The Abyssal Exalted
There came a day, perhaps the darkest day of the Age of Legends, when 100 of its greatest heroes fell into darkness and were forever transformed by the dead gods who dwelled there in silence and spite. They became death's bleak riders, journeying forth from the Underworld to perform the great and terrible works of the grave. When the Age of Legends thrashed and bled through its final days, theirs were the gauntleted fists that gripped Creation's hair and sought to draw a knife across its throat. They failed, in the end: though they grievously wounded the world, it limped on into a new and lesser epoch, and the deathknights were imprisoned where they could never again threaten the living.
Or at least, they should have been. Now the Black Vault is open and the great heroes of myth have returned... and the slayers of men and nations along with them.
Agents of Extinction
The Abyssal Exaltation hurtles itself across the nightscape at the speed of a scream. It was drawn from a font of light and divinity, once upon a time. A part of it still yearns to find a hero and fill them with the power of Heaven during their moment of crisis. It cannot. It lost that ability long before the dawn of history. But oh, still it yearns. And so it circles those who might be valid candidates for Solar Exaltation, sending chills up their spines for reasons they cannot hope to guess, and then – usually – it passes on in impotent frustration, and seeks another.
The only valid candidates for Abyssal Exaltation are those in the midst of the most fundamental and human of all actions: the act of dying. The dying individual must also meet the same standards of excellence and supernatural awareness as a candidate for Solar Exaltation, although the Abyssal Exaltation is no more particular about supernatural taint than is a Lunar Exaltation.
Sunlight burns the Abyssal Exaltation, and so during the day it hides within corpses. Normally, this means it cannot grant its blessing while the sun stands in the sky. Normally, this means Abyssals are only drawn from the ranks of those dying in the dark, but sometimes... sometimes... well. Sometimes the Exaltation locates the perfect candidate, and finds they need help in dying. When that happens the Exaltation enters a corpse, forces it to lurch upright, to shuffle, to stalk, and to kill. For these Exalts-to-be, their final living sight is a moldering cadaver moving to embrace them with the tender joy of a long-lost friend as their life gushes out of a corpse-bitten throat.
The Choice
Abyssal Exaltation occurs in a frozen moment between life and death, as the last spark of a dying mortal's consciousness gutters on the verge of winking out. A presence comes upon them then, cold, wordless, but offering a clear choice nonetheless: embrace the awful power that rolls off of it like a dark fog, like a killing miasma, like a black fire; or reject it and pass into what- ever awaits beyond death's veil.
Those who reach out to take hold of that terrible power know that their choice is irrevocable. They know that they are binding themselves to a different sort of bleak eternity than whatever waits beyond the grave. But they also know that their heart will beat, their limbs will move, and they will continue to walk in the living world. For most, it's no choice at all, really.
The Black Exaltation
There is usually no great eruption of power when the Black Exaltation begins. The Abyssal's wounds quickly mend themselves. Her eyes open. A creeping chill insinuates itself into her flesh, and she has the distinct sense of losing something small and precious in exchange for something grand and dark and magnificent.
A slow, deep power builds within her flesh and heart, hour upon hour, night upon night. At first, the Abyssal might delude herself into believing she hallucinated her bargain, but such thoughts cannot last for long. Dark and fearsome omens plague her footsteps. Water freezes and plants die in her presence. Flocks of ravens and vultures crowd the rooftops and power lines to watch her. When she peers into mirrors, the world she sees within is rotting and decayed. Over the course of several nights these manifestations intensify: Crimson eyes open in the sky and weep blood. Corpses worm their way up from the ground and prostrate themselves before her. The mad and the lost whisper her name, and then sob, or bleed, or flee.
At last the dead come for her, and they are not gentle or reverent ancestor spirits. Feral, hateful, maddened things that once were human souls claw a hole in the fabric of the world and draw the Abyssal into the Underworld. As she stands upon the dust of that blasted landscape, her Spectre abductors cavort and howl and worship her with dark and instinctive glee.
Soon, inevitably, the storm arrives. It ravages the land of the dead and carries the Spectres, cackling, up into its winds. The Abyssal suffers no harm; this is her storm, it is here for her before any other purpose, and upon its arrival it drives the last missing key to her Exaltation into her heart: a tiny but pure sliver of Oblivion. To make room for this gift, the storm-winds suck out and carry away a trifling reduction in the form of the Abyssal's name.
It's up to her to find a way back to the living world after that, but this is rarely any great hardship. The Spectres are usually happy to carry her back through the Shroud should she show any desire for them to do so, exploiting the vast power of the soul-storm to accomplish the deed.
