| This is a Left-Hand Legacy.
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Run, slave of the Exarchs — tonight, you are prey.
So many modern Awakened choose to see the Atlantean Dragon as a symbol of nobility and honor, a creature of elevated principles, paragon of a grand civilization. But the truth of the matter is that the dragon is, at its core, a symbol of rage and terror. Indeed, in many ancient cultures, “dragon” is essentially synonymous with “monster” or “devil,” the embodiment of a savage and primordial hatred and hunger. So it is with those who walk the path of the Devourer, consuming the enemies of lost Atlantis and supping upon their power in the name of a greater good. But men are not meant to be as dragons, and so these practitioners of a law as timeless as it is inhuman have strayed far from the path of Wisdom, battening them upon hubris as surely as if it were the sweetest of marrow.
The Devourers of the Flesh are keepers of an old Legacy, one that they believe to dates back to the time before the Fall. While there exists no evidence to support such claims, there certainly is something primal and ancient in their hunger for the flesh, the atavistic urge toward a longing (or perhaps a need) forbidden by civilized traditions and Supernal com- mandments. Perhaps this age-old practice is reflected in many of the world’s cannibalistic warrior cultures, whose beliefs are echoed and magnified in the brutal Devourers: in a very real way consuming the enemy’s heart to take his strengths into oneself.
The practitioners of this Legacy claim to have been advance scouts and shock troops for Atlantis, going among the enemy’s ranks and sowing the sort of terror that arises only from finding the half-eaten carcasses of one’s people strewn between trees and over stones, glyphs of ill-omen painted in their congealing blood. While other Awakened who hear of this tale dismiss it as the self-serving propaganda of a fellowship of anthropophagic monstrosities, the Devourers wonder at the naiveté of those who can earnestly believe any truly great and powerful civilization of remote and ancient times to have balked at such practices in a world in which people were not so thoroughly conditioned to fear their own instincts. By stealing the power of Atlantis’s enemies of old, the Devourers say, their spiritual forebears performed a service as vital as and, ultimately, far more natural than that practiced by the priests who read the stars or the scholars who kept the cavernous libraries of the island empire.
The so-called Cannibals (a title to which the Legacy’s practitioners attach no sense of shame) consider themselves to be inheritors of a purer ethic than is found in the modern world. Just as every predator in nature hunts that which best sustains the predator and helps it to grow strong, so, too, do the Devourers allege that they consume the prey who empowers and uplifts them. Naturally, those who interact in any way with Awakened (or even just Sleeper) society must invariably attempt to conceal their practices, but this becomes increasingly difficult for most Devourers as time passes, Wisdom withers and dies and the will- worker asks himself why it is that he hides his splendor from lesser beasts. Beyond such a point, these mages are already too far gone to salvage (if, indeed, one can consider redemption to be possible in the first place for a person who incorporates the consumption of his own kind into his very soul), and must be destroyed for the good of their world. Of course, some manage to escape, fleeing into the wilds — or perhaps just the most savage depths of the urban wilderness — there to perpetuate their philosophy of hunger.
Long considered to be a blight upon the otherwise upright reputation of the Adamantine Arrow, the Devourers of the Flesh have managed, nevertheless, to persist for at least centuries (and, quite possibly, far longer) without being utterly stamped out. The Legacy is laid low in one place, only to emerge elsewhere later, proving as persistent and resilient as the predators from which it derives its ghastly mandate. And, despite the reflexive fear and hatred of their fellow Arrows, Cannibals in the order continue to take their oaths to the Adamantine Arrow quite seriously. Indeed, many see themselves as the only true champions of the Adamantine Arrow’s cause, imitating the dragon of old and consuming the power of Atlantis’s enemies by fang and claw. Devourers don’t tend to be impressive strategists, but they are certainly terrifying to behold on the battlefield, with the eldest and most potent dominating the engagement, lips and chins slick with hot blood, and the trophies of scores of kills dangling from hair, flesh and hand-sewn clothing alike.
Attainments
- Mask the Hunger
- Life feeds on Life
- The Sweetest Savor
