Guide a new, unique people along a path to either prosperity or extinction in a world constantly teetering on the brink.
Project Prometheus (Warhammer Fantasy OC Civ Quest)
- Thread starter Voikirium
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The Beginning
Voikirium
SV's Estalia Guy
- Location
- Ruritania Illinois
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Project Prometheus
This is a world of heroes.
To the far west, the ancient Servitors of the Old Ones maintain their valiant struggle against the End. Upon the Eternal Island the Sons of Asuryan fight, and die, and hope, to see the world protected from the eternal foe. Within the boughs of Athel Loren, the noble defenders of nature ensure its menaces cannot threaten the woods which they love any more. Stubborn to the end, brave Dawi resolutely battle against the darkness, to avenge themselves for every slight against them. Humanity grows, in many different cultures, adaptive and so small yet, led by their gods and their dragons, whether east, west, or south.
This is a world of villains.
Ratmen, Skaven, chew at the very foundations of reality in their Under-Empire, battling against the surface dwellers, weak individually but there are always more of them than the good that they slaughter. The Beastmen bray their challenges to civilization on every part of the globe, throwing themselves in maddened ecstasy against man and elf and dwarf alike in the name of gods who know they are puppets. Seeking his throne Malekith the Neverking shatters Ulthuan, murders his way accross Naggaroth, and with his followers, the Druchii, servants of Khaine, still seeks mastery of fair Ulthuan. Greenskins, whether brutally cunning Goblins or cunningly brutal Orcs, swarms from the mountains screaming ecstasy in battle. And everywhere the Wardstones fail, daemons threaten the very fabric of reality at the poles, seeking to pour out in hordes and burn the world. And humanity, always prone to breaking, breaks even more in service of Dark Gods, and darker things.
It is a time of war.
It is a time of change.
It is a time that needs heroes, willing to fight the darkness.
It is a time that needs you. A people unknown in the proper course of things, but unless someone is willing to step up and make things right, the world hurtles towards destruction anyway: you can hardly make things worse, can you?
The Undine
There was peace upon your islands in the underworld once. In the soft light of the red rock, so bright and too hot to be touched, you gathered lichens, and fished with string of sinews and moss and hooks of bone, and exulted in wit and shadow, and made simple homes in the dark and mists from what materials could be found at hand. A hard life in the darkness, but you were promised calm by the Visitors, that in the Black Sea you would know peace as you had not before. None would threaten you, for none would find you in those shadows so thick and so far away from the surface of the world where the Visitor's kinfolk held court. And so in contentment you wiled away your days, peaceful and serene. The ages of the world passed and if sometimes the shadows and the darkness seemed to shake such was what came to pass upon the surface, well that was no concern of yours but of those who held the surface.
And then they came upon their bleak prows, the Dark Elves, searching for…something, you neither know nor in truth care for what. There are no words for the atrocities the tall folk, the black armored, the vicious, the Druchii brought upon your people when they found you. Taken in slaving raids to work in the Up-Side, under their vicious conditions and the glare of the bright sun, over thousands of years you have fled, and fled, and fled, as far and as fast as you can, from island to island, knowing you have no chance to fight them for they are great and you are weak and that is the way of the world which can never change. But in the end, you have been pushed back to a small handful of islands, for their greed is insatiable, their lust for domination endless, their hatred without cessation. Your people dwindle, in spite of your fecundity, so great is the Dark Elves' desire for flesh to slave for them, to mine and farm and fight and die in their place.
It seemed the end of your kind was upon you, and that the world was lost, and that you should all perish. For no single kin band was able to stand against them, and what few victories you had—and that is few on the scale of millennia— were wiped away in an instant once one of their sorceresses did their grim work.
But you have heard a still, small voice in the shadows, as defeat and death loomed overhead, promising victory and knowledge in equal measure if you would but seek it out in the deepest ponds. The risk is great, but the risk from the Druchii is greater still; and you are able. So you will march to that dark place, and you will speak to those familiar voices, and you will offer yourself if that should be necessary to save your people from the bleak ones, the killers, the slavers and their blades.
Starting Position: The Underworld Sea, under Naggaroth—a vast body of water dotted with islands and island chains of various sizes if none quite continental, where the sun never shines and things stir in the water. Small glimmering gems provide light, provide life, as do vast magma vents pouring out the world's blood. Seams of brightrock—metal, in the tongue of Druchii— saturate vast stalagmites and stalactites and are apparently of use.
Your People: You the Undine are a short people, very short, of about the same height as the Dwarfs and Goblins, with a considerable, if restrained energy that grows refined but never fades even in old age, with pointy ears and skin in shades of yellow to blue to gray to green in order of rarity, and hair in shades of brown, black, green, gray, red or blond, with eyes of violet, green, yellow, red, or brown. You are stronger than you might think, but not as strong as many of the other creatures in the world. But you are fast, and you have quick reflexes, and there are ever many of you, even in this benighted age.
The Alumeth
You were born from evil. In the bleakest depths of the far north you were raised, a Beastfiend, born of the mixing of Daemon and Gor, a child of the Beastlord of the Whitefang tribe, the strongest, who battled for ages long and numerous with the Elves, the weaklings, upon the shores of your continent. You were considered the least among the tribe, the least among Fiends, the least among Chaos; but you were considered among it, a servant to the darkness.
Your father died, and your siblings betrayed you, and you were left, left to die in the cold bleeding from your wounds, slowly and painfully passing into the next world, to be feasted on by the Snowbirds and the Spawn. Daemons plotted to devour your soul, and whispered lies to you. The beasts stalked you, hoping to kill you and eat your flesh. Your wound turned pale green and your blood began to flow as the animals waited for your death.
You called to Khorne, and the Father of Rage did not answer. For what care does He offer to a fallen soldier but to place their skull upon His throne?
You called to Slaanesh, and the Prince of Obsession did not answer. For the pain of your death was a lovely sensation to Him.
You called to Tzeentch, and the Servant of Lies did not answer. For the possibilities of your death spiraling outward occluded the coming certainty of your living in His eyes.
You called to Nurgle, and the Rider of Despair did not answer. For the despair you felt was a buffet to Him.
So you called to anyone, anything, at all, just to be known.
Someone answered.
You called for healing, and Iakasheth came to you upon a ray of light, clad in armor bright and pristine as the snow and forged from true light, followed by Their Kinsmen and They burned out every poison from your flesh, and sealed the wound shut. They were brilliant, more brilliant than can be considered, and burned your eyes, so you begged them to allow you to see without the Shadow and They cast it aside and restored your sight and allowed you to see Them. You understood that you were dirty, filthy even, so They washed you in water warmed by Their fire. Your horns were crooked, but now are straightened; you spoke darkness but now know only bright tidings; you were ignorant but now are knowing.
You were weak, but now you are strong.
Bearing the new word of your gods and of freedom and of the light you engaged in battle with the Tribe's Shaman and your wayward siblings, defeating them, bringing them and the tribe under your control. After a year you finally successfully feel completely in control as the changes among the tribe finish themselves, as all are made to know the truth of the gods, both the old and new. But this cold place…you will never be safe here, for it bleeds hell, and suffering follows it to all places.
But that is fine; for Iakasheth has a plan. You will flee to the north, as far and as fast as you can, on ships stolen from human and snakemen and elf alike that seek to make pilgrimage to this, the land of the Daemons and from there, the world will be your oyster.
Starting Position: You will flee from the Southern Wastes, the Cold Hell, and try to find somewhere you belong to the north, where there is freedom and saity and hope, not just for your people but for all people that one day the world might be saved.
Your People: Descended of the Beastfiends, though never again to kneel before their Dark Gods, you are as physically robust as they come, if not quite so fast as other, thinner creatures. Though you still are a hybrid of man and beast in the manner of the Ungors and of the Gors and of the Bestigors, you are more wholesome in shape and in form, less ravaged by disease and plague. Your fur and hair are the same shades as that of the Beastmen proper, and your greatest most obvious difference from them are horns that are always brighter shades, only come in twos, and are invariably sensible, whether curving or straight following mathematical principles to be pleasing. Whether something that is as akin to the Minotaurs and Harpies, among other monsters, as you are to the Gor will arise from you is as yet unknown.
The Kasarm
A very long time ago, a god was wounded in battle; for it was a time of wolves and a time of daemons, a time of feeding and a time of predators, a time of battle and a time of soldiers, and a time for reaping. He, Athlankar, bled into the ocean, and a great island formed, and He named it, arising to the east of the great continent, the land of Dragons. And He made people, and breathed the breath of life into their lungs, but not wakefulness, not yet for that was not the time. But daemons were everywhere, and the world needed Him, so He traveled upon the wind on His great steed, a fine horse indeed, masterful and able it was, the father of all horses even; and in His left hand He held His unstrung bow, and in His right hand, His reigns, and upon His head, the Crown of the king of the gods. And Athlankar left them, His people, to sleep, for wakefulness would not come upon them for many years yet. They slept for an age of the world, resting, preparing, their island home preserved of every evil that might come upon them by the blowing of the winds—and of the Winds of Magic, shaped by the gods until such a time as its inhabitants were needed; and then they were needed by all the world.
They awoke. And they knew.
They were created. For a purpose, for a reason, for a cause. They knew this in their bones, as they knew to breath and to sleep and to eat.
They were created by the gods, but not the Laughing Idiots Shrieking Into the Void that leered at them from the north and from the south, from the east and from the west, desiring to eat their souls and assert their dominance as The Gods, as greater than others, as masters of this domain of souls and of the mortal realm alike. They, the Kasarm, were born of better gods, older gods. But They were silent as Their children woke, and so as the Kasarm came to life they were frightened by the world, frightened and confused for in their dreams they had seen the gods and their works as though they had lived it.
But fear gave way to certainty and determination. Certainty that for the world to be saved, the gods must awaken and take Their place.
And so on the slopes of the holy Mount Kaish the Kasarm prepared themselves, in the Wind-soaked plain and in the far eastern place, where trees were manifold and where enemies were none, dedicating themselves to growing prepared to march to war neither too early nor too late, but exactly on time. They forge now blade and shield, spear and arrow, bridle and bow, armor and ax. Carried by the winds, they shall shoot straight and true and they shall awake the gods to their proper place, standing triumphant against the enemy.
Starting Position: A large island to the east of Cathay and the west of Nippon, dominated by Mount Kaish, a tall, piercing mountain risen from the plains, which is the Kasarm's only notable source of metal as yet.
Your People: Your people, the Kasarm are neither as strong as Dwarfs, nor as adroit as the Elves, but neither are they as slow as the Dwarfs nor as gentle as the elves. And they have surpassingly good vision and hearing. They stand about as tall as the average human, perhaps a bit taller towards the top and a bit shorter towards the bottom. Their skin may be amethyst purple, turquoise blue, or obsidian black; their hair golden, ruby red, silver gray or amber brown. Their eyes may be pure white, a tiger orange, rose pink or emerald green and they have a sclera of the opposite color; further, they have only the colored pupil and the sclera.
The Colossi
You were born of the mountains, but they are no good now; now, evil things swarm the slopes and valleys, hunting and looting, pillaging and burning, destroying and raiding, bringing suffering and pain and loss with them, and bringing death to glade and dale and stream and spring, making them no good for anyone anymore no matter what Band they followed. The Greenskins aye, and the beastmen too, and the wandering corpses risen up by the bleak witches to attack you and kill you so to raise you up as slaves and servants and warriors and to strengthen their armies. So handfuls of you traveled down the mountains, following the streams and rivers until you found a mighty sea and came to its mouth, for no matter how mighty of thew you are and how great the strength of your brow, they came in such numbers that you had no chance. There was a strained peace as so many Bands were near other Bands, but it did hold for you wanted to live more than you wanted to fight each other to settle old scores.
No matter what the others who did not flee said, in their caves and in their pits and in their huts, the mountains were no longer for you; indeed their slopes were now riddled with all manner of evil things, things of which people should not speak, lest they draw the attention of bleaker foes to you, and they shall be lucky if death is all that finds them if they do not run. Copper and stone and strength of arm will not be enough to hold on to that which your people have claimed.
In spite of that flight, you are mighty. Even the lowliest of the Colossi stands taller than the Greenskins but for their Trolls, mightier than all but the bulls among beasts, and more enduring than all but the lowliest of the dead who know no fear nor exhaustion. But they outnumber you, and they can fight, and fight, and fight, all of them, never seeming to tire no matter how many you slay with bronze and stone and arrow. So at that place where the rivers meet the seas you have created a small place of your own, marked off for the moment by a ditch and wood driven into the ground; but you will create more. For there are those among the Band who speak of visions and things not seen and things not heard by you.
You hunt, you forage, you forge, you raise kith and kin into Band and you create, waiting for the day when they will all see that you were right, that there is more than the mountains; that you were right to flee. For they must flee; they cannot be so stubborn. They will know, in time. You will prove it. One day the other Bands will realize that you were right, that the doom you preached has come to pass, that darkness waits to devour the lot of you unless you flee; and so they will come to you, and to your place on the seas.
Starting Position: The lands south of the Empire, in what will day become the Border Princes (not that the Colossi know that, obviously). At the moment, however, it is nothing more than the post-apocalyptic remains of Lichtenburg, the vanity project of Emperor Sigismund, and uninhabited but for bands of the undead, the truest winner of that war.
Your People: You are large, standing both taller and broader than humans, than orcs, than elves and dwarfs—indeed taller than anything but the minotaurs and the trolls and the rats, enough that a single blow is death. You move with a precision and a care for your surroundings, not destroying them and trampling them as the treacherous beastmen do. Thinner and more gracile than the trolls as well, not that that says much, since you've seen the trolls eat rocks, branches, mud and worse when they get hungry enough. Your flesh may be gray, white, tan, or black. Your hair comes in white, black, gray, and red. There are hard, blunt and shimmering crystals at your joints, not necessarily every one but at least from your skull, knuckles, and sternum, which may be of any color though of a lighter shade. Your eyes may be darker shades of any color. You have pointed ears, very pointed.
The Arachnoids
You remember…much of Then, if not before they came. You remember villages in the forests, a burning fire and the smell of meat pulled from webs to be cooked. You remember the horn-headed ones, the false ones, the neverborn, binding you in chains. Beating you, cutting into your skin, branding you, leashing you, tattooing you with their mark. You can hardly remember. You remember them sending you to die in droves, in numbers fit to choke out the sun, against their enemies to soften them before the real fighting began, young and old and alike. Spat out to perish in battle against the metal clad, who burned you and cut you apart and tore into your flesh; the bewitching, who shot and terrified and killed in equal measure; the grail touched, who sang their song so loud it shook the world. But most of all you remember the scaled, the Lizardmen. You remember the world shifting as one of their number, dead-but-not, simply glared at you and you felt the marks burnt and carved and tattooed into you light up like a coal had been shoved into your skin and then the wound sewn shut while it burned. You remember the jungle.
You remember Deliverance.
You remember exceedingly little after that, except burning and fire and light. Except then you woke up, somehow, some way still alive, not slaughtered as you would have slaughtered such prey. The world shifted, and the burning ended, and your wounds healed, and you could be free for all that was done to you, every cut and brand and tattoo and rune made of your flesh made into ash. Except that how can there be freedom if what was once done to you can be done to you again, now, except even more permanently? Only a small number of your people have survived the desecration, the murder, the slaughter brought onto you by the Web-Pluckers. It must not happen again, no matter what comes for you. So you will learn, watching the Lizardmen and the humans alike in their number, to see what functions and to turn aside what does not, to prepare for the vengeance that will come, to make yourself ready for the battles to come, this time fought not as slaves to darkness but as a free people, ready to step forward and take the world into your hands.
This place, surrounded by humans but not yet taken by them; where the Lizards lurk in strength, hiding in the jungles, watching you for even the slightest sign of corruption; where the dead get up and walk and threaten the world? It shall be a fine place to rebuild everything, everything, that was taken from you, and then to seek revenge on those who brought the evil against you in the first place. No matter what the cost may be, you will burn the shape of your hatred onto them as lightning carves its mark onto the earth.
Starting Location: The central-to-south-eastern portion of the Southlands, not on but near the coast
Your people: From the waist down you resemble nothing so much as a great spider, with eight mighty legs tipped with hard spikes able to pierce metal with a good jab—there was a reason Chaos sought to make you its puppets. This spider portion is covered in thick fur and hair and generally, though not always, of darker shades. From the waist up you resemble a number of the bipedal species which walk the world, though are not precisely a copy of any singular one. Your body is a (generally) dull shade of green, red, or yellow. Horns, large ones, erupt from your head, almost wavy in motion, hard and sharp. Your arms from the elbow down are covered in a thick, soft, but dense layer of fur culminating in large paws with four fingers, each topped by a hard and sharp claw. Whorling, fractal black patterns flow over your body from the head to the tips of your legs and into your carapace.
The Calratians
You simply…are. You are not like the land-walkers below, nor the elves from the sea, nor the cyclops nor the dragons of which the oldest elders might speak. You have not gathered together in great clumps nor founded the villages and settlements they have. You have rode the winds and the skies, as ever, following the Zephyr as it blasts this way and that across the world, from the north and from the south alike. You follow the paths of the monoliths that weave across the surface of the world, hunting and foraging and fishing as you do. In this way you are not like the ground bound, who make permanent cities for themselves.
But most of all, you are not like the Corruption, which forever creeps downward from the north, towards you and all other people. You are not like the glittering Neverborn, who seek to kill you, and make your feathers into decorations, and pull out your eyes for their auguries. Not like the Broken, who willingly serve that which would see the world drowned in the sludge of hell, and kill you for trophies and for the sake of the hunt. Not like the Beasts, who bear the chains of Corruption on their souls and on their bodies and in their minds, most of all their minds, who kill you for the barked commands of their evil masters. But they all together have killed you, and killed you, and killed you, again and again and again, and every family has lost at least a member; some have lost many, many more. So if you do not want to die—and you do not—it seems that you will have to make a stand for yourselves, and leave behind the nomadic way which you have known or all be killed in ones and twos in a long death, a long death that will take centuries but will invariably see all of your people dead over the years unless you do something about it.
But you have the answer. There are, far to the southwest of the continent, mountains, low lying but easily defended that descend only into fecund plains and desert, both easily defended; and neighbored from every direction by the Lizardmen, and so only threatened by incursions from without. Sometimes you have known peace with the Lizardmen; sometimes they have sought to fight you, or even to stamp you out altogether, if only singular bands rather than your entire people. But this is much better than the Northerners, and the Beastmen, and the Daemons, who have tried to kill you every time they have seen you. And in any case you have no better plan than thus, to flee to the mountains and hope. For as is you cannot survive traveling anymore, for the things of the enemy will not allow it for you any longer. And that is not simply bleak belief any more; for none now have been born across the great ocean, far to the east.
Starting Location: The very bottom portion of the Spine of Sotek mountain range, your first settlement lying directly south of the Lost Valley.
Your People: A combination of the forms of man and bird, tall and thin, with very long wings, clawed fingers and toes, but a certain brittleness of frame: you can hit hard, certainly, but a good crushing blow seems to strike you harder than an equivalent. Your feathers are bright and vibrant and beautiful, shimmering across the many colors of metal: shimmering green as copper, mirror like silver, and sunshine gold, among many others.
The Gurgran
You were spirits once. Of the cunning, of the tricksters, of that which hunts to live. For ages and for no time at all you lived in peace among what the mortals of this new world, your new home, call the Aethyr but which in your mind was the Great Wild, being beneficent to those who did you aid and offered the proper rites, and cunning and clever indeed to those who did you insult and brought harm upon you and yours. The personification of the cunning, the clever, the trickster and the scavenger that was too wise for the ways of the world. Dipping into, and out of, the material whether to help some foolish-but-noble creature on a quest or to bring that vengeance which you could on that which knew no honor.
Then they came, bearing their barking madness. That Which Birthed Ambition. That Which Birthed Despair. That Which Birthed Obsession. And worst of all, That Which Birthed Hate. The Bull Headed who roared an endless roar of hate. He raged and lied and sullied the Aethyr that was yours, for the thought of the cunning and the clever that could deny Him what was His—mastery of the Aethyr, yes, but more than that, mastery of the clever and of the cunning and of beasts—in His own mind as riddled with madness as it is, could not be allowed. His Daemons especially sought to fight you, sought to slay you, sought to kill you, an endless tide of Bloodletters, Heralds, and Bloodthirsters all seeking mastery over what, by right, was His—the Beasts.
To stay would have meant death. Worse than death—slavery, subjugation, kneeling to that which could brook no cunning, that forged without art, that offers nothing to the world from which it takes so much. You have tricked the dragons, and the humans, and the elves, and the dwarfs, in your long existences—but it has been at least sometimes the tricks played between friends and not just the basest treachery of the Raven, that knows no loyalty to none except the loyalty that can forced at the edge of a blade.
So, left without a choice, you did the unthinkable: You Incarnated yourself, all of you who wished to live anyway, tearing a hole in reality through which you could leave behind the Aethyr for a realm safer, saner, less demented: for all that the material reality bears the mark, the stain, of Chaos, of the Four, bedrock deep at least the Idiot Gods must play the part of puppeteers instead of generals and lords in this realm; at least, for the moment. Compared to the hordes of Daemons who even now no doubt prowl the Great Wild looking for you to feed on, the paltry cults so easily tricked into revealing themselves, the hordes of human slaves that had no cunning, and the snakewomen of Khuresh, the other lesser Beastmen, the servants of Chaos on this plane, were as nothing to that great bleak host of suffering and death and power.
Starting Location: The northern portion of the Hinterlands of Khuresh, near the border with the Celestial Empire
Your People: You are a very physically diverse group, varying greatly in how much you are mortal and how much you are fox and how much you are mortal. The traits you all share in common are two: the long set of fox ears that erupts from your head, and the tails that erupt from the back of your waist. You are somewhat delicate in that much can harm you, but even after physical incarnation you are spirit enough that great harm might befall you and yet you may continue on. As cunning and as skilled as the fox, you are quick and graceful and fight well.
The Bajdrag
Born upon the Mountains, you were born to guard the dragons, created by the Power to guard and protect them. For an age you lived under their guidance, gathering the food and water such mighty creatures need and in return were offered their protection from the many evils that roam this world. The Ceaseless Feast was warded away by the offering of tribute and the threat of retribution. But then the Bearded Ones came, the killers, the murderers, the slayers, and your people were killed in dozens, in hundred, in thousands, in more than it was thought possible for there to as the great Drakes you were sworn to protect were slaughtered, perhaps even all of them, by the Ax-Holders, the Grudge Bearers, the defilers of hoards and the defilers of flesh. You were left with nothing and so for an age you were simply yet another threat within the mountains, if a small one. Pillaging and fighting for the right to survive.
But the Ogres ever hunger and you are just the right size to be an appetizer; and who knows when the Murderers might return in their snowy armor and hateful prowess to finish the work they started centuries ago? So rather than wait to die, you have fled down the slopes of the mountain to a great forest, where rivers criss-cross and you cannot be killed. There is fresh prey, and plentiful water, and wood to work and burn alike for warm; but there is more you must do, more you must have. Else you will die.
That which is worst in life whispers to the north, the chained dragons writhing in pain and in betrayal that you have failed them. Their Gors, who earned the wrath of the Dragons countless times, will come for you seeking vengeance. Too the wolf riders will desire their pound of flesh for what was done to them; the Hobgoblins show little enough fear. And then there are, all around you, humans. The Hung to the direct east, and to the north. And far enough east you shall reach Cathay…and the land of the Dragons. Not that which you once followed, not direct kin to the great winged beasts whose blood even now yet flows in your veins, but yet Dragons, as mighty and majestic as that which you served.
And then there are the Bearded Ones—where did they go? Why did they kill the Dragons? What did they earn of it, from it? Do they think they can murder, and slaughter, and kill as they desire for mercurial reasons and suffer no censure? Do they think their mendacity, their killing, will have no ill-effect? That others will forget what they have done to them, for—for what? They never even spoke, simply slaughtered you, cutting through the club and stone armored bands like…like a knife through grass. You will have an explanation, the suffering will have an answer, justice will be served, and let that be the end of it—one way or another.
Starting Location: North east of the Mountains of Mourn, within the Great Steppe, in a small forest crisscrossed by many small streams and rivers
Your People: The Bajdrag look like nothing so much as a bipedal, shorter dragon; shorter than most humans, even. However, the fire of the dragon burns within you still, and each strike strikes with their fury. Your scales are more supple than it seems they should be, though in turn they do not offer the kind of protection of a deeply rigid sort. You are particularly quick. Your color varies as much as that of your draconic ancestors.
The Qrimneri
You were not, and then you were. From one moment, to the next, you were dead, and then you lived. Images of the rising sun casting away the darkness, of great bolts of lightning splitting the blanket above. Of a great stag hunter running about the world and its many forests, horn blowing and ax raised up high. Of a wolf's howl, and a great billowing storm that shakes the earth, biting deep with its frost. Of a mountain breaker, a mountain cleaver, a mountain shaker stemming a tide of impossibility. And of a great bird, dead and living, living and dead, in a great cycle playing again and again and again, forever fighting against the bull and the raven and the toad and the snake with all the might it possessed, and that it seemed in the recesses of your mind was only right and proper for to fight against such was good.
All of this and more shot through your nascent mind as you were for lack of a better term born, thrust from nonexistence in one second to thought and feeling in the next, screaming as you went about the matter. You were surrounded then by those like you, that looked like you, and thought it was good; and they were your people, and you were theirs; so you stumbled to the great black lake that unstretched before you like the endless night sky above.
You looked at your reflection and saw within overhead the moon; and it above your head shone like a great helmet protecting from any evil. Unmarred silver seemed to flow from it like droplets down upon the mantle of your flesh. And then entering the blackness above a great green evil, a sliver of green sickness, a thing that should not be. And yet it was, and it struck for the strings of your souls—only to find itself wanting, as the silver burned even brighter around the lot of you. You lived; but knew that not to seek safety from it was to tempt fate more than could be justified. So now you must find some safety from the hell-moon, the evil moon, the twister and cutter of fate. And then there is the matter of the others, not like your tribe, that must be found ere their souls should be infected by the bleak touch of the vile moon and not the great silver mistress above. For you know not what bleak thing lies in that hellish path, but you know no good can come of it, not for you nor any others who stumble upon them. Of course this leaves you with a question: are there, in fact, others? Such sounds right…but, except for the moons, both the good and the evil, you know of nothing else, righteous or vile, on this world. For all you know you and the moons and the lake and the outlying peaks are all of existence, all that there is or could be in reality. You doubt it, but it could be so.
Starting Location: On the shores of the Black Water
Your People: Tall and strong and enduring, if not so tall and strong and enduring as some creatures that exist—that is to say, a human could be comparable to you though you are likely to be stronger than one who has put in an equivalent effort. Your skin is a number of shades of blue and purple, and a crop of hair of any number of colors grows from your skull. Tusks, small but sharp, erupt from the bottom of your jaw. Your nails are nails and not claws, but they are somewhat sharper than expected and somewhat durable.
A Human Tribe
Humanity has spread its wings across all the face of the world; but from another tribe, shall rise a great realm. As humanity is the most malleable among all the species currently on the planet, you will be able to greatly influence this rising power.
- "Hung": Humans living in the northwestern portion of the land the Dark Elves call Naggaroth, they enjoy conflating you with…whatever a "Hung" is. Though many of you have fallen to the worship of evil, your tribe resists, and endures; much as you resist, and endure, the depravities of the Dark Elves.
- Khuresh: The Snakemen of the Sun and the Snakemen of the Moon fight among each other, and humanity is caught in the middle. Well you have no love of such a notion, so you will fight them, and their servants as well, and the beastmen come—in fact, to put none-too-fine a point on it, you will fight every foe.
- Amazonian: Outsiders sometimes speak of amazons; but they would be much better served by speaking of the Amazon Nations, for there is no unity among you, not as the Old Ones left you in any case. But do not weep and do not worry, for your people shall unite the tribes and reclaim all that was taken from you!
-Albion: The kingdom of Albion was united; and then, it wasn't. Your people lost everything, and the land was drowned under a fog of bleakness and despair. But now you hear tell that the Cyclopses and the Greenmen and the Beasts are all trying to attack your home, and that must not stand. What are you to do except take on the legacy of the Spear Wolf, and drive them all back into the sea?
To further clarify: whereas one of the prebuilt races would mean getting immediately into character creation, a Human Tribe would mean going first into more proper tribal generation, and then into character creation.
Please do not post for like, five minutes, until I'm done actually reserving posts. I will say this is definitely going to be my "I need to relax and shoot the shit" quest. I feel the need to particularly thank @soulcake since I first had the idea for this in Rhunrikki. I feel the need to say these names are like, the equivalent of Dawi and Asur.
This is a world of heroes.
To the far west, the ancient Servitors of the Old Ones maintain their valiant struggle against the End. Upon the Eternal Island the Sons of Asuryan fight, and die, and hope, to see the world protected from the eternal foe. Within the boughs of Athel Loren, the noble defenders of nature ensure its menaces cannot threaten the woods which they love any more. Stubborn to the end, brave Dawi resolutely battle against the darkness, to avenge themselves for every slight against them. Humanity grows, in many different cultures, adaptive and so small yet, led by their gods and their dragons, whether east, west, or south.
This is a world of villains.
Ratmen, Skaven, chew at the very foundations of reality in their Under-Empire, battling against the surface dwellers, weak individually but there are always more of them than the good that they slaughter. The Beastmen bray their challenges to civilization on every part of the globe, throwing themselves in maddened ecstasy against man and elf and dwarf alike in the name of gods who know they are puppets. Seeking his throne Malekith the Neverking shatters Ulthuan, murders his way accross Naggaroth, and with his followers, the Druchii, servants of Khaine, still seeks mastery of fair Ulthuan. Greenskins, whether brutally cunning Goblins or cunningly brutal Orcs, swarms from the mountains screaming ecstasy in battle. And everywhere the Wardstones fail, daemons threaten the very fabric of reality at the poles, seeking to pour out in hordes and burn the world. And humanity, always prone to breaking, breaks even more in service of Dark Gods, and darker things.
It is a time of war.
It is a time of change.
It is a time that needs heroes, willing to fight the darkness.
It is a time that needs you. A people unknown in the proper course of things, but unless someone is willing to step up and make things right, the world hurtles towards destruction anyway: you can hardly make things worse, can you?
The Undine
There was peace upon your islands in the underworld once. In the soft light of the red rock, so bright and too hot to be touched, you gathered lichens, and fished with string of sinews and moss and hooks of bone, and exulted in wit and shadow, and made simple homes in the dark and mists from what materials could be found at hand. A hard life in the darkness, but you were promised calm by the Visitors, that in the Black Sea you would know peace as you had not before. None would threaten you, for none would find you in those shadows so thick and so far away from the surface of the world where the Visitor's kinfolk held court. And so in contentment you wiled away your days, peaceful and serene. The ages of the world passed and if sometimes the shadows and the darkness seemed to shake such was what came to pass upon the surface, well that was no concern of yours but of those who held the surface.
And then they came upon their bleak prows, the Dark Elves, searching for…something, you neither know nor in truth care for what. There are no words for the atrocities the tall folk, the black armored, the vicious, the Druchii brought upon your people when they found you. Taken in slaving raids to work in the Up-Side, under their vicious conditions and the glare of the bright sun, over thousands of years you have fled, and fled, and fled, as far and as fast as you can, from island to island, knowing you have no chance to fight them for they are great and you are weak and that is the way of the world which can never change. But in the end, you have been pushed back to a small handful of islands, for their greed is insatiable, their lust for domination endless, their hatred without cessation. Your people dwindle, in spite of your fecundity, so great is the Dark Elves' desire for flesh to slave for them, to mine and farm and fight and die in their place.
It seemed the end of your kind was upon you, and that the world was lost, and that you should all perish. For no single kin band was able to stand against them, and what few victories you had—and that is few on the scale of millennia— were wiped away in an instant once one of their sorceresses did their grim work.
But you have heard a still, small voice in the shadows, as defeat and death loomed overhead, promising victory and knowledge in equal measure if you would but seek it out in the deepest ponds. The risk is great, but the risk from the Druchii is greater still; and you are able. So you will march to that dark place, and you will speak to those familiar voices, and you will offer yourself if that should be necessary to save your people from the bleak ones, the killers, the slavers and their blades.
Starting Position: The Underworld Sea, under Naggaroth—a vast body of water dotted with islands and island chains of various sizes if none quite continental, where the sun never shines and things stir in the water. Small glimmering gems provide light, provide life, as do vast magma vents pouring out the world's blood. Seams of brightrock—metal, in the tongue of Druchii— saturate vast stalagmites and stalactites and are apparently of use.
Your People: You the Undine are a short people, very short, of about the same height as the Dwarfs and Goblins, with a considerable, if restrained energy that grows refined but never fades even in old age, with pointy ears and skin in shades of yellow to blue to gray to green in order of rarity, and hair in shades of brown, black, green, gray, red or blond, with eyes of violet, green, yellow, red, or brown. You are stronger than you might think, but not as strong as many of the other creatures in the world. But you are fast, and you have quick reflexes, and there are ever many of you, even in this benighted age.
The Alumeth
You were born from evil. In the bleakest depths of the far north you were raised, a Beastfiend, born of the mixing of Daemon and Gor, a child of the Beastlord of the Whitefang tribe, the strongest, who battled for ages long and numerous with the Elves, the weaklings, upon the shores of your continent. You were considered the least among the tribe, the least among Fiends, the least among Chaos; but you were considered among it, a servant to the darkness.
Your father died, and your siblings betrayed you, and you were left, left to die in the cold bleeding from your wounds, slowly and painfully passing into the next world, to be feasted on by the Snowbirds and the Spawn. Daemons plotted to devour your soul, and whispered lies to you. The beasts stalked you, hoping to kill you and eat your flesh. Your wound turned pale green and your blood began to flow as the animals waited for your death.
You called to Khorne, and the Father of Rage did not answer. For what care does He offer to a fallen soldier but to place their skull upon His throne?
You called to Slaanesh, and the Prince of Obsession did not answer. For the pain of your death was a lovely sensation to Him.
You called to Tzeentch, and the Servant of Lies did not answer. For the possibilities of your death spiraling outward occluded the coming certainty of your living in His eyes.
You called to Nurgle, and the Rider of Despair did not answer. For the despair you felt was a buffet to Him.
So you called to anyone, anything, at all, just to be known.
Someone answered.
You called for healing, and Iakasheth came to you upon a ray of light, clad in armor bright and pristine as the snow and forged from true light, followed by Their Kinsmen and They burned out every poison from your flesh, and sealed the wound shut. They were brilliant, more brilliant than can be considered, and burned your eyes, so you begged them to allow you to see without the Shadow and They cast it aside and restored your sight and allowed you to see Them. You understood that you were dirty, filthy even, so They washed you in water warmed by Their fire. Your horns were crooked, but now are straightened; you spoke darkness but now know only bright tidings; you were ignorant but now are knowing.
You were weak, but now you are strong.
Bearing the new word of your gods and of freedom and of the light you engaged in battle with the Tribe's Shaman and your wayward siblings, defeating them, bringing them and the tribe under your control. After a year you finally successfully feel completely in control as the changes among the tribe finish themselves, as all are made to know the truth of the gods, both the old and new. But this cold place…you will never be safe here, for it bleeds hell, and suffering follows it to all places.
But that is fine; for Iakasheth has a plan. You will flee to the north, as far and as fast as you can, on ships stolen from human and snakemen and elf alike that seek to make pilgrimage to this, the land of the Daemons and from there, the world will be your oyster.
Starting Position: You will flee from the Southern Wastes, the Cold Hell, and try to find somewhere you belong to the north, where there is freedom and saity and hope, not just for your people but for all people that one day the world might be saved.
Your People: Descended of the Beastfiends, though never again to kneel before their Dark Gods, you are as physically robust as they come, if not quite so fast as other, thinner creatures. Though you still are a hybrid of man and beast in the manner of the Ungors and of the Gors and of the Bestigors, you are more wholesome in shape and in form, less ravaged by disease and plague. Your fur and hair are the same shades as that of the Beastmen proper, and your greatest most obvious difference from them are horns that are always brighter shades, only come in twos, and are invariably sensible, whether curving or straight following mathematical principles to be pleasing. Whether something that is as akin to the Minotaurs and Harpies, among other monsters, as you are to the Gor will arise from you is as yet unknown.
The Kasarm
A very long time ago, a god was wounded in battle; for it was a time of wolves and a time of daemons, a time of feeding and a time of predators, a time of battle and a time of soldiers, and a time for reaping. He, Athlankar, bled into the ocean, and a great island formed, and He named it, arising to the east of the great continent, the land of Dragons. And He made people, and breathed the breath of life into their lungs, but not wakefulness, not yet for that was not the time. But daemons were everywhere, and the world needed Him, so He traveled upon the wind on His great steed, a fine horse indeed, masterful and able it was, the father of all horses even; and in His left hand He held His unstrung bow, and in His right hand, His reigns, and upon His head, the Crown of the king of the gods. And Athlankar left them, His people, to sleep, for wakefulness would not come upon them for many years yet. They slept for an age of the world, resting, preparing, their island home preserved of every evil that might come upon them by the blowing of the winds—and of the Winds of Magic, shaped by the gods until such a time as its inhabitants were needed; and then they were needed by all the world.
They awoke. And they knew.
They were created. For a purpose, for a reason, for a cause. They knew this in their bones, as they knew to breath and to sleep and to eat.
They were created by the gods, but not the Laughing Idiots Shrieking Into the Void that leered at them from the north and from the south, from the east and from the west, desiring to eat their souls and assert their dominance as The Gods, as greater than others, as masters of this domain of souls and of the mortal realm alike. They, the Kasarm, were born of better gods, older gods. But They were silent as Their children woke, and so as the Kasarm came to life they were frightened by the world, frightened and confused for in their dreams they had seen the gods and their works as though they had lived it.
But fear gave way to certainty and determination. Certainty that for the world to be saved, the gods must awaken and take Their place.
And so on the slopes of the holy Mount Kaish the Kasarm prepared themselves, in the Wind-soaked plain and in the far eastern place, where trees were manifold and where enemies were none, dedicating themselves to growing prepared to march to war neither too early nor too late, but exactly on time. They forge now blade and shield, spear and arrow, bridle and bow, armor and ax. Carried by the winds, they shall shoot straight and true and they shall awake the gods to their proper place, standing triumphant against the enemy.
Starting Position: A large island to the east of Cathay and the west of Nippon, dominated by Mount Kaish, a tall, piercing mountain risen from the plains, which is the Kasarm's only notable source of metal as yet.
Your People: Your people, the Kasarm are neither as strong as Dwarfs, nor as adroit as the Elves, but neither are they as slow as the Dwarfs nor as gentle as the elves. And they have surpassingly good vision and hearing. They stand about as tall as the average human, perhaps a bit taller towards the top and a bit shorter towards the bottom. Their skin may be amethyst purple, turquoise blue, or obsidian black; their hair golden, ruby red, silver gray or amber brown. Their eyes may be pure white, a tiger orange, rose pink or emerald green and they have a sclera of the opposite color; further, they have only the colored pupil and the sclera.
The Colossi
You were born of the mountains, but they are no good now; now, evil things swarm the slopes and valleys, hunting and looting, pillaging and burning, destroying and raiding, bringing suffering and pain and loss with them, and bringing death to glade and dale and stream and spring, making them no good for anyone anymore no matter what Band they followed. The Greenskins aye, and the beastmen too, and the wandering corpses risen up by the bleak witches to attack you and kill you so to raise you up as slaves and servants and warriors and to strengthen their armies. So handfuls of you traveled down the mountains, following the streams and rivers until you found a mighty sea and came to its mouth, for no matter how mighty of thew you are and how great the strength of your brow, they came in such numbers that you had no chance. There was a strained peace as so many Bands were near other Bands, but it did hold for you wanted to live more than you wanted to fight each other to settle old scores.
No matter what the others who did not flee said, in their caves and in their pits and in their huts, the mountains were no longer for you; indeed their slopes were now riddled with all manner of evil things, things of which people should not speak, lest they draw the attention of bleaker foes to you, and they shall be lucky if death is all that finds them if they do not run. Copper and stone and strength of arm will not be enough to hold on to that which your people have claimed.
In spite of that flight, you are mighty. Even the lowliest of the Colossi stands taller than the Greenskins but for their Trolls, mightier than all but the bulls among beasts, and more enduring than all but the lowliest of the dead who know no fear nor exhaustion. But they outnumber you, and they can fight, and fight, and fight, all of them, never seeming to tire no matter how many you slay with bronze and stone and arrow. So at that place where the rivers meet the seas you have created a small place of your own, marked off for the moment by a ditch and wood driven into the ground; but you will create more. For there are those among the Band who speak of visions and things not seen and things not heard by you.
You hunt, you forage, you forge, you raise kith and kin into Band and you create, waiting for the day when they will all see that you were right, that there is more than the mountains; that you were right to flee. For they must flee; they cannot be so stubborn. They will know, in time. You will prove it. One day the other Bands will realize that you were right, that the doom you preached has come to pass, that darkness waits to devour the lot of you unless you flee; and so they will come to you, and to your place on the seas.
Starting Position: The lands south of the Empire, in what will day become the Border Princes (not that the Colossi know that, obviously). At the moment, however, it is nothing more than the post-apocalyptic remains of Lichtenburg, the vanity project of Emperor Sigismund, and uninhabited but for bands of the undead, the truest winner of that war.
Your People: You are large, standing both taller and broader than humans, than orcs, than elves and dwarfs—indeed taller than anything but the minotaurs and the trolls and the rats, enough that a single blow is death. You move with a precision and a care for your surroundings, not destroying them and trampling them as the treacherous beastmen do. Thinner and more gracile than the trolls as well, not that that says much, since you've seen the trolls eat rocks, branches, mud and worse when they get hungry enough. Your flesh may be gray, white, tan, or black. Your hair comes in white, black, gray, and red. There are hard, blunt and shimmering crystals at your joints, not necessarily every one but at least from your skull, knuckles, and sternum, which may be of any color though of a lighter shade. Your eyes may be darker shades of any color. You have pointed ears, very pointed.
The Arachnoids
You remember…much of Then, if not before they came. You remember villages in the forests, a burning fire and the smell of meat pulled from webs to be cooked. You remember the horn-headed ones, the false ones, the neverborn, binding you in chains. Beating you, cutting into your skin, branding you, leashing you, tattooing you with their mark. You can hardly remember. You remember them sending you to die in droves, in numbers fit to choke out the sun, against their enemies to soften them before the real fighting began, young and old and alike. Spat out to perish in battle against the metal clad, who burned you and cut you apart and tore into your flesh; the bewitching, who shot and terrified and killed in equal measure; the grail touched, who sang their song so loud it shook the world. But most of all you remember the scaled, the Lizardmen. You remember the world shifting as one of their number, dead-but-not, simply glared at you and you felt the marks burnt and carved and tattooed into you light up like a coal had been shoved into your skin and then the wound sewn shut while it burned. You remember the jungle.
You remember Deliverance.
You remember exceedingly little after that, except burning and fire and light. Except then you woke up, somehow, some way still alive, not slaughtered as you would have slaughtered such prey. The world shifted, and the burning ended, and your wounds healed, and you could be free for all that was done to you, every cut and brand and tattoo and rune made of your flesh made into ash. Except that how can there be freedom if what was once done to you can be done to you again, now, except even more permanently? Only a small number of your people have survived the desecration, the murder, the slaughter brought onto you by the Web-Pluckers. It must not happen again, no matter what comes for you. So you will learn, watching the Lizardmen and the humans alike in their number, to see what functions and to turn aside what does not, to prepare for the vengeance that will come, to make yourself ready for the battles to come, this time fought not as slaves to darkness but as a free people, ready to step forward and take the world into your hands.
This place, surrounded by humans but not yet taken by them; where the Lizards lurk in strength, hiding in the jungles, watching you for even the slightest sign of corruption; where the dead get up and walk and threaten the world? It shall be a fine place to rebuild everything, everything, that was taken from you, and then to seek revenge on those who brought the evil against you in the first place. No matter what the cost may be, you will burn the shape of your hatred onto them as lightning carves its mark onto the earth.
Starting Location: The central-to-south-eastern portion of the Southlands, not on but near the coast
Your people: From the waist down you resemble nothing so much as a great spider, with eight mighty legs tipped with hard spikes able to pierce metal with a good jab—there was a reason Chaos sought to make you its puppets. This spider portion is covered in thick fur and hair and generally, though not always, of darker shades. From the waist up you resemble a number of the bipedal species which walk the world, though are not precisely a copy of any singular one. Your body is a (generally) dull shade of green, red, or yellow. Horns, large ones, erupt from your head, almost wavy in motion, hard and sharp. Your arms from the elbow down are covered in a thick, soft, but dense layer of fur culminating in large paws with four fingers, each topped by a hard and sharp claw. Whorling, fractal black patterns flow over your body from the head to the tips of your legs and into your carapace.
The Calratians
You simply…are. You are not like the land-walkers below, nor the elves from the sea, nor the cyclops nor the dragons of which the oldest elders might speak. You have not gathered together in great clumps nor founded the villages and settlements they have. You have rode the winds and the skies, as ever, following the Zephyr as it blasts this way and that across the world, from the north and from the south alike. You follow the paths of the monoliths that weave across the surface of the world, hunting and foraging and fishing as you do. In this way you are not like the ground bound, who make permanent cities for themselves.
But most of all, you are not like the Corruption, which forever creeps downward from the north, towards you and all other people. You are not like the glittering Neverborn, who seek to kill you, and make your feathers into decorations, and pull out your eyes for their auguries. Not like the Broken, who willingly serve that which would see the world drowned in the sludge of hell, and kill you for trophies and for the sake of the hunt. Not like the Beasts, who bear the chains of Corruption on their souls and on their bodies and in their minds, most of all their minds, who kill you for the barked commands of their evil masters. But they all together have killed you, and killed you, and killed you, again and again and again, and every family has lost at least a member; some have lost many, many more. So if you do not want to die—and you do not—it seems that you will have to make a stand for yourselves, and leave behind the nomadic way which you have known or all be killed in ones and twos in a long death, a long death that will take centuries but will invariably see all of your people dead over the years unless you do something about it.
But you have the answer. There are, far to the southwest of the continent, mountains, low lying but easily defended that descend only into fecund plains and desert, both easily defended; and neighbored from every direction by the Lizardmen, and so only threatened by incursions from without. Sometimes you have known peace with the Lizardmen; sometimes they have sought to fight you, or even to stamp you out altogether, if only singular bands rather than your entire people. But this is much better than the Northerners, and the Beastmen, and the Daemons, who have tried to kill you every time they have seen you. And in any case you have no better plan than thus, to flee to the mountains and hope. For as is you cannot survive traveling anymore, for the things of the enemy will not allow it for you any longer. And that is not simply bleak belief any more; for none now have been born across the great ocean, far to the east.
Starting Location: The very bottom portion of the Spine of Sotek mountain range, your first settlement lying directly south of the Lost Valley.
Your People: A combination of the forms of man and bird, tall and thin, with very long wings, clawed fingers and toes, but a certain brittleness of frame: you can hit hard, certainly, but a good crushing blow seems to strike you harder than an equivalent. Your feathers are bright and vibrant and beautiful, shimmering across the many colors of metal: shimmering green as copper, mirror like silver, and sunshine gold, among many others.
The Gurgran
You were spirits once. Of the cunning, of the tricksters, of that which hunts to live. For ages and for no time at all you lived in peace among what the mortals of this new world, your new home, call the Aethyr but which in your mind was the Great Wild, being beneficent to those who did you aid and offered the proper rites, and cunning and clever indeed to those who did you insult and brought harm upon you and yours. The personification of the cunning, the clever, the trickster and the scavenger that was too wise for the ways of the world. Dipping into, and out of, the material whether to help some foolish-but-noble creature on a quest or to bring that vengeance which you could on that which knew no honor.
Then they came, bearing their barking madness. That Which Birthed Ambition. That Which Birthed Despair. That Which Birthed Obsession. And worst of all, That Which Birthed Hate. The Bull Headed who roared an endless roar of hate. He raged and lied and sullied the Aethyr that was yours, for the thought of the cunning and the clever that could deny Him what was His—mastery of the Aethyr, yes, but more than that, mastery of the clever and of the cunning and of beasts—in His own mind as riddled with madness as it is, could not be allowed. His Daemons especially sought to fight you, sought to slay you, sought to kill you, an endless tide of Bloodletters, Heralds, and Bloodthirsters all seeking mastery over what, by right, was His—the Beasts.
To stay would have meant death. Worse than death—slavery, subjugation, kneeling to that which could brook no cunning, that forged without art, that offers nothing to the world from which it takes so much. You have tricked the dragons, and the humans, and the elves, and the dwarfs, in your long existences—but it has been at least sometimes the tricks played between friends and not just the basest treachery of the Raven, that knows no loyalty to none except the loyalty that can forced at the edge of a blade.
So, left without a choice, you did the unthinkable: You Incarnated yourself, all of you who wished to live anyway, tearing a hole in reality through which you could leave behind the Aethyr for a realm safer, saner, less demented: for all that the material reality bears the mark, the stain, of Chaos, of the Four, bedrock deep at least the Idiot Gods must play the part of puppeteers instead of generals and lords in this realm; at least, for the moment. Compared to the hordes of Daemons who even now no doubt prowl the Great Wild looking for you to feed on, the paltry cults so easily tricked into revealing themselves, the hordes of human slaves that had no cunning, and the snakewomen of Khuresh, the other lesser Beastmen, the servants of Chaos on this plane, were as nothing to that great bleak host of suffering and death and power.
Starting Location: The northern portion of the Hinterlands of Khuresh, near the border with the Celestial Empire
Your People: You are a very physically diverse group, varying greatly in how much you are mortal and how much you are fox and how much you are mortal. The traits you all share in common are two: the long set of fox ears that erupts from your head, and the tails that erupt from the back of your waist. You are somewhat delicate in that much can harm you, but even after physical incarnation you are spirit enough that great harm might befall you and yet you may continue on. As cunning and as skilled as the fox, you are quick and graceful and fight well.
The Bajdrag
Born upon the Mountains, you were born to guard the dragons, created by the Power to guard and protect them. For an age you lived under their guidance, gathering the food and water such mighty creatures need and in return were offered their protection from the many evils that roam this world. The Ceaseless Feast was warded away by the offering of tribute and the threat of retribution. But then the Bearded Ones came, the killers, the murderers, the slayers, and your people were killed in dozens, in hundred, in thousands, in more than it was thought possible for there to as the great Drakes you were sworn to protect were slaughtered, perhaps even all of them, by the Ax-Holders, the Grudge Bearers, the defilers of hoards and the defilers of flesh. You were left with nothing and so for an age you were simply yet another threat within the mountains, if a small one. Pillaging and fighting for the right to survive.
But the Ogres ever hunger and you are just the right size to be an appetizer; and who knows when the Murderers might return in their snowy armor and hateful prowess to finish the work they started centuries ago? So rather than wait to die, you have fled down the slopes of the mountain to a great forest, where rivers criss-cross and you cannot be killed. There is fresh prey, and plentiful water, and wood to work and burn alike for warm; but there is more you must do, more you must have. Else you will die.
That which is worst in life whispers to the north, the chained dragons writhing in pain and in betrayal that you have failed them. Their Gors, who earned the wrath of the Dragons countless times, will come for you seeking vengeance. Too the wolf riders will desire their pound of flesh for what was done to them; the Hobgoblins show little enough fear. And then there are, all around you, humans. The Hung to the direct east, and to the north. And far enough east you shall reach Cathay…and the land of the Dragons. Not that which you once followed, not direct kin to the great winged beasts whose blood even now yet flows in your veins, but yet Dragons, as mighty and majestic as that which you served.
And then there are the Bearded Ones—where did they go? Why did they kill the Dragons? What did they earn of it, from it? Do they think they can murder, and slaughter, and kill as they desire for mercurial reasons and suffer no censure? Do they think their mendacity, their killing, will have no ill-effect? That others will forget what they have done to them, for—for what? They never even spoke, simply slaughtered you, cutting through the club and stone armored bands like…like a knife through grass. You will have an explanation, the suffering will have an answer, justice will be served, and let that be the end of it—one way or another.
Starting Location: North east of the Mountains of Mourn, within the Great Steppe, in a small forest crisscrossed by many small streams and rivers
Your People: The Bajdrag look like nothing so much as a bipedal, shorter dragon; shorter than most humans, even. However, the fire of the dragon burns within you still, and each strike strikes with their fury. Your scales are more supple than it seems they should be, though in turn they do not offer the kind of protection of a deeply rigid sort. You are particularly quick. Your color varies as much as that of your draconic ancestors.
The Qrimneri
You were not, and then you were. From one moment, to the next, you were dead, and then you lived. Images of the rising sun casting away the darkness, of great bolts of lightning splitting the blanket above. Of a great stag hunter running about the world and its many forests, horn blowing and ax raised up high. Of a wolf's howl, and a great billowing storm that shakes the earth, biting deep with its frost. Of a mountain breaker, a mountain cleaver, a mountain shaker stemming a tide of impossibility. And of a great bird, dead and living, living and dead, in a great cycle playing again and again and again, forever fighting against the bull and the raven and the toad and the snake with all the might it possessed, and that it seemed in the recesses of your mind was only right and proper for to fight against such was good.
All of this and more shot through your nascent mind as you were for lack of a better term born, thrust from nonexistence in one second to thought and feeling in the next, screaming as you went about the matter. You were surrounded then by those like you, that looked like you, and thought it was good; and they were your people, and you were theirs; so you stumbled to the great black lake that unstretched before you like the endless night sky above.
You looked at your reflection and saw within overhead the moon; and it above your head shone like a great helmet protecting from any evil. Unmarred silver seemed to flow from it like droplets down upon the mantle of your flesh. And then entering the blackness above a great green evil, a sliver of green sickness, a thing that should not be. And yet it was, and it struck for the strings of your souls—only to find itself wanting, as the silver burned even brighter around the lot of you. You lived; but knew that not to seek safety from it was to tempt fate more than could be justified. So now you must find some safety from the hell-moon, the evil moon, the twister and cutter of fate. And then there is the matter of the others, not like your tribe, that must be found ere their souls should be infected by the bleak touch of the vile moon and not the great silver mistress above. For you know not what bleak thing lies in that hellish path, but you know no good can come of it, not for you nor any others who stumble upon them. Of course this leaves you with a question: are there, in fact, others? Such sounds right…but, except for the moons, both the good and the evil, you know of nothing else, righteous or vile, on this world. For all you know you and the moons and the lake and the outlying peaks are all of existence, all that there is or could be in reality. You doubt it, but it could be so.
Starting Location: On the shores of the Black Water
Your People: Tall and strong and enduring, if not so tall and strong and enduring as some creatures that exist—that is to say, a human could be comparable to you though you are likely to be stronger than one who has put in an equivalent effort. Your skin is a number of shades of blue and purple, and a crop of hair of any number of colors grows from your skull. Tusks, small but sharp, erupt from the bottom of your jaw. Your nails are nails and not claws, but they are somewhat sharper than expected and somewhat durable.
A Human Tribe
Humanity has spread its wings across all the face of the world; but from another tribe, shall rise a great realm. As humanity is the most malleable among all the species currently on the planet, you will be able to greatly influence this rising power.
- "Hung": Humans living in the northwestern portion of the land the Dark Elves call Naggaroth, they enjoy conflating you with…whatever a "Hung" is. Though many of you have fallen to the worship of evil, your tribe resists, and endures; much as you resist, and endure, the depravities of the Dark Elves.
- Khuresh: The Snakemen of the Sun and the Snakemen of the Moon fight among each other, and humanity is caught in the middle. Well you have no love of such a notion, so you will fight them, and their servants as well, and the beastmen come—in fact, to put none-too-fine a point on it, you will fight every foe.
- Amazonian: Outsiders sometimes speak of amazons; but they would be much better served by speaking of the Amazon Nations, for there is no unity among you, not as the Old Ones left you in any case. But do not weep and do not worry, for your people shall unite the tribes and reclaim all that was taken from you!
-Albion: The kingdom of Albion was united; and then, it wasn't. Your people lost everything, and the land was drowned under a fog of bleakness and despair. But now you hear tell that the Cyclopses and the Greenmen and the Beasts are all trying to attack your home, and that must not stand. What are you to do except take on the legacy of the Spear Wolf, and drive them all back into the sea?
To further clarify: whereas one of the prebuilt races would mean getting immediately into character creation, a Human Tribe would mean going first into more proper tribal generation, and then into character creation.
Please do not post for like, five minutes, until I'm done actually reserving posts. I will say this is definitely going to be my "I need to relax and shoot the shit" quest. I feel the need to particularly thank @soulcake since I first had the idea for this in Rhunrikki. I feel the need to say these names are like, the equivalent of Dawi and Asur.
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Vote closed
Prologue: A Flight From Wicked Things
Voikirium
SV's Estalia Guy
- Location
- Ruritania Illinois
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Prologue
A Flight From Wicked Things
The Aethyr bends and shifts and warps as a mind turns itself toward absolute destruction.
Not merely to destroy the physicality of a thing, for there is no physicality. Not simply to kill a thing, for he will not be satisfied with merely your death. He would break you in half like simple glass, then force the pieces back together in a way that better suits him; and if not him then his twisted kinfolk, for all they have not moved against you yet, marshalling their power and their strength and their fury.
For he is Khorne, and he knows no pity, no mercy, no remorse. He knows nothing, in fact. He does not even know rage.
For he is rage.
He knows nothing, is less than nothing, as he invades your peace, your little slice of the Aethyr. So much is already taken, twisted, warped, broken and shattered by the cries of HIM, him and the mortal slaves he has already made Like Him. Forests of hunters and prey that had been, will be again, burst into fire as his dread hand stretches forth and demands it be so. Ponds of fresh, cool water, relief for the hunter on a hot day, sizzle away or become molten brass or viscous blood or hot magma. Shadows elongate in every sense of the word, like long fingers stretching out and snatching up the sparks of possibility that should be becoming incarnations, thoughts, ideas themselves, now never to have the chance. They are twisted, become hounds and daemons and things less than daemons, Furies.
Now is the time to die in battle, it seems.
But if what is happening to your home is lamentable than what has come upon your people who have been defeated, the spirits of wild hunts and wilder things, is even worse. Legions of corrupted fox spirits advance, whipped forward and burned and singed and forced to face you in battle even as you charge and bite and whip and claw, beast against beast. It is nature, it seems, for those born of the beast to face that which threatens them.
But even a beast has more than rage, and even if not you were not solely the Beast.
You can do something clever, something unexpected something "out of your innate nature" (it's astounding what wizards will say right to your face when they think they have enough spells on you).
The Aethyr, your home once, now belongs to him, to them, for they will advance on the prize he has claimed as surely as flies will advance upon a carcass. But there is a place they cannot advance, a place they cannot take and hold, a place that resists them and their evil.
The material world.
Mortals. Unfolding flowers of infinite possibility. Capable of a breadth and depth of thought rare among your kind—for now, anyway—as much as you are superior to these born of pure, malignant, unthinking rage in both the breadth and depth and complexity of thought of which you are capable, for all that you arise from Ghur, for you have integrated other strands of thought into yourself, are the encapsulation of all that the fox is and could be
Now all you have to do is prove it. But who are you?
Pick as many as you like, 1-4 will become leaders for your people.
[] Ehfeyos, a wanderer who journeyed deeper into the aethyr than any other would or could and then when that was not sufficient she incarnated herself into the material world the better to learn from mortals. She understands magic as a scholar, and is a thing of Qhaysh at heart.
[] Dererhan, a beast, a true warrior, who has been summoned many times as a soldier by mortals, often heeding the calls of wizards and mages who were to face Chaos. A wrestler and champion as much as a spirit, he has the rage of a beast, and has the trophies to prove it. He is a spirit of purest Ghur.
[] Liad, a singer often summoned by the Maiden to provide art and glory for her servants, and has been sent to do so in return for companionship. He is marked by Hysh.
[] Qasarat, a spirit of that which is hot and bright and furious and lusty and loving and joyful and a thousand other things within nature, from animal to beast and back again. Many times he has been called upon to consecrate a wedding for mortals, particularly by the Kislevites. He is marked by Aqshy.
[] Talmor, the scavenger, the wild thing, the omen. A spirit born of that which feeds on the dead and on the dying, who has incarnated many times to feed on the energy of dead mortals, kept at arm's length but used to expel the restless dead. She is marked by Shyish.
[]Minathpa, the clever thing, the den digger, a spirit of the clever and the cunning beasts. The beast that thinks, that plans. She is marked by Chamon.
[] Menleth, a spirit of the father who returns to the den with food to feast and the mother who hunts for her kits, at times male and at times female and at times neither, who has journeyed with the King in the Woods whether material or incorporeal at the time. They are marked by Ghyran.
[]Laqurnas, the predator, a spirit bound and shaped and moved by clever and cunning things, one who strikes from the dark and from the shadow and from the mist. He is marked by Ulgu.
[] Hoygor, an odd spirit. One unintentionally summoned by the Astromancers of Cathay, one who was influenced by them and learned Azyr from them and integrated it into his nature.
And then together, the four of you shall save your people from ignominious end and slavery and subjugation, by fleeing for life and liberty and hope in the material realm, even if you should be called mad...
--
Sorry it's short, somebody is beating the fuck out of something in the apartment above me and I can't think straight to write.
Short moratorium of an hour, mostly to answer any questions.
A Flight From Wicked Things
The Aethyr bends and shifts and warps as a mind turns itself toward absolute destruction.
Not merely to destroy the physicality of a thing, for there is no physicality. Not simply to kill a thing, for he will not be satisfied with merely your death. He would break you in half like simple glass, then force the pieces back together in a way that better suits him; and if not him then his twisted kinfolk, for all they have not moved against you yet, marshalling their power and their strength and their fury.
For he is Khorne, and he knows no pity, no mercy, no remorse. He knows nothing, in fact. He does not even know rage.
For he is rage.
He knows nothing, is less than nothing, as he invades your peace, your little slice of the Aethyr. So much is already taken, twisted, warped, broken and shattered by the cries of HIM, him and the mortal slaves he has already made Like Him. Forests of hunters and prey that had been, will be again, burst into fire as his dread hand stretches forth and demands it be so. Ponds of fresh, cool water, relief for the hunter on a hot day, sizzle away or become molten brass or viscous blood or hot magma. Shadows elongate in every sense of the word, like long fingers stretching out and snatching up the sparks of possibility that should be becoming incarnations, thoughts, ideas themselves, now never to have the chance. They are twisted, become hounds and daemons and things less than daemons, Furies.
Now is the time to die in battle, it seems.
But if what is happening to your home is lamentable than what has come upon your people who have been defeated, the spirits of wild hunts and wilder things, is even worse. Legions of corrupted fox spirits advance, whipped forward and burned and singed and forced to face you in battle even as you charge and bite and whip and claw, beast against beast. It is nature, it seems, for those born of the beast to face that which threatens them.
But even a beast has more than rage, and even if not you were not solely the Beast.
You can do something clever, something unexpected something "out of your innate nature" (it's astounding what wizards will say right to your face when they think they have enough spells on you).
The Aethyr, your home once, now belongs to him, to them, for they will advance on the prize he has claimed as surely as flies will advance upon a carcass. But there is a place they cannot advance, a place they cannot take and hold, a place that resists them and their evil.
The material world.
Mortals. Unfolding flowers of infinite possibility. Capable of a breadth and depth of thought rare among your kind—for now, anyway—as much as you are superior to these born of pure, malignant, unthinking rage in both the breadth and depth and complexity of thought of which you are capable, for all that you arise from Ghur, for you have integrated other strands of thought into yourself, are the encapsulation of all that the fox is and could be
Now all you have to do is prove it. But who are you?
Pick as many as you like, 1-4 will become leaders for your people.
[] Ehfeyos, a wanderer who journeyed deeper into the aethyr than any other would or could and then when that was not sufficient she incarnated herself into the material world the better to learn from mortals. She understands magic as a scholar, and is a thing of Qhaysh at heart.
[] Dererhan, a beast, a true warrior, who has been summoned many times as a soldier by mortals, often heeding the calls of wizards and mages who were to face Chaos. A wrestler and champion as much as a spirit, he has the rage of a beast, and has the trophies to prove it. He is a spirit of purest Ghur.
[] Liad, a singer often summoned by the Maiden to provide art and glory for her servants, and has been sent to do so in return for companionship. He is marked by Hysh.
[] Qasarat, a spirit of that which is hot and bright and furious and lusty and loving and joyful and a thousand other things within nature, from animal to beast and back again. Many times he has been called upon to consecrate a wedding for mortals, particularly by the Kislevites. He is marked by Aqshy.
[] Talmor, the scavenger, the wild thing, the omen. A spirit born of that which feeds on the dead and on the dying, who has incarnated many times to feed on the energy of dead mortals, kept at arm's length but used to expel the restless dead. She is marked by Shyish.
[]Minathpa, the clever thing, the den digger, a spirit of the clever and the cunning beasts. The beast that thinks, that plans. She is marked by Chamon.
[] Menleth, a spirit of the father who returns to the den with food to feast and the mother who hunts for her kits, at times male and at times female and at times neither, who has journeyed with the King in the Woods whether material or incorporeal at the time. They are marked by Ghyran.
[]Laqurnas, the predator, a spirit bound and shaped and moved by clever and cunning things, one who strikes from the dark and from the shadow and from the mist. He is marked by Ulgu.
[] Hoygor, an odd spirit. One unintentionally summoned by the Astromancers of Cathay, one who was influenced by them and learned Azyr from them and integrated it into his nature.
And then together, the four of you shall save your people from ignominious end and slavery and subjugation, by fleeing for life and liberty and hope in the material realm, even if you should be called mad...
--
Sorry it's short, somebody is beating the fuck out of something in the apartment above me and I can't think straight to write.
Short moratorium of an hour, mostly to answer any questions.
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Prologue 2: The Plan
Voikirium
SV's Estalia Guy
- Location
- Ruritania Illinois
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Prologue 2
The Plan
The Deepened Forest quakes as its many boughs are felled by ax and fire and hate. Tall and mighty trees, here red mulberry thick and low and offering shadow to lurk in, there sequoia that stands tall and proud as support for the great flying beasts, the spirits of dragons and wyverns and eagles and more, trees that have stood forever warp and twist, spewing hot fire—no, becoming fire, eternal pillars of it, an inferno bound in time like some insect trapped in amber, all by the will of something Infinite, perverting the Aethyr to be more like It. Brass skulls tear down rock and stone of thought and emotion, the certainty of instinct and nature, in an inferno that is rage and rage that is inferno, as black clouds vomit overhead and break the ground with their roars and their acid eats the stone, turning the not-quite-rock into a sludge of rage and mud and anger and acid that burns to the touch and drives those who so much as brush against it into a rage. Violent lightning blasts apart the Lakes of Simple Pleasure, making them into naught more than steam and mist as the Stormbringer of Nippon makes his rage clear, shifting face and form to better suit his wants. Eight-hundred-and-eighty-eight-thousand daemons, repeated eight-hundred-and-eighty-eight-thousand times, flow forward, led by the eight Princes, each crafted in emulation of one of his faces. The amber clouds that yet remain are split by red columns of fire erupting from the earth beneath their very feet, seeping blood and skulls as the Wild itself is carved by The Axe, perhaps the sole constant that is he. Mortals say that it is rage, but that is not so; that it is the weapon of the first death, but that is not so.
It is Murder.
And the forest itself, its victim.
But it does not die quietly. Beasts, spirits of that which have walked the wildplaces since long before the Malignant began their quest to devour all, advance forward, stag and wolf and eagle and things much the worse ripping and biting and tearing and clawing, as the Deepened Forest itself rebels, violently, like a cornered animal, against the interlopers, the trees spewing forth a nearly endless tide of spirits. One moment two-legged, the next loping on all fours. The reflections of great-jawed hard biting predators sink teeth deep into hard brass flesh. Skulls are taken and shattered as the Beasts fight for nature itself, fight to be more than slaughter and bloodshed and hunger, and who knows what else when Obsession and Ambition and Acedia arrive after their brother?
It will not be enough.
They have accepted this.
All but one.
The foxes are nowhere to be found in battle.
For instead they gather in the Den, an unfurling expanse of tunnels dug into Something that leads Somewhere. They are all gathered, brought by instincts to that place.
Clever beasts, thinking beasts, broad beasts. In manifold states and shapes, bipedal, quadrupedal, horrifying and beautiful, beautiful and horrifying, aberrant. Are they clever because they are foxes, or foxes because they are clever? Who can say?
Their forms twist and loop and turn and shift and move and change, ever changing, as the Beast ever changes.
And of them four stand brilliant among the rest, four spirits of the fox.
Their forms constantly shift and twist and turn and change, manifold forms free of foibles of flesh. They do not speak, for words are but mere distractions. But they communicate all the same in the stuff of thought and feeling, freed from the limit of the flesh, the ideal of the Fox. For now. But that is swiftly changing, swiftly shifting, swiftly morphing; for here, there can be no victory. Not now.
Four leaders emerge from them. Their voices strong, clear, crisp. They are not kin nor kith, have few if any bonds. But in this singular moment a bond is forged, as they make their cunning case to the spirits.
As they present a notion in the Den, the last notion it will ever hold.
That there is a way forward. There is a hope. There is a chance.
Mortality. For the foe has offered theirs up, and what has been offered can be claimed.
Four plans, shared between the whole of the group from the greatest of them. But in the end, only one can be done.
[] The Huntsman Comes: Dererhan shall take up his spear and bow and slay the Eight Daemon Princes, and take their mortality for all the Foxes, and save them all.
[] Calm Over Rage: Taking up the magic that oscillates and burns and vibrates under the assault of Khorne, Ehfeyos will take the power that fills the mortals intruding upon immortality, and with that bring the spirits to the material.
[] Predate and Take: Laqurnas will advance in shadow and take the mortality bound in treasures from the eight in blood, brass, fire, lightning, water, fruit, acid, the horns and the beasts, and break them, and sprinkle them around, and give that wasted mortality to the spirits.
[] A Final Kindness: Menleth shall heal and soothe what remains of the Daemon Prince's truth, whatever mortality remains in them, and at least free them from the prison of Chaos; and in the doing they shall make the world again.
Moratorium for two hours just so I can answer questions, sorry it took so long, bad week. I'd have preferred it longer but I wanted to be sure I got something out tonight and needed to relax a little.
The Plan
[X]Laqurnas, the predator, a spirit bound and shaped and moved by clever and cunning things, one who strikes from the dark and from the shadow and from the mist. He is marked by Ulgu.
[X] Menleth, a spirit of the father who returns to the den with food to feast and the mother who hunts for her kits, at times male and at times female and at times neither, who has journeyed with the King in the Woods whether material or incorporeal at the time. They are marked by Ghyran.
[X] Ehfeyos, a wanderer who journeyed deeper into the aethyr than any other would or could and then when that was not sufficient she incarnated herself into the material world the better to learn from mortals. She understands magic as a scholar, and is a thing of Qhaysh at heart.
[X] Dererhan, a beast, a true warrior, who has been summoned many times as a soldier by mortals, often heeding the calls of wizards and mages who were to face Chaos. A wrestler and champion as much as a spirit, he has the rage of a beast, and has the trophies to prove it. He is a spirit of purest Ghur.
[X] Menleth, a spirit of the father who returns to the den with food to feast and the mother who hunts for her kits, at times male and at times female and at times neither, who has journeyed with the King in the Woods whether material or incorporeal at the time. They are marked by Ghyran.
[X] Ehfeyos, a wanderer who journeyed deeper into the aethyr than any other would or could and then when that was not sufficient she incarnated herself into the material world the better to learn from mortals. She understands magic as a scholar, and is a thing of Qhaysh at heart.
[X] Dererhan, a beast, a true warrior, who has been summoned many times as a soldier by mortals, often heeding the calls of wizards and mages who were to face Chaos. A wrestler and champion as much as a spirit, he has the rage of a beast, and has the trophies to prove it. He is a spirit of purest Ghur.
The Deepened Forest quakes as its many boughs are felled by ax and fire and hate. Tall and mighty trees, here red mulberry thick and low and offering shadow to lurk in, there sequoia that stands tall and proud as support for the great flying beasts, the spirits of dragons and wyverns and eagles and more, trees that have stood forever warp and twist, spewing hot fire—no, becoming fire, eternal pillars of it, an inferno bound in time like some insect trapped in amber, all by the will of something Infinite, perverting the Aethyr to be more like It. Brass skulls tear down rock and stone of thought and emotion, the certainty of instinct and nature, in an inferno that is rage and rage that is inferno, as black clouds vomit overhead and break the ground with their roars and their acid eats the stone, turning the not-quite-rock into a sludge of rage and mud and anger and acid that burns to the touch and drives those who so much as brush against it into a rage. Violent lightning blasts apart the Lakes of Simple Pleasure, making them into naught more than steam and mist as the Stormbringer of Nippon makes his rage clear, shifting face and form to better suit his wants. Eight-hundred-and-eighty-eight-thousand daemons, repeated eight-hundred-and-eighty-eight-thousand times, flow forward, led by the eight Princes, each crafted in emulation of one of his faces. The amber clouds that yet remain are split by red columns of fire erupting from the earth beneath their very feet, seeping blood and skulls as the Wild itself is carved by The Axe, perhaps the sole constant that is he. Mortals say that it is rage, but that is not so; that it is the weapon of the first death, but that is not so.
It is Murder.
And the forest itself, its victim.
But it does not die quietly. Beasts, spirits of that which have walked the wildplaces since long before the Malignant began their quest to devour all, advance forward, stag and wolf and eagle and things much the worse ripping and biting and tearing and clawing, as the Deepened Forest itself rebels, violently, like a cornered animal, against the interlopers, the trees spewing forth a nearly endless tide of spirits. One moment two-legged, the next loping on all fours. The reflections of great-jawed hard biting predators sink teeth deep into hard brass flesh. Skulls are taken and shattered as the Beasts fight for nature itself, fight to be more than slaughter and bloodshed and hunger, and who knows what else when Obsession and Ambition and Acedia arrive after their brother?
It will not be enough.
They have accepted this.
All but one.
The foxes are nowhere to be found in battle.
For instead they gather in the Den, an unfurling expanse of tunnels dug into Something that leads Somewhere. They are all gathered, brought by instincts to that place.
Clever beasts, thinking beasts, broad beasts. In manifold states and shapes, bipedal, quadrupedal, horrifying and beautiful, beautiful and horrifying, aberrant. Are they clever because they are foxes, or foxes because they are clever? Who can say?
Their forms twist and loop and turn and shift and move and change, ever changing, as the Beast ever changes.
And of them four stand brilliant among the rest, four spirits of the fox.
Their forms constantly shift and twist and turn and change, manifold forms free of foibles of flesh. They do not speak, for words are but mere distractions. But they communicate all the same in the stuff of thought and feeling, freed from the limit of the flesh, the ideal of the Fox. For now. But that is swiftly changing, swiftly shifting, swiftly morphing; for here, there can be no victory. Not now.
Four leaders emerge from them. Their voices strong, clear, crisp. They are not kin nor kith, have few if any bonds. But in this singular moment a bond is forged, as they make their cunning case to the spirits.
As they present a notion in the Den, the last notion it will ever hold.
That there is a way forward. There is a hope. There is a chance.
Mortality. For the foe has offered theirs up, and what has been offered can be claimed.
Four plans, shared between the whole of the group from the greatest of them. But in the end, only one can be done.
Moratorium for two hours just so I can answer questions, sorry it took so long, bad week. I'd have preferred it longer but I wanted to be sure I got something out tonight and needed to relax a little.
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Prologue 3: A Flight At Last
Voikirium
SV's Estalia Guy
- Location
- Ruritania Illinois
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Prologue 3
A Flight At Last
The foxes' arguments are brief, quick things. Images of fire against fire, darkness against darkness, raging sea against raging sea. A not inconsiderable number believe they would be best served in cunning, in something clever, in turning magic against him who most hates magic, that is risk in its own right; for how many wizards have thought themselves greater than the axebearer, mightier than the world hewer, only to learn too late that power is its own wisdom? Ehfeyos herself does not speak after presenting her idea, allowing it to stand on its own one way or another.
Derererhan, Fox-Father, Hunter, rages himself. Scars coat each and every form he shifts into as they bicker, and his yipping and growling is loud and bellicose. He wants nothing more and nothing less than to bite his spear into the hearts of the things of Chaos, wants nothing more and nothing less than revenge, wants to feel hot blood on his hands and taste it in his mouth, for his is the rage of a beast. But does he have more rage than rage itself, is his fire a hotter, brighter fire than the fire of Khorne? Can one use violence to surpass violence?
And then there is Laqurnas. Only a handful stand with him, only a handful, as he presents the idea of stealing from the enemy, for there is no panache or challenge in lying to them, in tricking them, in deceiving them. Even a child could do it, really. But the idea is there, and where there is the idea, there is possibility.
But when Menleth speaks, all silence as they lay out a plan, to strike at the heart of the enemy, to take their power and strength from them; for just a moment. But just a moment will be enough in this day, may as well be a lifetime in fact. For in just a moment, they will assure that the fox can run from the hound, if only just one more day; and even the hound can only kill what it latches its jaws around. But for that, they will need power. They will need the aid of the foxes, of their kin and not their kin, of all the spirits.
The skies burn. Pillars of fire fall. Heat enters the Den. There is no more time. Methelen will have it.
You rage. Your heart is ragged in your chest. Your limbs throb, tingling from adrenaline that has not stopped pumping since you drank from the Grail. The blood pounds in your ears, and the red still falls over your eyes. Burning brass seems to come up like gorge with every breath you take—and it hurts, it burns, but it will not kill you.
It will not kill you.
And that is the terrible truth of it all.
You had marched against the Southerners proclaiming that Chaos was freedom; that the anger of Khorne was purifying, that the rage of Kharnath was exalting, that the fury of Akhar was liberty itself. You had marched, how many lifetimes ago, convinced that the bloodsoaked path was freedom itself, that you would make the world whole and better in your anger. The honorable and righteous would thrive, their vengeance justice itself.
You had followed the path.
And now look at you.
Eight brass horns that constantly drip with an acid that makes the stuff of spirit around you melt split your skull, make your head throb and ache and burn. Chains wrap around your wrists and ankles and your knees and your elbow, of brass, and they dangle and tear great channels that bleed in the spirit-stuff that surrounds you in the land of the gods as you taint yet more pristine places for the great slave driver. And they always burn, always burn, a pain, sometimes distant but constant, other times sharp dominating, but always there.
You look at yourself.
And you hate yourself. You rage at yourself.
You hate Khorne. You rage at Khorne.
You hate. You rage.
And that is the worst thing of it all. To know that even as you understand what your rage has done to you, that even as you comprehend what anger has lowered you to, you cannot escape it, cannot escape serving him. That it is all you are, that you burned yourself out for him, trying to follow the bloodfather, let him rip out your heart and replace it with a spark of his rage that refuses to stop burning.
You rage now, because you can do nothing else. Because anything else, everything else, was taken from you.
For you are Ulgutar, and you have nothing else left to you.
Spirits fade as your sword bites into them and you scream and scream and scream, an endless roar of suffering and hate. They are endless, but your rage is infinite, and the world fades, fades as you finally fulfill what you were made to do. The spirits of Dragons, the spirits of bears, the spirits of wolves, it matters not, all are parted, broken by your blade, and as they fall in twain the pieces twist, reform, made to by the power of your lord.
The world becomes gray as you please Him; but that is alright, for gray is better than the hot, endless red.
Disgusting, hateful magic splashes worthlessly against the stuff of flesh and spirit you have become, and you follow it to its source like a hound following its prey, deep into the Den, following your senses, finely honed for magic—only for the red and blue alike both to be—
And then you are not Ulgutar, not anymore.
Instead you are simply a man, inside a home. A refreshing fire burns in the center, and the smell of good booze fills the air, and the scent of meat on spits sizzling and fresh too, a true honest-to-goodness feast. Potatoes, diced and fried in good oil; honey cakes, sweet and crisp; and music, soft voices singing on the air. Golden filigree covers the timbers that arise in this good, excellent hall, making beautiful art of…of your mother.
"You have suffered, haven't you?" A figure you do not recognize sits at the fire, tending it, poking at the coals. They produce a plate for you, and immediately you start to dig in and for the first time in eons you enjoy the taste of food not polluted by brass and acid. For long minutes you simply eat, eat until you are satiated and when your stomach is full you drink great sips of the wine, enjoying the booze, not quite sure what it is but it refreshes your throat. There is silence except the music and your eating, until all at once you finally finish. That done, you finally get to take a look at the figure.
One of the foxes, not the least human, but not the most human either. They look at you with calm, placid eyes.
The mortal looks at you, his eyes ringed with bags.
"Why have you done this, spirit? Merely to torment me?"
"Let revenge fall to the ignoble of heart. That is my cunning." You shrug, and give the poor, damned fool another plate of food.
What else to do, for a man's last meal?
"What else would you desire? I know what you are like, spirits."
"You know half-remembered stories shared by the firelight, mortal. You know the stories your chiefs and thanes tell you to justify themselves as they go to burn the woods and slaughter the innocent." You snap your fingers and the thing that is Ulgutar in truth appears between you and the mortal, or what remains of him anyway, called as he has been to this place.
A false world, carved in moments with all the power of a fox. A den, a place the enemy cannot see for now.
The moment he sees his abominable form the mortal leaps back. "Gods no! Please, no!"
"I am mighty, mortal." You sip your wine, feeling the mortal drink pour down an increasingly mortal throat. It is an oddity, to actually feel your limbs grow even slightly more sluggish as they become more mortal and so touched by mortal poison. "But I am not mighty enough to keep him at bay…forever."
"Then why? Why would you do this? To punish me? To make me remember? Please…please do not make me remember." His face falls as his rage gives out, finally.
"No. I cannot keep him away from you, but there are those who can. For the moment I have split apart your mortality from the Daemon. You can die." You look at the sword in your hand. "You can die. And where you would go, even he could not take you; and there is power in such a sacrifice. In making what was sacred, profane. In making eight into seven, and seven into six, and six into five; and on and on. And as you become mortal, so may we; and in mortality, we might live. We might flee. And the Hound might be denied his prizes twicefold."
"Then why are we having this conversation? Why not simply—"
"Kill you and have done with it?" You interrupt him. "What care can the sheep hope for, if not the quick and good blade of the shepherd? A final day to live…a final day to remember. Let that be your end. Not bloodshed."
He drinks.
He eats.
And when he has lived, you slay the daemon.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Eight names, taken. Eight fonts of mortality, for the people. Shining things of power, stolen from an abuser, a raging thing, a hateful thing. You utter words of nourishment and change and shape and more, letting power flow from you.
But there is more power here than only just to flee, more power here than a lifetime could prepare you for. You feel it changing you, shaping you, feel yourself growing taller and stronger and more, more than you ever were as a mere spirit, more than you could possibly even have imagined, a purity and purpose as your eyes seem to glow and the stuff of legends flows from you to the spirits around you, as your form cannot take it all, as you do as promised and give them what they need to survive—
As Dererhan gains armor—
As Ehfeyos takes up the staff—
As Laqurnas gains his cloak—
As a crown of flowers sprouts about your head—
As the world shifts and you part from the Aethyr, all of you as turn that strength to your ends—
Until at last you feel humidity, and hear buzzing insects and feel the sun on your skin, and know you have gone to the material world.
You fall to a knee, exhausted.
A hand touches your shoulder, and looking up you see:
[] A mostly mortal seeming fox, clad in green robes, flowers sprouting up from the dirt where she walks.
[] A spirit all covered in blue and silver armor, mist pouring from his form, the things of lakes and rivers and streams carved into it.
[] A simple farmer, wielding sickle and wearing robe.
--
Two hour moratorium.
A Flight At Last
[X] A Final Kindness: For I Shall Take Heart- Menleth shall heal and soothe what remains of the Daemon Prince's truth, whatever mortality remains in them, and at least free them from the prison of Chaos; and in the doing they shall make the world again.
The foxes' arguments are brief, quick things. Images of fire against fire, darkness against darkness, raging sea against raging sea. A not inconsiderable number believe they would be best served in cunning, in something clever, in turning magic against him who most hates magic, that is risk in its own right; for how many wizards have thought themselves greater than the axebearer, mightier than the world hewer, only to learn too late that power is its own wisdom? Ehfeyos herself does not speak after presenting her idea, allowing it to stand on its own one way or another.
Derererhan, Fox-Father, Hunter, rages himself. Scars coat each and every form he shifts into as they bicker, and his yipping and growling is loud and bellicose. He wants nothing more and nothing less than to bite his spear into the hearts of the things of Chaos, wants nothing more and nothing less than revenge, wants to feel hot blood on his hands and taste it in his mouth, for his is the rage of a beast. But does he have more rage than rage itself, is his fire a hotter, brighter fire than the fire of Khorne? Can one use violence to surpass violence?
And then there is Laqurnas. Only a handful stand with him, only a handful, as he presents the idea of stealing from the enemy, for there is no panache or challenge in lying to them, in tricking them, in deceiving them. Even a child could do it, really. But the idea is there, and where there is the idea, there is possibility.
But when Menleth speaks, all silence as they lay out a plan, to strike at the heart of the enemy, to take their power and strength from them; for just a moment. But just a moment will be enough in this day, may as well be a lifetime in fact. For in just a moment, they will assure that the fox can run from the hound, if only just one more day; and even the hound can only kill what it latches its jaws around. But for that, they will need power. They will need the aid of the foxes, of their kin and not their kin, of all the spirits.
The skies burn. Pillars of fire fall. Heat enters the Den. There is no more time. Methelen will have it.
You rage. Your heart is ragged in your chest. Your limbs throb, tingling from adrenaline that has not stopped pumping since you drank from the Grail. The blood pounds in your ears, and the red still falls over your eyes. Burning brass seems to come up like gorge with every breath you take—and it hurts, it burns, but it will not kill you.
It will not kill you.
And that is the terrible truth of it all.
You had marched against the Southerners proclaiming that Chaos was freedom; that the anger of Khorne was purifying, that the rage of Kharnath was exalting, that the fury of Akhar was liberty itself. You had marched, how many lifetimes ago, convinced that the bloodsoaked path was freedom itself, that you would make the world whole and better in your anger. The honorable and righteous would thrive, their vengeance justice itself.
You had followed the path.
And now look at you.
Eight brass horns that constantly drip with an acid that makes the stuff of spirit around you melt split your skull, make your head throb and ache and burn. Chains wrap around your wrists and ankles and your knees and your elbow, of brass, and they dangle and tear great channels that bleed in the spirit-stuff that surrounds you in the land of the gods as you taint yet more pristine places for the great slave driver. And they always burn, always burn, a pain, sometimes distant but constant, other times sharp dominating, but always there.
You look at yourself.
And you hate yourself. You rage at yourself.
You hate Khorne. You rage at Khorne.
You hate. You rage.
And that is the worst thing of it all. To know that even as you understand what your rage has done to you, that even as you comprehend what anger has lowered you to, you cannot escape it, cannot escape serving him. That it is all you are, that you burned yourself out for him, trying to follow the bloodfather, let him rip out your heart and replace it with a spark of his rage that refuses to stop burning.
You rage now, because you can do nothing else. Because anything else, everything else, was taken from you.
For you are Ulgutar, and you have nothing else left to you.
Spirits fade as your sword bites into them and you scream and scream and scream, an endless roar of suffering and hate. They are endless, but your rage is infinite, and the world fades, fades as you finally fulfill what you were made to do. The spirits of Dragons, the spirits of bears, the spirits of wolves, it matters not, all are parted, broken by your blade, and as they fall in twain the pieces twist, reform, made to by the power of your lord.
The world becomes gray as you please Him; but that is alright, for gray is better than the hot, endless red.
Disgusting, hateful magic splashes worthlessly against the stuff of flesh and spirit you have become, and you follow it to its source like a hound following its prey, deep into the Den, following your senses, finely honed for magic—only for the red and blue alike both to be—
And then you are not Ulgutar, not anymore.
Instead you are simply a man, inside a home. A refreshing fire burns in the center, and the smell of good booze fills the air, and the scent of meat on spits sizzling and fresh too, a true honest-to-goodness feast. Potatoes, diced and fried in good oil; honey cakes, sweet and crisp; and music, soft voices singing on the air. Golden filigree covers the timbers that arise in this good, excellent hall, making beautiful art of…of your mother.
"You have suffered, haven't you?" A figure you do not recognize sits at the fire, tending it, poking at the coals. They produce a plate for you, and immediately you start to dig in and for the first time in eons you enjoy the taste of food not polluted by brass and acid. For long minutes you simply eat, eat until you are satiated and when your stomach is full you drink great sips of the wine, enjoying the booze, not quite sure what it is but it refreshes your throat. There is silence except the music and your eating, until all at once you finally finish. That done, you finally get to take a look at the figure.
One of the foxes, not the least human, but not the most human either. They look at you with calm, placid eyes.
The mortal looks at you, his eyes ringed with bags.
"Why have you done this, spirit? Merely to torment me?"
"Let revenge fall to the ignoble of heart. That is my cunning." You shrug, and give the poor, damned fool another plate of food.
What else to do, for a man's last meal?
"What else would you desire? I know what you are like, spirits."
"You know half-remembered stories shared by the firelight, mortal. You know the stories your chiefs and thanes tell you to justify themselves as they go to burn the woods and slaughter the innocent." You snap your fingers and the thing that is Ulgutar in truth appears between you and the mortal, or what remains of him anyway, called as he has been to this place.
A false world, carved in moments with all the power of a fox. A den, a place the enemy cannot see for now.
The moment he sees his abominable form the mortal leaps back. "Gods no! Please, no!"
"I am mighty, mortal." You sip your wine, feeling the mortal drink pour down an increasingly mortal throat. It is an oddity, to actually feel your limbs grow even slightly more sluggish as they become more mortal and so touched by mortal poison. "But I am not mighty enough to keep him at bay…forever."
"Then why? Why would you do this? To punish me? To make me remember? Please…please do not make me remember." His face falls as his rage gives out, finally.
"No. I cannot keep him away from you, but there are those who can. For the moment I have split apart your mortality from the Daemon. You can die." You look at the sword in your hand. "You can die. And where you would go, even he could not take you; and there is power in such a sacrifice. In making what was sacred, profane. In making eight into seven, and seven into six, and six into five; and on and on. And as you become mortal, so may we; and in mortality, we might live. We might flee. And the Hound might be denied his prizes twicefold."
"Then why are we having this conversation? Why not simply—"
"Kill you and have done with it?" You interrupt him. "What care can the sheep hope for, if not the quick and good blade of the shepherd? A final day to live…a final day to remember. Let that be your end. Not bloodshed."
He drinks.
He eats.
And when he has lived, you slay the daemon.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Eight names, taken. Eight fonts of mortality, for the people. Shining things of power, stolen from an abuser, a raging thing, a hateful thing. You utter words of nourishment and change and shape and more, letting power flow from you.
But there is more power here than only just to flee, more power here than a lifetime could prepare you for. You feel it changing you, shaping you, feel yourself growing taller and stronger and more, more than you ever were as a mere spirit, more than you could possibly even have imagined, a purity and purpose as your eyes seem to glow and the stuff of legends flows from you to the spirits around you, as your form cannot take it all, as you do as promised and give them what they need to survive—
As Dererhan gains armor—
As Ehfeyos takes up the staff—
As Laqurnas gains his cloak—
As a crown of flowers sprouts about your head—
As the world shifts and you part from the Aethyr, all of you as turn that strength to your ends—
Until at last you feel humidity, and hear buzzing insects and feel the sun on your skin, and know you have gone to the material world.
You fall to a knee, exhausted.
A hand touches your shoulder, and looking up you see:
[] A mostly mortal seeming fox, clad in green robes, flowers sprouting up from the dirt where she walks.
[] A spirit all covered in blue and silver armor, mist pouring from his form, the things of lakes and rivers and streams carved into it.
[] A simple farmer, wielding sickle and wearing robe.
--
Two hour moratorium.
Last edited:
Turn 1
Voikirium
SV's Estalia Guy
- Location
- Ruritania Illinois
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Turn 1
They have changed.
Methel most of all. He looks at himself, and she sees the change burned into her, into what he was, into what she could be, into what they are. A robe of silk and fur wraps around their body, at base the verdant and rich green of the jungle they have landed in, and threaded into and across every square inch their mercy to the fallen Daemon Princes is woven into the fabric in rich autumn hues, not their death but the last time they lived. Their very presence seems to be effecting the trees, the flowers, the streams, cooling mist and bright scents and alluring fruits alike seeming to sprout into being as the magic of nurturing flows out of them. The physical changes are clear, as odd as it is to even think of such things, for one their tail and fox ears now seem to be a light shade of green tipped, for another they're now comfortably tall enough to look down on Dererhan never mind the others. They have a sickle passed through their sash now too, a long, hard thing, made of steel the shade of jade.
Speaking of the others, they have changed too. Dererhan, the most touched by mortality, stands taller and prouder now than even he did then, clad in a set of armor of scales each carved with the war, a soft, bronze hue that reflects the gleaming light. He holds a hard spear of oak and—Steel?-- and looks around the forest, his nine tails thrashing about like hell as his senses, heightened and sharpened, tell him everything that lurks in the jungle, the scent of snakes upon the wind. His youthful visage bears handsome scars, the ever rebellious young. A long, straight, bronze shaded blade hangs from his belt.
The power of the Aethyr has burned itself into Ehfeyos, changed and shaped her form until, rather than the bipedal fox she usually appeared as before the War she seems mostly human, except for the incredibly obvious way in which she is not: nine flickering, waving, shimmering glorious tails that sprout from her back, each the color of the winds woven into what is now matter and flesh, whipping and shifting hither and thither with a sedate energy. A staff topped by a shimmering hunk of prismatic stone glows in her hand, arcane writing appearing and disappearing at will.
But Laqurnas has in some sense been the most affected, the most touched, by the magic he works with. A bipedal fox creature of black and gray fur now, his legs long and digitigrade, built thin and agile. He is wrapped in a cloak that weeps shadow, one that folds into his fur; as Menleth looks upon him she sees the image of a man wrapped around the beast, almost like a mist, a shade. A disguise, seen through by his growing puissance? Perhaps. Laqurnas twitches and shifts and moves and he can hardly tell whether that is because of Ulgu or his desire for revenge or both or neither. Even he seems taller now, more, touched as he has been by Aethyr, by the shift. Or perhaps it is simply that the thief misses the greater dexterity of human hands, seemingly denied to him for now.
All of them have been. Taller and stronger
But it is the lesser spirits, now all bound in mortality, that most draws their attention.
For so many now look like the Caregiver, the Merciful, the Forgiving, the many that bear her mark, his touch, their mortality, their morality, in simple robe and dress and sickle, all so like Menleth. They have been touched by his magic, she realizes, affected by his deed. A last touch of the Aethyr upon them, shifting the nature of the lesser spirits until they become refined. The most mortal seeming look now, confused, on their clothing, on staff and sickle and rod; for they never constructed such, and never needed such crude implements as spirits, not when they had magic. The least touched by her, the most savage and untamed of that band, are still marked by calm and rationality in a way none had expected.
But they are all lesser. For there is not enough magic in this place to make them what they once were. Power flickers and moves and twists in them but only sluggishly, restrained, made lesser as the Winds are torn from this world, heading west to lands most of the spirits do not know. Liad, the perennial almost been, now sings without magic, now whispers without wonder, the Winds not coming to his call as they once did. His fur may be bright white, but his shape no longer shifts to please the eye.
Burning Qasarat no longer breathes embers with every single move, his fur fallen away to simply a long, bright head of hair.
Minathpa's golden fur, though still soft and and bright, is now no more than good blonde hair.
They have been lessened by mortality.
They have been reduced.
But at least they are still alive, to be reduced.
And to see the beauty that surrounds them. Vast trees rise up hundreds of feet into the air, and as a cooling rain, a simple mist, falls upon them, brings them relief after running for so long and brings out the beauty of the emerald green leaves, some little as a finger and some big as a pitcher, dotted and studded with flowers that burst from the soil themselves, as vibrant and beautiful as the jewels of the elven folk who once were their friends.
The songs of animals fill the air and they can hear birds and beasts and the trickle of water making a symphony they can along to, mortal spirits reaching out to comfort each other as they try to recover, as they try to consider, as they think and hope. It is a wordless tune that they sing, but they sing it well and none sings the same, but yet it remains a chorus of a song, one that seems to brighten corners choked in darkness and force back the shadows.
They can see the magic, as lessened as it is, flowing around them, a multi-hued breeze carried by their emotions, their spirits, their souls, and each and every one of them shimmers with it like a little gem, but for the four, and most of all Menleth, Menleth who stole mortality, Menleth whose wisdom was mercy, Menleth who tricked the raging, Menleth who defied the Defiant.
Menleth whose doom is still to come.
Actions- 1 Dice allows you to perform one action. You currently have
1-Menleth Dice (Auto Success on Ghyran Tagged Actions)
1-Leader Dice (+20)
Current Actions-
[] Feeding the Hungry: You, spirits of the fox, are mortal now. You have indulged in food and water and wine before; but it is only now that it becomes necessary. Whether foraging or farming or hunting it must be done before you all starve to death in your new forms. (Ghyran) (0/1 Success)
[] Counting the Many: How many of you even managed to escape without dying at the hands of the hound? A count must be held, to determine how many of you lived. For you know not all did. (0/1 Success)
[] Where are You?: You had no particular destination as you made the leap from the Aethyr to the mortal plane. Dererehan has some idea of this world and its existence, but the specifics of this place elude even him. Send him out along with others to map this place and learn, and perhaps to see if there are yet more threats seeking your skulls. (0/1 Success)
[] Control: Spells, yes, spells, that is what the mortals say they do to control the Aethyr, those lucky few who can. While you may have become mortal you are still innately tied to magic; even the least of you could become a mage, a spellcaster, of considerable prowess, while the greatest…you do not know where the limits of the greatest are, for you do not even know who the greatest are. But that is a double edged sword, there must be some reason now held. Someone must teach this new gaggle of spirits, and the young among them, to control themselves. (0/1 Success)
[] Simple Tools: Magic is power and power is magic, but magic is dangerous in this new world in which you live. Ehfeyos speaks of ripping open the walls between worlds and spitting out daemons, explosions, waves of death and fire and worse; and you can die so easily now, so very easily, for all your innate nature means the magic seems to dance to your tune Simple tools, crude but sufficient emulations of that which you have seen mortals use to perform other deeds, seem to you a good method to limit that risk.
But most of all, Menleth is curious. (0/1 Success)
--
Moratorium for twelve hours. Intentionally short update this time to keep from getting bogged down and do some simple mechanical tests.
[X] A simple farmer, wielding sickle and wearing robe.
They have changed.
Methel most of all. He looks at himself, and she sees the change burned into her, into what he was, into what she could be, into what they are. A robe of silk and fur wraps around their body, at base the verdant and rich green of the jungle they have landed in, and threaded into and across every square inch their mercy to the fallen Daemon Princes is woven into the fabric in rich autumn hues, not their death but the last time they lived. Their very presence seems to be effecting the trees, the flowers, the streams, cooling mist and bright scents and alluring fruits alike seeming to sprout into being as the magic of nurturing flows out of them. The physical changes are clear, as odd as it is to even think of such things, for one their tail and fox ears now seem to be a light shade of green tipped, for another they're now comfortably tall enough to look down on Dererhan never mind the others. They have a sickle passed through their sash now too, a long, hard thing, made of steel the shade of jade.
Speaking of the others, they have changed too. Dererhan, the most touched by mortality, stands taller and prouder now than even he did then, clad in a set of armor of scales each carved with the war, a soft, bronze hue that reflects the gleaming light. He holds a hard spear of oak and—Steel?-- and looks around the forest, his nine tails thrashing about like hell as his senses, heightened and sharpened, tell him everything that lurks in the jungle, the scent of snakes upon the wind. His youthful visage bears handsome scars, the ever rebellious young. A long, straight, bronze shaded blade hangs from his belt.
The power of the Aethyr has burned itself into Ehfeyos, changed and shaped her form until, rather than the bipedal fox she usually appeared as before the War she seems mostly human, except for the incredibly obvious way in which she is not: nine flickering, waving, shimmering glorious tails that sprout from her back, each the color of the winds woven into what is now matter and flesh, whipping and shifting hither and thither with a sedate energy. A staff topped by a shimmering hunk of prismatic stone glows in her hand, arcane writing appearing and disappearing at will.
But Laqurnas has in some sense been the most affected, the most touched, by the magic he works with. A bipedal fox creature of black and gray fur now, his legs long and digitigrade, built thin and agile. He is wrapped in a cloak that weeps shadow, one that folds into his fur; as Menleth looks upon him she sees the image of a man wrapped around the beast, almost like a mist, a shade. A disguise, seen through by his growing puissance? Perhaps. Laqurnas twitches and shifts and moves and he can hardly tell whether that is because of Ulgu or his desire for revenge or both or neither. Even he seems taller now, more, touched as he has been by Aethyr, by the shift. Or perhaps it is simply that the thief misses the greater dexterity of human hands, seemingly denied to him for now.
All of them have been. Taller and stronger
But it is the lesser spirits, now all bound in mortality, that most draws their attention.
For so many now look like the Caregiver, the Merciful, the Forgiving, the many that bear her mark, his touch, their mortality, their morality, in simple robe and dress and sickle, all so like Menleth. They have been touched by his magic, she realizes, affected by his deed. A last touch of the Aethyr upon them, shifting the nature of the lesser spirits until they become refined. The most mortal seeming look now, confused, on their clothing, on staff and sickle and rod; for they never constructed such, and never needed such crude implements as spirits, not when they had magic. The least touched by her, the most savage and untamed of that band, are still marked by calm and rationality in a way none had expected.
But they are all lesser. For there is not enough magic in this place to make them what they once were. Power flickers and moves and twists in them but only sluggishly, restrained, made lesser as the Winds are torn from this world, heading west to lands most of the spirits do not know. Liad, the perennial almost been, now sings without magic, now whispers without wonder, the Winds not coming to his call as they once did. His fur may be bright white, but his shape no longer shifts to please the eye.
Burning Qasarat no longer breathes embers with every single move, his fur fallen away to simply a long, bright head of hair.
Minathpa's golden fur, though still soft and and bright, is now no more than good blonde hair.
They have been lessened by mortality.
They have been reduced.
But at least they are still alive, to be reduced.
And to see the beauty that surrounds them. Vast trees rise up hundreds of feet into the air, and as a cooling rain, a simple mist, falls upon them, brings them relief after running for so long and brings out the beauty of the emerald green leaves, some little as a finger and some big as a pitcher, dotted and studded with flowers that burst from the soil themselves, as vibrant and beautiful as the jewels of the elven folk who once were their friends.
The songs of animals fill the air and they can hear birds and beasts and the trickle of water making a symphony they can along to, mortal spirits reaching out to comfort each other as they try to recover, as they try to consider, as they think and hope. It is a wordless tune that they sing, but they sing it well and none sings the same, but yet it remains a chorus of a song, one that seems to brighten corners choked in darkness and force back the shadows.
They can see the magic, as lessened as it is, flowing around them, a multi-hued breeze carried by their emotions, their spirits, their souls, and each and every one of them shimmers with it like a little gem, but for the four, and most of all Menleth, Menleth who stole mortality, Menleth whose wisdom was mercy, Menleth who tricked the raging, Menleth who defied the Defiant.
Menleth whose doom is still to come.
Actions- 1 Dice allows you to perform one action. You currently have
1-Menleth Dice (Auto Success on Ghyran Tagged Actions)
1-Leader Dice (+20)
Current Actions-
[] Feeding the Hungry: You, spirits of the fox, are mortal now. You have indulged in food and water and wine before; but it is only now that it becomes necessary. Whether foraging or farming or hunting it must be done before you all starve to death in your new forms. (Ghyran) (0/1 Success)
[] Counting the Many: How many of you even managed to escape without dying at the hands of the hound? A count must be held, to determine how many of you lived. For you know not all did. (0/1 Success)
[] Where are You?: You had no particular destination as you made the leap from the Aethyr to the mortal plane. Dererehan has some idea of this world and its existence, but the specifics of this place elude even him. Send him out along with others to map this place and learn, and perhaps to see if there are yet more threats seeking your skulls. (0/1 Success)
[] Control: Spells, yes, spells, that is what the mortals say they do to control the Aethyr, those lucky few who can. While you may have become mortal you are still innately tied to magic; even the least of you could become a mage, a spellcaster, of considerable prowess, while the greatest…you do not know where the limits of the greatest are, for you do not even know who the greatest are. But that is a double edged sword, there must be some reason now held. Someone must teach this new gaggle of spirits, and the young among them, to control themselves. (0/1 Success)
[] Simple Tools: Magic is power and power is magic, but magic is dangerous in this new world in which you live. Ehfeyos speaks of ripping open the walls between worlds and spitting out daemons, explosions, waves of death and fire and worse; and you can die so easily now, so very easily, for all your innate nature means the magic seems to dance to your tune Simple tools, crude but sufficient emulations of that which you have seen mortals use to perform other deeds, seem to you a good method to limit that risk.
But most of all, Menleth is curious. (0/1 Success)
--
Moratorium for twelve hours. Intentionally short update this time to keep from getting bogged down and do some simple mechanical tests.
Vote is Open
Turn 1 Results
Voikirium
SV's Estalia Guy
- Location
- Ruritania Illinois
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Turn 1 Results
The clearing is silent. Bowled by slight streams, surrounded by jungle trees and vibrant flowers and a scent like perfume lightly masking rotten carcasses, things lurk in the darkness, rich and thick with corruption, seeds of the unwell wrapped in anger and hatred and violence and death and worse. They prowl, fearing what you are, but hungry and bestial and in that bestial nature they know you, even forced into mortality, are the greater host of beasts.
Perhaps one day you will get to show that.
One day…but not today.
"Ten-thousand."
Dererhan looks…hollow. His ears, normally proud and straight and rigid as he, droop. His long, vibrant hair is left tangled, messed, covered in blood and mud and filth and worse thing. His sacred spear has been soaked in beast's blood; his lovely face now covered in scars and ruination. For he has been running about trying to feed the lot of you, and to count you to know how many more of you need to be fed, aided by the others. The others look little better. Even bleak, shadow-hearted Laqurnas seems sallow, hollowed out, like some great craftsman took the knife to wood and began to carve into it like butter; none some hale, hearty, whole and well.
Feeding and counting. Counting and feeding. Such takes up so much of their time, their effort. Once upon a time the foxes were limitless, infinite, unending. Every time enough mortal minds produced a thought that could be snagged on, it would coalesce together until all at once where there had been nothing but energy and potential there would be a fresh-crafted fox spirit, waiting to join the rest of you in the hunt and in the spirit and in the forest. Now instead you will be forced to indulge in the mystifying process that mortals subject themselves to; considerably less efficient by all accounts.
From that nearly numberless host, ten-thousand of you escaped the braying hounds. Scarcely a city's worth. The lucky of those who did not will have been destroyed.
The unlucky?
You all try not to think about the unlucky.
It does not always work.
This presents its own problems, however. Ten-thousand may not account for much to what was once a numberless band, but it's more than you know how to feed, more than you could even begin to account for. Plenty of you know the basics of food, of eating, but only for flavor, for pleasure; for nourishment you took thought and hunt and magic, worship in a scarce handful of cases. How will you ever feed that many mouths? How could you even begin to? You may all know how to hunt, but there aren't enough beasts in all of this land—whatever this land is, wherever it is, even Dererhan couldn't tell you—to feed everyone. To escape Khorne's hounds, only to end up dead at the hands of Nurgle's blade. Tempers flare. Murmuring begins. The mist grows black and dark and unwholesome, unholy, unwell, shadows stretching, unrolling themselves in shapes and configurations no merely mortal mind could comprehend. The fear of hunger is a new one, but one you understand all too well for plenty of these once-spirits had arisen from hunger, from thirst, and the desire to quench them, the willingness to do anything to survive them
You hear laughing.
You hear your children suffer.
Magic begins to stir to your will, magic and power and force as your very soul reaches out to save your people, your children, the ones you saved from the Hounds, the ones you will not abandon now either. Ghyran, pure Ghyran, flows around you like healthy streams of river water, infinite shades and hues of green all molding together into a painting, a chorus, a great ocean of life and calm and serenity and care and compassion; the desire, indeed, to nurture.
Is it any wonder that it comes so easily to you?
The other spirits look around tired at first as the jungle around you begins to bloom. A simple, easy parlor trick many of them have done before themselves, to gain favor from mortals, favors and gifts of a thousand different kinds. To make the flowers bloom, to make the leaves unfurl, to make the rivers and streams clear. Old, passe, done before and better by greater, more terrible spirits. A difference for one, one day; but what is the difference to one against the weight of ten-thousand?
But what is the weight of ten-thousand against the will of one?
More and more fruits dangle fat and thick from the trees and from the vines, green and red and gold and more, some warty and some covered in spines and some wrinkled and some smooth but all, all, a damn sight better than starvation—your senses will let you know where poison lurks, all of you. They look and they see as more and more fruit sprouts, nuts too, growing and growing under your will, your power, and the murmurs start to fade, slowing, pausing, changing their tenor, their tone, from fear to wonder as you do what should be impossible, what was impossible, once upon a time. But things have changed.
You have changed.
The sickle-wielding robed ones feed their magic into it too, making yet more of the jungle bloom with life to feed on for your people, lesser but yet still flesh to feed on, nourishment, health and hope. The streams run clear around you, clear and fresh as your people drink and start to pick the fruit, hope rekindled for the first time in a very long time. They plunge their heads into water to drain as much of it as they can as quick as they can only to be hauled up as they gasp for breath, they fill their arms with red and green fruits or they gorge on them, their stomachs full and well for the first time since you made the journey, for the first time since the chains of mortality were placed on you all. Ehfeyos, studious and noble at heart, examines all that you do with eyes beyond sight, eyes beyond the physical, scrawling down notes in light that hangs on stone and air like a perfume refusing to fade, talking this, that and the other about a solid base for teaching and learning.
They all watch, wide eyed.
The creatures lurking in the mist retreat. The nightmares in the shadows seem to shrink. The Hounds lose their scent.
You can't hear the laughing any more.
Gain:
Count of Population: 10,000 Fox Spirits
1 Organization Dice
Food situation is currently minorly deficient, you will need to vary the fox spirits' diets some but compared to actual starvation it is nothing.
[X] Plan: Food and Census
-[X] Feeding the Hungry: You, spirits of the fox, are mortal now. You have indulged in food and water and wine before; but it is only now that it becomes necessary. Whether foraging or farming or hunting it must be done before you all starve to death in your new forms. (Ghyran) (0/1 Success)
--[X] (1 Menleth Dice)
-[X] Counting the Many: How many of you even managed to escape without dying at the hands of the hound? A count must be held, to determine how many of you lived. For you know not all did. (0/1 Success)
--[X] (1 Leader Dice)
-[X] Feeding the Hungry: You, spirits of the fox, are mortal now. You have indulged in food and water and wine before; but it is only now that it becomes necessary. Whether foraging or farming or hunting it must be done before you all starve to death in your new forms. (Ghyran) (0/1 Success)
--[X] (1 Menleth Dice)
-[X] Counting the Many: How many of you even managed to escape without dying at the hands of the hound? A count must be held, to determine how many of you lived. For you know not all did. (0/1 Success)
--[X] (1 Leader Dice)
The clearing is silent. Bowled by slight streams, surrounded by jungle trees and vibrant flowers and a scent like perfume lightly masking rotten carcasses, things lurk in the darkness, rich and thick with corruption, seeds of the unwell wrapped in anger and hatred and violence and death and worse. They prowl, fearing what you are, but hungry and bestial and in that bestial nature they know you, even forced into mortality, are the greater host of beasts.
Perhaps one day you will get to show that.
One day…but not today.
"Ten-thousand."
Dererhan looks…hollow. His ears, normally proud and straight and rigid as he, droop. His long, vibrant hair is left tangled, messed, covered in blood and mud and filth and worse thing. His sacred spear has been soaked in beast's blood; his lovely face now covered in scars and ruination. For he has been running about trying to feed the lot of you, and to count you to know how many more of you need to be fed, aided by the others. The others look little better. Even bleak, shadow-hearted Laqurnas seems sallow, hollowed out, like some great craftsman took the knife to wood and began to carve into it like butter; none some hale, hearty, whole and well.
Feeding and counting. Counting and feeding. Such takes up so much of their time, their effort. Once upon a time the foxes were limitless, infinite, unending. Every time enough mortal minds produced a thought that could be snagged on, it would coalesce together until all at once where there had been nothing but energy and potential there would be a fresh-crafted fox spirit, waiting to join the rest of you in the hunt and in the spirit and in the forest. Now instead you will be forced to indulge in the mystifying process that mortals subject themselves to; considerably less efficient by all accounts.
From that nearly numberless host, ten-thousand of you escaped the braying hounds. Scarcely a city's worth. The lucky of those who did not will have been destroyed.
The unlucky?
You all try not to think about the unlucky.
It does not always work.
This presents its own problems, however. Ten-thousand may not account for much to what was once a numberless band, but it's more than you know how to feed, more than you could even begin to account for. Plenty of you know the basics of food, of eating, but only for flavor, for pleasure; for nourishment you took thought and hunt and magic, worship in a scarce handful of cases. How will you ever feed that many mouths? How could you even begin to? You may all know how to hunt, but there aren't enough beasts in all of this land—whatever this land is, wherever it is, even Dererhan couldn't tell you—to feed everyone. To escape Khorne's hounds, only to end up dead at the hands of Nurgle's blade. Tempers flare. Murmuring begins. The mist grows black and dark and unwholesome, unholy, unwell, shadows stretching, unrolling themselves in shapes and configurations no merely mortal mind could comprehend. The fear of hunger is a new one, but one you understand all too well for plenty of these once-spirits had arisen from hunger, from thirst, and the desire to quench them, the willingness to do anything to survive them
You hear laughing.
You hear your children suffer.
Magic begins to stir to your will, magic and power and force as your very soul reaches out to save your people, your children, the ones you saved from the Hounds, the ones you will not abandon now either. Ghyran, pure Ghyran, flows around you like healthy streams of river water, infinite shades and hues of green all molding together into a painting, a chorus, a great ocean of life and calm and serenity and care and compassion; the desire, indeed, to nurture.
Is it any wonder that it comes so easily to you?
The other spirits look around tired at first as the jungle around you begins to bloom. A simple, easy parlor trick many of them have done before themselves, to gain favor from mortals, favors and gifts of a thousand different kinds. To make the flowers bloom, to make the leaves unfurl, to make the rivers and streams clear. Old, passe, done before and better by greater, more terrible spirits. A difference for one, one day; but what is the difference to one against the weight of ten-thousand?
But what is the weight of ten-thousand against the will of one?
More and more fruits dangle fat and thick from the trees and from the vines, green and red and gold and more, some warty and some covered in spines and some wrinkled and some smooth but all, all, a damn sight better than starvation—your senses will let you know where poison lurks, all of you. They look and they see as more and more fruit sprouts, nuts too, growing and growing under your will, your power, and the murmurs start to fade, slowing, pausing, changing their tenor, their tone, from fear to wonder as you do what should be impossible, what was impossible, once upon a time. But things have changed.
You have changed.
The sickle-wielding robed ones feed their magic into it too, making yet more of the jungle bloom with life to feed on for your people, lesser but yet still flesh to feed on, nourishment, health and hope. The streams run clear around you, clear and fresh as your people drink and start to pick the fruit, hope rekindled for the first time in a very long time. They plunge their heads into water to drain as much of it as they can as quick as they can only to be hauled up as they gasp for breath, they fill their arms with red and green fruits or they gorge on them, their stomachs full and well for the first time since you made the journey, for the first time since the chains of mortality were placed on you all. Ehfeyos, studious and noble at heart, examines all that you do with eyes beyond sight, eyes beyond the physical, scrawling down notes in light that hangs on stone and air like a perfume refusing to fade, talking this, that and the other about a solid base for teaching and learning.
They all watch, wide eyed.
The creatures lurking in the mist retreat. The nightmares in the shadows seem to shrink. The Hounds lose their scent.
You can't hear the laughing any more.
Gain:
Count of Population: 10,000 Fox Spirits
1 Organization Dice
Food situation is currently minorly deficient, you will need to vary the fox spirits' diets some but compared to actual starvation it is nothing.
Turn 2
Voikirium
SV's Estalia Guy
- Location
- Ruritania Illinois
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Turn 2
Menleth looks at the gathered fox spirits from the stump he rests and broods upon in shadow, those who had most keenly joined in as she had made the forests bloom with fruit and life and light, as he had saved the people, as she had defied Chaos twice in as many moons. The only ones wearing clothing at this point too, aside from the leaders, loose and light robes of green and blue fabrics, and sickles of iron. They walked at this point among the bands of foxes, distributing fruit and water and all the other food they could to young and old, man and woman, alike. Menleth's children, some called them, heartful, kind; flowers bloomed as they walked, and the thick trees seemed to get just a bit haler and healthier and better for their presence as the magic, sweet Ghyran, wafted from them like smoke from a fire.
Dressed and dignified and armed.
Which is almost funny, in its own way, on account that they all neither know how to weave nor how to forge as a group, not "Menleth's children" (were they not all Menleth's children now?) but the foxes as an entire group. With ten-thousand among them and all the ages, eons, they had together walked, some few had picked it up as a hobby but enough to arm and scores at least in so little time? Not likely. So how—
"We were still spirits, once upon a time." Ehfeyos approaches Menleth, her staff thudding on the dirt and her many-hued tails dancing in the thick, humid air, her robes still pristine in spite of the mud and water and bugs that surround them. "We took up some portion of mortality you know, but its rules lie as chains upon us: they can be slipped, especially if no one is paying attention. Making robes and sickles for a farmer, hardly the greatest thing either of us have seen in our ages."
"And you have a plan for them."
"I do. They would make it easier to establish a proper curriculum of magic, help get us all under control, before someone ends up making a mistake and ripping open a hole to the Aethyr. They could go around and teach such knowledge, practical and useful already, it's even ground the Asrai have already walked and they might even be willing to help me, assuming they aren't busy dealing with the Dawi at the moment. Or they can redouble their focus on gathering the fruits of their labor, or should I say your labor, and keep us fed."
"If you have so many plans for them already, why not ask them yourself? They will listen to you as surely as they listen to me."
"They belong to you, Menleth." He freezes as she hears it, and Ehfeyos continues unabated. "I mean, more than the rest of us already do, anyway."
"What the devil are you talking about?" Own, belong, control, those are not words he will accept, those are not words she will allow to bind another to him. She cannot. He is born to nurture, to heal, to help, not to dominate and rule like some vain-glorious tyrant.
"You ripped us out of the Aethyr, out of spirit and Form, and placed us in the world of matter. That already shaped some to be like you, those that were already similar growing moreso to emulate you. Then you tossed about Ghyran like a fountain, and burned the image of you feeding ten-thousand with a flex of your will into our spirits and our souls." Ehfeyos shakes her head, as though shocked Menleth could not have seen. "That has consequences. The rest of these fox spirits, they have your touch on their spirit. Some lesser, some greater, but from this moment on they are the Children of Menleth in truth, as much the flowing river as the raging beast at heart. Only three of us haven't been touched in such a way. Dererhan, spared by elf-touch and pure will at heart, one who burned an image as a warrior, as a force of power and strength into the Aethyr long before we fled it. Myself, knowledge and wisdom and repose by the influence of…ancient things, things that now no longer have a love of us, replaced by torpor and arrogance and stagnation. I must confess, I could not tell you how Laqurnas came to be so independent, so himself, that you with all the power gained and stolen could not outweigh the deeds he hides in shadow, but independent he is, as surely still a thing of mist and shadow and misdirection as your are of nurturing or I of knowledge." She looks, to places beyond sight, over Menleth's shoulder for a long moment. "I am old enough and tired enough to think that will strike at us at some point…but optimistic enough to think we will be stronger for it."
"Speak not so poorly out of sight of another." Her voice is cold and bleak, his eyes fiery, as instinct compels him. "We, at least, must trust one another."
"I trust him, enough at least. I have a past…as surely as he does, and quite probably worse in fact."
"Bah." They hear a sharp breath from somewhere but a quick scan does not reveal its source, and what they fear, what they fear would not hide, and so they quickly turn to other matters.
"If I and the others can make our mark, it is quite possible that they shall arrive who are touched by us, like us, shaped by our actions as they take up behavior like ours in the mortal shape, at least now while we, and while things, are in flux, as the world scrambles to comprehend what we are. I suspect as much, at least."
"Bold of you to share, when I could use that to hold such power for myself." There is no malice in it, only a mild curiosity that she is so free with that sort of knowledge.
"You can no more choose to stunt growth than I could choose not to learn, Dererhan could choose not to hunt or Laqurnas could choose not to obfuscate. We are what we are, Menleth." She smiles slightly. "Besides, you aren't so mighty yet that you can't be knocked off of your pedestal."
You have 3 Dice:
1 Menleth (Auto-Succeed on Ghyran Tagged Actions)
1 Leader (+20)
1 Organization (Children of Menleth, Tag: Ghyran Spellcasters)
[] Where are You?: You had no particular destination as you made the leap from the Aethyr to the mortal plane. Dererehan has some idea of this world and its existence, but the specifics of this place elude even him. Send him out along with others to map this place and learn, and perhaps to see if there are yet more threats seeking your skulls. (0/1 Success)
[] Control: Spells, yes, spells, that is what the mortals say they do to control the Aethyr, those lucky few who can. While you may have become mortal you are still innately tied to magic; even the least of you could become a mage, a spellcaster, of considerable prowess, while the greatest…you do not know where the limits of the greatest are, for you do not even know who the greatest are. But that is a double edged sword, there must be some reason now held. Someone must teach this new gaggle of spirits, and the young among them, to control themselves.
-You could use the Children of Menleth to help form that foundation and make it somewhat easier. This will shape magic as it is practiced by the fox spirits going forward, building upon a base of Ghyran as, according to Ehfeyos, the Asrai do. (0/1 Success)
[] Simple Tools: Magic is power and power is magic, but magic is dangerous in this new world in which you live. Ehfeyos speaks of ripping open the walls between worlds and spitting out daemons, explosions, waves of death and fire and worse; and you can die so easily now, so very easily, for all your innate nature means the magic seems to dance to your tune. Simple tools, crude but sufficient emulations of that which you have seen mortals use to perform other deeds, seem to you a good method to limit that risk.
But most of all, Menleth is curious. (0/1 Success)
[] The Hunt: You need flesh, meat, prey. It is part of the cycle, part of balance, part of many things truly. Dererhan is willing to put together bands to do so, however there is currently the problem that you lack any tools or weapons, by and large, more complex than your claws and teeth and senses. That will be an impediment until and unless it is resolved, not necessarily insurmountable but present. (0/2 Successes required)
[] Truth and Lie: You are in no position to fight off the real beasts of this world as yet, unarmed and unarmored and still reeling from losing so many, from going from numberless to so surely, utterly numbered. Laqurnas knows tricks, marks of deceit and hallucination that will make creatures approaching what you consider your territory at the moment suffer growing fright and terrors and nightmares, in proportion with how malevolent their will is. (0/2 Success)
--
Sorry this is up late. If you need anything explained feel free to poke at me about it though it might take a while for me to answer since I'm going to bed after this. Moratorium of at least 12 hours, possibly more, lemme sleep on it.
Menleth looks at the gathered fox spirits from the stump he rests and broods upon in shadow, those who had most keenly joined in as she had made the forests bloom with fruit and life and light, as he had saved the people, as she had defied Chaos twice in as many moons. The only ones wearing clothing at this point too, aside from the leaders, loose and light robes of green and blue fabrics, and sickles of iron. They walked at this point among the bands of foxes, distributing fruit and water and all the other food they could to young and old, man and woman, alike. Menleth's children, some called them, heartful, kind; flowers bloomed as they walked, and the thick trees seemed to get just a bit haler and healthier and better for their presence as the magic, sweet Ghyran, wafted from them like smoke from a fire.
Dressed and dignified and armed.
Which is almost funny, in its own way, on account that they all neither know how to weave nor how to forge as a group, not "Menleth's children" (were they not all Menleth's children now?) but the foxes as an entire group. With ten-thousand among them and all the ages, eons, they had together walked, some few had picked it up as a hobby but enough to arm and scores at least in so little time? Not likely. So how—
"We were still spirits, once upon a time." Ehfeyos approaches Menleth, her staff thudding on the dirt and her many-hued tails dancing in the thick, humid air, her robes still pristine in spite of the mud and water and bugs that surround them. "We took up some portion of mortality you know, but its rules lie as chains upon us: they can be slipped, especially if no one is paying attention. Making robes and sickles for a farmer, hardly the greatest thing either of us have seen in our ages."
"And you have a plan for them."
"I do. They would make it easier to establish a proper curriculum of magic, help get us all under control, before someone ends up making a mistake and ripping open a hole to the Aethyr. They could go around and teach such knowledge, practical and useful already, it's even ground the Asrai have already walked and they might even be willing to help me, assuming they aren't busy dealing with the Dawi at the moment. Or they can redouble their focus on gathering the fruits of their labor, or should I say your labor, and keep us fed."
"If you have so many plans for them already, why not ask them yourself? They will listen to you as surely as they listen to me."
"They belong to you, Menleth." He freezes as she hears it, and Ehfeyos continues unabated. "I mean, more than the rest of us already do, anyway."
"What the devil are you talking about?" Own, belong, control, those are not words he will accept, those are not words she will allow to bind another to him. She cannot. He is born to nurture, to heal, to help, not to dominate and rule like some vain-glorious tyrant.
"You ripped us out of the Aethyr, out of spirit and Form, and placed us in the world of matter. That already shaped some to be like you, those that were already similar growing moreso to emulate you. Then you tossed about Ghyran like a fountain, and burned the image of you feeding ten-thousand with a flex of your will into our spirits and our souls." Ehfeyos shakes her head, as though shocked Menleth could not have seen. "That has consequences. The rest of these fox spirits, they have your touch on their spirit. Some lesser, some greater, but from this moment on they are the Children of Menleth in truth, as much the flowing river as the raging beast at heart. Only three of us haven't been touched in such a way. Dererhan, spared by elf-touch and pure will at heart, one who burned an image as a warrior, as a force of power and strength into the Aethyr long before we fled it. Myself, knowledge and wisdom and repose by the influence of…ancient things, things that now no longer have a love of us, replaced by torpor and arrogance and stagnation. I must confess, I could not tell you how Laqurnas came to be so independent, so himself, that you with all the power gained and stolen could not outweigh the deeds he hides in shadow, but independent he is, as surely still a thing of mist and shadow and misdirection as your are of nurturing or I of knowledge." She looks, to places beyond sight, over Menleth's shoulder for a long moment. "I am old enough and tired enough to think that will strike at us at some point…but optimistic enough to think we will be stronger for it."
"Speak not so poorly out of sight of another." Her voice is cold and bleak, his eyes fiery, as instinct compels him. "We, at least, must trust one another."
"I trust him, enough at least. I have a past…as surely as he does, and quite probably worse in fact."
"Bah." They hear a sharp breath from somewhere but a quick scan does not reveal its source, and what they fear, what they fear would not hide, and so they quickly turn to other matters.
"If I and the others can make our mark, it is quite possible that they shall arrive who are touched by us, like us, shaped by our actions as they take up behavior like ours in the mortal shape, at least now while we, and while things, are in flux, as the world scrambles to comprehend what we are. I suspect as much, at least."
"Bold of you to share, when I could use that to hold such power for myself." There is no malice in it, only a mild curiosity that she is so free with that sort of knowledge.
"You can no more choose to stunt growth than I could choose not to learn, Dererhan could choose not to hunt or Laqurnas could choose not to obfuscate. We are what we are, Menleth." She smiles slightly. "Besides, you aren't so mighty yet that you can't be knocked off of your pedestal."
You have 3 Dice:
1 Menleth (Auto-Succeed on Ghyran Tagged Actions)
1 Leader (+20)
1 Organization (Children of Menleth, Tag: Ghyran Spellcasters)
[] Where are You?: You had no particular destination as you made the leap from the Aethyr to the mortal plane. Dererehan has some idea of this world and its existence, but the specifics of this place elude even him. Send him out along with others to map this place and learn, and perhaps to see if there are yet more threats seeking your skulls. (0/1 Success)
[] Control: Spells, yes, spells, that is what the mortals say they do to control the Aethyr, those lucky few who can. While you may have become mortal you are still innately tied to magic; even the least of you could become a mage, a spellcaster, of considerable prowess, while the greatest…you do not know where the limits of the greatest are, for you do not even know who the greatest are. But that is a double edged sword, there must be some reason now held. Someone must teach this new gaggle of spirits, and the young among them, to control themselves.
-You could use the Children of Menleth to help form that foundation and make it somewhat easier. This will shape magic as it is practiced by the fox spirits going forward, building upon a base of Ghyran as, according to Ehfeyos, the Asrai do. (0/1 Success)
[] Simple Tools: Magic is power and power is magic, but magic is dangerous in this new world in which you live. Ehfeyos speaks of ripping open the walls between worlds and spitting out daemons, explosions, waves of death and fire and worse; and you can die so easily now, so very easily, for all your innate nature means the magic seems to dance to your tune. Simple tools, crude but sufficient emulations of that which you have seen mortals use to perform other deeds, seem to you a good method to limit that risk.
But most of all, Menleth is curious. (0/1 Success)
[] The Hunt: You need flesh, meat, prey. It is part of the cycle, part of balance, part of many things truly. Dererhan is willing to put together bands to do so, however there is currently the problem that you lack any tools or weapons, by and large, more complex than your claws and teeth and senses. That will be an impediment until and unless it is resolved, not necessarily insurmountable but present. (0/2 Successes required)
[] Truth and Lie: You are in no position to fight off the real beasts of this world as yet, unarmed and unarmored and still reeling from losing so many, from going from numberless to so surely, utterly numbered. Laqurnas knows tricks, marks of deceit and hallucination that will make creatures approaching what you consider your territory at the moment suffer growing fright and terrors and nightmares, in proportion with how malevolent their will is. (0/2 Success)
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Sorry this is up late. If you need anything explained feel free to poke at me about it though it might take a while for me to answer since I'm going to bed after this. Moratorium of at least 12 hours, possibly more, lemme sleep on it.
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