gorgenmast

Regicide: A Civil War in Ancient Fantasy

Ohhhh... No worries then. That was still what I was going to take part in. I just went ahead and did a little exposition. No need for the royal corpses to just sit around stinking up in some foreign desert. Without modern embalming they would have moved to dispose of the corpses as soon as possible before they start rotting.

Regicide: A Civil War in Ancient Fantasy

Uh... I don't think so. Did I done goof?

Regicide: A Civil War in Ancient Fantasy

It is said that in ancient times, the families of deceased kings would pay great sums of money to hire masses of paid mourners to weep for the passing of the dead liege. But if one were to compensate the grieving throngs that lined the streets of Heliocarsus on this day, all the coffers of Calydon would be emptied.

The entire city had gathered itself along the periphery of the Sisters' Way - the cobble thoroughfare that ran from the walls up to the Acropolis mount. Men with somber faces watched from between marble colonnades as their women crowded the road with tear-moisted eyes. A million wailing voices cried to the heavens as two horse-driven carts clattered up the road to the Mount of the Eight. The escort of honor guards draped in purple robes lead the wagons through the city, dispersing the mourning citizens back to the alabaster facades and chiseled columns on the edge of the street. But as the sandal-clad feet of the spear-armed warriors passed by, weeping girls surged back and cast garlands of posies and roses into the road. A fragrant carpet of flowers blanketed the road and crunched under the hooves of the drawhorses. Within the windows and upon the rooftops, onlookers gathered and looked down into the silk awning stretched over each wagon and sobbed. There, nestled within mounds of velvet cushions and pillows, passed Syros the Unbowed followed by Galos - his lone heir.

They had come from the very fringe of the known world; carried across the seas on a funeral barge escorted by a squadron of Calydonian biremes up the mouth of the River Helos from the hateful Rhumid wastes that had stolen both their lives. There was to be no jubilation this time, no funerary games held in the honor of Syros as there had been with Galos; the hearts of Calydon's people were too laden with grief to remember their fallen king and prince in happiness. There was only sorrow to be shown as Syros the Indomitable and his prince rode to their final worldly destination: the Mount of the Eight. Only there, on the very spot where Deos had spilled his blood to give rise to the Eight Sisters, could the people of Calydon find a piece of earth worthy of submitting their esteemed king and his son to the divine beyond upon.

Even along the narrow switchbacks where the Sisters' Way slithered up the granite hill upon which the Acropolis stood, citizens wishing to see their noble king one last time gathered upon the rocky cliffs to bid farewell. On jagged ledges scarcely wide enough for goats, small congregations of the more youthful and athletic onlookers formed amongst the conical poplars sprouting from the rocks. From their stony perches they cast blossoming wreathes at the hooves and wheels of the pall-carriages, along with a few well-wishes.

"Weep not, countrymen!" An onlooker clad in a dusty-colored tunic called out to his companions. "He will return to us! He who wears all crowns only leaves us now to conquer the heavens!"

There were a great many that could not believe that their beloved king - who had conquered the known world and beyond - could have been taken by so mundane a death. How could it be that Syros the Indomitable was struck down by an unruly horse? According to an imaginative-yet-numerous number, Syros' death was the product of Deos' direct intervention; they were convinced that the very creator of the world was intimidated by the unstoppable advance of the Calydonian king - and so he elected to end the Worldwalker's march before he might usurp his divinity. Others still held that Syros' death was the work of mortal conspirators. Their claims was a covetous noble family found opportunity rather than sorrow in the death of Galos and so orchestrated the accident that had claimed their king's life.

The pall-carriages passed into a tunnel carved into a rock face standing in the way of the twisting uphill road. A cohort of the same purple-clad honor guards stood vigil at the yawning mouth, preventing mourners from going any further up the mount or entering the Pilgrim's Passage. In the cavernous tunnel, flickering torchlight illuminated the way forward. In between the torch sconces upon the dew-slickened walls were great alcoves hewn into the rock. On the smooth walls at the back of the alcoves were giant frescoes each devoted to one of the eight sisters borne by Deos upon this very mountain. Offerings of stacked coins and withered flowers left by pilgrims on their way to the summit were piled at their feet. Iphygenia, the Goddess of Industry - a buxom maiden with swirling tongues of flame for hair who hammered out a horseshoe on an anvil from glowing iron - seemed to command the most offerings of the eight. Near the opposite opening of the Pilgrim's Passage, Dryca and Khryseis, the sisters of war and tumult respectively, looked down upon the wagons bearing Syros and Galos. Dryca rode atop a rearing warhorse, holding a mighty claymore to the sky and Khryseis held her hands aloft - summoning an earthquake that destroyed the surrounding cityscape in a maelstrom of dust, rock, and fire. Both looked down upon the wagons forebodingly as they passed back into the daylight.

The carriages and their escorts returned to the surface from a portal emptying out into an open plaza on the summit. The Acropolis - a small town unto its own - stood upon the top of the hill. Smaller shrines, chapels, and gardens of swaying willows and fountains proliferated alongside the cobblestone road. Beyond the Acropolis' own ring of walls, one could see the whole of the city spread across the land. Amphitheaters, domes, and towers rose up above the sprawl and reached skyward alongside to the Pelepos Mountains to the south and west. A great colossus of weathered granite depicting a victorious hoplite raising a bronze sword into the sky straddled the main gate of Heliocarsus. The greatest statue in all the land - so enormous that its fallen member had been converted into a guardhouse - still only came within eye level of the Acropolis. At the very peak of the mount, higher than every other point and edifice in Heliocarsus, was the Temple of the Eight.

It was a circular temple crowned in a dome of polished lapis-lazuli stone held upright by a concentric ring of columns decorated with flourishing swirls from whence carved hoplites, demons, titans, and mythological beasts burst forth. Swaying poplars danced about the steps of the temple where a corps of elite guards stood and waited to receive the fallen prince and king. From within the enclosed chapel underneath the dome, a heart-stopping wail echoed amongst the stones.

Queen Lyca, who in the space of a single week lost both her husband and only child, burst into the daylight screaming hysterically as the horsehooves clattered up to the temple, eliciting sympathetic grimaces from the stone-faced guards around her. A scar-grizzled man wearing a white toga beneath purple robes held her onto the Queen's left arm as she attempted to tear herself way from her escort. The fact that a wooden peg came down from his knee where his leg ought to have been did not make his duty any easier. The Queen's amputee escort lost his footing when his peg slid out from underneath him as Lyca tugged forcefully against his grip. He hobbled fruitlessly behind Queen Lyca as she charged through the line of honor guards to the carriages. Her chalk-whitened stola fluttered in the wind behind her as she charged herself at the first pall-carriage. She pulled herself up to the lip of the wagon and looked upon the pallid face of her dead son. Her mouth stretched open and a gurgling sob came from her lungs as fresh tears streamed down her face carrying a new deposit of eye shadow to her pointed cheeks.

"This cannot happen!" The Queen wailed. "Deos, do not let this be!"

Queen Lyca looked to her side and saw the second wagon carrying Syros. The wagon drivers gave the despondent queen sorrowful glances and then directed their gaze to the cobbles beneath them. A small army of honor guards stood by, unsure of what to do as the queen screamed yet again at the sight of her dead husband. The peg-legged man shoved his way through the ranks of stunned guards and came to Lyca's side.

"Come down from there, milady." He pleaded, seizing her by the waist and pulling her down from Galos' carriage with surprising strength - the carriage rocked as he plucked Lyca from the side of the wagon.

"Release me!" The Queen demanded. "Guards! Seize this man!" She wailed between sobs. The Queen's orders notwithstanding, the honor guards didn't dare interfere with Septilios, Captain of the House Guard.

"Ssssh..." Septilios soothed, pressing his forehead against the Queen's. The guard captain was a frightening man to behold with his face carved and cratered with numerous scars. One would imagine that being so close to his tormented face would distress Lyca that much more, but he did manage to reduce her hysterical cries to controlled sobs."Deep breaths, milady... Very good."

"Why did Deos let this happen?" The Queen sobbed. "What did my husband do to offend him so? Why did he take my son so young?"

"I cannot claim to know." Septilios admitted, still in his soothing voice. He pulled his face away from hers back to a respectful distance. "Nor can any priest or soothsayer. No mortal can possibly know the designs of Deos and the godesses. We can only accept our place within them and be gracious when they decide our part has been played. Syros and Galos played a tremendous part and were great instruments of His will, but they have done their part... now it is time for them to rest."

"We too need our rest. Come retire with me, milady. It has been a very taxing day for us all." Septilios took the Queen's arm yet again. This time, she did not resist though she continued sobbing. Septilios led Lyca down the road, away from the carriages and their escorts.

"We will also need to be calm and collected. Mithreum has sent us an envoy, and we must take heed to his words when we receive him. I fear there may be more dark days ahead, milady. We must keep our wits about us if we are to meet them."

Regicide: A Civil War in Ancient Fantasy

Family Name: Solonids

Banner: Pending

Home City: Heliocarsus

Satrapy: Not applicable

History: ((I know this is shit but I hate history/bio sections with a passion and I just want to start. I'll explain so much more of the history in post.))

The House of Solon would be naught but an obscure footnote in Calydonian history were it not for it's most important member. Syros the Unbowed expanded Calydon beyond the known world, but he had far less success in creating a dynasty worthy of his unprecedented legacy. For nine years after wedding the Queen Lyca, Syros had tried fruitlessly to bear a son. As his armies trampled underfoot the great empires of the the world, Syros feared that his astounding victories abroad might mean nothing as his queen repeatedly failed to produce a son. Numerous times Lyca conceived to the jubilation of the realm, but every time she came with child the baby was lost. After Queen Lyca's seventh miscarriage, many doubted that Lyca could even bear a child. But her eighth pregnancy at last yielded a son: Galos, the heir to the Calydonian world.

But Galos fell to a Rhumid arrow, and Syros upon the hoof of a chariot horse, and the House of Solon is lost. Syros' beloved wife - Lyca -is the sole survivor of the greatest family of Calydon.As Syros' empire crumbles, the widowed Queen can do nothing but weep and watch as the empire built for her progeny buckles under the weight of personal greed of the late King's generals and the families of Calydon.

Regicide: A Civil War in Ancient Fantasy

Currently writing muh application.

Land of the Chained

I think Earl could certainly qualify as a badass.

Land of the Chained

Thank you, sir. I appreciate the appreciation.

The Sioux, Lakota, and friends all speak Lakota. I don't really see an opportune place to work that detail in, but I'll mention it somewhere IC. As for a picture, Jeff Bridges in True Grit provides an okay approximation so I hope that's cool.

Also, do we have permission to post IC yet, or are you wanting to do the first IC post?

Land of the Chained

Name: Earl Tyler Taylor
Archetype: Sharpshooter
Race/Ethnicity: Anglosaxon
Appearance:



Not really what I'm going for, but it's the closest thing that came to mind. I might end up just drawing him.

His face is dominated by a thick, wiry mustache that drapes down over his chin that obscures his mouth from view. A fat, blocky nose sits above his mustache and runs up to two wooly eyebrows. Recessed under these bushy brows are stern eyes - the left one is pointed directly forward regardless of where the right is looking. In situations requiring more decorum, he wears a black eyepatch over his left eye though he prefers not to when he can get away with it.

His preferred attire is comprised of a tattered duster jacket paired with buckskin pants - but in Richmond this sort of attire tends to attract unwanted attention from the Klan and their network of informants.

Background: This went on a lot longer than I had hoped. Oh well...

The most defining and unfortunate point of Earl's life took place early in his youth when he witnessed a taskmaster whip one of his father's slaves to death. The young Taylor was left disturbed and his mental development was irrevocably stunted. While his peers were groomed into the next generation of the South's landed elite, Earl withdrew himself from the social maneuverings of the young Gentry class and developed what could be perceived as antisocial tendencies - much to the disapproval of his mother and father. In his later boyhood, Earl discovered rifle-shooting as a palliative outlet for his frustrations. From morning to evening, the young Taylor would disappear into the cypress swamps on the far end on his father's property and fired off countless minie balls on his improvised firing range. In the interest of making his hobby more affordable, Earl recast the deformed bullets he could find downrange in an improvised forge, and as his skill behind the sights improved, he supplemented his allowance by selling what game he shot. While not particularly enthused by his disinterest in social interaction, Earl's father was impressed by his son's resourcefulness and marksmanship. By his 25th birthday, Earl became something of a local celebrity in southwestern Arkansas on the merit of his exceptional shooting ability. Even so, his relationship with his father had become particularly strained by this time - who was irritated by his eldest son's failure to find a spouse and provide him with grandchildren. Earl's father took to calling him "useless", "good-for-nothin'", and "a waste of a son" during these years.

Earl Tyler Taylor was 26 years old when Fort Sumter came under attack and Arkansas joined the Confederacy. Earl's father, an ardent secessionist, urged his son to "do something productive with [his] life for once" and provide his marksmanship to the Arkansas Militia materializing in Little Rock. Earl had no interest in inflicting the kind of death that had scarred him 20 years before and refused to join. A heated argument between Earl and his father broke out which escalated into an altercation. Earl pointed the rifle at his father in an attempt to get him to back down, but the gesture only served to enrage him. Earl's father seized the gun and clubbed him with the stock. He awoke the next evening to discover his left eye had become "lazy". That night, Earl unceremoniously left the plantation, never to return.

As the war raged in the East, Earl joined with a band of trappers and hunters in Little Rock who traveled northwest into the wilderness of the Dakota Territories. In the wilderness of America's western frontier, Earl made a meager yet fruitful living hunting the mighty beasts of the west and bartering what he could spare with French-Canadian trappers and the native Lakota and Sioux Indians. The Lakota with whom Earl dealt were pleasantly surprised by his resourcefulness and respect for the land - traits seldom found in many of the whites traveling to the Dakota Territory. During his nine years living in the hills of the Dakota Territory, Earl was impressed by the relatively egalitarian society of the Lakota Indians among which he shared the land and eventually came to call the rugged inhabitants of the northern plains his friends. At last, Earl felt at home.

In the spring of 1870, Earl's new home came under assault. News trickled in from the east that the Confederacy had supplanted the United States of America during Earl's self-exile in the wilderness. A zealous Confederacy emboldened by its victory expanded across the continent to exploit the vast, untapped riches to be had in the West. Poachers armed with powerful, modern arms cut down swathes of mammoth and bison. The plains stank of thousands of corpses of majestic beasts stripped of horns and tusks. The Lakota were distraught; their chiefs summoned Earl and asked him to demand the poachers to leave their lands. Earl knew it would be a futile task, but did as the chiefs requested out of respect. Predictably, the poachers with whom Earl treated rebuffed his demands, and sent him away from their encampments at gunpoint on many occasions. He had little sympathy for his fellow white man when he heard that the Lakota, Sioux, Blackfoot, and Ogallala had joined together in expulsing the invaders from their lands.

By next spring, the Confederacy had returned with vengeance on their mind and a slave army at their heels. With cannon and devilish coatyl steeds, General Stewart's army ravaged the Lakota Nation. Seeing firsthand the devastation wrong by Stewart's forces, Earl could stand by no longer. With his trusty Whitworth rifle, Earl went into the hills and took up arms against his fellow man for the first time. General Stewart and his command chain were too accustomed to the set-piece battles against Union line infantry on the eastern coast. The Confederate officers, decorated and riding atop coatyl, made for obvious targets; their bloated armies lumbering across the open hills were easily harried. The Lakota alongside which Earl fought granted him a name in their language: Otatay - He Kills Many.

Though he killed many men, Earl and his native companions could only slow General Stewart's westward march, but never halt it. Coatyl-mounted cavalry headed off the fleeing Lakota and enslaved those that did not meet a grisly end at the tearing beaks of their steeds. The free Lakota insisted that they retreat deep into the Badlands and regroup for another assault, but Earl Tyler Taylor decided to part ways here with his native brothers-in-arms, knowing the Plains War could never be won on the plains. As the Lakota say, to kill a rattlesnake, one must crush the head.

And so he set out to the east: to Virginia.

Skills: Exceptional marksmanship, wilderness survival, general resourcefulness.
Talent: Shooting, especially in ambush situations
Flaw: His lazy eye is mosty fixed in place. While this is somewhat helpful in taking aim, it does little to help his peripheral vision. A lifetime of shooting has also done serious damage to his hearing. As a result, it is terribly easy to sneak upon or surpise Earl.
Motivation: The rape of the land by his fellow white man and their destruction of the Lakota nation - with which Earl sympathizes with far more than he ever did the United States or Confederacy.

The United States of Slavery

Where do I sign up?

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

100 Miles Southwest of Crete, Mediterranean Sea

Even amongst the ear-numbing whine of the propellers roaring just above his head and the wind tearing through the fuselage, Luis could not keep himself from nodding off. To understate, it had been a taxing night for the green recruit. Not three months out of basic training and lacking in any real combat experience, he had been marched onto one of a fleet of these carrier-gunships. His helicopter's fuselage was a long, fusiform shape, drawing into stubby snout fanged with armor-sundering machine guns. Without doubt a predatory machine; their designation - Barracuda - was a fitting nomer. A swarm of them rolled over the gilded waves and troughs of the sea.

The fuselage of the Barracuda had not been designed with a restful night's sleep as a priority. A long, bench of canvas supported by aluminum bars bolted along the hull accommodated twelve equipped infanteria on either side of the aisle - all squished shoulder to shoulder to maximize carrying capacity and minimize comfort. Even so, Luis rested his helmet-cupped head against the bolt-studded interior wall in a mostly-futile effort to get some sleep. Against the backdrop the back of his eyelids provided, fleeting, short-lived dreams played out. Dinner with the family in the backyard with the haze-faded mountains of Huesca in the distance, wrestling with parents' dog on the living room floor, sultry fantasies involving the girl he fancied; anything that removed him from the unfortunate actuality of the past months.

The world came back to Luis once again; a friendly shove to the shoulder tore him from his reveries and returned him to the Barracuda. Luis turned grogilly to his right and found his companion Hector sitting beside him with a guilty grin.

"How the fuck can you be tired right now, Luis?"

"And how are you not? It wasn't even ten in the evening before the sirens went off." Luis groaned, massaging grains of grit from the corner of his eyes.

"Adrenaline." Hector smiled, gleefully squeezing gloved palms together.

"He's right to try to get some sleep, Hector. Leave him in peace." Luis' neighbor to his left commanded. "Save the adrenaline of yours; it will serve you better when some sandmonkey blows your arm off." Luis and Hector both turned to face the man to his right: Lieutenant Fulvio Ayesta, the assigned leader of their platoon.

"Perhaps you should hide your boner for Luis a little more carefully!" Hector shot, drawing light snickering from a few other grunts. "Wouldn't want some Ethiopian to shoot off your verga."

"Maybe so." Ayesta shrugged. "I could hardly blame them. It's quite a target: large, easy to hit. But yours? No marksman could ever hope to hit a target as small as your prick."

Soldiers in earshot made cooing 'oooh's as they heard Ayesta's response. Even Hector stifled a chuckle, admitting defeat.

"Take it from one who's seen action on the Dark Continent, there will excitement aplenty."

Before meeting Lieutenant Ayesta, Luis' only experience with a combat veteran had been with his grandfather. He had fought in the Armee Francaise against the Prussians during the Great War and after which emigrated to Spain. But even to his death, his grandfather had positively refused to speak about his experiences during the war. Whatever horrors of that war that Luis' grandfather had witnessed went with him to the grave.

Ayesta, on the other hand, always had something to say about his combat career. He had cut his teeth in the Spanish intervention in the Ivory Coast, now the Rio Niger province of the Republic's African territory. At every relevant occasion - and a great many irrelevant ones - Lieutenant Ayesta found an opportunity to regale the platoon on his tour of duty in the jungles of West Africa. Luis' stomach always turned as Ayesta described in vivid detail the napalming of rebel-held buildings or the holding of entire villages at gunpoint. But what unsettled Luis more than anything was not the visceral nature of Ayesta's tales, but his tone as he recounted them. Ayesta actually seemed to miss warfare; to long for the cathartic release of armed conflict. Luis could not begin to imagine how anyone could enjoy going to war.

"Do Africans even have guns?" A soldier across the aisle asked in half-jest. "I'm almost expecting them to field flintlocks and swords."

"You're not terribly far off. The insurgency in the Rio Niger was supplied in large part by Ethiopians. A lot of it was very obsolete: I recall a great deal of hand-me-down Great War material . The higher-ups seems to agree, their intelligence suggests a very large fighting force with mostly outdated weaponry and variable training. It will be an interesting fight... but futile on their part." As Lieutenant Ayesta went on, Luis dropped out from the discussion and took notice his comrades seated at the opening of the helicopter's fuselage leaned and craned their necks to get a better look out into the sea.

((Suggested listening.))

"Look! There they are!" A soldier exclaimed over the roar of the propellers.

The entire cadre turned and peered out of the gunship's port side. On the sea, silhouetted against water glistening in the dawn's orange glow, was the black, angular form of a warship. A convoluted canopy of radar masts and antenna dishes rose forth from a bridge towering above steel turrets, each bearing two or three mammoth guns pointed directly ahead. The roar of the Barracuda's propellers tearing through the air echoed off the vessel's hull and faded quickly as the ship passed behind the gunship. A second warship bristling with the same monstrous artillery passed by, followed by a more slender, gracile form of a cruiser. The helicopter banked gently over the fourth vessel in the convoy and turned about. And as the helicopter turned, the rest of the fleet came into view. Staggered across miles and miles of open ocean were dozens of warships stretching all the way to the horizon. Frothy trails of propeller-churned water were left in the wake of each warship; a diffuse trail of diesel smoke wafted into the air behind the vessel as they steamed eastward at full speed. Displayed before Luis and his companions was the whole of Spain's Mediterranean Fleet.

"There it is." Hector gasped. "The Armada."

Three Barracudas swooped down into formation alongside Luis' gunship as it skirted alongside the deck of a destroyer. Sailors on the deck clapped and pumped their fists into the air as the helicopters roared past. As they darted by another destroyer, a handful of the infantry tapped their companions on the shoulder and pointed to an onboard crane lowering a tank-esque armored vehicle into a side-mounted landing craft.

"Look! They've bringing in Prometeos!" A soldier exclaimed, pointing at the armored rocket-artillery vehicle swaying precariously over the side of the warship as the helicopter flew by.

Situated in the center of the fleet, escorted by a triad of cruisers, was the flagship of the armada and the destination of the gunships - the larger of the Spanish Republic's two remaining aircraft carriers: La Ira de Dios. Several other the Barracuda helicopters sat upon the island of tarmac; their propellers idling down as their cargoes of soldiers poured out onto the deck and and lined into rank and file under the red-tinged shadow of a grand Spanish flag flapping vigorously on the updrafts. Luis' stomach lurched forward as the helicopter slowed down and eased in toward the carrier to touch down.

Heads turned to the starboard as a flicker of motion drew the eyes of the infantrymen to the other side of the helicopter. An aircraft the likes of which Luis had never seen shot past the Barracudas with unbelievable speed. Within the blink of an eye, Luis registered the passing of an airplane with swept, triangular wings that seemed to lack any sort of propeller. The thrumming drone of the helicopter's rotor was drowned out for a moment as an ear-splitting shriek split the skies seconds after the plane shot past.

"Carajo!"

"What the fuck was that?!"

"I see some of us just saw a Fantasma for the first time!" Lieutenant Ayesta cackled at the fresh recruits cupping their hands over their ears. "Now, look sharp and be ready to land and disembark! Admiral Santin's waiting on us! Let's move!"