Water gently lapped up against the old oaken panels of the ship’s hull in an unbroken rhythm, caressing its old skin with the familiar touch. It came in quiet waves, swaddling the sides of the vessel in its tender embrace before receding back into the great azure that stretched out into the horizon. The craft swayed and bobbed ever so slightly in the face of this kindly onslaught, following the rhythm of the sea with the expertise only its old creaking shell would know. It glided sleekly forward through the soft liquid around it, towards the fading sun on the skyline. The golden light of a finished day illuminated its worn mast and sun-faded deck, casting a large proud shadow off in the opposite direction to its glare. Yellowed sails, once blazing and bone white in their hue, fluttered and trembled in the faint breeze that whistled through holes and tears made decades in the past.  

The ship had a name, though few knew its true title, for many it was simply known as The Wanderer, a ship said to be even older than the lands it sailed between. No crew was ever seen on its ancient frame, it never needed them, and they were things of the flesh, weak, susceptible to ageing and weakness. The ship itself was ageless; its timbers creaked and shuddered like the oldest of vessels but the ancient hulk could keep pace with the fastest of human craft ever to grace the water. The only soul ever to walk its timeless surface was the captain, a figure as old and mysterious and the ship itself. Said to be human, but not in the same way a normal man is, his name unknown to all, even in the oldest and darkest of tales naught  but a mention of his dark clothed figure is made for fear of the fate his presence brings. For the Wanderer was not a sight welcomed by any who knew its purpose.  For wherever the ship was sighted only the worst of fates would follow in its wake; death, destruction and pain unending. For the Wanderer was a herald, a harbinger, a sign of a doom yet to come and wherever its destination certain devastation would follow.