Weapon of War

[X][Class] Shaman. You command the gift of language, the words of power and dance of magic. Your role was to bend the world itself to the advantage of the master, turn the rules of the game in their favor, in their name.

[X][Plane] Wind. Open sky, floating continents, and the ever howling wind... No, this place is not your home. The land is too solid, the air is too still.

[X][Nature] The scholar. All beyond the master's grasp was to be documented, all lands found, all nations classified, all militaries assessed. Discovery of all secrets, for such did the master exist. While a mere fragment of his power, you are sure that even what meager scraps of knowledge you can assemble would please the master. When you are found again. Especially in such a strange land.

The Art of Study.

Of the Joar, your master, Nimbru, was distinct in large part by not being a weapon, or at least not in an obvious sense. All Joar are weapons, but Nimbru the Scholar was there to analyze, document, and discover, the better to fashion weapons for the downfall of the enemies of the First Meteorologist of the Joar. To strike a weakness you must know it exists, to counter a strategy you must know what it is.

As a Shaman, you understand this on a level greater than the purely instinctive search of a Core. After the Heralds themselves, it is your class that is perhaps most completely aware of the purpose of the quest for knowledge, rather than merely the quest itself.

With no immediate threats in sight or otherwise sensed, you take in your condition and the environment. As is typical of a Shaman class Nimbru Daemon, you stand eight feet tall, with light limbs boasting deceptive but ultimately insignificant strength; while you could lift a being of your own weight at little difficulty, such strength is not generally worth the risk of applying when you could apply your relative mastery of magic instead. Two arms, two legs, gray, mottled skin, no reproductive organs or similar as, after all, Daemons do not reproduce in a mortal manner, rather spawned purely by the will of the master, and even your cloak of clouds is intact and functional.

You confirm the functioning of your three eyes, and then survey the terrain itself. First, by flying higher, born aloft and away from the ground by your cloak, and confirming that if this is a floating continent like those commonly found in the Wind Plane, it is much larger than is typical. The terrain appears made of perhaps… bone, or at least something of a similar appearance albeit in masses far to contiguous to simply have come from any creatures you've ever documented for Nimbru, the crevices contain strangely bubbling, opaque fluid that seems likely enough to be damaging you wouldn't risk touching it without first confirming whether or not it is damaging to other objects, and there's dust everywhere, drifting in the air, settled across the bones, but very conspicuously not blown by wind.

A lack of wind in the Wind Plane is unusual, and usually marks the presence of a Joar or Dragon's active abilities. And there too is something unusual: none of your fellow Daemons are chanting, and yet this is not the Territory of any Dragon. Normally, no Dragon would fail to capitalize on such a chance to freely expand its Territory, as any Dragon can do when not actively opposed.

Thus you feel safe in concluding that you are most likely not in the Wind Plane. Nimbru's will is silent in your mind, and yet there is perhaps a way to correct that fact. You could signify Nimbru to the world, (through word, sign, dance, or any other form of Shamanic language, although as a Shaman you cannot personally inscribe the name, lacking that aspect of the total Daemonic language) and in doing so bring the local area under Nimbru's taint and control… at least assuming something not significantly stranger than mere physical distance has occurred, but it seems almost certain that such a thing has occurred as you should properly have at least the dimmest awareness of the master's will even in such an undesirable state as Nimbru's actual destruction.

Thus you weigh your options- there's no guarantee it will work, and whether it does or not may draw undesirable attention from powerful beings. You could instead scout the area, looking to discover if there are any settlements, bases, or even mere roving wildlife to be studied and documented, or else you could do your best to study the terrain itself, determine if this is indeed bone, the nature of the dust, and any other such thing.

There's any specific reason to hurry, but Daemons are not prone to idleness, thus after a moment's thought you settle on a course, and…

[] Invoke Nimbru, signing his name until you receive orders or enough time passes to make it clear this is likely ineffective or else something aside Nimbru draws urgency, a physical threat or such like.

[] Scout, explore, study. Find something more than mere dust and bubbling fluid, something more likely to be of significance to the records.

[] Investigate the dust and bones and so on itself. While it's possible there's more important things farther afield, understanding the terrain itself is hardly without value to the records.


(QM Notes: Eagle eyed readers or those just already following the thread will notice there's been like, four+ years between posts. That'd be because, in short, at the time I started this quest I was in physical circumstances that made it very, very difficult to do creative writing, especially in any kind of consistent way.

Ironically, homeless once more it's much easier, and I looked back at my old quests to some degree, went 'oh yeah this was a really good idea', and decided screw it I'll revive it.

A few days later and boom, update.

As to the story contents itself, the update now features references to the Joar and Dragons- this is not new in terms of setting details, actually, merely me deciding to no longer obfuscate the connections between this and other War of Dragons (a setting co-developed by myself and @Ghoul King ) works, such as my old Even This Power Is Not Enough RP or the two quests trying to directly explore the war I never managed to get off the ground.

Feel free to ask questions for clarity etc. I don't expect an exceptionally rapid update pace, but I do expect to be able now to update at least once a week or so.

Well, three votes and less than 24 hours is a bit less than I'd rather close the vote on. It'll do if no more roll in but I'm not going to hurry the vote to a close with so few.

So in the meantime, have some info, actually a fair amount of info owing to being under The Information Guy.
A Prior on the Shamanic Arts

Fundamentally there are many things that can be called magic- mortal Sorcery, powered by their very dreams, many abilities of a Dragon, most especially Weaving and various Quirks, and no few powers of the Joar, such as their ability to control Myth. But Daemons only wield a single true kind of magic, the Shamanic arts.

While many Daemons have what mortals might incorrectly label unnatural abilities, these are not magic- the ability, for example, for you to fly without use of wings or anything like a jetpack or suchlike is simply an expression of mundane physics intersecting with the powers of Myth, used to form and enhance each Daemon type. And though the Joar can manipulate Myth, Myth is itself a naturally occurring force, the weight of history granting certain subtle abilities, that bit more strength or, especially often, a finger on the scale, a tendency for things to happen to turn out in ways that befit the Myths of those involved.

The Shamanic Arts, meanwhile, are inextricably tied to Daemon kind. They cannot be practiced by a Dragon or Wyrm, a mortal or other such being, and indeed even the Joar depend on their Daemons to perform Shamanic magic.

Shaman, per se, are not the only, or even best practitioners of the Shamanic Arts. The best are Heralds, but other types, such as Chanters, Assassins, and Fortifiers possess at least part of the total capacity.

As to what Shamanic Arts are, they are a type of magic used by application of words of powers. Most Daemons lack the ability to speak, or even comprehend language, unless they are themselves Shamanic casters, although they can in strict terms be given the ability to speak if the Joar sees some other need for it, and you do possess the ability to communicate in mortal tongues if the situation calls for it. The Shamanic Arts divide into Spoken (words of power, typically most valuable for instant effects), Signed (Silent, favored by Assassins, usually similar to but less powerful than Spoken with potential advantages in stealth and, as the most common reason for Shaman to employ them, the ability to double them up with Spoken words), Written (used to enact permanent effects, the specialty of Fortifiers, and the means by which a Joar might hold a stretch of territory under their Taint for long term use), and Danced (most powerful, grand ritual effects in many cases, whole body formulations of words and sentences, and as a result very disruptable and requiring a fine degree of mastery of the Arts to be reasonably usable). Shaman and Heralds are capable of all four, most types use fewer, if any.

In terms of available effects, the range is broad, but most Shamanic effects serve only to alter the expression of a Joar's power through territory held within their Taint, the primary exception being use of the Joar's own name which will bring any region directly under their sway… for so long as the word is expressed, at least. Normally a Shaman would operate alongside either the simple Chanters, to be tasked with filling the air with the Joar's name, or within pre fortified territory so as to allow use of the full range of Daemonic magic they know.

As a Shaman of Nimbru, you, of course, possess a great deal of knowledge of the Nimbru tongue of Shamanic Arts. You mostly do not know any parts of other Daemonic tongues, only being imbued inherently with the knowledge of the names of Nimbru's siblings within the Joar: Altostrakus, the Vast Shroud, Mammatux, the Stormwall, and Lenticulat, the Regent. Generally, these would be used when orders were given to bring in the forces of said sibling to allow them to take care of a region, in whatever manner that sibling is suited to.

While you do not know the complete lexicon, and indeed, owing to signed and danced language potentially requiring specific forms a given Daemon does not possess, so even the Heralds do not truly know all the words within the tongue of Nimbru Shamanic arts, you are capable of wielding a high percentage. Owing to your master's nature as The Scholar, you are most adept at teaching, learning, documenting, and revealing- making seen the unseen, communicating concepts wordlessly, and more, but you can still enact various more militant effects as needed.

The Land Itself

In an ideal world, you would already know all there is to know about everything, the better to report precious knowledge to Nimbru, and perhaps even gain a name for your deeds. In a more realistic idealized reality, you would employ your shamanic arts to gain the knowledge needed, but in order to do that you would need to first invoke Nimbru, a step you have decided is not yet prudent to take. Perhaps with better information you will be able to identify and mitigate any risks.

For now, this means you focus on your mundane senses. Much can be gained from simple sight, hearing, touch, and other less common senses. For example, your eyes can see, as you settle down and walk the bone-like terrain that if these are bones, they are from uncommonly huge creatures, owing to the seamless, massive slab beneath you. If the bone terrain is all one piece or simply a relatively small number of vast pieces is not readily determined, owing to factors like the various crevices and the dust in the air limiting clear vision to perhaps twenty feet, if that- though you can see much farther than that to some degree in these conditions, subtle seams or similar could in principal be concealed, a mere stone's throw away.

The dust is everywhere that you can see with no obvious source- as best as you can tell, it's not the obvious possibility of small flakes of the bones or similar, erosion from wind or other conditions, but nor does it seem likely to be from the opaque, bubbling fluid. It does not seem harmful, at least to your Daemonic biology, though you cannot at this juncture rule out the possibility it might be supportive to something harmful or able to become harmful, for example if it is flammable.

The obvious test of the bubbling fluid would be to kick or throw something into it, for example a loose bone… but there does not appear to be such a thing in the immediate area. Discounting the dust, there's only the one, seemingly seamless mass of bone.

Having analyzed what you can without disturbing the environment, normally procedure would call for a documentation of the facts, to safeguard against a loss of data to the inherently fallible memory of a Daemon. Inherently fallible because you might be destroyed, that is. Nimbru Daemons are, by and large, incapable of forgetting things without outside interference.

However you have no means by which to write at hand, and so instead you make your judgment and turn to moderately destructive experiments. You claws cannot be considered a weapon of any true significance from the perspective of the war effort, but may still be able to damage the bone itself, and whether they can or not, that too is information.

Attempting to lightly scratch the bone reveals it to be at least reasonably durable, as merely running claws along the surface does not significantly mar it. So you judge the distance, pick your angle, and strike hard, making sure to line up the swing so only the claw itself is at risk of damage.

With real force behind it, your claw cuts reasonably easily through the bone, but that only really reveals how solid it all is- you end with a gouge, and after five minutes of prying and prodding you can only conclude it would take additional such strikes to loosen such a fragment as you were hoping to gain.

You consider, and decide that's the course to take next, so a few more measured strikes you have a fragment of bone in hand. Or… whatever this is- the inside looks exactly the same as the outside, which is not a typical feature of bones save certain varieties of Daemon with less in the way of true biology. Or rather, exactly the same except the inside is briefly free of the dust, before said dust settles into the new space.

Nevertheless, fragment gained, you carefully approach the edge of a crevice, and then cast the bone into the fluid. It lands atop the bubbling liquid, which it then slowly sinks into, with no sign of damage as it goes.

This could be a property of the material and not a general statement on the danger posed by whatever the crevice liquid is, but is suggestive that the material would be not significantly dangerous to you.

Still, there is not a significant amount more you could learn in your current location with your current means, or at least not that you could do so quickly. Given you have no specific orders to study this location, you do not have a reason to study this area slowly rather than more rapidly learn by traveling.

The lack of wind remains unsettling, but so far nothing has seemed to emerge, from the dust, the bone, or the fluid alike. This leaves you deciding between your priorities once more- to travel, or to chant a name and see if you can gain information or orders that way?

The situation much as it was before, you make your decision similarly quickly, deciding…

[] To chant Nimbru's name, to seek orders from the Scholar himself once more. If it doesn't work you will have at least learned something, and if it does then you will be able to defer to higher purpose once more. If it attracts attention from other than your master, well, you'll simply need to respond when the time comes.

[] To ascend skyward. The dust seems endless, but perhaps only from this vantage, and your abilities in flight may allow you to learn of the wider environment that way.

[] To travel with caution, low and sneaky. If other things exist here, there's no guarantee of friendliness, and even if unaccountably friendly, one gains different information from those who know not you observe them. It is not as if you know of specific reason to hurry.

[] To travel far and fast, moving at speed until something of interest is found, or finds you. While caution is often prudent, there has yet to be a sign of clear danger, and so you seek to survey as much of the land as you can in as short a time as possible.

[] Write-in, subject to QM veto. Any other logical course of action that fits within the Shaman's priorities and goals may be proposed.