe they were carved from stone and earth by a great dragon named Dranik, and they valued courage above all. When the world turned, they withdrew to fortify their city, and then began fighting among themselves too.

Sources: Library of Erudin: Omens of War History (fan encyclopedia) · Library of Erudin: Mata Muram

The overlord

An elder named Chinak wrote in a blood-smudged book that he saw the great dragon Mata Muram only once, flying over Dranik. Some say he can change from dragon to a two-legged form. His own Muramites whispered that he had become twisted and disfigured, with dark powers more frightening every day, and that he had seen no visitors for months. One officer wrote that the overlord and his magic were “becoming more volatile by the day.”

Dragorn who lived through it remember brothers fighting brothers and their city falling to a conqueror. The Muramites took Harbinger’s Spire, once a dragorn lookout tower, and used it as a beacon to send news across Mata Muram’s domain.

Sources: Library of Erudin: Mata Muram (in-game books and NPC dialogue)

Riftseekers

Mata Muram’s own orders show his aim: he commanded his elite ikaav to learn the ways of the riftseekers, so they could command the paths between worlds and keep building an army for his legion “and superiors.” A fan encyclopedia goes further, calling him one slave trader among many at the front of the shroud of Discord, who keeps the best of each conquered people for his army and sells the rest.

Sources: Library of Erudin: Mata Muram (“My elite ikaav,” in-game book) · Library of Erudin: Omens of War History (fan encyclopedia)

The god behind him

The official Seeds of Destruction lore confirms the bigger picture. Mata Muram’s invasion was turned back by Norrath’s heroes, but his forces were only part of Discord’s armies, which all worship a dark god of a discordant pantheon. That god was furious at the failure and intrigued by the power that caused it. He found a weakness in the timeweave, left when Druzzil Ro rewove time to stop Zebuxoruk escaping, and sent agents back into Norrath’s history to cripple it in advance.

Sources: EverQuest.com: Seeds of Destruction, Unfolding the Lore Part 1 (2008)

Harbinger’s Spire

Dragorn across Kuua describe the spire in nearly the same words. Shorvock in Dranik’s Scar and Barowsar in the Bloodfields say Mata Muram uses it as a beacon to receive news of his domain, and that some of his captains carry infused crystal shards that can send up beacons from it. Korshawn, who studied there as a young chaplain, shudders at what the “discordlings” have done to it. Bolodakan calls it an outrage that the Muramites are “defiling the memory of the great father Dranik.”

Sources: Library of Erudin: Mata Muram (Shorvock; Barowsar; Korshawn; Bolodakan dialogue)

Whispers of treachery

Elder Chinak’s blood-smudged tome records more than the overlord’s isolation. Some Muramites worried that his mastery of magic and of his legion “has consumed his every thought,” and there were “whispers of treachery” among his creatures of fire and ice. In the Riftseekers’ Sanctum, Taromani offers to swap stories and starts one of his own: “In a shattered realm, there existed a twisted overlord that ruled all.”

Sources: Library of Erudin: Mata Muram (Blood-Smudged Tome; Taromani dialogue)