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Post by ElfChild on May 20, 2015 0:25:34 GMT -8
Shebara Nonas Fifthmoon (Reading/Writing lvl 4, Historian lvl 5)
Things progress slowly. This is not to say they do not merit a large degree of excitement or note; they do. The war, however, progresses more slowly than I should like.
Selatiel K'uni was captured in the early morning by a set of undead who wanted our people to believe it was Dagdeoth who had done it. Her familiar Scale sustained a morganti injury. Her guards were slaughtered with morganti. A band lead by Gorash, Oronyëa, and Greywash went to rescue her. Catlyn is to credit for their success from the sound of it. I was not there. Someone else will tell you about it.
Gorash is an Urukai who devoutly worships Thor and practices customs that are odd even for Blackspire. He is very stupid some ways and smart others. Oronyëa is the elf who speaks nothing but elven. He is quiet and professional and has been working to make sure the battle against Dagdeoth was a priority when I was not present. He is intelligent and far-sighted and worth listening to. Greywash runs the cavalry, and is Esther's mother. Someone else will tell you about her if you ask. Catlyn is Scarecrow's sister, but not nearly as much of an idiot. She wants to find him, but I do not think she will and I actively hope she does not. She is alright.
We fought Dagdeoth at the Beacon. I will give some description of the proceedings, as the battle was unusual. A large metal urukai has taken position there since the last time we were there. It attacks anything that seems like a threat to it. This includes our forces should they stray too close. We decided it is a good thing, but do not know where it comes from. In addition, midway through the battle Dagdeoth employed animals. Wolves to break lines and cause chaos. Then swamp flies. Sons of bitches have started using disease against us. It is a game two can play, but it is not one we should. Disease is a double-edged sword.
Rollo and Morgan insisted that we should defend the Odin Shrine. Making nice and showing interest. Eventually I acknowledged their point. Dagdeoth has begun attacking the shrine in force since the tree started growing. They view it as a threat. That is as good a reason as any to protect it.
Animals continued to attack us. How is Dagdeoth controlling cows and bears? I do not know. It is disconcerting. The ordinary troops made an appearance as well. I do not need to describe the battle to you. Most battles are the same.
We arrived at the shrine. The tree was higher than it had been. It grew even as we watched. The pool at its feet remained still. The priest was very enthusiastic. The tree grew by the day, he said, powered by their fighting. Dagdeoth attacked more, so they fought more, so the tree grew more. I asked him if there had been a lull in the fighting at any time. Of course not, he said, Dagdeoth had been attacking. How then did he know that it was growing any faster for the fighting and that it would not be growing at the same rate regardless? Because when they fought it grew. I asked why Dagdeoth would be attacking them if they were enemies and the fighting allowed the tree to grow. Because, he said, Dagdeoth is very stupid. In my infinite restraint, I did not explicitly call him an idiot. I pointed out the gaping hole in his logic. Because I was the Champion, he said he would agree to disagree. He then explained that the Skalds had sent a question for him to ask. They would not be themselves present until the tree had finished growing in some weeks time. Could I consult my allies, I asked? Only my chosen. I interpreted this to mean Courage, Strength, and Will, that seemed the safest guess. Hunter had to be resurrected first, however. "The Tree of Life spreads its branches Children gathered below Well of knowledge at its feet To answer what they know What knowledge seeks you now?" the priest recited. We were at first unsure whether it was intended to be a riddle or a question, and we remained unsure until after we had answered. We answered regardless, what seemed most reasonable. Odin and his ravens. The priest rambled, and at first it seemed as though we had been wrong and has been asked to make a request, but he clarified upon being asked that we had answered right on our first guess.
A number of people made a sacrifice to Norse gods. I added to it. An apology to Tyr. I am not going to follow him, but an apology is I think fitting. The whole pile vanished. There was a moment that felt like glowing. There was an understanding of choice between blessing and knowledge. We chose knowledge. Our minds filled.
There was a woman, with long black hair and green eyes, clad in a cloak of the same colors and wings sprouting from her back. A valkyrie? An angel. She stood in front of a temple door. Something spoke to her. The Ebonedge. Ebonafter. The guardian burns the fields. The red dragon. Bluebird, it called the woman bluebird, "Watch carefully little bird, for the dark one lives in you." Pain behind my eyes, sharp, blinding. More words ran by. Snatches and lines of prophecy. The crones are fading. Three women stood together holding water and faded away. Blindness.
Our eyes were healed. The blindness lasted longer. Soon it may be morganti. I do not want any further oracles. I enjoy my eyes. We left.
A woman named Shelley pushed for a mission to retake Menonass. I agreed. We went. There was a great deal of fighting. We did not make it to Menonass. The world had other plans. Midway through the battles a dark hero in wickedly bladed armor barreled out of the trees at Rollo, swinging a morganti knife. He deflected the blows and it kept moving. Several of us ran toward it. There followed a great deal of stabbing and a great deal of trying not to be stabbed. He swung at me with the morganti dagger, but I turned it on him. He did not swing it any more after that. He snapped it cleanly over his knee instead. His soul was sucked down into his armor. A pair of morganti wraiths appeared in his place. I did not fight them. That would have been stupid. I made myself unfightable and then went to heal allies.
Upon the defeat of the wraiths a large mage clean up squad appeared. They asked for details and identified relevant objects. Yohan attempted to circumvent them. Their leader did not take his shit, which is good since if he had we might have filaments sitting on the plain. We witnessed one slice a turuk clean in two and it bled black after. I do not want that on my plain. They noted a large number of 'celestial particles' as well. That is apparently common on the plateau. They teleported away after. Our mages were caught in their teleport. We did not finish our assault on Menonass, without mages it was deemed unlikely to succeed. Another day.
That is all for now.
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Post by ElfChild on Jun 17, 2015 21:45:54 GMT -8
Still in the process of writing through old Caylis chronicles I have outlined because I was in the mood to continue them.
Quick Rundown: - Norse Temple cropped up with a rainbow bridge - Fought giants to get up the bridge - Answered a riddle to get past valkyries at the top - Went through a series of weird trials that killed off party members - Eventually failed and had memories stolen. - Waking up as a little kid in a scenario where a little kid does not really fit at all.
Caylis Lockhart War of Pantheons: Part One (Reading/Writing lvl 2, Historian lvl 1)
's that time again, and by that time I mean time to write a months old story fer the hell of it, and to fill the story quota I guess. Ranger. Storytelling. Been down this road before, don't feel the need to repeat the whole talk. So if you wanna hear me talk about my own ability to talk some more, you can do us all a favor and go read Here Be Dragons or something. We've got a lot of religious crap going on here lately and while I'm sick and tired of it or even of acknowledging it exists, somebody's gonna want to know how things got how they are. 'specially since it's seeming more and more like this whole war might not have been premeditated or even intended by most of the gods up in their castle.
It was high summer, nights were warm and short, and the norse temple had been building itself for a while. Rumors'd come in about its activity every once in a while and it'd gone from being a single standing stone with giants t' attack anybody who came in a pretty ritualized manner to being a whole big temple made of standing stones with frost giants attacking it (not to mention anything else they ran across, and I heard something about them infecting other giants with ice 'r something) to having a rainbow bridge coming down from the heavens with a horn summoning all the Norse followers to try their hand at fighting their way up. It was getting to the point where it seemed like it might be important. So we finally caved to Zealot's insistence that we poke around it a bit. After all, path leading to the land of the gods, can't really help but be at least a little curious. Pretty sure most of us regret that one by now.
The temple and the base of the bridge was full of followers of the Norse and they'd all take their turns trying to go up the bridge and then getting their asses handed to 'em by a buncha frost giants. We waited our turn and then headed on up. There's some kind of sense almost like a duel and we had to spend a mana to enter along with Zealot, so we did. Then we fought frost giants. Frost giants were honestly not as scary as I'd expected, though I suppose our thieves and their abilities to keep them from using their strength as the advantage it normally woulda been probably helped good deal. It happened in waves, several fights, each preceeded by the scatter and bouncing of colored lights, and every time the earth got further away. Wasn't like standing on top of a bridge really, more like a series of four glittering stages with the light around them white and kinda hazy.
On the last stage there was a god who Zealot identified as Heimdall, surrounded by winged women who could only have been valkyries. None of them seemed overly appreciative of our presence, they certainly didn't offer to let us through. I'm not sure what I'd've expected a god to treat people like, but the whole ask a riddle and then try to kill us thing wasn't it. The utter disdain made more sense. I don't imagine we look so impressive to them. If we did they might have more respect for people's lives. Heimdall spouted a short riddle, we all defended ourselves from valkyries fer maybe six seconds, and then Zealot answered "blade" t' the riddle and the world got all warpy on us.
There was a shimmering and landscape pased under and around us, and looking out we could see forests spread below and mountains on the horizon. Then we landed.
The room was large and made of stone, and in the middle was a guard of sorts sitting in a big chair. Didn't seem to think much of us. Off behind him was a door, said something like "only the strongest" or something like that. We looked around, but there didn't seem t' be anyplace else to go, so we all pushed at the chunk of wood barring the door and it lifted. Then we opened the door and walked on through.
Came into a long room with handlebars on the ceiling and an inscription in an unknown tongue on the wall. On the other end of the room was another door, so we walked toward it. Mistake number one. Floor falls, everyone dies. Almost. Following happened pretty damn fast. I felt the ground dropping a moment before I'd lost purchase. I leapt, grabbed the bars as it did, and twisted to reach for Frogthrown, who caught my hand and held onto it for dear life whilst all but a small few of us dropped through the floor onto spikes below. It didn't look like anyone survived the drop, and those of us who'd avoided it hung suspended above the death trap as the floor close back over it and its victims. We used the bars t' get to the other side, however whole the floor looked now. Didn't trust it anymore.
Five of us remained as Greywash lead the way out onto the floor of the next room. It was empty--no handlebars, no slits in the wall for darts, no visible traps... Just the door we'd come from and the door on the other side, along with an inscription in that foreign tongue... "Turn back"? Greywash bolted for the opposite door, followed more cautiously by Evelyn and Leif. I skirted the wall, as did Frogthrown, not trusting the center of the room to be free of unseen peril. When Greywash was halfway out across the room, the door on the other side opened. Out of it came a blast of icy chill, cold as death and like as not to cause it. Frogthrown and I bolted back the way we'd come. So'd Ev. Greywash and Leif continued to bolt for the door, though Lief wasn't exactly a person anymore. Frogthrown and I made it back, but after several moments the door closed behind us and there was no sign of the others. It seemed this place was to kill us, one by one, until there were none left.
That's about when we realized coming back through the door we'd entered through hadn't brought us back to the same room. This one was smaller, warmer, with herbs and colored bottles lining the walls. A small man stood at the center, examining us through spectacles, and on the right hand wall was another door with another plaque: Drink, in the same odd script. The old man cleared his throat and adressed us with words I don't remember precicely--the event is months past. What they boiled down to, if you will, was that he had two bottles--one purple, one green--and that each of us was going to drink one if we ever wanted to leave the damn room. It wasn't put like that, but it was clear enough that was what was going on, and after literally everyone else dying, I hope you can damn well understand why I didn't like the prospect of doing it. The two of us talked it over 'n looked around the room and honestly I don't remember which potion we decided who should drink, but we could see snakeweed hanging from the wall. Snakeweed's an antidote, and I was willing to hope it could save us from whatever awful shit we were about to willingly inflict on ourselves. As it turned out, bolting for the twisty-looking herbs was not at all useful, though I maintain that thinking they were going to poison at least one of us wasn't unreasonable. Instead I acquired a fucking tail and Frogthrown shrank til I could stick him in a big pocket and lost his arms. With the sincere hope that the effects of the potions weren't permanent, we walked through the door.
At which point it was momentarily really bloody dark. And then it wasn't. We were in a stone room with a less than readable inscription and a ball of darkness. With tentacles. Because a ball of malicious darkness needed tentacles to be scary. The inescapable room in a foreign place was scary before ya put a murderous fearbeast in it you sick fucks, did you really need to give it tentacles? Yeah, I guess you did. Bravo, you made a horrifyingly bad situation worse, a million points to you. That, by the way, is a fantastic summary of my time adventuring. Norse gods? Yep. Furies? Yep. Harold, you made it to this party too. Fantastic. Could you assholes please recognize once in the entirety of my life that not everything bad needs to have mentally, emotionally, or physically traumatizing things attached to it. It really was bad enough BEFORE you turned the dead children into shamblers and ghouls.
I digress.
There was a big ball of shadow with two tentacles of further shadow on the ends, and they crept toward us. I readied my harp. Frogthrown regrew his arms and passed out on the ground. I cursed and tried to hold the ground around him without killing him with the harp. It wasn't terribly successful. With only one person to focus on, the shadows closed in on me, and I had to keep moving to keep them from surrounding and killing my ass, which they used as an opportunity to drain Frogthrown of his abilities and kill him. Because apparently globs of darkness can steal your knowledge and your memories and then murder helpless little you. Which is what happened to me too, not terribly long after.
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It was really dark out. I didn't remember it bein' dark out, but I guess it was? My moms were gonna be worried about me. I wasn't supposed to be out past sunset. Was I gonna be in trouble? Where was I? There was really high grass all over. And a dragon. I han't never seen a dragon before but I know that's what it is and its teeth are huge an' so are its eyes and the only thing between me an' it is a little fairy person. I know it's a fairy because it's flying and teeny and talking to to the dragon, and that's how they are in all the stories, but usually they have wings. Why doesn't it have wings? Why do I have wings?
I revert and scramble back into the grass and hide there and the fairy looks up really quick and is surprised I'm not a butterfly anymore. He asks the dragon to teleport me somewhere, and I wonder if I'm being abducted and what a fairy and a dragon want me for and I cry that I'm not special, because I'm not, and this has to have been a mistake. I'm just a kid, I didn't think those mushrooms I found were really a fairy circle or nothing I just said it to scare Erin and Finn because they're little and believe everything. But the fairy says I am special, and I'm really special to him, and I promise I PROMISE I'm not, he has the wrong person, I'm just a kid, I wanna go home.
You can't go home, the fairy says, and the dragon just watches with big eyes and I can't even see the fairy really well in the dark but the dragon's eyes are enormous and reflective like a cat's but I never seen a cat big enough te eat me. You're not in Pinnacle, the fairy says, you're on the Illionass plateau, and I fall backward into the grass and try to hide again cos I don't even know what a plateau is and Illionass is far far away like a million miles or something and I'm never going to get home, but the dragon says some words and I can't leave. Calm down says the fairy, I'm not normal, see my body is older than I am, and I look and it's true and I'm all big and my hair's all short an these aren't my clothes and I cringe and pull away from him and he turns up to the dragon and asks again for us to be teleported and the dragon says no, and there's a really rumbling laughing sound and it says we haven't earned it and then I'm not held anymore and I run as fast as I can go and I'm small and the grass is high and I can hide here, I can hide here, I can--
I was in Illionass, being chased by a dragon and a fairy. I have magic mind powers, the storm mages said so, but I don't think they'll protect me from being kidnapped by a dragon and a fairy and being someone else, and I still dunno how to get home, and I'm pretty sure I was eight a moment ago and I thought my mind powers were supposed to protect me from mind things, and I thought revert was suupposed to make you you all properly, but I'm not and I was definitely eight a moment ago and there's a dragon and a fairy looking for me and I realize I know how to be all stealthy and I dunno how I know it but I do, and I need to not get caught and eaten or else I'll never get home, and I'm just gonna use the stuff I know and find out about knowing it later.
'm not going to narrate like kid me anymore. You get the idea. Norse fucked with my memories and dumped me and Frogthrown near Menonass, and eventually he had to give up looking for me and I spent two hours shivering in the dark, regaining memories at a pace that bewildered and panicked me at first until I accepted that was normal and decided to wait it out. Spent a lot of time that night counting seconds and minutes as my mind trickled back in, and when thirty minutes passed and nothing new came I decided that was about as whole as the inside of my head was going to get and drifted back home through the darkness.
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Post by ElfChild on Jun 18, 2015 12:07:42 GMT -8
Quick Rundown: - A brief description of the Norse afterlife, - the blowing up of a greek temple, - and the reason for the holy war.
Caylis Lockhart War of Pantheons: Part Two (Reading/Writing lvl 2, Historian lvl 1)
Five of us remained as Greywash lead the way out onto the floor of the next room. It was empty--no handlebars, no slits in the wall for darts, no visible traps... Just the door we'd come from and the door on the other side, along with an inscription in that foreign tongue... "Turn back"? Greywash bolted for the opposite door, followed more cautiously by Evelyn and Leif. I skirted the wall, as did Frogthrown, not trusting the center of the room to be free of unseen peril. When Greywash was halfway out across the room, the door on the other side opened. Out of it came a blast of icy chill, cold as death and like as not to cause it. Frogthrown and I bolted back the way we'd come. So'd Ev. Greywash and Leif continued to bolt for the door, though Lief wasn't exactly a person anymore. Frogthrown and I made it back, but after several moments the door closed behind us and there was no sign of the others.
Got back to town around five in the morning with the sun just coming up and found Frogthrown. He was still awake. I said I was sorry and he said it was okay and I thanked him for trying and we didn't talk about it after that. News that morning was the people who'd died in the spike trap had all ended up one place and taken a ship back, and Greywash and Ev had ended up a good ways south and Ev had just gone off home like she'd wanted all year and Greywash had sailed back. Leif was back too, but he was grey and a touch undead and hadn't had to do anything with any ships. I got his story that morning.
Leif had a cloak that turned him to different types of animals, and in that room with the icy winds, while we'd escaped and the other two'd died, Lief'd turned into a penguin and wandered off through the door into a vast icy landscape. It was full of trees, evergreens, and as a penguin didn't fit anymore he turned into an owl and flew out over it alone. The trees got deader, more skeletal and all cast in white bark against whiter snow. Shapes started moving along the ground, and not a one of them looked alive, but they all did the same tasks you'd expect of living men. In the distance he saw a castle, so he flew to it and settled on its doorstep, curious.
A woman came out, a skeleton on each arm, hair dark and skin white as death. Goddess Hel of the Norse underworld, he was pretty sure. She looked him over, aloof but not unkind or unfriendly. "You don't belong here," she said. Perceptive bitch. She waved a hand and explaied his situation. He could stay forever with her, or he could swear allegiance to her, give up other faiths. Seeing as he didn't fancy being dead, he swore his allegiance and gave up his allegiance to Hermes and she sent him back, telling him with a smile that he'd have a gift from her.
Gift, as it turned out, was grey rot and a burning need to get to a nearby temple of the olympians. Don't you dare go there, I said. But I had grey rot at that point and sure as hell wasn't going anywhere after him at risk of infecting more people. So he went anyway. While he was away, we learned his grey rot only effected followers of the Olympians, his old religion. Some point down the line any of us who'd contracted the disease were seemingly spontaneously exorcized. We later learned that our spontaneous exorcism had coincided with his arrival at a shrine of Hermes in the major temple and the major temple's rotting away to grey dust and crumbling in on itself.
What followed was the Greek followers summoning Furies to take revenge who did not seem to give a damn if they hurt innocent people while trying to hurt the Norse followers, a severe round of lycanthropy that may have been sent to target followers of the Olympians, massive rebuilding efforts from the followers of the Olympians, and an all around holy war.
So basically a lotta people got killed or fucked over because some guy went a place he shouldn't've and swore his soul to the Norse and believe it or not I don't actually blame the guy for any of it except the going to the Olympian temple after. Much bigger problem with assholes like Zealot who start out trying to make everything theirs then people who do shit for self-preservation. Most people will do damn near anything for self-preservation.
But fuck that Hel woman. She's a bitch.
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Post by ElfChild on Jul 30, 2015 16:38:18 GMT -8
Wings - Keychain - Both Branches, Yohanisburgh Regional Coordinator. Grey Isles - Tower of the ApparitionHey hey so there was this guy and he was looking for a lot a lot of people to go to the Grey Isles cos he wanted to find Shimmermist because Shimmermist was the huge magic exciting mage school where Gristodemdal taught and it's one of the big mysteries of the world so Oronyëa and Morgan and Aelfwine and King Blossom and a lotta other people followed the guy on a boat and then we fought sea serpents and then we were in the place and walking toward the tower. You have to keep in mind, I'm not super super specific because a lot of it felt kinda like a dream and even though I'm really good at remembering dreams it's a little fuzzy, so it might not all be right but I think it mostly is. I think Oronyëa has better records of the specific stuffs that got said, I'll just try my best. We got to the island by flying cos we all had fairy wings because King Blossom had a thing to give us them but they only stayed if we were soaring so I flew high a lot but I'm used to that because I was a hawk a lot for a long time but fairy wings feel a little different. The air feels more dangerous and more currenty and less like it's supposed to support you, but it's still okay because you can push yourself around with your wings and it's fine. We got to the island itself and there were haunts on the docks and in the city and off a little bit was the tower and then more city and the tower was there but we weren't looking for the tower we were looking for Shimmermist so we went past it over a river into a city but then we were back where we were before except there were haunts some people recognized. They tried summoning them and they were really really unhappy and looked like they were in pain and Blossom sped things up and then they were where we were and they tried to convince us we were haunts, but it was definitely them being haunts. Then stuff reset again and they were with us. There was one of them who was gonna fade without a bow so I handed her mine and she had it for a bit and was okay. Aelfwine had maps and things and they put Shimmermist and a city in the same place so we walked over just past the tower and looked, but it was the city and not the school or maybe the school was a city. Then Oronyea and I sang The Islander, which is a song that we thought was about Gristodemdal. Then we were in a classroom place. There was a guy who was our teacher and a guy who was Gristodemdal and we were all at desks with notes and they were lecturing to us in a really big room kinda like the big introductory classes at Pinnacle where there's a hundred people listening to someone lecture and it's usually not Embarcarious but sometimes Embarcarious will come in and lecture alongside the other teacher and it felt like that. One of the guys was the normal teacher and this was one of those times the person everybody respects and thinks is the best comes in and lectures and you get to be happy. Only Gristodemdal wasn't lecturing, the two teachers were having a debate. Oronyea and I wondered if the other teacher was Merigrad or the Dagdemar or somebody. The normal teacher was saying stuff about immortality and controlling the gods and controlling fate and Gristodemdal was saying that no, you couldn't just do that, death was a necessary part of things and you shouldn't try to control the gods or fate because there was a way things had to be in order to be what they should be and not broken and endings were just as important as beginnings and if nothing ever ended nothing new could ever start. I don't remember it exactly. I don't think most people remembered it at all. Just elves. There was also a part where we sang songs and the isles said prophecy pieces at us. And every time we had the option to spend mana to hear more, but we didn't we just sung and then we got mana insteada spending it AND we heard more. Oronyëa definitely has better notes'n I do on what got said, I'll put in a reference to them when they're published so you can see. I should carry a notebook. We were back where we started again and no one remembered but elves and we had wings again and we decided to go to the tower and we went up but haunts attacked us as we did and a lotta people had trouble since a lotta us couldn't fly. There was the apparition floating in midair in the middle and it had five orbs with a lot a lot of mana in them of each color and some dice and it kept throwing the dice and then there was a big flash. We were moving somehow in a storm and we could choose to either be a leaf and be ripped and pushed over branches and torn up or we could be a seed and soak up water as we went or we could be a grain of sand and be moved along untouched and unchanged and all of them would end up the same place but the journey was different all three ways. The leaf people died and the seed people took mana drain and the sand people got older and then we were back on the boat. Morgan had made an anchor and put it on the boat and it was broken now, and some people did a ritual and almost got really magic things, but they didn't because they didn't want to pay the price, and then we went home. I'm wondering a lot about Merigrad and the nature of death now and where it goes and what it does and time and the end of the world and if immortality is problematic and it's all stuff that's been wondered about before but now I am wondering about it more and we still don't have a good enough understanding of a lot of things and I hafta make Morgan talk to Enyari soon. <This is where the document ends, but it's unclear if that's actually the end of the piece of writing.>
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Post by ElfChild on Jan 25, 2018 0:08:47 GMT -8
Vee Motekei - Documentation of Reform Efforts Within the Tribal Nations of Blackspire Publication Month: Firstmoon
A Summary of Myself, My Background, and My Intentions
This is... the first time I've published, and I suppose it seems prudent to allow the readers, some of whom will inevitably be the targets and many of whom will hopefully be eventual beneficiaries of my efforts, who I am and what I want with them.
My name is Vee Motekei. I am Sorikonian by birth and upbringing, at least until my thirteenth year. My background includes some training in Sorikonian philosophies of conflict resolution, primarily those of Earth Clan, as well as some training in critical social theories from the priestesses of the Elder Goddess local to my birthplace in Sashi Iten. At thirteen I traveled to Randwin for further studies in the construction of power structures, both on micro and macro levels. During this time, I became well educated in the lore and history of the Elder Goddess religion, and became familiar with the common monarchist and aristocratic methods of rule favored in most of what my readers will likely consider "civilized" nations. While I could easily have remained a scholar of this variety, I felt it was... disrespectful and ignorant to study theory without experiencing the world and its application. Between years eighteen and twenty I engaged in as much travel as was permissible given the restricted state of the roads, largely in the regions of Aramir and Dsesnor. During my time in Dsesnor I became interested in Dsesnor-Blackspirian relations, and continued to develop a philosophy of reform, informed by my studies in conflict resolution and the construction of power.
My goal is to dismantle systems of power in Blackspire that encourage both physical and psychological violence as means of enforcing one's political power and perpetuating the systematic disenfranchisement of most orcs while seeking to preserve the anti-monarchist tendencies of the peoples therein and better understand their philosophies. I also seek to see the nations Blackspire acknowledged by a... to be frank, racist and elitist international community which seeks to draw lines based on its own historical classifications of the region rather than the realities of life there.
A Summary of Anthropological Understandings Thus Far
The Sundar-Moath tribe is a racially diverse collection of individuals. It is one of many tribes in Blackspire which draws its political guidance primarily from religious authority, making it a demi-theocratic political hierarchy, with strength as a secondary source of political power in the form of the civil justice system, which I shall address momentarily.
Within Blackspire, religious power is held primarily by orcs who, while lacking the physical talents needed to be selected for training as Urukai or Turuks, have managed to resist the systems of oppression and deprivation which lead to the decreased capacities of many of their brethren. These orcs are often trained as shamans, and taught the stories of their people and the methods of communing with the spirits of the land, its energies, and the people who once lived there. The dominant religious practice within Blackspire--or at least within Sundar-Moath, as the nations of Blackspire are likely diverse in their religious practices as well as their socio-political ones--is a form of spirit worship which combines animal spirits, elementals, and the land itself into a kind of pantheon surrounding Kulzjar Abalgash, a name for the Fire God which places him at the head of the elemental pantheon. This pantheon is invoked at the beginning of each day, and an animal spirit takes up residence with the tribe, blessing them, but more importantly shaping their outlook for the day. In this way, Sundar-Moath's practices are not unlike the accounts I have read of Centaur tribes, and I am brought to wonder if the two have a similar origin or if they have simply tapped in to some piece of the world which goes ignored or overlooked by hegemonic cultures in Roekron.
The head of the Sundar-Moath tribe is an orc named Gobath Govari, who has thus far been open and accepting, happy to teach and to ponder questions of the nature of his people and their history. He is a mentor of sorts to me, as it is important to me that I come to understand the culture I am moving through before I begin efforts towards reform.
The secondary locus of social and political power in Sundar-Moath (and a primary locus in some tribes) is Urukai. Orcs are expected and trained culturally to listen to and obey Urukai. Urukai for their part are larger and more heavily built, and trained from a young age to occupy a position of privilege and to engage in a number of customs which are heavily associated in other cultures with both sections of aristocratic culture and toxic forms of masculinity, never backing down and pushing down those who challenge their authority. In Sundar-Moath, Urukai defer to Shamans, but are offered preferential treatment where wealth aggregation and assignment of authority and responsibility are concerned. In some tribes it is my understanding that Urukai do not defer to shamans as they do in Sundar-Moath, but are still trained to respect the voices of shamans even where they might have the legal power to overrule them.
Associated with the cultural power of physical violence is the system of civil law practiced by Sundar-Moath. Sundar-Moath is not a nomadic tribe, evidenced by the Pit, which is a very deep pit dug at the periphery of the camp. Pit Fighting, colloquially referred to as "pitting," is the primary method of resolving civil disputes in Sundar-Moath. If a plaintiff has a complaint against another person which is egregious enough to require legal resolution, one member may challenge the other to a pit fight, at which point there is a fight to the death. The winner may kill the loser if he or she wishes, or else impose some other penalty upon the loser. This method of civil dispute resolution is one which I would like to see resolved in a way that does not determine merit by strength. While I suspect a system of written laws would prove undesirable to the peoples here, they might prove partial to a common law system of judges and precedent. I might discuss this with the people here and see if that would be agreeable to them as an experiment.
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Post by ElfChild on Jan 25, 2018 2:09:24 GMT -8
Vee Motekei - Documentation of Reform Efforts Within the Tribal Nations of Blackspire Collection of Anecdotes Relevant to these Pursuits Publication Month: Firstmoon Timeframe of Events Described Herein: Twelfthmoon
Use of Animal Shapes by Dragons and Elementals
My... The beginnings of my education, I suppose, in Blackspire religious norms stemmed from elements in the world manifesting in ways I have never heard of prior. There was some manner of conflict across the mountain, and having crossed it we discovered creatures reminiscent of Rourges, and an injured bird. This bird was a white hawk, and it resisted identify somewhat, so we healed it and reverted it, at which point it became a white dragon. It flew a ways, and we followed to a second white dragon in the form of a griffin. We assisted it in fighting the rourge-like creatures, and I had a chance to discuss the issue at hand and the ways in which it tied to Blackspire philosophy somewhat.
First, it became clear that dragons tailor their appearances to the needs of the local populations they wish to interact with. The dragons we encountered were happy to be referred to as spirits, or by the names of the animals they became. Griffin told me that they had an understanding with the people of Blackspire in which they took forms that would be easier for Blackspire to understand. Second, they were interested in us. Hawk took the form of a recent totem of the Sundar-Moath, and as much as said that it was testing us by placing itself in a state of distress--"Perhaps I wanted to see if you were the kind of people who are kind to an injured hawk." This leads me to wonder if dragons take the forms they do elsewhere only when they wish to be understood as dragons. I wonder a little at the construction of dragon societies, and the ways that they interface with those of the other peoples of the world? I doubt they would let me study them, let alone publish, as interesting as an anthropological study of dragon societies might be.
The dragons said so long as they remained, it would be impossible to kill the rourge-like beings, which fed off of magic. It sounds like dragons project magical fields, so if you're a spell scholar perhaps look into that? As long as they were here, the rourge-likes would feed off of them instead of the beings beneath the earth here, which were young and might not survive being fed off, but the auras of the dragons were so strong that the rourge-likes could never be killed in their presence. They also said that the rourge-likes had been created by a rift troll, which I am told was one of Dagdemar's lovely gifts. We were told we could kill them with burning, and we did, after the dragons lit for us several fires. They left, and we destroyed all the rourge-likes as quickly as could be managed, but it was not fast enough. This is when my second lesson in the way Blackpire religion's relationship to the surrounding land came then.
Some of the earth fell away and there were three eggs. Two were cold and empty and spirit-less, but one was cracked and open and a small white mole sat in it. At first I thought this was a young dragon, but Hawk and Griffin did not come to retrieve it, and upon our return Gobath identified it as a Life Mole, a variety of elemental. It seems that the elementals in Blackspire also take forms which correlate to animal spirits, or perhaps are animal spirits--it is possible the varying styles of shamanism do not trace their differences from different origins of power but merely different ways of tapping the same power? It leads me to wonder whether the elementals too take forms ordained by religious practice and local spirits or if that is the native form of some elementals as suggested by it taking that form at birth, and if it is the latter, why don't elementals in other lands do the same? Again, I am not a magical scholar, I study politics and anthropology, and I have no conclusions in this matter, but if there is a scholar of magics who has interest in the nature of elementals, might I suggest Blackspire as a site of study?
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Post by ElfChild on Jan 25, 2018 3:15:55 GMT -8
Vee Motekei - Documentation of Reform Efforts Within the Tribal Nations of Blackspire Collection of Anecdotes Relevant to these Pursuits Publication Month: Firstmoon Timeframe of Events Described Herein: Twelfthmoon and Firstmoon
Gobath and Exchanges of Haunts
A number of people had become trapped as haunts in a dungeon, and as the adventurers did not know what to do about it, it fell to Gobath to resolve the situation. By now I had resolved to learn what I could of the religious order within Blackspire, both to understand it and to enter into it (with permission, of course) in hopes that it would open doors to understanding how Blackspire had come to where it was now, and as a result being able to address the issues at the heart of certain toxic practices from a position of caring and understanding. As such, I resolved to go with him, to learn what I could.
When he came to the site of the problem, Gobath examined the haunts. He came quickly to the conclusion that the place was some kind of trap, and that an exchange would be needed to extract those ensnared within. He sat down and began to perform a summoning ritual. Eventually, many pigeons flew in. He spoke to them, but quickly concluded they would not know the answers he needed and sent them on their way. He began again, and I sat down and meditated to see if I could trace the energies and chi in the space, as I had learned in my adolescence. He was feeling out with the spell he was casting, reaching and looking for things. Animals, I suppose. Finally a set of many large snakes came, and Gobath paled somewhat, but began to negotiate with them in their tongue. The negotiations took some time, and eventually they came to an accord. The snakes came to the gemstone in the wall which Gobath had surmised was the trap, and they thought for some time, and then they vanished and reappeared as ghostly versions of themselves as all the other haunts vanished and appeared, alive, in the central room of the dungeon. Gobath, exhausted, rose and shoo'd them off to fight some battle before slowly making his way back to the camp.
Gobath and Questions of the Ancient Histories of Blackspire
I followed Gobath back to the camp, mostly in quiet. We sat by the fire, and he rested while I asked my questions. I had begun to formulate my plan by now. In order to understand those toxic customs embedded within Blackspire society, I would come to know how they had come about to start, the seed from which they grew. I was brought up to pay great respect to my ancestors, and to the ancestors of all people, and the ancestors of Blackspire must have things to say, stories to tell of times when the systems of power and violence that the nations of Blackspire now accept as the natural order were in their infancy. But I needed to know if it was possible, and I needed permission. One does not enter a family's house and speak to their family shrine without invitation.
I asked about the spirits of the dead. The spirits of animals and of nature are well tended to. What of the spirits of the peoples of the lands? Gobath stared into the fire for some time, resting. I sat quietly, watching him. When he spoke, he explained that the creation myth of the people of Blackspire was somewhat more complicated than the one I had heard before, which spoke of them briefly in the process of the creation of the world. Kulzjar Abalgash had not personally created the peoples of Blackspire, he told me, the spirits of people had been crafted by the animals and their spirits, the beings Kulzjar did create, along with the elementals. The sacredness of the animals and the elementals in fact stems partially from the fact that some part of the spirit of each is in every individual, given to create... us. I suppose I shall be referring to myself as part of "us," even though I was not born here, even though I am still learning.
I asked if there was a tradition of shamans of the dead, who spoke with those who have passed on. Gobath nodded absently, and shifted in his seat. Another period of quiet came and went, and I worried that perhaps I had overstepped some bounds, but Gobath did not seem to be angry, merely thinking. Eventually, he told me of the shamans of the dead. They speak, he told me "to the spirits that wander the plane between here and passing on," and I did not know--still do not know--if he meant the ethereal or some other place, perhaps the place from where our ancestors guide us. Sometimes, he told me, oracles could be done with "spirit sight," and the dead can return and speak and tell their stories, their lessons and their lives. "Sometimes they teach," he said. "But mostly they just need to talk."
I asked him, finally, the first question in my quest, the one I hoped would lead me to all the others. "Was there a time," I asked, "before the peoples of Blackspire warred with one another? Are there stories of a time before war?"
He prodded at the fire with a stick, shifting the coals. "War has always been in our blood," was his answer at first. "We are of the fire, and....it burns with a force that threatens to consume us unless we let it out." He told me there was a time when Blackspire didn't burn itself, only those who threatened it. A time when Blackspire fought all as one people. A time very long past, mostly forgotten. But as he spoke he came to stories. "There are stories of times when war began, war with the men," he said. "If there was a time when war began, there must have been a before. Why do we speak of when war began if war has always been?" He tossed his stick into the fire. "It is a good question, and one the spirits can answer I think."
Asking Questions of the Spirits
I resolved after that night to become a shaman of the dead, so that I might ask the people and spirits of Blackspire their history, but this was perhaps more complicated than I had anticipated. Asking Gobath a few days later revealed that I must die as I oracled, and it took some time after this to formulate the way I intended to accomplish this, for if I was to die it must serve the oracle. I was further delayed by a need to seek teachings from the nature mages of Sundar-Moath, which while not difficult and not expensive (Blackspire has one of the most common-sense approaches to a guild system I've yet seen), was time consuming. It was for the best, however, as during this time I met and came into the beginnings of a friendship with a young woman named Morriaen, who was the child or perhaps consort of Scorpion. It is... not clear to me. Morriaen shared my interests, to an extent, and agreed to help me in my pursuit of ancient truths and to ask Scorpion to lend the same help. So it came that midday in late Firstmoon the two of us sat at a fire and began an oracle. I had slit my wrists, partially to invite death, but partially to invite the vision to address the bloody affairs of death and war, which surely lay at the end of our road. To the spirits of the land we asked, there was a time before Blackspire was in conflict, before war with men. What sparked the change?
We were walking on volcanic rock, glass perhaps, and it cut at our feet a little, but we were used to it. We saw snow, but we knew it to be dangerous--very dangerous--so we remained in the rock and continued up the mountain. We came to Wolf, and she lead us further. I began to stumble, my fur--for I was a wolf now--matted and bloody. Morriaen carried me. Wolf watched, but she did not pass judgement. She waited for us to catch up, then continued to walk.
We were heading down the mountain now, and we could see wolves further down, fighting an enormous bird. Perhaps it was once a crow, but it was wrong somehow, with many claws on its feet and its feathers falling out from age. Its deep red eyes sometimes would darken to purple, and I knew it at once to be the Dagdemar. The wolves attacked it, but it motioned at each with its claw and they began to cower, and it began to feed them. They ate and ate, and soon they began to roll about in the dirt. When finally they stood up, they came behind the bird, and they were dogs, not wolves. I felt sick at this. I remembered them, but they showed no recognition of me, and as there were more and more it seemed we might have to fight them. There were many of them, and they attacked the wolves and did not seem to remember they were wolves once.
We heard a voice then, "There is an older pain," and we saw Scorpion. Scorpion stung Morriaen, and venom went all down her right arm. She seemed to be in immense pain. She was pulled one way, and I had to choose whether to be pulled with a vision shifting under me or to catch hold of her and follow her vision. We exchanged a look, and parted.
Morriaen was a wolf still, and she was in massive pain. Surrounding her were many dead wolves, she recognized some of them, some of them had been ones that had become dogs before too, but now they were all equally dead. A being loomed, with skin of stone, chopping at the wolves, chopping them up into pieces. The stone being looked at her, and she knew it.
I was goo, dripping slowly, flowing into a river. As I did, the water turned red, churning with blood, with me, as I tried to hold myself together, a scrap of flesh flowing downstream. A fish came, and its mouth opened, and I flowed inside. I became salmon, going upstream and up waterfalls. I had a goal, and that was one thing, but something else bothered me as well. I swam and swam til I saw Bear. Bear would eat me, I knew. I had encountered Bear many times, and that is simply what Bear does, but I knew I could negotiate with bear, if I wanted. Bear was reasonable, after all.
"Bear," I asked, "have you seen lizard?"
"Yes," said Bear, "I am good friends with lizard."
"I am trying to find the time before," I told Bear. "I will trade you. You may have my flesh, but I must meet lizard." And then Bear's jaws opened wide and I was consumed.
I became Bear. Bear moved up the mountain til he reached a rocky place. Lizard was not there, so I keept going til I came to a warm place, and Lizard was there, sunning himself, occasionally showing glimpses of the blue stripes on his undersides with little push-ups.
"Lizard," said Bear, "I brought you a messenger."
"Yes, I know," said Lizard. "I am aware of that, but what have they brought for me?"
"I am sorry, I don't know," said Bear, "but there are many lives and many spirits that remain trapped, and they will set them free."
"She will enter the dreams," said Lizard, "and we have lost all of them."
"I know, but I think it is all she has," replied Bear.
"Then show the other what the time reveals," Lizard conceded. "Show her the pain." Lizard began to sleep then, and to dream, and I could see his dreams.
I saw a person with a stone skin. It chopped up wolves, which were dead all around it. One wolf bled nearby. It continued to dismember them, lifting its cleaver and bringing it down, over and over. Chop. Chop. Chop. I was afraid. "Prejudice," I whispered, recognizing the cleaver from the stories. It turned to look at me, and I knew it, and I knew its name. It couldn't quite see me, I knew, but it knew its name had been said. I could see it's face turned towards me, and it was not the face I thought it was. It was a smiling face, a kindly face. It was so very, very human. And the stone skin. The stone skin was not attached to it, the stone skin was worn.
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Post by ElfChild on Mar 19, 2018 2:56:13 GMT -8
Vee Motekei - Documentation of Reform Efforts Within the Tribal Nations of Blackspire Collection of Anecdotes Relevant to these Pursuits Publication Month: Thirdmoon Timeframe of Events Described Herein: Thirdmoon
Problem Statement (Part One)
I would like to believe that I do not brook in myself sentiments which amount to racism, even subtle and effectively justified racism. The exploitative nature of Blackspire's caste system is difficult not to see, when one refuses to indulge in logics which are racist or which seek to justify existing power structures. I do not believe that orcs, as a race, are mentally inferior to humans. However, many orcs--most who grow up in Blackspire--are mentally stunted. This stunted mental growth is not observed in people who grow up uneducated outside of Blackspire culture. Even a man raised by dogs will not exhibit that kind of mental stunting, though many will have a difficult time ever grasping spoken or written language. If one does not hold a racist belief in the inherent inferiority of orcs, one is forced to see that the Blackspire caste system which delineates between orcs and urukai must systematically inflict psychological violence and neglect severe enough to stunt the mental growth of most orcs.
As it is my work to attempt to dismantle damaging social and political structures, I needed to learn how this one worked, and I did not trust those entrenched within the system to give me an answer. So I turned to the spirits whose memories are long and whose stake is in the good of this land and its people. My companions and I were to learn a history that has lain hidden for a very long time.
Visions of Histories
To be clear, when I gathered Morriaen and (Francis) together to oracle, my expectation was that we would uncover a socio-political process metaphorized by spirits attempting to communicate the ways of mortals to us. This was not what we saw. Our question was as follows: What is suppressing the minds of orcs and how did it come about?
I was standing by a river. I didn't remember getting out of it, but I was still pretty wet. It was hard to breathe, but I could see just fine. In retrospect, the entire oracle was incredibly sharp and defined, as oracles almost never are. A person walked along the shore, a little downriver of us. Sometimes they would wade in and dig at things in the water, but soon we saw them moving up, toward the mountains. They wore very decorative white plate mail, with thinly etched lotus markings, and upon recognizing it as a Knight of the Dagdemar, the Dagdemar felt Named, and I knew he was watching us and the vision as it unfolded.
As the Knight of the Dagdemar ventured up the mountains, there was an eruption at the summit of a mountain, and from it burst a man of fire with a club - the Fire God, Kulzjar Abalgash to the people of Blackspire. Knowing who he was, he felt Named, and he too watched and knew the vision as it unfolded. The two of them did battle, the Fire God pummeling the Dagdemar and pushing him back down the mountain and the Dagdemar cutting at the Fire God with his blade. Blood dripped from the wounds of the Fire God, and as it hit the ground figures rose from it. They were small, walking on their hind legs and carrying their own clubs - orcs, and they too felt Named and aware. They joined the battle against the white knight that was the Dagdemar, and their tactics were simple, but effective at pushing him back and he lost a good deal of progress as they pushed him down the mountain. The Dagdemar drew up shadowy whispers around him, which tried to control the orcs, but to no effect. We could feel his frustration.
The Dagdemar looked up at the Fire God then, and he swung his blade. It did not make contact, for the Dagdemar was too far away, but it felt like there was a great force behind that swing and the fire god was knocked backward and pinned against the mountain through it's heart. The Fire God screamed in pain, he yelled and thrashed, and he bled. More orcs arose from his blood, but these were more confused than the first to be born, less clear of purpose. They attacked the other orcs, fighting with one another, and the Dagdemar bent over to gather many of these new orcs into his arms.
The Fire God shrieked, and we looked about. A figure in the clouds holding a spear - the Sky God, and he was Named and watching - looked down and saw what was happening, but he did nothing. A figure in the water - the Water Goddess, and she was Named and watching - rose up and looked up, hearing the screams, but did nothing. The woman downstream in the woods with flowers and creatures about her - The Nature Goddess, and she was Named and watching - could see and looked pained, but did nothing. Blood flowed near the river, and out of muck by the river came the Swamp God (also Named and watching) and he alone came forward and appeared to drive off the man in the white armor, but as he did he took many small beings with him. Stolen Children. There was a thread of song then, though the tune escapes me save for minor key and an odd sense of color (white at the beginning and purple nearer the middle) - "He will raise them as his own but they will not be of his own, they will be the twisted form of his imagination." The Swamp God came to the aid of the Fire God, but stole his children as he passed over them. Finally he came to the Fire God and reached out as if to help him. But then he laughed, and there was a tormented sense of pain and loss. The Swamp God patted the Fire God on the head, and as he did muck dripped off his hand and covered the face of the Fire God, and the Fire God calmed. He rose again, but he wore a mud mask over his face, and he was not entirely alive.
The vision began to unravel. The Nonas girl, Yuna, attempted to name the holy weapon of the Sky God Emminence, and the falseness of it sped the unraveling, but I was not done. I grabbed hold of the theads of the vision, and more clearly the threads of the deities attention here, and demanded of them, "What special moral place do you reserve for inaction that this seemed okay?" The vision decayed then, but there were words, when we returned to ourselves. The gods had answered.
The Sky God: From a distance many things seem to be okay. The Water Goddess: Everything is changeable, and everything will change anyway. The Nature Goddess: I hear the wound, but my own wound is too deep to respond. My wound feels greater. The Swamp God: Every opportunity is mine to exploit, and I will gain whenever anyone else loses. The Fire God: There is a burning. It is pain. I cannot see.
It felt like a year had passed, in seeing that, and it left me drained and tired even through the euphoria of direction and intent. I am coming to understand that the deep past is a dangerous place to look, but important. The gods felt aware of us. Very aware. I would not have been surprised if they could trace our every move, and a more cautious person would have laid in wait. But attention is a valuable resource, and I had no intent to waste it.
Problem Statement (Part Two)
I am not under the impression that repairing the state of the Fire God is likely to instantly repair centuries of tradition and negate power structures in which many have an ongoing vested interest. But what has been done is unjust and there is a lie and a wound at the heart of the Blackspire culture that needed to be remedied. No being should have its intent brought to heel in such a way, and perhaps the Fire God will take an interest in righting the wrongs perpetuated while he was under the thrall of the Swamp God. Perhaps there will be hell to pay for what we have done, though I know that it was right.
No being should be made the thrall of another. I am not a specialist in deities, but I am of Sorikonia, and of historical pursuits. Our ancestors have been violated and made tools and mockeries of before. I would not allow my ancestors to be treated as the Fire God, ancestor of the orcs, has been treated. The mask needed to be removed, and likely destroyed.
Breaking the Mask
It was not long before many of the adventurers were gathered at a shrine to the Fire God. It took a not insignificant period of time to explain to the priest what we had seen, and he did not believe most of it. The story seen in the vision described above does not align with traditional mythologies, though the gods each responded as though it was the truth. Once, humans, likely of Dagdeoth origin and accompanied by a minor demon, attacked and were dispensed with. Once, (Francis) saw the face of the priest become the mask the Swamp God had left on the face of the Fire God, and it looked on her and laughed. The Sky God was called to, and we demanded he help heal this wrong that he had allowed to be. Clouds rolled in and the sky darkened. Then Varok spoke to the Nature goddess and asked that she help him help her brother. She watched through the birds. Then I attempted to channel the spirits in the space, taking wight onto my soul once for each god we had invited into the space--one for the Fire God, one for the Sky God, and one for the Nature goddess. Everything changed then.
We were in a place of sick earth. The sky was a mess of light too bright to look at and shadow which blotted out all beneath it. Where there had been a creek, there was a swampy rotting ooze flowing, and where the shrine had been there was a pit. In it was a flame, but the ooze flowed into it. Many spirits were about, orcs, and they attacked us. (Francis) insisted there was but one way out and we needed to find it (she did with Ros and there is likely value to be gained in discovering what they experienced), but I did not see that leaving was appropriate. We were here to fix something. I was not prepared to leave until it was fixed. We fought off the spectral orcs, who dropped as if injured when struck, and then set about attempting to hold the swamp at bay, with paladins exorcising it and the shaman Thahgook shielding it with his body, which was a kind of shield. These seemed to have some effect, and soon things shifted again and felt more vision-like, though my death shaman abilities did not treat them as a vision. Avatars of the Dagdemar and the Swamp god appeared, and with some effort, we were able to best them and begin exorcism.
We appeared around the shrine, as we had been. The shrine looked as it had been. The sky was not as it had been. It was clear. Something had changed. There was a feeling of something having been cracked or broken, and coming close to exposing what was beneath. We were unsure if that was a good thing. We had broken down something, but maybe it could be an egg. The presences of deities paying attention to us had receded, but those who worshipped the Fire God felt his presence more strongly.
I suspect there is still work to do. Nothing is likely to unravel overnight, but we will see. Perhaps all that has changed is that the peoples will be more open to change. Only time will tell. Perhaps the next you hear of me, it will be more the manner of document you expect from a social reform effort.
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