Moons before chaos reigned across the land, the omens were legion. Monstrous births were recorded in all of the shires; babes with tails, horns, double faces or even heads, cloven feet, talons for hands, scales, fur, fangs, forked tongues; it was said that a heifer in the shire of Bloodfield gave birth to a human child with a full set of teeth; in the shire of Inkensky a gazing pool in a garden dedicated to the goddess Hadrene turned to blood; a shagfoal the size of a warhorse was spotted galloping across the moors of Scarvale for the first time in over four hundred years; a statue of the mother Hadrene which had been torn down by the new Hierophant and cast into the River Smote washed up against a small island and became lodged, where hundreds witnessed it weeping openly at the act of sacrilege; yet most grievous of all the portents was the massive rat king discovered in the bowels of the cellar of the royal palace, the tails of over fifty rats twisted and intertwined together, their flesh torn asunder in desperate attempt to flee from one another.