The Relic of Speed called to the first and only child to date to become a monster. The 11 year old Sprint Olafson was an outcast among his peers. He was small and wiry, not much to look at, the kind of kid you might suspect would get knocked over by a surprise gust of wind. Sprint never got the hang of making friends, especially difficult since most of his peers were of a more large and brutish nature who taunted Sprint for his stature and awkwardness. His embarrassed father remained convinced that interaction with the other children of their home village Planastad was the key to sorting him out, and so he was forced out of the home often where he was left defenseless against the abuse of his peers.
Sprint learned that his size held certain advantages, he was able to escape the beating of local bullies often by squeezing into small spaces. The constant need for flight also grew into an aptitude for speed. In retaliation for his treatment he began to sneak close to danger and steal things, and many a trinket gone missing became attributed to him, which only pitted him more into local disfavor.
It was when he was once again running from children throwing rocks and chasing him with sticks that he entered the woods and ducked into a hollow tree. When his pursuers came close he found a crevice leading further down into the earth and ducked inside. There he first felt the call, a feeling of belonging he was unaccustomed to. The crevice opened into a maze of narrow underground tunnels reminiscent of a badger's den, but the call led him sure to the other end, an underground hall of stone and marble; the secret basement of a long-ago toppled tower of the White Ones. On a pedestal surrounded by ancient runes lay the relic, shaped like a hummingbird in flight, the wings still but tricking the eye into imagining a blur of movement. He jumped and climbed around and over fallen masonry and bottomless pitfalls until he reached it and took it up in his hands. He instantly felt the essence of the void surge into him, and he turned to run. He was across the hall in the blink of an eye, so fast that he lost his grip on the relic and left it in the air where he had been standing. When it began to fall he hurried back, circumventing obstacles by running on a wall. He caught the relic before it had fallen more than a few inches.
The remaining essence left the relic and it turned dark. The earth above and around the hall shuddered and the tunnels that had led the boy here collapsed. Sprint was trapped. Frantically he began to claw at the earth where a stone wall had collapsed and found that his amazing speed was quickly opening a hole. With no other options he dug on.
It took Sprint 4 days to reach the surface, hungry, tired and scared. It was only then in the light of the sun he discovered he had aged. His size and stature remained, but a nearby pond showed him he no longer had the face of a child. His untainted innocence had been replaced by a hardened and slightly weathered look. His skin had a blueish tint and his ears and lengthened into a points. He had always hated the way he looked, and though his new appearance came at first as a shock, he quickly shrugged it off. Undaunted he began to explore his newfound speed and agility. He ran across the surface of the pond while barely breaking the surface. He rushed up trees and skipped across the branches. Darkened relic under his arm he zipped back to his home within only minutes and sneaked into his room where he laid down to sleep.
By morning he had nearly forgotten the events of last evening, only the relic by his bed confirmed it had not been a dream. When his father, drunk from a night's revelry, found him sitting on the floor studying the black humming bird he cried out in shock. Barely recognizing the son he had come to despise for the ridicule and accusations of theft he brought to his home he struck the relic from Sprint's hands and moved to strike him too as he had done so many times before. The boy was gone before his father's fist hit only air where he had been prone a moment before. The only evidence of Sprint's passing, and the last his father would ever know of him, were the shards of the broken relic, the unhinged and wildly swinging window of his bedroom, and the quickly fading rush of rapid footsteps, sounding more like a hum than individual thumps.
Sprint fled back to the forest, to the grove where he first saw what he had become. He found a hollow high in a nearby tree and claimed it as his own. He lived on stolen foods from Planastad and passing travelers, filled his tree with shiny trinkets from strange pockets and remained unseen until he learned years later to pass his gift on to others. He was the first Quickling.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Recap 1
So now we have a setting, a world with a history framework, some monsters and a potential for history resurfacing as plot elements in the present; what if the White Ones aren't all dead? What is the Void up to? The Trolls could poke their heads out and say hello. We also have several playable races: Vampires, Werewolves, Mummies and Golems. This world is supposed to be populated with many many monsters. So we need more.
Monday, September 20, 2010
The Pyramids
As the White Ones grew more mad with power, one of the older wizards had his local village leveled overnight, destroyed utterly by his army of trolls, with everyone in it. On this site he began construction of a pyramid, a tomb unlike anything Foran had ever seen, vowing to return one day from the dead, and demanding his wealth and servants would await him there. His trolls toiled for many months before its completion. The idea caught on, other White Ones followed suit and soon more tombs of power were being built. Only the first of these was ever completed before the troll exodus. With his servants fleeing beneath the mountains, the old White One was never buried in his tomb after his death in battle against the lords.
Naihtep was the local lord who personally slew the old sage. To defy and mock the White One, and to honor their lord who also died in the battle, the local peasents buried Naihtep in the finished pyramid, in a grand sarcophagus in its heart. The pyramid had not only been completed in structure, but had already been filled with much of the wizard's hoard, including the Relic of Kings, encased in the massive tomb's vaults.
Naihtep never touched the essence physically, but being so entombed together for thirty years allowed the Relic to reach out to the dead lord nonetheless. He rose from his sarcophagus as the first mummy. When Naihtep returned to his people they honored and praised him, reinstated as their lord. His castle had been destroyed in the exodus, and so the pyramid became his new seat of power, where he restored the feudal ways.
After the exodus there were no more exoknights, no more energy knights. Naihtep was forced to draw from the untrained peasent pool to construct a new militia. When the vampire scouts reached them Naihtep learned that other monsters were sharing their gifts with human recruits. Naihtep studied his new powers and discovered he too was capable of this. As the new alliance with the vampires and werewolves was forged, new mummies were rising from the depths of the pyramid to strengthen Naihtep's foundation as lord of his lands.
In Foranworld Naihtep maintains Palladion, one of the last independant feudal states.
Naihtep was the local lord who personally slew the old sage. To defy and mock the White One, and to honor their lord who also died in the battle, the local peasents buried Naihtep in the finished pyramid, in a grand sarcophagus in its heart. The pyramid had not only been completed in structure, but had already been filled with much of the wizard's hoard, including the Relic of Kings, encased in the massive tomb's vaults.
Naihtep never touched the essence physically, but being so entombed together for thirty years allowed the Relic to reach out to the dead lord nonetheless. He rose from his sarcophagus as the first mummy. When Naihtep returned to his people they honored and praised him, reinstated as their lord. His castle had been destroyed in the exodus, and so the pyramid became his new seat of power, where he restored the feudal ways.
After the exodus there were no more exoknights, no more energy knights. Naihtep was forced to draw from the untrained peasent pool to construct a new militia. When the vampire scouts reached them Naihtep learned that other monsters were sharing their gifts with human recruits. Naihtep studied his new powers and discovered he too was capable of this. As the new alliance with the vampires and werewolves was forged, new mummies were rising from the depths of the pyramid to strengthen Naihtep's foundation as lord of his lands.
In Foranworld Naihtep maintains Palladion, one of the last independant feudal states.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Reanimating the Dead
The Death Relic called out to a man named Sanadin, who was dying of a slow but fatal disease known as "the rot". The disease caused him to decay while alive. His sight and other senses were deteriorating as the responsible organs began to fail, fingers withered and began to fall off and speech was very difficult with the bloated and unresponsive tongue of a corpse. This made Sanadin the perfect candidate, as noone could be closer in affinity to this aspect of the Void.
He found the Relic hidden in a treehollow by the river north of Darcborough but reached it too late. With his dying act he reached for the artifact and with his last breath brushed it with his gloved hand, knockit it from its perch. Both toppled into the river. The essence had begun to transfer itself to its target host, and when contact was lost continued to pour outward, mixing with the water of the river.
Over the next two weeks the inhabitants of Darcborough became ill, increasingly so with time, until the first deaths occured. Within a month, everyone in the village was no more. These were the first zombies. Those that died early clawed their way out of their graves, the rest rose from the places they had fallen. Aimlessly they shuffled around the village, repeating the most common activities of their recent lives repetitively , moaning the fringe of torment their dead bodies could still perceive. For those that were greedy or malicious in life, a hunger for living flesh became their only driving force, and those pets and livestock that had not yet fallen to the essence of death were swarmed upon and eaten alive.
Malek's vampire scouts, while seeking survivors of the troll exodus, came upon Darcborough and soon warriors from every village in reach gathered to purge Darcborough of the undead infestation. The roaming essence of death lingered and moved downriver, partially taking to the air and becoming an unseen tumor on the world, threatening the fate of Darcborough to any it encountered.
Malek himself found the empty crystal Relic of Death by the body of Sanadin, and devised a plan to draw the essence back to its intended host. The dead man was so badly decomposed that salvaging the corpse in its current state was unthinkable, and so pieces of the dead were borrowed. A new body was fashioned for Sanadin from bits of himself and parts taken from other corpses to fill the gaps. It was an awkward looking creation with stitchlines running up and down its surface.
Together with the mummies, the vampires raised Sanadin to the clouds to be struck by lightning, believing this in combination with the mystic element of the pyramids would reanimate the dead man. It worked. The essence of death that had passed into the lifeless body before becoming seperated from the rest became active and Sanadin opened his eyes. He was not a zombie, his consciousness intact. He became the first Golem, a patchwork man.
The rogue essence of death did not seek him out, to the dismay of Malek and those that aided him, and the knowledge of the damage it caused was much for Sanadin to bear. He shuffled off into the wilds and was not seen for many years.
When Sanadin resurfaced he brought with him knowledge of the Void, which he had gained from sifting through old ruins of white towers. He found a way to create more Golems, that this power lay within him as part of his gift from the Void. He knew that there was another way, that Golems could be created by stitching together the deceased of those that had fallen victim to the Roaming Death before their awakening as zombies. Using the method only available to him he created only a few and kept thems as his close followers.
Followers of Sanadin were typically those who wanted resurrection from death badly enough to pay the price of living on as grotesque giants. Sanadin chose goodly men and women to whom the completion of their life's work was more important than their own desires. Just as the werewolves and vampires had done, the golems realized they were an important new addition to what is required to surivive in this new and darker world.
Golem construction became more sophisticated over time. Later golems were not the shuffling giant monstrosities that their older kin had become. Still, it is impossible to oversee the nature of a golem, the crisscrossing stitches and mismatched bodyparts never fail to give them away. No golem could pass for human, no matter how precise the patchwork had become.
Over time the ranks of golems grew. Grievers who had lost loved ones sought out Sanadin with increasing frequency, begging him to raise their lost friends and family. Wanting to ease the world's sorrow in some measure he granted these requests. The golems were very quick to discover that many of these new golems were outraged at their new forms, resentful of what they had been forced to become. Most of these ended their own lives in short measure. Sanadin learned from this, and decreed that no golem was to become of anyone who had not themselves requested resurrection before their death.
He found the Relic hidden in a treehollow by the river north of Darcborough but reached it too late. With his dying act he reached for the artifact and with his last breath brushed it with his gloved hand, knockit it from its perch. Both toppled into the river. The essence had begun to transfer itself to its target host, and when contact was lost continued to pour outward, mixing with the water of the river.
Over the next two weeks the inhabitants of Darcborough became ill, increasingly so with time, until the first deaths occured. Within a month, everyone in the village was no more. These were the first zombies. Those that died early clawed their way out of their graves, the rest rose from the places they had fallen. Aimlessly they shuffled around the village, repeating the most common activities of their recent lives repetitively , moaning the fringe of torment their dead bodies could still perceive. For those that were greedy or malicious in life, a hunger for living flesh became their only driving force, and those pets and livestock that had not yet fallen to the essence of death were swarmed upon and eaten alive.
Malek's vampire scouts, while seeking survivors of the troll exodus, came upon Darcborough and soon warriors from every village in reach gathered to purge Darcborough of the undead infestation. The roaming essence of death lingered and moved downriver, partially taking to the air and becoming an unseen tumor on the world, threatening the fate of Darcborough to any it encountered.
Malek himself found the empty crystal Relic of Death by the body of Sanadin, and devised a plan to draw the essence back to its intended host. The dead man was so badly decomposed that salvaging the corpse in its current state was unthinkable, and so pieces of the dead were borrowed. A new body was fashioned for Sanadin from bits of himself and parts taken from other corpses to fill the gaps. It was an awkward looking creation with stitchlines running up and down its surface.
Together with the mummies, the vampires raised Sanadin to the clouds to be struck by lightning, believing this in combination with the mystic element of the pyramids would reanimate the dead man. It worked. The essence of death that had passed into the lifeless body before becoming seperated from the rest became active and Sanadin opened his eyes. He was not a zombie, his consciousness intact. He became the first Golem, a patchwork man.
The rogue essence of death did not seek him out, to the dismay of Malek and those that aided him, and the knowledge of the damage it caused was much for Sanadin to bear. He shuffled off into the wilds and was not seen for many years.
When Sanadin resurfaced he brought with him knowledge of the Void, which he had gained from sifting through old ruins of white towers. He found a way to create more Golems, that this power lay within him as part of his gift from the Void. He knew that there was another way, that Golems could be created by stitching together the deceased of those that had fallen victim to the Roaming Death before their awakening as zombies. Using the method only available to him he created only a few and kept thems as his close followers.
Followers of Sanadin were typically those who wanted resurrection from death badly enough to pay the price of living on as grotesque giants. Sanadin chose goodly men and women to whom the completion of their life's work was more important than their own desires. Just as the werewolves and vampires had done, the golems realized they were an important new addition to what is required to surivive in this new and darker world.
Golem construction became more sophisticated over time. Later golems were not the shuffling giant monstrosities that their older kin had become. Still, it is impossible to oversee the nature of a golem, the crisscrossing stitches and mismatched bodyparts never fail to give them away. No golem could pass for human, no matter how precise the patchwork had become.
Over time the ranks of golems grew. Grievers who had lost loved ones sought out Sanadin with increasing frequency, begging him to raise their lost friends and family. Wanting to ease the world's sorrow in some measure he granted these requests. The golems were very quick to discover that many of these new golems were outraged at their new forms, resentful of what they had been forced to become. Most of these ended their own lives in short measure. Sanadin learned from this, and decreed that no golem was to become of anyone who had not themselves requested resurrection before their death.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Capping some of the Sharper Teeth
Very important to remember, monsters make up the primary goodly races aside humans in Foranworld. They won't function well in a mutually-beneficial society if they're always sucking maidens dry or carrying off children to eat them in the woods. I also don't want that dramaticly overplayed concept of the moral character struggling against the curse of his being that endangers the people around him. No effeminate melancholy vampires who have to control themselves everytime a pretty girl exposes her neck.
So here's what I'm going to do: take away the killing urge and its source. For vampires it is the need to feed on blood. For werewolves it is the need to kill and eat, for golems maybe the fear of torches that makes them cave heads as an instinctive reaction. I'm getting rid of those uncontrollable urges that are a detriment to nearby humans. Vampires don't thirst for blood (they can still feed, but it's a choice, not a need), werewolves still eat meat, but they don't tear your limbs off if you don't have it coming.
So here's what I'm going to do: take away the killing urge and its source. For vampires it is the need to feed on blood. For werewolves it is the need to kill and eat, for golems maybe the fear of torches that makes them cave heads as an instinctive reaction. I'm getting rid of those uncontrollable urges that are a detriment to nearby humans. Vampires don't thirst for blood (they can still feed, but it's a choice, not a need), werewolves still eat meat, but they don't tear your limbs off if you don't have it coming.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Wolfing Out
The first werewolf was a man named Rorke. Rorke was never someone to feel quite at home in civilization, and watching his family and friends cling to existence in a shattered world was too difficult to bear, and so he moved to where he felt most comfortable, the forests. He became a ranger, of sorts, hunting to feed himself and the villagers when stock permitted. He learned to live in harmony with the wilds, becoming a part of its workings without upsetting the balance.
When Rorke found the Relic of the Moon in an abandoned bear cave and picked it up, his shape changed almost instantly to half-man half-wolf. The sudden and painful change forced him to throw the Relic, which destroyed it on impact with a rock. After the initial shock, Rorke studied himself and what he had become. The realization of his new being filled him with a sense of liberation, finally free from the human form that had made him feel so awkward and out of place. His wish to be a part of the animal kingdom had been granted. He saw the night with new eyes, his senses endowed with a new sharpness.
It took some time for the villagers to accept him in his new form. He was still able to speak and tell them who he was but was reserved about approaching them, and so he used his new powers to extend his hunting grounds and leave his prepared kills for the locals to find. Finally having enough to eat, the village stabilized and it's people found hope. When they discovered what Rorke had become it took a surprisingly short amount of time to accept him back into their community, having recognized his power as a badly needed means of survival.
When Rorke had thrown the Relic of the Moon, causing it to shatter, it released its last shred of essence in a wave that washed over the nearby area, including a glen that was home to a pack of wolves and parts of the nearby village. Children to both human and wolf mothers that carried them at that moment were born werewolves. A gap between the two communities was bridged and the local humans and wolves soon learned to live in symbiotic harmony. Wolves took on the role of hunting food and nursing newborn werewolves, as well as sheparding the livestock, while humans took on the role of caretakers for their new friends, tending injuries and sickness and teaching young werewolves speech and morals. Never are wolves considered pets to these humans, but equals, with werewolves as the link bonding them.
When Rorke found the Relic of the Moon in an abandoned bear cave and picked it up, his shape changed almost instantly to half-man half-wolf. The sudden and painful change forced him to throw the Relic, which destroyed it on impact with a rock. After the initial shock, Rorke studied himself and what he had become. The realization of his new being filled him with a sense of liberation, finally free from the human form that had made him feel so awkward and out of place. His wish to be a part of the animal kingdom had been granted. He saw the night with new eyes, his senses endowed with a new sharpness.
It took some time for the villagers to accept him in his new form. He was still able to speak and tell them who he was but was reserved about approaching them, and so he used his new powers to extend his hunting grounds and leave his prepared kills for the locals to find. Finally having enough to eat, the village stabilized and it's people found hope. When they discovered what Rorke had become it took a surprisingly short amount of time to accept him back into their community, having recognized his power as a badly needed means of survival.
When Rorke had thrown the Relic of the Moon, causing it to shatter, it released its last shred of essence in a wave that washed over the nearby area, including a glen that was home to a pack of wolves and parts of the nearby village. Children to both human and wolf mothers that carried them at that moment were born werewolves. A gap between the two communities was bridged and the local humans and wolves soon learned to live in symbiotic harmony. Wolves took on the role of hunting food and nursing newborn werewolves, as well as sheparding the livestock, while humans took on the role of caretakers for their new friends, tending injuries and sickness and teaching young werewolves speech and morals. Never are wolves considered pets to these humans, but equals, with werewolves as the link bonding them.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Rise of the Vampires
Malek was a thief who always preferred dark to light, the perfect attitude on a world with next to no sun. As a child he preferred hiding and watching other children at play, and sometimes stealing their toys only to secretly return them later. As an adult he find no contention among his peers and practiced his stealth on more dangerous targets like the fairyfolk.
With the lords and wizards gone, and the surviving people of his village struggling to survive, Malek felt a despairing helplessness that caused him to take increasingly great risks until one day, while hiding in a tree in the center of a goblin camp, he felt the call. He didn't know what was pulling at his very being if not hope. He felt instinctively that to follow that pull might mean a way to save his village and himself. He returned to his village and gathered a small group of strong men, and they set out to follow the invisible compass that seemed to guide Malek.
In the rubble of a tower of the White Ones, now just a pile of rocks, the men found a hatch leading to what must once have been catacombs. Most of the structure had caved in, but not far from the entrance Malek's prize waited, the Relic of Night, a small black statuette of a humanoid figured with batwings, a doghead and great fangs. When Malek picked up the artifact it poured it's essence into the man, making him the first vampire. The transformation was instantaneous, and despite the shock of the experience Malek managed to maintain his grip on the relic, saving it from destruction.
Malek returned to his home a new being. He found he could change his form to that of a bat, a shadow or cloud of mist. His eyes functioned in total darkness as if it was noon on a sunny day, his hearing became keener and he could sense the presence of others around him without sight, sound or smell. He could exercise his will on beasts and hover above the ground.
Not knowing fully what he had become yet, he passed his gift on to a handful of trusted men and women, making them his scouts and emissaries and sending him to the four winds to seek out other survivors in Foran. On batwings they set out and returned with goods news. Thus it was the vampires that reestablished a connection between the solitary communities of a shattered world.
With the lords and wizards gone, and the surviving people of his village struggling to survive, Malek felt a despairing helplessness that caused him to take increasingly great risks until one day, while hiding in a tree in the center of a goblin camp, he felt the call. He didn't know what was pulling at his very being if not hope. He felt instinctively that to follow that pull might mean a way to save his village and himself. He returned to his village and gathered a small group of strong men, and they set out to follow the invisible compass that seemed to guide Malek.
In the rubble of a tower of the White Ones, now just a pile of rocks, the men found a hatch leading to what must once have been catacombs. Most of the structure had caved in, but not far from the entrance Malek's prize waited, the Relic of Night, a small black statuette of a humanoid figured with batwings, a doghead and great fangs. When Malek picked up the artifact it poured it's essence into the man, making him the first vampire. The transformation was instantaneous, and despite the shock of the experience Malek managed to maintain his grip on the relic, saving it from destruction.
Malek returned to his home a new being. He found he could change his form to that of a bat, a shadow or cloud of mist. His eyes functioned in total darkness as if it was noon on a sunny day, his hearing became keener and he could sense the presence of others around him without sight, sound or smell. He could exercise his will on beasts and hover above the ground.
Not knowing fully what he had become yet, he passed his gift on to a handful of trusted men and women, making them his scouts and emissaries and sending him to the four winds to seek out other survivors in Foran. On batwings they set out and returned with goods news. Thus it was the vampires that reestablished a connection between the solitary communities of a shattered world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)