NOTES FROM THE JOURNALS OF PROF. CILLIAN R. KHANDJIAN -- A preview of "THE LAST ASCENSION"

These documents I have recovered are fragmentary at best; not surprising since they are many thousands of years old. The most complete work is that of Hâr-Mathion Mavonduri’s youth, which has no doubt been compiled and seen by many in the decades following my death. However, as I delved further into the Last King’s history, the documents became scarcer and the picture less complete. Even so, by the time of Hâr-Mathion’s reign as King of the Wolven, the only certifiable source materials that can be counted as one hundred percent credible are Mathion’s own journals and accounts given by his son Ser-Mathios.

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The translation of “Wolfsbane” that I have employed is not simply practical or a matter of convenience. Upon examination of the description of the plant in question as identified in the documents as Íneña or “the Leaf (i.e. ‘flower’) of Íne,” it can be safely assumed that they are one and the same. The Wolfsbane or monkshood plant (aconitum lycotonum is probably the most likely candidate for its exact identification) can have leaves of a blue or purplish hue and hangs low like the hood of a monk (hence the moniker “monkshood”) and secretes a poison harmful to humans. The Wolven’s immune system is apparently able to metabolize this poison and negate the effects of the werewolf’s toxic bite. In addition, the Wolfsbane poison is actually harmful to the Kânín themselves—understandable now why they would burn fields of these plants as a preemptive battle strategy.

This is another quality of the heretofore “mythical” beast that I cannot find in any research conducted on lycanthropic attributes in the victims. This “toxic saliva” is only found in a wholly unrelated species of giant lizard (or dragon according to some reports) from an island in the far Pacific. I can confidently say that this is not a form of the rabies virus common in most species of wild canines or rodents. Nevertheless, as I further comb these fantastic documents I am learning about a world from before our own, as alike and different to it as one can imagine.

Many details from this point forward are scant or untranslatable, although I have done my best to translate given the very limited amount of documentation in my possession. Where there is not sufficient translatable material, I will attempt to fill in the gaps with my own assumptions, incorrect as they might be.