Age of Myths (Age of Sigmar Quest)
The world was ending.
How it came to this? This story could...
The world was ending.
How it came to this? This story could...
Age of Myths: Dominion of Stars (Moved from SB)
- Thread starter ganonso
- Start date
- Created
- Status
- Ongoing
- Watchers
- 25
- Recent readers
- 0
- Threadmarks
- 6
-
Statistics (6 threadmarks, 6.1k words)
User Total ganonso 6
ganonso
Compulsive Quest Starter
- Location
- PACA France
Age of Myths (Age of Sigmar Quest)
The world was ending.
How it came to this? This story could and has fill volumes. Perhaps this fiery end had been written when the great gates to the Aether that stood at the two poles had been forced open in the mists of age past, unleashing a torrent of horrors. Perhaps that even when the Ever-ships of the First Race had sailed the sea of stars and that the Old Ones first glanced on the orb they decided to seed, destiny was already in motion. Perhaps it was not the case. Perhaps that a simple pebble, a single death or a single life could have paid for the world and left the Four Faces of the Devourer deprived of their great feast. Alas it was not the case. Mortals and gods had tried to oppose the shadow and had failed and died. Even the eight new gods had been vanquished and they lay as corpses in the streets or around the world's mortal wound, without being able to do it.
But even the bleakest end holds the seeds for a new beginning, for gods are born of catastrophe as much as they are born of paradises. In the darkness beyond the world, they were not Four to howl and scream and whisper with the voices of the mad, still reeling from the agony of their terrible birth, still covered in the bloody caul of its aftermath. No they were Ten but none knew that. There were Ten who howled in pain and burning as the world died around them. Some of them had been mortal but of different races, other had been gods and been worshipped as such. Three had been elves, haughty and immortal and possessed of the lore of magic. Two had been dwarves, children of stone and fire whose word held strong as the mountain side. Two had been of ancient but opposed race, cold blooded aloofness and thoughtless savagery, both of them as inhuman as the other. Three had been human or creatures that once were human shapes, two of them had struggled to avert this fate, the last one had done everything to set it into motion.
Their screams sounded the same thought.
It lasted centuries or perhaps millennia. You could be surprised at what can still crawl while the air become thick with fleshy nightmares and the night alive with screams and whispers. The Nine and the Tenth struggled and stalked the land, absorbing the souls and symbols best resonating with the eldritch magic they were infused. In their wake the world was unmade as, slowly or quickly, Fire, Heavens, Beasts, Death, Metal, Light, Life and Shadow devoured anything they deemed kin. It was not an evil act but a thoughtless birth scream, the gods seeking to preserve most of their old home in their own essence, until at last it remained only a spark of molten fire drifting in the maelstrom of the Warp.
Or perhaps it lasted only a moment. A horrible and wondrous moment where the air become scalding energy, where the seas boiled, where the heavens were rolled like one roll a parchment after finishing its reading. The air lacked lightness, the sea depths, the fire flame and all was unmade in the primordial slime, save the Ten and what they absorbed, flotsam and jetsam adrift in the waves.
For in the Realm of Chaos, time is not linear and effect can sometimes precede cause for the great delight of the gods that reigns there.
Mortals that envy the gods, do not envy the birth of the Ten! For it was frightening beyond all mortal fear.
Some of them saw their surroundings as inky blackness, others as a riot of deadly colors and riotous tints burning their eyes and bringing their minds to the brink of madness. Some believed they were cas adrift in a great sea and felt the weight of deep black waters, other saw fire and air and were pulled and pushed by the howling winds. One of them saw a great pit of quicksand biting at him from all directions. And they fell. There was no up and no down but they fell, away from the world of their birth, away from the world they failed.
The first of them to release his power had been the first of them to be born and the first of them to die the true death. Kroak of Lustria who had held the souls of the ancient Slann race, that were in the world at its beginning and whose end had heralded its end, grew to monstrous proportions before exploding outward in a shower of stars. And the Warp was repulsed from this explosion and the Sea of Stars mantled the world anew, as a cloak against the attention of chaos. And in the starry night, under the strange light of nebulaes and galaxies, the Slanns opened their eyes anew and they were alone.
Sigmar was the next. Sigmar whose name had long held the Great Ennemy at bay, he fell through the newly born heavens but was unwilling to forsake the world of his youth, so he screamed and the souls that filled him tore him asunder. The Hammerer died before being reborn, a storm arising from his remains and bridging the distant stars with roads of clouds and lightning. The stars, seeded by thunder were made fertile and new creatures were born to roam the worlds uncounted. Thus the ancient and the young created the Realm of Azyr where distance is a myth and lightning and comets rule before ancient hidden might.
He who seeded the wanton void next, none know exactly what his name is. For the first thing he did was to split himself in two, a young warrior in brilliant mail and wings of fire, and a bent mage made of pure moonlight. They were twins but not alike and elven blood ran in their veins. They screamed too and around them the light that surrounded them built grandiose landscapes to imitate what they had lost. And it was grander that the isle that went below the waves for it was whole and untainted, and neither mountain peak or watery abyss held anything but wonder for the elven souls that came to roam in them. Thus Tyrion and Teclis created the Realm of Hysh where rivers spell mystic patterns and the sun is in splendor.
Next to stop was a dwarven god, ancient beyond belief and young as the end of the world. Grimmir was his name and often was he invoked in oaths of vengeance and war. His red hair now burning without harm he screamed not under the strain and burned in silence. And around him grew seas of tar and great volcanos and calderas. He was wounded by his endless struggles and creatures of smokeless fire sprung with each drop of his blood touching the earth. Harsh and rough were these lands but he loved what he had wrought for fire, be it from the earth or the heart, must be splendid and dangerous, and taming it must be a challenge. Thus was created the Realm of Aqshy where passion rules the heart and source of the flames of the universe.
At the same time another dwarf who took the name of Grugni, without remembering if he was truly the old blacksmith, stopped his fall. His scream too created high iron mountains, and seas of quicksilver and plain of razored steel, and forest of viridian copper. However, as he regained his bearings and the control of his sense he was not satisfied with his savage and sterile domain. Creating the tools of the forge he set up to work and changed and shifted much of the new world, eroding mountain, taming the seas and erecting cities of gold for his people to live him. Great throngs of golems by him were wrought, to roam the land and put it to use, for metal must be forged to be beautiful. Thus was created the Realm of Chamon where metal shifts and change and gold and iron and silver are one and the same.
Next was Allarielle the Radiant, bearing the hope and the life of the world in her body. She saw the light of the Realms above and rejoiced for knew that life could endure. She alone of the Ten release her power willingly and her realm was thus the brightest and the greatest. For trees as great as temple pillars and fields of new red flowers and fertile earth and clear water were born as soon as she entered labor and what she birthed looked like the old world but covered in full by green hues and whispering woods. Then beasts and birds to come in the trees while they walked to bow before their queen. Thus was created the Realm of Ghyran where trees walk and forest is alive like in the day of yore.
Savage was he that stopped near her. Savage and unfocused and bearer of the rage of a whole race in addition to the multiples monsters of creation. So he howled for eons in the darkness and the tempest and at first his screams fashioned a rough land of great mountains and brackish swamps, of fetid heat and ghastly cold. Then when the jungle and the desert alike were set up, his screams became beasts and dragons and monsters and the entire race of the greenskins reborn from their creator's fertile loins rejoiced at the battle without end that was awaiting them. Thus Gork (or perhaps Mork) created the Realm of Ghur where great reptiles savage themselves under the red angry sun.
Long had the king of shadows held his power, for pain was an old friend to him and he bore his kiss better than the others. Still came a moment where he could only say: "No more!" and release the bounty he had taken. Inky darkness formed around him but to his eyes, secrets appeared like corpses in water, thirteen layers of shadow and intrigue he formed, thirteen layers of fear and spite and judgement waiting for the unconscious to come in. Amidst dark forest and endless night, he established a realm once more, found his mother consort to shadow beings of great power. He did not know if he had birthed her with the world but he didn't care. Thus Malekith created the Realm of Ulgu where shadows whisper of secrets yet to be uncovered.
Last was the Undying King who, more than anyone, had desired godhood. Were the choice his to make, he would never has released it. Yet the souls burned in him, howling to release and not a few of them had loathed it while they walked under the sun. Glutted he was, beyond belief and still at a moment, he was forced to release his grasp and let his power flow like water. Around him fields of graves were sowed, black seas of amethyst and their gardens of drowned ones flowed. Whole kingdoms of shades arose from the ground, courts of flesh-eaters, great city of vampires fleeing the coming of the light and like an abcess on one's skin, cities of living dead with golden armor and power over the other dead. Thus Nagash created the Realm of Shysh where all the dead come to find their rest
And the Tenth. He fell further than the rest. It was not greed that pushed him to burn in the abyss, falling like lightning through the tempest until he was out of sight even from the lowest of the Nine. It was hate for he had hated the world that was, and destroyed it. He did not will to birth a world of its own, wishing only to destroy all that have ever been, even his Dark Gods he loathed with as much passion as he loathed the rest of creation. Still the fire of creation burning in him would not be denied. The world that come to be created around him was rough and mutable and ill-defined yet it was livable. And the Tenth birthed anew the beastmen, the ratmen, the worshippers of destruction to live in these lands and suffer as he suffered. Thus at the nadir of creation, the furthest away from the light, Archaon created the innumerable Realms of Chaos.
Yet perhaps the Dark Lord still held a shard of light and life. For from the fertile ground of his new realm grew a great tree made of magic and dark wood. Roots in the madness of the universe it grew and its branches soon found their way in every Realm, a pillar to hold the worlds together, immune by accident or design to any weapons, sorcery or corruption, gate and key to the Realms.
Thus was ordained all that is.
And long did the Incarnates slumbered in the heart of their new domains, broken by the effort of creating universe and weakened by the loss of so many souls they had added to their own substance. Sleep was the only way for them to regain a little of what they have been, and more than that did they regain. Eons passed, kingdoms were born from the souls of the freed, great civilizations that sometimes resembled the kingdoms of the fallen world and sometimes did not. Dwarves, elves, men, orcs and ogres prospered in every realm and when they died, they journeyed to Shysh where every soul was drawn to be returned to the cycle. Yet all was not well in the Realms while the Incarnates slept the sleep of the ages, for great beasts born of magic and the Realms itself beset the peoples of these places, driving them to despair. That was true of every realm, from Azyr to Shysh, even fair Hysh and Ghyran. Lesser gods, sometimes coming from defeated realities where the Chaos Gods had won and devoured everything, sometimes called by the wellsprings of magic themselves bickered and fought.
Until the Incarnates woke from their enchanted sleep and fought against them to announce the beginning of Creation
Who are you among the New Gods?
The Sublime Communion of the Slaans, Incarnate of Stars
The world was ending.
How it came to this? This story could and has fill volumes. Perhaps this fiery end had been written when the great gates to the Aether that stood at the two poles had been forced open in the mists of age past, unleashing a torrent of horrors. Perhaps that even when the Ever-ships of the First Race had sailed the sea of stars and that the Old Ones first glanced on the orb they decided to seed, destiny was already in motion. Perhaps it was not the case. Perhaps that a simple pebble, a single death or a single life could have paid for the world and left the Four Faces of the Devourer deprived of their great feast. Alas it was not the case. Mortals and gods had tried to oppose the shadow and had failed and died. Even the eight new gods had been vanquished and they lay as corpses in the streets or around the world's mortal wound, without being able to do it.
But even the bleakest end holds the seeds for a new beginning, for gods are born of catastrophe as much as they are born of paradises. In the darkness beyond the world, they were not Four to howl and scream and whisper with the voices of the mad, still reeling from the agony of their terrible birth, still covered in the bloody caul of its aftermath. No they were Ten but none knew that. There were Ten who howled in pain and burning as the world died around them. Some of them had been mortal but of different races, other had been gods and been worshipped as such. Three had been elves, haughty and immortal and possessed of the lore of magic. Two had been dwarves, children of stone and fire whose word held strong as the mountain side. Two had been of ancient but opposed race, cold blooded aloofness and thoughtless savagery, both of them as inhuman as the other. Three had been human or creatures that once were human shapes, two of them had struggled to avert this fate, the last one had done everything to set it into motion.
Their screams sounded the same thought.
It lasted centuries or perhaps millennia. You could be surprised at what can still crawl while the air become thick with fleshy nightmares and the night alive with screams and whispers. The Nine and the Tenth struggled and stalked the land, absorbing the souls and symbols best resonating with the eldritch magic they were infused. In their wake the world was unmade as, slowly or quickly, Fire, Heavens, Beasts, Death, Metal, Light, Life and Shadow devoured anything they deemed kin. It was not an evil act but a thoughtless birth scream, the gods seeking to preserve most of their old home in their own essence, until at last it remained only a spark of molten fire drifting in the maelstrom of the Warp.
Or perhaps it lasted only a moment. A horrible and wondrous moment where the air become scalding energy, where the seas boiled, where the heavens were rolled like one roll a parchment after finishing its reading. The air lacked lightness, the sea depths, the fire flame and all was unmade in the primordial slime, save the Ten and what they absorbed, flotsam and jetsam adrift in the waves.
For in the Realm of Chaos, time is not linear and effect can sometimes precede cause for the great delight of the gods that reigns there.
Mortals that envy the gods, do not envy the birth of the Ten! For it was frightening beyond all mortal fear.
Some of them saw their surroundings as inky blackness, others as a riot of deadly colors and riotous tints burning their eyes and bringing their minds to the brink of madness. Some believed they were cas adrift in a great sea and felt the weight of deep black waters, other saw fire and air and were pulled and pushed by the howling winds. One of them saw a great pit of quicksand biting at him from all directions. And they fell. There was no up and no down but they fell, away from the world of their birth, away from the world they failed.
The first of them to release his power had been the first of them to be born and the first of them to die the true death. Kroak of Lustria who had held the souls of the ancient Slann race, that were in the world at its beginning and whose end had heralded its end, grew to monstrous proportions before exploding outward in a shower of stars. And the Warp was repulsed from this explosion and the Sea of Stars mantled the world anew, as a cloak against the attention of chaos. And in the starry night, under the strange light of nebulaes and galaxies, the Slanns opened their eyes anew and they were alone.
Sigmar was the next. Sigmar whose name had long held the Great Ennemy at bay, he fell through the newly born heavens but was unwilling to forsake the world of his youth, so he screamed and the souls that filled him tore him asunder. The Hammerer died before being reborn, a storm arising from his remains and bridging the distant stars with roads of clouds and lightning. The stars, seeded by thunder were made fertile and new creatures were born to roam the worlds uncounted. Thus the ancient and the young created the Realm of Azyr where distance is a myth and lightning and comets rule before ancient hidden might.
He who seeded the wanton void next, none know exactly what his name is. For the first thing he did was to split himself in two, a young warrior in brilliant mail and wings of fire, and a bent mage made of pure moonlight. They were twins but not alike and elven blood ran in their veins. They screamed too and around them the light that surrounded them built grandiose landscapes to imitate what they had lost. And it was grander that the isle that went below the waves for it was whole and untainted, and neither mountain peak or watery abyss held anything but wonder for the elven souls that came to roam in them. Thus Tyrion and Teclis created the Realm of Hysh where rivers spell mystic patterns and the sun is in splendor.
Next to stop was a dwarven god, ancient beyond belief and young as the end of the world. Grimmir was his name and often was he invoked in oaths of vengeance and war. His red hair now burning without harm he screamed not under the strain and burned in silence. And around him grew seas of tar and great volcanos and calderas. He was wounded by his endless struggles and creatures of smokeless fire sprung with each drop of his blood touching the earth. Harsh and rough were these lands but he loved what he had wrought for fire, be it from the earth or the heart, must be splendid and dangerous, and taming it must be a challenge. Thus was created the Realm of Aqshy where passion rules the heart and source of the flames of the universe.
At the same time another dwarf who took the name of Grugni, without remembering if he was truly the old blacksmith, stopped his fall. His scream too created high iron mountains, and seas of quicksilver and plain of razored steel, and forest of viridian copper. However, as he regained his bearings and the control of his sense he was not satisfied with his savage and sterile domain. Creating the tools of the forge he set up to work and changed and shifted much of the new world, eroding mountain, taming the seas and erecting cities of gold for his people to live him. Great throngs of golems by him were wrought, to roam the land and put it to use, for metal must be forged to be beautiful. Thus was created the Realm of Chamon where metal shifts and change and gold and iron and silver are one and the same.
Next was Allarielle the Radiant, bearing the hope and the life of the world in her body. She saw the light of the Realms above and rejoiced for knew that life could endure. She alone of the Ten release her power willingly and her realm was thus the brightest and the greatest. For trees as great as temple pillars and fields of new red flowers and fertile earth and clear water were born as soon as she entered labor and what she birthed looked like the old world but covered in full by green hues and whispering woods. Then beasts and birds to come in the trees while they walked to bow before their queen. Thus was created the Realm of Ghyran where trees walk and forest is alive like in the day of yore.
Savage was he that stopped near her. Savage and unfocused and bearer of the rage of a whole race in addition to the multiples monsters of creation. So he howled for eons in the darkness and the tempest and at first his screams fashioned a rough land of great mountains and brackish swamps, of fetid heat and ghastly cold. Then when the jungle and the desert alike were set up, his screams became beasts and dragons and monsters and the entire race of the greenskins reborn from their creator's fertile loins rejoiced at the battle without end that was awaiting them. Thus Gork (or perhaps Mork) created the Realm of Ghur where great reptiles savage themselves under the red angry sun.
Long had the king of shadows held his power, for pain was an old friend to him and he bore his kiss better than the others. Still came a moment where he could only say: "No more!" and release the bounty he had taken. Inky darkness formed around him but to his eyes, secrets appeared like corpses in water, thirteen layers of shadow and intrigue he formed, thirteen layers of fear and spite and judgement waiting for the unconscious to come in. Amidst dark forest and endless night, he established a realm once more, found his mother consort to shadow beings of great power. He did not know if he had birthed her with the world but he didn't care. Thus Malekith created the Realm of Ulgu where shadows whisper of secrets yet to be uncovered.
Last was the Undying King who, more than anyone, had desired godhood. Were the choice his to make, he would never has released it. Yet the souls burned in him, howling to release and not a few of them had loathed it while they walked under the sun. Glutted he was, beyond belief and still at a moment, he was forced to release his grasp and let his power flow like water. Around him fields of graves were sowed, black seas of amethyst and their gardens of drowned ones flowed. Whole kingdoms of shades arose from the ground, courts of flesh-eaters, great city of vampires fleeing the coming of the light and like an abcess on one's skin, cities of living dead with golden armor and power over the other dead. Thus Nagash created the Realm of Shysh where all the dead come to find their rest
And the Tenth. He fell further than the rest. It was not greed that pushed him to burn in the abyss, falling like lightning through the tempest until he was out of sight even from the lowest of the Nine. It was hate for he had hated the world that was, and destroyed it. He did not will to birth a world of its own, wishing only to destroy all that have ever been, even his Dark Gods he loathed with as much passion as he loathed the rest of creation. Still the fire of creation burning in him would not be denied. The world that come to be created around him was rough and mutable and ill-defined yet it was livable. And the Tenth birthed anew the beastmen, the ratmen, the worshippers of destruction to live in these lands and suffer as he suffered. Thus at the nadir of creation, the furthest away from the light, Archaon created the innumerable Realms of Chaos.
Yet perhaps the Dark Lord still held a shard of light and life. For from the fertile ground of his new realm grew a great tree made of magic and dark wood. Roots in the madness of the universe it grew and its branches soon found their way in every Realm, a pillar to hold the worlds together, immune by accident or design to any weapons, sorcery or corruption, gate and key to the Realms.
Thus was ordained all that is.
And long did the Incarnates slumbered in the heart of their new domains, broken by the effort of creating universe and weakened by the loss of so many souls they had added to their own substance. Sleep was the only way for them to regain a little of what they have been, and more than that did they regain. Eons passed, kingdoms were born from the souls of the freed, great civilizations that sometimes resembled the kingdoms of the fallen world and sometimes did not. Dwarves, elves, men, orcs and ogres prospered in every realm and when they died, they journeyed to Shysh where every soul was drawn to be returned to the cycle. Yet all was not well in the Realms while the Incarnates slept the sleep of the ages, for great beasts born of magic and the Realms itself beset the peoples of these places, driving them to despair. That was true of every realm, from Azyr to Shysh, even fair Hysh and Ghyran. Lesser gods, sometimes coming from defeated realities where the Chaos Gods had won and devoured everything, sometimes called by the wellsprings of magic themselves bickered and fought.
Until the Incarnates woke from their enchanted sleep and fought against them to announce the beginning of Creation
Who are you among the New Gods?
The Sublime Communion of the Slaans, Incarnate of Stars
Awakening.
ganonso
Compulsive Quest Starter
- Location
- PACA France
Awakening.
In your first youth, you travelled in the everships of the First Race, blessed are they who have departed the world of flesh and bone. You had been crafted as one of their shadows, at their image and their resemblance perhaps but nothing more than an executioner of their will. Your home was the coldness of space, your first sights beyond the carved living stone of the ships that bore you, the countless stars of the fields of heaven. You remember asking how many they were and hearing in your skull the certainty all would be brought to life and light under the dominion of the Old One. You had brothers and peers in these time, spawned from the same pool as yourself and you saw in the universe endless possibilities.
You saw the world in its utmost youth filled with life waiting for your masters' firm claw. Dragons and Ogres with the bodies of dragons fought in the mists while giants walked the land, forests growing on their backs. You changed that and more. You took the planet and decreed the orbit it would take along its star. The moon you crafted from dust and debris and fixed in the sky to tame the waves. Further of your race were spawned and you put the world to the yoke creating both the mighty Sauruses and the agile Skinks to be your hands like the Old Ones had crafted you to be theirs. You served the Makers with devotion, never questioning, not even when the meteor struck and the greenskins spread across your domains. You tried to exterminate them without success but moved on.
The planet was connected to the rest of your masters' empire by shining gates and even to this day you don't know what caused their sundering. Often you have looked at the elves, even if you knew they couldn't have achieved such a feat. In your mind played visions of creatures much like them birthing a monster in an empire of ashes and you wondered if this was an old memory or a forewarning of what was to come. It certainly meant you couldn't trust anyone other than your peers and servants when the eternal war began. Even your masters forsook you as you failed to seal the wounds in reality. They disappeared without explanation and in your cold-blooded heart ever lurked the suspicion they had fled rather than face the onslaught of Chaos.
And yet in their names and memories you fought. You fought for so long even according to your standards of your old race. So many of your kin died in the first engagements. All your brothers and your peers until only remained those of lesser spawnings. Nothing, not even the actual end of the world could ever compare to this war because it was fought by Neverborn and not by living beings. None of the dread champions of the Dark Powers can equal the sheer horror of their immortal servants washing over the land in an ever-growing tide of filth. In this time the Eidolons walked the earth and you were powerless to stop them until the very end. Even the first of your numbers died, for a brief time. You remember dimly the litany:
"And so, the Green Sun did smite lord Kroak's flesh but couldn't extinguish the fire of his soul who remained unconquered. And the soul of Lord Kroak willed his corpse to raise and banish the daemons from the Old Ones' domains for he had gazed into the Warp and gained power from such sights."
Long was your war and long was your defeat in the making. You lost so many, so many cities and so many of your kin to the rats, to daemons and to plague. The world escaped your grasp and despite your interventions merrily rolled into the yawning abyss. In the end your jungles burned and you didn't even participate in the last battle, reduced to a whisp devouring all your species and your servants to gain the power to endure. You had to watch though and such sight was more painful than you could ever have thought for you had grown to care for the world if not for its inhabitants.
Your power crafted this place, this realm, so similar to the sights of your youth. A realm where distance is but a fleeting dream and one can step on stars to get to the next destination. A realm cold and uncaring you share with the storm who will destroy the enemies of creation. Something in your old, cold heart warned you about something when you realized that despite your powers, despite the vast expanses of stars, planets, and other celestial bodies produced by your magic you couldn't create life save for the ephemeral images of your troops. So you willingly went to sleep, letting your body be carried on the winds of space.
There was also another reason you went to sleep. In the World that Was you carried the old designs of your forgotten masters. You failed and now, for the first time in your life you are free. It is not something you are accustomed or even prepared for, so you decided to flee the realization by sleeping the sleep of the ages. Perhaps you would never wake and thus be spared the harsh decisions of independence. Alas it is not the case and you stir.
You sensed in your dreams the coming and goings of great many people filling the emptiness of space, some were born of your primeval scream, others, like you, ran from worlds long destroyed. There are gods and monsters and heroes who hunt across the stars and hate the scions of chaos as much as you do.
Where do you wake up?
[] Sun: You awake near the golden orb of a sun letting the golden light melt away the coffin of ice you were encased in. Near the burning stars you can see temples where priests with masks of gold offer thanks to the king of all kings.
[] Moon: You awake near the silvery orb of a bright moon letting the ice covering you disappear in the bright radiance. You look at the ever-shifting moon and see you are in a system of celestial bodies where the howl of wolves is loud enough to shake the very stars.
[] Stars: You break your cocoon in the sea of stars seeing old cities similar to yours. Humans skulk in the ruins offering thanks to the Morning Star and trying to divine the dictates of Fate. They are beset by demons and monsters and hide in great edifice of carved stone.
[] The World that Was: Your journeys brought you back to the old world shining in the darkness. You will feel perhaps sadness or shame looking to this errant orb but you also notice a storm is brewing near your position, burning with great power and waiting for the moment the clouds will be pierced lightning and the rain pours.
Also how do you feel?
[] Determined: Your problems came from the fact you didn't leash the younger races enough and they fell to the wiles of Chaos. Even before the Skavens were a problem your armies didn't leave Lustria. That should cease. You are the oldest foe of Chaos and will be respected as one.
[] Regretful: You failed the world entrusted in your care because you didn't cooperate enough with the younger races. Many of the horrors who befell the world could have been avoided if you communicated clearly with at least the elves. You are free now from the mandate of the Old Ones and you will try to change your ancient ways.
[] Vengeful: Chaos took everything from you. Your masters, your brothers, your people, your world. Looking back you didn't hurt them back nearly enough. No more. You are filled with a cold reptilian fury and you will harness it to great intent. Chaos will suffer. Its innumerable children will be cleansed in fire and with their corpses you will build monuments to the price of their insolence. Their gods will die and their taint will be expunged from all universes that ever was.
In your first youth, you travelled in the everships of the First Race, blessed are they who have departed the world of flesh and bone. You had been crafted as one of their shadows, at their image and their resemblance perhaps but nothing more than an executioner of their will. Your home was the coldness of space, your first sights beyond the carved living stone of the ships that bore you, the countless stars of the fields of heaven. You remember asking how many they were and hearing in your skull the certainty all would be brought to life and light under the dominion of the Old One. You had brothers and peers in these time, spawned from the same pool as yourself and you saw in the universe endless possibilities.
You saw the world in its utmost youth filled with life waiting for your masters' firm claw. Dragons and Ogres with the bodies of dragons fought in the mists while giants walked the land, forests growing on their backs. You changed that and more. You took the planet and decreed the orbit it would take along its star. The moon you crafted from dust and debris and fixed in the sky to tame the waves. Further of your race were spawned and you put the world to the yoke creating both the mighty Sauruses and the agile Skinks to be your hands like the Old Ones had crafted you to be theirs. You served the Makers with devotion, never questioning, not even when the meteor struck and the greenskins spread across your domains. You tried to exterminate them without success but moved on.
The planet was connected to the rest of your masters' empire by shining gates and even to this day you don't know what caused their sundering. Often you have looked at the elves, even if you knew they couldn't have achieved such a feat. In your mind played visions of creatures much like them birthing a monster in an empire of ashes and you wondered if this was an old memory or a forewarning of what was to come. It certainly meant you couldn't trust anyone other than your peers and servants when the eternal war began. Even your masters forsook you as you failed to seal the wounds in reality. They disappeared without explanation and in your cold-blooded heart ever lurked the suspicion they had fled rather than face the onslaught of Chaos.
And yet in their names and memories you fought. You fought for so long even according to your standards of your old race. So many of your kin died in the first engagements. All your brothers and your peers until only remained those of lesser spawnings. Nothing, not even the actual end of the world could ever compare to this war because it was fought by Neverborn and not by living beings. None of the dread champions of the Dark Powers can equal the sheer horror of their immortal servants washing over the land in an ever-growing tide of filth. In this time the Eidolons walked the earth and you were powerless to stop them until the very end. Even the first of your numbers died, for a brief time. You remember dimly the litany:
"And so, the Green Sun did smite lord Kroak's flesh but couldn't extinguish the fire of his soul who remained unconquered. And the soul of Lord Kroak willed his corpse to raise and banish the daemons from the Old Ones' domains for he had gazed into the Warp and gained power from such sights."
Long was your war and long was your defeat in the making. You lost so many, so many cities and so many of your kin to the rats, to daemons and to plague. The world escaped your grasp and despite your interventions merrily rolled into the yawning abyss. In the end your jungles burned and you didn't even participate in the last battle, reduced to a whisp devouring all your species and your servants to gain the power to endure. You had to watch though and such sight was more painful than you could ever have thought for you had grown to care for the world if not for its inhabitants.
Your power crafted this place, this realm, so similar to the sights of your youth. A realm where distance is but a fleeting dream and one can step on stars to get to the next destination. A realm cold and uncaring you share with the storm who will destroy the enemies of creation. Something in your old, cold heart warned you about something when you realized that despite your powers, despite the vast expanses of stars, planets, and other celestial bodies produced by your magic you couldn't create life save for the ephemeral images of your troops. So you willingly went to sleep, letting your body be carried on the winds of space.
There was also another reason you went to sleep. In the World that Was you carried the old designs of your forgotten masters. You failed and now, for the first time in your life you are free. It is not something you are accustomed or even prepared for, so you decided to flee the realization by sleeping the sleep of the ages. Perhaps you would never wake and thus be spared the harsh decisions of independence. Alas it is not the case and you stir.
You sensed in your dreams the coming and goings of great many people filling the emptiness of space, some were born of your primeval scream, others, like you, ran from worlds long destroyed. There are gods and monsters and heroes who hunt across the stars and hate the scions of chaos as much as you do.
Where do you wake up?
[] Sun: You awake near the golden orb of a sun letting the golden light melt away the coffin of ice you were encased in. Near the burning stars you can see temples where priests with masks of gold offer thanks to the king of all kings.
[] Moon: You awake near the silvery orb of a bright moon letting the ice covering you disappear in the bright radiance. You look at the ever-shifting moon and see you are in a system of celestial bodies where the howl of wolves is loud enough to shake the very stars.
[] Stars: You break your cocoon in the sea of stars seeing old cities similar to yours. Humans skulk in the ruins offering thanks to the Morning Star and trying to divine the dictates of Fate. They are beset by demons and monsters and hide in great edifice of carved stone.
[] The World that Was: Your journeys brought you back to the old world shining in the darkness. You will feel perhaps sadness or shame looking to this errant orb but you also notice a storm is brewing near your position, burning with great power and waiting for the moment the clouds will be pierced lightning and the rain pours.
Also how do you feel?
[] Determined: Your problems came from the fact you didn't leash the younger races enough and they fell to the wiles of Chaos. Even before the Skavens were a problem your armies didn't leave Lustria. That should cease. You are the oldest foe of Chaos and will be respected as one.
[] Regretful: You failed the world entrusted in your care because you didn't cooperate enough with the younger races. Many of the horrors who befell the world could have been avoided if you communicated clearly with at least the elves. You are free now from the mandate of the Old Ones and you will try to change your ancient ways.
[] Vengeful: Chaos took everything from you. Your masters, your brothers, your people, your world. Looking back you didn't hurt them back nearly enough. No more. You are filled with a cold reptilian fury and you will harness it to great intent. Chaos will suffer. Its innumerable children will be cleansed in fire and with their corpses you will build monuments to the price of their insolence. Their gods will die and their taint will be expunged from all universes that ever was.
Character Sheet: The Sublime Communion/Lord Kroak
ganonso
Compulsive Quest Starter
- Location
- PACA France
The Sublime Communion/ Lord Kroak
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11115/111151927/5092652-1483715982-lord_.jpg
Diplomacy: 10+17: 27+5+10: 41 You remember now the chorus of the allies you could have had
Intrigue: 10+18: 28-5+10: 33 Skulking in the shadows is unworthy of you
Learning: 10+24: 34+10+10: 54 Magic and lore were your charge and purview long ago
Martial: 10+17: 27-5+10:32 The Sauruses led your forces, they were bred for that, now you don't have them anymore.
Piety: 10+23: 33+10: 43: Azyr sings to you of the death of Chaos
Stewardship: 10+19: 29+5:+10 44 You saw a world go from wilderness to civilization and back again
Traits
Former Incarnate: Even if the mantle of the Realm has fallen from your shoulders you still are potent beyond mortal dreams: 10+6d5 at base state: 60 is the highest potential of the Incarnates.
Star-Favored: You see in the midst of time what seed will grow and which will wither: +5 Learning and Stewardship.
Mantle of Regret: A new world means new paths. +5 Diplomacy and Learning
Priest-Mage: Nothing in you was not part of the Communion: -5 Martial and Intrigue
Seeding Starry Aaaru: You are alone even when you are many: You inhabit only one body and have only one will. You can create temporary servants and even minor clones but these must remain in the same Realm as you and have limited intellect. At any moment you can relinquish the power of the Communion and fragment in many Slaans who will be free to go through the Realms.
If one of these Slaans should perish, it would reincarnate back in Azyr with some exception.
As long as you don't break the Communion you have +10 in all stats but can't leave Azyr and can't summon many more servants than two or three Slaans could. Also you are an unbroken chorus and yet alone.
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11115/111151927/5092652-1483715982-lord_.jpg
Diplomacy: 10+17: 27+5+10: 41 You remember now the chorus of the allies you could have had
Intrigue: 10+18: 28-5+10: 33 Skulking in the shadows is unworthy of you
Learning: 10+24: 34+10+10: 54 Magic and lore were your charge and purview long ago
Martial: 10+17: 27-5+10:32 The Sauruses led your forces, they were bred for that, now you don't have them anymore.
Piety: 10+23: 33+10: 43: Azyr sings to you of the death of Chaos
Stewardship: 10+19: 29+5:+10 44 You saw a world go from wilderness to civilization and back again
Traits
Former Incarnate: Even if the mantle of the Realm has fallen from your shoulders you still are potent beyond mortal dreams: 10+6d5 at base state: 60 is the highest potential of the Incarnates.
Star-Favored: You see in the midst of time what seed will grow and which will wither: +5 Learning and Stewardship.
Mantle of Regret: A new world means new paths. +5 Diplomacy and Learning
Priest-Mage: Nothing in you was not part of the Communion: -5 Martial and Intrigue
Seeding Starry Aaaru: You are alone even when you are many: You inhabit only one body and have only one will. You can create temporary servants and even minor clones but these must remain in the same Realm as you and have limited intellect. At any moment you can relinquish the power of the Communion and fragment in many Slaans who will be free to go through the Realms.
If one of these Slaans should perish, it would reincarnate back in Azyr with some exception.
As long as you don't break the Communion you have +10 in all stats but can't leave Azyr and can't summon many more servants than two or three Slaans could. Also you are an unbroken chorus and yet alone.
Taomachan: Realm of the Stars Above part 1
ganonso
Compulsive Quest Starter
- Location
- PACA France
Taomachan: Realm of the Stars Above part 1
Long is your sleep unbroken by the bright radiance of suns of the fey light of a moon. Long you wandered without thought or memory, encased in ice and dust, borne on the winds of highest space. You were like a comet with no fixed orbit, whose path once spied was both sign of hope and worry. Your only thought when you went to sleep was to escape the reminder of your failures and so you left the burning corpse of the World that Was, left it to the great storm and its dreams of war and victory. As you wished your torpid body was drawn to Azyr's furthest reach, in the darkness between the stars where suns are dim and distant. There you stopped your wandering and slowly began to thaw. Without the heat of a sun of the energies of a moon the process was long and arduous. But now that you stir it is completed in one instant as the ice melts and the debris are cast down by your will. Soon you emerge on your ancient throne, tearing your vehicle from the ground and floating above solid earth as is your right.
You remember dreams, image of only dozens of lives but each spread across uncounted millennia. While you were alive you were in communion with your brother but now, now you are of one mind and one body, clad in power and wreathed in might. You are a paradox given flesh both bloated and skeletal, your diaphanous flesh invisible in the night of Azyr but your bandaged bones glimmering in silver starlight. Your bulk is increased by the numerous talismans, jewels and baubles you wear, each an amulet imbued with starry power. On your frog head you feel the familiar weight of a mask of sun gold. Your throne of power also shines with magic, ready to be used.
And your mind. Your mind is so vast it is painful. Your attention barely scratch your surroundings to expand far beyond your body, through black gulfs and comet-swept wilderness. You see the stars and the great patterns they paint across the heavens. You see the stars aligned as the crown of your awakening and you wonder who wrote their silent speech. In your old life, you knew or thought you knew who first wove fate and ordered time to go forth and flow. Now you are not sure of what you read for the stars speak of change, of freedom given and new chances granted. The spheres sing in gracious music about free-will and potentials and the joys of an unpredictable universe. Worry creeps a moment in your old mind for you know these words to be those of the Changer of Ways and with them he ensnared many of the younger races. Yet to your surprise hope doesn't seem to be a complete illusion here. The worlds are still young and their end is still unwritten. So you force your perceptions back to your body, struggling to keep your dead eyes focused on the here and now.
In the World that Was you could remain decades or even centuries in trance, seeking a way to destroy the Primal Anhilator once and for all, to complete the Great Plan of the Old Ones for the world. Now you wonder bitterly if you would not had been better inspired to be more active and use your formidable powers more often. Thinking back on the history of the world it seems you weakened the younger races as often as Chaos which is not an acceptable outcome. Now in this new universe born from the corpse of the old, you had to admit you are not all-knowing despite your great wisdom. Such decision is easily furthered by your surroundings.
The city you awake in was not built in Azyr and it shows. Blocks of splintered stone float and wander aimlessly while you can see drops of congealed blood shining like rubies in the void. The architecture is familiar with serpentine icons and stepped pyramids. You realize very quickly you didn't built it from memories and dreams for the idols you spy, those who are still standing anyway do not depict the Old Ones but other gods. The style is deliberately not realistic and it is difficult to see if the gods worshipped look like but you spy a hunter slaughtering winged serpents, one winged serpents with all the attributes of joyous wisdom, a woman seemingly human in form with butterfly wings of obsidian and other minor creatures. There were others but their statues were broken down and their pyramids despoiled.
As you consider the dismal scene you spy a rain of falling stars. Before you can even react you see them converge to one of the unbroken pyramids and assume horrid shapes. Human women perhaps but with bones of starlight and macabre ornaments. Under skirts of dried organs you hear the hissing of snakes. They have clawed hands and they fall on the ground seeking to catch something you can't perceive. Apparently it's nothing and they hiss as they congregate like ghouls near the pyramid entrances, screeching at the sky and being answered as another being came into being to lead them.
It is a giant skeleton clad in the attributes of royalty. Fortunately he is like you and his servants completely devoid of apparent flesh or viscera and only the darkness of Azyr lies between his ribs. His crown is a feathered headdress adorned with scenes of hunt and banquet where light is devoured. He wears a great mace of obsidian and charges without seeing you the gates of the pyramid intending to break them. To your second sight he is wreathed in powerful magic, not only the powers of the starry expanse but the amethyst kiss of death. Strangely it comforts you to think it must mean the Winds of Magic blow still in some sort or another.
Still the scene playing before you is uncomfortably close to the last instants of many of your selves, waiting in their pyramids with their faithful guards the children of the Rat to break the gate and devour them whole. Too long have you known sieges by the deviant, the monstrous and the mad to not be pushed by such spectacle. Yet you know too you are a stranger here and know not what happens. After all the other races surely thought your Saurus legions monstrous beyond compare as they slaughtered the foe of order. Sometimes glorious empires need angels of death to destroy threats to their supremacy.
Still you have power in you. While most of the incantations you remember are useless you still have all your lore about the Heavens and great magical potency. You could fight these beasts with magic alone. Yet new spells have blossomed into your mind during your long sleep, a call to these memories of your armies you retained, you could perhaps summon them to the fight. Or you could wait and see what will happen. Who knows the creatures seem crazed for the moment but perhaps once they slaughter their opponents they would be more inclined to talk.
[] Attack the creatures with magic
[] Summon your forces
[] Wait
[] Break the communion and claim this place as your new home.
Long is your sleep unbroken by the bright radiance of suns of the fey light of a moon. Long you wandered without thought or memory, encased in ice and dust, borne on the winds of highest space. You were like a comet with no fixed orbit, whose path once spied was both sign of hope and worry. Your only thought when you went to sleep was to escape the reminder of your failures and so you left the burning corpse of the World that Was, left it to the great storm and its dreams of war and victory. As you wished your torpid body was drawn to Azyr's furthest reach, in the darkness between the stars where suns are dim and distant. There you stopped your wandering and slowly began to thaw. Without the heat of a sun of the energies of a moon the process was long and arduous. But now that you stir it is completed in one instant as the ice melts and the debris are cast down by your will. Soon you emerge on your ancient throne, tearing your vehicle from the ground and floating above solid earth as is your right.
You remember dreams, image of only dozens of lives but each spread across uncounted millennia. While you were alive you were in communion with your brother but now, now you are of one mind and one body, clad in power and wreathed in might. You are a paradox given flesh both bloated and skeletal, your diaphanous flesh invisible in the night of Azyr but your bandaged bones glimmering in silver starlight. Your bulk is increased by the numerous talismans, jewels and baubles you wear, each an amulet imbued with starry power. On your frog head you feel the familiar weight of a mask of sun gold. Your throne of power also shines with magic, ready to be used.
And your mind. Your mind is so vast it is painful. Your attention barely scratch your surroundings to expand far beyond your body, through black gulfs and comet-swept wilderness. You see the stars and the great patterns they paint across the heavens. You see the stars aligned as the crown of your awakening and you wonder who wrote their silent speech. In your old life, you knew or thought you knew who first wove fate and ordered time to go forth and flow. Now you are not sure of what you read for the stars speak of change, of freedom given and new chances granted. The spheres sing in gracious music about free-will and potentials and the joys of an unpredictable universe. Worry creeps a moment in your old mind for you know these words to be those of the Changer of Ways and with them he ensnared many of the younger races. Yet to your surprise hope doesn't seem to be a complete illusion here. The worlds are still young and their end is still unwritten. So you force your perceptions back to your body, struggling to keep your dead eyes focused on the here and now.
In the World that Was you could remain decades or even centuries in trance, seeking a way to destroy the Primal Anhilator once and for all, to complete the Great Plan of the Old Ones for the world. Now you wonder bitterly if you would not had been better inspired to be more active and use your formidable powers more often. Thinking back on the history of the world it seems you weakened the younger races as often as Chaos which is not an acceptable outcome. Now in this new universe born from the corpse of the old, you had to admit you are not all-knowing despite your great wisdom. Such decision is easily furthered by your surroundings.
The city you awake in was not built in Azyr and it shows. Blocks of splintered stone float and wander aimlessly while you can see drops of congealed blood shining like rubies in the void. The architecture is familiar with serpentine icons and stepped pyramids. You realize very quickly you didn't built it from memories and dreams for the idols you spy, those who are still standing anyway do not depict the Old Ones but other gods. The style is deliberately not realistic and it is difficult to see if the gods worshipped look like but you spy a hunter slaughtering winged serpents, one winged serpents with all the attributes of joyous wisdom, a woman seemingly human in form with butterfly wings of obsidian and other minor creatures. There were others but their statues were broken down and their pyramids despoiled.
As you consider the dismal scene you spy a rain of falling stars. Before you can even react you see them converge to one of the unbroken pyramids and assume horrid shapes. Human women perhaps but with bones of starlight and macabre ornaments. Under skirts of dried organs you hear the hissing of snakes. They have clawed hands and they fall on the ground seeking to catch something you can't perceive. Apparently it's nothing and they hiss as they congregate like ghouls near the pyramid entrances, screeching at the sky and being answered as another being came into being to lead them.
It is a giant skeleton clad in the attributes of royalty. Fortunately he is like you and his servants completely devoid of apparent flesh or viscera and only the darkness of Azyr lies between his ribs. His crown is a feathered headdress adorned with scenes of hunt and banquet where light is devoured. He wears a great mace of obsidian and charges without seeing you the gates of the pyramid intending to break them. To your second sight he is wreathed in powerful magic, not only the powers of the starry expanse but the amethyst kiss of death. Strangely it comforts you to think it must mean the Winds of Magic blow still in some sort or another.
Still the scene playing before you is uncomfortably close to the last instants of many of your selves, waiting in their pyramids with their faithful guards the children of the Rat to break the gate and devour them whole. Too long have you known sieges by the deviant, the monstrous and the mad to not be pushed by such spectacle. Yet you know too you are a stranger here and know not what happens. After all the other races surely thought your Saurus legions monstrous beyond compare as they slaughtered the foe of order. Sometimes glorious empires need angels of death to destroy threats to their supremacy.
Still you have power in you. While most of the incantations you remember are useless you still have all your lore about the Heavens and great magical potency. You could fight these beasts with magic alone. Yet new spells have blossomed into your mind during your long sleep, a call to these memories of your armies you retained, you could perhaps summon them to the fight. Or you could wait and see what will happen. Who knows the creatures seem crazed for the moment but perhaps once they slaughter their opponents they would be more inclined to talk.
[] Attack the creatures with magic
[] Summon your forces
[] Wait
[] Break the communion and claim this place as your new home.
Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
[X] Wait
Vaalintine
Wild Wondorous Wolfalope
[X] Wait
[X] Summon your forces
ganonso
Compulsive Quest Starter
- Location
- PACA France
Vote Tally : Age of Myths: Dominion of Stars (Moved from SB) | Sufficient Velocity
##### NetTally 1.7.3.2
[X] Wait
No. of Votes: 2
Professor Vesca
Vaalintine
[X] Summon your forces
No. of Votes: 1
wingstrike96
Total No. of Voters: 3
##### NetTally 1.7.3.2
[X] Wait
No. of Votes: 2
Professor Vesca
Vaalintine
[X] Summon your forces
No. of Votes: 1
wingstrike96
Total No. of Voters: 3
LordKragan
The one and only lord of muttonchops
- Location
- Spain, Barcelona, bar du madam celona
[X] Wait.
ganonso
Compulsive Quest Starter
- Location
- PACA France
Vote Tally : Age of Myths: Dominion of Stars (Moved from SB) | Sufficient Velocity
##### NetTally 1.7.3.2
[X] Wait
No. of Votes: 3
Professor Vesca
LordKragan
Vaalintine
[X] Summon your forces
No. of Votes: 1
wingstrike96
[X] Break the communion and claim this place as your new home.
No. of Votes: 1
veekie
Total No. of Voters: 5
##### NetTally 1.7.3.2
[X] Wait
No. of Votes: 3
Professor Vesca
LordKragan
Vaalintine
[X] Summon your forces
No. of Votes: 1
wingstrike96
[X] Break the communion and claim this place as your new home.
No. of Votes: 1
veekie
Total No. of Voters: 5
Taomachan the Realms of Stars: Part 2
ganonso
Compulsive Quest Starter
- Location
- PACA France
Taomachan the Realms of Stars: Part 2
Even if you have decided to not pursue the cold aloofness who cost you the world that was, you decide to wait out the situation to understand it. Still it grips your heart to see the beginnings of a slaughter so similar with the one you were subjected to.
You see the star demons and their lord gather at the gate at the pyramid and they pound it until it breaks and the defenders are visible in the rubble.
They look like men and women of mortal race but their skin is the color of the starry sky with lambent markings like constellations brightening it. They fight the demons blow for blow with mace and spears and obsidian blades and you are surprised to see them give good account of themselves. Several of them fall under claws or giant mace but they fight the energy of despair and strike true in disciplined units rather than war as a mob.
Even the giant is beset by an enemy at his measure for from the open gate comes forth a great serpent with scales the color of a summer sky. Great wings of many colors spring from his body and it doesn't seem to hinder him as he comes to his foes. He breaths the fire of star on the great skeleton and traps him in his coils before strangling him to his demise. The lesser demons are dispatched slowly but surely and the winged serpent with eyes bright as the morning stars ends the struggle by shattering his foe's body and scattering them to the winds of space.
Yet you understand this victory will be useless in the end for many are the corpses of his people and it is losses they cannot afford. There will be more attacks until the serpent is downed with all his worshippers dead around him. You are familiar with the process for the tides of Chaos gnawed at the world but a little at a time until came the rolling wave who consumed the world in ashes. For this people the process is nearby complete, for you see without seeing their city was resplendent once and home to many lords and priests of great knowledge. Of them only a handful remain waiting for the end.
Which will be near for in his rage the giant clawed at the winged serpent so much you can see his initial attack cost him dearly. Scales and feathers are falling from bloody skin and he struggles with his breath. Even at the distance you see his servants have neither the means nor the knowledge to heal him. Another reminiscence for the Skinks despite their good will never understood how to reach you and when Chaqua was overrun by plague and disease they didn't know what to do and thus were lost.
What will you do.?
[] Write-in
Even if you have decided to not pursue the cold aloofness who cost you the world that was, you decide to wait out the situation to understand it. Still it grips your heart to see the beginnings of a slaughter so similar with the one you were subjected to.
You see the star demons and their lord gather at the gate at the pyramid and they pound it until it breaks and the defenders are visible in the rubble.
They look like men and women of mortal race but their skin is the color of the starry sky with lambent markings like constellations brightening it. They fight the demons blow for blow with mace and spears and obsidian blades and you are surprised to see them give good account of themselves. Several of them fall under claws or giant mace but they fight the energy of despair and strike true in disciplined units rather than war as a mob.
Even the giant is beset by an enemy at his measure for from the open gate comes forth a great serpent with scales the color of a summer sky. Great wings of many colors spring from his body and it doesn't seem to hinder him as he comes to his foes. He breaths the fire of star on the great skeleton and traps him in his coils before strangling him to his demise. The lesser demons are dispatched slowly but surely and the winged serpent with eyes bright as the morning stars ends the struggle by shattering his foe's body and scattering them to the winds of space.
Yet you understand this victory will be useless in the end for many are the corpses of his people and it is losses they cannot afford. There will be more attacks until the serpent is downed with all his worshippers dead around him. You are familiar with the process for the tides of Chaos gnawed at the world but a little at a time until came the rolling wave who consumed the world in ashes. For this people the process is nearby complete, for you see without seeing their city was resplendent once and home to many lords and priests of great knowledge. Of them only a handful remain waiting for the end.
Which will be near for in his rage the giant clawed at the winged serpent so much you can see his initial attack cost him dearly. Scales and feathers are falling from bloody skin and he struggles with his breath. Even at the distance you see his servants have neither the means nor the knowledge to heal him. Another reminiscence for the Skinks despite their good will never understood how to reach you and when Chaqua was overrun by plague and disease they didn't know what to do and thus were lost.
What will you do.?
[] Write-in
Xantalos
Turtle-Speed Writing
Okay, I've no idea how I didn't see this before but I'm not letting this of all quests die a quiet death.
[X] Summon your Temple Guard of times past and descend. Offer to heal the serpent if they will allow you to make a home here.
C'mon, it's the super bullshit magic frog among super bullshit magic frogs how does this not have more attention
[X] Summon your Temple Guard of times past and descend. Offer to heal the serpent if they will allow you to make a home here.
C'mon, it's the super bullshit magic frog among super bullshit magic frogs how does this not have more attention
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Agreed.
[X] Summon your Temple Guard of times past and descend. Offer to heal the serpent if they will allow you to make a home here.
[X] Summon your Temple Guard of times past and descend. Offer to heal the serpent if they will allow you to make a home here.
LordKragan
The one and only lord of muttonchops
- Location
- Spain, Barcelona, bar du madam celona
Make it three. MARCH my brethren!
[X] Summon your Temple Guard of times past and descend. Offer to heal the serpent if they will allow you to make a home here.
[X] Summon your Temple Guard of times past and descend. Offer to heal the serpent if they will allow you to make a home here.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You kind of need an actual vote for that.
LordKragan
The one and only lord of muttonchops
- Location
- Spain, Barcelona, bar du madam celona
Nevermind me, done.
Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
[X] Summon your Temple Guard of times past and descend. Offer to heal the serpent if they will allow you to make a home here.
Taomachan: The Realm of the Stars part 3
ganonso
Compulsive Quest Starter
- Location
- PACA France
Taomachan: The Realm of the Stars part 3
Prudence guides your steps and around you appear the coruscating silhouettes of the Temple Guard who long guarded your home. They are as mighty as ever, covered in bones and wielding their great spears now infused with the energies of faraway stars. Yet they are but mirages, recollections born from your memories. They can but move when you wish them to move, and when your attention deserts them they wink from existence or stay witless and unmoving. You remember without remembering some spells who summoned creatures of the aether and manifest elements but these beings had independent if primitive thoughts. What you do is less summoning and more like giving form to stray thoughts and wishful memories or breathing simple life to marble. And still you find them beautiful these constructs you made for they remind you of home and duty and the quiet almost forgotten droning of your servants. You were created at your masters' image and resemblance and even if they were of cold and reptilian intelligence, the Old Ones who departed loved the worlds for if not why order them and seed them with light and life? And so you loved the world even if not in the fashion of the lesser races who were your children and siblings. And even if it was in part because they were so tractable, you loved above all the Sauruses and the Skinks who filled your cities for they didn't desert you.
You see the humans cry something when they see you coming from the shadow. Why wouldn't they. You are a sight to behold even in this strange realm. You are a bloated skeleton, whose bulk even reduced is still massive. Your desiccated fingers rest upon your knees wrapped in brown wrappings. Your skull is covered by a golden mask incrusted with jewels. You hover above the ground in your palanquin, flanked by great warriors with steely muscles and deadly weapons. You must look like a monster to them, just like they could look like monsters to you. After all isn't their warm blood and features as alien to you as yours are for them? But still both of your side are gifted with reason and your thoughts graze theirs, making way to understand what you are going to do. The question is asked and answered in the universal language of the mind, by images and feelings. They can't refuse you for their despair has reached its peak and even if you put the great serpent out of his misery it would only hasten their inevitable demise. So they let your warriors pass, eying with envy the weapons you dreamt for them. You press to the Feathered Serpent's side, remembering similar creatures in forgotten Lustria, of Tepok who ruled over magic and Sotek that Skinks wished into existence. You put your hands on one of the many wounds, concentrate to channel the star energy into it and will it to close and then…
And then your minds touch and you are lost in a flood of images and sensations who are not yours
A dying world stands in the void, no sun to light it, no blood to oil the complex gears that maintained it. Giants, some with animal heads, others with bony faces and yet others strange mishaps of different creatures use their last powers to sail the Great Ocean in search of a new home. You feel old hatreds fade in face of common anhilation, new grudges surface when each of these "Teotl" lose servants and beloved in their feverish escape.
Descendants of the Sixth Sun
A new world, a new beginning. Others tribes are there, some sprung from the planet own elements, others refugees as the Teotl. The outsiders quicly unite to push the authoctons out, imprisoning them in sealed prisons and infernal devices. Then they create the different creatures of the world, some strangely familiar like the lizzards and serpents that the Netjer bring to serve them in their many-pillared temples, some irksome like the humans that quicly become the most numerous, other strange beyond compare like the bat-like inhabitants of Xilaba stepped in death. You see the gods depart in secret havens beyond the world and watch their creations.
Servants of the Hungry Gods
You see the first age of the world. You see the First War. Pantheon against pantheon, god against god, nation against nation. Blood is spilled daily to conserve the powers of the hungry Teotl. The priests use complex calendars and rites but the people know only the Hungry Rain, the Flayed Lord, the Devouring Sun and great Storm Wind. Slaves are led against the bat-people and others humans while priests try to extinguish others belief to starve their opponents. This is a time of blood and fire and gods are called to the mortal realm. The same giants you saw earlier are now fighting one another, maiming one another. Skulls are bashed by obsidian mauls, still-beating hearts are torn from chests and offered to the sun. The Obsidian Mirror and the Midday Hummingbird, Sorcery and War reign supreme.
Disciples of the Lawgiver
The people grow weary of war and bloodshed and noble Quetzacoatl the Feathered Serpent comes down from the heavens. He forbids human sacrifice among his faithful but let those who cling to the old ways prove their faith in the blood of the ennemies of the state. Magic, divine or arcanic is no longer a matter of bloody ritual but of calm study. Other nations change too but the others Teotl grumble. They take the new magic and twist it to their purpose. New cults emerge, some you know all too well as intruders come to the world. Lord of Disease, Lady of Secrets, Lady of War, Lord of Passion. The four siblings are there and wait to be called. Other cataclysms happen of course: Shadow obscure the eastern land and the dead rise in great number. From the sea rise a city of green stone whose angles are strange and offputing. The tentacled beings that resides there make war on all.
Refusers of the Friends from the Deep.
Strangers come to the cities, fishlike and able to mate with human. They come to great prominence in the priesthood of the Rain gods and goddesses and meld the religion with their own surviving beliefs. Soon all priests sport the traits of the Deep Ones and worship gods long adored under the sea. The Lawgiver is no longer heard or listened to but he makes the ancient capital a haven to all that disagree with the changes. As blood sacrifice becomes commonplace anew, preparations are taken to a new journey. The city dissapear in starlight, leaving the now-decadent kingdom to his fate.
You feel the ripping of the gates as they are torn open and the first scions of Chaos come into the world. Your masters disappear through their ships. Fleeing through cold space, destroyed by the new aberration you see materialize in reality? You do not know and you don't want to. Only your purpose remains but freedom brings uncertainty with it.
You wander aimlessly across the star, great serpent green-scaled whose wings beat with the sound of thunder. The Fifth World burns behind you as your siblings follow you lead through the starry expanse. Where are you going, you don't know. However you know only cold death awaits you if you stay.
You had no need for diplomacy for they were no beings in the world fit to communicate. The enemies you had were relentless and no peace could ever be between you and them. However you remember how the skinks solved their problems by talking, how words were used to smooth wounded minds and how equals could find their place in an alliance.
You were a peacekeeper and a teacher, even going through the motions of adopting an human form less terrible than your peers. You did not lie to your people, to others yes but to your people never. You guided them out of blood sacrifice by words and promises to find another source of power. You persuaded them to offer their own blood before those of others by words alone.
You had no need for the intricacies of intrigue. You were created to obey, each of you crafted to fill a much-needed place in the hierarchy of creation. You argued and bickered but the words of the eldest were final. However, you remember the chatter of your priests, the plots for your favor so unimportant they seemed. You remember the chameleons striking from the shadows for they had not the strength to stand into the light.
You have stolen the bones of a dead race to create humanity. You kept into the shadows while your dear brother reigned in the sun. You shepherded the victims of his greed and misdirected the enemies of your nation. You laughed and hid and tricked for even a god must act in secret sometimes, You know that sometimes a dagger in the night is worth thousands of blades raised in dawn's light.
You had no need of tactics or strategy. For that's why the sauruses were born, to understand war like they understood breathing and to wage your fight in your stead. Fortunately, no one is able to accompany armies on the field for millennia and not learn anything from the experience. You remember the leaders of your legions and what they used to win.
They will say later you did not like to fight and perhaps it is true. However, they forgot how you struck your fellows gods when their blood was necessary to feed the newborn sun. You led armies in the jungles and the deserts and the plains. You fought other divine creatures and generals, trying to outwit them. That was not your specialty but you were not to be underestimated.
The wound on the Feathered Serpent body closes but, as if as a price demanded by the universe, you feel division in your essence. You are breaking the communion much earlier than you thought but you have no choice. The influx of memories has reawakened memories of your past selves and they break through. While they are many to come, in how many pieces do you break for the first time?
[] Three: Sun, Star and Moon the luminaries of existence
[] Four: The Pillar of the universe, the four elements, the sign of stability
[] Five: The Pyramid, four to hold to the universe and one to see beyond
[] Six: The Four Elements and Light and Darkness in balance and joy
[] Seven: the Outcast and the prime
[] Eight: The Wheel of Magic
[] Twenty-Two: The Face of the Universe
Prudence guides your steps and around you appear the coruscating silhouettes of the Temple Guard who long guarded your home. They are as mighty as ever, covered in bones and wielding their great spears now infused with the energies of faraway stars. Yet they are but mirages, recollections born from your memories. They can but move when you wish them to move, and when your attention deserts them they wink from existence or stay witless and unmoving. You remember without remembering some spells who summoned creatures of the aether and manifest elements but these beings had independent if primitive thoughts. What you do is less summoning and more like giving form to stray thoughts and wishful memories or breathing simple life to marble. And still you find them beautiful these constructs you made for they remind you of home and duty and the quiet almost forgotten droning of your servants. You were created at your masters' image and resemblance and even if they were of cold and reptilian intelligence, the Old Ones who departed loved the worlds for if not why order them and seed them with light and life? And so you loved the world even if not in the fashion of the lesser races who were your children and siblings. And even if it was in part because they were so tractable, you loved above all the Sauruses and the Skinks who filled your cities for they didn't desert you.
You see the humans cry something when they see you coming from the shadow. Why wouldn't they. You are a sight to behold even in this strange realm. You are a bloated skeleton, whose bulk even reduced is still massive. Your desiccated fingers rest upon your knees wrapped in brown wrappings. Your skull is covered by a golden mask incrusted with jewels. You hover above the ground in your palanquin, flanked by great warriors with steely muscles and deadly weapons. You must look like a monster to them, just like they could look like monsters to you. After all isn't their warm blood and features as alien to you as yours are for them? But still both of your side are gifted with reason and your thoughts graze theirs, making way to understand what you are going to do. The question is asked and answered in the universal language of the mind, by images and feelings. They can't refuse you for their despair has reached its peak and even if you put the great serpent out of his misery it would only hasten their inevitable demise. So they let your warriors pass, eying with envy the weapons you dreamt for them. You press to the Feathered Serpent's side, remembering similar creatures in forgotten Lustria, of Tepok who ruled over magic and Sotek that Skinks wished into existence. You put your hands on one of the many wounds, concentrate to channel the star energy into it and will it to close and then…
And then your minds touch and you are lost in a flood of images and sensations who are not yours
A dying world stands in the void, no sun to light it, no blood to oil the complex gears that maintained it. Giants, some with animal heads, others with bony faces and yet others strange mishaps of different creatures use their last powers to sail the Great Ocean in search of a new home. You feel old hatreds fade in face of common anhilation, new grudges surface when each of these "Teotl" lose servants and beloved in their feverish escape.
Descendants of the Sixth Sun
A new world, a new beginning. Others tribes are there, some sprung from the planet own elements, others refugees as the Teotl. The outsiders quicly unite to push the authoctons out, imprisoning them in sealed prisons and infernal devices. Then they create the different creatures of the world, some strangely familiar like the lizzards and serpents that the Netjer bring to serve them in their many-pillared temples, some irksome like the humans that quicly become the most numerous, other strange beyond compare like the bat-like inhabitants of Xilaba stepped in death. You see the gods depart in secret havens beyond the world and watch their creations.
Servants of the Hungry Gods
You see the first age of the world. You see the First War. Pantheon against pantheon, god against god, nation against nation. Blood is spilled daily to conserve the powers of the hungry Teotl. The priests use complex calendars and rites but the people know only the Hungry Rain, the Flayed Lord, the Devouring Sun and great Storm Wind. Slaves are led against the bat-people and others humans while priests try to extinguish others belief to starve their opponents. This is a time of blood and fire and gods are called to the mortal realm. The same giants you saw earlier are now fighting one another, maiming one another. Skulls are bashed by obsidian mauls, still-beating hearts are torn from chests and offered to the sun. The Obsidian Mirror and the Midday Hummingbird, Sorcery and War reign supreme.
Disciples of the Lawgiver
The people grow weary of war and bloodshed and noble Quetzacoatl the Feathered Serpent comes down from the heavens. He forbids human sacrifice among his faithful but let those who cling to the old ways prove their faith in the blood of the ennemies of the state. Magic, divine or arcanic is no longer a matter of bloody ritual but of calm study. Other nations change too but the others Teotl grumble. They take the new magic and twist it to their purpose. New cults emerge, some you know all too well as intruders come to the world. Lord of Disease, Lady of Secrets, Lady of War, Lord of Passion. The four siblings are there and wait to be called. Other cataclysms happen of course: Shadow obscure the eastern land and the dead rise in great number. From the sea rise a city of green stone whose angles are strange and offputing. The tentacled beings that resides there make war on all.
Refusers of the Friends from the Deep.
Strangers come to the cities, fishlike and able to mate with human. They come to great prominence in the priesthood of the Rain gods and goddesses and meld the religion with their own surviving beliefs. Soon all priests sport the traits of the Deep Ones and worship gods long adored under the sea. The Lawgiver is no longer heard or listened to but he makes the ancient capital a haven to all that disagree with the changes. As blood sacrifice becomes commonplace anew, preparations are taken to a new journey. The city dissapear in starlight, leaving the now-decadent kingdom to his fate.
You feel the ripping of the gates as they are torn open and the first scions of Chaos come into the world. Your masters disappear through their ships. Fleeing through cold space, destroyed by the new aberration you see materialize in reality? You do not know and you don't want to. Only your purpose remains but freedom brings uncertainty with it.
You wander aimlessly across the star, great serpent green-scaled whose wings beat with the sound of thunder. The Fifth World burns behind you as your siblings follow you lead through the starry expanse. Where are you going, you don't know. However you know only cold death awaits you if you stay.
You had no need for diplomacy for they were no beings in the world fit to communicate. The enemies you had were relentless and no peace could ever be between you and them. However you remember how the skinks solved their problems by talking, how words were used to smooth wounded minds and how equals could find their place in an alliance.
You were a peacekeeper and a teacher, even going through the motions of adopting an human form less terrible than your peers. You did not lie to your people, to others yes but to your people never. You guided them out of blood sacrifice by words and promises to find another source of power. You persuaded them to offer their own blood before those of others by words alone.
You had no need for the intricacies of intrigue. You were created to obey, each of you crafted to fill a much-needed place in the hierarchy of creation. You argued and bickered but the words of the eldest were final. However, you remember the chatter of your priests, the plots for your favor so unimportant they seemed. You remember the chameleons striking from the shadows for they had not the strength to stand into the light.
You have stolen the bones of a dead race to create humanity. You kept into the shadows while your dear brother reigned in the sun. You shepherded the victims of his greed and misdirected the enemies of your nation. You laughed and hid and tricked for even a god must act in secret sometimes, You know that sometimes a dagger in the night is worth thousands of blades raised in dawn's light.
You had no need of tactics or strategy. For that's why the sauruses were born, to understand war like they understood breathing and to wage your fight in your stead. Fortunately, no one is able to accompany armies on the field for millennia and not learn anything from the experience. You remember the leaders of your legions and what they used to win.
They will say later you did not like to fight and perhaps it is true. However, they forgot how you struck your fellows gods when their blood was necessary to feed the newborn sun. You led armies in the jungles and the deserts and the plains. You fought other divine creatures and generals, trying to outwit them. That was not your specialty but you were not to be underestimated.
The wound on the Feathered Serpent body closes but, as if as a price demanded by the universe, you feel division in your essence. You are breaking the communion much earlier than you thought but you have no choice. The influx of memories has reawakened memories of your past selves and they break through. While they are many to come, in how many pieces do you break for the first time?
[] Three: Sun, Star and Moon the luminaries of existence
[] Four: The Pillar of the universe, the four elements, the sign of stability
[] Five: The Pyramid, four to hold to the universe and one to see beyond
[] Six: The Four Elements and Light and Darkness in balance and joy
[] Seven: the Outcast and the prime
[] Eight: The Wheel of Magic
[] Twenty-Two: The Face of the Universe
Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
What are the significance of the numbers? Does it involve sacred geometry or something?
ganonso
Compulsive Quest Starter
- Location
- PACA France
The meaning is included each time and it's pretty standard numerology save for eight where the Winds of Magic were too tempting to ignore. Twenty Two are the Major Arcana of the Tarot
As for the results, well let say they will determine how many factions/schools the Slaans will be divided. More means a more diverse power set in your people at the price of possible internal struggle.
Xantalos
Turtle-Speed Writing
Hmm. This is pretty early on to break the communion so I don't wanna break into too many pieces, but maybe not only three.
[X] Four: The Pillar of the universe, the four elements, the sign of stability
As an aside, I'm almost certain I've read this exact update before. I don't remember where, but I remember reading of it.
[X] Four: The Pillar of the universe, the four elements, the sign of stability
As an aside, I'm almost certain I've read this exact update before. I don't remember where, but I remember reading of it.