Steel Colossus of Calin
The Steel Colossus of Calin is a massive, ancient statue located beneath the waters of the harbor at Port Calin. In the present era, the body of the Colossus lies half-buried in the mud, though the fingers of one outstretched hand break the surface where they serve as mooring for ships. The two weather-worn feet of the Colossus sit on either end of the harbor breakwaters, each now topped with a battlement and catapult to defend the harbor entrance.
The Colossus was raised during the First Age, and fell in the time of the Usurpation. Some say that the truth of its origins has been lost to Creation, and yet the story of the Colossus is told often around the kitchen hearths and drinking holes of Calin, as a foundation myth from which their land draws its name. This same tale is also counted amongst the Immaculate Apocrypha.
Once upon a time during the time of the Anathema, the massive statue stood astride the entrance to the harbor, all those seeking to enter passing beneath it. Its outstretched hand reached out for the Blessed Isle, while its head was wreathed in a crown of bright flame to guide vessels sailing the nearby Inner Sea. It was raised by one of the Solar Anathema, in his own image, a towering symbol of blasphemous idolatry to which the prayers of his subjects were forcibly directed, whose surface shone Gold and Orichalcum forged in the blood of demons by the hands of gods ripped from their divine duties,
When the Immaculate Dragons overthrew the Anathema and bound them in the Jade Prison, those who sought to rebuild Creation struggled to fell the great statue. The story says that some looked at the valuable metals on its surface and sought ways to remove and repurpose them… in local tellings, such greedy souls came from across the Inner Sea, while Immaculate recounts tend them to have been locals. Regardless, both versions speak that a brave hero, by the name of Fallaha Calin, came to look upon the statue. The Immaculate version speaks that he was a follower of the Immaculate of Earth Pasiap, while the Calinti tells he was a great warrior, brave and full of honour.
Fallaha Calin stood before the Colossus, and struck its leg with his grand goremaul, the Crushing Weight of Insight. The statue reverberated, issuing a thunderous roar as the gold of its skin was rendered molten, revealing the steel core beneath… in older and Immaculate tellings, the gold itself transformed into steam and vanished, while Calinti tales say that it flowed into waiting pots and was used to fund the founding of Port Calin.
Fallaha Calin then struck the Colossus again, in the other leg, and its moaning grew even greater as it shook, the statue falling to its knees so it might abase itself before the Unconquered Sun and the Five Dragons for the crimes of its maker. Then, it fell backwards into the waters of the harbor, and has remained buried there ever since.
Thus, the Calinti say, did the name of Calin come to be applied to the statue, and to the city, and to the land itself, to honour the strength and bravery which felled the Colossus. Thus, the Immaculate conveys sagely, can no thing, no matter how towering or great, stand against a soul that is righteous.
