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If you meet the Bhudda on the road -- kill him!

			-- Old Bhuddist Proverb

Then loot the body, that begging bowl is a major relic!

			-- Larkspur's corollary

Every now and again, some wag will throw out that hoary old chestnut: "How can the Wild can have Lords? Hierarchical power relations seem incompatible with infinite, perfect liberty." These buffoons exhibit the trademark arrogant ignorance of the rebuttal to their question, Drenveldin Larkspur.

All Wildlords hold the title of Lord as this puts them on an equal footing, but make no mistake, Larkspur is the lowest of the "peasantry" among the Wild. Think upon how Lus and Yamaya are both called Lexicographer, but one is a scholar of the highest distinction and one is an overzealous typesetter. The same principle applies here.

Tellingly, Larkspur possesses no Estates whatsoever. Lengthy and exacting divinations and quiet interiews with Imperators of all stripes bear out this fact. Several Wildlords, on the grounds of anonymity, revealed in strictest confidence that Larkspur appeared in our reality as the servant of Chesdar (the first Wildlord). His exact functions do not translate to our reality, but the closest approximation of his job would be "piss boy".

Once Chesdar enChancled, Larkspur was bereft of employment and set out to wander the Ash causing all manner of chaos. While not a thread in Creation's tapestry, he was securely bound up in it and thus Reality tangled about him and his adventures often threw him willy-nilly into crucial points of history. The stories about Larkspur's adventures are legion and most of them are distressingly true. We include one of the shorter but illuminating stories here:

One day, as Larkspur was wandering the World Ash he encountered the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. At once he fell in love with her (or at least, its closest base equivalent). He rushed over and professed his desire for her. It was no small wonder that the woman was such a beauty for she was a Fallen Angel named T'sais and she was set as a lure to draw the Fool onto the side of Hell (or at least dupe him into causing as much corruption as possible).

So T’sais received Larkspur's advances coyly but with many hints of agreeable companionship should he prove to be a worthy match.

“What must I do to earn the favor of your charms?” asked Larkspur.

“You must corrupt a thing of great beauty, then I will consider it, Handsome Wildlord,” cooed T’sais. “Yonder on the Ash lies the fabled Silvered Spire. Tarnish its beauty and that would be a feat worthy of my love.”

At once, Larkspur went to the Silvered Spire and made every effort to tarnish its mirror-bright surface. He railed against it with all the magics he knew and several he didn’t. Not one of his eldritch assaults, real or imagined, affected the Spire in the least. In frustration, Larkspur even picked up a few large rocks and hurled them at the towering edifice, but to no avail. Having exhausted the limited repertoire of his own personal effort, Larkspur decided to see if he could get someone else to do the job for him.

Larkspur went up to the great gates of the Spire and demanded admittance. The bored guards let him in with nary a second glance and Larkspur went within to find the finest tavern, there to drink and scheme. As he sat staring glumly in his cups, an Elder of the community came and sat down next to him.

“You’re that young fellow who was attacking the Spire this morning weren’t you?” asked the elder.

“Indeed,” answered Larkspur sourly, “and despite my best efforts I’ve not even scratched the surface.”

The elder laughed, “the Spire cannot be altered, it is the one constant perfection in Creation. It remains unalterably beautiful, aesthetically fixed in relation to everything else.”

“How can there be a fixed standard of beauty? Creation constantly shifts and flows. Even Heaven itself constantly alters and corrects itself.”

“This is true. However, the Spire contains some whisper of the Creator vibrating within its halls. It’s a soft whisper that not even the Angels can make out, but no matter how Creation changes, the Spire does not and yet it remains perfect.”

The Elder plucked a dark and brooding flower from a nearby vase. “You see this,” he said, “it is the flower of a former comrade who is lost to us now. A large number of them grow about the western base of the Spire. When the fallen ones were cast from Heaven, their flowers became hollow mockeries of their former glory. So these flowers on the Western side threatened to undermine the perfection of the Spire. Yet even in this catastrophic moment, the Spire simply remained majestic. So I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do.”

“That’s a flower of Vilphori isn’t it?” asked Larkspur.

“Yes,” sighed the elder, “sadly it is. Now a pale reflection of its former glory before—“

Larkspur left the man to his recollections and Larkspur’s tab and hurried forth from the Spire.

On a lonely, windswept plain, Larkspur began a short ritual using an anaphoric formula. Soon the plain was filled with multiple copies of Vilphori. This, of course, was antithetical to its nature and it imploded from Creation.

Larkspur returned to the Spire to find it fallen into a blackened ruin. The elder he had conversed with in the Tavern sat amidst the rubble weeping and gnashing his teeth.

“how is this possible?” moaned the elder.

“Simple,” replied Larkspur, “the Spire is perfect in relation to all of Creation. I simply removed a key element of Creation and the Spire could no longer stand.”

“You…did what?” asked the horrified elder.

Larkspur plucked up a flower. “Vilphori,” he said, “I removed it from reality. The Spire couldn’t be perfect next to something that didn’t exist. It transcends paradox and so the Spire had to fall.”

“You…you removed Vilphori? You erased a part of Creation!?”

“I did. It was rather easy too. Someone should look into that.”

“Why?” asked the elder with tears in his eyes. “Why do such a monstrous thing?”

Larkspur regarded the elder with incredulity, “Why, to impress a woman of course. I will take this flower as a trophy of my victory to my beloved T’sais in whose arms I shall—“

Larkspur stopped. The elder had begun to laugh and Larkspur had the distinct feeling it was not in appreciation of his genius. “Why do you laugh old man?” he asked irritably.

The elder was in a full-blown fit of laughter by now, he managed to stop long enough to gasp out, “T’sais was the Fallen Angel of Vilphori! By destroying it, you have destroyed her and lost all chance to savor your basely-won caresses!”

Larkspur dashed off to find his beloved, but it was all too true. She was gone.

Originally by Jere Genest as an "D" entry in the Lexicon of the Second Age.