Ruin Creek
Ruin Creek is a human settlement on the southern tip of a small continent to the north of Teras Isle. It is most famous (and really only known) for housing the surviving remnants of the royal bloodline of House Ashrim, who bred into the pre-existing human population they encountered. There was a violent encounter when a black knight of the Vvrael arrived in search of a baby, which had been pulled out of a temporal rift from the seal on an enruned modwir box dating back to the Undead War. The rift was temporarily sealed by Daephron Illian with his own life force to contain the Vvrael, which he had accidentally unleashed in his quest to summon the Ur-Daemon. It is thought he thrust himself into the swirling mist of time in order to evade the corrupted agents of the Vvrael, who would seek to kill him and open the box so they could freely invade our world. Whether the binding of his whole life force or the temporal rift, his form reverted to that of a small elven child, and when he traced the runes on the box he aged rapidly until the process killed him. This would later become thought of as a puzzle box, since hidden, though how it managed to find its way to where it went was never revealed.
The puzzle box had been sent ahead of Princess Chesylcha Sukari Faendryl's wedding party as a gift. However, a court mage and royal advisor named Malaphor recognized it was not an ordinary gift box, sensing that it contained great power. It was saved from the destruction of Ta'Ashrim by being carried by Malaphor on the boat that contained surviving relatives of their Patriarch.
Malaphor studied the box for several thousand years before succeeding in unleashing Daephron Illian, or else the portal he opened bridged time to the point when the rift was widened to the breaking point, whether intentionally or in interaction with the rift in the box and the baby. The knight the Vvrael corrupted tracked them down and slaughtered Malaphor, going on a murderous rampage until finding its way to Wehnimer's Landing. It was chasing after his apprentice Tindal, who had escaped with the babe through a familiar's gate. The Vvrael sought this box as a short cut to reach into the world from their rift in the veil, which was by now growing strong enough to lead to the faltering of the Eye of the Drake. The scene of the ship escaping the Ashrim Isle would later appear in the temporal distortions under Melgorehn's Reach shortly before Althedeus was defeated. There was widespread temporal rifting at the time. The image was preceded by an Ur-Daemon being assaulted by Drakes.
Surroundings
The ghost of Malaphor provided world historical details that are not presently defined in the official lore documentation.
You hear the ghostly voice of an old man say, "Our ship sailed for many days and just when our supplies had dwindled and our spirits were at their lowest, we landed on the southern tip of a small continent, somewhat to the north of what you know as Teras Isle." You hear the ghostly voice of an old man say, "There we found a small town by the name of Ruin Creek. It was inhabited by humans mainly, but they took us in and as time went by our two races mingled together, banding together for survival and for the bond of love." You hear the ghostly voice of an old man say, "And survival was at issue...for we were walled in by many threats...the Krolvin empire to the far north, the Talkyn empire to the far northwest, the trolls of Grr'Tok to the west and beyond that, the flaming spire of Cinghin'fer" You hear the ghostly voice of an old man say, "Because Ruin Creek was so far from the seat of power of the Krolvin and Talkryn empires, we were left alone, but the trolls raided Ruin Creek mercilessly."
Behind the Scenes
The "black knight" was less powerful than the black reaver that had been released from a box in Danjirland a few years prior, which also went on a killing rampage in the single-minded pursuit of its target. They are almost indestructible. This knight was a "corrupted human" who was vanquished in the Elven Village. Ruin Creek is geographically located roughly where Mur Fostisyr was on the continent on Jaiman. Malaphor is a portmanteau word of "malapropism" and "metaphor", possibly referring to the extensive mix-and-matching of underlying subtexts in the Vvrael quest that were much deeper. His apprentice Tindal having an underlying meaning is unclear. It may refer to the theologian William Tindall who denounced prayers to saints, reflecting Castle Anwyn's relation to St. Patrick's Purgatory. He had rejected the Catholic view of purgatory, supporting the idea that souls sleep until Judgment Day, which corresponds to the Purgatory of the death mechanics which is implicitly a state of dreaming.
"Ruin Creek" happens to be a novel from 1993 about a young boy struggling with a broken family, though this might only be coincidental. The general notion of "ruin" could refer to the Wasteland mythology, which Terate embodied in visions of him being rejuvenated on his chair of bones, and possibly the blocked rivers of the serpent Vrtra. The scholar Jessie Weston believed that the ultimate root of the Grail story was restoring the ruined land suffering drought by "freeing the waters", first represented in slaying Vrtra, hence the Vvrael and Ruin Creek. Malaphor told his story shortly after Familiar Gate (930) was released. The phrase "piercing the veil" was first used in the Vvrael quest, which is the literal meaning of Perceval, who corresponds to Terate in various ways. The legend of Perceval is an admixture of incompatible traditions and other figures, essentially a malaphor, and often features chronology problems and things appearing without explanation or contradictions. The elderly journeyman who brought the Vvrael related scrolls to Castle Anwyn likely alludes to Merlin, and may be implied to be Daephron Illian, since there is a parallel to The Graveyard story which has a trans-temporal possession subtext.