Isvinity

great lore, gorgeous formatting!! +1

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In the year One Hundred and Ninety-Eight of the Second Age it was discovered a set of tomes within the Sanctum of Illivira which told the tales of the Mali’ame Faunus’ journey across the continent of Aevos, his fated encounter with an elf of the Almenodrim Thalassa, and their god-defying love. These tomes have been replicated and placed within the village for visitors to read as they please. FOREST A Mali’ame rose with the sun and not a moment before. His footsteps were like a pebble bouncing from bark to bark, quick and nevertheless following a path that seemed predestined – because he’d long known this route for the wild boar and turkeys that called it home and fed his tribe. Today, something more than a tiger growled, far out from the forest he called home. He’d never heard such an arid roar click in any beast’s throat before, and the Mali’ame had known every pelt and tooth this forest nurtured… of this, there was no doubt. A black panther stalked the grounds before him – his friend, nameless, for it was not the Mali’ame’s place to give him one – nostrils flaring in the hopes of finding prey, but he too heard a roar unlike any other. The panther did not cower, but for hours they prowled towards the outskirts of the forest with an unbroken gait. The Mali’ame swung his lance, which whistled through the air like an arrow before thudding dully through a roving elk. It would feed him and his friend. Over a strong fire, they roasted its hide as evening came to dusk, but somewhere North a beast still growled. In pursuit of discovering it, the Mali’ame had strayed far from the grounds he knew, and he thought he had known them all. Their stomachs full and the Mali’ame’s knees bent, they knew they’d face this terrible thing soon. A shorebird with a curled beak walked slowly from one end of the treeline to the next on the final stretch of the Mali’ame’s journey to the shore. OCEAN Thalassa, sweet Almenorean, had never come this close to where sand turned to dirt. The sight of grain clumped tight and brown enough for the ground not to sift beneath her was as beautiful an enigma as the silhouette drifting behind the thick root of a great kapok tree, his fingers curled around its top with intent to rise and hunt – and rise he did, with skin kissed tan by the sun and russet curls of hair that spooled out like it was a mane of gold. The lance he had angled down at Thalassa turned passively against the ground instead – and it seemed like Thalassa was wrong, because the ground did shift and tremor so the sand would make a path Thalassa would no longer need to keep pulling her feet from. It was the first of a Mali’ame named Faunus’ many kindnesses to the sea. “Who are you?” Thalassa wondered, and did not know she spoke. It never mattered how quietly she, a wave at heart, tried to come ashore; there was always seafoam to herald her arrival. “I am Faunus,” the Mali’ame spoke, and his voice toed the line between psithurism and song. “Who are you?” His question first sounded like a boulder rolling down a mountain, threatening to splash into her – but Thalassa knew her sea and how well it could carry any burden. Faunus always deigned himself heavy and too jagged to hold, Thalassa could tell. “I am Thalassa,” the Almenodrim said as she smoothed the front of her dress beneath her shins and sat on her calves. She pinched soil, and held it up. “What is this?” “My feet,” Faunus replied. She looked to the still canopy of leaves above her and asked, “You lie. What is that?” “My voice,” Faunus spoke in unison with their ruffling beneath the breeze. “You jest. What are those?” Faunus followed Thalassa’s finger to the eyes of a slow-blinking panther, shadow creeping behind Faunus and brushing a tail as thick as his arm along his leg. “It’s only how I smile,” the Mali’ame finally mustered. “I love it,” Thalassa cooed as she rose back to her feet. The tide pulled the sand back flat, and sunk her feet in white bubbles for small fish to kiss, because so beloved was she in all the ways she could not see, and only feel. “What are those?” Faunus asked, angling his spear at her feet, long oak brought over his shoulder. Thalassa held her hands out, and for the briefest moment the spaces between her fingers seemed like the ones where his fit perfectly. “My love,” Thalassa laughed, as though to think anything else was absurd and endearing. Faunus frowned. “It cannot come ashore,” he said, and Thalassa for the first time heard how a tremor needn’t be strong enough to topple a mountain. Often, it shook only a heart. Her brows curled with worry, and with a shimmy of her foot to make her love scatter all about the Isle on which Faunus stood, to ever encompass him with it, Thalassa smiled, teeth like pearls Faunus had never seen. “We can try.” “Will you come again tomorrow?” Faunus asked, “I worry.” “I will.” Thalassa answered, “You never should.” SHORE Days together blended into months. Thalassa spun him a necklace made of seashells, so he would always remember the lines her smile would someday set on her skin. Faunus brought to her a riverside blossom so she might always remember that he longed to take root in her heart, and Thalassa tended to it carefully when she set its roots in her sand, and grew it did from her gentle watering and the sweet nothings she spoke to its petals. There came a time the flower sought more to grow – waters from deep within the woods and a sprinkling of sugar to sweeten its nectar. There came a time Faunus brought it with him to meet Thalassa, and there came a time when he was followed. As Thalassa brushed her fingertips over the golden heart at the center of the petals, she raised her head to see Faunus and two more. An elder Mali’ame, old as a crone and greying at the head – a younger Mali’ame, with barely any hair on his chest. “Thalassa,” Faunus spoke after rolling a barrel of riverwater onto the sand, and hefting a bag’s worth of sugar over his shoulder, right before the place where she knelt. The meager splash of the water stained Thalassa’s dress, and Faunus could not look. “I must be away. I hope this is enough for our flower to grow.” Thalassa looked to the bag, and to the bottle, and to the tribesmen behind Faunus, and she cooed: “It is not. How long will you be, Faunus?” “Long,” interrupted the elder. “Longer,” added the youth, and Faunus could not yet look at Thalassa. “Shorter,” Thalassa asked as she hurried to her feet and stood at the border where sand met dirt. Her hand reached out for Faunus' wrist, and caught it. “Shortest, Faunus. What have I done wrong?” “Nothing.” The older Mali’ame spoke with a tautness to her jaw and the rigor of discipline straightening her back. “Faunus has only himself to blame.” Faunus surrenders his spear to the boy after peeling his wrist from Thalassa’s hand like a snake sheds scales, placing a palm behind the broad of his back before moving into the depths of the forest. “This flight of fancy cannot be more for him. Not for some time, sweet daughter of Almenor. Can it be for you?” “Not with so little water and sugar,” Thalassa whined. “And if I brought it to you?” The elder queried. “How could that be the same?” “It is not.” “Will it ever be?” “Time will tell.” “Our blossom doesn’t have time,” “Neither do we.” “I am his rhyme,” “But never his reason, sweet daughter of Almenor. Our people suffer in his absence and pay the price in hunger for the time you steal.” Thalassa was silenced. So was Faunus. No Mali’ame but Faunus receded into the woods, and Thalassa wept. She wept, and her tears unto petals that curled to hold them. She painedly whined, and the flower shuddered at the stem, and stood rigid, as though to say: ‘I am still here, won’t you look down?’ Thalassa sunk her hands into the dirt just past the sand, and did not feel Faunus moving. A fit seized her. She turned to the sea, screamed into its vast hollow – but in the refraction of the water, Thalassa swore that the canopy of leaves above her was sifting and bristling with a voice, and that the gaps the rays of sun it let through were his eyes peeking and making sure she was safe, and that the stout bark was the arms he’d grown to shelter her – and somehow, Thalassa thought no more, because her heart belonged to a flower that turned to her as though she were sunlight herself. She had become Faunus’ sun. It was proof. SAND Thalassa had been left with her lower lip quavering, her gasps choked by tremors, eyes forever settling between the calves of those young and old Mali’ame wardens, their vigil stoic and silent. She knew every way the sun could glimmer past the leaves now – what a streak of light meant to a patch of grass, and when the leafcutter ants moved from one flank of the forest to the other with a green bounty pinched between their mandibles. She had never set foot on the dirt for fear of tripping Faunus and slowing his journey. Ignoring her heart’s yearning to push past them both and flee into his arms tested her will every day. A morning came when each Mali’ame lost the color in their face. The boy choked back hiccupping tears, and Thalassa could feel nothing but contempt for him: for who was he to cry, and who was the elder to look so solemnly over her head and into her shore, as though it had been his for longer than Thalassa had known it? She set her anger aside every time the sun rose, because she faced East, and the glimmers of light let her see the treeline best. She hadn’t seen a silhouette like Faunus’ in so, so long. “You are so strong, Thalassa. Always looking ahead,” mustered the older Mali’ame with an intonation so solemn, Thalassa only felt that she mocked her. In silence, her resilience bolstered. “The tide is rising,” the boy had worrisomely cooed, chest heaving with a sadness Thalassa could not place, and did not want to give them the luxury of placing. “I won’t be distracted,” said Thalassa through her teeth as she tipped her bottle to water their flower. It faced her still. It did not matter how brilliantly the sun above them shone. Thalassa stalked the treeline like Faunus’ smile with her eyes alone, but the roar of the shore behind her grew louder. The seafoam first inched to tap her feet, and then moved forwards to wrap by the flanks of her legs, knelt on the sand. Her hands strayed to touch the sea and her currents, cleaning her fingertips of what sand clung. She pulled her hand back, bloodied. Thalassa’s eyes widened in shock, but the Mali’ame looked away, teeth agrit. Her nails explored her hand for an urchin’s spike or a lobster’s pinch through her skin, and found none. Nothing hurt. Thalassa took a risk to pry her eyes from the treeline, and place it on the shoreline. Faunus was a corpse. His lips were as blue as the waters he drowned in, skin as gaunt and pale as it was swollen at the stomach and limbs by seawater. His russet coils of hair had turned as thin as a current and as waifly as the water-logged ghost he’d become. She spooned his stiff palm into her own, and could not bring its fingers to warmly curl around her palm the way they once had. “We should have believed him. That he would travel the round of the world to see you again, even if he had never once touched a sail before.” “Where is his boat?” asked the boy. “He swam,” answered the elder Mali’ame. Thalassa’s wailing cry filled the air. She had never been the sun. For the first time, Faunus rose from the West, as their blossom had always known he would. SKY Mali’ame and Thalassa alike worked in silence. His grave was dug in the border where sand met dirt. Only those present for it knew the specific patch of ground, and they took the secret to their own graves. The Mali’ame left on a moribund voyage, their return to their dying tribe. The sun bleached and pruned Thalassa. She wandered the shore like his ghost, aimless the stumble. It lasted long and it didn’t. For the very first time, Thalassa stepped foot on soil. Western tribes learned of a wailing, pale woman who would answer none and stalked the shores with naught but a blowing shell – how her silence blended with her beauty to form an idyllic picture of grief. To them, she spoke only in depthy glances and the campfires she left extinguished. From her, they learned the grace of quiet and dignity, and how ruins told stories of deep insight. Northern tribes passed on lessons of discipline and grace of craft: of a woman so thin she was driftworn from pouring herself into her work, sharpening a crude spear by the day and lancing fish with incredible precision by night. From her and the slow roast she put before them, they learned ferocity, patience and the rigor to make it useful. With roots for knots, wood for spears, and gritted teeth for focus on prey and enemy. Eastern tribes chronicled a woman as thin as a coral who turned her screams into song through a beautiful conch, her melodies wracking grief in any shoregoer on the precipice of loss lucky enough to witness them. They claimed the drawings she left on the sand the tide would move around. From her, they learned the power of art, and how loss was the prelude to it and a catharsis unlike any other. Southern tribes detailed such a different blossoming Thalassa. A girl, sinewy and weak, but full of life – covered from head to toe in paints, shaking coconuts filled with pebbles and inspiring people to dance and celebrate something, anything; with dyes, with yelling, with playing and rolling the mud and most certainly with those who needed it most. From her, they learned that for as dangerous as the world was, it was also a playground, and it must be as colorful and warm as possible. Thalassa found West again. While ceremonies across the isle were held in honor of the beauty she left in her wake, Thalassa collapsed, and started to sink. The radiant, falling sun, sinking into the sea itself, shone so brightly that not a single mali could identify her silhouette in the yellow-orange orb of the sunset rippling over the sea. When it finally hid over the horizon, Thalassa was nowhere to be seen. Thalassa’s devotion was the death rattle of Faunus’ legacy. The Incomplete Verse It was not missed, even in the deep dark, For the Aspects, for once they did agree; That on a new journey, they would embark, Love would stay together, they did decree. So they plucked free both their intertwined souls, Thalassa, Faunus, from depths, both arose. Not as animal, person, or a tree, Nor as just lovers would they then soon be; They'd both be wild, pure, and forever free, Thalassa would hold sway over the sea. To Faunus they granted the earthen woods, The mountains, the moss, and even elk, too. So they'd touch again in the summers floods, His branches, would her healing rains renew. Each roll of her tides was like a kiss, Rivers carved through him to reminisce.

"That they'd make such demands," chided a Caurósian dignitary to her much elder relative, @Nectorist. "And to ride it on the back of falsehood. They claim we whisper lies but they do not tell the truth of what took place in that courtroom. Pity."

[!] A missive spreads across the realm bearing the seal of the royal house of TUNDRAK, addressed to the REMNANT BLOODLINES and all those surviving MALI'FENN which made the crossing to Aevos, with the exception of the denounced ATMORICE. The noticeboards of HAENSE, NORLAND, REINMAR, AND NEVAEHLEN bear similar messages. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ TO THE MALI'FENN OF AEVOS – Though our tomes and records have been lost to the Cataclysms, it is writ across our storied past that the mali’fenn have time and time again eschewed the realms which have served to forge the united front of Elvendom. We have forgotten that just as our people have found strength and veneration on the fringes of these societies, we achieved more when we stood alongside them. It was on Arcas during the War of the Two Emperors that Aelthir II assembled the ranks of Elvendom behind the banner of Wyrvun and checked the advance of the Empire of Man. It was on Almaris that Vytrek’s yawning vision of grandiose shepherded the people of Iker’fiyem and Nor-Velyth unto the era of The Grand Embrace of Malinor. These ascents, though wrought by our steel, would have been incomplete were we to have been alone. Yet, as the decades have unfurled and our people scattered with the ravages of time, our unity has frayed. Too proud to embrace a diminished station, us mali’fenn once again chose to forsake our kin and estrange ourselves from modern Elvendom. I am no innocent in this; when the great realm of Almaris met its ruin and we undertook the perilous voyage to this continent, I abandoned my duties out of fear, for my ideals did not align with our sovereigns of yore and we have long been a stubbornly traditional people. It is now, at the turn of the century in the rising AGE OF ELVES, that I see our people have borne the grievous cost of this isolationism. I believe that it is change that will deliver us to greatness again; that our survival need no longer mean our suffering. With the blessings and benediction of my forebears I seek to amend these long-standing errors and to reunite our kin under the banner of Cauróst and The Khanate, where the people are honorable and the values of a warrior are not so unlike our own. Should service to the coming age foster the return of our people to safety, security, and prominence, then it is a cause deserving of our utmost dedication. So I say this – to the mali’fenn bereft of hearth and home, and to those who have not found it within The Fennic Palatine, I implore you to return to me your name and place of dwelling, that I might send an envoy to journey you safely to Cauróst so we may all speak face to face. It is only together that we can restore the wellbeing of the mali’fenn, and so it is TOGETHER that these decisions must be made. Let us point our blades to the future, and dispel the fears of the past, as one. SIGNED, PRINCESS ORSINA AELYRA TUNDRAK Archon of the Tundrak Bloodline ℑ𝔱𝔬 𝔫𝔞𝔢 𝔢𝔩𝔞𝔫𝔫𝔦𝔩'𝔦𝔰𝔳𝔦𝔫.

There is movement along the cobbled banks of Cauróst — a cat chirps and stalks the feet of a door that does not open to let it in, before diving sideways into the shadows of a small opening. Aldred rests on his calves on the edge of the wall, perched like a night bird. He has brought them to a quiet part of the city, where the air is crisp with the lightly sweet scent of the Ivorywood and the earthy musk rising off of the lake. Around a corner and behind the city, so unused that rubble still pockets the overgrown bushes. In a couple more years of residency the builders will surely align this place to a presentable effect too, but for now the wild remains, caught in the spray of yellow and orange flowers growing zealously out of the stone wall. Centuries ago, Aldred might have hid his smile — but he is different now. The both of them are different. He has no reservations in letting Orsina know that he is glad, so very glad, to see her. Relief and happiness at once, so strong as to be almost bittersweet, soft on his face. It is his turn to speak. He hesitates. His niece blinks. Calm, and considering. Exceedingly patient. Anxious, he thinks, somewhere inside, but she weathers it as easily as his sister did. "I hope you’re doing well," he begins. "It seems like it. I was sorry to hear of what happened to you. I am sorry that there was nothing I – that I did nothing." Aldred pauses; it is dusk now, and the rising swell of insects allows him time enough to think on what to say next. "You deserve better than what you’ve endured. It's why I came here. It's why I wrote to you." "Vytrek raised you – that much is clear. I see so much of him in you," Aldred says, politely but abruptly. When Orsina looks at him, a little startled, Aldred takes the opportunity to study her face. Old and young at the same time. He doesn't know what he expected to find, but there is something unsettling in his niece’s scarred eyes that confirms his suspicions. "And you look a great deal like your mother, too." It hangs for a moment, though Aldred simply continues as though he, too, has no interest in facing the subject head-on. "I know the burden you carry is a heavy one. The expectation to build another princedom atop another craggy hill and rule, as is your birthright." Orsina does not grimace, though the impulse exists. She could, yes. "Maybe," she agrees. "Maybe not. The Drakons have raised the Palatine; many have rallied to their cause. Their plans are narrow-minded, but they are plans all the same — it is more than I can offer our people." She does not argue her own influence. She is her people’s highest authority now. Without the Drakons at her side, vying for her, her people contest her, call her a false ruler, but she understands her uncle’s meaning: beyond all this, in the practical realm, her decisions, and the decisions of those she decides to trust, will move pieces. Put people into positions of authority. People who will then go on to stand on sides as the fight over the princedom’s floorbound corpse begins. Orsina does not shy from her accountability. She knows. But she knows, too, that there is... opportunity here. To let things lie where they have fallen. Her people were decimated. Even if it is possible for the bloodlines to recover, and if they wish to continue their service, if the archons allow them... their losses have been many, and the battles are not over. They will lose many more. There are many more darkspawn now than mali’fenn in the world. Perhaps there always were. Even still, Orsina hides these truths close to her chest as if refusing to believe them herself. She is a fiercely loyal person, guarding the secrets of a much beloved grave. She had asked Aroiia once if she thought she should rebuild it all in accordance to the old ways. And, with a dull sadness, Aroiia had watched her answer cut through the young Tundrak like a sword. Rebuild what, Aelyra? "The Drakons mean well,"Aldred admits, running a hand down his sagging face, "But pride has led their hearts astray. They have always been our greatest soldiers — but soldiers, Orsina, do not make politicians, just as pens do not make poets. And plans are as dreams. They comfort us, but they do not always come true." It is a rephrasing of something he has been told since his earliest memories, now parsed in a gentler way: act, or your life is dictated by those who would do so in your place. Aldred carries on, deep-toned and even. His brows are furrowed with troubled thought. He takes her elbow gently in his hand. Not turning her, but requesting she turn to him. "In pressing you to give up your titles, the Drakons tested your interest. Your commitment and resolve. Do you want that? To have a part in what comes next?" Aldred exhales softly, eyes stormy, unhappy with the question he will have to ask now but also convinced of its necessity. "Would you accept a part, if I asked you to take it? If I asked you to step into your responsibilities — to break the chains of nostalgia and lead us forward into a new era — would you?" His hand shifts its loose hold on her arm, thumb settling apologetically into the tender skin on the inside of the bend of her elbow. She does not often like to be touched, he knows. The bad void of his unfortunate luck is swirling, and he is always drawing others in. But it is the only way. Their people are in need of saving, yes — but it is not a thing one man can do. It is not a thing one man is doing. Their people must save themselves; his niece need only be the guiding force. "I could still run from it. So could you," a simple, balanced answer. Orsina does not know the circumstances under which Aldred chose to leave the princedom, but certainly if she, a child of twenty and four, could have chosen, then Aldred could have chosen, too. "For me, for some time, it was easier to believe that I have not had a choice than to accept that I may have made the wrong one in leaving my destiny behind." Orsina runs her eyes across the horizon of birch trees, holding back the darkening sky. Though she cannot see them she knows they are there, and so the details arrange themselves in her mind without effort. Stillness in wait of the vulgarity of movement. Not unlike they are now, poised at the edge of a precipice that once crossed cannot be uncrossed. "But here, tonight, it seems we have made our choices yet again."

The Godhand The Five Pillars of Coşmauri ꜰɪɴɪᴛᴇ ᴠɪꜱᴄᴇʀᴀ ᴘᴜᴛʀᴇꜰʏ ᴍᴀʀʀᴏᴡ ꜱᴛᴀɢɴᴀᴛᴇ ꜱᴛᴀʀᴠᴇ ᴛᴀɪɴᴛ ʀᴇᴠᴇʟᴀᴛᴏʀ ᴘᴇʀᴘᴇᴛᴜᴀʟ ᴄᴏɴQᴜᴇʀᴏʀ ꜱᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴍᴇʀᴄɪʟᴇꜱꜱ ᴅᴇᴠᴏᴜʀᴇʀ

[!] A missive crosses the Northern realms for all to read - titular Mali'Fenn houses, with the exception of the Atmorice, find them delivered to their doorsteps. THE BOND OF SEA & SNOW ISSUED AND CONFIRMED BY SENTINEL EMAELIA DRAKON AND HER HIGHNESS ORSINA AELYRA TUNDRAK IN THE YEAR 196 OF THE SECOND AGE. THE CROWN OF FENN, as headed by PRINCESS AELYRA TUNDRAK, in the HUNDRED AND NINETIETH year of the SECOND AGE, hereby recognizes the SOVEREIGNTY of THE FENNIC PALATINE under rulership of SENTINEL EMAELIA DRAKON; henceforth the sanction of succession of the DIRAAR’ON, or the BLOOD OF DRAKON and their WARDS, is LEGITIMISED in the eye of the CROWN. This will be known as THE REUNIFICATION ERA. I. OM – ON MATTERS OF REGENCY: UNTIL THERE COMES ANOTHER. In the long absence of Grand Princeps VYTREK and SARYA TUNDRAK, the heir presumptive by primogenic birthright will resume the responsibilities of the Crown of Fenn. Until each of the bloodline archons bestow their approval unto the nominated, no Tundrak will resume the title of Grand Prince or Princess so long as The Fennic Palatine MAINTAINS and UPHOLDS its regency. Once the archons have unanimously agreed upon an heir, the Crown of Fenn will resume all diplomatic, legislative, and foreign affairs. II. IR – ON MATTERS OF TERRITORY: RETURN OF THE PALATINE. The Fennic Palatine maintains, to a certain degree, FULL INDEPENDENCE from the inheritance of the Crown of Fenn; should the archons select a new heir The Fennic Palatine should then fall below the Crown’s rule whilst remaining exempt from dominion and taxes. The Fennic Palatine reserves the right to settle in any lands of permafrost that are not already held by the Crown of Fenn. III. OEE – ON MATTERS OF STATE: THE DRAKON-TUNDRAK DIARCHY. The government of The Fennic Palatine is to be considered a SEPARATE ENTITY from the Crown of Fenn and maintains its own rights to function. Rulership of The Fennic Palatine can be yielded to the Crown of Fenn by request under specific circumstances; otherwise, the Crown of Fenn is expected to appoint an ambassador to the Palatine’s council. Should The Fennic Palatine be corrupted by voidal influence, the Crown of Fenn may reclaim leadership by force. IV. PAL – ON MATTERS OF WAR: COMMANDER OF THE BLOOD. The Crown of Fenn and The Fennic Palatine both reserve the rights to recruit Mali’Fenn into the remnants of the Ivae’Fenn in line with the rank structure, training doctrine, and recruitment standards established by the last Grand Princeps and all who came before them. The Sentinel will choose their successor at the time of appointment; in the event that both the Sentinel and their successor are dead or deemed incapable, the duty of designation will fall to the Crown of Fenn. SIGNED, PRINCESS OF THE MALI'FENN ORSINA AELYRA TUNDRAK Archon of the Tundrak Bloodline SENTINEL OF THE IVAE'FENN EMAELIA DRAKON Archon of the Drakon Bloodline

I AEL’VYRM’ITHAR‎ I WHO BEAR WITNESS TO THE WYRM Fig. 1. FRAGMENT OF FENNIC TABLET. IM NARNE CIRITH I LERYAN AR URCAN, NA-SENNA’LEH LAURË IGNE’LEH NA NARNE TALIR’AME’NAN AETHEL’LEH MALI’AH URU’AME I ARDA, FIN'HESIN NARNETH AR KAE’LEH’NE ITAR. LENTA, AR CENNË: I NARNE IL’KAE’LEH, I TALIR’LAMEN HALAD I AEL’VYRM. I HAVE SLIT THE THROATS OF KINGS AND BEGGARS ALIKE, THAT THEIR LIFEBLOOD MIGHT SEEP UNTO THE ROOTS OF THE REALM. BENEATH THE EGG OF THE WORLD, THE RIME STIRS AND ITS HUNGER IS MINE OWN. KNEEL, AND BEAR WITNESS: I AM HIS VESSEL, THE VEILED TONGUE OF THE WYRM. ／ USERNAME Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aenean dapibus auctor nulla a pulvinar. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Duis faucibus porttitor urna in semper. Donec at efficitur tortor, non rutrum lacus. Mauris porta et lectus a interdum. Duis tincidunt mi nibh, a ornare ligula eleifend ac. Morbi a laoreet tellus, eget aliquam ligula. ／ VERIFICATION Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aenean dapibus auctor nulla a pulvinar. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Duis faucibus porttitor urna in semper. Donec at efficitur tortor, non rutrum lacus. Mauris porta et lectus a interdum. Duis tincidunt mi nibh, a ornare ligula eleifend ac. Morbi a laoreet tellus, eget aliquam ligula. Praesent nec rhoncus augue, vel porta nunc. Maecenas a sem tincidunt, condimentum ante non, mattis tortor. Nullam felis tellus, sodales a est in, interdum posuere arcu. Mauris id enim sed nunc iaculis vestibulum. Praesent rutrum, eros id ullamcorper auctor, diam felis ultrices metus, sed sagittis libero lectus nec nulla. Sed non pulvinar purus. Nulla at justo at turpis porta placerat at sed orci. Duis tempor, purus eget posuere ullamcorper, risus nisi vehicula leo, in auctor elit ligula nec erat. Nulla suscipit porta ullamcorper. Proin feugiat fringilla erat nec tincidunt. Donec in metus id leo placerat feugiat. Morbi eget lacus vel mauris placerat lobortis ac et ligula. Cras eget nibh non turpis eleifend ultricies.

AELYRA screamed and screamed. She beat her fists bloody and raw against the ice that made up her prison. It was a futile effort; the chains around her wrists had held her for decades and would hold her for decades more. Solace came in bursts — stale bread and wine, and the dreams of old friends amidst the nightmare.

yippee yippee yippee!

An Illiviran elf, recently detached from the realm of Amathine, regards the missive with irritable uncertainty. "Yet again, the High Princess proves that she lacks foresight." She tuts her teeth. "To claim to care for the good of the realm while issuing nothing short of a challenge to those who would do us harm. Surely, she cannot be so foolish — to think that this won't invite evils to our doorsteps."

In thinking about my own character concepts and how they've adapted over the years, I got curious as to how others on the server decide what drives their creative process, so I want to know: what characters, books, movies, or other media were the driving inspirations behind your character, and what inspirations were added over time as their stories developed? _________________________________________________________________________________ I've dropped mine in a spoiler since they're pretty long!

Deep in the woodlands of Aevos, in a bed of white camellias, did an aging Wieszcz begin to stir. She turned her head to look at the serpent — who looked back with all the harrowing intensity of his ancient eyes. I was dreaming, she told him, I was dreaming. Poisonous dreams.

AELYRA reads the letter over again once she has finished it. She aches to write back immediately. It humbles her that her people recognize the truth she came to rely on in her solitude. They are together a kind of people that she has always longed to be. Her people. THEIR PEOPLE. They are still your family, Aelyra thinks, and sits with the thought for a very long time. It is not the first time she has had it. It’s an easy thought to have. She gets up to find a pen and a piece of parchment so that she can respond, full of things she once would have been too frightened to say: ______________________________ I believe us to have the same ambition; the longevity of the Fennic people comes above all entitlement. Let us meet, for I should like to hear of this council, if you the willingness to teach me. Aelyra Tundrak.

[!] A missive spreads across the realm bearing the seal of the royal house of TUNDRAK, addressed to the archons of the REMNANT BLOODLINES and all those surviving MALI'FENN which made the crossing to Aevos. A harbinger of change has come to Aevos. Tonight, on the 13th of The First Seed, in the Hundred and Seventy-Eighth year of the Second Age, the continent looked up and watched a sapphire star burn across the night sky. The sagas of our kin speak of great, blazing stars from bygone ages, and with each one came a CATACLYSM. These dark hours — the sacking of Frostfall, the ravaging of Lindale, and the Second Siege of Tar'sil, and all those our youth cannot remember — still linger in our annals, their tolls on us nigh insurmountable, and yet through these tales of upheaval and uncertainty we have PERSEVERED as a people. Now, a different type of war stands before us. Now, we are a SCATTERED few. No longer can we afford to turn a blind eye to the lessons of the past. We must heed this star-writ warning BEFORE this change comes to scar the realm. I implore all MALI'FENN to seek community and face the coming tides as one. In this uncertain age of devils and portents I ask you again to take up your thanhium and steel; oppose those deific and voidal magics which threaten the stability of Fin'hesin and our people; and now if never before, find support in one another. It is through adversity that we have always ENDURED, and it is through SOLIDARITY that we will weather the dangers ahead. PRINCESS AELYRA TUNDRAK HEIR PRESUMPTIVE OF AELTHIR II UNTIL THERE COMES ANOTHER

The Five Pillars of Coşmauri ꜰɪɴɪᴛᴇ ᴠɪꜱᴄᴇʀᴀ ᴘᴜᴛʀᴇꜰʏ ᴍᴀʀʀᴏᴡ ꜱᴛᴀɢɴᴀᴛᴇ ꜱᴛᴀʀᴠᴇ ᴛᴀɪɴᴛ ʀᴇᴠᴇʟᴀᴛᴏʀ ᴘᴇʀᴘᴇᴛᴜᴀʟ ᴄᴏɴQᴜᴇʀᴏʀ ꜱᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴍᴇʀᴄɪʟᴇꜱꜱ ᴅᴇᴠᴏᴜʀᴇʀ Lorem Ipsum Blah Blah. Numbering three, the accursed Elders stand above all: one born of Strigae, another of Nemuritori, and the third of Mongrel. These three alone have transcended the mortal states to become fully realized Moroi¹, vessels of the crucible whose authority is recognized across covens. They sit upon the council by virtue of embodying the ultimate expression of their lineage's afflictions. ¹ In vampyric dialects, the term Moroi (fem., Moroaice) functions both as a descriptor of bloodline classification and as an honorific title. As such, the term denotes not only one’s vampyric lineage but also their attained status within that lineage. The designation Moroi Elder, for example, therefore serves as a compounded title, broadly equivalent in meaning to ‘Elder Lord of Blood’.

short AND stout??????????????????? a girl can dream