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There might be the longer term goal of learning from the runes developed by Ancestor Gods from glyphs.
From the Hidden City (Warhammer Lizardmen Temple-City Quest)
- Thread starter CuttleFish2.0
- Start date
- Fantasy
Dwarfs where made by the Old Ones they did not worship anything pre Old Ones on account of not existing. Slann can barely comprehend an Old One, their is zero chance any dwarf could not be awestuck blind by an old one. Likely just some psychic residue that coalesced into a god flavored by an Old One when it left. By all accounts that hold was just a personal lab of an Old One.
It the only reason to explains their lack of connection to the other Ancestors gods, who warned the Dwarfs to seal themselves underground prior to Storm of Chaos.
It the only reason to explains their lack of connection to the other Ancestors gods, who warned the Dwarfs to seal themselves underground prior to Storm of Chaos.
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- barking
what the dawi worshipped before the ancestors gods doesn't really matter but to throw my two cents in they most likely had a similar system to what they have now with worshiping the ancestors just they didn't have gods as no one did anything big enough to be recorded as a god
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@CuttleFish2.0
As none of my fellow questors has answered when I asked, what was going on between the Vortex and sinking of Chupayotl in the Southlands/Zlatlan? There's a very "post Catastrophe" feel to the early chapters.
As none of my fellow questors has answered when I asked, what was going on between the Vortex and sinking of Chupayotl in the Southlands/Zlatlan? There's a very "post Catastrophe" feel to the early chapters.
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maybe the creation of the vortex unsettled the waters and it made waves harsh enough to sink chupayol. I don't think cannon ever answers how chupayoal sunk beyond it was something that happened over time
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Yeahh just because the dwarves and elves were made by the Old Ones doesn't mean they didn't worship. In fact none of the Old Ones we know about have a portfolio for making and supporting warmbloods.
None except the goddess/potential-OldOne that exists in that hold we have.
I don't really know what people think the ancient hold is. I contend that either the OldOne/Goddess broke away from the Old Ones with this population of dwarves or this was the original population and the ones that left this place and went north are the ancestors of the bands which Valaya came from.
Because unlike Ulthuan there's no specific area the dwarves came-from and/or were-created-at other than a vague "south of Karak Zorn"
You're holding too closely to what's known of the remnant dwarves in canon when we're already breaking from canon and also are in an underdeveloped mystery region of the world
None except the goddess/potential-OldOne that exists in that hold we have.
I don't really know what people think the ancient hold is. I contend that either the OldOne/Goddess broke away from the Old Ones with this population of dwarves or this was the original population and the ones that left this place and went north are the ancestors of the bands which Valaya came from.
Because unlike Ulthuan there's no specific area the dwarves came-from and/or were-created-at other than a vague "south of Karak Zorn"
You're holding too closely to what's known of the remnant dwarves in canon when we're already breaking from canon and also are in an underdeveloped mystery region of the world
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I don't know what you're asking, specifically
Essentialy , big magical aftershock messing with infrastucture.
Vortex coming online is quite a wave.
I would say there were many compounding factors. Not one reason in particular just 'breaking of camel back' so to say.
That and lack of maintenance/repairs during chaos time.
Also what is with this thread today? Who woke up?
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I am asking what happened in the five hundred plus years between the Vortex and the sinking. Not what caused the latter.
Things were falling apart and our kind were not able to prevent it?
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On the other topic, there are some sources that have the predecessors of the Dwarves a thing before the Old Ones. There is plenty of possibility for a rich pre-Ancestors God past either way.
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CuttleFish2.0
Friendly neighborhood cuttlefish
- Location
- Seattle, Washington.
As a very simplified answer; a lot of figuring how to feed all the people now living in Zlatlan and their warbeasts using only the land inside the temple-city, integrating the remnants of 8 temple-cities into Zlatlan, redoing emergency repairs on breached walls, restarting some semblance of more regular industry, cleansing and purifying every inch of the city, organizing and sending out the garrisons to the other temple-cities, figuring out how to feed everyone efficiently, rebuilding enough housing for the population, figuring out how to keep the warbeasts from killing each other and their handlers, and more. All while the slann were more often asleep than they were awake and even when awake could usually be found deep in meditative consultation with the slann in Lustria figuring out how to buttress the Vortex with the Geomantic Web.
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Thank you, ever since the thought got in my head it's been like an annoying itch.
Says a lot about the elvish need to experience that they had explorers to Lustria less than a year after the Catastrophe ended.
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Anyways unless the unknown Hold is outright criminalized to the point of it being taboo to speak of them in current Dawi society I doubt there wouldn't be some appreciation for the gifting of the records regarding this hold.
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Final call for voting folks.
Vote closed
CuttleFish2.0
Friendly neighborhood cuttlefish
- Location
- Seattle, Washington.
Vote Closed, Huanchi, the Illusive, won.
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The cat's paws plod on silently, unseen.
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@CuttleFish2.0
I was doing some rereading. How is it that Lord Chiccotta was a student of an Old One, Xholankha, if only the First Spawning ever saw the Old Ones? Did he learn through Plaques given to him, or other equivalents of notes and secondhand teachings?
Or given the following paragraphs, was that a false memory caused by his addled mind/thought fog issues?
Edit: Although following up with my sources, it is said he was trained by Xholankha…
I was doing some rereading. How is it that Lord Chiccotta was a student of an Old One, Xholankha, if only the First Spawning ever saw the Old Ones? Did he learn through Plaques given to him, or other equivalents of notes and secondhand teachings?
Or given the following paragraphs, was that a false memory caused by his addled mind/thought fog issues?
Edit: Although following up with my sources, it is said he was trained by Xholankha…
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Huh , wonder what's ther relationship bettwen Vik and Ulha'up...
They have some things in common and Vikkel'mal IS spreading the word of Old Ones to warmbloods...
Would be funny to have him visiting. They could compare notes!
They have some things in common and Vikkel'mal IS spreading the word of Old Ones to warmbloods...
Would be funny to have him visiting. They could compare notes!
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There is something of a subtle implication he only took that up with the rise of man in the Old World.
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You know, given the Old One that is the focus of the latest update, I wonder if he ever pondered the irony and inconsistency of such thoughts.
After all, look at Huanchi's representative animal and symbol.
Experimental Pool Work: Completion
CuttleFish2.0
Friendly neighborhood cuttlefish
- Location
- Seattle, Washington.
Invoke Huanchi to open the way, won.
Pressure bore down on him from all sides, the weight of mountains and continents pressing down on Udhi-Tegha like the coils of a vast earthen constrictor. Spasms of agony reverberated through his soul.
Geomancy Roll - 25 + 30 (Udhi-Tegha Magic - Disc of Yuxa) + 15 (Geomantic Web Specialist) = 70
—threat/intrusion, integrity loss: 5% and rising—
More and more the spiritual pressure pressed in on him from every angle. Trapping him. Not since the Great Catastrophe had he experienced anything like it, the terrible scale of the might set against him. Udhi-Tegha had fought the greater servants of the Enemy.
—ary wards breached. Emergency purification proto—
Now he faced something greater, even through the spiritual agony he could sense the depths it could draw on. It would be utter foolishness to fight, to set himself against this foe in a contest of raw power and control; it would drown him in moments.
He could not escape, he could not fight.
But those were not his only options, not the only possibilities.
Processes built into the very structure of his soul activated. From within Udhi-Tegha heard the call of Huanchi bubbling up unbidden through the myriad layers of his spirit. Two paths opened before him and he had only an instant to decide which to take.
In one he invoked Huanchi, the Jaguar Lord, and pounced like a great hunting cat upon unsuspecting prey.
And in the other he invoked Huanchi, the Illusive, and stole down the hidden way like a shadow.
He chose and from his spiritual lips spilled the words, Huanchi, Lord of Secret Paths and False Ways.
Within the oppressive weight and pressure a glyph of sinuous shadows emerged, like the moon rising between two mountains or a thread passing through the eye of a needle.
—col activated. Intrusion isolated, diss— seal received, emergency abort. Emergency abort.
Suddenly the pressure eased and light bloomed all around Udhi-Tegha, not the bright light of the day star, but a dim sort of half-twilight, as the slann found his spirit suddenly within a darkened corridor of the Temple of Huanchi. All around him swirled whispering winds, tiny whirlwinds of dust that crashed into each other and splintered into dancing motes that caught on the flickering half light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.
A particular corridor that stretched for off into an uncertain distance, its sides lined with doorways and portals that opened only into shadow and silence. Power pulsed through the stone. For a moment all was still and quiet as a grave.
Then the air crackled and lightning arced out of the doorways in a lattice of deadly plasma that burned away darkness. Anyone within the corridor at the time would have been killed instantly and even for Udhi-Tegha it was not a pleasant experience. His spirit was buffeted and battered already and the cascade of physical energy rippled into the aethyr, bruising his soul yet further.
Still it was preferable to having his spirit utterly shredded.
Crossroads of Huanchi deactivated for 1 Turn.
Day 9 Potec's Season, 11658
Damage was less than it might have been— he had been a fool to try and force his way through the 'barrier,' but the Old Ones' work could survive even the foolishness of their servants. Such was their foresight. Udhi-Tegha now knew a secret that only those of Second and First had ever known before.
His soul ached from the lesson, parts of his spirit raw and pulsating with the earning of it. Even simple spells sent tremors of agony through his soul but such things were nothing compared to the capability he now wielded.
It was simplicity itself— there was quite literally nothing to it. He need only think of it and the Geomantic Web would respond to his thoughts and yet none who had not experienced what Udhi-Tegha had were capable of matching it. For it was a change within him. In his own soul. Likely his elders in the Communion had a less… risky method of imparting the capability, but he could not regret any of it.
Perhaps in time he would come to understand the full breadth of that change, even be able to pass it on to others in Zlatlan but for the time being he was content simply to complete his work.
Simple did not mean easy though.
Connecting the new spawning pools took lunar-months of careful, painstaking manipulation as the spirit of Udhi-Tegha carved through the Geomantic Web and linked together the two competing metaphors of the city-glyph. Three whole seasons passed before the work was done. He delved through metaphysical machinery and rock, bending away golden-bronze plates of earthbound magic and tumbling gears of purest chamon, forging metaphor into meaning and building channels across an impossible distance.
Again and again and again.
Sixteen times.
Echoing cenotes, waterfalls of ghyran and azyr spilling down their sides. Darkened passageways of basaltic rock rumbling with the slow grind of continental gears. Gilt gates, their eyes shimmering with pools of aqshy and hysh.
All leading to that vast plain of dead rock, lit in a halo around each entrance by the glow of the city-glyph itself, beneath a howling void.
Which marked only the beginning of his work, for then came the task of assembling the arcane mechanisms of the pools themselves; weaving together bones of black-basaltic magic into five stepped stalactic spires set around the rim of the bowl cut into the plain. Light spilled from within each as they stretched and contracted in slow undulation, separating briefly to reveal hearts of flickering flames.
Into the curving face of the bowl he hammered the silverine collars of earthbound magic and above them he set the winches and many-armed contraptions.
Slowly, slowly he wove together the disparate fragments of magic that had been assembled over the last several decades. Drawing in the smaller pieces created by hundreds of skink artisan-priests and fitting them together into a greater and greater whole, each slotting neatly against its neighbor until they formed grand mosaic spells. Flowing into one another in fractal patterns, each spell unfurling in beauteous complexity like a hillside of flowers blooming before dawn.
Gradually parts of the greater whole began to come alive. Fragments of the mechanism activating and beginning their operations in isolation as the logic and metaphor of their constituent parts assembled themselves sufficiently. Arms of crystal logic bent and moved, spinning out threads of gossamer magic. Udhi-Tegha watched them work for a time and then from the hanging threads of possibility he conjured tiny spider-like servitors— cousins to the stilt-legged spiders above, they quickly set about gathering the remaining threads and drawing them down into the silverine collars and blazing bronze bands.
Though he gave them form it was the Web itself which animated then, filling the aethyric shells with fragments of broken consciousness and alien self-conceptions.
As the mechanism of the pools finished coalescing together great gouts of steam emerged from the rock, hissing out of cracks and fissures and the bands and collars, rising (falling) and falling (rising) until they shrouded the entire structure in a towering plume. Chilled by howling winds the steam condensed and rose (fell) in gleaming droplets of potential that carved iridescent channels through the steaming mist as they fell upward, scattering in brilliant rainbow sprays when they struck threads of magic or gathering in boiling pools after running down the sides of the enormous bowl. Beneath the black basalt, in winding tunnels lined by wheels and bands of fiery bronze the strands of souls were drawn deep into city-glyph until they too made their way to the kelp forest where finger-eels and stilt-legged spiders dwelt.
Light bloomed from the horizon in silvery ribbons carving their way across the void. Udhi-Tegha drew them towards him, knitting them into the landscape itself.
Geomancy Roll - 82 + 30 (Udhi-Tegha Magic - Disc of Yuxa) + 15 (Geomantic Web Specialist) + 1 (Seals of the Old Ones) = 128
Awanabil'tat paused mid stride, some faint hum pricking his ears and then broke out into a run as he realized what it was. The last of the enchantments had been finished just a week before. Both Xehtzaihl and Awanabil'tat had been expecting Lord Udhi-Tegha to call them to his chambers for some days now, once he woke from his meditations, so that he could inspect their work.
Evidently the mage-lord had chosen to complete his examinations… remotely.
Bursting into the main chamber he saw the rising steam gathering in strange, interlocking shapes amongst the hanging stalactites. Croaking frogs punctured the still air with startled calls of alarm. Something smaller and furry dashed between his legs, scrambling across the hard stone and into the brush on the other side of the path, nearly tripping the architect.
There was a hum in the air, a rising tone.
Regaining his balance Awanabil'tat dashed down the stone path, barely slowing to swerve around a pair of kroxigor stopped in the middle of the path, heads craned high to stare back behind them. Handles of their carts all but forgotten in their hands. Similar scenes repeated themselves as he made his way to the back of the chamber; gardeners stopped mid labor, spades clutched in their hands, and saurus warriors brought to a halt in their patrols, eyes fixed on the far wall of the chamber.
At last he reached the low buildings surrounding the pools and bolted past them. Crowds had gathered at their edges, the gathered skink and saurus and kroxigor lit by an azure glow that washed over them in rippling patterns. Pushing through Awanabil'tat at last came to look upon the spawning pools themselves— standing waves more than half a meter tall criss-crossed the waters in curving arcs, forming glyphs in the ridges and troughs that pulsed magic.
All along the outer edge of the pools the glyphs and runes carved into the stone shone with inner light, magic pouring into the waters and rising with the steam pouring off the surface in great clouds. He marveled at the flow of the aethyr in the chamber. Towering, intricate spells knit themselves through the air itself, anchoring on the tips of false stalagmites and stalactites.
Far overhead and deep beneath his feet he felt the pulsing of the Geomantic Web respond in a slow methodical rhythm.
Some became something similar to the chasms of the city-glyph above, sheer sides of black stone lit by arcing lightning and the vast forms of swimming leviathans. Others, channels of molten magic that carved through the land in the form of enormous, kilometer long glyphs. Or they became glittering bridges of starlight and crystal floating high above (below) the barren terrain, strung together on braided cables of lightning, flocks of night black feathered-skates clinging to their eaves.
Here the connecting tissue of the Geomantic Web stood out against a blank and barren landscape rather than fade into the background. It did not take active mental effort to see how the pieces of arcane machinery connected to one another, it was a self-evident fact, each of the channels, highways, and chasms connected to at least one of the pathways linking the two sides of the city-glyph together. And as the last of them finally reached the spawning pools Udhi-Tegha felt the entire world shudder.
Light flared at the horizon, racing across the darkness in a wave that lit the broken landscapes as it passed, revealing the jagged uneven terrain in thin slices. Strange, regular forms flashed by— what might have been temples and barracks, barrios and workshops, courtyards and towers. Gone as soon as they had come, swallowed up by the darkness once again. Too fast for even the mind of a slann to capture in any detail.
And then the glow reached the spawning pools and the black basalt began to burn red-gold, like cooling lava. But rather than cool and dim it only grew brighter and brighter. Tremors shook the black basalt far above (below) and rattled the weaving arms rattled in their housings,crystal spider servitors were thrown from their perches to tumble through the webbing of unwoven souls.
An interference pattern formed in the steaming plume.
Glyphs etching themselves mid-air, pulsing with power as a rising harmony rang out from every angle. Udhi-Tegha felt the tone reverberate through his spirit and into his bones— his heart raced and his blood sang, a prickle of nerves racing down his spine and limbs until at last the world went blank.
Just for an instant.
He was back in his body. Sunlight streamed in through the small windows set near the top of the chamber, playing in long rhomboids across the stone floor as the dim sounds of industry filtered in from outside. His eyelids drooped as the clarion call for slumber echoed through his thoughts.
Lifting his head felt like trying to shoulder the world itself and his limbs responded only sluggishly. But… Udhi-Tegha felt the hum of the Geomantic Web, just a thought away, and to its harmony was a new brassy tone clear like a bell.
He smiled for a moment before his mind slipped into deep slumber.
Action Completed. Zlatlan gains new Spawning Pools, Udhi-Tegha gains trait Seals of the Old Ones; Allows easier, intrinsic manipulation of the Geomantic Web. +1 when dealing with the Geomantic Web. Will grow with use.
Notes: No vote this time. I wanted to have this out yesterday, but it was fighting me. Might still have the first part of Curious Archmages out Saturday or Sunday. Comments, critique, etc.
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I get the impression you haven't read the recent statement by the GM.
They already know.
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That was way to close to disaster. That Seals of the Old Ones is a very good discovery especially if it can be spread to the other Slann specially. That would be a big deal also makes my idea of making a Web of Time to counter the mind fog look more viable.