MRCHENN

“This guy literally stole our war CB???” A Valmont knight says.

"Oh wow." Says Zgregs alstion

Sir Simon read the courier’s letter once, then a second time. The labors of the day were set aside for the time being, as the knight drew quill and ink, sitting alone with the blank parchment awhile before the first word was set down. Antonius, I rode in your first retinue, when the only title before your name was Ser, and the men sworn to you could be counted upon two hands. I have stood witness to every step since, until the day a duchy bent its ear to your word. You raised it from nothing, and yet knew the hour to lay it down. Rare is a man granted both the strength for the first, and the wisdom for the second. I will not pretend that the news sits easily with me. A long road finds its end, and yet I have no argument to set against it. Valmont stands stronger than the day it came to your hand, and those who dwell within it rest easier for your stewardship. The years have made you my liege, and before that my friend, and the time between has not unmade either. Wherever the next road carries you, my blade remains yours, as it has been since the beginning. My counsel likewise, for whatever worth you find in it. Ride well, old friend. The realm is poorer for the loss of you. — Simon

I'm proud of you kid

Simon saves the date.

[!] In the lair of Domus Horrorum, amidst broken glass and the shards of their coven, a letter was pasted to their front door, marked with the sigil of the Imperial Inquisition. Issued and averred by the office of the IMPERIAL INQUISITION Harken my word, you craven Vampyres, I know your breed now. I have read your own histories, scrawled in your own hand. Vaduvesc. Children of the Widow, she who breathed you into being and abandoned you to your own rot. Five mortal souls crossed your threshold. One was even a woman! You, with your ancient blood sorcery and your whispered magicks, you who the chronicles name our betters, you looked upon us and fled into the aether like cowards. A princess drove you screaming from your own hall. Your forefathers curse your name tonight. Your covens will not speak of this. They cannot bear to. Where went your centuries? Your dread covenants sworn in blood? Your cabals, your legions, your schools of hemocraft? You abandoned them at the doorstep and scurried into nothing, like rats who have heard the farmer's boot. Even your Lady Tiwa, whose quill-knife has writ the deeds of your kind since Asulon, will not find words fit to record this shame. I shall remain. Return at the hour of your choosing, bring your broken little coven and whatever courage you can scrape from the bottom of your cauldrons. I have measured the walls of my chamber and counted its hooks. Each of your heads has a place waiting. I shall know you by your faces when I pass them each morning. Come home, cowards. Your skulls grow lonely without you. @femurlord@Nen@DISCOLIQUID@Lasombruh

As the sun began a new cycle, a lone figure passed through the halls of the Temple, his footfalls padding along the mosaic rendering of the newborn deity, the sacred icon of his people. Though he was alone here, he could feel the currents of air twist as he walked where his people had walked, in their regular pilgrimage towards the shrine of the once-Titan. Light casts from the glassaic dome overhead, illuminating the statue before him in a bright spectrum. He found himself asking, as he fell to his knees, decades of ingrained loyalty making the gesture unconscious. ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ? The scent of ozone heralded the arrival of the man. The air buckled with a violent compression; miasmas of ionized discharge and vast energies unleashed upon the stone behind him. The mosaics beneath cracked and scorched in a perfect radius, the fractures hissing against the cooler air of the shrine. When it scattered into the wind, he was left in its wake. “I am here, Chosen.” The Dragon turned to look upon the Lion. There was irony in his enamored approach, his armored boots upon the mosaics of his patron were sacrilege enough. But the Dragon's eyes moved across the man's adornments with a slow and particular attention, the embered half-lidded glow of them tracing each piece in turn: trinkets, many of them, fashioned from the weaponized bones of his kin. Each one catalogued. Each one remembered. “And yet you are not the one I called, Keeper.” “I am the only one who would answer.” The silence held. Neither moved to break it. “You wear their bones.” He did not look back as he said it. “I wonder if you know whose they were.” “Do you remember the names of every one of us you slew in the name of your Usurper?” The Lion’s eyes moved to the idol, tracking the carved scales, the spread wings, the stone face of the ascended; this banner of an enemy he’d spent centuries fighting. “In his pursuit of freedom, he became Order.” Noticing his contempt, the Dragon gestured at the shrine of the Temple’s heart, rising then, measuredly. “Fate is the scaffold of all things, every age built upon it, broken by it. That is what stands before you. Not a conqueror. Not a warlord.” “Name me a truer Order.” The black of the Lion's plate rose and fell as he spread his hands, the centuries-worn steel catching the light from the dome above. “Fate is not Order. The sun has not been the same since his death. Old evils now stir in corners that the light of my Patron once reached. Fate willed all of it. Ruin, as much as peace.” He laughed, low and short, reciting then scripture in rote repetition, “His primordial aspects were assigned then unto him; Order, to maintain the balance the Maker had so carefully forged.” And then pivoted from that quote, “The balance your Father has thrown aside.” “Conviction is what separates Order from Ruin. Conviction wills it.” Smoke issued from his nostrils in a thin, deliberate plume, rising toward the dome. “Your Father tends his garden. So tell me, Dragon, who holds the realm?” The Dragon moved to the shrine and rested his fingers at the base of the temple. The stone was warm beneath his touch. “No longer will it be the quarrelings of False-Gods. Nor Daemons. No longer.” He turned from the idol. Behind him the carved face of his fallen brothers watched in silence, and the dome light fell upon his draconic architecture as he faced the man in his ethereal plate. “We shall.” The Lion's hands dropped to his sides. For a long moment he said nothing. His gaze stayed upon the idol, and in the worn relief of his armor the dome light caught and scattered, throwing pale reflections across the mosaic at his feet. The bones at his belt clicked faintly as he shifted his weight. When he spoke at last, his once-golden voice had shed some of its edge. “Your Father fought centuries for the right to choose his own fate. And when he held it, he put down his sword and left this realm.” He moved to stand beside the Dragon, both of them facing the Temple. “The others never understood. The war between you and I did not end in defeat. It ended because there was nothing left worth fighting for. Too often we relied on intervention from the Lord of Sunlight. Hubris was our greatest flaw. The belief that right makes might. We were so used to past successes that we could not notice how dim the light had gotten, and how close the encroaching shadows were. Too many flocked to the glory held in leading, when all had forgotten how to follow, and so we failed.” “He won. I will not pretend otherwise, though the others will.” “Then we are agreed.” “A new order,” said the Lion. “Ours to define,” said the Dragon. “No. There is still one left to inherit the mantle in its closest form.” “Who then?” “Your father was not the only Titan.” “Her?” “Sol Invicta.” “And in return?” “We will free your Father’s father.”

Zgregs 'Derfei' Alstion stood before the troops upon that day, and imparted unto them a great truth. "I had someone tell me I fell off, ooh I needed that... 🎶"

"Sojourn forth, my herald, into the path that awaits you. Find the Self, and you shall find purpose. Heed the words of none but what your heart commands. The Mountain does not forget, nor the Flame. It is yours now, as the World is, ripe for the taking. As my Father once did — soar."

Issued and averred by the office of the GRAND INQUISITOR Hearken, subjects of the Imperium. On this day, the Imperial Inquisition records its victory over the floating landscar. For years, the traitor known as Ark moved freely, first within the Empire she sought to destroy, then beyond its borders, in the shadow of orc territory, where she raised a tower and filled it with mages who shared her allegiances. She attempted to claim the life of His Imperial Majesty. She courted the Void. She believed distance and secrecy and sympathy to her own treachery would protect her. They did not. The Magi tower known as Veilward was infiltrated by the brave defenders of the Imperium. Those who swore themselves to her service and, by extension, to unforgivable treason against the Crown have been put to the sword. Their heads hang as testament to the fate that awaits enemies of the Imperium. Ark herself was captured and delivered to Imperial justice. Decades ago, the former Grand Inquisitor, Sir Antonius of the House Helane set this in motion. He did not see its conclusion as Grand Inquisitor, but it is his dedicated work that made it possible. The success also belongs equally to [REDACTED], whose intelligence proved indispensable. The Empire does not forget those who serve it faithfully. Unfortunately, many of Ark’s followers have now dispersed into our realm. Therefore, all Mage licenses previously valid within the Crownlands are hereby revoked, with reapplication required in order to set foot within the Imperium. All Magi or mundanes with ties with Veilward are to be submitted to the Imperial Inquisition. However, what this office has uncovered in that tower, demands the attention of every loyal subject of the Empire. Ark, the individual formerly recorded as Yera, the Architect, and Norigami, is not merely a mage. Examination of the recovered chassis established her nature. She is a machine spirit: a descendant soul severed from its mortal body and bound into an automaton frame purpose-built for spellcasting, its interior laden with enchantment and glyphs carved into the cogwork throughout. Embedded within were self-illuminating crystals of unidentified composition. Their purpose remains under investigation. Most functioning automata within the realm are known to this office by the ‘APA line’ or accounted for by their makers in Kurai-Kuni. Any that are not are to be regarded as suspect. Visual identification alone is insufficient: cloth, finery, and illusion magic can obscure an automaton chassis from casual inspection. Aurum applied to the skin will not. Contact with the standard test will identify metal where flesh is claimed. Inquisitorial agents are authorized to conduct this examination on any automaton of unverified origin without prior warrant. But this was the lesser discovery. We have been informed of something far more terrifying. Ark is a host. A host of the Parasite known to us as the Nyxium Infection. It is not native to this plane of existence. It has consumed another plane entirely, morphing whatever inhabitants remained into something of pure terror, and it has attempted to breach ours once before. Those who stood in Veilward's tower did not serve a rogue mage with a grudge against the crown. They served a catalyst for something that has already ended a world, and now seeks ours. Enemies of the Empire answer to Imperial justice. Those who consort with the Nyxium Infection are enemies of Creation itself. This office will treat them accordingly, and expects the realm to do the same. Machine spirits do not die as men do. The soul does not perish with the body — it migrates. Ark has in all probability secured a new vessel. This office assesses two possibilities: ✢ She has occupied a prepared automaton chassis, built and stored in advance of her capture. Such bodies are inert without a soul to inhabit them and must be kept somewhere.They can be found. They can be destroyed. Without spare chassis, her soul has nowhere to flee, and death becomes permanent. ✢ Or, she has resorted to Tawkins craft, transferring her soul into a flesh-clone of false make. Both have limits. Both can be uncovered through a standard Darkspawn test. If you encounter an automaton or mage that you cannot account for, report them to this office. Do not engage. Do not warn them. The Parasite has one world. It will not have this one. AVE IMPERIUM! His Excellency, Simon of Vîlachia, by the Grace of GOD, Imperial Grand Inquisitor, and Knight of Valmont.

“Come and get it.” The Grand Inquisitor reclined in his chair.

“You must get rid of that awful haircut. Go to Reinmar, the Barclays are notoriously known for giving good fades.” Simon Pruvia remarks to his trusted friend, Sir Antonius. @woke

Why is skyler S tier she was an opp

Issued and averred by the office of the GRAND INQUISITOR ON THE MATTER OF THE SILVERWOOD SCAR & THE ENTITY KNOWN AS REIKENOR, THE WRAITHLORD ✠ I: THE SCAR IN THE SILVERWOODS The Inquisition has become aware of a wound festering within the Silverwoods: one that imperils not merely the security of its borders, but the sanctity of the realm entire. The land itself has been unmade; the earth corrupted, the forest withered, and the air rendered hostile to descendant-kind. From a ruinous fissure torn into the material plane, the Abyss bleeds into our world without ceasing. The dead rise from the ground in endless succession and defile all that GOD's creation has set in order. The Silverwoods are to be considered denied territory. No civilian or military personnel is to enter the affected zone without sanctified support and considerable arms. ✠ II: THE WRAITHLORD The works of what dwells within the Silverwoods can be described only as purely Evil. The entity, Reikenor, is a wraithlord of singular power, self-willed, unknown but most unlikely beholden to some greater, dark master operating within the realm. It is titanic in stature, skeletal and spectral in form. Its capabilities, as confirmed by intelligence gathered, are as follows: ✢ Commands necromancy at the highest observed order, raising and directing the dead in organized assault, sustaining endless waves of construct from the earth of the fissure itself. It may summon this assault both from ground or sky. ✢ Its weapon and abilities carry properties of decay, observed to rot and deteriorate material on contact, including armaments and armor. ✢ The divine protections of the faithful are significantly diminished within its sphere of influence. Holy wards are to be considered unreliable in proximity to this entity. ✢ Deploys abyssal fire offensively, punishing ranged combatants with force sufficient to shatter cover and interrupt any attempt at ranged engagement. ✢ Regenerative abilities, meaning conventional arms are likely insufficient to permanently harm it. This office theorizes the fissure serves as the source of this regeneration, though this remains unconfirmed. Through intelligence and testimony gathered, the following doctrine has been established by this office. The entity, identified by those present as herald of some new purpose, has made its intentions clear. It does not seek dominion. It does not just seek the spread of undeath as an end in itself. What this office has encountered is something more total in its ambition and more terrible in its implication. Its doctrine is the closure of the Heavens: the severing of the covenant between GOD and His creation and the rendering of the descendants without grace, purpose, or divine order: a world stripped of meaning, in which existence itself is made hollow, and in which the very act of Creation is undone. It spoke of Fate as already decided and its victory as inevitable. This office does not record this as boast. It records it as a warning. ✠ III: RECOMMENDATIONS The fissure must be closed. This office calls upon mobilization of armed forces capable of sustained engagement with undead in significant numbers, and aid from the Holy Mother Church for the deployment of whatever holy rites may be brought to bear against an entity that actively suppresses divine power. Any and all persons with intelligence on these matters are hereby summoned to testify before the Inquisition. AVE IMPERIUM! H V M A N I T A S I N V I C T A “Für Gott und Kaiser,” HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY, Hadrian I of the House Horen, by the Grace of GOD, Emperor of Man, Holy Imperator, King of Seventis, Salvus, Renatus & Oren, Duke of Middelan, Helena, Sunholdt, and Reutov, Baron of Pestilles, Protector of Grense, Protector of the Heartlanders, Patriarch of House Horen & the Tiberian Dynasty, Captain-General of the Church, Defender of the Faith. ALEA IACTA EST P E R F I D E M I M P E R I I THE RIGHT HONORABLE, Antonius of the House Helane, by the Grace of GOD, Count of Valmont, Knight Captain of the Imperial Order of the Red Dragon, Grand Inquisitor, Patriarch of House Helane, Lord Commander of the Blackwyrm Company. Simon of Vîlachia, by the Grace of GOD, Knight of Valmont, Sergeant of the Blackwyrm Company.