Flagg

Daigon's Dream - Heirs of the Dark Lord

We used to rule, you know. Many centuries ago, in times the memory of which has been carefully blotted out.

Not here, not in this wasteland, but in the West. We were masters of the great cities of men, who were Our slaves and Our cattle. That was before Justinian came and threw Us down from our hidden thrones. He was mighty. Is mighty. The source of his power remains obscure to Us...and We have done much, have done terrible things and great, to uncover his secrets. Still they elude Us.

The godling's rise forced Us to flee east, to the lands ruled by his foe. The one they now call the Dark Lord and speak of only in whispers. Some of Our kind submitted to him and served him. Not Clan Stryge.

We do not serve.

So We bid our time, hidden in the great tombs of the north from God King and Dark Lord alike, feeding in secret on the norsemen who served Daigon. And when he was thrown down, and the norsemen grew desperate, we became rulers of men once more.

The Cursed Sea, North of the Broken Arm

Water exploded over the prow, a huge bloom of white foam showering the foredeck, drenching the already drenched clanswords. Jago grinned as the freezing sea washed over him. His left hand tightened around the grip of his short sword, his right around the handle of his axe. He lived for this.

The Almalexia lurched beneath his feet as the ship climbed the oncoming wave. As it crested, their quarry came into view. The Ushtobal was listing badly, the choppy sea around it churning and red. Their prey was a chariot-ship, sleek and fast but poorly armed, pulled through the sea by a harnessed zama whale. A masterful shot from one of the Lexia's ballistae had wounded the monster in an earlier skirmish, and now the sharks had set in on it...leaving the Ushtobal adrift.

"Axes!" shouted Blackteeth, Jarl Valen Vymar's favored thane and right hand, "Axes out!"

A clatter ran up and down the deck as the clansmen armed themselves. Jago bashed his sword and axe and let loose a warcry so loud it left blood in his mouth. The men around him took it up.

Another plunge, another plume of water washing the warriors. Another rise...and they were on them. The Almalexia crashed into the Ushtobal with a splintering crunch.

"Get the child!" shouted Blackteeth, "Everyone else is sharkfood!"

Jago had leapt the gap and was on the other boat before the thane finished shouting. A deckhand rushed at him with a harpoon. He swatted the rusted tip away easily with the flat of his sword and beheaded the man with an axeswing. The head skidded across the planks, blinking in shock, before it tumbled into the waves.

The Ushtobal crewmen fought like demons- knowing that capture meant thralldom or worse. It was well known that the men of Nagath's northern shores consorted with ghouls and monsters, that even their kings and chieftains answered to decrepit things that supped on the flesh of men. The Ushtobal's captain had taken a real risk sailing so close to the shores of the Broken Arm, depending on his vessel's speed to outrun reavers on his dash to Port Nailbite in Northmarch.

The gambit might have worked, had the northmen not been ready for them. Perhaps the circling shadows in the overcast skies following the Ushtobal since Ozgad's Folly had not been seabirds, after all.

Jago cut down three more deckhands. More northmen were aboard now, and the slaughter was general, the sleek ship's deck slick with blood.

"One more step and she's dead!" screamed a shrill voice. Jago glanced up. The Ushtobal's captain stood beside the wheel, a bug-eyed dandy, his cutlass drawn across the neck of a girl of nine or ten. Dirty blond, dressed in a colorless shift, skinny. Her eyes were closed, her expression resigned.

The child they had come for. The one the Stryge wanted, gods and devils help her.

"I know you're here for her," said the captain, shaky but calmer now. A half dozen clan warriors formed a semi-circle around him, bloody weapons in hand, "I'll make a dea-"

There was a crack like thunder and the captain collapsed, his sword clattering to the deck.

Jarl Vymar stepped around the cluster of clanwarriors, a smoking flintlock in his hand. He was a tall man, grave, dressed in a salt-stained black cloak, with black hair going gray at the sides.

He grabbed the girl by the arm. She opened her eyes.

"You're safe now," said Vymar, then to the clan-warriors, "Get her on the ship, then cut this hulk loose."

Blood on the Sands: Azoth at War (Open!)

@Ink Blood @Lone Wanderer @The Wyrm @Dead Cruiser @Sightseer @Aristo@Cairo @Valor @Nieszka @DracoLunaris @Darkspleen @RyanTadashi@Culluket @ECDN @Bigg Slamm

Just checkin in. The seige of Zar Vorgul will begin by the end of the week. If you havent posted recently, please do so- even briefly. We've got a cool story going here, let's keep her alive.

Blood on the Sands: Azoth at War (Open!)

@Flagg Did you happen to look over the PMs I sent you?

@Bigg Slamm

Yeah that looks good. If you dont mind, pls exclude the pic of your character.

Daigon's Dream - Heirs of the Dark Lord

The Covenant of the Worm

Faction Name: The Covenant of the Worm

Alias: Vault Lords, the Covenant

Government Type: Necrocracy

Faction Species:

The Northfolk (human majority, called "the Warm" by their vampiric lords)

Ghouls, aka "Corpse-Eaters": carrion-eaters native to Nagath. They may have been men once, or greenskins, but have long since degenerated into crouched, half-sentient monsters. They are hardy, breed prolifically, and are considered a near universal pest, even in the Imperium. In the centuries since Daigon fell, great ghoul-nests formed in the hills and tombs of the Broken Arm. When the Stryge took refuge in the Vaults, they found the ghouls easy to dominate and made them into a servant race. Feral ghouls are common, however, throughout the North and Nagath.

Alghouls: ghouls allowed a sip of vampiric blood, they are much smarter, larger, and fiercer than other ghouls and fiercely loyal to their undead masters. Alghouls act at once as chieftains over other ghouls and as shock troops in their ranks. They are approximately on par with an orc in terms of strength and intelligence, though even more vicious. Alghouls often serve as a Stryge's personal bodyguards.

Blood Trolls: It amuses the Stryge to further twist and enthrall the already fearsome denizens of Nagath. A Blood Troll is a common troll that has been fed vampiric blood, making of it a twisted, deranged mutant. Difficult to control and dangerous to manage, the Stryge make use of few blood trolls in their armies, but these monsters wreak incredible damage among the ranks of their enemies and are very hard to kill, combining a troll's natural resilience with preternatural healing.

Chiropts Devolved vampires who have fed overmuch on the fouled blood of orcs, beastkin and mutants, Chiropts themselves become degnerate monsters, lacking the use of reason. Where many vampire clans have a policy of destroying chiropts, the Stryge take pity on these unfortunate brethren and keep them as pets, using in war as beserkers and 'hunting hounds'.

The Stryge:

We used to rule, you know. Not here, not in this wasteland, but in the West. We were masters of the great cities of men, who were our slaves and our cattle. That was before Justinian came and threw us down from our hidden thrones. He was mighty. Is mighty. The source of his power remains obscure to us. The godling's rise forced us to flee east, to the lands ruled by his foe. The one they now call the Dark Lord. Some of our kind submitted to him and served him.

Not the Stryge. We do not serve.

So we bid our time, hidden in the great tombs of the north from God King and Dark Lord alike, feeding in secret on the norsemen who served Daigon. And when he was thrown down, and the norsemen grew desperate, we became rulers of men once more.

Territory Details: Peninsula north of Ozgad's Folly, known as the Broken Arm. (WIP, details to come)

Faction Religion/Ideology: The men of the north worship a variety of traditional gods, especially the Pale Goddess, who is said to rule a kingdom of the drowned beneath the waters of the Cursed Sea. They likewise honor the memory of Daigon, the Fallen King, whom they see as a failed freedom fighter against the tyranny and (to their minds) 'atheism' of the Justinians. The Weeping Widows have a substantial, tolerated following among the northfolk.

The Stryge tend to worship- if they worship anything at all- the Conqueror Worm, That Which Gnaws at the World Roots, a demonic force said to live far beneath the earth who will inevitably consume all of creation.

Faction Description: A collection of human reaver-clans along the bitter coasts of the Broken Arm ruled by a powerful vampyr coven known as the Stryge. The humans of the Broken Arm are mostly native norsemen who have inhabited Nagath for generations, raiding their neighbors, warring with orcs, beastkin and the Marcher Lords, and hunting the great sea-beasts of the Cursed Sea. Outcasts, heretics, criminals and lunatics from the Imperium and Marcher Kingdoms also dwell among the dour folk of the Broken Arm, where they are tolerated- if not welcomed.

Reaver society is feudal. The majority of northmen are thralls- fisherfolk and crab farmers in the freezing northern marshes. Above them are clan-swords, fierce professional soldiers who hunt whales and other great beasts when not fighting. Above them are thanes, huscarls, and other favored warriors and counselors of the jarls and clan-chiefs, who rule over their clans.

The jarls and chieftans, in turn, answer to the Stryge, Those Who Dwell in the Tombs.

Faction History: WIP

Important Characters: WIP

Relations to other Factions: WIP

Blood on the Sands: Azoth at War (Open!)

Ranger Arlana

Ranger Arlana

Description: Even when not astride her varg, Arlana has a striking visage. She possesses a single scare from her tenure as ranger of the tribe, the loss of an eye covered by an eyepatch. Tattoos on her arms and shoulders also add to her appearance. Wherever she is, her faithful companion Carr, is guaranteed to be close. A massive dark furred varg, Carr has the tendency to draw the eye away from Arlana and cause many to assume that he is the true threat between the two. Arlana also travels with a dire wolf named Gwri, who commonly acts as a courier for her so she can more easily communicate with her tribe.

Once the tribes greatest archer, the loss of her eye caused Arlana's archery skills to decline to a point where she set the bow aside. For defense she uses, besides her companions Carr and Gwri, a pair of kukris and a falcata. While she is certainly more skilled than the average warrior with these weapons, her skill with the blade falls short of truly skilled warriors.
Race: Human
Faction: The Levintine Tribe
Location: The Claws
Synopsis of Role: Being the ranger of the tribe, it is Arlana's duty and honor to lead the tribe as it migrates from place to place. This, in practice, gives her power rivaling that of the tribe's chief, while ensuring that she spends as little time with the tribe as possible. She acts as the vanguard for her tribe: it is her duty to set the groundwork for future negotiations with the various cities and tribes of the land and she can, in essence, determine when and were her tribe will fight its enemies.

Here's the character that'll go along with my tribe.

@Darkspleen

looks good. if you have any locations you'd like added to the Claws, lemme know.

Blood on the Sands: Azoth at War (Open!)

Hello! This looks great. I'm very interested in joining. Would it be to late to introduce a new faction/nation? I was also wondering if I could add a new race or perhaps subspecies?

@Bigg Slamm

Depends on the details, I suppose. Why dont you share here some idea of what you have in mind. We're still open.

Blood on the Sands: Azoth at War (Open!)

Lovely posts to read so far!

@Sightseer

Agreed!

Blood on the Sands: Azoth at War (Open!)

Beware the place truth mingles with shadows, no land is as dangerous as a dream.
- Arakkai Proverb

Her third night in the desert, Cerys dreamed.

The priestess was again chained to the boulder before Mirror Lake, her hands red-black with blood and ichor, her nose filled with the sickly, too-sweet smell of the mixture. It flooded down her bare neck and naked body, pouring from the markings she'd made on her skin in impossible quantities, flowing into the lake and filling the mountain basin until it lapped at her toes, squelching up between them before climbing her bare calves, her pale thighs. She surely must drown in her own shadow-tainted blood, fastened as she was to the boulder behind her.

When the Wanderer appeared, he did not merely dim the day but brought with him an inky blackness the likes of which no mere night had ever inflicted upon Azoth. He hovered before the Priestess, already waist deep in red, and paused, undulating in place, the strange tendrils that made up his form twisting, reaching, convulsing.

Suddenly, the Red God charged. He did not envelope Cerys as she remembered his doing, so many nights before in this very clearing, but instead poured into her, inky blackness flooding into her eyes, her mouth, the red-black handprint on her chest. She was choking, writhing as her lungs spasmed, then there was nothing. Nothing but the dark.

Her terror mounting, Cerys existed now formless in the black, unable to even sense time passing. Was this what it was like to be taken by the shadows? Conscious and yet unable to act? A collective, rather than the individual.

But no, she could see again, only now she looked through the eyes of a body that was too tall, too masculine to be her own, that weilded hands larger and stronger than she remembered....

---

"Daigon," said a gruff voice.

The Coward opened his eyes, waking to a hot, noisy desert night.

He sat up from his bedroll, tucked into a corner where Zar Vorgul's northern wall adjoined a defensive tower. A lifetime spent outside and at war meant he could pretty much sleep anywhere.

Around him, soldiers bustled in flickering torchlight, busily preparing for the coming battle. Wall-mounted ballistae were being oiled and strung. Blades sparked and sang as they were sharpened. Porters rolled buckets of arrows and bolts to their places along ramparts hung with the Star-and-Moon banners of the Drathan Union.

"What is it?" he asked in his shaking voice as he stood. Har Dok, the hulking commander of the Beast Kings, loomed over him.

"See for yourself," said the aelg, gesturing north.

Daigon looked out over the night-shadowed desert. The moon was high, its silver light illuminating the skyward tendrils of an enormous dust-cloud that blotted out the horizon. The heavy tread of the Shashul's approaching army could be heard faintly on the still night air.

"Sunrise," said Daigon, "They'll be here by sunrise."

"I reckon so," said Har Dok.

---

Cerys realized she was seeing through a stranger's eyes. Daigon, the aelg had said.

What city was this, and what army?

Zar Vorgul.The name came unbidden, at once familiar and unfamiliar. She found she knew a great deal about this place she had never seen: a Drathan stronghold, too far East, in danger from...

Sifting, she hunted for a name for the approaching force and found it easily: Salished. The Rainlanders she knew, and she found she could not dispute Daigon's estimation of the fanatical warriors: capable, implacable, deluded.

Information about the man whose mind she occupied was less easy to come by. Who was this Daigon, and why had she been drawn into his thoughts? Cerys moved about his mind, searching for answers.

The desert, the city, the armies, the hulking aelg- all disappeared as she dove into the dark waters of Daigon's memories. Images swirled around- swirled through- her untethered consciousness.

A desperate flight through snow-blanketed hills, the cries of dying men still loud in Daigon's ears as he urges his steed away from the carnage.

Miles away, Cerys's lip curled in distaste beneath eyes that roved in their closed lids. Coward.

Freezing waves exploding over the prow of a longship, cutting through churning grey seas. Daigon is sitting at the stern, looking backwards at a shoreline receding from view.

Never in her life had Cerys imagined so much water. It reminded her forcibly of the desert, each breaking wave a cresting dune. And the ship! She would not soon forget the vessel. It crested another wave and plunged down into...

...flickering fires dot the slope of a massive dune, marking out the sprawling form of a mercenary camp in the desert. Daigon stands at the crest, looking out upon the force with satisfaction.

Cerys knew that picture well, in its meaning, if not its detail. Here was another leader.

The glimpse of a figure clad in white, face hidden by a gilded mask, as powerful as a god and as unpredictable. The Archmagister. 'Do it' cooes the wizard. Within Daigon blooms a desperate hunger, and with a last exertion of will, he crushes the dregs of resistance in a captive spirit. The daemon screams as it is consumed.

Recoiling in horror, the Priestess tried to arrest her breakneck travel through the memories of this foreign mind. Surely that hadn't been one of the Pantheon? One of the Red Gods? Instead of digging in thoughts, Cerys now found herself falling through them, unable to find purchase.

Who are you? echoed a quiet, shivering voice, both annoyed and amused, a little mountain-witch, sneaking in the shadows between thoughts...Cerys, Cerys is your name. Well, I-

In her panic at discovery, Cerys took hold of the next image, clinging to it like the edge of a cliff, a sea of thoughts beneath.

He is barefoot in the wet grass, watching the sun rise over mountains wreathed in fog. The growing light paints the sky first pink then red then gold, and the cold air smells of pine and woodsmoke. He knows if he turns he'll see his home behind him, his city, perched atop its hill in the center of a broad, green valley, the pale stone towers of Fanghall standing proudly above the thatched homes and cottages clustered in its protective shadow.

Aiva is there, probably just waking up. He smiles at the thought and turns to head back to her.

A wave of anger, regret, and wrenching pain washed through the stranger's mind, mingling with the empathy Cerys felt welling up from her own consciousness. And then he was standing above her precarious handhold, black hair falling wildly in to pale eyes alight with fury. In a single motion, Daigon seized the priestess by the arm and cast her into the tempest below.

You are lucky I have greater gods than yours to contend with, echoes the shaking voice, dripping with rage, out of my head, Dream-Thief.

---

Cerys woke suddenly, slick with sweat and panting, her hair sticking damply to her forehead, the furs of her simple bedding twined haphazardly about her thighs. In a jerking motion, she flung off the fabric, tearing at her clinging garments until at last her skin was bare to the cool, desert air. She examined herself desperately in the shined bowl of a simple sheild, but the polished surface showed only her own body, pale and unchanged but for the quickly fading mark of a man's hand on one arm.

*

Collab with @Nieszka

Blood on the Sands: Azoth at War (Open!)

@Ink Blood @Lone Wanderer @The Wyrm @Dead Cruiser @Sightseer @Aristo@Cairo @Valor @Nieszka @DracoLunaris @Darkspleen @RyanTadashi@Culluket @ECDN

Friendly reminder to....post!

The Elder Scrolls: Serpent's Fall

Cantankerous telvanni conjurer, reporting in.