In the earliest days after the elemental cataclysm, the magical backlash warped animals and creatures in unimaginable ways. As pockets of forcibly combined elements ruptured across the land, new mutated horrors began to spawn.
The Dreadmares emerged among the first of these abominations.
They were once noble steeds, loyal mounts bred by the fire realm’s cavalry to withstand blazing volcanic heat. When the negating anti-magic swept over their fiery homeland, it flash-froze their coats into smoky black obsidian as their living flames were extinguished.
In that instant of soul-rending transformation, the horses’ spirits were severed from their bodies and dragged screaming into the netherworld, only sheer terror and agony anchoring them back into their now petrified shells.
Thus the Dreadmares were bound for eternity – undying night-carved obsidian shells, trapping anguished spirits in endless torment.
The chains that eternally coil around their burnt obsidian-forms are manifestations of the Dreadmares’ anguish, echoes of the elemental forces that mutilated them so profanely. When their piercing shrieks tear through the Voidmoor’s silence, all creatures still feel a primal urge to flee from the unfathomable suffering given form.
The Dreadmares are among the Voidmoor’s apex predators, their chains endlessly rattling as they scour the deadlands relentlessly hunting any spark of life. To gaze upon one is to lock eyes with the abyss itself, the ultimate spiritual violation that the ruined world still has nightmares about.