Escaton

Escaton's portrait from Might and Magic VIII

Also known as The Destroyer of Worlds and the Spider in the Web Gate. An agent of the Ancients and great enemy of the Kreegans. His mission was to render planets, such as Enroth, uninhabitable or inexistent if Kreegans invaded them successfully. The main antagonist in Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer, he appeared in Jadame and would have destroyed Enroth had the group of adventurers not stopped him and his plans. Despite them telling him that the Kreegans had been eradicated, Escaton was unable to stop the program of world destruction once it was initiated, and as such, he instructed the adventurers to destroy the means by which he was to purge the world.

In the past, he was worshipped as a spider god. The Dark Elves also know a lot about Escaton.

The Destroyer Cometh

The following story comes from the Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer manual.

A mysterious apparition materialized outside the town of Ravenshore, disturbing the calm breeze of another seemingly uneventful day in Jadame's centerpiece town. The comely man of undeterminable age who eventually took form strode purposefully toward the diverse town of monster races and humans (a common mixture on Jadame). The fair, human appearance of the mysterious stranger in this town of unsightly creatures caused monstrous faces to turn from their business and pleasure alike and stare with open hatred at the seemingly unaffected man. As he passed by a brawling pair of monsters, the larger of the two dropped the smaller to pursue the fair stranger. Such was the normal state of affairs in this factional, often belligerent corner of the world — strangers were more often greeted with hatred and suspicion than with hospitality. Even so, the stranger walked amongst them with an aura of calmness that spoke of his apparent lack of awareness of the peril lurking behind every shadow. The monster's savage attack came without warning. With his fierce muzzle of pointed fangs matching his hideously outstretched claws, he bore down on the unsuspecting visitor. All watched eagerly for the expected demise of this comely man as the enraged beast hurled itself at the man's delicate frame. With the expectation of fresh blood still in the creature's eyes, it was paralyzed by a nimbus of energy that briefly shimmered around the strange man. The stranger walked on, however, unfazed and without [noticing?] the attack or the rest of the town around him. He seemed lost in thought and muttered incomprehensibly to himself as he paused and took a few uncertain steps in each direction.

With a sudden squaring of his shoulders, he turned and headed determinedly back, toward the town square. He now received a respectfully wide berth, and he moved unmolested through the chaotic mass of bodies attending —rather strictly now— to their business. In the center of the town square, he inscribed a glowing circular line on the ground around where he stood. When the circle was complete, the earth trembled briefly as an immense crystal monolith grew up out of the circle, engulfing the mysterious stranger. Several of the inhabiting monsters approached the crystal, their fear replaced by a dreadful curiosity. As they reached the crystal —awe inscribed on their faces— it shimmered with a resounding, thunderous clap and the strange monolith sparked into blinding illumination. The piercing light was accompanied by a spherical explosion of energy from the crystal that hurled monsters away from the epicenter like rag dolls.

Seemingly in response to the explosive pulse from the monolith, the air in the four corners of the continent of Jadame shimmered briefly. Following a moment of dreadful silence, chaos was loosed upon the unsuspecting continent. Four gateways, one to each of the planes: Earth, Air, Fire and Water, thrust their way into the world with cataclysmic force.

There was a sudden, violent eruption from the previously calm and featureless seas near the Dagger Wound Islands as the gate to the elemental plane of Earth burst into Jadame. Searing clouds of volcanic ash and molten rock rained down on the island, destroying the network of bridges that connected the islands to one another and to the mainland. As the earth trembled and wantonly spewed jagged shards of rock into the air, the fortified Lizardmen town of Blood Drop was sent into a panicked throng of reptilian bodies.

At the same time at an opposite corner of Jadame, a great deluge gushed forth from the Water gateway as it emerged into existence, engulfing an entire valley in a tidal wave that buried a Minotaur lair under a lake of water. Minotaur society was broken by the aqueous event, leaving one of their most important sites forever drowned in a new inland sea.

In another corner of Jadame, a vast wall of fire exploded from the mouth of the gateway to the elemental plane of Fire, burning the desert itself for lack of anything else to consume. Several Trolls briefly ran in terror from the advancing firestorm before they were consumed in screams of tortured desperation and agony. A wave of fire rolled over the Trolls and swallowed up most of their village.

Completing the deadly quartet, the gateway to the elemental plane of Air burst into an expanding vortex above a vast, ancient forest, tearing out the age old trees by their immense roots and hurling them about like toothpicks. As the swirling vortex stopped its advance, a solitary, crazed Air elemental rushed out of the gateway. He was joined by others, similarly insane, and as one, they turned to face the source of their consuming madness. A dreadful, soulless howl echoed in chorus throughout the ancient forest in recognition of their bondage to the expanding energy pulse on the far horizon. Though their task was ages old, the elementals had never gone willingly. Slowly, however, they were mastered, and their madness was set on its destructive course. They would eventually arrive at the crystal on Ravenshore they always did.

A long-forgotten Dark Elven prophecy tells of a cycle to the universe, an unending circular chain of events in which the world has been created, destroyed and recreated at the whim of the elemental forces of order and chaos. Within the prophecy, the Day of the Destroyer* passage foretells a time when disunity and upheaval would prevail in the world following the age of peace ("Aege of Shefar"):

"A tyme of stryfe and woe shall follow the 'Aege of Shefar', and in this Aege, all shall fall to naught as the gates of chaos are opened unto Enroth. And this shall be a sygn unto ye — when the elemental forces of the Earth, the Wind, the Fyre and the Water shall freely roam your lands, to usher death and destruction upon theyr wings, ye shall have entered the fynale Aege, 'the Aege of Purification'. Once this Aege hath begun, there shalt be no recourse. For lo' the lords of the Earth, the Wind, the Fyre and the Water both giveth lyfe unto thee and stryketh lyfe from thee. In tymes of stryfe the cycle of destruction cannot be avoided and thyne only repose shall be death. However, in tymes of harmony those that gather in allyance shall stand the possibility of surviving the purification and warding off the end of the 'Aege of Shefar' to enjoy a prolonged era of peace."

Unfortunately, those who forget their history are inevitably doomed to repeat it, just as in the prophecies — an unending cycle of purging and regeneration. Should any of the warring factions of monster races have the presence of mind to solve the ancient conundrum, disaster could possibly be averted. Once, many ages ago, the Dark Elven prophecy was a part of every race s folklore. But, the Dark Elves are presently preoccupied with the strife and woe prophesied for this age, and the legends have long been forgotten and dismissed as old wives tales or pointless elven foolishness. Will this time around be any different from the last, or will all of Enroth simply be recycled in another incarnation of the prophetic wheel? Only the coming days can tell the ultimate outcome. For, if truth be known, not all has been preordained...

* Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer