Oh, hello there! Welcome to our humble little town of Lorenstad. You must be new here - I can see it in your face. Worry not, for we’re the welcoming sort, I can promise you that. If you’re looking for a home, friend, you may just have found it right here. If you’d like, have a seat, have some hot schlotschic and let me tell you a bit about our beloved little piece of the Makers’ work.
Where am I?
You’re in Lorenstad, a small stop-over between the port city Struq in the east and the archduchess’ capital Grada in the west. People usually come here to rest on their way to either, but on occasion, we get one or two who feel like staying after getting to know the locals - that’s how we got most of our locals, anyhow.
What do you do here?
Why, we live our lives as we always have. The draft of people and goods through our humble piece of land means we’ve built up our share of artisans over the years - alchemists, mages, runesmiths, mip breeders, blacksmiths, potters, carpenters - the list goes on for a bit as you can imagine. Plenty of work to be made here, if you’ve got the skill.
‘Course, there’s also plenty of land, so if being a shepherd, farmer or forester fancies you more, there’s always room for that, too.
Why should I care?
Oh, I don’t mean to impose, I assure you. Our little town just always strives to be welcoming to all the Makers’ folks, whether they be elves, dwarves, trolls, giants, goblins, gnomes, kappa, satyrs - you get the picture. So if this fancies you, you know, we’re always happy to invite you to stay.
Welcome to Townsfolk of Lorenstad, a small-scale fantasy town RP set in the most generic of fantasy worlds. Why so generic? Well, frankly, the world at large is much too big to even fathom - for us townsfolk, anyway. Hence we don’t care much for it, save for some places central to our lives. What we care about is Lorenstad herself, and what a fine lil’ town she is.
So what’s this RP actually about? This is a small-scale character RP set in a small town. By "small-scale" I am referring to the size of the map, so to speak, with most of the RP being restricted to the village. As for the number of players, there's no limit. You make a character of a fantasy race of your choosing, give them a job (or no job if the bum or thief’s life is your calling) and join the fun - simple as.
Want to roleplay a 7 meter tall giant who makes a living by fishing for arcane crocodiles called froops in the nearby river? You can do that.
Want to roleplay a talking macaque the size of a thumb who entertains the tavern guests at night with sick tunes from the world’s smallest violin? Go right on ahead!
Want to roleplay a lizardman constable who hisses everything they say and thus never makes themself understood? If that’s your cuppa tea, you may!
Want to roleplay a dragon who lives in a cave outside of the village because no house could fit them and is forever surly over the fact? A little bitter, maybe, but feel free to do so!
If this sounds like a good time to you, feel free to fill out the character sheet below. You can also check out of Discord if that fancies, too: https://discord.gg/P38vDPkAXB
Da Rules
Alright, some quick roles before you get started:
No godmode/metagame/powerplay and make sure to reach out to people before involving their stuff and characters in your own stuff unless they’ve given their clear.
While any fantasy race, job and concept is fair game, please don’t pick a world-ending entity like a balrog or an elemental lord or something like that. Won’t be much of a town life RP if the town is wiped out by a firestorm. Job-wise, please don’t pick anything that would obviously draw a lot of attention or outrank the mayor (doesn’t count for military ranks - your character can be a bypassing general of the archduchess’ army if that pleases).
Please give the GM a quick message on the OOC if circumstances dictate that you will become inactive in the RP for a time. I’m sure we’ve all seen the phenomena of people simply vanishing; it’s frustrating and leaves work where the others have to pick up the narrative pieces.
Since it’s a small village, people can meet up and even do sexy times. In such an event, please keep it PG-13 and fade to black.
Character Sheet
Name: Add a name here. Can be anything of any language root, fictional or otherwise. Race: Can also be anything (see rule nr. 2 for what is considered ‘within reason’). Please also add a short description of what the race is like, what its traits are and maybe even where it’s from in the world (since the world lore is so limited, the player is completely free to create their race’s place of origin from scratch). Pictures are welcome! Job: Tell us what your character’s job in the town is! Virtually anything goes, so pick something you’d like to explore with your character. Background: Here you fill out your character’s background. Are they new to the town or have they been here for a while? Perhaps they’re from one of the lineages that founded the town way back? Maybe they’re from a legendary lineage from far, far away and live in exile? Are they single? Are they married? Are they perhaps above (or below) familial ties, or of a religion that does not condone marriage? What is their religion? Do they believe in the Makers? Home: Every townsperson oughta have a home, so add a picture or a description of where and how your character lives. Do they live in a mansion or in a wooden barrel in an alley? On the second floor of their workshoppe or on a small farm in the outskirts? Pictures are welcome!
Feel free to drop a note of interest if this pulls your gaze!
Yeah, sorry about that. It's not always easy to pay attention to the old methods of communicating when everyone else is already on Discord. It's been a busy month for pretty much everyone in the GM team, and unfortunately that sometimes means some things are forgotten in the rush. Very sorry about that. Still, your last PM to me personally was three months ago and your last message on this board was two months ago. Since you didn't ping us more in that timespan, we assume that, since you said your life had taken a turn, you had lost interest. We should have answered your question and there's no excusing that. However, as I've said, things tend to pass over our heads sometimes and we need our reminders.
If you're still interested in the RP, your sheet was accepted way back, so you are free to post whenever, as you have always been since it got accepted. We know you don't use Discord, but it'd be way easier to contact us there in the future.
Year on lushland calendar: 33 Year on timeskip calendar: 177
The summer was a pleasant one; warm air wafted gently from the north, the cold southern winds receding in defeat. The leaves of the bronzewoods rustled gently, accentuated with the chatter of migratory birds. The volcano had been especially quiet recently; there was not a spot of ash in the sky, and the ashland outposts were free of the ever-threatening ash-storms. The first of the harvests had already come in, the grain distributed among the city.
The latest expansion to the city was going well; Efts were working quickly to make space for their newest brothers. As quickly as they used up their bronzewood reserves, new logs were brought from the woods. The city was a flurry of activity, of cooperation, and of general cheer. It was the most prosperous season they had in living memory.
In the spirit of familial good-will, spurred on by the prosperity, a number of Efts and even some Newts had begun to create small shrines; tokens of appreciation for their mother and their lineage. It had not been widely adopted, yet, and remained the domain of random fits of familial love.
Mere shrines would not do, though, for their mother was the very reason they were alive, and her protection was paramount for the survival of their races. This unity of purpose would strengthen them, but only if the Newts and Efts knew the meaning of brotherhood - that the tribe’s members were family and that respect between kin was the basis of society. These acts of filial piety and familial affection reached the King of Clans, the Queen of Kin, and the Matripatrihierarch descended from Mons Divinus into the ashen wastes and verdant jungles of the Lushlands to behold this budding religion based on respect and love for the tribe and its chieftess.
At the city gate, the golden being, followed by simply dressed clergy of all races who held family dear and who were more or less accustomed to the climate, raised all eight arms in greeting and spoke: ”Be greeted, o pious people of these volcanic lands. A hundred birds have sung of your kinship, and a thousand roots have whispered of your loyalty, so I, Chakravarti vur Chakravarti, have come to see it for myself. Prithee open these gates - let me in to behold your familial love!”
From high above in the gatehouse, the Guard Captain, a particularly large Newt, looked down upon them. He fetched a messenger bird, and tied a note to its foot; releasing it to fly deep into the city. He then shouted down, his voice carrying the authority of his office, “Chakravarti vur Chakravarti, we have been abused by gods in the past; we must see to our family first. Our mother and our queen shall decide if your entry is to be permitted!”
The family god briefly oozed an air of surprise followed by a mist of annoyance, but shortly regained a polite composure and bowed. ”Of course. It is only natural for a tribe to mistrust another tribe with whom no bonds of blood have been bound. I pray your mother is in good health and company - loyal are her children who consult her wisdom before inviting in the unknown. I applaud that.” Four hands clapped with acknowledgement.
The guard captain remained silent, his eyes set upon the god, until the messenger bird returned. He put up his arm, allowing it to land on his arm, whereupon he untied the message on its foot. He unrolled the letter, and read it to himself. Then, he cried, “Chakravarti vur Chakravarti, you are to be permitted entrance; though you are barred from the palace and its grounds! Open the gate!”
Though there was a side gate, the guards went to work on the chains of the main gate; the wrought-iron portcullis slowly lifted with a great groan of weight. Beyond the walls; the city itself stood. Great bronzewood buildings, some fifteen stories high, densely packed between the streets. They were thinner than other cities; the Varasons no strangers to crowds and harmoniously living together in spaces that would bring fights in other species.
The crowd, though it seemed an endless sea, parted way for the god and her procession; helped along by guards. Their numbers seemed endless; stretching down every street in every direction. The golden giant entered with a triumphant aura of pride, followed by the clergy who all were bald and clean of any hair. The men were dressed in bright yellow robes and the women were dressed in matte silver robes. The youngest among them dared look around to behold the splendor of this marvel of construction; the elders kept their eyes fixed on the ground and walked in prayer.
Chakravarti themself seemed upset, though. ”I am thankful that I have been let into the city,” they said as they walked, ”but how am I to meet with the mother - their source of existence and the leader of their clan - if I cannot go to the palace? Why may I not venture there - even I, Chakravarti?”
A nearby guard spoke up, almost irreverently, “It is for your own safety, god that you are. It is for our own safety as well. You may attempt it if you wish; we know better than to attack the gods. But, regardless, you shall not reach our mother.” He kept the crowd back with his halberd, keeping the path in front of Chakravarti clear. They could see the palace; the city was built outwards on the spokes of eight main streets, with the palace’s walls in the center.
Chakravarti sighed and nodded. ”Then so be it. While it pains me that I will not be able to meet with the mother of all these fine people, I have nothing but the deepest respect for sons who would lay down their lives for her protection, even against impossible odds. I will thus not test you, for I know what ferocity comes to life when one protects one’s kin.” They looked around again. ”The seeds of the trees gossiped about certain shrines that have been built in honour of blood and kin. Take me to them, for I much desire to behold their primitive splendor.”
The guard nodded, explaining, “There is only one public shrine I know of; Golden Square in the new expansion. We shall take you there,” they cleared the crowd through one of the side roads, bringing Chakravarti and her procession through a winding maze of footpaths between the tall buildings. The buildings became newer and newer as they went, leaving behind the weathered buildings of yesteryear for the shining new constructions of the expansion.
When they finally emerged from the side streets, the crowd no longer passerbys but instead laborers with their tools, it was in a large square surrounded by incomplete bronzewood buildings. The guard stopped one of the laborers with his halberd; he ordered them, “Explain to Chakravarti vur Chakravarti the history of this square.”
The laborer sized up the god, and then responded, a slight impatience in his voice; he was carrying tools, clearly he had been on his way to a worksite. “Golden Square is named after Summer’s Second Sheafed Harvest of Golden Stalks in the Eleventh Year of the Second Matriarch and the Poet-General; he gave his life not far from here four months ago,” a hint of sadness crept into his voice, “a beam was improperly secured; it fell. He used his body to jam it so it would not fall on the fifteen workmen below him. Those workmen erected that statue,” he gestured to the bronzewood statue in the center of the square; a crude, only barely artistic block of wood hewed into the shape of an Eft. Various offerings surrounded it; foods, tools, and a few coins.
The laborer continued, “They erected it in his likeness. We’re simple workmen. Bronzewood is difficult to hew into shape. They did the best they could. He’s a little bit of a hero around here.”
The family god stepped over to the statue and caressed the woodwork ponderously. Splinters tugged at the holy skin and the curves showed clear signs of struggle with the tools. The likeness was likeness to the people who had known this Eft, but an idol needed not perfectly resemble who it represented. Still...
”Do the youngest and greenest labourers among you know of his example? Has his legend been carved into writing?”
The laborer shrugged, saying, “We speak of it amongst ourselves. But we are workmen; precious little of us are literate. If it has been written down, it was by the palace. They hold stories and legends in great esteem there.” His gaze wandered down the main street; towards the walls of the palace.
Chakravarti nodded. ”Ah, the eternal dilemma - the appropriation of written history by the learned and the reliance on memory by the unlearned. What misfortune,” they sighed. ”Misunderstand me not, mortal - I do not underestimate your memory nor your commitment to ensuring the dissemination of this story out into the workforce; I fear only that the memory of Summer’s Second Sheafed Harvest of Golden Stalks in the Eleventh Year of the Second Matriarch and the Poet-General will fade into obscurity and myth with time. A worthy brother such as him deserves a proper temple and a cult of historians who can tell his tale when all who witnessed him are gone.” The family god drummed a finger thoughtfully on their chin. ”Perhaps more like him will make themselves known, and they, too, will need the same treatment.”
The laborer took off his hat, holding it to his chest as he responded, “We do not begrudge the palace, m’am. Stories and legends mean a great deal to our mother; she has spent her life collecting them. We would not wish to grieve her with their loss,” he paused, his face and tone lightening when he continued, “but we also cannot begrudge an offering such as this. I can speak to the others; whatever assistance you need in enshrining Golden’s memory, we would be happy to provide.”
Chakravarti hummed and squatted down before the statue. A finger scratched passively at their nose and their lips pursed pensively. ”Enshrined, he shall be, and I will leave space for others who will surely come later. Fetch me an armful of bronzewood bark, a fistful of salt and the seed of a palm. With this, a temple to Golden’s sacrifice for his kin shall be erected.”
The laborer nodded, saying, “Of course, m’am,” as he turned around and stepped back into the crowd. The guards kept the square cleared for a few long minutes, until, suddenly, laborers stepped out of the crowd. One carried not just an armful of bark but an entire wheelbarrow of it; another arrived with two sack cloth bags carrying four pounds of salt each. Then, between them, a long pause.
The crowd parted to reveal eight Efts pulling a cart, atop of which was lashed a bronzewood seed; a six-hundred pound monstrosity coated in a protective shell as hard as steel. They careened the cart into the square, and looking to the god, one of them said, “Golden saved my life. I’ve brought above and beyond what was asked, in the hopes that his temple is only made more glorious for it.” He wringed his hands and continued, “but we do not know what a palm seed is, or where to find one; we’ve brought a bronzewood seed instead.”
The god pinched one such seed between two faintly glowing golden fingers and pursed their lips. ”It will suffice, though I cannot say for certain if the temple will resemble what I had in mind; nevertheless, as is the case in all lands, one must make due with the resources available.” They held forth a thumb and squinted one eye. ”That site there - it shall be the location of his temple,” they said and took ten paces forward. As they passed by the man with the salt, they extracted a fistful; when they passed by the wheelbarrow, two arms brought an armful along. Another hand raised a lecturing finger into the air. ”Your enthusiasm is admirable and speaks volumes of your devotion to Golden’s memory…” They dropped the bark into a pile at the destination, planted the seed in the pile and sprinkled it down with salt. ”... Certain things, however, cannot be accelerated with additional resources. Some things will take time no matter what.” They dusted off their hands with four series of claps. ”Tomorrow at noon, a temple will have grown here in Golden’s honour. Until then, no one can disturb this pile.”
The laborers lowered their heads in respect as the god walked past them and created the seed pile. The guards passively watched on; they did not know Golden, so it was not as personal for them. Once she had finished, the collection of Efts murmured their acknowledgement, a few staying to watch the seed as the laborers returned to their duties. A guard walked up to inspect the seed, and then said, “Is there anything else you require while you are in our city?”
The god looked out across the workspace, two out of eight hands resting on their hips. ”I see that this city sports no females beyond these matriarchs that I am not privileged to meet. If someone would, I pray they could tell me - share with me - the brotherhoods formed amongst the many citizens in this settlement. How do your families persist without wives? Without fathers?”
The guard looked at her oddly for a moment before explaining, “We are all sons of our one matriarch -- our mother. Her children are distributed among her sons -- us, to raise,” he paused, thinking for a moment before asking, “What are families, exactly?”
The god shrugged softly. ”A family can be so much, for there are many mortals in this world who define families differently. The core family, however, is the parent and its child - the mother and her son, in your case. Other races incorporate the father to aid the mother in procreation, and families become something more than a mere relationship between creator and creation: They become partnerships between adults - projects to consolidate power and influence and ensure that their children grow up in a better world than they did.” They paused. ”Beyond the core family, the parents are themselves children of their own parents, and their siblings are the childrens’ relatives. This becomes the clan, which may be seen as separate from the family - a broader group who might share blood, but not the intimacy of the core family. This is not a given, of course, but a rough generalisation. To some, the family extends to the clan, incorporating all who swear loyalty to the family, be they distant relatives or entirely unrelated by blood. Others value the core family above the clan, and rather prefer the clan to orbit the core and rule through a strict hierarchy of inheritance.” They knelt down and held up a palm in front of the guard’s face. A small cut blistered open on their skin and small droplets of liquid gold trickled forth. One droplet landed on the ground and a lotus flower sprouted at the spot. ”Common among it all, though, is blood. Friends may be call each other brothers, but only those who have sworn to brotherhood by oath of blood and soil can call themselves family. Since you all share the same blood, mortal, that makes you, too, family.”
“I see,” the guard responded, “Then we are all family. Our children are a communal effort. We work together to raise them; I suppose that makes us all each other’s parents.”
”In a way,” agreed the god and sewed up the wound with a flick of a finger. ”Brother can raise brother; sister can raise sister. In some families, the parent or parents do not have the capacity, skill nor will to raise their own. In such cases, the responsibility falls on the eldest children. You are brothers, but you take on the role of parent to not compromise your mother’s safety.” The god nodded. ”I see I still have much to study when it comes to the clan structures of this world.”
The guard simply watched her muse to herself. He let her finish before he asked, “Perhaps; but we cannot stand in Golden Square forever. Where else would you like to go?”
The god peered passively at the nails of three of their hands. ”Take me to your finest quarters, if you would. I wish to rest for the day. Tomorrow, your temple to Golden will have grown out of the soil and you can commence the enshrining.”
“Very well; the guesthouse on the palace grounds shall do,” the guard instructed, half to the god and half to the other guards; they cleared a route through the crowd down the main street, walking for a few miles before finally reaching the palace walls. Upon each of the eight main streets sat a gate into the palace grounds, the entire complex surrounded by high walls, covered in cannonade and newt palace guards. The guard shouted up, “We bring our visiting god! She has requested a guesthouse!”
The newts on the walls conferred with each other briefly, before the gate rumbled. The portcullis slowly began to lift up as the two inner doors were pulled open by a team of two newts. A team of newt palace guards that emerged to take over the escort revealed just how great the difference between them and the efts -- the newts were twice as tall, with increased musculature to match. The city guards silently stepped away as the palace guards beckoned the god in.
Inside the palace grounds, the crowds thinned. Instead of thousands of efts packed together, there were some five-hundred newts scattered across the brick walkways and the well-managed gardens. Some wore armor and carried force of arms, while others wore the clothes of officials both major and minor. Fewer, still, wore the doublets of important organizations, the upper aristocracy of the march.
Chakravarti held their chin high and did not regard those they passed. They did not radiate a disrespecting aura, necessarily, but their every move clearly had a goal of distancing themself from mortal composure as possible. Their feet walked light as though their soles walked on air; four of their arms flexed outwards to strengthen their silhouette with outward beams of muscle; and their eyes were closed, though this did not seem to impede their sense of navigation. ”Look upon me,” they said to the bypassers. ”Gaze upon me and know peace and safety, for Chakravarti holds in high regard the sons who defend their mother.” They repeated this line about each time they entered a new area. The clergy in their pursuit remained as silent as they had before and followed faithfully.
The palace guards she passed only gave her steely stares, while the officials passed by her without regard; too lost in their own workloads to care. The aristocrats, however, did seem to take note; watching her carefully, and whispering to each other about her when she walked by. The palace guards took her and her procession to one of the main paths of the palace; attached to which was the guesthouse. It was a 5-story building, made of polished marble and bronzewood smoothed and waxed to a shine, with fiery orange clay tiles making up its roof.
Down one end of the main path was one of the entrances to the main flower garden, covered in resplendently colorful blooms, rare plants from all over the continent. Down the other side of the main path laid the palace itself, the path terminating in a massive flight of steps up into the central hall. The palace was entirely marble; its roof tiles exhibiting a lustre and quality far beyond those of the guesthouse. Chakravarti was clearly impressed.
”What splendor of architecture; what sagely use of materials; what exceptional palettes.” Six hands applauded. ”How long has this project taken your kind to build?”
The newt’s voice was gruff, nowhere near as friendly as the efts that had previously escorted them, “The palace has been worked on since we first arrived here, long before even the first building in the city had its foundations laid. It is the only protection our mother has.”
Chakravarti nodded. ”What protects her beyond these walls? Have you charms and spells to keep out the assassins that no doubt threaten her daily?”
The palace guard sized up Chakravarti before responding, “We exist for the mundane threats. For assassins, armies -- the stock and trade of mortal force, the entire city exists as protection,” he paused, looking over at the main palace building briefly as he continued, “for your kind, guards and armies are meaningless. All I may reveal is you would regret attempting to enter the palace.”
Chakravarti frowned. ”You will use a different tone when addressing me from now on, guardsman, lest you will regret your underhanded threats to my person.” They shook their head. ”Well, move along then. I wish to be alone for the afternoon and the night. Again - do -not- disturb that pile.”
The palace guard responded, his tone flat and unimpressed, “None of that was a threat. We warn you of the palace’s defenses in the interest of ensuring you remain unharmed,” he sniffed, “if we had wanted you hurt, we would have invited you in for a visit with our mother. Remember that you are our guest; our mother decided to trust you, and that is a high honor. You are the first not of our lineage that trust has been bestowed to.”
He didn’t wait for a response, and immediately turned to leave as the rest of the palace guards silently moved to follow him.
Chakravarti scrunched their nose and went inside with an angry huff. It was clear that the locals did not know who they were hosting, and Chakravarti would be sure to leave a very poor review behind after their stay. The night passed quickly and the pile remained undisturbed. In the morning, the labourers flocked to marvel at the structure that had sprouted from the bronzewood seed: The pile had become a great tower, one where every roof sported a small ceiling like the barbs on a cactus; the salt had given a white colour to the walls and a jade fungus that had lived in the bark had given the roof tiles an emerald sheen. Within, there was plenty of room for statues and shrines, and a separate room inside, though small, allowed for a full-time cleric to maintain the statues full-time. Inside, bronzewood pillars with carvings depicting the Efts and Newts in their tireless labour held up the many floors, and the levels continued upwards and could be accessed by a spiral of ladders going all the way to the top.
When the guards came to see Chakravarti, however, they found that they had left in the night, leaving only the used bed sheets of themself and their followers and empty breakfast plates. No one had seen them leave and no one could say why they had left before telling anyone.
The palace guards did a search of the palace grounds to make sure; meanwhile, the laborers selected one of their own to maintain the shrine. Once the palace grounds had been secured, the alert was dropped. Though the city would slowly come to worship Chakravarti, the palace itself remained unconvinced, a bastion of irreligion surrounded by a city of the religious.
Newts and efts have made a shrine to a dead comrade. Chak comes by to teach them proppa comrade worship. They accept and Chak plants them a new temple. They then ask if Chak wanna some summin else, but since they don’t get to see the mommy of the city, they just learn about the brotherhood of the Efts and Newts. They then go to sleep and leave in the night because they feel they got disrespected.
By Court Historian Qhosihm vur Shaim Produced for His Imperial Glory, Emperor Ossurman X vur Chakravarti, Ruler of the Eight Princes, Father of the Ten Peoples and Trueborn of the Matripatrihierarch
Foreword
As many of my peers would agree, summarising the entire history of Our Empire in the span of a few pages is no small feat. As the oldest realm on the Shard, ours is a history that outlasts much of civilisation beyond our borders - the All-Father and his glorious house had few contemporaries of their calibre, save perhaps for the Hursarians and Paradisians with whom our people share many bonds of love and friendship. The All-Father’s command of the people led to the conquest of the entire realm roughly as we know it today, reaching its greatest extent under his heir, the Roaring Chengal. As the Emperor’s commission demands, I will present my findings from browsing and studying the many historical accounts of our past with the most sincere honesty. I implore all my peers at both the Imperial Academy and the Red College to critique my work should it be necessary. On account of the length limit of this work, I may leave out certain events that I do not deem essential enough to our imperial history, but may be of significance in certain localities. I will proceed chronologically from our All-Father until His Imperial Glory.
The Map of Our Empire
Ossurman I vur Chakravarti, “The All-Father”
R. 14-92
The Lotus Annals, written in 69 after the Miracle by famed Grand Vizier Kwadam vur Sanpuji, opens with the following poem written by the poet Hujibal:
”Fortress gates like mountains tall And walls and palisades; Open, fear not, none will fall And none be put to death. The Child of Chakravarti comes And peace is what he brings. Sound the pipes and beat the drums Salute the king of kings.
Describing the rule of the All-Father is much like describing the first week of the monsoon: The dead and dry is by the feat of gods swept away and turned to a lush and overflowing green from which we all can extract a living. The man was nearly infallible - whether it be as a commander, ruler, father and husband, none could begin to parallel him. Raised by the Matripatrihierarch themself - praise their name - the man was almost as perfect as could be.
As a child, he was raised on the familial wisdom of the Eight-Armed God, the mighty rhetoric of the Mortal God, the motherly love of the Pregnant Goddess, the strategic mind of the Warring Goddess and the sisterly support of the Cyclical Goddess. This world has never, nor will ever, see a monarch of his likeness. By two years old, he could walk and talk like an adult; by five years, he drew portraits of his father-mother and wrote essays on the many creatures and peoples of the soon-to-be Empire. At the age of ten, the All-Father single-handedly put an end to the raids by the tribe of Musuk, and upon returning to the village where his mother-father waited, he presented them with Musuk’s head, carved from his shoulders with such precision that the muscles under the skin still refused to believe they were dead. As the tribe joined the All-Father’s clan, his unmatched mind for management swiftly categorised his people into the necessary roles needed to form the basis of civilisation. Herders were sent out to collect the fat lugi, while the gatherers were sent to pluck the fruit, nuts and vegetables from the self-tilling fields; crafters of the Artisan God were set to make weapons and armour for defense and for conquest, and builders raised shelter and walls to protect the people; warriors were trained with near-divine skill. When the young All-Father needed rest, administrators and lawfolk would take his reins, and to represent his father-mother’s ideals of unification and hegemony, he sent out merchants and ambassadors to the nearby tribes.
Four years later, the Ten Tribes had all sworn fealty to him, and Ossurman vur Chakravarti was declared Emperor of Glory and King of Kings. His title had been won with minimal bloodshed, for all had beheld his magnificence and been compelled to kneel. The boy emperor, whose charisma, wisdom and strength rivalled warrior-poets many decades his senior, seized all of Osshuria in the blink of an eye, and few dared oppose such exalted power.
The next three decades were a constant string of victories for the King of Kings: In year 21, the Warlord Coalition of the Southern Riverlands tried to best him in the Blue Ribbon Sea - in their arrogance, they thought the All-Father had no naval experience. How wrong were they, for the Emperor had studied ship warfare since childhood, aided by the mighty Fighting Goddess. The Warlord Coalition were nothing short of outnumbered and outgeared, for the Emperor’s sister, the Cyclical Goddess, had had her people provide his soldiers with arquebuses. Simple though they were, the shock and awe of blasting powder shook the very souls out of the Coalition’s forces, and many abandoned ship upon hearing the very song of Paradisian guns. One battle was all the Emperor needed to win - before his splendor, the Warlord Coalition dared not face him on land.
In year 27, the Alliance of the Crescent Horn (also known as the Northern Alliance) in the north then tried to best him on the plains, for all in the land knew by now that the Imperial Army was large and encumbered with supplies. In the baking heat of the Endless Yellow, they surely would not last. However, they had been foolish to think the Emperor wasn’t alone. The King of Kings had always and was always aware of the following fact: No king rules alone. He had thus surrounded himself with none other than the finest generals and sorcerers in his army. Knowing the Alliance would surely seek to wait for his forces to march for hours on end and deplete every locality they would come across until the army eventually starved, the Emperor instead split up his forces into six, one for each of his siblings and one for Basusa, the Emperor’s trusted guardian. The siblings were: Darius the Magnificent, son of Luon; Diamadra, Queen of the Qeshabdu, daughter of Hahtziri; Bos-Kali the Immortal, son of Chelvadya; Toph-Kila the Storm-Archer, daughter of Chelvadya; Atayavadi the Insightful, daughter of Ayishama. With their help, the Osshurian forces outmaneuvered the Alliance and broke them swiftly. After three years, the war was over.
One who briefly gave the Emperor trouble, though, was a warlord by the name of Raj. While Raj and Ossurman never met face to face on the battlefield, the warlord was vocally and physically opposed to the Empire’s expansion, and he was involved in several ambushes and hit-and-run attacks on the All-Father’s forces. He was eventually tracked down to his village on the Yellow Sea and executed by being sacrificed to the Umati warrior Rasmas, but that was in 38, eight years after the rest of the Northern Alliance had been defeated.
After the Alliance and Coalition had been defeated, only small pockets of defiant rebels to small and insignificant to mention remained to challenge the Emperor’s rightful rule. They were dealt with by the Emperor’s generals and lieutenants while he oversaw the development and centralisation of our empire, but also the status and positioning of his house. By the end of the Alliance War, the All-Father had taken four wives:
Manija, daughter of the deceased chieftain Musuk of the Musuk Tribe. Betrothed in 11 as part of peace negotiations; married in 16.
Ayiisha vur Sahelgupta, daughter of Ossurman’s closest ally, Chandra vur Sahelgupta. Married in 19.
Tomie Sayurla, daughter of Fon Sayurla, leader of the Warlord Coalition. Married in 22.
Sudwame Tessari, daughter of Yusa Tessari, the chieftain of the first of the tribes in the Alliance of the Crescent Horn to surrender. Married in 30.
Furthering his father-mother’s culture of prime concubines, he chose Ayiisha to be his closest wife, as they shared the closest bond. Shortly, I will explain how this decision later came back to haunt him, but for now, it is important to outline the family tree that followed. The All-Father took two additional concubines after he had united the whole realm by 37. These were Toya-tal of Yusam (which we today know as Jassahm) and Puabi the Shadowed One, daughter of Diamadra.
The Emperor’s children were as follows:
Manija of Musuk:
Ossurman II (b. 17), died at the age of 13, killed in a hunting accident.
Ayiisha vur Sahelgupta:
Ossurman III “the Roaring Chengal” (b. 25). Served as one of the All-Father’s greatest generals. Oversaw the conquest of Hursaria and the expansion into the Crystal Lands. Took the throne after his father in 92.
Chandraya I (b. 26). Became an adept mage and stayed at her father’s court her whole life as a Vizier.
Tomie Sayurla:
Chandraya II (b. 25) died of poisoning at the age of 23 at the hands of assassins later found to have been hired by her sister Chakravadi.
Chakravadi I (b. 25) was executed at the age of 23 for the murder of her sister. All her life, she had harboured hatred and jealousy for her superior twin sister, and their fates both ended most tragically.
Sudwame Tessari:
Shem I “the Runt” (b. 30). Though shown plenty of love in his childhood, Shem grew up to become an outcast in the eyes of the house. He later moved on to found his own cadet branch, Tessari-Chakravarti, which lasted 97 years before being absorbed back into House vur Chakravarti.
Toya-tal of Yusam:
Chandraya III (b. 40) went on to form the cadet house Rusajar, which still rules the Rusajar Princedom to this day.
Puabi:
Sharru-Abi Two-Tongue (b. 40). A Qeshabdu who frequented her father’s court, but got involved in several controversies with those not of her house. Was banished in 67 after it was revealed she was accomplice to a plot to have Prince Ossurman III killed. For her actions, she was condemned by both her mother and grandmother.
Diamad-Abi Claw-Foot (b. 43). A Qeshabdu who chose a mortal life and was thus freed from her monstrous urges. She served as an advisor to her father and brother until her death by indigestion in 101.
Despite a family of such size, none could deny that the Emperor was an outstanding father and made time for each of his wives and all of his children all while managing his growing empire. Though he long mourned the loss of his first son, Ossurman II, his grief was outweighed by the pride he held for his second son, Ossurman III, with whom he shared the closest bond of all his children. The two were inseparable, and the Emperor could trust his son to grow the empire for him when his hairs began to gray and he no longer could lead the troops into battle.
The Emperor’s relationship with his son and his prime concubine, however, soured the relationship between himself and his first wife, Manija. In 47, on what would have been the 30th birthday of her deceased son, the concubine sent a letter to the head of the house, the Eight-Armed God themself, asking to be divorced from the Emperor. When her claim was denied, she committed suicide by throwing herself from the highest tower of the palace in Loharta. The incident dealt a terrible blow to the Emperor’s psyche, and the man became increasingly jumpy and prone to follow his emotions thereafter.
In the dry season of 67, the Mujahasanam Incident almost cast the entire empire into chaos. During the All-Father’s decennial pilgrimage to the Great Tomb, Ossurman III was ambushed during a visit Lajahar, what is today the capital of the Lahmi Princedom. The prince was abducted and taken to the capital to publically abdicate his claim to the throne or be executed. The Emperor heard the dire news and had no chance of making it back, so he sent his faithful and trusted companion Basusa to tell the Matripatrihierarch atop the Pillar of Heaven and ask for their aid.
The Emperor had always strived to have close contact with the Matripatrihierarch, even as they had been summoned to the Peak of the Earth to manage the world alongside the other gods. To show his love for his mother-father as a dutiful son, the Emperor had raised many temples in their honour and had sent them many consorts and concubines. The Matripatrihierarch heard these news and sent word to their son Darius. However, tensions between the Emperor and his most ambitious brother had risen dramatically over the past seventy years, and He Who Was Named The Magificent did not want anything to do with his brother nor his son in peril. Following this, in the words of Abbot Vahanaya of the Temple of the White Elephant:
”The Eight-Armed’s fury was so great that the fruit in the offering bowls burned to ash, the flowers wilted, and the statues all throughout the temple all flailed with their arms as though full of murderous intent.”
The Matripatrihierarch then summoned their other son, Bos-Kali the Immortal, who at the time was escorting Ossurman III’s son and heir, Ossurman IV, on a tax collection mission through Gangha. The giant answered the call and left the teen prince in what is now the princedom’s capital of Vamalore in the care of the Loong chieftain Fal-So. Rounding up an army on the way, the Immortal stood at the gates of Loharta with five thousand men. While sources vary on what was happening inside the castle as Bos-Kali and his men laid siege to the city, the Prince was not executed in the end. Some sources say a counter-ambush led by Basusa’s daughter Lamashdu and the other monsters of the palace managed to slay the majority of plotters at the sign that help had arrived; others say that several of the traitors got cold feet at the arrival of Bos-Kali and chose to flee the capital instead. Whatever the case, the city gates opened after a week and Bos-Kali’s army entered unchallenged, securing the palace within the day. There, they found the Prince largely unscathed, though slightly beaten, and the traitor Sharru-Abi, alongside two southern chieftains. After an interrogation which has been so vividly described in the Lotus Annals that one would think the Grand Vizier had been witness to it, the chieftains admitted that they had been tasked to send the empire into chaos by Kelemen Kozma, a warlord from the fungal lands to the far south.
The Emperor heard all of this when he came home. The Lotus Annals describes the scene as simply unwitnessed in past events: Never before had the Emperor been so furious. According to Grand Vizier vur Sanpuji, the All-Father’s mood curdled all the milk in the palace; his raging aura wilted green grass and silenced yapping dogs. To have his precious son be ridiculed and endangered in this manner was nothing he could accept. And so it was in 70 that the Emperor rounded up the Imperial Armies and travelled south.
It was here, however, that the Emperor’s endless streak of victories would be broken. While neither sea, plain nor jungle had defeated him before, nothing could have prepared the Imperial Army for the trial they would face. In the fungal lowlands, battle went smoothly, but it was clear that the barbarians here knew they could not defeat the Emperor’s forces in the open. They fell back into the fungal forests, and here, the Imperial Army immediately ran into several issues: The moist air was thicker than in the worst monsoon, and even Paradisian matchlocks had no hope of firing when the powder was all wet; the mushy, uneven ground challenged the maneuverability of beetle rhino cavalry; and the aberrations of the fungal forest ambushed the army at every turn. One such type of aberration, whom we today know as the Hasras, was said to be the bane of the footsoldier - few who faced in them single-combat ever made it back. The monsters of our army, such as the Abikdu led by Lamashdu, fared better, but they alone could not carry the army on their backs. The barbarians of the fungal forest would come out of nowhere, slay as many as they could, and then vanish into nothing. The toll on the minds of the soldiers would hamper recruitment efforts for many years to come.
It became clear after a year that the campaign into the fungal hills would go nowhere. The army, which had been severely reduced, was forced to retreat to the lowlands, where several forts were constructed from which they could patrol the forest edge. While the war descended into a stalemate, however, it would not end for another nine years - the Emperor would not lay down his arms until he had the head of Kozma on a platter, though he would never be granted his wish.
In 80, the Emperor fell ill with a cruel and terrible cancer that chained him to his bed for the last twelve years of his life. While every healer in the realm did their best to save him, it became increasingly clear with every attempt that, though the child of a god, not even the All-Father could escape death. In his stead, Ossurman III ruled as Emperor. Towards the end of his life, the All-Father grew increasingly delirious, beset by nightmares in his sleep about the fall of his realm and the purgatory awaiting him in the afterlife. It was said the Nightmare Goddess whose name must not be spoken or written was behind this, and I wholeheartedly believe it. After enduring his madness for eight years, Ossurman I, the All-Father who had formed and created our great and magnificent empire, passed away at the age of 92, surrounded by his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Ossurman III vur Chakravarti, “The Roaring Chengal”
R. 92-104
Though he ascended to the throne at the age of 67 and ruled only for 29 years, no one would ever dare to suggest that the Chengal’s reign was anything but glorious. While his father had studied statecraft, military science and politics under the gods throughout his childhood, the Chengal had six decades of experience under the guidance of gods, monsters, humans and the world. The man was every bit the genius his father had been, flourishing into a King of Kings with a resume of accomplishments to challenge that of the All-Father himself.
As hinted to above, the Chengal had already been ruling for twelve years before he was officially crowned Emperor. During the reign of the All-Father, the population and size of the Empire had grown at a speed unheard of in the history of the world. With the fruitless campaigns in the fungal lands sapping much of the Imperial Treasury, there was little left to pay for the immense administration costs of managing the largest empire in the world. Therefore, with the end of the Southern Campaign of 70-80 (also known as the First Southern War), the Chengal divided the empire into seven princedoms, which he named rojalore, to be ruled by a Roja - a prince or princess. He granted six of these titles to his six closest friends:
His sister Chandraya III, who ruled the cadet house Rusajar. She named the princedom Rusajar after her house.
His best friend and brother in arms, Lahmore vur Chandramaya. He named the princedom Chandra in honour of his father who had taken this name to show his piety towards the Matripatrihierarch.
Fal-So, the Loong chieftain who had kept his son safe during his abduction in 67. He named the princedom Kuang, which today is written Gangh.
Pajruta vur Pajruti, a good friend and cousin - third daughter of Chandraya I who had formed her own house. She named her princedom Lahmi in honour of her grandmother Ayiisha’s father.
Bashmu-Abi vur Diamadaba, daughter of the Chengal’s most valued Vizier, his sister Diamad-Abi Claw-Foot. She named the princedom Ahd-Siria in honour of her great-grandmother, the Fertile Goddess.
Darius Darius “the Younger”, son of Darius the Magnificent, who had against his father’s wish joined Bos-Kali’s army to save the Chengal from his captors. He named the princedom Luonnada after his grandfather, the Mortal God.
The Chengal made certain to follow his grandmother-father’s advice: Words and promises were moot without the chains of blood. He therefore married his children and grandchildren into each of the princedom families, the children taking the other parties’ names and joining their houses as a sign of good faith and mutual trust. The Chengal, as opposed to his father, had only taken three wives, but showered them in no less wealth and love than his father had given his own. These were:
Vinyasana vur Chandramaya, sister of his good friend Lahmore. Married in 41 when they both had grown to be 16 years old, which was the point when their parents would allow them to marry.
Zustina il'Arvariza di'Ursare "the Hursarian". With the expansion of the Empire breathing down the neck of the people living in the Chabaral, the All-Father arranged a marriage between his son and the daughter of the prominent Ursare family to ease border tensions. The two were married in 53. While this act of diplomacy would not last in the end, the marriage was at the time seen as the planting of the seed of peace, which, to be fair, it is remembered as today.
Hayaga of Paradisia. The Chetto have long been welcome at our courts and many other courts around the Shard, for their beauty and fairness are second to few. Hayaga, however, was at the time unfortunately quite unwelcome at court. The reasons vary from source to source, but I believe Muham vur Shialmabad made the most satisfying point:
”His Gloriousness seems to have married a most surly and uncooperative lady, who would rather spend all day in the fighting rings of the Lower City than spend a minute by his side on the throne.”
The Emperor's wives were all most loyal and dutiful in their role as concubines. Since they had shared a childhood and their love had blossomed at a young age, no one was surprised when the Chengal chose Vinyasana to be his prime concubine. His other two wives never forgave him for this, for they felt like outcasts at the Imperial court on account of their foreign origins, and the fact that they were also considered second wives did not help their predicament.
The Chengal fathered a total of nine children, two of whom unfortunately passed away most untimely, which I will have the displeasure of explaining further later.
The Emperor’s children were as follows:
Vinyasana vur Chandramaya:
Ossurman IV (b. 42). Much like the Chengal had been to their own father, Ossurman IV was more than son to him - he was a close friend and ally. However, as time went on, it became clear that Ossurman IV was a troubled man. Both before and after his ascension to the throne in 103, he made many mistakes that would have earth-shattering consequences for the empire.
Chandraya IV (b. 44). Chandraya was a fire-spirited soul from day one, and people used to say her true parents were Ojinn the Aloof and Chelvadya the Victorious. She became one of the Empire's most famous fighters, but was slain in battle in the Fungal Lands in 72, impaled on a Hasras spear.
Vishnuman (b. 47). A poetic soul with a heart for travelling, though a terrible and dutiless son. On the day a week before he was to be wed to the daughter of warlord Chimsang Kuong of the Southern Timberlands a hot summer evening of 66, he eloped instead with his servant and childhood sweetheart, Ashivani, and supposedly journeyed westward in search of Hexonian adventurers. Records say he was searched for for years, but no sources indicate that he was found.
Singhpiritu (b. 51). He would grow up to become a potent mage and scholar and wrote several theses and books on magic and alchemy, many of which are still in use at the Academy today. After he was married to the daughter of Chandraya III vur Rusajar, Ashanivaya, he founded the Mahapuj University of Alchemical Sciences in the capital of the Rusajar Princedom.
Brahmavani (b. 56). The youngest daughter of Vinyasana was said to be blessed by Vin: Such a beauty was she that she drew the eyes of every man and the ire of every woman. However, much to the chagrin of many of the men, Brahmavani grew close to her aunt Sharru-Abi, who convinced her to partake in a series of fertility rituals devoted to the Pregnant Goddess. While the rituals supposedly lengthened her lifespan and introduced her to Qeshabdu magic, they also changed her appearance to resemble the hags that some of us know so well. She took her father's side in the incident of 67, however, and later married Bhansubdu, son of Bashmu-Abi, and spent her days building several temples to Hahtziri and maternity wards all around the princedom of Ahd-Siria.
Ossurman V (b. 62). As the youngest in the flock, Ossurman V had many doting siblings, cousins and other relatives to play with and adore him whenever and wherever he wished. His conception had not been planned, but he was nonetheless treated with all the love and care his family could offer. Initially, he was not destined for much, but when the members of the house became increasingly aware of Ossurman IV's waning psyche, Ossurman V was groomed for the throne in secret. The young prince was sent to live with the wise Diamadra while he learned, and only Basusa and his children were allowed to ferry messages between him and the Emperor. However, as the months turned to years, Ossurman V became impatient - his upbringing had done little to teach him temperance and humility. He thus escaped from his grandaunt's palace in 99 and was ambushed on the highway by a stroke of misfortune. Mistaking his disguise for the attire of a wealthy merchant, he was robbed and left to die in the monsoon rain. His body was swallowed by the wet mud and never found again.
Zustina il'Arvariza di'Ursare "the Hursarian":
Vittoria (b. 56). As a show of good faith, the Chengal allowed his wife to pick the name of their firstborn. Vittoria would, however, suffer for her obvious heritage, which in the eyes of the Imperial court painted her as foreign and borderline barbaric. In 81, she was married to Darius the Younger and spent her days in woe at his court. She would later rally alongside Red Antriocu against her half-brother, Ossurman IV, and bring about Hursarian rule of most of the Empire.
Shivayada (b. 59). She was the spitting image of her elder sister, but was viewed as a much more cultured child of the family. Whereas her sister was seen as a representative of the contemporary view of Hursaria as backwards, Shivayada was seen as proof that the diplomatic path to Hursarian subjugation was the rightful path. However, Shivayada wanted nothing to do with house politics, and upon being married to Gul-So, son of Fal-So, she closed herself off from the world and, according to an archive of letters found at the Academy, spoke to no one for the rest of her days.
Hayaga of Paradisia:
Aririsingh (b. 57). A sweet and polite man with clear chetto traits who grew to be much too innocent for the crafty intricacies of the court. In 77 at the age of 20, he travelled to the west to study carpeting in Dahlina. Four years later, he was summoned back to marry Ishaya vur Pajruti. After moving to her court at Lajahar, he left all political matters to her and focused on his hobby full-time. While he may have done little in terms of the political, he would at least be remembered as one of the house's finest craftsmen and even had a temple to Ownah built in the city.
In addition to the establishment of the princedoms, the Chengal and his administration summoned the aid of Koyana and completely reworked the imperial economy: Market rights were granted by license, which increased the accuracy and efficiency of taxation on traded goods; merchants and landholders found that long-term investments such as buying up goods before production, while potentially riskier, also provided the stability needed to plan better for returns and next year's investments; weights, coins and measurements were standardised across the realm and caravansaries and trading docks were built by the score. The Emperor’s diplomats also met with the payars of the Fungal Lands in the late rain season of 80 and formally ended the Southern Campaign, though as we will see later, this did not last. With all that done, the Empire flourished, but even with its size and affluence, its people grew hungry for more.
In 83, the Chengal made contact with the disparate tribes of the Crystal Lands. In exchange for their allegiance, he promised them development and civilisation. By 94, the first road connected the biggest settlement in the Crystal Lands, Dehmili, with the imperial tradeport in Lahchandra on the Blue Ribbon Sea, capital of the Chandra Princedom. The wild and untamed creatures of the land would pose a threat to further development in the region, but the land was fertile and free to settle for both human, monster and Loong. Vinaitanas, those perfect, beautiful beings, were brought to the cities and capitals to work as servants, entertainers and prostitutes. With the establishment of a few forts, patrols soon began to oversee the safekeeping of villages.
However, it was clear that the Crystal Lands hadn't been enough to satisfy the hunger of some of the more vocal generals at court. There was another jewel ripe for the plucking, and it laid not to the west, but to the east. The Chengal's wife Zustina tried her best to make her husband silence these voices, but the soon-to-be Emperor saw the situation differently: His father was dying and would leave behind the greatest empire known to the world. While the Chengal was well-known and loved in the realm, there were still those who doubted his ability to match his father's reign. Conquering Hursaria would silence these critics forever.
So it was that, while the All-Father laid on his deathbed, the Chengal amassed supplies and soldiers for the coming invasion. Over the next seven years, he moved in the shadows, buying informants and building spy networks throughout the Chabaral and in the City; he learned where the mountain passes were the least likely to be scouted; he tested tactics in the hills and grasslands to simulate skirmishes across the Red Lands. To keep any information from escaping to the east, he put his wife Zustina under house arrest alongside her two children. He bribed shepherds and hunters in the hills of the Northern Chabaral to keep an eye out for messengers travelling between the regions and had border guards do frequent searches on passing traders. He even had Diamadra speak to the great Sage Tree Tusumbihimilin and make a deal on his behalf for the tree to monitor communication through the Web of Voices. So thorough was he in his secrecy that the Hursarians did not know of the attack until Imperial troops were marching over the Amayala Mountains in year 90.
Given how weak the City was at the time, it did not take long for the Hursaria to fall to Our Empire - they surrendered by the following year. Yet it became quite clear quite early that the Emperor could not simply carve up the Chabaral into princedoms like he had the Crystal Lands - the Red Lands were already well settled, comparable to some of the denser rojalores and thukats of the Empire. To avoid having the region instantly rebel, the Emperor placed a great deal of resources into developing the region’s infrastructure, particularly the road network between Hursaria and Loharta. Patrol towers were constructed across the landscape, and a strong police force was introduced to the City. However, all things considered, it is my opinion that the rulership of the Chabaral under the Chengal was quite beneficial for Hursaria and the Red Lands: While organisation into resistance groups was punishable by death, most other local laws remained the same; imperial administrators introduced our superior economic policies and formalised the markets and taxation systems; magicians and alchemists initiated what would become a golden age of Hursarian science and development, which would later prove to be a grave mistake.
The last 12 years of the Chengal’s reign were marked by great stability, unprecedented wealth and lasting peace. His father’s empire, Our Empire, spanned almost the whole northern half of the Shard; the cities filled with magicians, artists and artisans who created fantastic spectacles of art and craft the likes of which have never been seen again; wizards of stone built temples and palaces taller than anything that had ever been built; exotic animals were raised at the palace and armies had never been better equipped. The Imperial Academy would during this time invent our own arquebuses, and the first prototype of the tower walker came to be around this time. It was a golden age without equal, and it is not at all unfounded that we call it the “Twelve Springs and Autumns”. However, all things must come to an end, even the good, and on an unusually cold evening of the dry season of 103, Our Emperor, old as he had become, caught a terrible pneumonia and passed away within the fortnight. As he did, he left history’s greatest empire in the hands of history’s most incompetent emperor - Ossurman IV.
Ossurman IV vur Chakravarti, “The Broken”
R. 104-126
In the Lilac Bed Monastary in the thukar of Gojalohammar in Osshur rojalore, a rather humoristic saying was tagged on the southernmost wall facing the World Peak sometime one hundred and thirty years ago. While it was ultimately removed, the event was recorded in the abbot’s journal by Prior Mehatana. The saying reads like this:
”Wise are the old who sow seeds they will never see blossom into trees; foolish are those who forget to teach their children to garden.”
The saying is partially relevant here; in the third emperor’s case, archived letters between the Grand Vizier of 59-69, Rajmaput vur Pajruti, and his sister, Pajruta of Lahmi, described very vividly the state of the young prince’s education. This one was dated to the 27th of Hahtzir, 60:
“... I find myself trying time and time again, but the young man has no constitution for neither math, reading nor writing. He is a most undisciplined recluse, and spends rather the days in his room than at court learning from his father and grandfather. He sleeps rather during the day than the night, and approaches every problem in his life with either lax nihilism or anxious panic. Never before have I seen someone so unprepared to lead.”
A harsh yet fair assessment, in hindsight, for Ossurman IV should never have been declared emperor. Though there was, as mentioned, an attempt to groom his brother Ossurman V for the role, that unfortunately ultimately failed as a solution. Since his late teens, the man had been plagued by visions and nightmares about his future and the future of the realm, not unlike his grandfather was in his dying days. In one of the very, very few surviving logbook entries of Master Healer Rujiman vur Chattomadyay, dated to sometime in the middle 70s, he notes:
“The emperor’s grandson came to me this morning in tears, his hands and chest covered in his own blood. When I asked him how he came to be this way, he only said, “it’s eating me” over and over again.”
While the rest of the document’s content has been lost to the unfortunately large appetite of bookworms, later sources confirm again and again that the young prince had a chronic fear of monsters. The source of this fear has been the subject of speculation for four hundred years: Gahore vur Lahorlam, my predecessor as court historian, had a widely disputed hypothesis that the young prince had beheld a Rite of the Birthing Man, a ritual performed by hags - particularly within the Sect of Diamadra - wherein they accept a willing man and plant within him the seed of a child, making him a queen in the eyes of Hahtziri and a mother like themselves. Gahore vur Lahorlam’s hypothesis was that the event scarred him mentally and left within him a fear that he, too, would bear a child someday, making him shun all interactions with the monsters that make up such an integral part of our society. Another hypothesis, which has also been put forth as a very likely scenario, is that the young prince was cursed by the Nightmare Goddess as vengeance for the All-Father’s invasion of the Fungal Lands, a region which we now know to be one of her matronage.
Whatever the source of this fear was, the alliance between monster and mankind within our borders has been integral to our position as the world’s mightiest empire: The conquests of the All-Father and the Roaring Chengal were made possible with the help of monsters like the loyal and steadfast Pazuzu, the wise Diamadra and the children of the Family God and the Pregnant Goddess. It is only recently that the tensions between our two species have begun to heal, and I cannot, as a historian , overstate the necessity of keeping this relationship close and intimate, especially in days like these.
But I am getting off track. The story of the Broken’s reign is a somber one, so I take no pleasure in detailing it. However, it is an essential period of our history to understand how we got here today.
After the Roaring Chengal left only one direct heir who would also keep all the family’s titles within the vur Chakravarti house, Ossurman IV was crowned His Glory the Emperor on a warm, rain-filled day of 104. Witnesses to the coronation described it as a most disheartening and graceless affair: The crown prince knew neither the vows nor the words of his father and grandfather, and he frequently stumbled and stuttered as though drained of strength and sleep. At the ceremonial banquet, he excused himself after the third course and went up to his room, where he remained for the rest of the evening. I would cite the many, many, many letters that so colourfully condemned the evening as one of the greatest disasters in court history, but I will not for the sake of space. The important part is that the Emperor’s reign could not have gotten off to a worse start, and worse yet it would soon become.
As soon as the news reached the fringes of the realm of the Emperor’s death and the hopelessness of his heir, opportunistic forces began to stir. In Luonnada in the late dry season of 103, a troublemaker by the name of Rastaqira amassed a following in the clay pits she worked in and led an uprising. Normally, a small riot like this would have been put down within the week, but Rastaqira and her ruffians were allowed to pillage and raid clay pits for months as the local thukar’s house guard had been summoned to the capital. Why had they been summoned? The Emperor had called in the Imperial Army to the capital with a single goal in mind: They were to expel all monsters from the realm.
Now, the question of the composition of the Imperial army at this time is a subject of debate and disagreement, particularly as this period and later periods would, very unfortunately, downplay the role of monsters in the army. A conservative estimate based on reports on ration distribution during the Invasion of the Chabaral have been calculated to be a circum of four parts man and six parts beast. Many of the human soldiers at this time had close relationships with Abikdu and Qeshabdu alike, and a great deal of the army's effectiveness came from the ability to unleash trained beasts in the direction of the enemy.
So one can imagine that this was a very unpopular decree, particularly within the army itself. Initially, the response to the order was a cold, hard ‘no’. The great and loyal Basusa, who had stood by the royal line for a hundred years, was said to weep in the evenings from this betrayal. The decree had wounded, but it had not killed the bond between man and monster. What would eventually scar it quite a bit, however, was when the Emperor declared his patronage for the Supreme League of Humanity. The Supreme League of Humanity, or just the League, had formed in the late rain season in 103 with the hope of riding the wave of the Emperor’s hateful discourse on monsters. For of course, there have always been those who find monsters appalling. Darius the Magnificent was notoriously hostile towards his monstrous siblings, and even his much more sensible son Darius the Younger imposed very strict segregation laws on monsters in his rojalore of Luonnada. It was no wonder, then, that the League formed in Luonnada with considerable political and financial support from House Dariosa.
With the expertise and influence of the League, the Emperor’s phobia was instead turned into a message of the danger of monsters. The famed writer and philologist Bhalram vur Ashoka wrote about his experience at the night of a Qeshabduqqah in Loharta in the rain season of 104:
”We had gathered in the temple square to witness the birth of a new sister of the sect, and fathers and mothers held aloft their children for the Matron to choose. After a moment of suspense, she elected a young girl to join the sisterhood, and her parents celebrated with a dance. However, just as the Matron was about to bite, the square was surrounded by men and women who had been painted with slogans. “Death to the eaters of children,” they had shouted as one, and those who sought to reason with them were beaten down in the street.”
After 110, it became harder and harder for many of the rojas to justify cooperation with monsters. The League had led riot after riot, and the Emperor had intentionally refused to stop them. While Basusa’s line of Abikdu were steadfast in their vow to not harm humans, the beasts of lesser houses possessed not the sensibility of their king. One by one, the riots turned to bloodbaths, and more and more thukars and rojas began siding with the Emperor. Only Ahd-Siria, whose very roja was of Diamadra’s line, refused to give in, and the princedom became a safe haven for monsters for centuries. While the Emperor wanted the monsters banished all as one, there was nothing he could really do - the monsters still outnumbered the troops in his army, and they had only left as peacefully as they had because Basusa had told them to.
However, now that the Emperor had the, for the lack of another term, peace of mind to focus on other matters, he discovered the plethora of issues his crusade against our family had created: With the army size reduced by six tenths, a majority of the Empire’s lands were now unguarded and unpatrolled; the ruffian Rastaqira had run free for seven years and had by now amassed an army of outraged workers around the entire empire who had been the victims of corrupt overlords who had embezzled great amounts of wealth while the Emperor had not been looking; in the southern rojalores, raids from the Fungal barbarians impacted key trade networks and left deep marks in the financial revenue of the Imperial state.
This was when the Emperor committed his greatest crime yet, one which our empire has never and, according to our agro-magicians, will never recover from without the help of our great and merciful gods: As the affluent urban populations of the Empire began to join the uprisings, the Emperor reached out to the City, to a young man named Antriocu il’Ambrusu who led the largest mercenary company in the Chabaral. The Emperor offered him ten thousand balahr to burn and uproot all of our Empire’s self-tilling crops.
The idea was likely that this would force the urban citizens into the countryside to do agriculture by hand, as they did in the Chabaral and the Southern Kingdoms. No one had expected this - not in anyone’s wildest dreams could they have expected the very source of the Empire’s growth, the crops that tilled themselves, to be ripped away in less than ten years’ time, and Antriocu did his work well. In the span of three years, him and his soldiers had turned the Imperial countryside into an ashen wasteland.
You might be asking yourself at this point: How could this happen? How did no one stand up against the mad emperor? In truth, we do not know. Writings for this particular decade and much of the following time are incredibly hard to come by. We do not know what went on in the palace after 113, but there have been speculations: The Emperor would not pass away for another thirteen years, so it is widely assumed that the Emperor was escorted away from Loharta and kept safe somewhere else, most likely with the only allies he had left - the Supreme League of Humanity. From here, we no longer have Imperial sources until many centuries later, but are instead going to rely on writings from the many scholars of the Red College, particularly one by the name of Spicciu il’Petru di’Ventu. I can say, though, that the final thirteen years of the Emperor’s reign were devastating. A light in the darkness of history appears in 121 with the arrival of Red Antriocu, the same Antriocu who had raided the lands earlier, began his conquest of the Empire.
The exact fate of the Emperor is unknown. It is speculated that he was eventually found and killed by a coven of Qeshabdu, but this is contested. What is known, however, is that though he married at the age of 16 in 63, he only produced a single heir, Ossurman VI. However, when the Broken decided to banish monsters from his realm, a terrible disease infected the heir and killed the crown prince and his family. Thus, with the death of Ossurman IV, there was no one to inherit the throne. This compounded with the attack of Red Antriocu and the complete breakdown of order throughout the Empire as a result of famine and riots, the legacy of the All-Father and the Roaring Chengal descended into the Chaos.
The Chaos
126-313
It is both humbling and disgraceful to realise that for most of its history, Our Empire has been either partially or completely divided. The only reason we know anything about this time period at all is thanks to the wise and magnificent scholars at the Red College, for the Imperial Academy in Loharta was burned down at least three times over the nearly two centuries of anarchy that was the Chaos. All sources from before this period have either been preserved in the vaults of the Imperial Palace or as personal collections.
So then what happened? What was the Chaos? In summary, the Chaos is an umbrella term to describe the period of time following the collapse of the Empire of the All-Father and the Roaring Chengal until the Chakravartian Renaissance of 313. The term is somewhat misleading as it implies complete disorder ruled for nearly two hundred years. This could not be farther from the truth: Several rojalores trace their most affluent days back to this era - the princedom of Gangh swelled into an economic juggernaut with the influx of traders from the Crafter Kingdoms after 165, and Chabaral settlers in the east introduced agricultural practices and food trade that stabilised the famine, influenced local cuisines and even led to a food surplus after a few decades. Though nowhere was as affluent and wealthy as it had been during the age of the unified empire, the world wasn’t in utter disrepair. However, the Empire never reformed during this time period, though there certainly were a great deal of attempts:
With the death of Antriocu in 122, there was the Imperial Revival Rebellion in the countryside of the Osshur Princedom. While initially promising, they quickly fell into hostile factionalism as arguments arose about who would take over as Emperor once the revolution was over. One of these factions, the Lotus Banner, led by a milkmaid named Mujagasuna, began spreading their influence on the countryside and soon thereafter led a rebellion against the other factions who had claimed lordship over them. Mujagasuna was, to everyone’s surprise, supposedly a magnificent fighter - it was said her bare hand to cleave a stone in two. They managed to undo the other factions and nearly take Loharta, but the movement broke apart when Mujagasuna was captured and executed at the hands of Bos-Kali the Immortal in 129 and sacrificed to the Umati.
In 130, the princess of Lahmi, Drishdi vur Pajruti, sought to unite the Empire by picking out a common enemy. She managed to unite the princedoms of Gangh, Osshur and Rusajar in invading the Fungal Lands once more. While the new technology of the naav haqsholottelana managed to cause more damage to the woods themselves, this brought the remnants of the Empire no closer in actually taking any land. This event, dubbed the Second Southern War, like its preceding conflict, went nowhere.
In the spring of 135, there was the Chandramaya Uprising in Chandra rojalore, in which the grandchild of Lahmore vur Chandramaya, Punjabu, claimed to be descended from the Imperial line. While technically true, he was not of house vur Chakravarti and had no actual claim to the Imperial throne. The uprising received little support outside of Chandra and was quickly snuffed out by the other princes.
In the late autumn of 148, there was the Society of the Heavenly Way, a peculiar sect of the Chakravartian monastic order who were known for combining the standard cult of the Eight-Armed God with Hiiroan trances and the riotous nature of Ojinn the Aloof. They briefly grew quite popular in Loharta and Osshur Princedom, but when they attempted to establish a theocracy, a faction within the sect rebelled against the leaders and the organisation collapsed into pockets from there.
In the period between 199 and 211, the reunification efforts actually got quite close during the Krishnaya Rebellion. The great-great granddaughter of the Chengal, one Krishnaya, amassed quite a following of peasants and lay clergy in 199 and managed to unite four princedoms under her banner. Supposedly descended from a bastard of Ossurman V, Krishnaya’s heritage has been the subject of dispute within the Chakravartian scholar and monastic circles for centuries. What is known, however, is that when she requested a boon from the Eight-Armed God, they answered, and she was granted skin that could not be wounded by either swords, arrows or bullets. Unfortunately, during a banquet to celebrate the reconquest of Loharta in 211, Krishnaya died from what was suspected to be poisoning.
During this same time period (199-211), the princedoms of Lahmi and Rusajar formed a coalition against the aggressive expansion of Luonnada. After defeating the Luonnadan army in the spring of 211 and hearing of Krishnaya’s death in the autumn, Lahmi and Rusajar crowned Chandragupta III vur Rusajar to Glorious Emperor of Osshuria and mustered their forces to move on Loharta. Krishnaya’s daughter, Krishnaya II vur Osshurmani, pleaded like her mother had to the Eight-Armed God to be accepted into their house so people may see the true empress for who she was. Unfortunately, the message was intercepted on the way and someone edited the name to say Chandragupta instead. The Family God agreed and adopted Chandragupta into their house. For a year or so, the unification looked to be feasible: Krishnaya’s allies were beginning to move over to the side of the vur Chakravarti name. However, the Emperor Chandragupta was assassinated on the last day of that very same year.
The following period (211-294) is known as the Time of the Ten Emperors. With the death of Chandragupta, all eyes immediately fixed on Krishnaya and her followers and blamed her for the incident, and alliances broke apart left and right. This is what can rightly be assumed to be the bloodiest section of the Chaos: All eight princedoms, plus two duchies, all claimed the title of Emperor, and all began fighting over it. After 20 years, ten had been reduced to five; after 40 years, three, and these three remained for the last forty years of the period. These were the Eastern Empire, ruled by claimant Chandragupta IV vur Chakravarti, the Maharojadom of Osshuria, ruled by Maharoja Qhosem vur Chabarala and the Northern Empire, ruled by claimant Chedavara vur Chandramaya.
The Age of Three Dynasties (294-313) saw a period of relative peace compared to the previous age, yet it was very clear that each of the rulers wanted to unite the empire for themself. In the spring of 300, Chedavara vur Chandramaya passed away, and Chandragupta as a vur Chakravarti seized the chance to ask for the Eight-Armed God’s boon and declared war. The Eight-Armed God was at this point clearly fed up with the disarray of the empire, so they granted Chandragupta chests upon chests of gold and jewels as financing for the campaign. However, such an influx of wealth was too enticing for the emperor to be, and the majority was spent on celebrating the victories they had not even earned yet. When the Eight-Armed God heard of this, they became so furious that they descended from the World Peak and travelled to Loharta themself.
This marked the end of the Chaos and the beginning of the Chakravartian Renaissance.
Despite making up a longer period of time than the reigns of the three first emperors, this chapter is not much longer than this. The reason is, as mentioned, our lack of sources from this period. It is not that people did not write anything down all of a sudden, but rather, the shifting powers and movement of people meant that many accounts of the time were lost on the way. Our most valuable sources come from either the Red College, whose scholars viewed the situation from the outside, or from the less affected princedoms like Gangh and Ahd-Siria. These two accounts each have their own issues: Gangh only briefly partook in the power struggles during the Time of the Ten Kings and otherwise observed the situations from the outside; Ahd-Siria partook quite a bit, but sources from there tend to frame the conflicts between humans rather poorly. To quote Matriarch Ninurda vur Huridimmah:
”The anarchy of this once mighty Empire only proves that humanity has forgotten the meaning and importance of family. There is no hope left in the race of old - perhaps their world had a reason to end?”
We will therefore not discuss this period much more. If you are interested, though, dear reader, I can recommend Filippu il’Carlu Cumaea’s thorough and fabulous tome “The Year Our Neighbour Disappeared” which outlines the full history of the period in a much more detailed way than I do, and used a much more approachable language. It can be rented at the Red College and Imperial Academy libraries.
The Chakravartian Renaissance
R. 313-348
The Chakavartian Renaissance is the name given to the time period of the rebirth of the Empire, also known as the Second Golden Age. After two hundred years of failed attempts to reunify the realm of the All-Father and the Chengal, the Eight-Armed God themself descended from their Palace of Gold and Silver atop the Peak of the World along a bridge of sunlight, along with their following of ten thousand monks, ten thousand nuns, a thousand carts of food and a thousand carts of gold. They and all the gods knew - the Empire was in dire need of this. To quote the poet Badhaqqanassuna:
”And yonder, a light A wish granted A bridge slanted They come to set things right.”
And the Eight-Armed God wasted absolutely no time setting things right. Upon their arrival in the capital, they immediately sent their monks and nuns to all four corners of the empire, each with a pocket of gold and a message at heart:
”Citizens of the Empire, The Matripatrihierarch has come to Loharta. Cease all hostilities this instant and swear fealty to the Emperor once more. Fail to comply and be annihilated.
In the following months, myriads upon myriads of princes, dukes, counts and village elders travelled to the capital to behold the Eight-Armed God. The pilgrimage was unheard of in the Empire’s history, even outdoing the grotesquely profligate pilgrimage to the First Tomb by Princess Vinyasana vur Rusajar in 228, during which it was said that the army of people in her following emptied every larder by the pilgrim’s route and the sums of gold and silver spent from Jassahm to the Tomb caused inflation in every town and city in between. Everyone came to swear fealty to the new Emperor, for none dared defy a god.
But who was the new Emperor? Well, after punishing the sitting Chandragupta IV for his incompetence as a leader and human being, they unseated him and banished him from the realm, along with anyone in his court who had shown signs of corruption, which proved to be most of the court. Likely aiming to copy the formula that had already worked once, the Matripatrihierarch briefly undid all laws of succession within their house and looked simply for the nearest, most convenient apprentice. In the end, within a year of their arrival, they chose Chandragupta’s newborn son and named him Ossurman VII.
For the next thirty-five years, the Eight-Armed God ruled the Empire with divine might and holy grace while rigorously drilling all manner of knowledge about statecraft, diplomacy, warfare and so on into the mind of their new son, much with the help of their concubines. This period is marked by growth in every sector: The fields blossomed with food, the economy flourished with trade, peace and security was at an all-time high. It was to be expected, of course - whoever would rebel against a god like the Matripatrihierarch?
Some tried, of course. An ancient secret society known as the Children of Raj attempted to stage a large-scale rebellion in 325 against what they deemed to be “the tyrannical rule of a god of oppression.” Whatever their motivation, the movement did not make it far. Refusing to take any chances, the Eight-Armed God graced the rebels with their personal presence as they attempted to sack Jassahm. Records hereafter only reference the Children of Raj in the past tense. A few sources confirm that the society’s possible leader, Gurajput, was executed and offered to the magnificent Umati known as Nahia, the Green Song Seeking the Virtuous, for the young crown-prince’s eighth birthday. The performance entertained the entire capital for weeks. Though a common sight at all parties for several centuries, her performance was beyond stellar that year - my colleague vur Amarjeet, a magister and expert on Umati rituals, believed Gurajput had been a so-called “saint of defiance” and was therefore worth quite a bit as far as souls go.
One last thing to note during this period was the Eight-Armed God’s introduction of the Monastic Duty. All members within the Chakravartian dynasty would spend at least a decade in a Chakravartian monastery to learn the necessary humility and filial piety required to adequately serve as royalty. During this time, they were to sever connections with their families and live as the Orphans of Sin, those many ungrateful children who had cast aside their family for their own gain and went into the service of the Eight-Armed God to make amends. The children of the dynasty would learn to cherish their kin above all else and to labour with mind and hands.
This worked… Partially. There have been a few episodes throughout history wherein monks and nuns who were to return to their families have chosen to stay in the service of the gods, seeing their colleagues as their new family instead. It has not happened too often, but often enough to question the effectiveness of the Duty. But who am I to question divinity?
In 348, on the Emperor’s 35th birthday, the Eight-Armed God declared that the Emperor was ready to rule and returned home to the Palace of Gold and Silver. With the second enormous influx of traders from the Crafter Kingdoms beginning only five years earlier, the Empire was in such a state that it would take woefully clumsy rulership to undo its prosperity. Thankfully, Ossurman VI had been trained well from birth to be the perfect leader, and while he would not go into the history books in such a gilded manner as the All-Father and the Roaring Chengal, he would rule for forty-two years without considerable incidents threatening to ruin the project of the Matripatrihierarch.
The Hundred Years of Peace
348-
We have now reached the commonly named “Hundred Years of Peace” or the “Rule of the Four Sages”, as it also is called. I will not go into as much detail about this period, as so much of it already is common knowledge. If you do wish to read about the details of the four Sage Emperors, though, dear reader, I can recommend my predecessor’s fantastic compendium on the time period, “The Hundred Years of Peace: A History”. Here, I will merely outline the families of each emperor up until His Glory and briefly summarise their reigns:
Ossurman VII vur Chakravarti
R. 348-390
A pious and moral man. His rule was one marked by peace and stability, with the exception of two small revolts in the Luonna Princedom, once again as a reaction to local slavery customs. One of these, the Blue Dawn Rebellion, nearly made its way beyond the Princedom under the leadership of Robertiu il’Trevaldiu, but was crushed by the combined armies of Rusajar and Osshuria. It was also Ossurman VII who first hired the Osshur Ammaniroga, the most elite of elite soldiers from the Red City, to serve as his and his children’s royal guard. He was a conservative man, as well, and took only a single wife, Hamassuna vur Chandramaya (m. 333). They had three children together:
Ossurman VII (b. 335): Under orders from the Eight-Armed God, all heirs were to be groomed extensively from birth. The young crown prince was said to be drilled like a dog from morning until evening until he knew his lessons perfectly.
Singhpiritu (b. 339): After completing his monastic duty, it became clear Singhpiritu was never destined to lead. He thus forfeited all of his title claims and travelled to the Red City looking for work, where he married into a rancher family and frequently hosted his brother’s company whenever they would pass through on a pilgrimage. He would later form his own house called di’Sint-Piritiu.
Travanya (b. 352): The youngest of the litter. She went into monastic duty and would later go on to become abess of the Summerblossom Temple in Loharta. She never formed a close relationship with her family and quickly grew to think of the monastery as her family instead.
Ossurman VIII vur Chakravarti, “Friend of the Elephants”
R. 390-418
Though some describe Ossurman VIII as a stone-faced machine, the Empire was ruled with security and efficiency under the so-called Friend of the Elephants. The Emperor may not have been the most social, but he was both wise and intelligent and perhaps most importantly - he was steadfast in his principles. Incorruptible like few, he let not a coin go to waste when planning and building infrastructure, and his impeccable roads - so-called Elephant Roads as a testament to how durable they are - are the very same we travel along today. Like his father, Ossurman VII only took one wife, Kaguya “the Nushdig” of Paradisia (m. 341), but had many more children:
Ossurman IX (b. 353): One of four quadruplets, Ossurman VII was born sickly, and many feared that Ossurman VII would mark the end of the prosperous age and be a repeat of the terrible reign of the Broken. However, the young man showed within only a few years that he would become a mighty leader in spite of his weakness.
Chandra (b. 353): Chandra was long jealous of his brother for his destiny to become emperor despite his weakness. This lead the young man to grow arrogant and bullheaded. In 373, he left on a mission to reclaim the long lost Armour of the All-Father, the legendary regalia forged by Uwné and given to Ossurman I, to prove his worth. He never came back.
Masayana (b. 353): Like her brother Ossurman, Masayana was born sickly. She would unfortunately never improve as her brother did, and remained bedridden all her life until her tragic passing in 368 from pneumonia.
Teravada (b. 353): Teravada was a bookworm and a recluse from his childhood. Some say he suffered from a skin condition which made him wary of the Su’une, though others say he was weak of bone and could not move as dexterously as the other children. He would later take the Magnomathicians’ Exam at the Red College and write his thesis “On the Subject of Leylines: A Critique.”
Bahadana (b. 357): As the only child on the flock to not have a sibling, Bahadana always balanced on the line between being recognised and ignored by her siblings. She went to do her monastic duty in the Summerblossom Temple, where she met her aunt and ultimately stayed for the rest of her life, being elected temple abess in 391.
Rajaman (b. 361): An all-too-easily influenced boy, Rajaman took after his arrogant brother Chandra, but instead of hunting for lost treasures, he went to the Red City to study at the Military Academy. He later joined the mercenary band known as the Swords of di’Corleionu and did not return to the Imperial court thereafter.
Tevasana (b. 361): While Tevasana initially wanted to join her twin brother’s adventures, in 382 she was forced by her father to marry Darius Magnusu Darioso, the prince of Luonnada, as bad blood had boiled forth between them and the Imperial family. She reportedly hated every day at court in Luonnada and attempted to escape several times. She would pass away in 411 after complications following an attempted suicide by poison.
Ossurman IX vur Chakravarti
R. 418-422
The fate of Ossurman IX is, in truth, quite tragic. The man had worked immensely hard from day one to ascend beyond his weakness as a sickly boy and ended up outliving most of his siblings - and yet his father would rule for so long that by the time Ossurman IX inherited the throne, his sickly body could hardly stand. Still, in service of his father, he had been a remarkable administrator and completely rebuilt the sewers of Loharta so that sewage no longer ran through the streets and into the canals, but went directly into the Blue Ribbon Sea. As a man who had studied and lived by tradition, he took four wives throughout his life, though none of them bore children like his mother had, much of it due to miscarriages which seemed to plague the Emperor’s wives quite a bit, particularly his Prime Concubine.
List of wives:
Rajanaya vur Chandramaya (m. 369): The First Concubine of the Emperor was a jealous and vile woman, my predecessor used to say. Power-hungry from the day of their marriage, Rajanaya promptly attempted to have the court rid of everyone who crossed her ambitions. While only partially successful, she did manage to garner a reputation as a vicious and merciless schemer, culminating in her framing of Averiza in 401. When the Emperor passed in 422, the queen attempted to seize empire-wide power by claiming the throne from her son. However, she was unsuccessful and was placed under house arrest in 423, where she eventually died of old age in 434. Despite her actions in life, her children still built her a sizeable tomb and dedicated to her a flower garden in Loharta called “the Tasteful Field.”
Averiza il’Dugiu di’Cossigu (m. 371): The di’Cossigus of the Red City have always been a favourite house to intermarry with for the imperial line. Averiza, unlike many other Hursarian ladies of the Empire’s past, took extraordinarily well to her new role as queen. She grew immensely popular at court - so popular that rumours started to circulate about her nightly activities with the court. In 401, Rajanaya publicly accused her of infidelity. The claim was initially thought to be one made out of jealousy, but soon after, one of the emperor’s advisors confessed that he had had illicit relations with the Queen. In 405 thus Averiza was forced into house arrest, where she remained until the Emperor’s death in 422, after which she returned home to her family in the Red City.
Cionn apConlaoch (m. 376): Wishing to tie alliances with the Elven Warlords of the Far East, the Emperor elected to marry a prominent warrior by the name of Cionn. While it became clear quite early that she was not well-suited for court, her exotic looks and nature drew the interest of several nobles in the Palace. Contemporary scholars have compared her treatment to that of the pets of the Emperor’s zoological garden and it was hardly far off. Sources say she was aware of this treatment and was likely counting the days until she could leave. With the Emperor’s death in 422, she took her son Éogan and left for the Elven Lands. While Éogan sometimes returns to see his brother the Emperor, Cionn would never again set foot on Imperial soil.
Mushmahhu Basusadra (m. 380): With encouragement from the Matripatrihierarch, the Emperor chose to marry the Qeshabdu Mushmahhu of Basusa’s house. It became evident early, unfortunately, that the marriage had been one of business: The two were rarely seen together publically, and it was clear that the avoidance was on the Emperor’s behalf. After Mushmahhu became pregnant with their daughter Kulildu, the two supposedly never spoke again.
List of children by wife:
Rajanaya vur Chandramaya:
Bhatima (b. 369): Bhatima came in many ways as a shock to the family. The last two Imperial heirs had both been firstborns. She was therefore seen as an unfortunate weight on the Imperial family. The young princess became a depressed soul, which reverted back to anger when she one day ran from the Palace to join a circus known as the Acolytes of Nahia. She performed throughout the Empire under a different name - Sheherasahad - until she was reportedly returned to the royal tombs after her passing in 438.
Ossurman X (b. 380): Our Emperor, blessed be His name and glory. With the way the rest of the family turned out, there was for a time uncertainty and rumours circulating the Emperor’s potency, so to speak. Luckily the First Concubine eventually birthed the Emperor a son. With a powerful legacy like his, it is no wonder that he has been included as the fourth sage prehumously.
Averiza il’Dugiu di’Cossigu:
Mahatma (b. 372): Mahatma became like his uncle Teravada - devoting a great deal of time to his studies, he eventually moved to Oraeculos to study magic at the Irodemia Principa. After completing his basic education, however, he grew fascinated by the theoretical discussions of magic and decided to take exams at the Irodemia Eximia. He wrote his thesis on magnometry, naming it “On Arrays and Spatial Rifts: An Introduction.”
Cionn apConlaoch:
Éoghan (b. 379): Like his mother, Éoghan too was seen as an exotic prize at court. Half-elves are rare here in the north, so he became very popular at court early. This earned him a great number of friends and romances growing up, and in contrast to his mother’s hate for the court, Éoghan grew to enjoy the fame. While he ultimately moved to the Elven Lands after his father’s death, he frequently travels back to the Empire to see his family and friends and to spend money on town debauchery.
Mushmahhu Basusadra:
Kulildu (b. 384): Kulildu’s life has not been simple at any point in her life. In many ways, she has served as a reminder that we still have quite a lot of work to do still in uniting humans and monsters as allies again. The wounds of the Broken cut deep, and few children of man and monster can live today free of harassment. As she never developed much of a relationship with any of her siblings, Kulildu was quick to leave court. She was only fourteen when she moved to stay with her kin in Ahd-Siria, where she became true Qeshabdu and now is a member of the Coven of the Fertile Queen.
Conclusion
With the death of Ossurman IX and coronation of Ossurman X, we enter into our contemporary era. The last thirty years under Ossurman X have been years of peace and stability, and with the execution of the so-called “saint” Al-Yeeshah in 440, who has tainted the countryside for twenty years with raids and lootings, we have had ten years of unparalleled harmony within the empire. The brigand was given to Raisa the Infinite Field that Sows Beauty in Their Hearts, and she painted the whole imperial family’s portraits. Tragically, Prince Ossurman XI passed away in 443, a year before I started this project, after a terrible indigestion took his life, but we will always have the Umati’s beautiful image to remember him by.
His Glory’s family is large - not the largest in his dynasty, but certainly not small. He took four wives like his father. These are:
Vinitreya vur Krishtaleya (m. 401). Said to be the most beautiful woman in the realm, Vinitreya hails from the Crystal Lands, where all who live are said to grow into the most beautiful beings in Creation.
Amée Lynette d'Kollnel (m. 420). Daughter of the Falcon Emperor, Amée has been a welcome addition to our court, having married the emperor young and grown up beside him. She knows our customs well and knows when she may bring up her own ways in public. Truly exemplary integration.
Tristana Dariosa (m. 421). A most worthy queen who hails from Luonnada. A most gregarious and giving soul, we are lucky to have her as our Emperor’s wife. Unfortunately, the queen has been plagued by a cursed womb, and has yet to give the Emperor a worthy son.
Phaera II (m. 429). An exotic princess from Hubbshqura. A master of magic, she is a great asset to the imperial family.
The list of children by wife:
Vinitreya vur Krishtaleya:
Ossurman XI (b. 404). A most worthy and ideal crown-prince, though not long for this world. He passed so suddenly in 443, leaving his little brother with the title.
Ishani (b. 412). A young and kind princess who has yet to return from her monastic duty.
Ossurman XII (b. 429). Originally named Indra and not destined for the throne, the new crown-prince has taken to his role with pride and strength.
Amée Lynette d'Kollnel:
Ferosh (b. 425): A pleasant young man who takes after his mother.
Gobala (b. 428): A young and playful man who enjoys travelling to his mother’s home and meeting his grandparents.
Tristana Dariosa:
Delshad (b. 423): Delshad was, cursed be fate and its demons, a stillborn. The queen wept for seven years.
Harshad (b. 430): Harshad ended the queen’s sorrow by being born a young, bright boy. However, he fell sick at the age of three and passed away. The queen fell into another four years of sorrow.
Kala (b. 437): A miracle birth long after the healers had declared Tristana barren. Kala has grown up to be a sweet young girl, and she no doubt has a future as a beautiful princess of the empire.
Phaera II:
Inayah (b. 430): The young Inayah is a calm and collected soul, soon to be married.
Raela (b. 432): Phaera’s own little girl who takes after her in her magical proficiency.
Manu (b. 435): The youngest of Phaera’s children, Manu is a fiery soul in his most lively teens.
It is my honest opinion that our future as an empire is safe under the leadership of this glorious family. We may have had a difficult history, but now we are great again. Long live His Glory and long live the Empire of Osshuria!
Chakravarti - 3MA 1MA (reduced to 0) - Created a bridge of light in 313 to help all their followers descend from Mons Divinus down into the Empire. 1MA (reduced to 0) - Forcefully unite the whole of the Osshur Empire again within a single year.
450 years have passed and the world has changed dramatically since the end of the Age of Fire. Wars have come and gone, cultures have risen and fallen, technology has advanced - the world is entirely different now.
What shape will it take in the future? Only time will tell.
Now that the Apocalypse is over, the world is free real estate for gods and mortality alike. Live, frolic and play on the new Shard! You are free to write a timeskip post for your characters and/or cultures, and you are just as free to not do that and just play around in the world as is.
From now on, Major Actions require MA points to use (see OOC for criteria). Each player gets 3MA per turn, and these will be replenished every turn.
Absolutely no problem! You are free to finish any and all posts from before the skip and post them after the turn change. Just preface the post with “During the timeskip”, “Before the Common Age” or something equivalent and you’re golden. Any and all Major Actions before year 450 are also free, but these cannot be used to alter the post-450 canon.
Example: Players cannot dramatically alter the landscapes of the world if this messes with post-skip canon. Players also cannot use free MAs to change conflicts in the present, such as retconning defensive works or weapon systems when wars start to look bad. Both of these clauses can be annulled if all involved players say it’s okay, though.
“You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions.”
Hursimolit the Great, they had called him, for great, he had been. Throughout his whole life of sixty-seven years, he had given his all to unite the disparate peoples of what had once been home long, long ago. At first, he had fought off bandits and brigands alongside his brothers back when there was only him and his clan; then he had taken a wife from a rival clan, uniting all under a greater purpose of survival. More clans had joined their following with time, and now only some months ago, the world had begun to green once again as though by magic. Throughout his life, Hursimolit’s actions had amassed a clan of almost a hundred individuals, with hundreds more being affiliated with him and his kinsmen. Now, all had come from near and far to pay respect for the fallen lord of lords. His people had taken the corpse, wrapped in the finest cloth they had scavenged over the years, to an ancient black cave which would serve as a tomb. A thousand people had gathered to oversee the burial, and no less than fifty people, both men and women, had asked to be allowed to say some words in his honour. A train of grieving adults and children alike, longer than had been witnessed in these parts of decades, offered their finest gifts to the deceased - weapons, heirlooms, food, clothes, animals, charms - there was no end.
When all was said and done, though, came the question: how would they preserve these gifts so Hursimolit could use them in the afterlife? Would they not all disappear from him if there came graverobbers?
“We cannot stay here, either - not all of us, anyway,” said Gilumina, chieftain of the clan Jusu.
“We, we could always rotate the responsibility? These lands could support one of us at the time, right?” said Vimaru, chieftess of the Colinadasam clan.
Zim-Piatt of the Crimson Dogs shook his head. “Clans Jusu, Gao-Gao, Colinadasam and the tribes of Kipu-Kil and Grass Bulls would uphold a vow like this; the Fimdalri and Aguz-Ag, on the other hands…”
“Are you trying to start something, huh, Red Mutt?!” spat Saur of Fimdalri. Habsu, chieftess of Azug-Ag, palmed the hilt of her spear.
“I am not starting anything - I am simply stating the truth.” As arguments broke out, the original advocates for protection of the tomb tried to calm the clan leaders, though with little luck. However, one voice then suddenly broke through - it was a ragged man, weary with trauma and white of hair. The others knew him as One-Boot Lou - had recently founded his own clan called the Cackling Rats. He had shouted, and his words had made all go quiet:
“What if we called upon the Storm-Trod?!”
The others looked at one another skeptically. “The Storm-Trod?”
“Aye,” he said and looked around maniacally. “Months ago, our shelter got caught in a storm, worst one I’ve seen. Then, then this, this guy - think his name was… Anyway, so he climbed out of the shelter and just--”
“Oh, here we go again - Looney Lou and his rambles!” came a sarcastic remark.
“No, you don’t understand! He just up and walked out of the shelter and kept walking! Saw it with my own eyes as the wind blew the flesh off his bones! What the hell kinda person would do that?!”
“Point being?” It was clear no one believed him. Lou kept it up, however:
“The Storm-Trod can help us! A man like that might know the, the magic we need to keep this tomb safe forever!”
There was momentary silence. Some snickers blurted out somewhere in the crowd. When the snickers became open laughter, Zim-Piatt rolled his eyes and went over to Lou and patted his shoulder condescendingly. “Look, Lou, you clearly haven’t slept right lately. How about you head on back to your tent and take a nice nap, hmm?”
Lou pushed him away and shouted, “No! He will help us! He will! Storm-Trod! Come to us in our time of need! Storm-Trod!”
“Ugh, just shut him up!” came a shout from the crowd again.
The torches scattered about the cave suddenly snuffed out as one, the cave plunging into a desperate pitch black. From the entrance, four eyes lit the darkness, pitiless and snakelike in appearance; they blocked the only way out of the cave, as a voice rumbled through the caves, bitter in tone, “Blaspheme the Storm-Trod with only a heavy heart. Costs light to betters are ruinous to roaches.”
The crowd squealed as one and the songs of drawn steel and percussions of knocking wood sounded from the frightened clansfolk. Only Lou was reluctant to draw any weapons, for he had caught the words spoken by the creature. Pushing himself past Zim-Piatt and the others, he sailed across the flat stone floor on his knees and ended up before the creature. “You know the Storm-Trod?!”
The four eyes in the dark focused on Lou, a hiss piercing the clatter of steel on scabbard. The voice rumbled once more, “The Storm-Trod concerns themselves with pursuits far greater than roaches scurrying in the dark. The work falls upon me,” the voice paused, the eyes gazing down the cave as though they could see the people in the pitch black, and then once more the bitter rumble, “I have a great many tasks of import beyond your petty lives. You dare drag me from them with your blaspheme?”
“Please,” begged the man and lifted two hands up in submission. The rest seemed stunned that this had even happened. “It, it is our master, Hursimolit the Great - he lies buried in this cave, but we need to keep his tomb unscathed so, so he may enjoy our gifts in the afterlife unmolested! I, I remember seeing the Storm-Trod’s miracle in the storm - it, it was my hope he could help us with this.”
The eyes in the dark narrowed, unmasked rage intoned within the voice, “You distract your betters for matters as small as the tombs of roaches?” Another hiss, chilling the bones of the men gathered in the cave. Then, another pause, before the voice spoke again, the worst of the rage subsided, “I can do this, in the name of my master the Storm-Trod, but a lesson must be taught. The price will not be worth the result. It is too late to back out, now.”
“Y-yes, u-unders--”
“LOU! You bastard! What’re you doing?!” came a thunderous yell in the darkness. More followed, and movement in the darkness was followed by screams, thumbs and squeals as people fell over one another in the pitch black came. The ear-curdling sound of steel cutting flesh could also be heard, which sent the crowd into a panic. Lou’s breathing quicked.
“What must be done?! What must be done to protect the lord?!”
A great light emerged from the four eyes, shining blindingly down upon the crowd -- the An-Clastophon remained obscured, but the cave around the crowd shone as though a mid-day sun could pierce the veil of earth. The voice’s intensity grew in equal parts with its volume, as rage once more reared its head, “The dead cannot honor the Storm-Trod! Throw your swords upon the ground or I shall pluck your souls from your bodies, and meet upon them an eternity of suffering! Obey, or the afterlife you commend your king upon shall be forever denied to you!”
The cacophony of steel and wood smashed against the ground, though the yelling did not subside. “LOU, YOU’RE A DEAD MAN!” came a threat in the voice of Zim-Piatt, pushing his way up from the ground as two others on top of him tried to do as well. The dying coughs of a woman could be heard elsewhere, backed up by crying and gasping. Many others laid on the ground clutching wounds and others still rubbed their eyes free of blindness, though it took a while. Lou, too, could not seem to regain his sight for a long time.
The voice grew into an all-encompassing roar, the light growing ever-brighter as the An-Clastophon’s rage grew palpable in the air, “You will be silent in the face of your betters! When the divine speak, it is the roaches who listen! You will honor my presence properly, you will give me the respect that is due, or I will extract that respect through your anguish!”
Quivering before the display of divine power, the crowd was quiet. Even Zim-Piatt couldn’t bring himself to fight back against this blinding storm of light.
The light dimmed to more manageable levels as the voice’s tone softened. The roar meted out, and the An-Clastophon commanded, “I will provide you with the means to defend this tomb, for the Storm-Trod is merciful and I must obey my master’s dictates.” The voice stopped, briefly replaced only by the sound of breathing.
Then, the voice lightened further, “It will come with a price. You have incurred a debt with those infinitely your better that you will never be able to repay. When I leave, I shall leave with the firstborn child of all present. I shall not extract further from you, if you honor the Storm-Trod above all. Through the worship of the Storm-Trod, the fat will be cut from the lean and you will all be better for it.”
“Our-- WHAT?!” came a shout. Even Lou now seemed skeptical. Zim-Piatt picked up his spear from the floor and assumed a combat stance.
“I do not know what you deal is, demon - but you will not touch a single one of our children just because this mad fool summoned you! Now begone!” More reached for their weapons.
A deafening roar split the air as the crowd was buffeted by a tempest of wind. The light became blinding, as Zim-Piatt was forced to his knees. His expression turned to one of great pain, as his body blurred, as though becoming incorporeal. Then, he was split atwain, his spirit leaving his body and fleeing into the light. The wind died down and the light softened as Zim-Piatt’s body hit the floor; still breathing, but devoid of any inner spark.
The light flashed briefly and intensely as the voice roared, “To raise arms against your gods is to commit the ultimate blaspheme, demanding the ultimate punishment! Raise your sword-arm, and your immortal soul shall be forfeit, fit only for fodder!”
Weapons once again hit the ground and Zim-Piatt’s closest crowded around him in sorrowful disbelief and tried to slap some life back into him to no avail. Others broke into tears at the hopelessness of what Lou had gotten them into, and Lou seemed to have lost his spirit as well, though he appeared at least to be able to recover from it.
There was silence for some time, until finally, the voice spoke once more, its tone soft, “I punish you so for a reason; we are not your betters by right, but by understanding ourselves. This is the lesson I impart on you with the heinous price I extract: Nothing in life worth doing is painless. Honoring my master the Storm-Trod is to cut yourself into a better shape, to learn discipline. Supplicate yourself to the Storm-Trod, and you will master yourself and be the better for it.”
Seeing no other choice, the people prostrated themselves before the reptilian creature, frightened eyes full of rebellion looking over at the goo-brained man who had once been one of the most vocal and powerful leaders under Hursimolit himself to remember their fear. Quivering rolls of people awaited in terror for their assailant to make her next move. Lou had flattened himself onto his belly.
The voice then spoke, commanding, “You will honor the Storm-Trod and your king not through open war, but through veiled shadows. Eschew the right of naked force to settle your disputes, and wage your wars silently, through assassination and spies. Present a unified front to enemies without, and maneuver silently within. Do this, and I shall never return uninvited.”
“S-sure, wh-whatever th-the Storm-Trod commands,” whispered weakly Gilumina. Others remained silent, only exceptions being Zim-Piatt’s family sobbing around his living corpse.
Then, two wooden boxes painted a pitch-black and nailed shut floated into the light, settling down in front of the crowd. The wizards among them could sense magical power emanating from the boxes, and the voice said, “So long as you do not open them, they will provide magical power forever. Use them to power your traps.”
The cave suddenly plunged into pitch black again as the eyes vanished. Seconds later, the torches relit all at once and the crowd was left alone in the cave. Meanwhile, the An-Clastophon was collecting their firstborn; to be long gone before anybody could leave the cave. As the lights returned and people realised what had happened, they were lost for words; many broke into empty sobs while others howled the names of the lost children. Still more, though, were all-too-aware of what had just happened - and all-too-intent on punishing the one responsible for this great burial becoming a waking nightmare.
Lou turned a quivering head from where he laid on the ground, staring up into the black, furious faces of those who had taken him and his clan in among themselves.
“I--... I didn’t know…” he whimpered.
And as the other clans parted ways in sorrow later that day, another body had been buried in the tomb, though chopped and spread throughout its entrance. What traps had been set to protect their once powerful symbol of unity were known only to the wizard Voisana, who had proceeded to end his life after casting in mourning of his lost only daughter.
The tomb of Hursimolit was sealed thusly forever.
A great leader named Hursimolit, who united many human groups, has died and is to be buried in a tomb. When the groups can’t decide on a way to keep out graverobbers, a guy named Lou says some guy named the Storm-Trod could help them (read: The Secret God). Refusing to be shut down, he summons this Storm-Trod, which brings the An-Clastophon and all her bitchiness. The An-Clas demands the first born kids of everyone present for helping them out (and for summoning her in the first place) and when one tries to stand up to her, she turns him into a vegetable. The rest are scared into obeying, the An-Clas takes the firstborns and leaves behind two black boxes to use to power traps. After the An-Clas leaves, Lou is killed in a gruesome way and the tomb is sealed with super dangerous magic.
The unending red and gray wastes proved time and time again that to have hope was to be mad - Isa the Elder had seen it all-too-often. He prided himself on leading the greatest group of survivors in the region - not that he had met many competitors, but hey! - and whenever one or three of the youths said to him, “You know what? I’ve had it with you! We’re staking out on our own!”, he would give it two or three weeks and his flock would eventually pass by one or three ash-clad corpses. It was never an easy sight, and Isa prayed his days would be numbered from the moment he should ever think it so; however, it would always be an expected sight. What eventually did them in would be a mystery, of course: Vagabonds who had both joined his flock and passed by spoke of all kinds of dangers that could be the bane of anyone, be it young or old, man or woman, strong or sick. For his own sake, Isa the Elder would do his best just to put one foot in front of the other and make sure the rest of his flock could do the same.
Still, feeding a cohort of twenty-two was no simple feat - Isa had many times been forced to send away those who slowed them down or made too much trouble. Many in his flock despised him for it - he heard them chatter behind his back - but none dared rebel for fear of having to inherit his job. No, Isa knew there was security in his position, as there always is in jobs born out of necessity rather than want.
Isa the Elder wasn’t alone in his flock, of course; he had started with his clan, some of whom were still alive, and expanded from there. His first wife Asha had fallen ill with a cruel pox some months back, and it was with heavy heart that Isa had slit her throat to relieve her of the pain of dying alone in the ashlands. His second wife, Maiie, was thankfully in good health (or as good as could be, anyway), though she had yet to bear him a child even after nearly half a year. Rumours had begun to spread throughout the flock that Isa had lost his vigour or that Maiie had gone as barren as the land; whomsoever dared accuse the offended parties of this directly, however, quickly faced the wrath of the Elder himself.
Isa the Elder received his title of seniority for a reason: he had a son, see - Isa the Younger. Equal parts a beam of support and a thorn in his side, the two had a tenuous relationship that had frequently sparked into loud and raging arguments by the evening fire. Every bit an idealist, the Younger would always curse the Elder’s use of harsh, stern punishment to control the flock; the Elder would talk down to the Younger, citing his years of experience and record of survival as proof of his mandate. Many times had the Younger threatened to leave; equally many times had the Elder threatened to banish him. Neither threat held water, however; both knew the other to be too important to them. For indeed, even in the Time to End Time, what lasted was neither ideals or stability, but the flock, and the flock needed a ram. Isa the Elder grew frailer by the day (though he refused to show it), and everyone agreed Isa the Younger, as the kid whose horns were beginning to grow, would be the next in line. Even after all of society had broken down, the fundamental rule remained: Kin shall follow the path of kin. With his expecting wife Dya by his side, it seemed that kin would follow the path of kin for some time more, as well.
Then one night, Isa the Elder had a dream: He was walking through a valley of green, full of shapes twisting, folding and unfolding themselves and enveloped in an impervious fog that seemed to blur out all detail in the landscape. The ground, a mat of green straws, sported a metallic line that blinked with a cyan light. The line guided him forward, taking him to a tree - a black tree, though not like any tree he had ever seen nor heard of. It appeared metallic, and its branches had grown in no organic pattern, but a highly systemised one. Its natural beauty was nonexistent, for nothing living could resemble its rigidness. As he approached it, he found an old crone sitting among the roots, fused into the tree itself. In his dream, he said nothing, and he didn’t need to, for the crone spoke to him a prophecy:
A son of nightmares shall be born; Display for it no sign of scorn; Treat it as your flesh and blood, And you will reach the Verdant Flood.
Then the scene disappeared, becoming a new vision - one of endless rolling hills of grass and trees, of plentiful rain and shrubberies bearing fruit and berries. Birdsong filled his ears and moist air pervaded his nostrils. A warm wind swept him off his feet and carried him forward, his journey taking him further and further towards the gentle sun.
As swiftly as the dream had begun, it ended, and a flickering light stirred Isa to wakefulness. It was a torch, held by his long-time travelling companion Yosof, father of Dya. The chieftain rubbed the night out of his eyes and said, “Yosof, what ails you at this hour? The moon is still aloft.”
“Forgive my disturbance, brother,” replied the old man, “but it is my daughter - she is giving birth to your grandson!”
Isa blinked and mustered out of the bedroll and hurried on after Yosof out of his family’s humble tent. He caught the sight of the Younger’s empty roll, as well - to think his own son wouldn’t wake him up at a time like this. The camp was small, so the run was short; Isa was baffled that the screams hadn’t woken him earlier. The whole host had gathered around the entrance of Yosof’s family tent, and both Isa and Yosof pushed the others aside to peer inside. Just as they did, the loud cries of a baby could be heard.
“Congratulations, Isa, you have--” The midwife suddenly screamed as she saw what was in her hands; gasps and squeals from all around followed. “By the gods!”
“Wh-wha? What is it?” mumbled Dya weakly. Isa the Younger glared in disbelief at the child, no, the thing that his wife had born him. Its skin was scaly all over the torso and arms; its legs were capricornian and hooved; it had claws for hands; its head was feline in shape and covered with thin, wet fur. Its scream was human, but nothing else about it was. Isa the Younger pointed a quivering finger at it.
“Y-you sick whore! What wicked demon have you laid with to give me such an abomination for a son?!”
“Wh-what? What are you--?” Shiveringly, Dya had managed to angle herself so she could view the child. Upon doing so, she, too, screamed and tried to cover her mouth, but her body was frozen. The only one in the group not panicking was Isa the Elder - his eyes had glazed over with an empty recognition of the prophecy in the dream; he wished it had not come to his family and his clan, but if something as unthinkable as this had happened, how then could the rest of the prophecy be untrue?
A sound of rushing steel brought him back to reality and he watched his son crawl swiftly over to the sobbing baby with a knife in his hand. Isa the Elder picked up the child and took it in his arms to everyone’s shock.
“What are you doing, father?!”
“We cannot kill it,” he insisted. “We must let it live!”
“Are you out of your mind?” blasted his son. Yosof knelt beside Dya and cried.
“How - oh gods, how could this happen? My own daughter! What shame; what disgrace!” Dya, too, could not quell her ceaseless tears.
“I had a dream - I dreamt this would happen!” declared the Elder and bore the child out of the tent to get some safe distance from everyone else. Luckily for him and the baby, everyone else made it their mission to stay as far away from them as possible - everyone except Isa the Younger, knife still very much in hand. Isa the Elder shifted his grip on the child and held it gently on one arm, the other extending peacefully towards his son. “Son, listen to me…”
“That thing, father, that demon is evil! It infested my wife, ate my son and took its place! It has no purpose in this world!” The Younger jabbed at the baby, the Elder dodging barely.
“If we kill it, we will never get out of this ashen desert! I have seen it, son - Paradise!”
For a moment, the words reached him, and Isa lowered his knife. “... What do you mean?”
Testing his chances, the Elder stepped forward, hand steering slowly towards the knife. “In my dream, there was an old crone… She told me that we needed to care for this child, despite its nightmarish form, and we would eventually find the way to the Verdant Flow…”
“The Verdant Flow?” asked one of the others. The Elder nodded.
“Yes. In my dream, I saw a land of green, of rain and fruit. It truly was nothing short of Paradise, everyone. If, if we do our duty as this spirit has commanded, then our suffering in this ashen desert will be over! We will be safe!”
A silence followed, albeit one with the occasional interchange of mumblings. The Younger lowered his knife slightly as he looked his father in the eyes; the Elder formed a small smile and reached out to take the blade from him. However, the Younger cast one more glance at the horribly deformed child in his father’s arms and tightened the grip about the knife. In a lightning movement, he hefted the blade to the sky and leapt forward. “I will not be at peace with that monster alive!”
“NO!”
It happened in a flash. An instinct trained over years and years of repetition had brought the Elder to draw his own dagger, sheathed as it had been on his hip. On the ground laid his son, the Younger, his belly sliced open and close to bleeding dry. The Elder’s hand was caked in crimson, and the screams of the onlookers were hardly able to shake him from his daze. As the Younger’s friends crowded around his corpse, Yosof approached the Elder with shock on his face.
“... You would slay your own son to protect that, that thing.” Isa couldn’t even muster the words to repond. Yosof pointed away. “You will not take anything from us anymore. We’ve had it with your cruel and wicked ways. Now begone!”
Isa wasn’t even allowed to touch his son’s corpse. As more and more turned their denial into rage, Isa could no longer remain. So he ran. He ran and ran and ran, ran until the campfires could no longer be seen even at night. At that point, he stopped, collapsing to his knees in a bind between emotional and physical exhaustion. He looked to the sky and prayed, wept for mercy. He received no answer, save for a weak gurgle in his arms. The little monster turned his gall to curdles, but with the last of his true family gone, his grandson was all he had left. Reluctantly, he embraced the child, as all children should be. When he next rose, he noticed the ash had spawned straws of grass. He looked up ahead and saw the straws congregate into mats. As he ran up closer, he witnessed it: Endless swathes of green, damp with the evening rain and smelling of pollen. He shuffled over to a nearby shrubbery and inspected its branches - they were fat and plump with fruit and sweets. He picked one and savoured flavours he had never tasted before. He then regarded his grandson again, who looked at him curiously. He sighed and nodded.
“Just you and me, then, son… Just you and me.”
Story follows a small pack of humans surviving the apocalypse. Nothing big-plot relevant happens, but it’s a story about a dad who has a prophetic dream, kills his son on accident and goes on to find solace in some god-made green lands.
Ahtziri hovered in the sky, gently rubbing her hands over the rest of her wounds that were yet to heal. Pazuzu nosed at them with a downturned expression of concern, a gargling whine coming from his lower maw as he looked up into her eyes.
"Why did he try to kill you?! Why didn’t you just walk away?!" he growled, his voice equal parts concern and fury.
"Shh, my love... Think only of the mercy that we are still together." Ahtziri began, taking a hand from a still-oozing burn on her midriff to pet his snout affectionately. She winced as he practically slammed himself into her with concern, but quickly composed herself and tousled his sinewy fur. She looked down upon the land, musing upon the words that they'd shared, and resolved to come to peace for the sake of her children, and for his. Even now, after a near-death experience, some bare fragments of that earlier hypocrisy remained seated within her psyche--stubbornness or intrinsic nature? She wasn’t sure.
"Lonn… Perhaps we are not so different, you and I. Monster and Man… Let us give them a chance at parity, then. Let us leave them to their choices and their opportunities."
Ahtziri gathered herself, calling forth the power of the divine ichor within her once more. A wreath of lilac flames flickered into being around her head, quickly catching and spreading over her body. Pazuzu whined with concern again, but after looking into Ahtziri's eyes knew that she would not be swayed from whatever it was she was going to do and swooped down towards the ground to await her. As the flames overtook her she kindled them with her magic, the lilac darkening and becoming a deeply sinister shade of purple that seemed to grow around her. In an instant the flames expanded enormously into an enormous sphere with her at the centre, and its baleful light shone across the entire shard, growing and intensifying as she focused, until she was almost like a blazing moon within the sky. Then she spoke, and all mortals and monsters touched by her light would hear her voice swimming in their minds, a sinister and guttural whisper that resonated within their skulls:
"I freely give you the choice: monster or man. Whatever you choose, you shall be loved. You shall be free.”
Then, just as quickly as it had spawned, the light was gone and the magic was cast. Those who wished for her fecundity would be welcome to it, any sincere prayer answered with a mote of pure life that may or may not become monstrous--a choice guaranteed. Each monster, similarly, would be given the opportunity to embrace mortality--to free themselves from the mirrored shackles of their condition and make the same choices man could, to react to the same opportunities.Her work done, Ahtziri descended from her flight and rested a palm atop Pazuzu's head.
”H-hello? Are you alright?” A distant yell followed by approaching steps hailed the arrival of another, the appearance of a many-armed humanoid growing clearer on the grasslands. It approached with great speed, seemingly drawn by the commotion. ”Who goes there?”
Ahtziri and Pazuzu both turned to react to the figure approaching them from the distance, momentarily shocked at the chances that another being was so close to them--but given what she'd just done, she knew that she was going to draw attention to herself in one way or another. She simply had not expected it to be so... immediate. As soon as the form of the many-handed being entered her field of vision, she once again knew that they were divine as she was, and she prepared herself for combat once again, claws outstretched and teeth bared. Her tail's head remained curiously reticent, not opting to snap in the direction of whatever god was coming, and Pazuzu looked up at Ahtziri and nudged her hands with his nose.
"They mean no harm, mother..."
Ahtziri took a deep breath in and retracted her claws, instead resting her hand atop her faithful child's snout and looking down at him with what was first a scowl, but then quickly a smile.
"As you say, Pazuzu. I am Ahtziri." she called out the latter sentence, not electing to wave in greeting but shifting her stance and posture from one of aggression to one of cautious wariness. She did not make any moves towards the entity, opting to wait for them to approach her more fully, and still steeled herself in case she needed to act: if they reacted poorly to what she had just done, she would need to be ready at an instant's notice.
The entity slowed as they came closer, adopting a wary stance as well. In two of their arms, they held a human child; two more arms caressed a slightly curved belly; and the last two were held in midway between a guard and a cross over the chest. Their golden eyes scanned the forms before them and bowed a polite greeting. ”Forgive me, my lady,” it said with a calm voice. ”I was in the area and heard a terrible cry of pain - the kind only kin can shout for its kin. To think my instincts were right - a worthy son wept for his wounded mother.” Lilac tears formed in the corners of their eyes. ”Beautiful - simply beautiful. What parent can ask for more?”
As the figure spoke of parental love, of the bond that Ahtziri shared with her firstborn, her expression immediately softened. The protectiveness was gone in an instant, blown out like a candle in a storm, and a smile crept its way across her animalistic features.
"Ah, Pazuzu... my firstborn. There is no deeper love than that between parent and child, no force more wondrous or powerful in all of creation." Ahtziri replied, her head turned to look deeply into Pazuzu's eyes. He gave her face a lick with both of his long, now-serpentine tongues and let out a gurgling growl that could only signify true love and adoration. After a few seconds of the affection Ahtziri turned her attention back to the newcomer, her presence suddenly warm and affable, and looked down upon the many-armed deity's own child, cradled so closely to their pregnant belly. Subconsciously she, too, ran a hand over her own pregnant belly (though she was considerably further along) before stepping forward slightly to look at the child.
"Ah, who is this? Your own firstborn?
Gone was the monstrous aspect of Ahtziri's voice as she looked upon the child, her voice instead filled with the overwhelming love of a mother for their child--though she had plenty of reason to distrust mortals when she awoke, her conversation with Lonn and the clear love the many-armed figure had for this child disarmed her completely. She did not approach further than the single step she took, but the more she looked at the child cradled in its mother's arms the more tears began to well in her own eyes, and she took a deep breath suddenly to bring her focus back to the one before her.
”Oh, yes,” said the entity and smiled, presenting the baby for the goddess to behold. The black-haired baby boy, free of prejudice, regarded the Mother of Monsters with the same curiosity as he regarded all things. The entity giggled. ”His name is Ossurman, but I call him mostly Oss. He’s my firstborn son, and he is everything to me.” A hand ruffled the baby’s hair. ”Yours is beautiful, too. Pazuzu, was it?”
Ahtziri's eyes lit up as Ossurman regarded her, and she drew a hand up to gently stroke his cheek with the back of her finger. As she moved it, the bestial aspects of her form slipped away into the ether, becoming completely humanoid, and she cooed gently at him as she lavished him with her affection and her attention. So engrossed by the child was she that she did not even respond to the deity's question, and Pazuzu answered in her stead:
"That's right, Pazuzu! Mother saved me from a band of attacking humans, and changed my form so that no mortals would be able to strike me down again if they tried!" the great Abiktu boasted, puffing his enormous chest out as he spoke. Two of his eyes regarded the figure before him, and the other two remained locked on Ahtziri, watching over her while she was distracted by the child before her. Ahtziri suddenly stopped and paused, looking up at her deific kin, and asked a question:
"May I bless him...?" her tone was cautious, even sheepish--she was very much unused to working her magic on those not inherently monstrous, but the purity and innocence of the child had truly touched her in a way even she had not expected. In that moment she knew that she could, perhaps, come to love this child as she loved Pazuzu--that, if the conditions were right, her love could extend to mortals. It did not shock her as she felt it, but her face still betrayed the immensity of the moment, even if one lacked the necessary context.
Chakravarti cocked their head gently to the side with a blink and then revealed a broad, heartfelt smile. ”Oh, what fortune; what friendship! Of course! If my son would be so lucky to be blessed by an exemplary mother like you, then he would be all the better for it.” The god held the baby out to her, two arms gesturing with open palms for Ahtziri to do as she would please.
Ahtziri's finger moved up to the child's forehead, and the same purple glow that she had cast upon the land moments ago danced upon his skin. She then removed her hand, and placed a tender kiss upon the glowing mark only for it to settle into him and vanish completely.
"All monsters shall love you, Ossurman, as they love me. Never shall they harm you or those born of you; never shall they refuse a heartfelt request so long as it is spoken with the love that I have for all of my children, and that your own mother has for you."
Then she stepped back, and the monstrousness overtook her hand once more. She looked at it fondly, and then to Pazuzu, and then finally back to Chakravarti.
"My children are... incompatible with mortalkind, for the most part. To become a monster is to reject the premise of mortality... but I think that which unites us is our love, and our family: at our best, we care for our kin above all else. At worst, we shame our legacy and the love that nurtures us. In this, I suppose, we are united." Ahtziri spoke, her voice gentle and whisper-soft. She looked almost distant, her mind swimming with thoughts and revelations, and it took her a few seconds to snap back to reality.
"May I ask your name?" she asked, suddenly cognizant that she did not actually know the being before her's name or purpose.
”I am Chakravarti,” said the god sweetly in a simultaneously masculine and feminine voice, hoisting the little baby boy into a better seat in their arms. Their eyes looked Ahtziri up and down with a golden glow and spoke, ”And I have never before seen this dedication, this maternity, displayed in anything else on this world. What a joy it must be to be a child of yours.” Three hands extended out and scratched Pazuzu lovingly under their two mouths. Little Ossurman cooed and stretched his little arms out to the monster, fingers grabbing the air eagerly. Chakravarti giggled and brought the boy up to touch the Abiktu, his fingers playing with the needle-like fur around his two muzzles. ”Incompatible? Nonsense, I have never seen such filial loyalty; such respectful discipline. Why would they be incompatible?”
"A pleasure to meet you, Chakravarti." Ahtziri began, before being interrupted by Pazuzu loudly growling and panting as Chakravarti paid him attention. His tongues lolled out of his muzzles and all four of his eyes closed, his enormous frame heaving with the rhythmic trill of a guttural and bestial purring. He leaned in further, slightly tilting his head to the side, before his upper muzzle began to speak.
"Ohhh, that's nice... Mother can't quite reach those spots, ahhh... She only has two hands! Oh, hello little one..."
Pazuzu's tail scythed in great swings, needle-sharp clumps and clusters of matted and torn fur falling to the ground and being caught in the smallest eddies of wind before resting on the dust and sand beneath them. Ahtziri turned to him, eyes practically ablaze with jealousy, but as soon as she saw his reaction to the attention she could not bring herself to hold on to the feeling for very long at all--and her motherly aspect practically overflowed with the joy of watching her child play with Chakravarti's.
"Ahh, my children are not all as devoted as my beloved Pazuzu. They are wild, bestial things--the darkest essences of mankind's nature, twisted into abhorrent shapes. Many of them act solely on instinct, still incapable of thought or reason... slaves to wild impulses. It... it is simply who they are. To endow them all with intellect would spell an end to humanity, I am certain--many are cruel, wicked things that cannot be persuaded or charmed." Ahtziri's voice took on a contemplative tone, weighing each of the words very carefully before she spoke them. Even after they had left her mouth, her serpentine tail's tongue tasted them in the air to be certain of them, snapping and hissing all the while.
”That is family, is it not?” chuckled Chakravarti and added yet another hand to the scratching of Pazuzu. A fifth hand reached over to gently land on Ahtziri’s shoulder and the god spoke, ”Despite all their flaws; despite all their wrongdoings - we have no choice but to love them. They will destroy your reputation, ruin years of toil and hard work in a single day, but in the end, they are yours - they are your pride and your reason to be.” The hand on the shoulder gently flowed down Ahtziri’s torso and landed on her swollen belly. ”But this you already know. You have known it since you birthed your first.” Golden eyes fixed into hers. ”You truly are a perfect mother.”
Ahtziri returned the gaze with equal intensity, bringing her own hands up to press against Chakravarti's belly. Even now she could feel the radiant energy of a life swelling within, the sensation of it causing her hands to tingle. She smiled, rows of razor-sharp teeth glinting in the light, as she drew in a shaky breath. For the first time in her short existence, she did not know what to say: she tried to speak, but nothing came out of her mouth. She turned to look at Pazuzu, and then down at little Ossy, and finally back to Chakravarti, somewhat composed:
"That is... very kind of you to say. To know such qualities exist in another, one must possess them themselves--you, too, are a wonder beyond wonders. If mortalkind has you at its head, well... perhaps they are not irredeemable."
As she spoke, Pazuzu turned his head to look at her and gave her cheek a quick lick before burying his snout in the crook between her neck and shoulder. No words needed to be exchanged between them for the meaning of the gesture to be clear: this line of thinking was the way forward, the only way to ensure that his mother would be safe from the predations of other divines who might not be so understanding. She brought a hand up to his neck, stroking it gently, and brushing over one of Chakravarti's hands. She turned back to face the eight-armed god, skin clearly flushed beneath the fur.
The family god gasped as though they had choked and descended down onto one knee. They took the hand that had been on their belly in a gentle hold and looked up into the goddesses’ crimson eyes with a pleading look. ”My lady,” said Chakravarti in a small voice, ”I cannot hide these emotions any longer. Hearing your poetic love for your children despite their flaws… It has stirred something deep inside of me. Would you, dear lady Ahtziri, do me the honour of becoming my wife?” A halo of light and lotus flowers surrounded their silhouette and a soft melody played on the wind. The little baby boy seemed somewhat upset, as though he had seen this display too many times.
Ahtziri's initial reaction to the display was confusion, plain and simple--she had no concept of this idea of marriage, or what Chakravarti could possibly be proposing to her. The nature of civilisation was something Ahtziri barely understood, the closest she had gotten to reconciling the idea of what it was being similar to a pack, or a family--but such a notion was insufficient for her to process precisely what was being offered to her. She understood the emotion of the gesture, certainly, but otherwise all that played across her face was a lack of understanding. Seeing this, Pazuzu huddled next to her and spoke in a gentle whisper--though, of course, not so quiet as to go unheard by a god.
"I think it's... mating partners? Over a long period of time? Ossy says that they've said as much to all of the other gods they've met, even... him! Lonn!"
Pazuzu's four eyes narrowed conspiratorially, and he pawed at the ground in front of Chakravarti just enough to attract attention and interrupt the scene.
"Ossy says that you offered Lonn the position of... prime something? Whatever that is, Mother deserves it too! I'll only agree if she gets at least what he got!" he said, a brief flash of defiance and protectiveness glinting in his eyes. Almost immediately after he said it, however, he seemed to realise that he'd effectively made a demand of a deity and immediately bowed his head, a small whine escaping his muzzle like gravel being poured onto the ground. Ahtziri rested her left hand upon his head, petting him in his favourite spot (behind his right ear, just above at the bottom) and raising an eyebrow at Chakravarti as she did so, waiting for a response.
The other god frowned briefly and looked down at Ossurman with a scowl of disappointment. They opened their mouth briefly as though to say something, then closed it, and opened it again, saying, ”You are very right, Pazuzu. Some time ago, I took Lonn as my First Consort, and it is his child I carry in my belly as we speak.” Two hands caressed the golden skin of the slight protrusion of their abdomen. They straightened themselves up somewhat and donned a somewhat serious expression. ”You are most lovely, my lady Ahtziri, and I would love nothing more than to make you my wife; however, First Concubine is not a title I can grant to just anyone - not even Lonn received his for free. A wife is for spawning offspring, but a Prime Concubine must be displayed before everyone, as well - she must possess a certain… Character and status, if you will. Now Pazuzu, I mean this in no disrespectful way, of course, but does your mother possess any sizeable lands? Has she done any mighty deeds? Will she take the time to learn the etiquette of the court so she may rule beside me?”
Pazuzu tilted his head to the side, lower muzzle letting out a small bark as he began to speak again.
"Well... Mother hasn't taken any lands yet, and I'm not sure what you mean by mighty deeds..." the Abiktu started, eyes narrowing as he thought about what he was saying.
"Oh! She has the allegiance of all of her children! We'd all fight and die for her, so she has the biggest army! And she can make more of us, and then we can make more of ourselves, and I bet we could overrun the whole world if Mother wished it!" Pazuzu turned to look at Ahtziri as he barked out the last part, clearly seeking her approval. She gave him a nod and his fur a tousle, and he turned back to Chakravarti with his tail wagging behind him even faster than it had been previously.
"How many divinities are there, that such parading is necessary...? Well, if it is sufficient for you to collect concubines and consorts in this manner, it means that I must play this game whether I like it or not--and... well, I would very much like to spend more time with you. To have another that understands what it means to be a parent is... well, it is not something I thought would happen. A grand unification of the families of monsters and mortals, an undying dynasty the likes of which have never been seen before and shall never be seen again; an emperor to rule it, and a faithful Abiktu at his side to safeguard him and love him. Our lands need not fear the monsters that will undoubtedly plague the others--are these things enough for you?" Ahtziri then knelt, and took two of Chakravarti's hands in her own. She looked at them with a steely conviction in her eyes, a pledge of loyalty and love upon her lips, and deep within her an ambition began to take root.
The family god lifted a backhand to their forehead as though close to swooning and two more hands closed around Ahtziri’s grip as well. ”Oh, what devotion; what pledges!” Their halo of light and lotuses brightened and thickened, and their final free hand cupped itself over their chest. ”Soothe yourself, o beating heart! Alas, her oaths are too much! How can I, o how can I, Chakravarti, turn down such an unmatched will to join my dynasty? How can I, Chakravarti, deny this most gracious and necessary gift to my legacy and my house? This most benign and benevolent contribution?” They pulled loose all their hands and whichever weren’t holding Ossurman took the Mother of Monsters into an embrace, saying, ”Your love for your children and care for our house have rocked me to my very core, beloved lady Ahtziri. Nay, lady Ahtziri vur Chakravarti, First Concubine of mine. For yes - my emotions can no longer be tamed! I must have you, and I must have you close to me! Be mine, o Ahtziri, be mine!”
"There will be those who will not see the fruitfulness of our union, those who are unwilling to join our family... But they are not worth our time, my love--let them sink beneath our notice like the vermin they are, let our children inherit the earth!" Ahtziri proclaimed, returning Chakravarti's embrace with all of the passion she could muster. Pazuzu let out a great howl of excitement, loud enough to vibrate the earth gently beneath their feet, and with a great beating of his wings flew up into the air. His tail continued to wag furiously as he looped around himself, circling the three below, and gentle pants punctuated the air as Ahtziri finally extricated herself from her partner's grasp. She turned her gaze up into the air, at the happiness of her firstborn, and tears once again welled up within her eyes.
"To see them happy, loved... it is worth every trial they put us through. I would endure a beating from every other god on this shard, even lay down my life if I must, just to see him happy." the words tumbled from her mouth without thinking, said to no-one in particular, and her gaze only returned to the ground when Pazuzu came crashing down upon it a good distance away, bounding across the craggy hills towards the pair.
"So what do we do now, Mother? Oh!" he began, before turning himself towards Chakravarti with a quizzical, lopsided grin on his face (insofar as was possible for an Abiktu), "Should I call you Father? Mother? I'm just not sure!
”Either will do, my son,” Chakravarti declared and gave him a gentle pat. ”Now, as one house, we must do our best and spread our influence across the world. I will remain here, my love, and continue shaping our son’s land into a worthy grounds for his empire to prosper. I request, therefore, that you and our son Pazuzu remain until you are healed before journeying out to secure our dynasty more land, wealth and respect. We are in this together, my lady Ahtziri, and together, we will conquer this Shard for our children and our children’s children!” To celebrate, the god flexed an arm and raised a triumphant obelisk from the grass beside them, its faces covered in depictions of themself alongside Ahtziri and Lonn on respectively their left and right hands, and Celvanya beneath them. Monsoon water that had formed many brooks through the grassland was laid into rivers into a bridge leading to the obelisk, then a stone-toss away, a great temple arose, its walls and levels filled with statues of all sorts of creatures, mortals and monsters.
Ahtziri smirked at the raised pillar, her body reacting to the carving instinctively and beginning to crackle with her particular amaranthine glow. Her remaining wounds soothed themselves in its presence, knitting themselves together as they had before, and she looked upon the carved stone pensively as her regenerative magic did its work. She had no desire to ever meet him upon the battlefield again, that much was certain, but she was grateful for what had happened. For what his conviction had shown her, no matter how painful the lesson was; for the revelation that they were, ultimately, perhaps not so different. Now they were joined as family, and a small part of her was apprehensive of how he’d react to the news--but she had faith that, ultimately, it would work out in its own way. Opportunities would present themselves for a clean path forward, and she only had to humble herself to take them. She would not let her children go unloved, or die unclean deaths, for the sake of pride. Not after last time. Her eyes glanced over to the temple that Chakravarti had created, perusing its many carvings and stone-wrought likenesses, and turned back to the Obelisk once more content to rest and wait. There would be new lands to conquer soon enough--for now, she had only to bide her time.
Ahtziri is licking her wounds after having her ass both metaphorically and literally handed to her by the God of Mortals, and she takes some time to reflect on the valuable life lessons she’s learned. Then she gets totally seduced by the other mother (not the nightmare one) and they get married (to the surprise of absolutely nobody). The event is commemorated, things are made, Ahtziri takes Prime Concubine and the rest of you bitches are left in the dust. Fin.
The Eight-Armed God took their most calm and serene time travelling. With no mount or vehicle to speak of, they took in the surroundings of the wastes and learned to see the details in the ash. On a few occasions, they had been approached by vagabond survivors desperately seeking aid or foolishly attempting to rob them: Chakravarti had dealt with them as they deserved, and there laid both full-bellied vagrants and beaten corpses in the god’s flowery wake. Indeed, a road of flowers as broad and as long as a country had followed the giddy god from the Tomb of the First Dynasty, and in it, small, stalwart insects and pollinators did their best to exploit this nonsensical idyll before the End Times could consume it once more. The god had along the way spawned both birds and beasts for the entertainment of the little boy in their arms, fluffy ruminants to graze the flower fields and fliers to pick at the parasites in their fur. Ossurman had loved every single one of them, and a confidence grew in Chakravarti’s heart that the little boy would grow into a wise and loving patriarch some day.
The party of two topped a small hill and arrived upon a natural fjord in the landscape, looking out across the black, endless aether. The family god stopped and gave Ossurman a gentle shake to wake him up from his nap. ”Look, Ossy…” The god squatted down just by the edge, golden eyes following the thunder of magical energy in the distant abyss, intermittently overshadowed by the silhouettes of flying demons fleeing the underbelly of the World Shard. ”... Isn’t it fascinating? Perversely so?”
The baby looked into the abyss as well and started to sob. Chakravarti released a small chuckle and held the little boy closer. ”Oh, sweety, don’t cry. Mommy is here; daddy is here. I’ll keep you safe, don’t worry…”
Over the next hill, just a few stone throws away, a crimson glow approached. The first physical emblem of the apparent radiation was a shock of salt-and-peppered orange hair, followed by the rest of a man. The glow stretched out from the transient figure by about two or three spans of a man but slowly seemed to sink back into itself as he closed the distance. Dirty frock coat and bare feet made for an interesting collection of clothing, but beyond that there were very few features of note. At the closest hillock to Chakravarti the figure stopped, cocking his head to the side and scratching at the finger length, fiery orange beard that sprouted along his chin. With a simple motion he lifted a pair of carved ivory spectacles from his eyes, revealing a flash of electric red before dying down back to their normal golden-brass.
”Hey there,” called out the transient man, making sure to announce himself quickly to the unquestioningly powerful looking deity, ”Quite a sight, eh?! Pretty!”
Chakravarti immediately rocketed to their feet and produced six cutlasses, held ready in their six available arms while the remaining two clutched Ossurman tightly to their chest. A storm of steel raging around the god, they said, ”Who are you?! Are you after my baby boy?!”
Lonn’s eyes went wide at the lightning fast reflexes of the six-armed god but he did a magnificent job hiding his immediate awareness of the danger he had evidently put himself in. Despite part of himself thinking it wise to take what victories he had received as of late and dip on this one his ever devious mind could see opportunity held aloft on a silver platter. Both hands went up, revealing his overtly peaceful intentions. His eyes locked on that of Chakravarti and, in one sly parting of his visage, his perfect, ivory smile beamed.
”Don’t fret, proud parent,” Lonn said, keeping an honest look about his face while refusing to break respectful eye contact, ”I’m nothing to be feared. I am a friend of man, children included.”
The opposing god circled in a quarter circle while talking in the sight of the other. Then, as quickly as they had appeared, the weapons turned to smoke and Chakravarti assumed a calmer stance. ”A friend of man, you say?” They looked him up and down again and flexed an impressed brow. ”Your demeanour speaks of your peaceful intentions. I pray you may forgive my sudden outburst.” They bowed curtly. ”The roads are few and crawling with evil these days. If I may ask, to whom to I have the pleasure of speaking? Your most fragrant smell tells me that you, my lord, are like me, and it is not every day that I meet one like me.”
”There is nothing to forgive, friend; it is righteous to defend yourself and your own, aint it?”
Lonn let down his hands as his eyes devoured Chakravarti’s form for clues to their character. It was quickly discovered by the man-god that his peer was more than met the eye, perhaps literally. Despite his own divine sight he could not see past the rotating identity of Chakravarti, occupying space as both genders and more of the human race. It was an odd experience for someone so confident with mortal identities and so far the other deities he’d found had matched mankind fairly well. The slightest quiver of Lonn’s smile, though, revealed his momentary flash of epiphany. They were a God of
”Ah, you have a nose for it then,” purred the transient deity, eyes flowing from dull gold to his glowing red while once more the aura of crimson began to emanate from him like a corona. He offered a low and flowery bow, arms outspread and wide, to return Chakravarti’s own, ”Lonn, at your service, good mother. And might I say, what a beautiful and clever child you bare. Yours, I trust? Couldn’t think of a better progenitor.”
The family god blushed with a giggle. ”Oh-ho-ho, you tease.” The shield of arms uncoiled themselves from around the baby to give Lonn a better look. ”Indeed, he is mine - born into the clan of clans, if I may permit myself a moment of boasting. Yes, dare I say, he is the king-to-be! Emperor-to-be! With my blood, I would expect no less.” Their proud demeanour then deflated politely and they spoke, ”But enough about me - great lord Lonn… Is it just Lonn, by the way? Have you a belonging to a clan or house?”
Lonn, for the first time in anyone’s life knowing him, frowned. It was a deep one too, that practically dripped with melancholy. The frown flipped partially into a true if mirthless smile, eyes looking to Chakravarti with a noticeable measure of sadness. Despite this he “forced” himself back into a full smile. With one errant wave of a hand he shook off the malaise of his thoughts, giving a sidelong glance at the other god.
”Alas, I came unto this world disappointingly alone. I have found friends, sure, but family? So far, zilch. I have aided the mortals in their struggles where I can, but even then it is a far cry from true belonging.” Lonn’s gaze drifted for a moment before sharply jumping back to meet Chakravarti’s vision with lightning flashing in his eyes, ”But, that doesn’t mean for a second that I don’t have ambitions otherwise, believe you me. Families can be made, as I am sure you well know.”
”The world is what we make of it, after all.”
”Oh, that’s too bad, my lord,” responded the family god and positioned the little baby into a better grip. Their eyes once again scanned over the god of man and one finger caressed their cheek thoughtfully. A witty smile spread across their lips and they said, ”Well, what if I told you you did not have to -make- a family, but could join one?”
Though the grin he bore was in no way revealing of his true intentions and in all respects produced a genuine, benevolent gleam, inside Lonn’s labyrinthine mind he was soaring. What luck! In what amounted to functionally a handful of days Lonn had met a number of deities and so far had been fond of nearly every single one. Moreover, there was a clear pattern of friendship which would prove incredibly helpful in future days not yet arrived. Returning from the lightning dance of his thoughts, Lonn flashed a slightly quizzical raise of his eyebrow. He let some cunning show through, as if playing coy, then let his eyes wander up and down the God/dess very noticeably.
”Join one, eh?” Lonn mused before locking his gaze with once more with Chakravarti’s divine gaze, ”And what could a man such as I do to gain such a blessing?”
Chakravarti’s smile broadened. ”Oh, it is quite simple, really.” With that they descended onto one knee and spoke, ”My lord Lonn, first of your name - would you do me, Chakravarti, the honour of joining my house as my husband?” A crest of light seemed to encircle their form, with dancing lotus flowers forming a radiant halo over their head in the fresh sunlight.
”Today hasn’t ceased to amaze…” muttered Lonn, halfway actually surprised. He had to admit, he wasn’t expecting it to move so quickly. His gaze danced briefly across the crest of light emanating Chakravarti before returning to her. Moments later and his perfect smile returned in all its pearlescent brightness.
”You humble me, Mother of Kings; what you offer is beyond compare.” Lonn looked down into Chakravarti’s eyes with a glowing red gaze. By now the corona of red that radiated from his feet had grown to encompass much of the area, only dying before Chakravarti’s own light, ”And I will accept, with one request; I should like to be your First Husband, as you will be my First Wife. I can tell with but a glance your family will be great and numerous, and I can tell one husband would only weaken our dynasty. But I would ask you to allow me the honor to sit at your side first, before any others. Will you accept my request, Great Mother? All you need do is take my hand.” Lonn’s hand outstretched, fingers curled just so to call Chakravarti closer. All the while his smile flashed, almost uncomfortably perfect in its symmetry.
Chakravarti blinked and then slowly rose up, their face curling into a slightly defensive frown. Quickly, then, a sly smirk followed, and the four of the gods hands busied themselves with cradling their face from various angles. ”My, my, as should be expected for one with a smile like yours. Truly, none with such perfect teeth could see themselves as anything less than number one.” A slightly more reserved pose overtook the god as several hands crossed themselves over their breast, the arms carrying Ossurman moving out of the way. ”Will you not tell me a little more about yourself, Lord Lonn? A husband can be a stranger to me so long as I may carry his offspring, but my First Consort is no mere title. You would effectively be robbing me of quite an important choice later on. My interest in you was sparked the moment I saw you, certainly, but you must sate my curiosity before we can move further.” Out of the ashes, a small stool of stone materialised for them to sit on; another appeared behind Lonn. Between them, a table stacked tall with alien fruits and appetisers appeared, alongside gold and silver cups of wine. ”Do not hesitate to drink as much as you would like,” they added, ”it is non-alcoholic. I am still breastfeeding, after all.”
In one of only true and unmediated outbursts, Lonn laughed. Despite all the walls he presented, all the half-truths he told, he couldn’t help but truly admire Chakravarti’s statement. By all rights, they were completely and utterly correct. In an instant, Chakravarti had actually managed to win a bit of Lonn over. With his teeth parted just enough to echo his legitimate enjoyment of the experience, Lonn sat without a single word. He had listened, fully and intently, and had no intention of keeping this apparent equal waiting.
”A fair request,” pronounced Lonn as he sat down across from the Family-God, looking at them in an entirely new light, ”And one I am happy to oblige. All cards on the table, Mother-of-Kings, for you deserve nothing less; I am a man who wears a billion faces, and even this one now isn’t really mine. I am a lover of mankind, despite their flaws, and so I choose to walk among them as they are. That way, my kindness to them is their kindness. Let a friendly face nowadays be one of their own, I say. So far I have met four others of our kind and most of them seem to see it the same. Presuming they chose their shape, that is. Beyond that, there is only so much for me to tell; I’m a young god, just making my way in the universe. Perhaps you have specific questions for me?”
”Mhm, very good, very good.” It almost looked at Chakravarti was doodling notes on one of their palms using a very sharp fingernail. ”You have already mentioned that you have no house of your own, and I pray you will understand that if the Prime Consort of Chakravarti is to be, forgive the term, lowborn, then I must measure your contribution to the house in terms of your financial and political capabilities. Now, if I understand you correctly, you have connections, yes? You have a network of sorts with at least four other entities like us? How well do you know them? Have you any bond with them beyond the spoken?” At her breast, Ossurman cooed in a small voice.
Lonn flashed a cunning glance at Chakravarti, enjoying the moment immensely. Chakravarti, although he’d likely never tell them, practically radiated mortal personality. It was a good quality, frankly, but he imagined most gods would balk at such claims. As they rattled off the list of qualities necessary the gears of his mind bit into themselves in consideration, weighing his options well.
”Of course; I have been considering the very same of your house,” Lonn said with a smile, leaning in across the table partially to emphasize his interest, ”The land to my back is mine. The men who live there owe their hearts to me. And oh, let me assure you, I have plans for that land, well and truly. I am bound to three of those gods by deed as well as words, for we together released the waters that now rejuvenate the world. One of them is my trusted companion, and as a pair we brought life back about on the northern slopes of the mountains. Him I know quite well. And whatsmore, I intend to find more of our kind, that much I swear, and I will bind myself to many more if I find they’re worth the effort. What of your lands? Or your connections? A mighty deity such as yourself has not been idle, the field behind you assures me of that.”
”So it was you who brought the water?” A small smile returned to their lips and a flick of the writing hand indicated a checkmark of sorts. They loosened their stance a little more to appear more welcoming, arms unfolding from their chest and leaning comfortably on the table. ”A most noble and heroic deed, I agree, and while not as strong as flesh, a favour’s bond is stronger than the word.” The finger continued down the wrist of the hand canvas. ”As for the lands and estates of House vur Chakravarti, my lord, we possess a most prosperous and comfortable valley in the south under the governance of my daughter Arira.” Another hand appeared and golden text flashed across its wrist with numbers and statistics. ”Many thousand miles to our east, my concubine, Celvanya vur Chakravarti is on her way to claim more land for our dynasty; and lastly, I am heading north-northwest to lay the foundations for my son’s great empire.” The text disappeared again and the family god gave Lonn an expectant look. ”Is my lord satisfied with my answer?”
”I should say so,” replied Lonn matter of factly, having been holding a glass if only for the sake of looking appreciative of the offers, ”and it seems I was right; you have been quite busy. A rolling stone gathers no cordgrass, as it were. Hah. Yes, I should say what you have to offer makes you worthy of being my Wife, without a doubt. I can only imagine what a lineage we will make together; one that spans the world and sits on a throne of our making, I imagine. I can think of no other answers that could have satisfied curiosity more. But the real question is, have mine?”
”Largely. I suppose I have one more, though,” said Chakravarti, playing passive. They studied two sets of fingernails with pursed lips for a quiet moment before their golden eyes fixed onto Lonn’s once again. ”Are you a family man, Lonn?”
Lonn locked his gaze with Chakravarti and spoke across the table with sly assertiveness. ”I will be.”
With a gentle bite of their lip, the family god nodded. ”Then so be it, Lord Lonn vur Chakravarti, First Consort of mine. Aid me in furthering our dynasty, and I will be yours for eternity.” They reached out their hand in a gentle cup.
Without a single moment of hesitation Lonn reached for Chakravarti’s hand and drew it to his lips, pressing them close. His eyes remained locked with theirs as he pulled away only enough to whisper.
”And I, yours.”
A great deal of time had passed since that day, and Chakravarti had reached their destination. Along the way, their belly had swollen ever so slightly, and the family god found themselves a hill to rest on. As they leaned forward to survey the dead land, illuminated uncomfortably well in the light of the sun. Crags that crumbled into the abyss; valleys of dried up lakes; lifeless ashes as far as the eye could see. The family god gazed across the endless wastes with scowling disapproval, Ossurman on their lap playing with one of their fingers. ”Look at it, son… Like a graveyard, robbed even of its bones. This is no place for a future king…” They then conjured forth a small round palanquin of, like usual, gold and silver and gently put the baby inside it. ”Okay, just lie down there, sweety, and mommy will make you the perfect home to rule!”
And so, the god got to work: They danced down the hillside, their steps leaving patches of yellowish green that extended rapidly outwards into great fields of grass, flowers and shrubberies. Four hands pointed to the south, and the south sucked in the rain of a bypassing storm and grew green rich with broad-leaved trees that seemed to ooze humidity; four hands pointed north, and the grass and shrubberies extended outwards, swallowing the dead ashes as far as the eyes could see.
The south grew thick and bushy far beyond what Chakravarti could observe; it absorbed so much moisture from the storm that great lakes blossomed within the forests, fed by rivers from the Wellspring - something Chakravarti couldn’t see.
The north had no such moisture to feed off of, however, and before long, the trees could no longer maintain their growth in the dry soil and faded; even further north, the bushes faded, too; and lastly, the grass gave way to sand a few miles from the shore, unable to go on without quenching its thirst.
The god was just about to conjure forth animate life as well, when there came a terrible quake. The god managed to maintain their footing where the newly sown crust itself threatened to crack, but then a scream alerted the family god. ”OSSY!” they shouted and sped over to the palanquin like a bolt of lightning, protecting the baby in all their eight arms. The boy squealed his lungs out, the oppressive quake of the world threatening the developing eardrums of the child. ”It’s okay, it’s okay, mommy’s here; daddy’s here,” Chakravarti whispered to him sweetly. Eventually, the quakes began to subside, and Chakravarti stood up to survey the land once again: It had ruptured, much of their work, particularly trees, laying in shambles and being covered with the dust of yet another ash storm. The family god looked about ready to explode with rage, but instead quelled it and looked down at Ossurman in their arms.
”I’m sorry, my boy… It looks like your kingdom will have to wait for a while longer…” They needed to somehow fix the tremors.
But who could help them with that?
The scene opens on Chak strolling over to the region that will one day hold Lonn’s pillar, making ruminants and birds long the way (probably won’t live long). When they arrive, they show Ossurman the abyss and asks them what they think. Oss starts crying and Lonn shows up like, “wassaaaa”. Chak pulls the blades like a defensive mommy (again) and Lonn calms them down. They get talking and Chak asks what house Lonn is of. When Lonn says he has none, Chak asks him to be his husband. Lonn is no fool, though - if they are to marry, Lonn won’t be just another husband: Lonn will be Chak’s First Consort. This gets Chak thinking, and the two talk about what sort of deeds, claims and lands they already possess. After presenting each other’s lists of belongings, both find the other satisfactory and marry.
Fast forward a time and Chakravarti arrives at the Yellow World pillar, baking a small bun in the oven. As they arrive, they set Ossur down to watch as they start making the Osshur Plains, a huge biome that will cover a large share of the north. The biome then gets wrecked by earthquakes and Chak can’t do nothin until a hero arrives to save the day.
1MA, reduced to 0 - Make ruminant species and birds that graze all of the flowery grasslands between the Tomb of the First dynasty and Lonn’s World Pillar. 1MA, reduced to 0 - Begin work on the Osshur Plains, an enormous patch of land that includes several different biomes, most notably xeric grasslands and desert in the north, to semi-arid grasslands and dry broadleaf forests in the centre, to moist broadleaf forests and swamps in the south. It is currently without animal life and very prone to earthquakes and disasters, but at least it’s not dead.
For weeks, a family of three had dragged bloody feet and a broken sled across the vast, lifeless wastes of fire. There had been nothing for them anywhere but bones and ruins. They had been seven once - uncle Rusi; aunt Ratepor; their son, cousin Sharusi; and mother Danui - all had perished along the way. Now, only father Kiper, daughter Zui and youngest son Doile, who was much too young for such evil as this world, were all that were left. A mere week had passed since their last death, Sharusi. Sharusi had been like Kiper’s second son and Zui’s friend since birth. They had shared all in life, and death was better for him, Zui believed, for there was nothing to share anymore now. Endlessly, they trekked - over ash, stone and sand, the barren land crackling distantly in response to the rumble of their bellies and a vicious wind reminding them all too often of how dry their throats were.
A weak cough sounded from Kiper’s breast - Doile rested against it in a cradle of linen tied around his father’s torso. The man caressed his pale son’s thin, black hair and said to his daughter, “We will need to find shelter. Doi-Doi, he…” The strict, cold demeanour bred into him by his own father seemed to crack under emotional pressure. Losing his brother Rusi had broken his spirit; losing Danui had broken his heart; losing his own child would break his mind. “... He cannot go on like this.”
Zui, who was a few paces ahead, turned around and hurried over to her father, carefully inspecting her brother. The young boy’s face was dry and hollow, his growth stunted from months of hunger. Kiper massaged the boy’s cheek softly, but received little response beyond a weak twitch of the eye. “... My boy, you’re… You’re so cold…”
The daughter pressed a fist against her lips. With a lightning twist of the neck, she regarded the horizon. A single peak no taller than a tree stuck out of the ground a distance away. It looked as barren as anywhere, but perhaps…
“Father,” she said and unhooked her cloak from her neck. She tossed it around his shoulders, making sure to tuck as much of the furred part as she could around her little brother. “Do you see that stone over there? It may have the shelter we need for the night.” She hurried over to the sled her father had pulled, which was hardly anything more than two long tusks tied together with her father’s cloak. It held very little now, but it held at least a spear, which Zui took in her hands with a deft grip. “Wait here. I will go make sure it’s safe.”
“B-but you’ll be cold, Zoo!”
“That will be the least of our worries if we cannot get Doi-Doi some shelter from this wind!” She assumed a jog for a few paces and then turned and said, “Wait for me here, okay? Do not go anywhere!” As she ran on, Kiper swallowed a speechless gulp. He looked the way they had come - nothing; he looked the way they were going - nothing. What was hope anymore in conditions like these?
There came another weak cough from his breast and Kiper looked down. The face of his young boy, the last legacy of his beloved wife, had opened his small, black eyes, even if only barely, and beamed for a split second the dumbfounded, confused look he had had when his sister-in-law had presented him to him after birth; the same look Zui had had many years earlier.
Ah… Of course. He was his hope; she was his hope. What fool would ask what there was to hope for, to pray for, in this god-forsaken world when he held his hope in his arms - when his hope was out there, scouting for a safe haven?
Stiffly, Kipur sat down and drew a rusty knife from his belt. He opened his left palm, a criss-cross of scars and recent cuts and looked down at his boy again. “... Hmm… I think you’ve done well today, kid… How about the thumb today?” He briefly sucked on the finger to clean it as best he could and, with a slight flinch, sliced open the skin of his left thumb. Thick, dehydrated blood trickled out and he carefully put the finger in his son’s mouth, letting the child drink from his strength. He had had a splitting headache for days now, and he hadn’t known a painless piss for the last two, but at least this would give his boy the strength he needed to live. Kipur’s world blackened faintly and his dry tongue made a feeble attempt to wetten his drier lips, but he needed to persevere.
He needed to survive for their sake…
He needed to…
To...
“Father! Father! There’s shelter! There’s shelter - and there’s people! They might have food and water!”
Zui jogged closer, getting a closer look at the hunched-over form sitting in the ash. She slowed her pace. “Father, are you asleep?” A cold sting in her belly made her quicken her pace again, from jog to sprint as she shouted, “Dad? DAD!” She scraped her knee as she crouched down to shake him, tossing her spear aside. There came no response - she was shaking a corpse, she realised. In quiet shock, her movements slowed, her breathing ragged with sorrow and exhaustion. She said nothing, only placed a hand to his neck and gently careened it back - her father had passed away smiling.
She could no longer hold in her emotions, but keeping her from bursting into a scream of heartfelt pain was that familiar little cough. The sound stole her breath away and Zui carefully moved her father’s torso to regard her brother. Doile was asleep, it seemed, but alive, a crimson streak following the corner of his mouth down his cheek. The gods or whatever had ruled this universe in those bygone days were gone, but this could be nothing less than a sign. Swallowing her own sorrow, Zui refused to give in to despair. As all light around them faded more and more for every loss, she had her brother and her brother had her. So long as she lived, she would protect him.
She untied the linen from her father’s torso and transferred her brother to her own breast. Securing him there with the cloth, she retrieved what valuables they had left and packed her father’s corpse in the cloak from the sled. As her brother’s coughs warned her that time was running out, she could not set off time to bury him. She would have to return for him some day, when Doile was safe.
And so she ran. The route felt longer this time, the weight of her emotions burdening her steps greatly. Despite this, she persevered, the memories of her family pushing her onwards to protect what remained of it. The peak grew larger and larger as she approached it, but whereas she had kept a scouting distance before, she disregarded that safety now, hurrying over to a small entrance to a cave. She headed inside and felt the smell of fire and the sting of smoke in her eyes. Another familiar scent filled the air, too, or at least one that resembled it, though she hadn’t smelled it for…
“Oh-ho, what do we have here?” came a slithering voice. She froze and spun around, spear at the ready. The slaps of skin on stone echoed all around her, and even in the darkness of the cave, she figured quickly that she was surrounded. The voice was male, rough and raspy with dry winds and dark trauma. “Wow, someone bring a light, I think we’ve stumbled upon a little doe.”
Zui feigned bravery. “I… I’m looking for somewhere to stay the night.”
“My, I’m sure you am, young lady.” An invisible hand touched her hair and Zui jumped, spinning around and sticking forth her spear. The hands twisted it out of her hands and another pair grabbed her arms into a lock.
“Hoo-eey! A feisty one! Where’s that damn light already?!” As Zui struggled, an approaching torch lighted up the silhouettes of no fewer than five skinny, raggedy men, their eyes oogling her illuminated form with lustful hunger. “Bloody me, she ain’t half bad, either.” As their eyes fixed on the linen on her chest, however, one of the men furrowed his brow and walked over, pulling the linen aside to regard the face of Doile. His expression changed to a small frown and he locked eyes with Zui.
“This one yours?”
Zui struggled some more against her captor’s grip, but succeeded no more than last time. “N-no! It’s… It’s my brother.”
“Brother?” The man looked at the boy again. “... How sweet. Big sister against the world, pulling her brother in tow. Ain’t that just like the old tales?” Some of his companions rumbled a weak chuckle. The man, who seemed to have the command in the crew, shrugged and pulled a dagger. “Well, guess we’re having baby boy tonight, lads!”
“NO!” screamed Zui. The man’s hand stopped mid-strike, the dagger’s tip a mere inch from Doile’s chest. He looked at her expectantly.
“Why not? Ain’t everyday you get fresh meat on the door - especially not the young and juicy kind. We were just about to run out, too - last of it’s on the fire now, if you’d like a piece.” Thoughtfully, he twisted his dagger in his hand.
Zui swallowed. “I’ll… I’ll do whatever you want me to. So long as you spare my brother.”
“Pfft, like we weren’t gonna--”
“Rasul, please,” said the leader and held up a hand. He eyes turned back to Zui and his lips curled into a grin. “Whatever we want, you say?”
Zui felt tears collect in her eyes and run down her cheeks as a cruel metaphor for her wish to escape. She nodded wordlessly, suppressing a sob. The man’s grin darkened into a smirk and he sheathed his dagger. “Well, to be fair, your brother wouldn’t be anything but bones, anyway. Waste of good fuel for the fire if you ask me.” He beckoned one of his friends over with a movement of the head, and the man in question approached and took Doile off Zui’s chest.
“No, NO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
“Sheesh, woman - relaaax! I heard he has a cough, so Hisor here is just going to place him by the fire to keep him nice and warm. As for you…” A rough, scarred hand cupped her chin in a small, but authoritative grip and moved her head around in small circles. “... You have a promise to keep.”
Zui could no longer suppress her terror and release a small sob.
In the desert, the cloaks covering the corpse of Kipur feebly resisted the tug of the wind. They had been tucked well around him, but alas, not even familial love could fight the god-forsaken forces of the Apocalypse. It was then that a foot pressed into the sand by the corpse. It was human, yet no human had ever grown to such a size. The foot was colossal, and was outlined by a very faint golden glow. Slowly, a pair of hands lowered down to gently pull aside the part of the cloak covering Kipur’s face. The corpse, despite all laws of life and death, still smiled with all its fatherly glow. A moment passed and a pale tear dripped onto the cloak over the belly, smelling faintly of lilac and lavender.
”Even after weeks of hunger and days of thirst, he pulled and carried the brunt of the supplies so his daughter could save her strength; even at the end of his day, he gave his own blood so his son may live. What exemplary parentage.” The arms were joined by another pair, and together they lifted the corpse from the sand and held it carefully. A mass of hair longer than the back it was flowing down shifted as the head it was rooted to regarded the distant rock. A voice that was not quite male and not quite female filled with respect and reverence for the corpse, saying, ”In your hour of death, you gave your all; so, too, must I give mine to honour a memory such as yours.”
Then the golden feet moved towards the peak.
“Sheesh, can you believe she said she was a virgin? Never had a looser broad in my life!” Rasul shouted angrily as he picked his teeth with a bone.
“You were fifth in line, man - blame Orus for being so rough to begin with,” snickered Hisor. Rasul tossed the bone at him, inciting a much louder cackle.
“I’m always last! It’s not fair! Last when we eat; last when we fuck - when am I gonna get respect around here, huh?”
“Well, when you’ve earned it, bitch! Hah!”
As the two men were about to engage in a brawl, the leader Jirsa played with his dagger by the sleeping Doile. “Boys, don’t go fighting now. You’ll wake the kid.”
Rasul pushed Hisor away and spat. “Pfft, like I care! If it starts crying, I’ll just stab it on the spit. I’m hungry anyway.”
“If you didn’t spend all your time whining and itching to fight, you’d save your energy, numbnuts!” cackled Hisor again.
“I swear, one more word and--”
“Boys!” Jirsa looked back down at Doile and pursed his lips. “... I wonder what your story is, little one… What you’ve seen… Where your parents are…”
“Gods, man, you fuck his sister and start wondering about that shit now? I knew you were messed up, but…”
“What can I say?” shrugged the leader and sheathed his knife again. “I’m a poetic soul. I need these moments to collect and order my thoughts… How else--”
The three of them quieted down. The slap of feet against the stone hurried in a jog from the cave entrance. It was Orus, pointing to the entrance and shouting in a whisper, “Something’s coming!”
“More food, I hope!” Rasul shouted giddily.
“No, no, something BIG!”
The three in the cave leaned in and frowned. “Big how, exactly?” asked Jirsa, but ask he finished his sentence, an arrow of light speared Orus straight through the belly and brough him to the ground gasping.
“HOLY SHIT!” screamed Rasul as a shadow filled the corner of the cave leading to the entrance. A faint glint of steel hinted at an incoming blade, and neither Rasul nor Hisor saw it in time before the former lost his head and the latter, his torso. Jirsa squealed his best before a lance of stone pinned him to the wall through the chest. A creaky door opened in the corner of the cave, revealing the fifth member, Truum, with his pants on his ankles and a shiv in his hand. He barely had time to see what killed him before it did, pinning him to the ceiling in a horrific display.
The creature sniffed the air once and followed a scent of blood into the room Truum had come out from. There, they found a pile of raggedy clothes atop a “mattress” of ash and sand, topped again with a brutally beaten girl. The creature could not enter the room due to their size, but they reached in a hand to touch the body. The cold confirmed a horrible truth - she was no longer in this world. The creature swallowed painfully and used two hands to collect her corpse as well.
Then they heard a cough, yellow eyes fixating on the little roll of linen by the fire. The last living human in this cave was of the same blood as both the corpses they had collected, and they pieced the story together: ”What sacrifice to give both body and mind for one’s brother, to surrender oneself knowing only pain and terror awaits, so that one’s kin may live. What virtue, what spirit.” The creature’s final two hands collected the little baby and they headed outside again. There, they regarded what they had found, eyes shifting between the corpses and the baby. ”Trust me, young man, their memory will not be forgotten.” They brought a thumb to their lips and bit the skin open, golden ichor pouring forth. With their bleeding thumb, the creature drew a golden arc across the baby’s forehead and spoke, ”From this day, my child, I adopt you and your house as my own. Your sacred lineage is the lineage of Chakravarti, and your clan shall be elevated all as one to the height of my own blood.”
The ichor seeped into the baby’s forehead, and then he coughed no more. Small, black eyes opened to regard the round and square face of the god, blinking curiously. Then Chakravarti turned back to the cave and raised one hand. The earth quaked and the stone exploded within a contained sphere, sand being tossed around in a bubble of storms. Around them, the wind fainted into nothing, and momentarily there was light like the days of old. The bubble dug itself into the top layer of the earth and turned to golden sand, and the golden sand slowly morphed into stones and bricks. Around the god, the ashen earth turned to crimson soil, intermittently spotted with tufts of green grass; even small trees dared rise from the ground, praising the fates for this break in the torturous state of the world.
The stone and bricks stacked on top of one another in the centre of this oasis in the storm - fountains of lilac water ringed the structure which stabbed the sky like a tower. The brick facades were polished with divine sheen, and the first floor had no entrances beyond a tall, steep stairway leading to a hole in the wall. Chakravarti ascended the stairwell and entered into the room, where two sarcophagi of gold and silver opened themselves at their command. In their palms, the corpses of Kipur and Zui were cleaned and mummified and left in the sarcophagi , which openings were melted until sealed. Chakravarti took some steps back and bowed to each sarcophagus. They then inscribed a message across the wall in an ever-shifting language, saying, ”This house is of my house - the house of Chakravarti. Here lie two of my fondest children: They gave all for those they loved and paid the ultimate price. Pray before their sarcophagi and learn from their memory, for their virtue should be the virtue of all who fight for their own. Then they exited the tomb, softly caressing a hand on the door beam as they left. A lilac light filled the room and Chakravarti said, ”Let it be known to all who enter and do not pay my children the respect they deserve: Your days will be numbered, for Chakravarti will know all who spit upon my spawn within my walls.”
As they descended from the tomb and exited the small oasis in the endless dust storms, Chakravarti cradled the little boy in their hands. ”Now that you are mine,” they said, ”You will need a name - a name worthy of my house. Do you have one already?” The baby cooed curiously. Chakravarti frowned. ”Doile? Well, it is cute, certainly, but my house must inspire awe and respect. Hmm…” One of eight hands curiously cupped their chin. ”How about Ossurman? The First? Of House vur Chakravarti?”
The baby squealed in confusion. Chakravarti frowned. ”No, of course you don’t get a say! You’re a baby!”
And so, the God of Families brought their first child along with them on the journey out into the world, looking for more people to save.
Story opens with Kipur, Zui and Doile, a family of father, daughter and son respectively on the lookout for shelter in the big desert. They are super tired and Doile is sick, so Zui runs ahead to find shelter for them. Kipur stays behind and feeds Doile some of his own blood to keep him alive, dying of exhaustion. Zui comes back, finds her father dead and mourns, taking Doile with her to the shelter she found. When she arrives, she realises that the shelter has some very nasty people in it, and offers them anything in exchange for her brother’s safety. The brigands spare the brother and have their way with Zui.
Cut to Chakravarti finding Kipur’s corpse, praising his sacrifice for his son. They then go to the cave and kill all the brigands, finding Zui dead, too. They praise her for her sacrifice for her brother. They then adopt the brother as their own and makes them a demigod by infusing them with their ichor. They then raise a tomb to Zui and Kipur, turning the land around it into an oasis in the desert. They then continue on their journey to help folks out.
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