thePUNisher
Unbothered. Moisturized. Happy. In My Lane
- Location
- Brazil
On Lizardmen related news, Skink Doomguy and Coaltls are coming to TWW it seems...
That's neat.
That's neat.
Respect Your Elders v2 - Galactic Boogaloo [Warhammer Lizardmen Quest]
- Thread starter Xantalos
- Start date
- Sci-Fi Fantasy
-
- Tags
- warhammer warhammer 40k fantasy sci-fi science fantasy science-fantasy kitchen sink space fantasy isha kroak (warhammer fantasy) mazdamundi (warhammer fantasy) magic empire quest actions have consequences dinosaurs ia ia kroak fhtagn lasers lizardmen qm likes speculation and questions slann what could possibly go wrong?
Xantalos
Turtle-Speed Writing
I should probably use this bump as an opportunity to note that I'm not that far away from being able to release an update. Probably a few thousand words away or so; done everything research-wise barring relic priest consultation, which I'm maybe ... a third through wordcount-wise, half through event-wise? Closer to done than not.
If you ever want to pester me to write more, I've got a thread linked in my sig where I post my wordcount for the day, if I've managed any.
If you ever want to pester me to write more, I've got a thread linked in my sig where I post my wordcount for the day, if I've managed any.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/Him/It
Ok I'm going to be honest I really only commented that earlier just to make sure that everyone was still active
- Location
- Utrecht
Pity we didn't get Qhaysh skinks yet. Would have been a treat
Xantalos
Turtle-Speed Writing
I mean, you completed the rainbow of skinks this turn, which is pretty on-theme anyhow.
Research update's done, just getting it proofread. Very likely dropping today.
For the Relic Priest portion, I recommend listening to this or something similar to get that sort of ominous feel. That's what I listened to while writing it, in any case.
thePUNisher
Unbothered. Moisturized. Happy. In My Lane
- Location
- Brazil
Yay.
Can't wait for us to drop the city into the Orks, we'll get there soon-ish I feel, maybe 2023, 2026 tops
Xantalos
Turtle-Speed Writing
Oh, certainly before the end of the year. As awful as my time estimates go, I can say that with a fair degree of certainty.Yay.
Can't wait for us to drop the city into the Orks, we'll get there soon-ish I feel, maybe 2023, 2026 tops
Speaking of which, just a general opinion poll, what would people like to see after this - stewardship stuff, which involves talking to Isendral and hitting Mag 3 Web, or the aforementioned city-dropping? Either is likely to have at least one mini-voting phase. Haven't started writing either, so either could go.
- Pronouns
- He
I am so close to my exams, I need a good laugh. I need to see the city dropping and teh Quackerz
thePUNisher
Unbothered. Moisturized. Happy. In My Lane
- Location
- Brazil
Stewardship, save the real meaty part for the last.
- Pronouns
- Viewer
I favor stewardship, since I'm interested in the conversation with Isendral and the description of us hitting mag 3.
Strunkriidiisk
THE LEGEND
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think Stewardship.
Xantalos
Turtle-Speed Writing
They both happen around the same timeframe chronologically, with the Mag 3 breakpoint being at the end of the decade. I suppose I could write the intros for both, since there's a decision point in either...
Beta reader's a bit busy, so the post will be tomorrow, I'm sad to say - but no later than that, and this I can actually guarantee.
Beta reader's a bit busy, so the post will be tomorrow, I'm sad to say - but no later than that, and this I can actually guarantee.
Turn 12 Research Results
Xantalos
Turtle-Speed Writing
[X] Children of the Trolled Ones
Ulgu Skink Priests (6 Third Spawning slann)
Early in the decade, there was a peculiar occurrence outside of Illuxoni's primary spawning cavern. Skink chieftains and scribes that entered into the subterranean complex to catalogue the process of new spawnings and note any marked individuals found themselves walking out moments later, without any discernible memory of turning and leaving. This effect persisted, subtly expelling any lizardman that entered the spawning cavern, until a small crowd had built up around the entranceway, blocking many streets. This attracted the attention of a junior skink administrator, who alerted their superior, one of the council that ran the day-to-day matters of the city. After deliberating possible causes of the matter and comparing it to past instances of anomalous events related to the spawning pools, they called upon Ziquz, the eldest Hysh mage in the city, and sent them to sort the matter out.
The pearl-white skink, their eyes gleaming with golden-white traces of light, strode into the cavern, easily cutting through the cognition-altering enchantment that had been laid over the cave mouth. Their searchlight gaze beheld the spawning pools crawling with shadow, rippling and undulating in patterns that seemed to force the eye to perceive them as blank floor. It was only Ziquz's mastery of Hysh that allowed them to pierce through the illusions and see the strands of Ulgu accruing and coalescing beneath the surface of the pools.
The Grey Wind surged, and something manifested in the water momentarily, before vanishing and reappearing within a shadow at the edge of the cavern. "Come forth, brethren," Ziquz called, and the skink priest stepped forth into the light cast by its elder. It was remarkably mundane-seeming, almost forgettable. Its scales were the grey perceived only by shutting one's eyelids, and its eyes were not so much seen as felt, the piercing quality of their gaze making up for their lack of distinct coloration.
It followed Ziquz out of the spawning caverns, causing the shadows it passed by to stretch and twist. As it stepped out of the cavern, light shimmered around its scales, and it faded from view, seen by Ziquz only as an impression where their light should penetrate, but did not.
It was found, upon examination, to be an Ulgu mage, the last of the eight conventional spectrums of magic concentrated into a corporeal form by the will of the slann. Its kind, which had begun to appear amidst the spawning of other cities, had innate power over the perception of others. They could cloak themselves in veils of gloom to become functionally invisible, create illusions capable of withstanding examinations of both sight and touch, and move themselves from shadow to shadow, regardless of the contravening distance. There were other things they would be capable of in time - shaping shadows into physical objects, manipulating the memory of others to an extent, and more - that would come as they attained greater mastery over their magic.
For the time being, however, their relative infancy was not a concern. With their shadowy hides rising from the spawning pools, it was at last possible to form proper cohorts, teams of eight skink mages that represented each of the Winds of Magic. Wielding their spells in unison, their eightfold contribution would allow them to grasp at the lowest coattails of their masters, and weave elementary configurations of Qhyash.
Such teams soon appeared throughout the lizardmen cities, and the slann watched contemplatively from their temples. The complexity of the spells these circles could collectively cast was limited due to the lack of any one member's ability to coordinate the entirety of their efforts, but they were still more potent acting together than apart. There was potential there for improvement - all that was needed was a centerpiece, one to oversee and coordinate the entirety of the circle's efforts.
Ulgu Skinks designed! They can manipulate perception in a multitude of ways, including making themselves invisible, conjuring illusions from smoke and twisted light, and clouding the memory of others. Projected capabilities as they increase in age and strength include the capability to solidify and mold shadow into animate objects and weapons, more generalized short-term reality alteration, and teleportation through darkness.
All eight Winds have been entwined in skink priests! Rudimentary Qhyash unlocked - skink priests can now form circles of eight to blend their magics harmoniously, allowing them to cast spells more potent than their collective effort would be separately. New projects unlocked.
Preventative Transmutation Amulets (3 Third Spawning slann, 10 Fourth Spawning slann, 25 Fifth Spawning slann)
The Sublime Communion was never truly quiet. Slann minds functioned in many different interlocking segments that all worked at different goals simultaneously, allowing the toad mages to contemplate obscure aethyric axioms and fragments of Tablet script while their bodies slept. The psychic space created by the linking of their minds was thus always host to a variety of debate topics, proposed ideas, and speculation on topics both certain and not. Some of these topics floated in the Communion for centuries, passed from slann to slann and changed in minute ways each time until it was ready to be manifested into reality.
The idea of a talisman infused with energies to stop the parasitization of lizardmen bodies had been one such vision, afloat in the Communion for some ninety-four years. It had begun as a complaint from Xhaar'buqz, a member of the Fifth Spawning who had lost several of his most skilled attendants in the early years on Mochantia. They had been snatched in the jungle on scouting missions, while securing the roads Mazdamundi had cast through the jungle, and even while harvesting supplies for a stimulant-filled brew from within the city walls. Xhaar'buqz' displeasure had taken form in the following days as a gem-laden spike of metal that would generate a fork of lightning between it and any potential bodyjacking parasite once implanted in a lizardman body.
The idea remained in the Communion, for they had not yet known enough about the Ayacmanik, and by the time they had thrown off the shackles of the Mind Fog, their attention was turned elsewhere, focused on the elimination of the orks by Elder Mazdamundi's decree. It shifted in form and function as more was discovered about the oversoul and the machinations of its bodies. It became a mask, then a collar, then a hanging amulet. Its overt effect was altered by minute degrees - in some incarnations it generated a barrier of fire around its bearer, in others it charged their scales with flesh-dissolving energies. Each was picked apart a million times over by idle slann in between research topics of more import, analyzed and simulated and cross-compared.
At long last, however, the moment of the idea's actualization was at hand. The slann's martial calculus forecast that the uax would be put in a position of severe disadvantage should their incipient martial campaign be a success, and it would likely not be long before the fungoid creatures were driven off the continent. The mage-lords were well aware that it had only been the threat of the greenskins that had kept the Ayacmanik oversoul from conducting more aggressive efforts to obtain a lizardman host body. While their opinions were still heavily split on the proper course of action to take regarding them, they were in agreement that a preventative measure was needed. Thus Xhaar'buqz's proposal finally saw concerted attention, and was examined and rebuilt by a cohort of thirty-eight minds.
The Talismans of Preventative Internal Immolation, or Fireblood Plates as they became known, were a series of stones the size and shape of a lizardman's scales, with extensive, fine lines of glyphs etched on every surface, giving each the shape of a specific magical effect. There were ten in total for each set, to replace scales from surfaces all around the body. The combined enchantment they wove was simple, elegant, and brutal in concept - the stones extended a psychic link to each other through the wearer's nervous system, passively sending pulses through them. When an Ayacmanik parasite invaded the body and attempted to hijack the nerves, the intrusion would break the links between a number of plates. This would trigger a cascading failure of the seal on the enchantment contained within the plates themselves, causing it to extend into the nervous system and transmute it into sun-hot plasma. With the intruder vaporized, the connection between the plates would be restored, and the enchantment would reseal itself.
This did present some costly side effects, of course - overuse of such an effect would kill the lizardman just as easily as being consumed by the Ayacmanik would, and each instance of it being triggered was evidently quite painful. The slann made adjustments to alleviate the second issue, not wanting their servants to be debilitated by pain and unable to make an escape. The first issue, however, was unable to be resolved - lesser measures than complete immolation had proved unreliable in purging Ayacmanik biomass from lizardmen bodily systems, and the Communion was in agreement that death, and subsequent ensconcement in Ayotzl's mist-shrouded shell, was a superior fate for their underlings than being devoured.
The first of the Fireblood Plates were crafted not long after, focusing distribution on those lizardmen at the greatest risk of infestation. It was not long before the effects made themselves evident - outright death rates from Ayacmanik parasitization plummeted across the temple-cities, and although the oversoul continued its efforts, managing to ambush some lizardmen so thoroughly that their Plates immolated them from excessive activation, the overall impact of the Ayacmanik on the lizardmen's yearly death rates was substantially reduced.
Fireblood Plates researched! A set of ten scale-replacing stone plates affixed to a lizardman, these talismans contain an enchantment capable of turning the nervous system to plasma, contained only by the interlinking of each Plate to its fellows. If an infestation attempt occurs, the links are broken temporarily and the enchantment unleashed, subsiding when the attacking Ayacmanik is ash. Overuse of this feature, such as by repeated infestations in a short span of time, will kill the affected lizardman. Additionally, they work best inside the Geomantic Web, where it is possible to draw on their power. Outside of it, the possibility exists for their charge to be worn out over long periods of time, rendering them ineffective until recharged. This is, however, only a slim possibility.
Void-Exchanged Interlocking Spell Theory (6 Third Spawning slann)
Magic, at its heart, was the practice of blending two fundamentally opposed paradigms of reality in such a way as to produce a desired result. The material world was immutable, rigid, everlasting. Matter could not truly be created or destroyed, only made to change form. Energy was finite, and consistently spread to the most even possible distribution in a given area. For every action, there was an equal and opposite reaction. These laws were written into the bones of reality, and could never be subverted, broken, or disregarded.
The Warp was the opposite - the spirit realm twisted in revulsion at the mere suggestion that laws or cause and effect could constrain it. Within its boundless depths, there existed infinities of energy around every corner, and its currents flowed any way they wished, any and every direction at once, existing unbounded by any conception of shape or form or size. It was a realm of unfettered potential, and in its purest form was utterly uncontrollable.
In the spaces where either realm held sway, there was no ability to distort reality's rules - in the Materium, the cold grip of physics was absolute, and in the Warp's unfettered depths, there was nothing that could be grasped, for such an action was one of binding, and the true Sea of Souls could not be bound. It was only in those spaces where the two realms met, the principles of one overlapping the laws of the other, that there was room to manipulate and change things to one's liking - the Warp's boundless energies subverted the law of entropy without a moment's thought, and the Materium's laws bound the Warp to behave under a semblance of predictability. It was only in this interstice that the rules could be broken, for it was only here that they both existed and were loose enough to be brushed aside.
The Geomantic Web itself was built on the interaction of these fundamental principles. By tapping into the movement of worlds, it borrowed that energy and filtered it through a purified Warp, growing it enough that when it was fed back into the planet, there was a net surplus of energy that could be used to run the lizardmen's architecture, passive magical functions, and supply a universal pool of clean mana for their spellcasters to tap into. It was a complex, delicate balance that needed to be struck for it to function, but it was stable, and theoretically limitless if scaled up far enough.
This thought lay at the center of the slann's deliberations on the interaction of absolute void and conjured energy, something that had risen to dominate the Communion's talking circles in recent years. It was an unavoidable axiom that any alteration made to reality with the use of magical force added a certain amount of strain to the fabric of spacetime, one that would inevitably snap back to its original strength once the caster's mental fortitude was depleted, breaking the channel they had formed to the Warp and ending their spell. Every form and style of magic was subject to this, from the purist Wind-channeling of the skink priests to the rudimentary Qhyash the elves had been tutored in.
Even the more complex spellwork of the slann was not exempt - the mage-priests wove their spells with the greatest possible efficiency, measuring percentage points of individual conceptual effects, using the tendency of like attracting like to help their enchantments partially self-construct, and utilizing their multi-threaded minds to build arcane frameworks that were like fully realized cubes to the two-dimensional squares of conventional spellcasting. But for all their optimization, even they could not escape the fact that to warp reality was a constant effort, one that could not be cut short without submerging the world in the Immaterium.
The only things that had ever seemed to defy this principle were the runes of the dawi - something the Communion was uncertain of due to lack of direct contact with them, though speculation had arisen that perhaps this was to do with their role in the Plan - and the recently-unearthed void sanctum enchantments. Two immediately apparent functions of these had occurred to the slann immediately upon their discovery, and had been in heavy usage ever since. The first was the usage of a low-grade vacuum to draw a path from a slann to their target, allowing for maximal energy efficiency when using offensive or defensive spells. The second, of course, came from their much-treasured capacity, at higher degrees of complexity, to block out not just physical properties such as air and light and sound, but also the near-omnipresent hum of thought and motion and life given off by every living being.
Isolated thusly from the constant motion of the world, a slann could muster the mental concentration required to craft truly complex spells, but also simply to relieve their thoughts from the burden of keeping track of so many different aethyric and physical variables at all times. Some slann spent much of their time in meditation like this, floating freely in the absolute vacuum of their Star Chambers. And eventually, the thought occurred - if a void could be induced to block out stray spiritual energies, could a void with slightly different conceptual properties not form a stable barrier around a spell, protecting it from the universal imposition of entropy and thermodynamics that would otherwise snuff it out?
Such a hypothesis was raised many times, but garnered little attention until Zaadi-Qarno, a Third Generation slann who had devoted a considerable amount of attention towards the void sanctums after he had been able to banish his millennia-long headache using one, managed to manifest such a void for the first time. It was a small thing, containing no more than a hand-sized orb of flame, composed of Aqshy with little to dilute it. Such a spell would ordinarily snuff itself out in an instant once the user's concentration ceased, but Zaadi-Qarno was able to sustain the flame for seven months without a mote of concentration after his initial effort. His construct failed only due to minute flaws in its makeup that were noted years later, and he was able to showcase this innovation to many of his fellows before that, drawing a great deal of interest with how it was able to persist without the outside imposition of energy or entropy.
Though the Communion's time was greatly taxed with the effort of removing the Orks, Zaadi-Qarno was nonetheless able to persuade five of his fellow elders to investigate this matter further. They conducted a great deal of studies and experiments, tweaking and changing the composition of the void spell in an effort to achieve a long-standing version of the initial discovery.
They experimented with the ability of the voids to withstand spells of different variants and strengths - scaling up from shards of conjured ice and orbs of fire to whirling vortexes of air and self-feeding loops of lightning the size of buildings. They constructed systems of timed transmutation spells, allowing an ordinary stone to be transformed every day into a gemstone that resonated with a different spectrum of magical energies - the arcane structure of each spell was fundamentally different, but the energy powering them was recycled from one to the next without any loss. Every field of magic had something to gain from this phenomenon, for it allowed for orders of magnitude more complexity in a spell.
It was quickly found over the course of these trials that the relative energy investment required to craft such a void actually scaled down the bigger the intended barrier was. While the absolute amount of power needed did of course increase with size, the amount of internal and external variables for the spell to account for remained constant whether the conjured void was the size of a fruit or a Stegadon. Thus, with larger voids it was possible to use less concentration when weaving the spell, saving effort by allowing the arcane structure to pull itself into place. This allowed larger barriers to remain stable without outside input for longer, where smaller voids would deteriorate quickly if they were not maintained. More complex spells would thus be best conjured in larger voids, save for if the caster was of exceptional strength of mind and was able to hold multitudes of details in place with naught but their will. As the spell used to conjure even the simplest of voids was too complex for any but the slann to comprehend, this was the provenance of the elder generations of mage-priests, whose minds had only grown sharper over the endless centuries.
The potential applications of the voids were manifold, and Zaadi-Qarno and his brethren had scarcely scratched the surface by the time they presented their research to the wider Communion. Objects imbued with magic previously judged impractically complex, shortcuts to avenues of research that had already been mapped out, and more - the minds of the slann churned with thoughts of intersecting spells within stone and machinery, self-propelling chains of enchantment, and devices of potency not seen since the days when the First Spawning had walked the earth.
Void-Exchanged Interlocking Spell Theory is a field of magic centered around the use of magical barriers that block out certain physical laws that impose energetic limitations on spells. When a spell is conjured and placed within such a void, the energy sustaining it remains in place, instead of being pressed back into the Warp as per usual. This allows for spells to remain active for significant lengths of time without the concentration and energy expenditure it would otherwise take to sustain the caster's connection to the Warp. The ways in which this principle can be applied to overhaul the lizardmen's use of magic on a wide scale are too many to be counted. Multiple research projects have been unlocked, and discounts will be applied to appropriate projects. Additionally, the slann are now yet more potent in battle and labor, due to the ability to call up more complex and deadly spells with greater ease. Slann Construction threadmark has been updated accordingly.
Teach Geomantic Rituals (Mazdamundi teaches everyone)
The discipline of geomancy was a multifaceted one, something that many had tapped parts of, yet few who comprehended the whole. The slann had observed many magical traditions that were derivative of geomancy on the world of Mallus. The various simplified lores of Wind-magic the elves had inherited incorporated many spells that manipulated the earth, with effects ranging from tearing open crevices and pits in the ground to dragging the unwary to a sub-realm of the Warp. The divine lore of the subverted dwarfs residing in the Dark Lands centered itself around the conjuring of volcanic effects, including localized eruptions of lava tinged with Aqshy and malice. The runes of the correct dwarfs called upon conceptual properties of the earth and stone, and their most potent examples could split the earth with chasms.
All of them were but pale shadows of true geomancy. The closest imitation that any mortal being had managed to craft had been the spells laid upon shattered Nagarythe during the Sundering of Ulthuan. The spells keeping the Black Arks aloft were sunk into their bedrock, running through their foundations like sewage pipes, and they were arranged in similar layouts to true leylines and calibrated to their geometry. They fell short not because of a lack of skill or ingenuity, but a failing in the viewpoint behind their creation. Geomancy was not the practice of manipulating the earth via the use of magic, or using the mystic energies running through it to power one's spells. The discipline of worldshaping was made distinct by its ability to impel the earth itself to carry out one's objective - not merely shaping the desired effect into reality, but having the world shape itself in accordance with one's will.
To convey the essence of such a principle was something that would take the most deft of minds years to fully grasp intellectually, even the multithreaded intelligences of the slann. Mazdamundi himself had been instructed in such a way, running reams of variables and permutations and intricacies of theory through his mind for decades until he had mastered every aspect of the lessons Lord Kroak had given him. Such individualized training, however, would take over a century to pass even the rudimentary basics onto the whole of the Communion - time that was in short supply. What Mazdamundi required was a method to quickly impart geomantic competency and convey the necessary applications of its many esoteric principles.
It was not long before more than eighty members of the Communion received a telepathic call from the elder slann, and ventured within his Star Chamber in astral form, entering through an easily unsealable 'doorway' he had temporarily made in its wards. Once inside, they found themselves within a fully realized sub-realm, a pocket dimension no more than the size of a city that Mazdamundi had carved out of the Warp and conjoined to the interior of his temple's mystic scaffolding. Clouds of Warp energy swirled about within, their currents tame and predictable compared to the real Sea of Souls but still moving according to familiar principles.
Mazdamundi's spirit shone like a blazing sun at the center of this realm, and his words carried the weight of mountains. "UNLEASH YOUR FULL STRENGTH ON ME," he instructed. "I WILL CONTEND WITHOUT SHAPING A SPELL OF MY OWN."
Knowing well for themselves the immense potency of their elder, the gathered slann wasted no time in obeying. Using the sole member of the Third Generation among them as a channel for their power, the slann grasped great swathes of magical energy and imbued them with destructive concepts. Each slann provided a piece of the grand equation, inputting fire and cold and vibrational force and more to craft a thing of pure, intermingled entropy and extropy, leashed with inbuilt laws of attraction and binding to Mazdamundi's astral form. It was a million knives of burning ice, conjoined into a blade of infinite length that cut whatever saw it. It writhed like a dragon in flight, twisting back upon and underneath and through itself without ever once touching its own length, and it cut through the intervening distance between Mazdamundi and themselves without regard for spatial boundaries.
Mazdamundi did not attempt to evade, deflect, or counterspell the construct of his juniors. He remained motionless, and did not even direct his awareness towards the incoming attack. When the infinite burning blade of ice cut into his position, it simply missed, slicing a small distance to his side, though it had not been interfered with at all. It struck again, the slann directing it to cut the pseudo-real dimension in every possible spatial and spiritual coordinate Mazdamundi could relocate himself to. Thickets of entropic razors flashed out, flensing reality with meticulous, mechanical thoroughness.
Mazdamundi again made no visible effort to change his position or intercept the incoming attacks. He simply remained where he was, at the absolute center of things, and allowed every one of his junior's attacks to pass him by without so much as touching him. Determined now, the other slann crafted more spells, a dizzying variety of effects spawning from the depths of their minds. Living shadows and whirling gases and streamers of light were unleashed upon the elder mage, shaped to perfection and guided with shaped fields of void and woven upon one another with perfect synchronicity. Enough force was conjured to level a city within a subjective instant, and none of it touched Mazdamundi. It was only once the pocket realm was fully saturated with magical energy that their elder's means of evasion became clear, and by then it was too late.
True to his word, Mazdamundi had not cast a spell or created an independent enchantment. Instead his awareness had been sunk into the underlying architecture of the pocket-realm itself, allowing him to impel it to move itself around the incoming attacks of his juniors. Each unleashed enchantment had been subtly redirected into another, linking them together in a slowly building chain. He had built a magical construct of his own using naught but the energies of their own spells, and its activation came too quick to evade. Immoveable bindings wove themselves around each slann, each link of their chains crafted of Immaterial concepts that mirrored a different physical law. They cinched tightly, cutting off any ability to draw on further magic, leaving them floating helplessly in the void.
Mazdamundi's shining form hovered in front of them. "You bested yourselves," he rumbled. "Do you grasp how?"
The slann floated in captivity for a time, communing among themselves. Then, in lieu of answering with words, they grasped the edges of the pocket dimension, pushing and spiralling with mental force until the world spun around them and unbound their chains. They stood before their elder, wearied by the effort, and felt his benediction like the sun across their skin. "Yes," Mazdamundi croaked. "It is not you that moves. It is the horizon that comes to you. Now, again. This trial will end when you land a single blow."
Mazdamundi repeated this feat with four other batches of slann, wrestling his juniors in spiritual combat for the entirety of the decade, until his proto-realm was tattered and torn and his soul shone dimly from the prolonged exertion. As effortless as he made it seem, employing geomantic principles to such an extent was measurably tiring - but it was worth it. The discipline's framework had been passed to the Communion, enough to make use of it. Further refinement could be carried out at a more sedate pace, through debate and lecture rather than tumultuous combat.
Sinking back into his body with a weary sigh, Mazdamundi contemplated that perhaps this was why his own elders had instructed him in the manner they had, despite his repeated requests for such a trial. It would require some time before his bones and brain and nervous system would cease complaining.
The Sublime Communion has (re)learned the subtle, yet devastating art of Geomancy! Overall slann combat power has increased, and any slann may now participate in a Geomantic Ritual.
Consult the Relic Priests (Xenos) (10 Third Spawning slann, 75 Fifth Spawning slann)
It had been seven decades since the spirits of the Relic Priests were last queried. The thoughts of the slann were never far from their deceased brethren, and many made periodic forays into the vaults in which they were kept, sitting in meditation with the corpses of their kin as a form of remembrance. Those who did could not say that they heard any words or whispers from the desiccated priests in their tombs, for the catacombs were oppressively silent and the air hung as still as preserved amber.
The liminal state of the Tomb Collective was not well understood by most, and the slann that had seen them most clearly was now light-years away. However, their communication was something that every one of the Sublime Communion had experienced at some point in their long lives, never to forget. Where slann spoke aloud, things began - magic fountained forth from rubbery lips, shaped by their syllables into errant configurations of symmetry and structure. Spells that skink priests would struggle to form on their own were created as a mere aftereffect of their speech. A mere conversation between slann could resemble a full-fledged duel between lesser wizards.
The missives of the dead slann were not nearly as pronounced, requiring absolute silence and stillness to even be perceived. The words of the Relic Priests were absences, depressions of negative sound and light that made themselves known only by the absence of input. If heard amidst the tumult and froth of ordinary life, they could be mistaken merely for a hiccup in the flow of a breeze, a missed beat of a hummingbird's wings. It was only when they were received in the presence of true stillness, in the catacombs beneath every temple-city where the dust of ages silently stirred, that they could be truly heard. The Tomb Collective resided beyond the veil of mortality, floating in the liminal space between life and death. Their words were extrusions of this veil, encoded with meaning snatched from both future and past.
Eighty-five living slann ventured into the halls of their dead to hear these formless whispers, for there were questions the Sublime Communion had that only their mummified forebears could answer. They were borne on palanquins held aloft by the most trusted of their Temple Guard, descending dust-dappled steps in deep concentration. They entered the crypts in Itza, in Xlanhuapec, Hexoatl, cities where the catacombs had sat for millennia. Those in the newly-established cities on the frontier - Illuxoni, Muukhexla, Tenqu'itzcal - found nigh-identical patterns of dust and time as they went into the tombs. The relevance of objective time and space became more akin to suggestions in places like this, where the unblinking gaze of dead slann had bored holes through the laws of geometry and causality.
In a cloistered tomb that was not present on any existing map of the temple-cities, the various slann converged, entering the room from various tunnels in the stone that had not been there moments before. Even spaced out and with substantial retinues to each of them - saurus to guard their bodies, skinks to transcribe every word spoken, kroxigors to lift and carry their seats - the slann were dwarfed by the tomb they found themselves in, which was big enough to house an army.
Its ceiling rose far above their heads, the space lit intermittently by dim, dusty beams of light shining down from indeterminable sources. Set into the cave-like walls were hundreds of cavernous recesses, extending around the room like the nesting pods of some gargantuan insect. Many, even most, of these were empty, but as the slann ventured further down the gallery, more and more of them were occupied by Relic Priests. The mummified slann were wrapped in amber-soaked fabric and covered with stone charms, hanging beads of jade and jet and amethyst, and each bore a death mask of intermingled stone and metal, engraved with intricate symbols around the eyes and mouth. The air grew heavy with their gaze, and there seemed to be more of them every time one looked.
At the end of the tomb was an especially large shrine, a miniature pyramid cluttered with offerings of withered fruits and stone tablets interspersed with obsinite candles that produced oddly-colored, unwavering flames. At its peak sat a Relic Priest with a mantle of psychic energy so thick around it that the living lizardmen could practically taste its spirit amidst the chalk and bone in the air. A plaque at the base of the altar proclaimed that this was the resting place of the ancient First Generation slann Xhillipepa, who had perished in the Great Catastrophe by way of magical burnout while defending the city of Spektazuma. His dying spell had single handedly incinerated a legion of flaming Tzeentchian horrors and several dozen Lords of Change, creating a kilometers-wide streak of glass outside the city that remained for centuries after.
The attendants of the living slann set up contraptions of burning incense that smelled of cinnamon and Lustrian lilies before the shrines of Xhillipepa and a number of young slann who had been known to be his close associates before their own deaths. The sweet, cloying smoke drifted up and over the gleaming death masks of the Relic Priests, filtering into the holes of their eyes in slow trickles. As the smoke bloomed, the skink emissary of each living slann in turn stepped forth and uttered a message prepared years before, phrases that were somewhere between supplication and invocation.
Each sentence was spoken in a steady, rhythmic cadence, rising and falling in patterns similar to those found in the Tablets of the Old Ones. Each was punctuated by the clunk of that particular slann's temple guard pounding the butts of their spears against the floor. As the official message was conveyed, a deep, guttural hum rose from the gullets of those kroxigors that bore the immense weight of the slann upon their palanquins, subvocal tones of greeting that tied the vocalizations of the other lizardmen together with a smooth undercurrent of sound. Only the slann remained silent, their eyes locked unblinkingly at the empty sockets of their deceased kindred.
The dimensions of the room began to change, shrinking subtly every time the lizardmen looked away. Little by little, the walls drew closer, the air grew stuffier, and the words of the lizardmen echoed louder off the stone walls of the crypts. Every time a skink scribe nervously glanced at the far end of the tomb, it was just a little bit closer than before.
We will answer your call
Battles, hundreds of battles, a campaign spanning vast sums of time. The Plan had decreed the removal of the greenskins from their world, and the lizardmen moved to comply with the utmost apex of their might. Ancient cities mustered their legions - Itza, Zlatlan, Kadath, and more. The work of sculpting the biospheres of the east was going smoothly enough that forces from that sector could be spared.
Fire and storm pushed the green tide back, and the lizardmen learned more of their foe. The Uax body was a spongy, fungal mass, with organs both protected and intertwined with mycelial fibres. The density and toughness of these networks increased as the greenskins aged and grew, reinforcing their bodies and providing them with greater strength. The fungus was their muscle, their nervous system and their circulatory system all at once. The blood that oozed through their thick limbs was more sap than fluid, the same rich, viscous red as their eyes.
With time, it became evident that the moving, fighting greenskins could not be compared to true fungus so much as its fruiting bodies. They shed spores everywhere they went, their every action producing more within their flesh. Each of the creatures was a walking bomb of dormant spores, dusting their surroundings with the excess, and nothing set off those inside them save severe injury, or better yet, death. When an ork or goblin died, the spores in its flesh awoke, using the bounty of its mangled flesh as a nutritive buffet to kickstart their growth, to expand their network.
The spores were everywhere, comprising an entire ecosystem of its own kind. Wherever the Uax walked, this fungal network followed, establishing a foothold and outcompeting its surroundings until it had swallowed the local biosphere in a forest of mold and fleshy mushrooms. The squig warbeasts, their snotling herders, even the orks and goblins themselves were merely mobile extrusions of this great hungering mass, this network of hyphae and spores that sent its ambulatory limbs to fight and die and spread it yet further. The psychic network of the greenskins was stored here, lusting for battle and death, and it was for this reason that the lizardmen named it after the flooding rains.
It was then that a potent mental presence pressed in on the minds of the slann, stirring from the barely-visible corpse of Xhillipepa on his shrine. The ancient mind of the First Generation entered into their own, and they saw other memories, ones from further back in time - some from Xhillipepa's own life and others that had no equivalent in any experience the living slann had ever had.
Golden tablets, hundreds of them laid in sequence, each bearing the unmistakable marks of the Old Ones. Thousands upon thousands of hours flashed by, the accumulated study of lifetimes pressing into the mind in moments.
And also, inescapably clearly, upon those of the Green Tide.
The slann exited in silence, carried by their servants, who uttered not a word. They did not know what their masters had witnessed, but all could feel the weight of the Communion's thoughts, which bubbled and churned like viscous, black tar.
The slann had much to consider.
-----
Structure of the orkoid organism revealed - they are the visible, mobile extrusions of a supermassive network of fungus that acts as a self-contained ecosystem and repository of psychic energy. They are its fruiting bodies, ambulatory pods of spores that shower the ground with them when they die. If they are not cleansed, their mycelial tendrils will grow so deep they are near-guaranteed to return even after total annihilation. Their bodies only grow more reinforced by their fungal symbiote as they grow and age, rendering them stronger, tougher, and quicker, even in proportion to their increased size. All this information has increased lizardmen efficiency at destroying them.
The Relic Priests revealed something else, however, information plucked from beyond the veil of mortality. The greenskins were made by the Old Ones. Perhaps not the ten whose names you know and revere, but the marks are irrefutable, the intricacy of their design unmistakable. It was your creators who made this ever-growing weapon of genocide, and yet it was by their decree that you were to sweep them from the world of Mallus. Their motives for doing so are unknowable, and yet the fact cannot be ignored.
The greenskins are your kindred, made for a singular purpose, just as you were.
The Sublime Communion's thoughts on this revelation are … uncertain.
Their resolution to exterminate the orks has remained unchanged.
Ulgu Skink Priests (6 Third Spawning slann)
Early in the decade, there was a peculiar occurrence outside of Illuxoni's primary spawning cavern. Skink chieftains and scribes that entered into the subterranean complex to catalogue the process of new spawnings and note any marked individuals found themselves walking out moments later, without any discernible memory of turning and leaving. This effect persisted, subtly expelling any lizardman that entered the spawning cavern, until a small crowd had built up around the entranceway, blocking many streets. This attracted the attention of a junior skink administrator, who alerted their superior, one of the council that ran the day-to-day matters of the city. After deliberating possible causes of the matter and comparing it to past instances of anomalous events related to the spawning pools, they called upon Ziquz, the eldest Hysh mage in the city, and sent them to sort the matter out.
The pearl-white skink, their eyes gleaming with golden-white traces of light, strode into the cavern, easily cutting through the cognition-altering enchantment that had been laid over the cave mouth. Their searchlight gaze beheld the spawning pools crawling with shadow, rippling and undulating in patterns that seemed to force the eye to perceive them as blank floor. It was only Ziquz's mastery of Hysh that allowed them to pierce through the illusions and see the strands of Ulgu accruing and coalescing beneath the surface of the pools.
The Grey Wind surged, and something manifested in the water momentarily, before vanishing and reappearing within a shadow at the edge of the cavern. "Come forth, brethren," Ziquz called, and the skink priest stepped forth into the light cast by its elder. It was remarkably mundane-seeming, almost forgettable. Its scales were the grey perceived only by shutting one's eyelids, and its eyes were not so much seen as felt, the piercing quality of their gaze making up for their lack of distinct coloration.
It followed Ziquz out of the spawning caverns, causing the shadows it passed by to stretch and twist. As it stepped out of the cavern, light shimmered around its scales, and it faded from view, seen by Ziquz only as an impression where their light should penetrate, but did not.
It was found, upon examination, to be an Ulgu mage, the last of the eight conventional spectrums of magic concentrated into a corporeal form by the will of the slann. Its kind, which had begun to appear amidst the spawning of other cities, had innate power over the perception of others. They could cloak themselves in veils of gloom to become functionally invisible, create illusions capable of withstanding examinations of both sight and touch, and move themselves from shadow to shadow, regardless of the contravening distance. There were other things they would be capable of in time - shaping shadows into physical objects, manipulating the memory of others to an extent, and more - that would come as they attained greater mastery over their magic.
For the time being, however, their relative infancy was not a concern. With their shadowy hides rising from the spawning pools, it was at last possible to form proper cohorts, teams of eight skink mages that represented each of the Winds of Magic. Wielding their spells in unison, their eightfold contribution would allow them to grasp at the lowest coattails of their masters, and weave elementary configurations of Qhyash.
Such teams soon appeared throughout the lizardmen cities, and the slann watched contemplatively from their temples. The complexity of the spells these circles could collectively cast was limited due to the lack of any one member's ability to coordinate the entirety of their efforts, but they were still more potent acting together than apart. There was potential there for improvement - all that was needed was a centerpiece, one to oversee and coordinate the entirety of the circle's efforts.
Ulgu Skinks designed! They can manipulate perception in a multitude of ways, including making themselves invisible, conjuring illusions from smoke and twisted light, and clouding the memory of others. Projected capabilities as they increase in age and strength include the capability to solidify and mold shadow into animate objects and weapons, more generalized short-term reality alteration, and teleportation through darkness.
All eight Winds have been entwined in skink priests! Rudimentary Qhyash unlocked - skink priests can now form circles of eight to blend their magics harmoniously, allowing them to cast spells more potent than their collective effort would be separately. New projects unlocked.
Preventative Transmutation Amulets (3 Third Spawning slann, 10 Fourth Spawning slann, 25 Fifth Spawning slann)
The Sublime Communion was never truly quiet. Slann minds functioned in many different interlocking segments that all worked at different goals simultaneously, allowing the toad mages to contemplate obscure aethyric axioms and fragments of Tablet script while their bodies slept. The psychic space created by the linking of their minds was thus always host to a variety of debate topics, proposed ideas, and speculation on topics both certain and not. Some of these topics floated in the Communion for centuries, passed from slann to slann and changed in minute ways each time until it was ready to be manifested into reality.
The idea of a talisman infused with energies to stop the parasitization of lizardmen bodies had been one such vision, afloat in the Communion for some ninety-four years. It had begun as a complaint from Xhaar'buqz, a member of the Fifth Spawning who had lost several of his most skilled attendants in the early years on Mochantia. They had been snatched in the jungle on scouting missions, while securing the roads Mazdamundi had cast through the jungle, and even while harvesting supplies for a stimulant-filled brew from within the city walls. Xhaar'buqz' displeasure had taken form in the following days as a gem-laden spike of metal that would generate a fork of lightning between it and any potential bodyjacking parasite once implanted in a lizardman body.
The idea remained in the Communion, for they had not yet known enough about the Ayacmanik, and by the time they had thrown off the shackles of the Mind Fog, their attention was turned elsewhere, focused on the elimination of the orks by Elder Mazdamundi's decree. It shifted in form and function as more was discovered about the oversoul and the machinations of its bodies. It became a mask, then a collar, then a hanging amulet. Its overt effect was altered by minute degrees - in some incarnations it generated a barrier of fire around its bearer, in others it charged their scales with flesh-dissolving energies. Each was picked apart a million times over by idle slann in between research topics of more import, analyzed and simulated and cross-compared.
At long last, however, the moment of the idea's actualization was at hand. The slann's martial calculus forecast that the uax would be put in a position of severe disadvantage should their incipient martial campaign be a success, and it would likely not be long before the fungoid creatures were driven off the continent. The mage-lords were well aware that it had only been the threat of the greenskins that had kept the Ayacmanik oversoul from conducting more aggressive efforts to obtain a lizardman host body. While their opinions were still heavily split on the proper course of action to take regarding them, they were in agreement that a preventative measure was needed. Thus Xhaar'buqz's proposal finally saw concerted attention, and was examined and rebuilt by a cohort of thirty-eight minds.
The Talismans of Preventative Internal Immolation, or Fireblood Plates as they became known, were a series of stones the size and shape of a lizardman's scales, with extensive, fine lines of glyphs etched on every surface, giving each the shape of a specific magical effect. There were ten in total for each set, to replace scales from surfaces all around the body. The combined enchantment they wove was simple, elegant, and brutal in concept - the stones extended a psychic link to each other through the wearer's nervous system, passively sending pulses through them. When an Ayacmanik parasite invaded the body and attempted to hijack the nerves, the intrusion would break the links between a number of plates. This would trigger a cascading failure of the seal on the enchantment contained within the plates themselves, causing it to extend into the nervous system and transmute it into sun-hot plasma. With the intruder vaporized, the connection between the plates would be restored, and the enchantment would reseal itself.
This did present some costly side effects, of course - overuse of such an effect would kill the lizardman just as easily as being consumed by the Ayacmanik would, and each instance of it being triggered was evidently quite painful. The slann made adjustments to alleviate the second issue, not wanting their servants to be debilitated by pain and unable to make an escape. The first issue, however, was unable to be resolved - lesser measures than complete immolation had proved unreliable in purging Ayacmanik biomass from lizardmen bodily systems, and the Communion was in agreement that death, and subsequent ensconcement in Ayotzl's mist-shrouded shell, was a superior fate for their underlings than being devoured.
The first of the Fireblood Plates were crafted not long after, focusing distribution on those lizardmen at the greatest risk of infestation. It was not long before the effects made themselves evident - outright death rates from Ayacmanik parasitization plummeted across the temple-cities, and although the oversoul continued its efforts, managing to ambush some lizardmen so thoroughly that their Plates immolated them from excessive activation, the overall impact of the Ayacmanik on the lizardmen's yearly death rates was substantially reduced.
Fireblood Plates researched! A set of ten scale-replacing stone plates affixed to a lizardman, these talismans contain an enchantment capable of turning the nervous system to plasma, contained only by the interlinking of each Plate to its fellows. If an infestation attempt occurs, the links are broken temporarily and the enchantment unleashed, subsiding when the attacking Ayacmanik is ash. Overuse of this feature, such as by repeated infestations in a short span of time, will kill the affected lizardman. Additionally, they work best inside the Geomantic Web, where it is possible to draw on their power. Outside of it, the possibility exists for their charge to be worn out over long periods of time, rendering them ineffective until recharged. This is, however, only a slim possibility.
Void-Exchanged Interlocking Spell Theory (6 Third Spawning slann)
Magic, at its heart, was the practice of blending two fundamentally opposed paradigms of reality in such a way as to produce a desired result. The material world was immutable, rigid, everlasting. Matter could not truly be created or destroyed, only made to change form. Energy was finite, and consistently spread to the most even possible distribution in a given area. For every action, there was an equal and opposite reaction. These laws were written into the bones of reality, and could never be subverted, broken, or disregarded.
The Warp was the opposite - the spirit realm twisted in revulsion at the mere suggestion that laws or cause and effect could constrain it. Within its boundless depths, there existed infinities of energy around every corner, and its currents flowed any way they wished, any and every direction at once, existing unbounded by any conception of shape or form or size. It was a realm of unfettered potential, and in its purest form was utterly uncontrollable.
In the spaces where either realm held sway, there was no ability to distort reality's rules - in the Materium, the cold grip of physics was absolute, and in the Warp's unfettered depths, there was nothing that could be grasped, for such an action was one of binding, and the true Sea of Souls could not be bound. It was only in those spaces where the two realms met, the principles of one overlapping the laws of the other, that there was room to manipulate and change things to one's liking - the Warp's boundless energies subverted the law of entropy without a moment's thought, and the Materium's laws bound the Warp to behave under a semblance of predictability. It was only in this interstice that the rules could be broken, for it was only here that they both existed and were loose enough to be brushed aside.
The Geomantic Web itself was built on the interaction of these fundamental principles. By tapping into the movement of worlds, it borrowed that energy and filtered it through a purified Warp, growing it enough that when it was fed back into the planet, there was a net surplus of energy that could be used to run the lizardmen's architecture, passive magical functions, and supply a universal pool of clean mana for their spellcasters to tap into. It was a complex, delicate balance that needed to be struck for it to function, but it was stable, and theoretically limitless if scaled up far enough.
This thought lay at the center of the slann's deliberations on the interaction of absolute void and conjured energy, something that had risen to dominate the Communion's talking circles in recent years. It was an unavoidable axiom that any alteration made to reality with the use of magical force added a certain amount of strain to the fabric of spacetime, one that would inevitably snap back to its original strength once the caster's mental fortitude was depleted, breaking the channel they had formed to the Warp and ending their spell. Every form and style of magic was subject to this, from the purist Wind-channeling of the skink priests to the rudimentary Qhyash the elves had been tutored in.
Even the more complex spellwork of the slann was not exempt - the mage-priests wove their spells with the greatest possible efficiency, measuring percentage points of individual conceptual effects, using the tendency of like attracting like to help their enchantments partially self-construct, and utilizing their multi-threaded minds to build arcane frameworks that were like fully realized cubes to the two-dimensional squares of conventional spellcasting. But for all their optimization, even they could not escape the fact that to warp reality was a constant effort, one that could not be cut short without submerging the world in the Immaterium.
The only things that had ever seemed to defy this principle were the runes of the dawi - something the Communion was uncertain of due to lack of direct contact with them, though speculation had arisen that perhaps this was to do with their role in the Plan - and the recently-unearthed void sanctum enchantments. Two immediately apparent functions of these had occurred to the slann immediately upon their discovery, and had been in heavy usage ever since. The first was the usage of a low-grade vacuum to draw a path from a slann to their target, allowing for maximal energy efficiency when using offensive or defensive spells. The second, of course, came from their much-treasured capacity, at higher degrees of complexity, to block out not just physical properties such as air and light and sound, but also the near-omnipresent hum of thought and motion and life given off by every living being.
Isolated thusly from the constant motion of the world, a slann could muster the mental concentration required to craft truly complex spells, but also simply to relieve their thoughts from the burden of keeping track of so many different aethyric and physical variables at all times. Some slann spent much of their time in meditation like this, floating freely in the absolute vacuum of their Star Chambers. And eventually, the thought occurred - if a void could be induced to block out stray spiritual energies, could a void with slightly different conceptual properties not form a stable barrier around a spell, protecting it from the universal imposition of entropy and thermodynamics that would otherwise snuff it out?
Such a hypothesis was raised many times, but garnered little attention until Zaadi-Qarno, a Third Generation slann who had devoted a considerable amount of attention towards the void sanctums after he had been able to banish his millennia-long headache using one, managed to manifest such a void for the first time. It was a small thing, containing no more than a hand-sized orb of flame, composed of Aqshy with little to dilute it. Such a spell would ordinarily snuff itself out in an instant once the user's concentration ceased, but Zaadi-Qarno was able to sustain the flame for seven months without a mote of concentration after his initial effort. His construct failed only due to minute flaws in its makeup that were noted years later, and he was able to showcase this innovation to many of his fellows before that, drawing a great deal of interest with how it was able to persist without the outside imposition of energy or entropy.
Though the Communion's time was greatly taxed with the effort of removing the Orks, Zaadi-Qarno was nonetheless able to persuade five of his fellow elders to investigate this matter further. They conducted a great deal of studies and experiments, tweaking and changing the composition of the void spell in an effort to achieve a long-standing version of the initial discovery.
They experimented with the ability of the voids to withstand spells of different variants and strengths - scaling up from shards of conjured ice and orbs of fire to whirling vortexes of air and self-feeding loops of lightning the size of buildings. They constructed systems of timed transmutation spells, allowing an ordinary stone to be transformed every day into a gemstone that resonated with a different spectrum of magical energies - the arcane structure of each spell was fundamentally different, but the energy powering them was recycled from one to the next without any loss. Every field of magic had something to gain from this phenomenon, for it allowed for orders of magnitude more complexity in a spell.
It was quickly found over the course of these trials that the relative energy investment required to craft such a void actually scaled down the bigger the intended barrier was. While the absolute amount of power needed did of course increase with size, the amount of internal and external variables for the spell to account for remained constant whether the conjured void was the size of a fruit or a Stegadon. Thus, with larger voids it was possible to use less concentration when weaving the spell, saving effort by allowing the arcane structure to pull itself into place. This allowed larger barriers to remain stable without outside input for longer, where smaller voids would deteriorate quickly if they were not maintained. More complex spells would thus be best conjured in larger voids, save for if the caster was of exceptional strength of mind and was able to hold multitudes of details in place with naught but their will. As the spell used to conjure even the simplest of voids was too complex for any but the slann to comprehend, this was the provenance of the elder generations of mage-priests, whose minds had only grown sharper over the endless centuries.
The potential applications of the voids were manifold, and Zaadi-Qarno and his brethren had scarcely scratched the surface by the time they presented their research to the wider Communion. Objects imbued with magic previously judged impractically complex, shortcuts to avenues of research that had already been mapped out, and more - the minds of the slann churned with thoughts of intersecting spells within stone and machinery, self-propelling chains of enchantment, and devices of potency not seen since the days when the First Spawning had walked the earth.
Void-Exchanged Interlocking Spell Theory is a field of magic centered around the use of magical barriers that block out certain physical laws that impose energetic limitations on spells. When a spell is conjured and placed within such a void, the energy sustaining it remains in place, instead of being pressed back into the Warp as per usual. This allows for spells to remain active for significant lengths of time without the concentration and energy expenditure it would otherwise take to sustain the caster's connection to the Warp. The ways in which this principle can be applied to overhaul the lizardmen's use of magic on a wide scale are too many to be counted. Multiple research projects have been unlocked, and discounts will be applied to appropriate projects. Additionally, the slann are now yet more potent in battle and labor, due to the ability to call up more complex and deadly spells with greater ease. Slann Construction threadmark has been updated accordingly.
Teach Geomantic Rituals (Mazdamundi teaches everyone)
The discipline of geomancy was a multifaceted one, something that many had tapped parts of, yet few who comprehended the whole. The slann had observed many magical traditions that were derivative of geomancy on the world of Mallus. The various simplified lores of Wind-magic the elves had inherited incorporated many spells that manipulated the earth, with effects ranging from tearing open crevices and pits in the ground to dragging the unwary to a sub-realm of the Warp. The divine lore of the subverted dwarfs residing in the Dark Lands centered itself around the conjuring of volcanic effects, including localized eruptions of lava tinged with Aqshy and malice. The runes of the correct dwarfs called upon conceptual properties of the earth and stone, and their most potent examples could split the earth with chasms.
All of them were but pale shadows of true geomancy. The closest imitation that any mortal being had managed to craft had been the spells laid upon shattered Nagarythe during the Sundering of Ulthuan. The spells keeping the Black Arks aloft were sunk into their bedrock, running through their foundations like sewage pipes, and they were arranged in similar layouts to true leylines and calibrated to their geometry. They fell short not because of a lack of skill or ingenuity, but a failing in the viewpoint behind their creation. Geomancy was not the practice of manipulating the earth via the use of magic, or using the mystic energies running through it to power one's spells. The discipline of worldshaping was made distinct by its ability to impel the earth itself to carry out one's objective - not merely shaping the desired effect into reality, but having the world shape itself in accordance with one's will.
To convey the essence of such a principle was something that would take the most deft of minds years to fully grasp intellectually, even the multithreaded intelligences of the slann. Mazdamundi himself had been instructed in such a way, running reams of variables and permutations and intricacies of theory through his mind for decades until he had mastered every aspect of the lessons Lord Kroak had given him. Such individualized training, however, would take over a century to pass even the rudimentary basics onto the whole of the Communion - time that was in short supply. What Mazdamundi required was a method to quickly impart geomantic competency and convey the necessary applications of its many esoteric principles.
It was not long before more than eighty members of the Communion received a telepathic call from the elder slann, and ventured within his Star Chamber in astral form, entering through an easily unsealable 'doorway' he had temporarily made in its wards. Once inside, they found themselves within a fully realized sub-realm, a pocket dimension no more than the size of a city that Mazdamundi had carved out of the Warp and conjoined to the interior of his temple's mystic scaffolding. Clouds of Warp energy swirled about within, their currents tame and predictable compared to the real Sea of Souls but still moving according to familiar principles.
Mazdamundi's spirit shone like a blazing sun at the center of this realm, and his words carried the weight of mountains. "UNLEASH YOUR FULL STRENGTH ON ME," he instructed. "I WILL CONTEND WITHOUT SHAPING A SPELL OF MY OWN."
Knowing well for themselves the immense potency of their elder, the gathered slann wasted no time in obeying. Using the sole member of the Third Generation among them as a channel for their power, the slann grasped great swathes of magical energy and imbued them with destructive concepts. Each slann provided a piece of the grand equation, inputting fire and cold and vibrational force and more to craft a thing of pure, intermingled entropy and extropy, leashed with inbuilt laws of attraction and binding to Mazdamundi's astral form. It was a million knives of burning ice, conjoined into a blade of infinite length that cut whatever saw it. It writhed like a dragon in flight, twisting back upon and underneath and through itself without ever once touching its own length, and it cut through the intervening distance between Mazdamundi and themselves without regard for spatial boundaries.
Mazdamundi did not attempt to evade, deflect, or counterspell the construct of his juniors. He remained motionless, and did not even direct his awareness towards the incoming attack. When the infinite burning blade of ice cut into his position, it simply missed, slicing a small distance to his side, though it had not been interfered with at all. It struck again, the slann directing it to cut the pseudo-real dimension in every possible spatial and spiritual coordinate Mazdamundi could relocate himself to. Thickets of entropic razors flashed out, flensing reality with meticulous, mechanical thoroughness.
Mazdamundi again made no visible effort to change his position or intercept the incoming attacks. He simply remained where he was, at the absolute center of things, and allowed every one of his junior's attacks to pass him by without so much as touching him. Determined now, the other slann crafted more spells, a dizzying variety of effects spawning from the depths of their minds. Living shadows and whirling gases and streamers of light were unleashed upon the elder mage, shaped to perfection and guided with shaped fields of void and woven upon one another with perfect synchronicity. Enough force was conjured to level a city within a subjective instant, and none of it touched Mazdamundi. It was only once the pocket realm was fully saturated with magical energy that their elder's means of evasion became clear, and by then it was too late.
True to his word, Mazdamundi had not cast a spell or created an independent enchantment. Instead his awareness had been sunk into the underlying architecture of the pocket-realm itself, allowing him to impel it to move itself around the incoming attacks of his juniors. Each unleashed enchantment had been subtly redirected into another, linking them together in a slowly building chain. He had built a magical construct of his own using naught but the energies of their own spells, and its activation came too quick to evade. Immoveable bindings wove themselves around each slann, each link of their chains crafted of Immaterial concepts that mirrored a different physical law. They cinched tightly, cutting off any ability to draw on further magic, leaving them floating helplessly in the void.
Mazdamundi's shining form hovered in front of them. "You bested yourselves," he rumbled. "Do you grasp how?"
The slann floated in captivity for a time, communing among themselves. Then, in lieu of answering with words, they grasped the edges of the pocket dimension, pushing and spiralling with mental force until the world spun around them and unbound their chains. They stood before their elder, wearied by the effort, and felt his benediction like the sun across their skin. "Yes," Mazdamundi croaked. "It is not you that moves. It is the horizon that comes to you. Now, again. This trial will end when you land a single blow."
Mazdamundi repeated this feat with four other batches of slann, wrestling his juniors in spiritual combat for the entirety of the decade, until his proto-realm was tattered and torn and his soul shone dimly from the prolonged exertion. As effortless as he made it seem, employing geomantic principles to such an extent was measurably tiring - but it was worth it. The discipline's framework had been passed to the Communion, enough to make use of it. Further refinement could be carried out at a more sedate pace, through debate and lecture rather than tumultuous combat.
Sinking back into his body with a weary sigh, Mazdamundi contemplated that perhaps this was why his own elders had instructed him in the manner they had, despite his repeated requests for such a trial. It would require some time before his bones and brain and nervous system would cease complaining.
The Sublime Communion has (re)learned the subtle, yet devastating art of Geomancy! Overall slann combat power has increased, and any slann may now participate in a Geomantic Ritual.
Consult the Relic Priests (Xenos) (10 Third Spawning slann, 75 Fifth Spawning slann)
It had been seven decades since the spirits of the Relic Priests were last queried. The thoughts of the slann were never far from their deceased brethren, and many made periodic forays into the vaults in which they were kept, sitting in meditation with the corpses of their kin as a form of remembrance. Those who did could not say that they heard any words or whispers from the desiccated priests in their tombs, for the catacombs were oppressively silent and the air hung as still as preserved amber.
The liminal state of the Tomb Collective was not well understood by most, and the slann that had seen them most clearly was now light-years away. However, their communication was something that every one of the Sublime Communion had experienced at some point in their long lives, never to forget. Where slann spoke aloud, things began - magic fountained forth from rubbery lips, shaped by their syllables into errant configurations of symmetry and structure. Spells that skink priests would struggle to form on their own were created as a mere aftereffect of their speech. A mere conversation between slann could resemble a full-fledged duel between lesser wizards.
The missives of the dead slann were not nearly as pronounced, requiring absolute silence and stillness to even be perceived. The words of the Relic Priests were absences, depressions of negative sound and light that made themselves known only by the absence of input. If heard amidst the tumult and froth of ordinary life, they could be mistaken merely for a hiccup in the flow of a breeze, a missed beat of a hummingbird's wings. It was only when they were received in the presence of true stillness, in the catacombs beneath every temple-city where the dust of ages silently stirred, that they could be truly heard. The Tomb Collective resided beyond the veil of mortality, floating in the liminal space between life and death. Their words were extrusions of this veil, encoded with meaning snatched from both future and past.
Eighty-five living slann ventured into the halls of their dead to hear these formless whispers, for there were questions the Sublime Communion had that only their mummified forebears could answer. They were borne on palanquins held aloft by the most trusted of their Temple Guard, descending dust-dappled steps in deep concentration. They entered the crypts in Itza, in Xlanhuapec, Hexoatl, cities where the catacombs had sat for millennia. Those in the newly-established cities on the frontier - Illuxoni, Muukhexla, Tenqu'itzcal - found nigh-identical patterns of dust and time as they went into the tombs. The relevance of objective time and space became more akin to suggestions in places like this, where the unblinking gaze of dead slann had bored holes through the laws of geometry and causality.
In a cloistered tomb that was not present on any existing map of the temple-cities, the various slann converged, entering the room from various tunnels in the stone that had not been there moments before. Even spaced out and with substantial retinues to each of them - saurus to guard their bodies, skinks to transcribe every word spoken, kroxigors to lift and carry their seats - the slann were dwarfed by the tomb they found themselves in, which was big enough to house an army.
Its ceiling rose far above their heads, the space lit intermittently by dim, dusty beams of light shining down from indeterminable sources. Set into the cave-like walls were hundreds of cavernous recesses, extending around the room like the nesting pods of some gargantuan insect. Many, even most, of these were empty, but as the slann ventured further down the gallery, more and more of them were occupied by Relic Priests. The mummified slann were wrapped in amber-soaked fabric and covered with stone charms, hanging beads of jade and jet and amethyst, and each bore a death mask of intermingled stone and metal, engraved with intricate symbols around the eyes and mouth. The air grew heavy with their gaze, and there seemed to be more of them every time one looked.
At the end of the tomb was an especially large shrine, a miniature pyramid cluttered with offerings of withered fruits and stone tablets interspersed with obsinite candles that produced oddly-colored, unwavering flames. At its peak sat a Relic Priest with a mantle of psychic energy so thick around it that the living lizardmen could practically taste its spirit amidst the chalk and bone in the air. A plaque at the base of the altar proclaimed that this was the resting place of the ancient First Generation slann Xhillipepa, who had perished in the Great Catastrophe by way of magical burnout while defending the city of Spektazuma. His dying spell had single handedly incinerated a legion of flaming Tzeentchian horrors and several dozen Lords of Change, creating a kilometers-wide streak of glass outside the city that remained for centuries after.
The attendants of the living slann set up contraptions of burning incense that smelled of cinnamon and Lustrian lilies before the shrines of Xhillipepa and a number of young slann who had been known to be his close associates before their own deaths. The sweet, cloying smoke drifted up and over the gleaming death masks of the Relic Priests, filtering into the holes of their eyes in slow trickles. As the smoke bloomed, the skink emissary of each living slann in turn stepped forth and uttered a message prepared years before, phrases that were somewhere between supplication and invocation.
Each sentence was spoken in a steady, rhythmic cadence, rising and falling in patterns similar to those found in the Tablets of the Old Ones. Each was punctuated by the clunk of that particular slann's temple guard pounding the butts of their spears against the floor. As the official message was conveyed, a deep, guttural hum rose from the gullets of those kroxigors that bore the immense weight of the slann upon their palanquins, subvocal tones of greeting that tied the vocalizations of the other lizardmen together with a smooth undercurrent of sound. Only the slann remained silent, their eyes locked unblinkingly at the empty sockets of their deceased kindred.
It is the same as with us
Great Xhillipepa, Speaker of Burning Words... The answer is written within their bloodThey were made like us Aged Nanahua…
Chotec's Blazing Eye… They were set adrift with only purpose
They were to complete themselves Mighty Priest Xlal…
Scourge of Star's Blood… They were born from defeatThey were forged for war
We, your remnants, call upon thee.
They were made in endless resignation
A sort of pressure began to mount in the tomb as the ceremony went on. The air thickened and strained, as though pressing in on the skull, and the smoke of the incense began to move in sync with the slow intonations of the living. Light levels fluctuated, growing brighter and then darker with no discernable pattern. The living slann kept their gazes locked on the empty eye sockets of their mummified siblings, but there was something looking back now, matching the invisible force of the mage-priest's sight with steely force. The rhythm of the skink messengers subtly sped up, their scales prickling with unease as they witnessed the strange happenings.We, your remnants, call upon thee.
They were made in endless resignation
It is closer than you know
In life, you purged Xlanax legions from the weave of material space…You sought the origin of the green tide
...removed the incubation-hives of the Chaq'Kaizec from the caverns beneath Oxyl…
And when you saw the secrets therein
...removed the incubation-hives of the Chaq'Kaizec from the caverns beneath Oxyl…
And when you saw the secrets therein
...removed the last Uax spore from the Turtle Isles…
You found the soul of the Uax
Your knowledge of those outside the Plan was carried into death.
Your knowledge of those outside the Plan was carried into death.
The dimensions of the room began to change, shrinking subtly every time the lizardmen looked away. Little by little, the walls drew closer, the air grew stuffier, and the words of the lizardmen echoed louder off the stone walls of the crypts. Every time a skink scribe nervously glanced at the far end of the tomb, it was just a little bit closer than before.
What will be known was learned
We seek knowledge of those outside us.What has been learned will be known
The archives of memory are trapped behind the veil of death.What has not been seen cannot be forgotten
We ask you to stir yourselves, and show us what has been learned in our past.Eyes opened in death cannot be closed
The flames in Xhillipepa's shrine dimmed. The kroxigors ceased their humming. The Temple Guard held their weapons still, and the skinks stopped speaking, looking to their mage-priest masters as the tension mounted. An unnatural silence descended upon the room, and the air grew so taut it was like to snap asunder. The slann looked to their dead brethren, each pair of blazing eyes matched with a set of empty sockets, and a voice rose from within their midst. It could have been any or all of them, but it burst forth with the power that only the living could muster, filling the room with vibrant coils of magic.We will answer your call
Awaken, elders. We have much to know, and time grows short.
Show us the things that are found beyond death.
Show us the things that are found beyond death.
We hear your plea
The smoke coming from the incense burners suddenly thickened, blooming rapidly like a growing flower. It swallowed the air in a sudden tide, enveloping the room and all within it, seeping into their eyes and ears and showing strange visions where it crept. The slann could feel it, the memories of their deceased kin encoded in physical form. It crept through their nerves and into their brains, and they remembered as the Relic Priests did.Battles, hundreds of battles, a campaign spanning vast sums of time. The Plan had decreed the removal of the greenskins from their world, and the lizardmen moved to comply with the utmost apex of their might. Ancient cities mustered their legions - Itza, Zlatlan, Kadath, and more. The work of sculpting the biospheres of the east was going smoothly enough that forces from that sector could be spared.
Fire and storm pushed the green tide back, and the lizardmen learned more of their foe. The Uax body was a spongy, fungal mass, with organs both protected and intertwined with mycelial fibres. The density and toughness of these networks increased as the greenskins aged and grew, reinforcing their bodies and providing them with greater strength. The fungus was their muscle, their nervous system and their circulatory system all at once. The blood that oozed through their thick limbs was more sap than fluid, the same rich, viscous red as their eyes.
With time, it became evident that the moving, fighting greenskins could not be compared to true fungus so much as its fruiting bodies. They shed spores everywhere they went, their every action producing more within their flesh. Each of the creatures was a walking bomb of dormant spores, dusting their surroundings with the excess, and nothing set off those inside them save severe injury, or better yet, death. When an ork or goblin died, the spores in its flesh awoke, using the bounty of its mangled flesh as a nutritive buffet to kickstart their growth, to expand their network.
The spores were everywhere, comprising an entire ecosystem of its own kind. Wherever the Uax walked, this fungal network followed, establishing a foothold and outcompeting its surroundings until it had swallowed the local biosphere in a forest of mold and fleshy mushrooms. The squig warbeasts, their snotling herders, even the orks and goblins themselves were merely mobile extrusions of this great hungering mass, this network of hyphae and spores that sent its ambulatory limbs to fight and die and spread it yet further. The psychic network of the greenskins was stored here, lusting for battle and death, and it was for this reason that the lizardmen named it after the flooding rains.
It was then that a potent mental presence pressed in on the minds of the slann, stirring from the barely-visible corpse of Xhillipepa on his shrine. The ancient mind of the First Generation entered into their own, and they saw other memories, ones from further back in time - some from Xhillipepa's own life and others that had no equivalent in any experience the living slann had ever had.
Golden tablets, hundreds of them laid in sequence, each bearing the unmistakable marks of the Old Ones. Thousands upon thousands of hours flashed by, the accumulated study of lifetimes pressing into the mind in moments.
The war was lost and the cosmos was broken. Those from beyond slipped through cracks in space and the doors in their minds, more every day. They would not survive.
Sequences of essence and form appeared, mystic diagrams of lizardmen and orks. The hidden strands of matter that made up flesh twined through both, carving channels that the spirit seeped through. Charts were overlaid, cross-compared, analyzed in the smallest of margins. Certainty appeared with grim slowness.
They had acted in error. The Sea was turbulent and the stars were hateful. Those they had guided would be insufficient to quell either. The only recourse was annihilation.
Patterns were foundational to existence. Nothing existed apart from them, not even the Old Ones, and they left their mark on the things they had made. Invisible to all but those skilled in the secrets of shaping, their signatures were written plainly upon the bodies and souls of their projects and servants.
They gave their hope to oblivion
And also, inescapably clearly, upon those of the Green Tide.
And made of it a weapon.
…
…
…
The vision ended with abrupt swiftness, the room restored to its original dimensions. Light filtered down from above upon the empty tombs, littered with shrines to absent Relic Priests. Ahead, the exit beckoned, a set of wide stone doors with sunlight leaking through the middle.…
…
…
The slann exited in silence, carried by their servants, who uttered not a word. They did not know what their masters had witnessed, but all could feel the weight of the Communion's thoughts, which bubbled and churned like viscous, black tar.
The slann had much to consider.
-----
Structure of the orkoid organism revealed - they are the visible, mobile extrusions of a supermassive network of fungus that acts as a self-contained ecosystem and repository of psychic energy. They are its fruiting bodies, ambulatory pods of spores that shower the ground with them when they die. If they are not cleansed, their mycelial tendrils will grow so deep they are near-guaranteed to return even after total annihilation. Their bodies only grow more reinforced by their fungal symbiote as they grow and age, rendering them stronger, tougher, and quicker, even in proportion to their increased size. All this information has increased lizardmen efficiency at destroying them.
The Relic Priests revealed something else, however, information plucked from beyond the veil of mortality. The greenskins were made by the Old Ones. Perhaps not the ten whose names you know and revere, but the marks are irrefutable, the intricacy of their design unmistakable. It was your creators who made this ever-growing weapon of genocide, and yet it was by their decree that you were to sweep them from the world of Mallus. Their motives for doing so are unknowable, and yet the fact cannot be ignored.
The greenskins are your kindred, made for a singular purpose, just as you were.
The Sublime Communion's thoughts on this revelation are … uncertain.
Their resolution to exterminate the orks has remained unchanged.
Xlanax - Daemons
Chaq'Kaizec - A communal insectoid species the lizardmen exterminated during the early days of terraforming Mallus. Had nests all over the world, and a propensity for burrowing. Many different castes.
Uax - Lizardmen word used to refer to greenskins. Literally means 'cold rain' or 'flood'.
Chaq'Kaizec - A communal insectoid species the lizardmen exterminated during the early days of terraforming Mallus. Had nests all over the world, and a propensity for burrowing. Many different castes.
Uax - Lizardmen word used to refer to greenskins. Literally means 'cold rain' or 'flood'.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Location
- United States, CA
"If we can't have the Galaxy, no one can! Up yours, Necrons!"
Szerakh: "Sorry I couldn't hear you over the sound of me genociding your entire species, could you speak up?"
jwolfe_beta
Semi Genre-Savvy Overlord
- Location
- Canada
To be fair, the C'Tan were the biggest powerhouse on that side of the war. The Necrons were 'just' really hard to kill soldiers.
Also invistext galore:
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A fair point of view to take.
Though, it brings up the question of whether the Orks were, in fact, a "reset button" meant to kill off the People of the galaxy and leave only the select Monsters of the Old Ones who would not stir the Warp in the way needed to cause more Chaos Gods to form/awaken.
thePUNisher
Unbothered. Moisturized. Happy. In My Lane
- Location
- Brazil
Some Xeno: Well, I like you..." *Points at Ork* "But I'm kinda scared of that guy,"
Lizardmen: We don't even know that guy.
Orks: Look at me brother.
- Location
- Swansea
Delishous! Knowledge!
Xantalos
Turtle-Speed Writing
You don't quite know if the chaos gods existed way back when, but judging from what the Relic Priests were able to pull from deep time, there sure was something from the Warp that was assailing the Old Ones during a terrible war of some sort. Something that drove them past desperation.
Pretty sure you missed one towards the end. I played around a lot with the text orientation in this update and the forum may have bitten back.
One other thing I'll note is that you can read the invisitext in reverse order (bottom to top) and it should still make sense as a message. Relic Priests occasionally perceive things in backwards time.