Deep within the once-lost library of Hadanan, a dry and crumbling text was found hidden within a hollow in a collapsing stone wall. Within it, a First Age commentary that points to early recognition of the existence of the Brotherhood of the Crimson Blade.
“For within the boundless myriad souls that busy themselves about this world, each a tear or raindrop within the vast sea of life, there are those for whom the ending of another is seemingly of little consequence.
Cruel is the brute, raised from early years a bully, a savage, a tyrant. Those from which the just and fair shy away. Those who create for themselves the death that will await them at the hands of those of similar ilk, their bodies found on tavern floor, in the dark of alleyways, or upon the threshold of their own abode.
Resigned is the warrior, defender or conqueror alike; whose hand is guided by King or country, honor or desperation, love or fear. Those who take lives as they believe they must, slowly chipping away at their own soul with each stroke, where, for many, each life taken speeds the next and draws them closer to their own collapse in body or spirit.
Within the rest, living at the ragged fringe of our sight, with lives only seeming as ours, there are those few who are akin and yet so very different. Those for whom the ending of a life fulfills a hunger, a need.
A purpose.
Those who find, one day, that their true nature has pursued them, sometimes drawing within reach, unseen, as an admirer who lacks the courage to come forward. Their true self is found, as a shadow cast upon the ground in the light of a dwindling moon, seen only when the eyes that search for it have been surrounded by the lingering night long enough to learn that darkness conceals many depths within itself.
Those that are the Mooncast Shadows, the carriers of the stained knives…”