Lore:Grayhaven

Grayhaven
Type	Plane
Realm	Void
Appears in	ESO

Grayhaven

Grayhaven is a lost realm of Oblivion located deep in the Void, beyond the reach of the Princes of Oblivion as well as the inhabitants of Mundus. It is a realm of shattered stone and chaotic creatia, where the sky glows green with Void energy.

The realm has few living inhabitants. The flora resembles that found in the Reach, and it is inhabited mainly by red torchbugs and lizards, the latter of which fall prey to the realm's many undead gristlewings. It is plagued by void rot and shades, dark spirits associated with Namira and the Void.

History

The Gray Host Invasion

At some point prior to the Soulburst circa 2E 578, the great necromancer Mannimarco was given refuge in Markarth by Ard Caddach, during which time he and his Worm Cult operated from the ruins of Nchuand-Zel. At some point prior to 2E 582, Caddach agreed to provide Mannimarco with a parcel of land in the Reach for experimentation. Caddach was grateful for Mannimarco's role in the downfall of Varen Aquilarios, who had usurped the Imperial throne from his cousin Leovic. In return, he granted him a sizeable portion of land in the hills near Markarth, accessible via a Great Lift within Nchuand-Zel. Mannimarco performed a ritual to meld this land with Coldharbour, the domain of his master, Molag Bal. However, the ritual failed; the land was sundered from Tamriel, but was not sent to Coldharbour, instead becoming lost in the Void. It was this sundered land which would become the realm of Grayhaven. The failed merge resulted in the realm bearing some resemblance to Coldharbour.

Mannimarco subsequently departed Markarth, using the knowledge he gained from this failure to initiate the Planemeld, which successfully began the process of sundering parts of Tamriel and merging them into Coldharbour via the creation of a Planar Vortex. His experiment left the region shattered, scarred by terrain which had been pulled to Tamriel from Coldharbour, and inhabited by Molag Bal's Daedric minions who were continuously drawn to the place. Caddach ordered that the access lift be sealed and permitted none to visit the place. Although the Planemeld was ended circa 2E 582, this land was not returned to Tamriel, unlike similar places which had been pulled into Oblivion by Dark Anchors.

Circa 2E 582, the Ashen Lord Rada al-Saran identified this realm as the final component in his centuries-long quest to grant salvation to his Gray Host, an army of vampires and werewolves who had mostly perished in 1E 1029. Rada and his fellow Gray Host members had made a pact with Molag Bal, pledging their souls in return for power. Based upon research conducted by Count Verandis Ravenwatch and Exarch Tzinghalis, Rada was able to restore many of his former comrades to life, freeing their souls from the eternal damnation of Coldharbour and reforming their bodies by retrieving their ashen remains and harvesting the souls of mortals. However, this restoration was simply temporary, as their souls still belonged to Molag Bal and would be returned to him upon death.

Seeking to permanently escape the clutches of Bal, Rada devised a plan to utilize the Dwemer Orrery of Arkthzand and the ancient vampiric magic of the Nighthollow Clan to navigate the Void, creating a link between Mundus and Grayhaven. The Dwemer of Arkthzand had once used this Orrery to chart the Void by peering into the Dark Heart, a shard of the primordial Void which they had discovered buried deep beneath the Reach. Rada instead planned to use this device to travel to Grayhaven, where he would summon an unnatural magical storm called the Darkstorm which would harvest the souls of all inhabitants of the Reach, feeding them to the Dark Heart in order to grant him enough power to transform Grayhaven into a sanctuary realm for the Gray Host. With the power of the Dark Heart and a connection to Mundus, the members of the Gray Host would achieve true immortality comparable to that of Daedra, enabling potentially endless conquests.

Rada successfully traveled to Grayhaven together with some of his vampire and werewolf minions. He initiated the Darkstorm, but he was confronted there by his former friend Verandis Ravenwatch, upon whose research Rada's plan had been based. Rada was confident that Verandis would join him in Grayhaven once he saw that his theories had been proven correct and that salvation from Molag Bal was possible, but Verandis feared the Gray Host's intentions and believed it was not worth the sacrifice of so many mortal lives. Verandis entered the realm together with Lyris Titanborn and the Vestige and defeated Rada in battle, dooming his soul to become trapped within Grayhaven forever. Verandis then merged with the Dark Heart in his place in order to stop the Darkstorm. Rather than harvesting the souls of the inhabitants of the Reach, he used the power of the Dark Heart to rescue the innocent souls who had been fed to the Heart, pulling them from the Void and restoring them to life back on Tamriel. By fusing his soul to the Dark Heart, Verandis escaped becoming trapped in Grayhaven. However, he was determined to fade into obscurity to ensure that the Heart would remain dormant, never to be used again.

Alternative Outcome

The Psijic Order had the means to scry secrets from fate lines beyond the bounds of Tamriel. Among these secrets were tomes that spoke of alternative timelines and realities, where certain key events transpired differently. One of those tomes spoke of a reality where the Order detected a group of unknown entities who had been pushing through the Void to reach Nirn for centuries. The Order sought aid to ascertain the nature of these beings, they prayed to the gods of Elsweyr that they were Dro-m'Athra, sought the Dark Brotherhood hoping they were the spawn of Sithis, and made sacrifices to the Gray Host thinking they might originate from Grayhaven, but in all cases the approaching beings proved unrelated and the Order found no answers. With no other option the Order gathered and formed endless nets of Sacred Numbers out of threads of purest Magicka, hoping to repel the invading horrors. The entities were unlike any beast, Daedra or spirit the Order had ever seen. The smaller creatures were tangled in the net and fell back into the Void, but the largest gazed through the breach with a single great unlidded eye. Those who gazed upon the eye could not unsee and were unmade by the sight alone. Though the Order struggled until there was nothing left, the net eventually failed and the veil ripped asunder to allow the entities into the world, causing everything to be unmade by their arrival.

Gallery

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  The region of the Reach from which Grayhaven was sundered

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  The Darkstorm

Notes

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  While Grayhaven is referred to on several occasions as an unmoored realm of Oblivion, Verandis states that it exists within "the infinite churning chaos we call the Void" and suggests that it may even be outside the reach of Aetherius. Because it is unclear where in the Aurbis Grayhaven currently resides, the Void is the best approximation that can be provided.