You kneel before the overgrown altar. The air trembles. A sudden heat blooms behind your eyes. Then a voice like a growl, a roar, and a sob all at once fills the glade.

“You who kneel... why?”

“Do you seek favor? Power? Or do you kneel because your heart has heard what the world forgets?”

The ground shifts. The trees hush. From the altar, a presence unfolds, feral, divine. Red eyes gleam in the darkness like twin coals, burning with pain and fury.

“I have heard your offerings. I have smelt the blood, the bark, the bone you laid in reverence. I have watched.”

“I remember when you wept for the broken bird. When you stayed the hunter’s hand. When you buried the old hound with your own.”

“That is why I come. Not for prayer. Not for praise. But for those who act when no one is watching.”

A sudden crack of flame a golden staff held high. Firelight flickers, and shadows flee as Ius manifest before you, towering, wild physique, almost resembling a werewolf, eyes a burning fierce red, clad only in a long blood red tattered loincloth draped from his waist down to his legs, high above his head held by his ferocious arms and hands a golden staff serving as scales with flames weighted in its cups blazing, his deadly bared fangs opens as he addresses you more personally.

“Speak, mortal. Speak quickly. I do not linger long. My children cry out, and I must answer.”