- Location
- Somewhere
[X] A set of notes and a disassembled puppet of ivory and wood reclaimed from an abandoned workshop after its owner passed away with no next of kin. (Gift for Li Suyin, Unlocks Creation Boosting personal action)
Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
[X] A set of notes and a disassembled puppet of ivory and wood reclaimed from an abandoned workshop after its owner passed away with no next of kin. (Gift for Li Suyin, Unlocks Creation Boosting personal action)
[X] A set of recordings made recently in Xiangmen itself, you don't know the name of the rising star touted, but perhaps someone more embedded in the 'scene' would? (Gift for Bao Qian. Unlocks Expression boosting personal action.
[X] A set of recordings made recently in Xiangmen itself, you don't know the name of the rising star touted, but perhaps someone more embedded in the 'scene' would? (Gift for Bao Qian. Unlocks Expression boosting personal action.
- Location
- Earth
[X] A beautifully illuminated book written and illustrated by an artist who had risen from the rootways and become an Elder of the Blue Mountain Sect (Gift for Xuan Shi Unlocks Isolation Boosting Personal action)
I've been convinced; as much as I love Li Suyin I want to get turtle boy into the dilpo corps more.
I've been convinced; as much as I love Li Suyin I want to get turtle boy into the dilpo corps more.
- Little Workshop of Wonders: You've drifted apart from Suyin a little and your time at the Sect is coming to a close. Spend some time with one of your oldest friends, and look on what she has achieved. The Elixir recipe you discovered is a good place to begin the conversation. {+1 XP to Mystery and Want Projects. Characters Li Suyin, Bao Qingling)
@yrsillar , could you answer if the new Personal Action will replace the old one? Or will they merge and boost Mystery, Want and Creation? Or both of them will be available?
I think knowing that is important for this vote.
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Sacred Flames
It is known that the world is a war between darkness and light. That the Great Father, in the time before time, did raise this isle of light from the infinite darkness, and on it he did war with his sibling, mirrored in the void. From that war were born the race of men, and the great ring, the world of the material, which stands in the twilight between. Evil men breed darkness and bring our world closer to dissolution. Virtuous men bolster the work of our Father, and draw the Ring just a little further into the Light. King or farmer, a man's goodness, his adherence to right action supports the Father's eternal battle.
In those days millennia ago, many wondered if the vices of men had finally brought the Great One to his knees.
For when the sun turns black, and the wind howls with the grief of a million tormented souls, it is easy to imagine the void is coming. When the clans and tribes of the plains across the sea begin to stream across the great divide, on ships, on rafts, clinging to spars of driftwood, and all of them whisper of a terrible all consuming darkness in the west. A plague that devours men from the inside out and makes of them nightmare dolls of flesh and malice, who would not begin to believe the world was ending?
When they swarmed across the floor of the sea, and even the folk of the deep waters had to flee to our coasts, and beg the mercy of sacred fires, the god of the city rose from her idol to defend them, and was devoured in turn, made another puppet of malice. The people quailed in terror. When the king of kings arrived with the great black bladed, iron skinned legion and charged in his sky chariot of gold, there was hope. When he swung the Severer, a sword forged of one of the three drops of blood spilled by the Great One and used by his first child to permanently cleave heaven from earth, and was still forced into retreat by inches, the people knew despair.
But the end came. It came first as a deadly silence, and then the air began to tear away toward the west, where a sun bloomed on the earth. The sacred fires roared and raged, devouring their braziers and scorching the shadows of malice from the sky. And then came the blast and ruin. The sky became fire, the sea drew back as if it were a pulled blanket. The winds scoured the towers and the walls, and the thundering return of the sea scoured the rest.
Only those who stood in the temple of the Great One lived, protected by its priest, who had given his flesh unto the Great One in order to project his light. All across the coast did this repeat, the priests of the temples protecting those who had fled to pray upon the temple steps, the resplendent light of the One driving back the earth shattering heat and force to keep the land unruined.
That was millennia ago, and the world had moved on. But wounds leave scars.
"Jahan, Jahan! I swear by the light if you let them take me you will be the first one I come for!" yelled a young man from his place atop the clay brick walls of the settlement. The spear in his hands bobbed and darted, its barbed iron tip punched through the fleshless jaws of a looming skull, and its haft spun, smashing boney, ash covered knuckles and sending more of the ashen demons crumbling into the swirling mass nightmare that swarmed against the brickwork, so many packed together that they seemed almost a liquid, the sea crashing against the shore. Here so many of the shadow men together made even the burning heat of the mid day cold.
The tiny fort he stood in was situated only a few kilometers from the shore. It's only connection to the outside world a beaten dirt path to the military docks of Sari. The three meter high walls surrounded a single narrow three story tower.
The young man grimaced, cold sweat coursing down his brow from beneath his leather cap, a skeletal hand grasped his ankle and his spear swept it aside, he drew deep from the well of spirit, and wrought a dervish wind in the wake of his spear, kicking down the shadow men who had begun to mount it. "Jahan!-" he roared.
The wall shook, and a crescent bladed axe more akin to a plowblade than a man's weapon swept the battlements, ripping through bone and ash and leathery flesh.
"Too loud Kir," said the giant, shoulders rippling with muscle against the armor of quilted cloth stretched across his chest. He stood with a natural hunch, a wide fin of hardened gray flesh standing from his back. Solid black eyes squinted down from him past the moistened wrap of his headscarf, which concealed a mouth full of tearing triangular teeth.
Kir squinted back at his brother in arms scowling through his beard. "I am too loud! You are too slow! Does it take so long to alert the holy one?"
The axe head fell, and a lost soul wailed as its vessel was reduced to dust. "Some underneath."
Kir grimaced, and he drew his spear up in a defensive stance as a shadow man, faster than the other leapt up on the backs of its kin and reached him, it's own foreign blade a dazzling web of steel. He fought it back with a whirling wind and iron haft, at last striking with his boot under its sternum and launching a gust that saw the thing plowed back into the sand a hundred meters away.
The shadow men were getting smarter. If this continued…
He felt the clay under his boots rumble. In the already bright desert sun, light welled up, incandescent beneath the bricks. The tower shone from within, the great sun stone at its peak shining with the Great One's light.
And the dead and the wicked did quail from His light, and fled into the sands.
Although, Kir thought, watching their backs with gimlet eye, his spear still at the ready. Perhaps retreat was the better word. It was not like the first waves, where many died still clawing at the glowing walls or fled in utter disorder like panicked cattle. He could see lines in their mass, and if what Jahan said was true, their chaotic clawing at the walls, had only been a distraction.
"The shadow men are different here," Jahan said, crossing massive arms over his chest. If this was the beginning they would have pursued the fleeing remnants.
They had learned not to. Casualties meant nothing to the shadow men of the Burning Waste. Not here, not on their own shores.
"I do not like it, some who are turned, they retain cunning and skill, but their minds are still animal," Kir said. "Sapping is not complex, but all the same…"
"This is a bad idea," Jahan said, in his slow and patient way. "The Wastes are a land of devils. They belong to the Dark One."
"Marching into the void itself to stake a claim," Kir said quietly. They were all, each and every one of them soldiers of the One, the Great Father. But you could not fight the Dark with spear and arrow and armies. And this felt too much like that.
But the newly crowned King of King's was ambitious. All the cities and lands had fallen under his banners, all lesser kings kneeled at his throne, and the lands of Sarasid teemed with wealth and men. Even the lands which had once been frontiers on the southern continent had been pushed to the very edge on which men could live, where earth turned to ice and the night seemed eternal. But now there was no more to give. In the north they traded with the Jeweled Court ships of the crab-men, who guarded the outer islands of their home jealously. The King did not wish to break that uneasy peace while his navy was so small.
The Burning Waste was the only land left unowned by the hands of men.
And so they came, to tame and cleanse and settle. To parcel lands of grand sizes as gifts for loyal kings.
But Kir and Jahan, they were beneath such games, beneath the eyes of kings. Mere soldiers ordered to take command of the first fortresses laid upon the steps of hell.
"If you came for me, I'd beat you," Jahan said, idly, watching the dust vanish into the horizon.
"You'd not see me coming," Kir scoffed. "You great oaf."
"Your spear would bounce off, with those little chicken wings you call arms," Jahan said wisely.
Kir simply rolled his eyes, and breathed out a gust of wind, causing a damp part of his friends scarf up to slap against his eyes. "The tunnel is dealt with?"
The large man sputtered and grumbled, swiping his eyes clear. "What took so long. Had to close the earth slow, to not break the fort."
Kir gave an acknowledging grunt. "Did you see the one in the back? The one with the crimson plumes on its helm?"
"Just watching," his friend agreed.
"I don't like it," Kir said softly. "I wish his lordship would listen."
"Even with his holiness we are too few here, too thin. We grasp too quickly," Jahan agreed.
And the two stood in silence, watching the shifting of the wastes. Beneath the eyes of gods and kings, there were only soldiers and few enough cared for their tales.
In those days millennia ago, many wondered if the vices of men had finally brought the Great One to his knees.
For when the sun turns black, and the wind howls with the grief of a million tormented souls, it is easy to imagine the void is coming. When the clans and tribes of the plains across the sea begin to stream across the great divide, on ships, on rafts, clinging to spars of driftwood, and all of them whisper of a terrible all consuming darkness in the west. A plague that devours men from the inside out and makes of them nightmare dolls of flesh and malice, who would not begin to believe the world was ending?
When they swarmed across the floor of the sea, and even the folk of the deep waters had to flee to our coasts, and beg the mercy of sacred fires, the god of the city rose from her idol to defend them, and was devoured in turn, made another puppet of malice. The people quailed in terror. When the king of kings arrived with the great black bladed, iron skinned legion and charged in his sky chariot of gold, there was hope. When he swung the Severer, a sword forged of one of the three drops of blood spilled by the Great One and used by his first child to permanently cleave heaven from earth, and was still forced into retreat by inches, the people knew despair.
But the end came. It came first as a deadly silence, and then the air began to tear away toward the west, where a sun bloomed on the earth. The sacred fires roared and raged, devouring their braziers and scorching the shadows of malice from the sky. And then came the blast and ruin. The sky became fire, the sea drew back as if it were a pulled blanket. The winds scoured the towers and the walls, and the thundering return of the sea scoured the rest.
Only those who stood in the temple of the Great One lived, protected by its priest, who had given his flesh unto the Great One in order to project his light. All across the coast did this repeat, the priests of the temples protecting those who had fled to pray upon the temple steps, the resplendent light of the One driving back the earth shattering heat and force to keep the land unruined.
That was millennia ago, and the world had moved on. But wounds leave scars.
"Jahan, Jahan! I swear by the light if you let them take me you will be the first one I come for!" yelled a young man from his place atop the clay brick walls of the settlement. The spear in his hands bobbed and darted, its barbed iron tip punched through the fleshless jaws of a looming skull, and its haft spun, smashing boney, ash covered knuckles and sending more of the ashen demons crumbling into the swirling mass nightmare that swarmed against the brickwork, so many packed together that they seemed almost a liquid, the sea crashing against the shore. Here so many of the shadow men together made even the burning heat of the mid day cold.
The tiny fort he stood in was situated only a few kilometers from the shore. It's only connection to the outside world a beaten dirt path to the military docks of Sari. The three meter high walls surrounded a single narrow three story tower.
The young man grimaced, cold sweat coursing down his brow from beneath his leather cap, a skeletal hand grasped his ankle and his spear swept it aside, he drew deep from the well of spirit, and wrought a dervish wind in the wake of his spear, kicking down the shadow men who had begun to mount it. "Jahan!-" he roared.
The wall shook, and a crescent bladed axe more akin to a plowblade than a man's weapon swept the battlements, ripping through bone and ash and leathery flesh.
"Too loud Kir," said the giant, shoulders rippling with muscle against the armor of quilted cloth stretched across his chest. He stood with a natural hunch, a wide fin of hardened gray flesh standing from his back. Solid black eyes squinted down from him past the moistened wrap of his headscarf, which concealed a mouth full of tearing triangular teeth.
Kir squinted back at his brother in arms scowling through his beard. "I am too loud! You are too slow! Does it take so long to alert the holy one?"
The axe head fell, and a lost soul wailed as its vessel was reduced to dust. "Some underneath."
Kir grimaced, and he drew his spear up in a defensive stance as a shadow man, faster than the other leapt up on the backs of its kin and reached him, it's own foreign blade a dazzling web of steel. He fought it back with a whirling wind and iron haft, at last striking with his boot under its sternum and launching a gust that saw the thing plowed back into the sand a hundred meters away.
The shadow men were getting smarter. If this continued…
He felt the clay under his boots rumble. In the already bright desert sun, light welled up, incandescent beneath the bricks. The tower shone from within, the great sun stone at its peak shining with the Great One's light.
And the dead and the wicked did quail from His light, and fled into the sands.
Although, Kir thought, watching their backs with gimlet eye, his spear still at the ready. Perhaps retreat was the better word. It was not like the first waves, where many died still clawing at the glowing walls or fled in utter disorder like panicked cattle. He could see lines in their mass, and if what Jahan said was true, their chaotic clawing at the walls, had only been a distraction.
"The shadow men are different here," Jahan said, crossing massive arms over his chest. If this was the beginning they would have pursued the fleeing remnants.
They had learned not to. Casualties meant nothing to the shadow men of the Burning Waste. Not here, not on their own shores.
"I do not like it, some who are turned, they retain cunning and skill, but their minds are still animal," Kir said. "Sapping is not complex, but all the same…"
"This is a bad idea," Jahan said, in his slow and patient way. "The Wastes are a land of devils. They belong to the Dark One."
"Marching into the void itself to stake a claim," Kir said quietly. They were all, each and every one of them soldiers of the One, the Great Father. But you could not fight the Dark with spear and arrow and armies. And this felt too much like that.
But the newly crowned King of King's was ambitious. All the cities and lands had fallen under his banners, all lesser kings kneeled at his throne, and the lands of Sarasid teemed with wealth and men. Even the lands which had once been frontiers on the southern continent had been pushed to the very edge on which men could live, where earth turned to ice and the night seemed eternal. But now there was no more to give. In the north they traded with the Jeweled Court ships of the crab-men, who guarded the outer islands of their home jealously. The King did not wish to break that uneasy peace while his navy was so small.
The Burning Waste was the only land left unowned by the hands of men.
And so they came, to tame and cleanse and settle. To parcel lands of grand sizes as gifts for loyal kings.
But Kir and Jahan, they were beneath such games, beneath the eyes of kings. Mere soldiers ordered to take command of the first fortresses laid upon the steps of hell.
"If you came for me, I'd beat you," Jahan said, idly, watching the dust vanish into the horizon.
"You'd not see me coming," Kir scoffed. "You great oaf."
"Your spear would bounce off, with those little chicken wings you call arms," Jahan said wisely.
Kir simply rolled his eyes, and breathed out a gust of wind, causing a damp part of his friends scarf up to slap against his eyes. "The tunnel is dealt with?"
The large man sputtered and grumbled, swiping his eyes clear. "What took so long. Had to close the earth slow, to not break the fort."
Kir gave an acknowledging grunt. "Did you see the one in the back? The one with the crimson plumes on its helm?"
"Just watching," his friend agreed.
"I don't like it," Kir said softly. "I wish his lordship would listen."
"Even with his holiness we are too few here, too thin. We grasp too quickly," Jahan agreed.
And the two stood in silence, watching the shifting of the wastes. Beneath the eyes of gods and kings, there were only soldiers and few enough cared for their tales.
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- Location
- France
Huh. This is the other side of Golden Fields, right? The next polity over got hit by the Imperial Claimant who started that whole mess (I forget his name, the soul mage guy), got saved when the Phoenix went boom, and are now attempting to resettle Golden Fields from the other side!
Do we know the name(s) of this polity, by the way?
@yrsillar, when is this story set? Is it in the present day, or is this all old stuff that is now resolved somehow?
Do we know the name(s) of this polity, by the way?
@yrsillar, when is this story set? Is it in the present day, or is this all old stuff that is now resolved somehow?
So the Jing live. It'll be very interesting if the not Persians get in contact with the golden Fields and start trading. Maybe this is why the ash walkers are getting more active in the GF. They are being pressed from the other side. I wonder if the Jin know about the Jing.
These are interesting times all around the world it appears.
- Location
- Upon the back of the Great A'Tuin
They are far more likely to get into contact with the Sands or Xuan than the Fields. It is interesting to learn just how much land they actually have under their control, it doesn't seem too much small than the empire if certainly more divided and less developed.
Snow
Doka
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Donut world confirmed?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think it might be the Jin actually? If my looking at the map is correct that would make more sense. The Jin could be doing trade and pirating and keeping the Xuan from being able to reach out that way. It also makes sense because the Jin took over the top part of the Golden Fields thus giving them the capability to cut the Xuan off from the eastern trade. I could be wrong though.
Definitely not. The Jin lost all of their crab spirit blood ages ago and are pirates not traders. Plus I'm pretty sure it's the currents and giant storm that blocks people from going east. The Jin don't have the ability to block the Xuan on the open seas.
Also the "Jeweled Court Ships" sounds exactly like what the Jing did with their city ships.
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Oh really interesting sidestory. I'm getting real Sumerian/Persianish vibes from these guys. It being concurrent with our story is certainly ominous though, if we eventually meet up with ....Darius III? the rough equivalent of such? That will make two formerly unknown rather powerful entities that have come into contact in a very short amount of time. Well lets not get ahead of ourselves, more likely it will just result in more enemies being pushed out into the Golden Fields. I doubt that the death of the Sun could be cleaned out that easily, but it will be interesting in seeing what's going to happen going forward.
Really looks like the Empires age of isolation is ending with contact beginning or increasing on all its borders
If I'm reading the maps right, this place is right before the giant storm. The place with 2 peninsulas. Where Zhengui's kin maybe is?
What impedes the Xuan and Jin from going east is the giant current that the Jing patriarch created when he ascended.
The giant storm is suppossed to be growing though.
The Jin are then in the archipielago that borders the giant storm, a bit over the equitor
- Location
- The Temple of the Winds
In the immortal words of Lord and Savior, Kel'thuzad: Fools, you have spread your powers too thin. Be free, my minions!
Right, so. Is this Persian kingdom still in the Southern Continent, being on the real edge of the desert, or are they on the landmass over the water? The one to the east? And if they are on that landmass, that mean the Jing are on the island a bit north? Wow they really travelled around the world, because didn't they raided the coast of that Banu country with the immortal king that we knew from Zheng Lu letter? Which i think is in the Northern Continent. And the smarter undead. I'm really afraid the Twilight King left some surprise after the Purifying Sun exploded.