The storm slipped through itself from one world to another, seemingly drawn inexorably toward the most powerful enchantment or spellcasting in its neighborhood.
Sometimes, 'though the storm could not find an appropriate phenomenon and simply sat until one started, or until it detected one in some other world and decided to slip through to see what was going on.
When the storm arrived where a sorcerer was casting a powerful spell, it would swallow him, and his magick, and neither would be heard of again. Sometimes it would just swallow whoever was nearest.
The storm would not touch chaos. When it came to other storms, both would leave. Only order, the organization of power to purpose attracted it and made it hungry.
One should not get the idea that the storm had feelings or purpose or a mind or intent. The storm was simply a thing that happened -- over and over again.
One day, four sorcerers met to discuss the storm, they had just lost a mutual friend, and they felt bad about that. They all decided that they should do something about it, but there were problems. They knew how to bring the storm, simply by casting a big spell, but they agreed that one would find it difficult to study something that was eating one.
One of the sorcerers, named Noituac, decided to give up magic, at least until the storm was dealt with (by someone else) and left the meeting.
The three remaining sorcerers decided that they would have to use small magicks to deal with the storm, but they had great difficulty deciding how to deal with a great and powerful force with a small, weak one.
Then one of the sorcerers, whose name was Oediv, had an idea and he invented a tiny spell that would follow the storm and constantly report back. This spell was too weak and insignificant to attract the storm's attention.
Another sorcerer, called Rotsisnart, invented a tiny spell that would give the storm a tiny push sideways each time it tried to do anything.
The third sorcerer was called Yrettab, and he invented a place for the storm to be, and he made it look like an ordinary oak trunk, and he carved warnings into the lid of the trunk in all the languages and scripts he and the others knew so that people would not open the box.
So Yrettab, Rotsisnart and Oediv went to different parts of the world and cast their little spells and Oediv's spell found the storm and Rotsisnart's spell nudged it into Yrettab's magick box.
And the storm was trapped, but it was not helpless. While it could not get out of the box, it could still shift through itself into other worlds, fortunately, even then, it could not get out of the box.
That is, until one day when a sorcerer named Evarb opened the box and the storm ate him. It was easy to open the box, but the three sorcerers did not think anyone would ignore the warnings. Unfortunately, Evarb did not know any of the languages or scripts that Yrettab had carved. Still the spells worked; Oediv's little spell chased the storm and found it and Rotsisnart's spell nudged it into Yrettab's box. This is pretty good magic, especially since, by then Yrettab, Rotsisnart and Oediv had been dead for about 500 years.
Anyway, the storm continued to slip from one world to another, and it even got let out of its box from time to time, but since Yrettab, Rotsisnart and Oediv showed how much could be achieved with tiny spells, it has done a lot less harm.
The Lesson of Namal-Kandair is a teaching story told to apprentices of the Shek-Pvar and other branches of the Guild of Arcane Lore. As such, it has a wide circulation and is known throughout Lythia by learned folk, and to a somewhat lesser degree by other folk as well. The lessons it conveys are most readily understood by sorcerers.
The GM may develop the facts of the story for use in his version of Kelestia. The existence of spacetime storms is well documented by the Shek Pvar, the Shadow Bag of Iltain-Sheral, for example, is described in Hârnmaster (see Treasure-14). The Namal-Kandair is simply another variant.
The fact that the Namal-Kandair is still wending its ways between the worlds of Kelestia presents an immediate, dramatic and inescapable lead- in option.
A group of player-characters could encounter the box almost anywhere at any time. Then they might open it, and if they do, the GM can have his way with them.
The effect of opening the box would be dramatic, but like many other things, are left to GM discretion. The storm will swallow the group whole, but would not (unless the GM is in a very bad mood) destroy them. Instead they would find themselves (more or less intact) in some other location, quite possibly on another world, perhaps at a distant point on the one they started from. Alternately, they could, for a time, find themselves between worlds in a location where, if you will excuse the expression, meaning loses its meaning.
As a GM ploy, the box is very useful for relocating a PC group within any timeframe to any location the GM's heart might desire.
The GM is advised to copy Part I of the legend and distribute it immediately to all Shek-Pvar (or learned) characters. No further action is required, but later all hell may break loose.
Even if you never use the legend to set up a scenario, the lessons may actually do someone some good...