ｔｈｅ ｂｌａｃｋｌｉｇｈｔ ｆｅｌｌｏｗｓｈｉｐғʀᴏᴍ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴘᴛʜs ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴄᴀᴍᴇ
𝔇𝔬 𝔫𝔬𝔱 𝔤𝔬 𝔤𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔩𝔢 𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔬 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔤𝔬𝔬𝔡 𝔫𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱,
𝔒𝔩𝔡 𝔞𝔤𝔢 𝔰𝔥𝔬𝔲𝔩𝔡 𝔟𝔲𝔯𝔫 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔯𝔞𝔳𝔢 𝔞𝔱 𝔠𝔩𝔬𝔰𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔡𝔞𝑦;
𝓡𝔞𝔤𝔢, 𝔯𝔞𝔤𝔢 𝔞𝔤𝔞𝔦𝔫𝔰𝔱 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔡𝑦𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔩𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱.
The sea was black and cold, rip-curls tearing at the water's surface. The ocean wailed as waves churned and sloshed back and forth. The smell of sea spray was assaulting, and froth and brine was jettisoned every which way by the violence and rage of the sea. It was high tide, and the tumultuous ocean was unruly. Raindrops as big as quarters hammered the sea amidst large and booming claps of thunder. A single, wooden boat stood defenseless against the battering of the waves. The boat was small, with little ability to make headway, and thus the ocean tossed and slung the boat whatever way it pleased, batting it aside effortlessly with herculean waves. Drenched fishermen scrambled on the boat, desperately trying to stabilize and steady the boat through the storm. Knots were tied in anguish, sails shortened in desperation, and as a last ditch effort several crew men were heaving buckets of water off the ship. A captain barked orders at the head of the ship, but it seemed for naught. It looked as though the storm was going to take the small fishing boat with it. A culmination of the howling wind, the fulminating thunder, and the ferocity of the waves, all added up to a dire feeling of hopelessness.
Suddenly, the world shook, and the blackness of the sea was deeply perturbed by inordinately gargantuan waves. The fishermen swore the earth's crust threatened to tear from such a violent magnitude of what at first seemed like an earthquake. For the crewmen on the boat, it looked to them that the world was ending right then and there. Ironically, these poor fishermen were not very far off from the truth. The sea ripped apart to make way for something, and in an explosion of saline ocean and spraying brine, a hulking monolithic creature exploded from the depths of the sea. The creature was sinuous and worm-like in shape, tough scales layering it's body, and no visible eyes. Teeth jutted from it's mouth, with what little moonlight that could be seen through the tumultuous storm clouds overhead, glinting sharply off of it. The creature was immense and colossal, being at least 250 feet in length. It stretched it's gaping mouth hole wide, teeth and all, and let out a ear-piercing cry which could be heard for miles on end. The worm beast burrowed into the sea once more, it's mammoth tail flailing behind it, kicking up waves in it's plunge. The waves resulting from the beast's dive sent the poor fishing boat thrashing into the volatile surf, the men on the boat desperately trying anything to steady it.
Amidst the ocean spray and battering rain, the worm-like creature surfaced once more with ferocity, flying into the air, with the poor wooden boat snatched in between it's jagged teeth. The flimsy wood did not stand a chance to the brute force and excruciatingly sharp teeth of the behemoth, and the now unsubstantial construct of lumber snapped like a tooth pick in the jaws of the leviathan. Screams of crew men could be heard as they fell one by one into the throat of the monster. The worm happily snatched them up, and gulped them as if they were small spoonfuls of peas. With one more bloodcurdling cry, the creature raised it's front end almost as if it was stretching to the sky, before promptly diving once more into the black depths of the ocean. ---
Pyre is a fractal world of scattered archipelago and small chains of islands. It is populated solely by humans and human species. Pyre rests in a Feudal age with Medieval nobles and royalty lording over their respective islands in what are small city states, with no true great powerful nation having emerged, perhaps this being a direct effect of the difficulty of invasions in such a scattered archipelago. The interesting thing about Pyre, is that amidst the twister of islands, each one has it's own independent climate, ecosystem, and biome. Certain islands may be lush with leafy tropic canopy which stretch as far as one can see until they eventually bleed into the horizon in a churn of verdant greens and azure blue, whilst other Islands are frozen tundras littered with glaciers and icy fjords. Between the medley of islands lies the ever expansive ocean, which has been coined the Black Sea, due to it's unsettling dark tone.
However, everything is not lush green tropics and sandy beaches, at least not any more. Colossal creatures have emerged from the depths of the Black Sea, termed Goliaths due to their enormity in size. These are gargantuan creatures that their only correlation seems to be their size and their deadliness; in other words, these beasts can be all manner of different forms and shapes. Some have been seen as worm-like, others dragon-like, and even some having been cited as "land-shark like." Aside from their insatiable appetite for humans, what makes them all the more dangerous, is their ability to traverse both land and sea.
In regards to magic, wizardry, and witchcraft, it is a known luxury, which is channeled through the use of a mystic energy known as manna. Certain children are born more receptive and more in tune with the flow of manna in this plane of existence, and are naturally more adept at magic than others. In other words, some people quite simply have it, and others just don't. Obviously, their aptitude with manna must be honed and trained, in most cases by an elder or a village mage. Manna is very powerful, and by effect is dangerous to be handled by those who are inexperienced. Some bite off more than they can chew, and by effect have too much manna in their systems and results in something known as
"Manna overload." In manna overload, one has channeled more manna than their psyche can handle, and the uncontrolled energy normally causes the victim to be "electrocuted" by the power of the pure and unadulterated energy, which can, and most of the time will, result in death.
