Carniog

War of the Black Torc

Prince Carniog gained the Black Torc by chance. In 527 it showed up at the bottom of the Albion Well. He and Morgan le Fay used it to enslave many Seelie fae, confining them to Carniog's undersea court for centuries. One of these fae was Prince Rhys of Glamorgan, who was son to Queen Caerna. Betrayed to him by Morgan le Fay, Prince Carniog confined him within the Black Torc itself.

The Seelie and Unseelie kingdoms went to war.  While they battled primarily in Wales, some fighting spilled over into England, especially within the Kingdom of Wool, Queen Caerna's domain. 

In the final battle, Caerna knocked the Black Torc from Carniog's hand. It fell into the Llyn Brianne in the Cambrian Mountains, turning the waters black for days, and neither Seelie nor Unseelie could retrieve it. Finally, Caerna retreated, heartsick at the loss of her son.

Growing Power

The other principalities became more worried by the year as Carniog's schemes grew ever bolder. Sometime before 653, Carniog sent a sluagh assassin to strike Taliesin with a slow fae poison. The courtiers at Powis caught the assassin and turned her into a slug, but too late to save Taliesin, who seemed to accept his coming death, doing nothing to forestall it.

In the aftermath of the War of the Black Torc, Morgan le Fay took control of the Principality of Glamorgan. In 653, when she decided to depart for Avalon, she called together all her court. She also invited Prince Carniog, from his dark court off the coast in sunken Lyonesse, her close ally, and yet the tales tell of deep disdain between them, each for the other.

Using a magic purse to collect her court, she turned to Carniog. "This realm is yours, to hold or lose."

Then she gave him a long sword of shining silver, "This be the Sword of Glamorgan, who did conquer this realm six centuries ago. Mark well these words: The sword be invincible within Cymru; but should ye set foot beyond the country's borders, the sword shall turn on thee, and disaster shall surely follow,"

Then Morgan made to him a terse farewell, opened a path to the gates of Avalon, and departed. Prince Carniog went no more to his court in Lyonesse, and I know no tale that tells what came of his absence there, but many are the stories of his vile attacks on his Seelie neighbors in Powis and Dyfed, and of his worrying fear over the growing power of Powis. Under his rule, Glamorgan became haunted and near deserted.

Around his thin neck Carniog wore the Black Torc, which he had somehow reclaimed, and at his waist he wore always the sword of Glamorgan, which protected him from harm so long as he never left Cymru. But he could not be everywhere at once, and he lacked enough troops to hold the lands he took; for all the fair family despised Carniog. 

Caledfwlch and Queen Caerna's domains were always the checks upon Prince Carniog's ambition. At last, when the tercentenary of Carniog's rule in Glamorgan was only a few years off, he engineered the fall of the Caledfwlch court of Rhonwen and Abernaeron in Powis with the help of the snow giants of Mount Snowdon. With a massive landslide, he killed the guardians of the Llyn Brianne which was at the court, covered the pool, and shut off its magick. 

With its source of magickal power gone, Caledfwlch's defenses gradually faded. The next year, Prince Carniog himself broke through the freehold walls and slew right and left. With the Torc he had enslaved a weak-kneed magus. Prester Fflydd was his name. At Carniog's behest, Fflydd transformed Abernaeron into a small white fox. Rhonwen, not realizing her love lived, committed suicide. Powis, now controlled by Prince Carniog, grew dark, unpredictable, and dangerous.

Battle of Carniog’s Doom

In 954, the Principalities of Dyfed and Gwynedd, the Kingdom of Wool, and refugees from Powis came together to defeat Carniog. Mage allies assisted to avenge Abernaeron.

The armies clashed upon the white beach east of what is now Cardiff. Caerna led the feared Gloaming Covey of Claerwen, with their enchanted emerald swords that clashed with the deadly sun-swords of Glamorgan. Sidhe of Dyfed summoned griffins, and a magus of Powis called upon old debts owed her by two Penn-y-Cabar wyrms. The sinuous dragons cast their great shadows against the sun, and the Glamorgan swords went out like spent candles.

In response, Carniog lit a great bonfire with the bodies of his fallen enemies. Holding magickal prisms before the flames, he focused the light into thin beams that sliced the wyrms right down the belly. The ancient dragons fled, leaving only fae enraged by the profanation of their dead. Yet rage did not help them, for Carniog used the Torc, and he kept hold of the Shining Sword. Against it none could stand.

The turning point came when, there on the beach, the deceitful magus Prester Fflydd turned on his master. No one knows why, but I think he may have given in to some kind of fae cantrip. Fflydd struck at Carniog from surprise, and though the mortal could not damage the Unseelie Prince, he did scratch the Black Torc.

Carniog slew Fflydd on the instant. But the Torc, once scratched, turned loose good Prince Rhys, that Carniog and Morgan le Fay had entrapped in it those centuries ago. He emerged quite mad, yet in a froth he shouted to his mother, "If he leaves the bounds of Cymru, he is doomed!" Then Rhys, too, fell dead on Carniog's Shining Sword. But his death was not in vain.

Queen Caerna heard her son's last words, and she knew at once what to do. Prince Carniog stood on the beach, within a few paces of the surf. Caerna gave quick commands to a magus of Powis, Clothra Seabreeze. Clothra chanted a spell and shed a drop of her blood to the sea-spirits, and down on the beach the surf rushed up to flow over Carniog's feet.

It was no more than knee-deep, that water, and yet it meant that Carniog now stood offshore, beyond the bounds of Cymru. Carniog realized it and screamed, and at that moment, the Shining Sword of Glamorgan turned in his hand and struck him down. He fell into the surf, the Black Torc and Shining Sword slipped from him, and the whole sea went dead black for a day and a night. And that is the last that anyone has seen of Carniog for 10 centuries since.