Haha yeah, I understand that in these early and noncommittal stages a lot is still up in the air. But it's for the best that way.
As far as my two cents on which section this should fall under, I'm not entirely sure how this sort of thing would work if driven into a factional/NRP format rather than a more character-driven one, and to be honest I'm rather cynical about the success of NRPs in general. Far too many NRPs seem to fail, and far more quickly, than other types in my experience. I've seen your name in there before, so I imagine you're aware of that phenomena and can probably relate to my sentiment.
My thoughts on what I'd do as far as character are pending more details upon what sorts of different types of undead there are in this setting (if there is any variation) and their various powers, but I'd almost certainly elect to write from the perspective of a single undead rather than a whole sub-faction of them, or one of those offshore human nations.
The hazy idea that I have is some long-dead king or warlord that once launched a daring invasion into foreign lands, but failed and was ultimately returned in death to be interred in a barrow somewhere in Leria. So now he (or whatever husk of his mind persists after being dead for centuries) is driven by the singular goal to use this second chance to lead a new invasion force and succeed where he failed in life, conquering moreso to secure his own legacy or just fulfill an ingrained dying purpose rather than out of any loyalty or love for Eagoth and whatever his undead empire represents.
I've mentioned this interest check to one or two other people that I know. We'll see if I can manage to drag them in here as well.
Ash swirled and billowed through the air. Chthonic fumes choked the sky. Like a body laid low by a deep, visceral wound, the earth seemed to have collapsed upon itself, steaming from the raw gash that exposed its fiery viscera. Wafts of subterranean warmth escaped it like the dying breaths of a cooling carcass, and molten rock seeped like blood from the uneven edges of the chasm torn into its surface. The shadows in its depths writhed and flowed as they were traversed by distant sparks of flame, like glimpses of entrails drowning in a tide of dark ichor. The extremities of shattered rocks protruded from the flanks of the abyss like splintered bones, as if to silently denounce the savagery that had torn them from their lightless slumber and into the glare of day. Flocks of winged shapes flitted through the chaos, uncannily akin to flies swarming over a charnel feast, though their frenzy was not of hunger, but fear and confusion.
To such eyes as were watching from the heavens, it would indeed have appeared as though Galbar had been dealt a grievous blow by a force of tremendous proportions. The very spot that had once weathered the heaviest impact brought by the descending divines had all but ceased to be, replaced in a moment by a gaping, black emptiness, a jagged maw of mangled soil and smoke. Across a span of miles, the ground was pulverized, nothing left in its wake but a rain of curiously shaped stones which, after millennia of unnatural stasis, were finally abandoned to the fall to which they were doomed from the first day of creation. The lips of the chasm crumbled and yielded where the soil was infirm, sending stretches of desert sand, steppe grass and mountain glacier hurtling into the deep, but these were mere pebbles in the sea of its immensity. Almost nothing remained between the skin of the world and its inmost heart - its Core.
For all the enormity of this devastation, the one responsible for it could scarcely be seen even by the most acute onlookers. Like a shadow on the wind, that which had been Narzhak slithered its way through the sky, clinging to breezes like oil to watery currents, burning through clouds like an ember through silk. The primordial moon now hung dangerously low in the celestial heights, its bulk casting an even greater portion of land into darkness than the hovering debris left behind by the eruption. Mighty as the deities that had held the reins of Galbar’s fate for so long might have been, it seemed as though such immensity were beyond even their power to halt. And, in truth, it soon became apparent that the umbral remnant of the Iron Giant had no such intent.
The wraith circled about the lunar sphere, darting back and forth as though seeking something on its weathered surface, until at last it oozed down towards a familiar spot. The fissure through which the gods had first passed, slipping in from the chaos beyond worlds, and gone again as they descended unto the one that had been made their charge. Now, alone among its kind, the specter crossed that threshold for the third time. He flowed into the hoary hall where One had sat for aeons immemorable, coiled around a pillar, and alighted before the ancient throne. No longer did he tower in laughing pride, but he prostrated himself like a fog creeping over the water, and when he spoke it was in the hollow accents of a blade striking empty armour.
"The way is clear, Elder One."
The husk of Amphiboles did not move, but there was still a perceptible tremor that rocked the subterranean hall. The slow dripping that had fed the lake around the Architect’s throne was suddenly transformed into a great deluge of both water and stone. Stone heaved and groaned; the primordial moon began to crack apart and extrude its own innards.
Its tumble accelerated and grew more violent. Great, mountain-sized chunks broke loose to form a trail behind as the force of Amphiboles’ will propelled it towards Galbar below. It seemed as though it would be cataclysm, but at what seemed like the last moment before the body could kiss Galbar’s sky, its motion was at once arrested.
The tremors that rocked the Architect’s hall came to a climax in that moment, and the walls and ceiling were completely blown apart. Of the great hall there now remained nothing but the desiccated-yet-untouched body of Amphiboles on his throne, and a chunk of the dais before it large enough to house Narzhak also. The dais floated away and freed itself from the shattered remnants of the moon, like a creature slithering out from the broken shell of its egg. The Architect’s hall was now an island in the void rather than one in a subterranean lake. Besides the throne on the dais, there still remained a few of the great stone pillars that had supported tons of rock above for untold aeons, until mere moments ago.
Free at last, the island made its way down towards the gaping wound in Galbar’s surface at terminal velocity.
At the foot of the seat, the black spirit stirred, his four eyes shifting around his amorphous surface to take stock of the immensity of the surrounding events. At last, he raised them up on an extrusion from its viscous midst, like the head of a snake emerging from an agitated swamp, and looked up at his master.
"Is this the end?" he breathed out, a wind hissing through rusted armaments on a forlorn battlefield. "Is it time to break apart this world and let the void pick its bones?"
He was answered by the Architect’s voice pounding in his mind, drowning out the rushing of the sky as their descent brought them further down. ”The end of my work here is nigh, but I have no desire to spare even an extra moment to ‘break’ this place. I am not so petty as to crave such finality.”
The dais crashed through a layer of clouds. Even though Amphiboles’ illusions could hold to divine perception and mask his bared bones, the wispy vapors of moisture passed right through his illusory body, and no moisture clung to it. Perhaps he could only bend reality so far, or more likely, perhaps he’d ceased trying.
The spectral pool that was Narzhak welled and undulated in thought, all but invisible amidst the vapour. Then its eyes burned through it, and he spoke again. "Is my purpose then no more?" There was no anger or defiance in his words, indeed, there was almost nothing at all, save for a whisper of wistful resignation. "If that is the warrior’s lot, so be it.”
The Architect’s glamored bones shifted nigh imperceptibly in his throne as he turned his attention to scrutinize Narzhak. ”Necessity dictated my long absence, but even half-dreaming and afar, I was lucid. You distinguished yourself with great adherence to my mandate, and loyalty too. I could probe through rock and dark and time to sense that much. Fittingly, you too found your way to my side now whether by your own senses or by chance.
“There is one final task before me here. Some of your...peers may have the audacity to interfere. I ask that you stop them. Do this for me, and you will forever secure a place by my side.”
”It is to my shame that I did not subdue them before now.” The specter began to gather himself at the base of his surmounting head, like a serpent pushing itself up from its coils, then smoothly flowed upwards as a liquid pillar. ”But it shall be done now if needs be.” Still anchored to the dais, his form blossomed atop the Architect’s head into a roiling cloud even as it withdrew its supporting column into itself. He now hovered over the throne, as if to shield it and its occupant from the exposed firmament above. In that manner they fell into the throat of the world, the dais around the throne breaking free as the black maw narrowed. When they finally reached the bottom of the world, where Narzhak himself had lurked for all of those years, the Architect reached out to touch an exposed part of his Seal that had shielded the Core, and the barrier shattered like glass. The floor below now gone, they fell once again, but this was not into some dark ravine.
Golden light bathed them the moment that Seal was unmade, surging outwards with a fiery intensity that could have incinerated flesh. In an instant this light filled half of the Pit and rendered it an even more inhospitable inferno, and there was yet more light to spare. Like echoed whispers it bounced off the twisting walls of the gaping hole they’d fallen through, finding a path all the way to the surface and even then managing to shine with a luminosity that rivaled Heliopolis. Even to divine perception, the brilliance was blinding. The spirit that had been Narzhak wavered in its descent, then slowed and stopped altogether, casting its eyes up and away from the glare.
Of course, Amphiboles had lost his sight long ago and so he was unhindered. The light dispelled the glamors that clung to his husk, revealing him to the world as a cracked and slime-coated skeleton. The throne was superheated and finally vaporized, for not even granite could withstand such power, but somehow Amphiboles endured and continued his freefall towards the source of the light, a strange apparatus suspended at the very center of the hollowed Core. One of the Architect’s skeletal hands was animated into brief motion by the divine’s spirit and laid to rest upon the device, and then the siphoning began. What he extracted from the device was anima mundi, the soul of the world--a power of the same substance that fueled the sacred spark inherent in every soul and living thing, and it was a torrent of vitality that showered the skeletal Architect. Tendons and ligaments began to grow around the bony fingers that grasped the apparatus, and bit by bit Amphiboles’ flesh was reformed, as was his power.
”Crumbs of every living thing,” Narzhak marvelled to himself overhead, dimly aware of the incredible exchange that was happening in the depths through eyeless senses, ”That is where they went. Little wonder that feast was not for me after all.”
But then there was another voice, spoken from a fiery one whose coming glow had been drowned out by the Core’s radiance. ”And that is why their souls were never immortal. That was why I had to burn them. He never gave life; he only took it!”
Amidst the heat and the luminance of the Core, Narzhak’s eyes managed to discern the great fiery head of a snarling lion, floating near the entrance they’d opened. Katharsos.
The black wraith coiled on itself and swung about like a lash, drawing into the shape of a cloud hovering underneath the astral god. A nascent limb raised up its eyes, followed by the rest of its streaming body as it ascended to meet the newcomer.
”What is it to you if his design had no need of a world without death?” Narzhak’s voice, though still a hollow echo of its former self, had regained a trace of the champion’s sneering challenge. ”You of us all should be honoured for being trusted with a task so crucial to him. Is feeding the furnace that warmed us from the void not enough for you?”
”I should be honored to have been his lamb, forced by his obfuscation to bear the sight and sound of a million million souls needlessly dying? To have been reviled and demonized even by our peers, bearing the brunt of their hatred all because he hid the truth?”
The snarling visage of Katharsos grew larger and its fires burned hotter, his voice louder until it became a grating roar, his shape more and more corporeal until his teeth were like fire made steel--but then he was suddenly trapped within some mind-numbing prism of solid light that seemed to defy reason and physics. He raged from within and tried to smash his way through the seals with brute force, and in a great display of rage-induced might, he did.
But then with a flick of a still half-skeletal and skinless hand, Amphiboles conjured yet more barriers. The Lord of the Seals and the Universe gave Narzhak just one command: ”Silence him.”
”Gladly.” The cloud that was the lord of bloodshed gathered on itself for a moment, coagulating into a clot of darkness as thick as ink that occluded even the light of the Core underneath, then expanded in a burst. It crawled up towards Katharsos as a sweeping tide of night with frayed edges of writhing ramified tendrils, waves and ripples on its surface forming into amorphous limbs and snapping heads like a protozoan hydra. Its eyes had shattered into a kaleidoscope of sparks that swarmed about as a flock of fiery hornets.
The body of black aethereal slime oozed around the wards that rose in its way, creeping closer to its foe. Its edges curled upwards, reaching towards Katharsos, seeking to drown and smother his fire in a mire of shadows. And the God of Death raged against the prismatic walls of light that had encased his form, just barely breaking free in time to struggle against Narzhak before the gruesome slime could mold into yet another tomb around him. In an equally unnatural display, the fiery head opened into a gaping maw, unhinging the hyena’s jaws so that the lips nearly met once again on the other side. And from the throat of the god, there erupted a torrent of soul-incinerating, smokeless flame.
The dark god twisted, attempting to open a gap in his mass to avoid the blaze, but was not fast enough. He quivered and shrank as its tongues seared away pieces of him, his immaterial constitution no defense against their unnatural strength. Noxious black vapours scattered and dissolved, and Narzhak momentarily withdrew, his bulk noticeably diminished.
The jaws snapped back into their proper places, and Katharsos allowed the adversary to recover. But he warned, ”Stand down, Narzhak. My quarrel is not with you.”
”I am bound to the one who dragged me out from oblivion,” the shade hissed in reply, ”If you balk against him, you stand against me.”
As he began to collect himself for another surge, he let out a wordless, thundering growl, and something below answered. In a blink, a swarm of shades was ascending in a blur, from beneath the two gods, but above the Core. Umbral simulacra of kostral, thousands, myriads of them. They had perished, either by each other’s hand or in the Architect’s descent through their realm, but even in death they were not freed from their cruel master’s command. Blind and bereft of will, they were consumed by the black cloud, swelling it to even greater magnitude than before. With a rumbling laugh, the shadowy colossus returned to the charge, tentacular limbs once again raised to envelop and constrict his enemy.
So be it. This time the hyena did not spew fire, but rather swallow the room. He inhaled sharply enough to drag in the air and even ghastly kostrals and bits of his now-foe’s oily form, and all of it was annihilated upon mere contact. Stoked as if by bellows, his own fiery form grew even more incandescent and white. And he barreled forward to plow into the leech that rested in the very center of the gaping void within Galbar’s heart, heeding not Narzhak or anything else that stood in his way.
Like night giving way before the dawn, the spectre shrank back again, unable to confront the searing blaze. Yet once more, he stopped and gathered his might for a new assault. When he surged again, it was not skywards. His edges fragmented into rivers of fluid shadow and plunged into the sides of the chasm, rooting around the eviscerated earth, pulling and tugging at familiar resonances within.
Then he drew together again, and streams of malleable metal followed. Though Narzhak’s armour of iron was gone, his mastery over the mineral remained. All of a sudden akin to a spider with many darting limbs, he wove the gleaming veins into a web and cast them up against Katharsos. They began to drip and liquefy before even they reached him, but the Iron God forced them ever ahead, engulfing his foe in a tide not of shadow, but of ponderous molten metal. Too little, too late. The hyena head morphed into the sleek, elongated one of a snake as it wriggled and writhed around arcs and pillars of molten metal, slipping past Narzhak’s spiderweb, and finally coming just beside Amphiboles. A forked tongue of unholy fire erupted from the snake and whipped towards the apparatus besides Amphiboles, and the Primordial, so drunk with power, noticed too late. He conjured a barrier that severed the tongue, but the tip still managed to graze the apparatus. That tiny spark heralded cataclysm.
The volatile anima mundi combusted and exploded with such power that it consumed the room and rippled out through all of the Spheres, contracting them and shaking Galbar and the Chthonian realms with violence. Not even divine perception could withstand such magic unfazed, so all three of the gods were blinded, concussed, for long moments. But then the ringing and the blindness subsided.
The first to stir amid the charred ruin of the cosmos’ inmost chamber was the one who had been in his own element when confusion struck. Sustained by the fury of battle which yet burned in him unquenched, Narzhak pulled himself to his feet and bellowed out in joy at once again feeling his rage course through flesh.
Suffused by the energies that had collected in the Core over untold millennia and now been unleashed in a single moment, he was whole again, nay, more than ever. So vast was he that his erstwhile form would have been as insignificant near him as mere mortals had been near it. His strides upon the inner walls of the Core below shook Galbar itself with the crash of iron hooves, and still his head nearly reached the center of the hollow chamber. His body was encased in a mighty suit of black armour, each plate of which was fashioned into the likeness of a snarling mask that exhaled clouds of smoke with every breath. His head was that of a monstrous swine, with tusks like titanic blades, steaming blood eternally dripping from its maw, four fiery eyes gazing from under the visor of a horned helm. Just as many were his arms, armed with a flail, a whip, a headsman’s axe and a shield emblazoned with the Bloodied Fist.
Still had the dazedness not fully faded from him, but already he threw himself anew against his opponent. Too blind yet to truly even see whether Katharsos had like him been transfigured, he swung at him, roaring his renewed challenge.
The anima mundi hadn’t given Katharsos any flesh, for he had never known such a form in this existence, nor even in the last. It had only stoked him and transformed him into an even greater inferno, an amorphous blob of magical flames that put to shame the lesser sun that hung in Galbar’s sky. His body condensed into a starlike form of its own, then warped and twisted; from the depths of the fiery ball there emerged a lion’s head, and then five goatlike legs.
The lion’s beard was a thousand vipers of otherworldly flame, and they reared and hissed at the approaching titan even as fire cascading once more from Katharsos’ maw, and from his eyes, and then all at once gushed from everywhere at once as he explosively shed free of a layer of fiery mass. Narzhak’s armour melted to slag as the inferno swept over him, but when it receded, he was yet standing.
His snout was charred, its bristles seared away and its countenance an ashen grey with cracks like glowing embers, seeping with magma. The black plates, in places already sloughing away to reveal singed flesh beneath, were suddenly pulled back by invisible force, moulding themselves into faces even more furious, their own eyes aflame. He cracked his whip, and fire still clung to it as it arced through the smothering air. With another roar, he brought his armament to bear, lashing at Katharsos from several sides at once.
And the scourge found its mark and crashed into one of the goat-legs, cleaving through it and going on to bury itself deep within the lion-faced sun itself. But then there was suddenly what felt like a resistance, a drag, from the incorporeal flames themselves, and then suddenly nothing as the whip fell down limply, the half that had contacted Katharsos having been seared into nothingness.
One divine word shook the Core.
”HALT.”
It swept through the air, through the raging flames, even effortlessly through Narzhak’s armor, and nothing withstood its power. Motion was suspended, but time seemed unfrozen; the two combatants locked in their baleful glares at one another, unable to so much as turn their heads to face the overpowering, unstoppable voice.
There came a second decree, this one directed straight to Katharsos.
”SUFFER!”
The hold of the first one was suddenly broken, and Narzhak was mobile once again. But the battle was over: Katharsos was utterly broken, howling in unknowable agony with every fiber of his being, willpower (and perhaps even sanity) shattered in an instant.
Nothing could stand before the power of the Old Old One, Amphiboles, reformed and restored. The cyclopean god at a mere glance was immediately and obviously greater than anything the Spheres had ever seen in a long, long time--perhaps ever. They might have thought him the God over Gods before, but now he truly was-- immaculate, invincible, omnipotent. He Saw for the first time in aeons with his Eye rather than his divine perception, and his Eye was truly a portal of glory and power and terror radiant--Katharsos perhaps withered under its gaze even more than under the power of the divine decree that had left the Architect’s lips. He spoke now, with words, not telepathy. And that mere fact had seemingly given his Decrees power a hundredfold.
Although released from his own stillness, Narzhak could for a time only look in awe at the display of his master’s might. When he found the strength to stir, he ponderously turned to the greater divine, not daring raise his eyes to meet the tremendous cyclopean glare. When he spoke, his voice eclipsed his own ancient commands like a thousand hurricanes over a shout, yet in the wake of the grandiose Word even it seemed hushed and humbled.
”He fought well,” he conceded in a grunt, ”He has earned honourable servitude, if nothing more.”
Amphiboles was perhaps a merciful god in some ways. Or at least an indifferent one. So even Narzhak’s words had some effect.
”SUBMIT.”
The struggling and howling then stopped, and Katharsos could do nothing but bow his head in a defeat so utter that not even death could have compared. He was broken, the echoes of the pain from an instant ago already mere fragments of what he had endured, yet still so powerful and palpable that he would have been dumbstruck into submission even had the Decree not taken hold. But it had, so he could not even contemplate anything, much less speak or do anything, to impede Narzhak or the Architect now.
And then with an open hand, the Architect withdrew the power that had dominated Katharsos’ mind and essence. He could have trapped the god once more within a prism Seal, but it would have been for naught; that one would not stand in his way again.
His attention turned to Narzhak then, ”Now I am complete.” Or so it seemed--in reality, he was speaking with a voice that resonated through all of his creation, to all of the gods. ”And this plane has fulfilled its purpose, as has he, and you, and all of your peers. I demand nothing more, and owe nothing more. There is nothing left for me here, and so I depart and leave what is left of Galbar and these Spheres, and all of you, to whatever is to come.”
But then he remembered his promise. ”I did say that you would earn an eternal place by my side, and so you have. So now the impetus falls upon you--you must choose whether to follow me or remain here and have your own fate. Dominate the others and rule this place, perhaps. Or...a third way. To leave, but go in your own way, in your own direction. You have that choice too, and I would unlock the Seals for you to do such if that is your wish.”
”It will not be long until this world is as hollow and stagnant as the abyss I escaped once.” Still Narzhak did not look up in full, but his body was now poised to start into movement. ”And I hate nothing more than the aimlessness of the void. Where you guide, I will follow! Command me to crush or to forge, and it shall be done, forevermore.” He banged his flail against his shield, as if in martial salute, and the chamber echoed with his iron oath.
”So be it,” Amphiboles answered. The Seals that separated the spheres bent and warped by the mere force of His will, and they moved without moving and were suddenly far, far away from the Core and Katharsos--they now hovered beside the very edge of the great Barrier that stretched along the outer limits of this universe. In one of the cyclopes’ hands the manifested a lightning bolt, and in another a great hammer, and he pressed the lightning upon the surface of the Barrier and used it as the anvil upon which he wrought a key to open it.
”A parting gift to them, for they did serve well enough, whether they knew it or not, and no matter how insolent they were,” he explained, pressing the key of lightning into the Barrier and opening it to reveal the blackness of the Great Beyond. ”In using a key here rather than destroying the Seal here as I did to enter the Core, we will not leave a hole. So perhaps they will remain hidden and sheltered from the horrors beyond.”
He turned to Narzhak with just the hint of a smile upon his visage and finished, ”But we need not fear such things, for they shall fear me.”
Without another word, he stepped beyond, and the iron titan followed. Without turning back, the Architect gave one more decree:
”CLOSE.”
Then the key turned itself, and the door in the Barrier shut behind them.
“Pah! Keben swallow these things! It’s like walking on snow!”
The steps of three pairs of feet heavily creaked and rustled over the bed of dried needle-like leaves that thickly carpeted the forest ground, with only a rare knot of roots or mound of ferns poking out of the brown sea. The one who had spoken, laden with two large bundles of hide and thus treading more ponderously than the others, staggered from side to side every two feet he pushed ahead, cursing as the sides of his coarse footwear sank in the unfamiliarly soft surface.
Indeed, these three were clearly not natives of the cedar woods, though they walked with the assurance of those who knew where they were going. Their clothing were furs and rough linen, their beards thick, long and unkempt, and, most outlandish of all, the hue of their skin a stony grey, unlike the fleshly tones of those who had come to dwell about the forest from the south. Any who might have by chance crossed them would have known they came from the dark northward woods, and rightly be alarmed, for the arrival of such folk often boded ill. The axes and long knives hanging from their squamous belts spoke clearly of what sort of life they were used to lead, as did the charms and talismans of wood and human bone, tied together so they would not rattle with every movement.
Now, however, their wicked arms hung untouched and their hands were either empty or carrying less menacing things, for they had come with a less rapacious purpose. The one in the lead, who looked slightly younger and darker of skin than the other two, raised two fingers on his right hand to signal for silence.
“Easy there! We’re in their haunts now, it won’t be much longer yet.”
It was all for naught, of course. It was said that the Great Humbaba and his many sons could hear from leagues away even the slightest rustling in their Cedar Forest, and of course all knew that the birds adored and served the Old One as their king. As the sinister trio made their way forward, now in a slower and quieter manner out of respect, they saw a moving cedar.
The tree’s limbs had been sheared off such that the log was stark with only the scars in its bark to show where giant hands had torn free whole branches. The giant piece of timber was casually slung over the shoulder of a great and hairy thing, one of the humbabas, not quite vertical as a man might march with a spear but certainly not horizontal as a lumberjack would balance a beam for comfort and ease of carrying--the log-made-club was halfway brandished in that threatening pose that a warrior might hold a maul. The humbaba padded directly toward them at a reasonable pace, the podzol beneath his massive feet making not so much as a sound, the many birds nestled in the branches above watching in silence.
The travellers recoiled, biting down on exclamations of fright and surprise.
“Pest! It’s him!” the one carrying the bundles almost dropped his charges as he stumbled backwards and struck a root with his foot.
The first to collect himself was the guide. Lifting himself to his full height, insignificant as it appeared in the presence of the giant, he quietly gestured to his companions to be still, then inclined his head in a motion of reverence and spoke in a strange dialect, where mangled words of giant-speech were sprinkled throughout the expansive phrases of the northern tongue.
“O great dweller of the cedar-wood, be not wroth, but take our gifts, for today we come to be your guests.” He subtly waved with an open palm by the hip, and the bundle-bearer came forward. The wrapped hides were laid on the ground and unfurled, revealing their contents - chunks of raw boar meat, still fresh, seasoned with walnuts and other dry fruit that were a rarity outside the thicker forests.
Aside from its hulking stature, skin the color of drying wood visible in patches beneath its fur, and its long tail, the monstrous creature was made even more inhuman by its lionlike visage...and the razor sharp teeth inside its mouth. Still hefting the huge log effortlessly over its shoulder with one arm, it quickly snatched up the offering of meat with the other hand and inhaled a morsel of it--just a pound or two. That rest of the bountiful offering it rewrapped and scooped up. It eyed the trio down some more, the tallest of those little men still not even reaching its shoulders, and finally growled, “Come along then. Humbaba the Great and Terrible may care to hear you. But I, Humbaba the Mighty, do not.” Without further words, it turned about and began padding back through the woods, walking at a pace just fast enough to tire the men as they followed.
One of the elder sojourners turned to the other with a frown. “What’s he mean?” he whispered, “They really called the same?”
“They don’t truly carry any name,” the other replied with a shrug, breathing a little heavier from the longer steps they were forced into to keep sight of their new guide, “I’ve heard it they don’t even know what a real name is. Only way they tell each other apart is with kennings.”
Further ahead, they swore they heard the creature snort at that, but this particular one didn’t seem to care much for men or their talking. For hours it trodded silently forward while they struggled to keep up, never letting it out of sight for they feared that the moment they could no longer see it, it would be gone entirely. Somehow the creature managed to walk through its domain silently and without following any trail or path that they could discern, and frustrating also seeming to not so much as even break or bend the protruding vegetation, spiderwebs, and other petty obstacles. They passed some stumps of trees that had clearly been felled with purpose in mind, but never were there more than two or three stumps next to one another, much less a whole thicket that’d been clearcut. More common than outright stumps were trees that had just had a single branch removed, that they could still live. In the distance they saw some other creatures similar to the one that they followed; those looked at them curiously, or perhaps even aggressively, for a moment before realizing that they were already being escorted, and then they stopped their work or their goings and began to follow too.
Eventually they came to a true river, not one of the many countless small creeks and streams that watered most of the forest, and all of the creatures flung the timber they carried into the water as if it was nothing. The logs drifted downstream to presumably be collected elsewhere, and then the humbabas all turned and began to plod in some other direction for at least an hour. Where they walked, the woods grew only thicker and the occasional sights of stumps vanished altogether. Only then did they finally come to a dwelling dug into the ground with its roof and entrance woven from brambles, vines, and branches. One of the creatures was already waiting expectantly outside of it.
Though they all had thus far looked more or less identical--and there were at least a half dozen of them--this one was different. It was grander, but still the same height for its slouch, and its countenance and hair were both greyed from age and perhaps sorrow.
Humbaba the Mighty, or whatever the first one had introduced itself as, approached his father to offer the boar’s meat. They exchanged a few grunts and growls; the elder finally opened the gift and sniffed at it, then took a single bite or two before pushing it into the dark depths of its dwelling behind.
And then it looked at the trio of strange men expectantly. “The crone sent you?”
“She did, Great and Terrible one,” the younger man’s speech was now even wealthier with words evidently borrowed from the humbabas’ usage, much to his companions’ puzzlement, even at times taking on a rasping guttural tone like an animalistic rumble. “Strange beings have flown from the south up to her domain, who move like birds but are akin to crawling snakes. She would know if you, who are wise to the ways of flying things, can say anything of such unusual things.”
That seemed to spark their attention. There was suddenly a chorus of low grumbling and growls from the assembled humbabas, but of course none of it was intelligible to the men.
“Such creatures were once abundant, but in these days I thought them all long gone,” the eldest humbaba finally mused. ”Perhaps there are yet a few that remain, the last of their kind. I would send my sons to go and find this noble creature and bring it here, that I may see one again for myself. Perhaps with some effort, more could be found and the lands could teem with them once again.”
At those words, the two elder visitors exchanged an alarmed glance, and one quietly elbowed the guide to call his attention. They rapidly conferred in a dialect from further north, as obscure to the humbabas as their own speech had been to the men - though the more perceptive of them might have caught the word “fire” repeated once or twice - and by the end of it the foremost speaker was himself frowning, but he swiftly cleared his brow as he turned back towards the ancient giant.
The humbabas meanwhile watched in what could only be described as an intense stare, the hairs around their noses twitching. One of them - was it Humbaba the Mighty? They could hardly tell - actually began creeping closer to them as they talked...whilst sniffing. The two men in the back, oblivious to his silent motions at first, jerked back as they suddenly caught the looming presence behind them with the corners of their eyes, almost knocking into the speaker’s back. The ogre-like creature stiffened then and remained still while the third man started to talk.
“That strange bird is yet far north, in the Toad Mother’s custody, and we cannot say what she would do with it,” he managed in an altogether natural tone, “We will make sure she hears of this. But no other such beast has been heard of among us. Perhaps the maple-skins from south could know of more, if it has flown from over them first?”
Sniff, sniff. It was definitely Humbaba the Mighty looming beside them, for there were still a few bits of boar that they could see stuck in his teeth as he bared them. “Those words smell wrong,” he growled.
The two in the back held up their hands, as if to show they were not holding - and supposedly hiding - anything. The guide leaned his head to one side, then to another as he looked back, two fingers pensively, or perhaps nervously, tugging on his beard. “For truth, we say it as it is. We have never even seen the beast ourselves, only heard of it from those who did.”
A quick glance from the eldest Humbaba made that one step back a pace away from the humans, to their palpable relief. “Then you may share what I have told you to the crone, and express my desire to have the creature. I know how your kind are greedy and must always take. So tell her that I will not ask just as a favor, and would pay for the creature with some amount of the mystic cedar of my realm, and rare herbs that she might...find use for.”
Humbaba the Mighty did not look pleased at this outcome. He cast a baleful glance at the humans, they loudly growled something. Humbaba the Great answered with a nod, and then his son wordlessly skulked away from the trio of humans and then into the darkened recesses of the nearby den. There was a rustling sound from within, a familiar clacking, and then a short time afterward Humbaba the Mighty reemerged, dragging behind him a makeshift sled of sorts that had been fashioned from interwoven branches. Atop the sled were heaps of bones, perhaps the shattered and jumbled skeletons of three or four humans altogether. “The last few of your kind to venture into this forest,” Humbaba the Mighty explained. “We did not care so much for what they did and said.”
”As a gesture of kindness, you may have their remains.”
The three traded some quizzical looks, and spared some more for the sled and its macabre trove, but soon inclined their heads as they had done upon meeting the Mighty One for the first time.
“No doubt these fools blundered to their own doom without care,” the foremost shook his head, “Thank you for giving us leave of their sorry bones, we will make sure they come to something useful at least now.” As he spoke, the other two stepped forward, with wary glances at the younger Humbaba, and took hold of protruding staves at the front of the sled. They tried a few tugs, grunting and gritting their teeth as the construction barely moved forward when held too low, before finally taking a rather uncomfortable-looking grip that held the branches turned upwards. The sled trailed behind them more readily, but with little more ease.
“If ever we return, it will be with news from the Old Hag about the bird-beast, and if not, do with us like with them. May the crowns of your wood grow tall.” With a final nod, the speaker went to follow his companions and their new load, pushing the sled from behind. As they left that neck of the woods behind and ventured back toward their grim homeland, they occasionally caught glimpses of a distant figure in the trees; that was no doubt one of the humbabas, likely following them to ensure that theirs was a swift departure. Goaded on by such sights, they made sure not to disappoint, and trekked on even when dusk began to fall, pressing on at an arduous pace and not resting for a long while.
A group of Dreviči wander into the Cedar Forest, looking to ask the locals about the odd lizard-bird that came from the south. They meet a somewhat ill-tempered younger Humbaba, who leads them to his progenitor. It turns out the latter doesn’t know where the bird came from, but remembers a time when the likes of it used to roam the world, and would like to spread its kind again by breeding it. Whoops. The travellers manage to extricate themselves from the situation by keeping the bird’s fate quiet, and are sent back with the remains of some less fortunate compatriots.
Unfortunately we're quite full. My original intention was to keep the group very small. I ended up accepting a few more people than I'd planned because of the recommendations of others already in here, but at this point I need to draw the line.
At the borderlands, where the foothills gave way to flat grasslands and the great mountain ranges were no more than a hazy grey band looming over the distant horizon, the Akkadean ambassador and his party were met by their escorts. There was a modest party to receive them rather than some grand entourage or small army, but it was enough to be polite if only just. The head of the escort was flanked by an honor guard of ten armored warriors bearing axes. Further back, that their presence would not offend, there were two dozen slaves acting as attendants and porters (for the rocky lands here were not conducive to drawing carts by oxen or horse) as they shadowed their masters.
The man who looked to be the leader of the escort stepped forward. To call him a man was perhaps being generous; this was a youth barely old enough to have a beard. Even so, the presence of a sword at his side, its exquisitely decorated scabbard, his haughty countenance, and even the way that he groomed what little facial hair he had demonstrated that this was some sort of noble.
In an flawed and accented, yet passable enough dialect of the Aïryan tongue, the boy proclaimed, “On behalf of Lugal (blessed be his reign!), you are bid good tidings and warm welcome to his realm. I am he who is called Ut-ahum, the fifteenth son of Lugal Zulmash.”
“Praise,” spoke a respondent echo and violent whisper originating from an inanimate mouth accompanied by the steeled gaze of an entity whose eyes were not of the typical kind. “Good tidings onto ye. As was written in the epistle, we are Ahn-khaan.” It stood looming, a fair few heads taller than the next, as it lifted its lifeless, yet blistering gaze from the noble lord and out towards the distance and the impression it wrought into the mind of this individual of stone.
They were no ordinary man, much like how the sons of Lugal proclaim their right and justice from their birth. This fellow, however, need not whisper word of his origin for others to comprehend his station, for he was made of stone. Life made infinite in inanimate form. No different from the silhouette of man, merely taller. Slender but bulky, adorned with the unnecessary garments and robes expected of those who came to impress and honour in the same sentence. A shimmering mask of thin bronze covering most of his otherwise uneven face, adorned with three finely cut gems and accentuated with master-craftsmanship-like embossing. Accompanied by a moderate band of servants and assistants clothed much the same as themself, only that they needed the protection from the elements that clothing brought, and lacked the domineering importance which the uniqueness of their master produced.
The stone-man named Ahn-khaan took a step forward, a thud audible at his motion, and moved next with his left hand forward onto the yet distant horizon, the dust of the travel shaking off of his figure as he did. “A fine land we see towards the distance, Ut-ahum, son of Lugal.” Clear courtesy in his gesture, undoubtedly he had learned of the nation he had chosen to venture, but sparking topics of conversation was one important aspect of his task here.
And in turn, the boy almost scoffed. “What, this hinterland? Savage, backwater hills as far as you can see. We have many days of travel ahead of us before we will come to greater parts, so let us be off. Perhaps along the way we may stay at some of my own holdings, where the Lugal’s are more sparse.”
A curious glimpse was all that was reciprocated between the young prince’s groveling and the monotone Ahn-khaan before their continued venture.
The first days were not so impressive. The many porters must have been well trained, for the slaves were always first to break camp. Most of the slaves were trusted to press ahead of the group and prepare the next site with felt tents (where there was not some herder’s hovel to requisition, anyways), fires, and warm food. And of course, being further ahead, their presence could not offend any of their betters.
With time, the narrow game trails and rarely used dirt paths widened and became true roads, even paved in some places. The trees and ungrazed fields also grew much more infrequent until everywhere was ploughland or open ranch, and only a few trees so remote or scraggly as to not be worth the bother remained unfelled. Where at first there had only been the occasional band of shepherds tending their herds, many agricultural hamlets existed deeper into the Akkylonian lands. There was a strange mix--in one place there would be a massive village owned in the name of some lord, with one or two great fields all tended to by throngs of slaves and their overseers. Yet in other places there were clusters of smaller farms owned by free men and worked by families or clans.
“And this field and the thousand oxen and all its herders are my father’s,” Ut-ahum pointed out once. “And that one, too. And the cropland yonder,” he went on to say on many further occasions. “But that, there? The village beyond? That is mine,” he eagerly announced after the fourth day. “Let us visit it; there you may be made more comfortable, and I can attend to my holding for a night.”
Ahn-khaan made a polite look backwards, honouring his entourage with his presence of mind, and noticing their exhaustion. He nodded as he turned back towards his accompaniment. “Let us, they are bound to be as lucious and prosperous as your fishermen’s bounties of prior seasons.” Upon finishing his response, Ahn-khaan turned towards the yet distant but approaching domain of his escort.
Needless to say, he did not go beyond realization of the maneuvering of the Akkylonian supreme lord in matching him with such a manling as Ut-ahum. A clear insult for those experienced with the arts of diplomacy such as he. But a card to use all the same. With luck, Ut-ahum could prove to be the first piece of the grand game unfolding between two nations, and whilst the ambitious and ever-conquering Lugal desires one thing, Ahn-khaan’s master wished for another.
The smallfolk of the village, upon seeing the axe-bearing soldiers and their master approach, bustled to assemble themselves. One stewardly looking villager, a petty magistrate or perhaps just the locals’ headman, granted the party greetings and excessive pleasantries. The many folk glanced constantly at Ahn-khaan through the corner of their eyes, but were sure to never stare, and the steward did not address any of the foreigners directly but simply referred to the whole group as “Our master and his guests.”
Ut-ahum did not bother to elucidate them as to the identity (though surely they knew) nor the purpose of Ahn-khaan and his own escorts either, so they rested and were served for a time. The porters restocked their supplies, and then erelong they were off once again. Despite his posturing, the young Ut-ahum had done nothing to inspect the fields, or see to it that the laborers were working, or even speak to steward of any such matters. Instead he spoke of his father and of a few of the countless past exploits of Lugal (just be his holy hands!). For every tale that the Akkadeans already knew and had to hear repeated, the proud son recounted two that they hadn’t. He spoke rarely of his own accomplishments, or of his elder brothers, whose mere mention caused his upper lip to stiffen, and their feats. For a short time, the soldiers shared their own tales of the Lugal (forever may he rule!) and of their own experiences following him on campaigns. Unlike the sword, which conveyed wealth and nobility but not necessarily anything in the means of competence or valor, the Akkylonians regarded the axe as something sacred. Thus it was bestowed only upon the most elite soldiers, the Lugal’s own men, and those that guarded the great city of Akk-ila and its immediate surroundings.
In due time they departed that hamlet and were back on their way. The roads were frequented much more in these parts, and they passed and were passed by various travelling peddlers and caravans hauling grain and other supplies toward the great city. The road that they followed ran north to Akk-ila, alongside the great river and rarely were its banks out of sight. Date trees and farms were everywhere; this must have been the great Akkylonian ploughland. Glorified as it was in all the tales, it was not so grand. The soil here was dark, muddy, and rich, and it annoyingly clung to one’s sandals or bare feet. Even the farmsteads had a filthy look about them, built from brown or tan mud brick for lack of timber or stone quarries in this area.
Another two days saw them finally nearing Akk-ila itself. The flat floodplains by the river was at last broken on the horizon by the rise of a distant hilltop--only that was no natural hill, but rather the foundations of the greatest ziggurat that would ever be. The ziggurat was not being built from mud brick, of course, for that material was ignoble and ephemeral. So teams toiled endlessly under the sun to haul massive stone blocks from distant quarries, that the ziggurat could be built immortal and eternal.
Even the airy Ut-ahum was quietened as that grandiose beginning began to dominate the horizon, so awe-striking and imposing was the sight. There simply were no words. The great river, which had dominated the landscape for the past days, was still there, but now it was utterly dwarfed, a child beside a giant.
“It is like a land-born sun,” responded Ahn-khaan to the distant landscape’s visage as it spoke to him without need for words themselves. It was impressive, no doubt could be had about that prospect, however at the same time, he disliked it for its dominance and demanding subjugation of the land in which it inhabited. The building itself spoke not of why it was built, but he knew that those who wished for its construction had desires and ambitions which could pose danger to those who found themselves stuck therein.
He turned to Ut-ahum, the stone face and copper mask in which he was blessed to occupy feigned his mental worry, and continued promptly, “Most impressive.”
Ut-ahum caught the unease that even the golem’s face betrayed, but he misunderstood its source. In what was supposed to be assurance, he idly spoke, “Daunting and ambitious, but my father says that it will be finished in due time, certainly within our lifetimes. The architects have reported that progress has been faster than was expected. Of course, finding enough labor to sustain its construction has been something of a challenge.”
A vast labor camp was sprawled out across the plains all around, with hundreds of various tents and structures both temporary and permanent. Even from afar, where the distant silhouettes appeared only as uncountable ants, it was easy to see that there must have been thousands of them. With all those little villages of two or three score souls that they’d passed on their way here, it was maddening to think of how many entire settlements could have been populated by all those laborers, and of how many more toiled to grow the food, brew the ale, and quarry the stone to sustain such a vast operation. Of course, the boy Ut-ahum likely understood nothing of such logistics and their extent, so how could he appreciate the full weight of even his own words?
“Not merely labor, Ut-ahum. Resources, motivation, purpose; projects like these do not live off of the air. Ambition is needed. Akka, much like Akk-ila, is birthed by ambitions such as those of Lugal, and Khaar-am-khaar,” he interjected at the boy’s misplaced sense of assistance and reassurance, politeness explicit in his otherwise cold voice. As he gazed upon the ziggurat, a construct which undoubtedly dwarfed the rest of its city in both purpose and significance, he viewed it like the will of the Ambitious One, merely that it originated not from him, but another.
The manner of its construction, similar yet different to those of the dreamers in Akka, carried another atmosphere in its entirety. Whilst those same dreamers persist, but scattered amongst them there was another kind of force acting towards the finalization of such a grandiose construct; those of slaves and the begotten men and women who work not with fire in their eyes and strength in their chest, but with monotony in their intent and food their only desire.
“Indeed, constructs such as these, the lifework of those blessed by fortune and prowess, do indeed require much to be completed.” Ahn-khaan could not help but feel conflicted at the sight of something which seemed to challenge the legitimacy of the grand project which was Akka, a city built with perfection in sight and endlessness as its destination. And not only was it produced on a similar scale as to his home, but within some measly decades in comparison.
The party kept walking for the better part of the day, of course, but they did not truly or fully leave the ziggurat behind. It loomed so large upon the horizon that it remained there, its vague silhouette watching over them, until they came upon Akk-ila itself. A large mud brick wall encompassed the city, though already there were hovels and shanties built outside the perimeter. Another wall was already partially built to encompass them as well, and further inside one could see even more concentric walls. It was a formidable city, but also one that spoke of hasty construction and poor urban planning. Then again, it’d been raised from the ground of empty plains within the span of just a generation and a half, so what else was to be expected?
A massive gate wrought from unbroken logs of cedar guarded the outermost gate, but it had been pulled open for the day that the merchants and farmers could come and go about their business in the city and then be well on their way back to their villages and hinterlands by duskfall. The roads were well paved inside the city, and they bustled with makeshift stalls and merchants set up all along. But the axe-bearers walked ahead of the group, and the awesome shine of their bronze armor struck the throngs with fear and admiration; they parted to make way for the delegation.
Here, even more than in the muddy and dirty agrarian villages and ploughlands by the river, there was the overpowering reek of filth. There were magnificent sculptures and large stellae adorned with lapis lazuli and other extravagant stones, and then ten paces ahead would be piles of excrement--human and otherwise. And though the city had its statutes on animals and laws forbade swine being left to run loose upon the streets, there were still enough merchants with their fetid donkeys and goats to make the air smell of reeking fur as well.
In the center of the city stood Lugal’s palace. Ut-ahum and his men walked the Akkadeans right up to its doors, and then with a short farewell they left them to the palace guards. The delegation were led into the palace and brought to a parlor besides a hearth, and then the waiting began.
Ahn-khaan, a delegate diplomat of Akka, was sent on a diplomatic mission to Akk-ila. Along with a group of scribes. He was met at the border and escorted by the most insultingly young and under-accomplished prince that Lugal had to offer. They toured the Akkylonian lands and talked a bit, axes are apparently pretty cool according to Lugal. Plebes are impressed by stone-man. They saw the Ziggurat, Ahn-khaan was pretty impressed and insulted at the same time. The gist of the post is that Lugal takes every turn to insult most people (maybe not, but it’s still accurate in this case).
Identity: Zulmash was his name by birth, and many are the other names that have been bestowed upon him since: He Who Felled the First Tree, Humbaba's Bane, Lord and Bringer of Civilization, Breaker of Stones, Master of the Ploughlands and Rivers, King of Akk-ila. He is best known throughout his homeland and the barbarian reaches beyond as Lugal, a title of his own construction. It means many things: 'great' and 'giant' and 'strong' and 'king,' but his role could be summarized as 'God-King'. More accurately, he claims himself to be not quite a god. He can command beasts and men, but not nature itself, so by his own reckoning that makes him two parts divine and one part man. Still, he is Lugal.
He commands a great deal of fear and respect, but for all that he has done for his people he is not beloved. That is no matter, for he cares little for finery or the excessive praise of his name, though he does certainly hold himself in high esteem. If one were ignorant of his past acts and great exploits, he could be observed for a day and it might be easy to dismiss him as a petty warlord, but in truth his grandeur and might is far more than meets the eye and so the people know that he is indeed Lugal, not some mere warlord.
Potency: Lugal possesses fortitude of both body and mind as well as an unwavering ambition, fueled by a confidence that is tempered just enough by reality that it has not given way to empty arrogance. Though a peerless warrior by mortal standards, in combat he remains no more than a warrior--he does not hurl lightning nor conjures flames. If he finds himself in battle, he relies upon such mundane weapons as his own hands, or his favored weapon of the axe. What makes him formidable is that he does not fight alone, and is wont to march with an army of Akkylonian men at his back and great hordes of beasts as his vanguard and heralds.
A charismatic figure that leads naturally and by example, Lugal’s aura is such that men and even animals find it difficult to resist his will. That is his true power--commanding and dominating all around him, that they may fall in line and take their places in the order that he envisions. Rebellion against his righteous rule is a rare thing, and the few acts of defiance against his will that do happen are of course answered with violence and force from his part, for he is a pragmatic ruler and can wield cruelty and brutality just as deftly as mercy. He appreciates gratitude and of course prefers to be loved rather than hated, as is only natural for a man, but in the end he knows that those things are not so necessary and cares foremost about maintaining his image of might and authority. More than their adoration or thanks, the Lugal demands that his people display proper obedience and respect, or failing that, fear.
To be clear, his magical powers take the form of four Auras listed in order of increasing importance: He has an Aura of Splendor, that gives him his grand ambitions and glorious image, an Aura of Might, that has slowed his aging and bestowed him a robust and youthful body, an Aura of Tenacity, that gives him his stubbornness and mental grit, and an Aura of Authority, that grants him the power to impose his will upon men and beast alike.
Ambition: Lugal values order; that is why he has created civilization and brought laws, hierarchy, and purpose to his people. He views the conquest and eventual destruction of nature as his sacred and ultimate charge. The forests and hills are evil and full of mystery and horrors, so they must be tamed and made into fertile farmlands. The monsters and beasts must be broken and made to heel, that they may be tamed and put to work towards useful purposes as the gods surely intended. This worldview and realization of order leaves no place for nomadic or wild peoples of the sort that Zulmash and his kind once were; those that do not till the land or work in cities of their own volition do themselves a disservice and are like animals milling about aimlessly, failing to achieve their potential and realize their purpose. Upon encountering such wild peoples, the Lugal and his followers enslave them that they may be exploited both for their own good and for the benefit of his kingdom as a whole.
Another of Lugal's aspirations is to build the greatest ziggurat that is or ever shall be. Aside from the prestige and glory of seeing a mountain of brick raised by his will and to honor his name, he believes that if he could build a temple high enough to brush the skies, he could climb its stair and wrest power over heaven just as he has already claimed dominion over the land of Akk-ilon below and the animals and men that dwell upon it. In doing so, he would achieve theosis and ascend to fully realize his potential as a god. Then he would be able to finally command heaven and conquer nature. He would raze the forests and flatten the hills, and he would bend and warp the rivers to his will just as potters shape wet clay, and finally the tyranny of the Chaos would finally end and the people could bathe in his benevolence and mercy rather than the uncaring and pitiless whims of nature.
Life: In his youth, Zulmash and one of his companions dared to do what no others would--they crept into the dreaded Cedar Forest, where monsters lurk and gods once lived, if the legends are to believed. They followed their noses, for there was a certain scent reminiscent of honey, only more intoxicating by far, that clung to the breeze. As they ventured into the forest, they grew lost and were eventually ambushed by the Humbaba, a monstrous being that guarded it zealously, and Zulmash's companion was mortally wounded. Nonetheless, the two managed to defeat the Humbaba and Gilgamesh forced the monster to guide him through the forest. At the end was a great bush that bore golden berries, and Zulmash gained his magical powers through the consumption of those berries. He kept the Humbaba and all its sons as laythings and slaves thereafter, forcing them to harvest the trees of their own domain to offer as tribute. For this feat of greatness and for the magical might that this brought him, Zulmash was recognized as Lugal.
Lugal would now be considered an elder by most folk's accounting, as it has been some time since the passage of his fiftieth year. Even so, his mind and body remain sharp and his great powers have granted him a youthful vigor that is not so easily dispelled. He has the look of one who is more like half his age, even if he is not quite still in his peak. As Zulmash brought civilization to the lands and built up the very cities and institutions that have elevated his people to greatness, and so he sees it as only right that he takes his just due. He has wealth beyond measure; little in the form of gold or trinkets, but he personally lays claim to many great tracts of the land in his kingdom and all the slaves that work those regions, and he similarly owns vast herds of thousands of goats, sheep, swine, and cattle.
In the earliest days, there was nothing, not even the empty shell of a world. Then Chaos!
From the emptiness erupted fire and light, water, air, and earth. These primordial forces clashed with terrible power, and from their violence was born life. The beings that emerged were as terrible and primal as their time. Giants, monstrous beasts, and even some great figures that would be remembered in the tales of survivors and eventually regarded as gods or demons. This First Era was a time of great violence. The world was forged, but then the land was cleaved and reshaped a hundred times over as these beings clashed with one another alongside the ancient forces that had thrust them into existence.
In the end there was no victor. The primordial forces grew tamer with every passing millennium, until there came a time when the mightiest of breezes was nothing but the faintest whisper compared to the storms of old, the hottest flame no more than a candle before the sun of the first fires, and the world was not so savage. The children that Chaos had begotten did not grow any less wild, and they kept fighting endlessly; they slew one another and destroyed the very lands and fortresses they had ruled, leaving their surviving minions and degenerate offspring to scatter across the land and hide fearfully in the shadows. In the end the children of Chaos dwindled so much that they at last began to realize their time was over. Some of the remnants laid down in rest and began a long, or perhaps endless, slumber, whilst others departed the world altogether for more distant lands beyond our comprehension.
The signs of the First Era still remain for those that know with a discerning eye. In some places, the greatest fortresses and works of the past might still be visible above the ground as forlorn ruins. Within ancient caves there are not just crude paintings depicting an early era, but also there are the lost and long-buried remnants of the ancients, and perhaps even the occasional snore from primordial beings that still slumber. In the wildest and most untamed of wilderness, there may still roam great and extraordinary beasts.
Yet aeons have passed, and now new masters emerge to dominate the world. The Dawn of Civilization has come; everywhere it seems that the wilderness is being conquered as cities, villages, fortresses, and kingdoms are erected. This time they are populated by mortals, be they weakened offspring from the great and powerful children of Chaos, or perhaps descendants of whatever servants or playthings entertained such gods and demons of legend, or perhaps even just animals that have found their intelligence. Most of these mortal civilizations arise and are shaped not organically and of their own, but rather by the will and leadership of great sorcerers.
For in their rage, the ancients had left some of their weapons and relics scattered across ancient battlefields. Similarly consumed by lethargy, they later abandoned their treasures and the secrets of their magic upon the earth or inside their crumbling holds. There those secrets rested for untold years before they fell into the hands of new owners, those inquisitive mortals that harnessed the lost powers of the past to grow stronger and lord over their own kind as wizards. The age of Chaos and Its children has long passed. Now it is the Second Era--the Reign of Sorcerers!
Sorcerers
The names are mostly interchangeable--call them sorcerers, witches, wizards, magicians, magi, thaumaturges, artificers, or demigods; for our purposes here, they are all practically the same thing. This RP takes heavy inspiration from mythology and folklore of all different sorts, so magic can take many different forms and our wizards will likely have very different arrays of powers. These differing magical abilities probably won’t be on parity when it comes to power level, but that’s fine by me. Because magic is often situational, nebulous, and vague, I suspect that even if I wanted to it’d be impossible to define, much less, enforce, an equal level of potency in all of our characters without destroying diversity. So I will simply be very permissive about what magic can do in our setting, and hopefully with a small and generally good group we can have that much greater range of freedom without suffering for it. Magic can be acquired in numerous different ways; above, I implied that the most common means would probably be to discover some artifact or long-forgotten secret from the great and powerful precursor beings, and then gain magic from that. However, I am entirely open to other means. Perhaps there is something special about your wizard’s lineage that left latent power in his or her blood, until it was somehow activated. Perhaps your sorcerer’s magical powers were gained through the consumption of a magical being (perhaps even the flesh of another sorcerer?!), substance, or potion. Regardless, the means of acquiring magic shouldn’t be something that’s very easy.
That leads me to talk about some traits that I wish to be common for magic in this setting: Potency. Magic is very powerful, and though it can come in various forms, sorcerers practically are demigods on a whole level of their own, far above the abilities of all but the greatest of mortals to challenge on even footing. Think of Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings or Sith Lords from Star Wars, for example. Mystery. This will certainly be more of a soft magic system, without rigid overarching rules or much of an explanation for how magic functions or comes into existence. Besides being thematically appropriate that magic be strange and poorly understood, this works best in a collaborative story setting because it enables many forms of magic to exist without precluding or contradicting one another. This enables greater variety and freedom, and hopefully less plot holes, internal inconsistencies, and suspension of belief rather than more. Of course, some people prefer more hard magic systems, so if you really want to state that your sorcerer derives power from some force (like mana) or physical object and explain the constraints of that magic and its source, then perhaps something can be worked out. Limitations. As magic can come in various flavors, as alluded above, one sorcerer shouldn’t necessarily be able to do what another one can, and as an exception to the general rule of mystery outlined above, I would like for you to at least have in mind what the general limitations of your specific character’s magical powers are. For instance, one might be able to mentally dominate and control malleable minds like those of animals or even dim-witted or emotionally vulnerable people, but not mentally powerful beings like fellow wizards or a determined and disciplined warrior that is wise to your tricks. Or one might be able to fly, but only for a certain length of time and not through storms, etc. As a general rule, things like time travel, use of alchemy to create gunpowder and bombs, and raising millions of undead are not going to be allowed because they are too extreme and not conducive to the sort of theme that we are going for. If you are in doubt as to whether something is permissible, just ask. Rarity. This is the biggest one; magic users are meant to be very powerful, yet exceeding rare. Think once again of the Lord of the Rings, and how unlike in World of Warcraft or the Elder Scrolls where magic-users are everywhere, there’s just a handful of wizards like Gandalf scattered across the world. Perhaps an even better example is Thulsa Doom from Conan, who is the last of a near extinct race of men and practically the only magic-user.
Setting
As this is the Dawn of Civilization, there are some things to take into account so that we can all be on the same page and maintain consistency in the setting. Note that almost all of these things come with caveats and potential exceptions, consider all of the following a rough guideline rather than a hard rule or limit. If you think that in some way you might be going beyond some of these guidelines, maybe it’s worth discussing, but I’ll probably be fine with it.
The denizens of this world are all very humanoid, if not entirely human. Furthermore, the civilized people (with the obvious exception of the few individuals that have become sorcerers) are quite mundane and should not possess any blatantly magical or extraordinary abilities or traits; if their ancestors ever had such powers, they were lost in the ages past. Different groups of people will naturally have different races and look different, and in some cases they might even be wholly different species; perhaps Neanderthal analogs, or elves-lite (pointy ears and slender bodies, minus the immortality and being superior to humans in every way). Cyclopes or blemmyes (headless men) would exist on the very periphery of what is allowed; full beastmen, orcs, and the like are too extreme.
I envision that the civilizations of this world will be set mostly in the early Bronze Age (technology circa 2000 B.C.) and will be smaller, weaker, and more diverse than that of typical NRP settings. Allow me to elaborate upon each of those points:
Individuals matter more in such settings, especially given that our primary characters (the wizards that lord over these civilizations, be it indirectly or directly) have magic and are superhuman, comparable with story figures like Saruman, Thulsa Doom, Maui, etc. That is why I would like this to be a mostly character-driven and focussed story, with the narration more coming from the angle of what individuals (probably the wizards, or people close to them) are doing, rather than the point of view being like that of some omnipotent god as their perception encompasses what the entire state and all its apparatus are doing.
Early history was dominated by small agrarian villages for many thousands of years, before the urban revolution would eventually lead to the foundation of proper cities as we know them today. These cities were often independent and localized powers that only ruled enough hinterland to sustain their own population, and that limited their size; however, given our setting with wizards championing advancement, it makes sense that there would be much greater centralization. The development of proper kingdoms and empires rather than mere city-states and tribal groups is possible in our setting, so don’t feel that social organization is confined to what historically existed in the early Bronze Age. Feudalism or similar systems are fine. Still, cities should not exceed around 100,000 in population at the absolute most, and any city with more than 10,000 people would be large. Just keep that in mind--something like a vast empire with millions of people is a bit too much for our setting. Similarly, standing professional armies would be rather small (if they exist at all) due to the inefficiency of labor and the difficulty in producing a large enough surplus to support many people that don’t directly contribute to the sustainment of the population, and warfare would probably be conducted largely by normal citizens levied into armies for a season or two. The limited technology also limits the speed of transportation and spread of information, and therefore contributes to a difficulty in projecting power over vast areas.
This segues into my next point--since we have the first civilizations to emerge after a very long gap-period where nothing really went on, which was preceded by some vague time of creation and Chaos, there probably won’t need to be excessive backstory. NRPs often suffer from excessive premature worldbuilding while everybody sets up their sheets, with hardly any of those details becoming relevant to the IC, much less making it there. Some backstory between our wizards and civilizations is okay, and it certainly makes sense that the people of this world might have many legends and myths about the First Era (of dubious veracity, of course!) but for the most part I would discourage a heavy emphasis on the background and history of your civilization. Instead, I think it best to place the emphasis more on the wizard--how did they attain their power, and what have they already used it to do? What would they like to do in the future? From that frame and point of view you can still answer many questions about your civilization’s formation and roots whilst retaining the emphasis mainly on the characters.
OOC Goals and Thoughts
With the soft magic system such that it is and our rules and guidelines being kept loose, there will of course be a disparity in the power level between various characters. That isn’t inherently a problem, though it does mean there’s a lot of potential for abuse in the form of powergaming. It has to be emphasized that this is not a “game” to be “won” but rather a collaborative storytelling effort, so some maturity and restraint are necessary. Though Oraculum and I would rather leave everyone with a great deal of freedom, we will be forced to intervene if such powergaming becomes apparent.
The intention is to keep the planning phase for this RP rather short. Too many RPs on this site, especially NRPs that act similar to this one, stall in the pre-IC phase and don’t take off. For that reason, character sheets can (and are even encouraged to) be very brief and just contain the broad strokes. This is the Dawn of Civilization anyways, so there shouldn’t be some huge and ornate history to write out. Instead I would prefer a “show rather than tell” approach where your first IC post acts as a sort of introduction that tells one more about your character. You do not need to go so heavy on the exposition as to render the character sheet useless by virtue of restating everything in it but in even greater detail; ideally you’d just use the barebones established in the character sheet as a platform and quickly build off from there to establish detail, motivations, and so on.
So what ‘barebones’ should be in a character sheet?
Identity: What your character is known as. This may include names, titles, nicknames and more, and vary between different peoples and social circles.
Potency: What they can do and are good at. This includes experience, mundane skills and crafts, and, of course, their sorcerous abilities. You have a lot of liberty in choosing the latter, as long as it’s workable in a roleplaying context and not excessive in scope. Things like time-travel, future sight, razing mountains at a whim and summoning millions-strong hordes of the undead are beyond the scope of what is permissible, but short of that sort of thing, let your imagination run wild.
Ambition: For this section, name one major goal your character has set for themselves, and explain why that’s the case in a couple of sentences maximum. This ought to give enough insight into their thoughts and desires, lofty or humble that they might be, without going through the hassle of an extended personality section.
Life: Optional section. You may use it to give a brief overview of your character’s history. Preferably use this for events that you cannot organically mention in the introductory post.
Back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, I got started with writing online on the Spore forums. Man, those were the days. We're talking like 12 years ago!
I've been here on and off for almost as long, and have GM'd a bunch of different things to varying success.
Discord: VMS#8777
<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, I got started with writing online on the Spore forums. Man, those were the days. We're talking like 12 years ago!<br><br>I've been here on and off for almost as long, and have GM'd a bunch of different things to varying success.<br><br>Discord: VMS#8777</div>
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