Cyclone — Roleplayer Guild

It was pointed out to me that I got some parts of the Ironheart Range wrong on that last rough draft; they go southwest of the Valley of Peace and don't quite touch. I corrected for that, made them zigzag a bit more as they snake south, and took the liberty of creating the Howling Gap (It's a narrow pass through the mountains, through where Zephyrion eroded away in my last post and into the space between the Ironheart and the Nice Mountains) so that civilization can actually get over that almost impassibly huge barrier that is the mountains.

So here's a crude and ugly (but functional) map. I had originally intended to have a pretty one up by Monday, but I see now that I'll need more time. Regardless, this one should suffice for now for all those that were waiting on a map before posting.

I'll now be focusing on making sheets for all the landforms of my creation, and then I'll start making that atlas on the character section like I said I would.

Edit: Oh, and I also shrunk the actual Deepwood by a fair amount since apparently it's tiny, and just plopped down a splotch of green that I imagine to be the general forested regions surrounding it. It's still grossly inflated on that map, but if I made it much smaller then it'd hardly even be worth including.

Storm's King; The First Gale; The Embodiment of Change
Level 3 God of Change (Air)
3.5 Might & 1 Free Point

The Celestial Citadel wandered through the heavens as a thousand gusts spurred it ever on. Zephyrion rested atop one lonely spire, gazing down at the world below. His work was magnificent: the Sparkling Sea gleamed like the light of a thousand scintillated gems as the sun bounced off the wild waves of its sapphire waters, and to the north his the scorching winds blew through his Firewind Desert, always shifting the dunes so that it was not unlike the Changing Plains that lay to the north. All of that was not to say that others' work was not good; Teknall's mighty Ironheart Ranges were the great spine of the world, and those lands seeded by Slough had a beauty of their own. However, what design could ever be held next to one of Zephyrion's and not look pallid? He was a Supreme Being, Master of Change, an artist and engineer that worked on a grand scale far beyond the limits of imagination.

But perhaps even he could find inspiration among the creations of others. The vortex that was Zephyrion ceased spinning and unraveled into an unrelenting gale of wind. Joyfully the King of Storms descended to the lands below, racing through the flats of the Gilt Savannah's expansive veldt, soaring over the Fractal Sea and creating a tsunami wave of enormous proportions, and then coming upon the vast expanse that was the Firewind Wastes. The scorching sun heating the air in these parts, Zephyrion swept over the land as a mistral that offered no cool or refreshment to those things that it touched, bringing only stifling heat and dry sands. In the path of his winds were one of those lumbering White Giants that brother Toun had created. So strong was the First Gale that he swept up the massive creature and carried it along, the seemingly dumb thing's unperturbed confusion rather than rage or panic being seen by Zephyrion as joy. What wingless creature did not envy the clouds that hovered ever above?

Probing eddies of wind groped every crack and orifice of the White giant as it soared with the god, examining the creature inside and out. It was strange, indeed! not at all like those other, 'natural' lifeforms of Slough's making that he had earlier encountered in the Deepwood many years ago, this creature was wholly different and powered by other means. Such a proof of concept made the Skylord think. He was an artist, but not a creator-god like Slough and Toun or a builder like Teknall; if he were to have a creation of his own, it would have be through changing and altering something made by another. But this elucidating experience showed that there was another way: he could use his own energies to animate beings and create life of a different sort. Somehow that seemed right.

He continued onwards deep in thought, encountering a new creature as he went--an ashling. Sensing Vestec's touch upon this curiosity, Zephyrion allowed it to be swept up by his winds as well, and oh how it and the White Giant yearned for one another's touch! Wildly they thrashed and fought the winds, that they might close that impossible gap between themselves and be united...or so Zephyrion had fancied thinking in an idealistic imagination. Not being one to separate the two, he brought them together and immdiately they had proceeded to engage in a brutal fight rather than some harmonious dance. Rather amused yet still perturbed by how they had defied his imagination and prediction, Zephyrion cast them down. The landed roughly upon the sands below, tumbling uncontrollably as they seemingly died. Hilariously, just as Zephyrion began to slip into the horizon and they left the range of his senses, he could feel them rise again to continue their battling.

At last the great gale of wind pushed ahead of Zephyrion reached the Ironheart mountains, recoiling off their jagged slopes and billowing back down the flats. The First Gale, however, was not stopped by any mere mountains. He blasted effortlessly through one of the great mounts that stood in his way, grinding and eroding it to sand in mere moments and creating a pass through that daunting range. On and on he flew; circling over Galbar to see up close all that the world had to show him. Teknall's trees were an amusing distraction, lighting the land like giant torches if one simply ignited them with a well aimed bolt of lightning. After his wanderlust at last faded, Zephyrion returned to his home in the skies. The Celestial Citadel floated now so high that the winds could not even reach it, and Kyre had possessed sharp sight indeed to even notice its gleaming spires so high up in the heavens. No mere mountain or volcano could ever surpass its height, for Zephyrion was the Eternal Sky and his palace loomed over all.

He returned to his alcazar to find the Celestial Citadel horribly empty, a vacuum just as absolute as that black void that lurked between the countless stars. Zephyrion's presence livened it somewhat, his loose, airy form expanding to fill the halls and encompass the complex within a bubble of air. Echoes of his own thoughts had a way of rustling through the alabastrine rotundas and towers, ironically making the place feel only more lonesome. 

It would seem that even his guest Ilunabar was away. He struggled and reached out, sensing her presence very far down on Galbar as she roamed about making those instruments that she had spoken of earlier. Kyre, Slough, Teknall, a weakened form of that one that had vanished and become a star, they were all down there as well...though in the detached temperament that he carried now, Zephyrion had no desire to reach out for any of them. He continued to probe for thoroughness' sake, wondering where the rest of his missing brethren had scurried off to. He then found Astarte below, and was at once reminded of the magic she had gifted to him. Like lightning Zephyrion wrapped himself back into the form of a vortex and whirled through the hallways of his palace.

He knew what he had to do.

It was only a blink of an eye later that he was in that empty, out of the way chamber where he had left the jar of liquid light. His eyes of cackling lightning stared down at that strange energy, examining its every detail. There were some things that not even the eyes of a divine could discern. He reached out with his power and his soul, the very force of Change, and touched that jar. The two energies coming into such direct contact produced a great shock. A volatile Flicker of raw energy was created, the sudden blast of energy destroying the feeble jar. It would have vaporized the entire room too were it not for the quick action of Zephyrion, who managed to keep the cloud of raw, unstable magic just barely stable and trapped in an unnaturally still suspension in the air.

If a whirling storm could smile, it would have. Ecstatically, the Storm's King sputtered and laughed at the success. Eccentrically, he summoned his divine Might and used his power of Change to create a great ripple through existence itself. Straining at the effort, that ripple intensified until it became an unholy rip, and it was in that second that Zephyrion willed all of that unstable magic in the air to vanish and fill that invisible rip, and then conjured his own winds of change to rush into the rip as well and create a second flicker. The grand union of two primal forces coming together filled the rip in reality, the tear having only existed for an imperceptibly short time, inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps the others would not have even felt that subtle Change.

But subtle as it may have been, its effects rippled throughout the world. If with great difficulty and only partially, he had altered those solemn and hallowed rules that governed the universe and that the others held in such high esteem. Just as Slough had imbued the world's blueprint with the grand essence and potential of life, Zephyrion now gave it something ever so slightly different. Air, magic, and change had come together to create a flicker that would allow the very forces of nature to emerge and become animate.

In a second it had been all over, and though he knew it to have been a success, doubt still plagued him. Had it truly worked, or was it all an elaborate illusion? With great trepidation, the normally bold and decisive god exhaled a long and gentle breath that contained a small part of his very essence. It drifted lazily, normally, the gaseous particles drifting playfully about as they were always wont to do. His experiment had failed; a great sadness beset him.

But his foolish impatience had allowed his nascent creation to play a ruse and get the better of him; a tiny flicker had appeared, the driving force and 'soul' of laughing in exuberance, that breath of wind suddenly coalesced and took in the joy of life. Nascent eyes examined everything in wonder and curiosity, they were naturally drawn to the whirling form of Zephyrion, and then the entity's gaze suddenly leveled in uncertainty.

"Banish all fear, for I am only your Maker, and you are the first being to exist in my image. I name you Ventus! Speak, move...live!" intoned Zephyrion in the voice of a father, somehow deep, loving, and commanding all at once.

The miniature, whirling vortex wriggled in delight. Upon being named, it seemed to suddenly gain an understanding: yes, it was no longer a mere it but a he, and he was Ventus, and he knew exactly what Ventus was and what Ventus looked like! The tiny storm writhed and twisted until it took on the form of a disembodied human, the waist and above resembling a chiseled and powerful man with the lower body being nothing but a billowing cloud and zephyrs. He was a djinni lord, an air elemental with a flicker so strong that his own magic allowed him to shift forms.

"Yes! I see it now: I am yours, and I exist to serve!" Ventus proclaimed, naturally feeling the urge to bow and obeying his instinct.

"I ask for neither your bow nor your knee; you are a friend, and now I wish for you to merely follow! I sense your innumerable brethren awakening from the dreamless slumber of their lifeless state; a thousand more have been born to the world in these few seconds! Let us see!"

Overjoyed, Zephyrion glided through the halls of his palace until he came to a great balcony. There he gazed down, his vigilant eyes seeing all within his domain of the air. No eddy or disturbance evaded his sight; a thousand tiny flickers manifested and a thousand gusts of wind became sentient beings, the newborn air elementals testing their powers of flight. Ventus was quick to learn. While he did not soar so quick as his Master, it was not long before he too had flown to the balcony.

"Everywhere, they go..." whispered Zephyrion. "Right now they are weak, scattered, and disorganized. You are the first of your kind and their elder, and more powerful and wise besides. So I style you my Vizier, and put upon your shoulders the burden of helping me rule your brethren and protect this sacred place," the god decreed, gesturing to the citadel around him when he spoke of a sacred place. "Will you agree to do this, friend?"

His newest friend and follower nodded. "Yes!" Vizier Ventus answered back gleefully.

The two turned and found themselves facing the Holy Wisp. "Your majesty," the Vizier questioned with a look of confusion about him, "...what is this strange being? Another one of our friends?"

The Skylord, as chance might have it, was not so sure how to answer that question. He debated shooting lightning at the strange wisp to see what might happen.

-Zephyrion muses to himself about life and art and wanders below, seeing all that there is to see.
-Given inspiration by Toun's White Giants, Zephyrion realizes that he too can create life of a sort.
-Using his own power of Change and the jar of Astarte's pure magic, Zephyrion manages to alter the rules of the universe only slightly. He allows for what he calls 'flickers' to manifest; these are balls of energy somewhat similar to souls, and when one appears it animates the playful winds and become an air elemental.
-The first air elemental was created from Zephyrion's own breath and divine energy; this one is more powerful than the others, named Ventus, and proclaimed to be Zephyrion's Vizier and 'friend'.
-Zephyrion and Vizier Ventus encounter the Holy Wisp that found its way into the Celestial Citadel.

-1 Might used to create flickers and by extension, the air elementals.
-1 Might used to create Vizier Ventus
-1.5 Might and 1 Free Point remain

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