Zarsies

This is a prophetic vision accessible to seers, naztherak, farseer shamans, vivification clairvoyants, and mystics with hexing per Prophecy lore. A vision in sleep or a waking daydream, you are swept away to distant fathoms and drawn out from your body to the ether. In the swirling nebulas of the future your mind fixates on a ripple that rides across the sky and between worlds, a subtle wavering pitch that leads you through stars to an alien source. A whisper? A cry? A prayer? Babbling brooks and bursting bubbles. A trickling, slurring sound in a broken rhythm calls to you like a birdsong. The waves carry you closer, the slippery noise devolving into a wet churning. Pitter-patter. Broadcasting sticky whispers. Nothing matters. Woebegotten orphans, no whiskers. The omen breaks into a vision; sprawling monuments of beastial heads, palatial ziggurats and silk-draped sandstone temples, and streets carved with canals and elaborate irrigation arches. Sparse cloud cover, a mixed blue sky, and a looming full moon upon an encircling sea. A capital befitting a theocratic empire. From the water breaches an immense carbarum trident wrapped in blood-soaked linen at the handle, sapphire as thanhium yet lustrous. Diviner of the full moon. Followed. Designer of apex predators. Swallowed. In a flicker the sea becomes putrid oil, the temples are gnawed, clawed, and painted in slime, and the monuments twist into unidentifiable beastial features. The sandstone melts. The sky oozes. The buzz that called you resonates. The immaculate trident is replaced by a fetid gas that revolts all senses. Thinking organs stuffed in jars. Spying eyes hide between stars. Atop the ziggurats shiver mucus-laden brains with abominable mouths that suck and spit the song that drew you. They writhe with dark limbs, eel-fleshed and toothed. A mere glimpse delivers a shred of doubt in what defines monsters. Chorus of horror, sing your jubilations. Scrawled in twisting ink; lamentations. Sinking below the oily sea and the monumental temple structures lie networks of catacombs, vaults, tombs, and stelas. Hidden among them skulk mummified figures, feline heads bound in linens and lace. Mortal pariah. In death, basking forever. Immortal messiah. A sacrificial endeavor. One such embalmed and dressed spirit violently flees through labyrinthine tunnels from a squelching, gibbering monstrosity with its dozen arms grasping and many more dozen eyes glimpsing. The mummy stows away in a deep cavity of forgotten tombs and frantically whispers a prayer, its hoarse voice a grave chant in your psyche. Mother, hear me now Past and future. How, Could the all-seeing be consumed? Send us a hero; violent. White-furred with your trident, For we spirits entombed. Space and Time. The impossible climb. Save us Mother from maw and slime. Black and Yellow, the Kings war, For ancient tomes we abhor. Cleanse this plane of infestation. Behold Time, Beauty's attestation. The prayer repeats as your perspective draws up and away, shifting through layers of sandstone and marble temple infrastructure before settling upon a flickering image. Nauseating clouds linger around a pale-stoned pyramid whose bricks peel away to bizarre masonic fingers. The tide of putrid sludge and glossy oil coats the banks as they slither back and forth. Looming far above obscured by clouds is an amorphous black shape, tendrilled and eyed. At the heightening gravity of this figure’s scale and true shape, abject disgust and horror fills your belly like a rotten hot meal. Then from the stupor you wake, nauseous and likely to retch due to a sense of minnows swimming in your guts. What nightmare was this? A cry for help or an omen of doom? Perhaps puzzled, perhaps inspired, the prophecy leaves you nonetheless burdened with a glimpse of occult knowledge.

A blue devil gawks at the surnames on the missive and begins her hunt. Woebegotten father, she thinks, I will avenge you. I will find our Provident.

I can confirm wonks were built into this map's lore and there are canon threads (map lore events) that would explain their return as well as explain why they wouldn't be identical to wonks encountered before (behaviorally / culturally). That said their return hinges on the success of hou zi.

A devout Acaelanite readies himself for duty. Anything, he thought, for the good Sul aen Sov.

my cuteputer needs more gigglebytes ! Anything for Squash.

The Hells rage. The blasted sky screams and weeps. A horned host treks far to Natla zu'Zathka, a city of burning spires and devastated cliffsides.

Woopsies! Fixed. Anyone could wield or wear it, it just benefits some spooks. Metals, no, not any more than normal folks. Magic swords, somewhat, they tend to curse or hex their weapons but they aren't particularly relevant to combat and tend to be out of combat sort of effects.

Good point. Fixed. :)

A crude chunk of morion ore. MORION Shadows hoard secrets and in the blackest pit they hide in abundance. It was thus fate for the Lord of Umbrage to uncover hidden truths and treasures in Aegis’ corpse for Malkaathe, the unliving epitome of darkness, was one with its element. Morion was yet another verity of the nature of Darkening, the Banks, and coil of mortality. To many, corruption. To the occult, honesty. An inevitable extinguishing of light and righteousness in its absence; holy and natural shadow. What was it, the Lord wagered, if not proof of providence? Morion is a tier 4 material and is represented by coal. Raw, the metal is obscured. Morion Ore (Raw) Where the Banks of lifeforce flow unbidden by oppressive miles of earth lay the blasted remains of Aegis. In the continent-sized pit sprawl all the bounties of the earth, including aurum, yet this gold is mutated beyond recognition on account of its conductivity of the dark energies of lifeforce and by extension ectoplasm. Morion ore is raw aurum which has stewed in the Abyss for centuries and, having conducted actively flowing lifeforce in unlimited abundance for that entire span, has become one with it. This appears as a raw, irregular black metallic core body encrusted with fragile black crystalline structures. The core may have a labradorite-like shimmer and thus possess a blue, green, and/or violet luster whereas impure morion skews golden. Its crust is always jet. Because of its complete impregnation of lifeforce the body of morion ore is dense like ferrum. Additionally, it passively accumulates patches and clusters of inert lifegems like sweat, creating a thin and fragile coating akin to broken glass. Touching this material bare handed risks scratches and splinters. Additionally, undead sense the Abyss within and passively feed on its nostalgic, soothing nectar allowing those who wield or wear morion to vividly recall sensation - breath, touch, smell, pain, hunger, all the hallmarks of life they’ve lost - as well as benefit from an increase in lucidity, an inclination to a peaceable nature, and the ability to embrace and savor a feeling of comfort. Red Lines -Morion is found exclusively in the Abyss. -Undead who wield or wear morion benefit from its soothing quality does not make them sane or otherwise cure them of their mental agonies as undead, only ease. Lifeforce leaking from a morion blade in ribbons. Harvesting Method Morion ore is found exclusively within the Abyss, be it an exposed seam or veins in its many chasms or sheer, mountainous edges. As such deposits are not found on other continents. Should such a deposit be found it can be excavated by typical mining practices albeit miners will be showered with sharp, glassy shrapnel with their every swing. This necessitates appropriate protection unless already bereft of flesh as many are in the Abyss. Because it is found solely in this inhospitable and remote place morion is most commonly a material acquired through the current master of shadows, Mordring, the King Beneath. Red Lines -To mine morion ore requires an individual to be capable of venturing into the Abyss and capable of surviving in the Abyss. -Morion ore often has had centuries to accumulate crust and thus are hidden behind layers of lifegem shards. To mine it is to rupture that crust and be violently showered with every strike. -Morion ore is almost exclusively acquired through events due to the inaccessibility of the Abyss. A pale deathknight bedecked in morion mail. Refinement Once the ore body is cleaned of its crust it may be worked. Uniquely, heat need not shape morion on account of its supernatural imbuement. Necromancers, mystics, and both necrotic and spectral undead can connect with the element within and find their energetic manipulation may coax the physical material to move. This tainted, dark gold is both physical and energetic. With unfettered attention and prolonged, meticulous labor the occultist can sculpt rather than smith morion. In this shaping process the occultist may hone their control and forcefully shape hardened, gem-like crystals from the crust. In doing so they may create permanent black crystals on the piece for decoration which are not fragile and will not flake off or shatter. As such morion may be shaped into both metal and gem design, ideal for jewelry or other ornamental purposes. Should morion be subject to heat sufficient to melt aurum then so shall it, however in doing so its stores of lifeforce are expelled as a fetid dark smoke and it is purified back into aurum. Impure morion lends a golden touch. Morion (Refined Form) Morion armaments are lent a sharp quality thanks to their accumulation of inert phylacterian crystal. Per month (IRL day) a morion armament may shatter its crust through 3 strikes before regrowing. Armaments lose a strike whenever they are struck, be that a morion sword against another sword or a mace denting morion armor. Weapons deposit glassy shards into wounds they cut and necessitate acutely painful extraction. Until removed, the shrapnel will slice the wound more through any localized movement and impede healing. Armor bursts with small sprays of glassy shards around it in a 1 block radius around the wearer. Such a shower will pierce up to cloth and stick into the very surface level of skin, lightly lacerating those nearby. Red lines: -Morion armaments cannot use their shrapnel effects more than 3 times per IRL day. Uses are lost regardless of their success, meaning a morion blade striking a shield will cause it to lose a use and send harmless shrapnel to the ground. -The shrapnel in of itself cannot be weaponized as a projectile and, for example, two morion axes could not crash together to send shards flying at enemies. It must be delivered through a strike in order to breach any protective attire like a normal weapon would; the armor’s spray is barely forceful and cannot cut deeper than the most surface level of the skin. It’s painful, not deadly. As such the shrapnel effect of the armor cannot inflict damage more than superficial injury. Necromancers with their mastery over lifeforce, mystics due to the fundamental components of ectoplasm, and both necrotic and spectral undead with their innate connection to lifeforce and ectoplasm can tap into morion. This allows them to not only shape it but unravel it and therein lace back together in the same form. Occultists who wield or wear morion may unsummon it into a dissipating black haze where it becomes metaphysically stored to then summon it back in its shape where they wielded or wore it, coalescing out of grainy smoke. Weapons require 1 emote to unsummon and 2 emotes to summon. Armor requires 2 emotes to unsummon and 3 emotes to summon. Because this unraveling of morion reduces it to its source power, only sympathetic energies can be retained. Lifeforce and ectoplasm. Morion will retain enchantments of a necrotic or ectoplasmic origin throughout its transposition. If morion is enchanted by another energy be it Voidal, divine, another dark power, or otherwise, then that morion item loses its ability to be unsummoned and summoned. Red lines: -Only necromancers, mystics, ghouls, dragaur, darkstalkers, liches, ghosts, paleknights, and wights can utilize the unsummoning and summoning feature of morion. -Unsummoning and summoning cannot be performed in tandem with any spellcasting emotes or CA active abilities and requires the occultist’s full attention. They cannot perform this ability if they are pained or stunned in a way that would interrupt or prevent casting. -If a morion item becomes enchanted it loses its ability to be unsummoned and summoned. This is not true for enchantments from necromancy or mysticism, their effects are retained. In immense quantities and by masterful necromancer collectives or by grander powers can this blighted metal be shaped into architecture. Structures may be erected out of morion and by the same sculpter(s) can it be unsummoned and summoned again. This quality has proven advantageous to Mordring and the forces of the Abyss who may fluidly build structures but moreover for fabricating such things as mobile towers of sorcery and Abyssal gates. Red lines: -Sculpting morion into structures as well as unsummoning and summoning them is restricted to ST use or when permitted by ST. Lich-wights, or atzumenro in Al’tahrn-Durngo, are entities who shed their mortal coil twice over and live as unions of the necromancies, necrotic and ectoplasmic, are masters of both realms of death. They may tap into morion in a way none other can and not only shape it but galvanize it. Such empowered morion items are known as conduits. A conduit possesses all the previous properties of morion in addition to acting as a bolstering font to necromancers and mystics who wield them. Conduits used by necromancers allow their wielder the ability to extend morion’s unsummoning and summoning quality onto dead organic material. Thus the necromancer can unsummon corpses and summon them from the ether again. This requires 3 emotes. Conduits used by mystics allow them to tap the font for more energy and bolster their magic. This is expressed as the wielding mystic’s deadbreath casting as though they were in water, an effect expanding their deadbreath radius by 4 blocks. Red lines: -Morion conduits may only be created by ST and therefore can only be acquired through events. -Necromancers can only unsummon and summon dead organic material, they can only unsummon what they’re capable of animating at their tier, and summoned corpses do not appear already animated. -Mystics’ deadbreath is no better than normal deadbreath when using a conduit, they merely benefit from the in-water effect of the spell which extends the radius by 4 blocks. This does not stack with being in water, the effect can only be applied once. Abyssal knights march on a paladin sanctum. Purpose When I wrote the Gifts of the Red Prince one of my favorite parts was rokodra. Giving naztherak their own material for any and all demonic purposes satisfied a vivid fantasy I had and now I see a lack for that among the dark arts. Nazgul deserve representation so here we are with goth knight armor. As well, I’ve found frost salt to be successful in its combative application(s) so I wanted to facilitate something of similar power and usefulness - mechanics that are competent but not competitive - for these weapons. Therein I also saw room for other mechanical buffs to necromancers and mystics, that being the part on conduits, and foresee that being effective loot/bait for events. What evil would you commit for a fancy black rock? Wraiths of the Abyss adorn morion armaments, their coveted vessels. Citations Zarsies - Writing

Mysticism smells like wet dog and patchouli.

"By the grace of Acaelan," repeats a jaunty elf.

This is a prophetic vision accessible to seers, naztherak, farseer shamans, vivification clairvoyants, and mystics with hexing per Prophecy lore. You slip into the snug dark of sleep or a hypnagogic trance and your mind’s eye drifts in and away to distant fathoms. This void is bespeckled with twinkling sands, the dim glow of stars, and their light is consumed as you plunge into a pit. The vision clouds with black vapors, the stringy haze of lifeforce, and through its thin threads you glimpse fragments and flashes of an omen. Mangled time-gnawed corpses bend out from under rubble and ash while twilit phantoms leak from rough hewn rock and broken skeletal remains. The dead stir in this pit, its walls mountains and its valley abyssal. They whisper in their horrid limp tongue of crackles and hisses which carry on the black winds in moans, their cries slithering through abounding ruins of ancient Aegis. Your perspective flies over crumbs of civilization until the ground disappears at a black beach. Beyond, a vast sea of oil. The dead sing and their quiet chorus ripples past you. A midnight ocean. Frothing. Ripples. Gurlozgvor daz’tertha. Xion’sek hakav urk’infinst. “Heaven floods. Xion’s drowned memorial.” A thin winged frame looms below the surface. Al’Sanz Grum gurtabrclon ku’sek daz’lutzuta garnak. “The King Beneath doffs his mourning sartorial.” Clear waters lap around a distant isle. Below, cries. Al’dazhkaev kfurl daz’khae, grum nal’ve twezek urk’qaril “The living guild wails, muted under her Third Bell.” Hellish and undead figures assemble in shadow. Du’urkthykzan daz’overrdalk garzu. Al’Fiktmerinek kknotoskhae. “A horned host rises. The Jailor’s deathknell.” Black limbs amass into a twitching specter. Dunru ot’zubrikas. Al’Kfurl’sek shai, urk’lakzut. “End of an era. The Synod’s work, complete.” A crown. A staff. A throne. A seed. Basul pelosr undere skutur. Al’durngo-lott gathan. “Soul and bone coalesce. The blackest feat.” The omen repeats as the dead sing its praises. Their chorus melts away as shadow consumes all sensation and you lazily drift back to consciousness. What lingers? Aegis, the harping dead, their King Beneath, its horned host, or the spirit weeping under the sea? Perhaps puzzled, perhaps inspired, the prophecy leaves you nonetheless burdened with a glimpse of occult knowledge.

OOC ((MC Name: Zarsies)) ((Discord: Zarsies)) ((Timezone: EST)) IN-CHARACTER What is your name? Til Why seek membership to the Mages Guild? I crave to understand the world and the stars beyond. What arts, if any, do you currently practice? In mundane arts I am a practiced gaffer. What position do you desire to attain upon acceptance? Practicus. When should you be contacted for an interview? I may ride where needed within the month.

One pious Acaelanite hones his strikes with a wooden silriv, making sweeping blows against a hay dummy of Adriel's likeness.

Origin Without the codices of scholars or guidance of wise men any lone soul understands the wail of winter gales. In the suffocating blanket of snow the wind pierces and all feel empathy for its bleak cry. A cold breeze, a whisper. A blizzard, howls of despair. All life understands the bitter cold yet meager few know his name. They hear his sobs and feel his tears, some even join his desiccating embrace, yet slipping into eternal cold sleep they still only feel him; never know him. This is the solitude of Wyrvun. He awoke drifting in darkness. All he felt was himself in this void, a cosmos fresh and raw with the spirits swirling in dances. Dances he was not invited to. Himself fresh and raw, alone, he wept and scattered tears that shaped into pearlescent icicles. Their twinkle drew the eye of wandering dancers who came to welcome him to their swimming of the amorphous sea. In this vague antiquity the looming threat of the Void was first and absolute. To safeguard Creation a shield had to be formed and great swathes rose to create the Veil - dancers, swimmers, a divine fabric of Aedifex - and when called to do his part Wyrvun shrank. He felt this shroud was enough, no warriors were necessary, and in his stubbornness believed the spirits abandoned him to join in another dance. They marched to sacrifice themselves and for his hesitation he was pariah. Alone again. Thereafter, guilty for enduring. In this gloom he wallowed as their corpses blossomed into stars with their every wink serving to remind him. Distraught and having sobbed and heaved an age in the star-studded darkness, a pool formed beneath him and drew him in. A world of his making he cratered in a great fall; Fymlvetr. Mountains split up into misty skies as Wyrvun struck the plane like a continental meteorite, concentric rings of cliffs tracing around a great bed of liquid. Vast lakes welled up. From icy fonts trickled sparkling waterfalls. Pockets of deep water saturated mineral caverns and eroded them into far reaching pits. Once his weeping faltered he sucked in the atmosphere and capped every lake, froze every waterfall, and crystalized every surface with a long haggard breath. From him tore out a wail that spins to this day as an eternal storm of raging sleet and suffocating snow that torments the desolate rocks of his world. It churns with the very spirit of sorrow and its winds even leak into distant planes where the bite of winter is fiercest. It rumbles with echoes of his forlorn cry still, a ghost dismembered on its dry gales. Spent, he rose from the pit as the weight of his grief had escaped. He was free of its yoke until it would one day burden him again. He wandered his home, touched its ice and admired the beauty of its deep crags and misted bluffs, and was taken by a glimpse in the storm. He passed into the maelstrom and entered another world, one perfected by the Creator himself, and therein came upon something new. He manifested in the blistering north of Aegis. Skulking out of the lightless snow approached an observer to Wyrvun’s moping, a dancer like him yet bubbling with passion and fury rather than muted. The daemon Iblees took shape and whispered to Wyrvun foul and destructive hate; his cold could only kill, his sadness could only drown, no one was grateful for his sphere, and love was an insult. All fear him. All hate him. What use was his touch if not to invoke suffering? The aengul crumbled and in his vulnerability was sparked with the dark god’s lament. Fury took root and he slid into his next episode, seething. Iblees granted him the mockery of Dragur’s forms he had gleaned himself and galvanized Wyrvun in this wicked state, casting him as Ondnarch, one of many lieutenants in the early wars. In this wracking episode the aengul fled in a wailing rampage, storms abounding which spin to this day, and found himself in the cold wastes of Skjoldier where a glimpse caught his attention. A figure. A small and simple creature by his measure, a mortal, and he found her resonating with the depths of sorrow he embodied. Moved not by his own despair but hers, he blessed her with a grace of his cold tears - blackened as the corruptive form of Ondnarch - and watched as she passed into the whipping, freezing winds of her land Skjoldier. As she strode the sparkle of his sadness, the glint of beauty hidden in his frost, fell from her and a darkness brewed in its place. Perhaps it was the shadow native to mortals or the hateful corruption he bore that sullied his blessing but he was quickly disappointed with what grew. As space and time slipped away he glimpsed her wielding his sadness in malevolent sorcery and rejoiced over grim and visceral meals. He rose to blow a lethal storm over the land, its final winter, but a dark voice drew him away. Far away, back to the frigid north he landed on. To Aegis. On Aegis Ondnarch was sent by his master to torment Urguan’s kin and their vast Grand Kingdom where he conjured a deadly winter and gave life to ice to bite and claw at the iron defenses of the master craftsmen. The war raged until a proper weapon was made - some say found - and Ondnarch was entrapped within the crystalline prison of the Kal’Varak during a devastating battle. With his sealing the winds eased, ice and snow melted, and his winter army rendered into powder. The dwarven thought-architects reinforced his chamber within the City of the Mind in hopes he would never return. Centuries passed. The Kal’Varak was lost and found - lost again, refound, and made cycles of hiding - and by foolish hands Ondnarch was released in the south of Anthos to war against the dwarves once more. The conflict spanned decades until a final battle once the runelords found the ice dragon’s bane in the very stone he escaped. Channeling its power, runesmiths ensnared Ondnarch before King Barradin and laid him low, breaking the draconic shell to bind it within the City of the Mind and unwittingly purifying the aengul. Wyrvun thanked the gathered force and drifted to lands from far Kal’Ithrun in the early 1450s. Wyrvun left Anthos and swept across the plane before settling into an arctic region north of Almaris. He soaked into the ruins of a bohra hold and, inspired by Anthos’ great glacial wall, erected a fanning sheet of ice to insulate the structure from all would-be trespassers. He was grief stricken by his sins, the many innocent lives he’d taken, and the rage he’d so easily befallen at Iblees’ hands brewed only inward disgust. In the ruins he sank so deep in wallowing that his spirit melted through the ice and poured him back into his home Fymlvetr and the world bore a brilliant scar for it. From this hole into the arctic plane spills an eternal blizzard, petrifying cold, and therein provides a path to and from in the shape of a lake. A flawless silver mirror. The formation of the Gelid Mirror tugged on the dead hearts of witches across Eos who suddenly craved the familiar kiss of Father Winter’s tears. In particular a pair of Aeldenic witches and a slim coven of dwarves migrated to the ruin, passed through its high wall, and convened around the font of power within. First the coven tested the extent of the Gelid Mirror’s resources, performing an experimental ritual to create a new form of cursed ice. This ritual spun out of control due to their underestimation of its force and conjured a massive blizzard which rocked the immediate glacier-locked territory and the regions nearby, its sleet and hail gathering to become a unique material nowadays known as frost salt in geometric veins. They found their powers over ice allowed them to shape it, even able to magically forge it as if ferrum or silver. Next the coven conceived of a grander rite utilizing the Gelid Mirror. They sought to curse and transform the lingering bohra savages into knights worthy of serving their newfound stronghold and experimented in feats of dark transmutation. The thin tribes remaining were eradicated but yielded final - few - results. The last batch of brutes were mutated to massive heights in the spirit of mountains, their limbs became long and bare in the spirit of harsh winter, and their minds adopted a similar desolation to the extreme. Their titanic warriors were shaped yet incredibly depressed and their despondence earned them their common name, the Crestfallen. The dwarves dubbed them Vuuryoran (“black towers”). While the witches could make demands of them they were as cold and bitter as the land itself. Rather than see their horrific scowls and perpetual crying the coven opted to outfit them like knights and conceal their sorrow, armored and armed with frost salt sheets in sculpted cliffs. Some Crestfallen were tasked to guard their glacial home and once seen fit the frost mothers sent others elsewhere to accompany witches, some into the south of Almaris and others across continents where they strode over the seas thanks to their aura of ice storms. These guards gave them absurd hubris. While massive, menacing, finely armed, and nightmarish to behold to any common man, the giants were simple creatures trapped in aching, shivering bodies magically saturated with unbearable woe. A number never killed a single thing and merely marched as far as they could before succumbing to hyperthermia, laying down and submitting to the elements, or other such exhausted fates as they were unwilling to endure a moment more. While their armaments melted away long ago their bones remain and such massive skeletons dot multiple continents. Crestfallen patrolling the tundra of Fymlvetr. The coven was disgusted and outraged with the frailty of their supposed super weapons once revealed, their group’s ties breaking down as the egotistical frost mothers lashed out at one another and their sisters. The dying sobs of the Crestfallen drew the attention of Wyrvun, previously lost in an empty fog on Fymlvetr. Resonating with their cries just as he had with the first witch of Skjoldier, he came before the gate to the mortal realm and immediately drew the focus of the bickering coven. They communed with Father Winter, greedily asking for his blessing to resolve their conflict and grant them one more sip of tears as he did so long ago. Wyrvun was struck with disappointment upon seeing the perversion of his pool’s powers, the witches’ magic a derivative; black and wicked. Too he felt pity for them, recognizing the anguish and sadness that inherently laid in their frozen hearts and chose to spare them his wrath; instead he would mend their mistake. He bade they bring what Crestfallen remain to the lake so that he may wash over them and remove the effects of the witches’ botched ritual and join him in his home to serve as his custodians. They dared not test him, feeling the tug of their inner links, and did so. In turn he would proverbially shut the gate to this world, sealing the Gelid Mirror from acting as a font of power to dissuade the witches but allowed them to stay in the land if they desired, perhaps even to protect it. Some scattered in the winter winds, some linger to this day, and a very small number drifted outward to linger in the regions nearby as sentries. Despite his closing of the portal, what witches remained have progressively weakened its seal and drink from its power once more. Patrons: Crestfallen Vuuryoran in dwarvish, the Crestfallen are ancient bohra taken by a curse of servitude. It empowers them by transmuting them to titanic heights, grants them unparalleled physical strength, and are outfitted in literal tons of cursed salium armaments yet were crushed by the sorrow of the spell. In the mortal realm they could not survive and once given to Wyrvun he welcomed them into Fymlvetr where the bastardization of the witches’ craft was purged and the weight of the curse lifted, now a boon. On his plane they are free of the absolute emptiness that plagued them, instead simply sad and lethargic in fleeting episodes, and are free to wander and play in the snowscape. Some recreate the architecture of their past and crudely shape stone into cities, others bask in the powder and perpetually wander to soak in the glistening beauty of the hinterlands endlessly stretching across the world, and particular others instead share in a single project. Joined in eternal mourning, the Crestfallen glimpse the deaths of many across the mortal realm and opt to erect monuments to the spirits of late mortals and carve dwarvish epitaphs in their memory, the language of their old masters. This practice of commemoration drew the attention of the gatekeeper and warden of the Soul Stream, once-archaengul Aeriel. Their mourning and remembrance inspired solace in her and in a show of benevolence came to the world of ice to greet Wyrvun. On behalf of the hosts of ancient days she forgave him for his part in the mortal realm’s wars and offered a collaboration between their spheres; a link between their worlds. Within a resplendent hall of the Golden City on Ebrietaes she would yield to him a gate into Fymlvetr, his own hall, where the Crestfallen may mingle with the blessed dead and erect monuments in their memory. A place of mourning, remembrance, and solace. She would provide them the grandest materials and divine architecture where they may provide their cherished work and allow spirits to savor it. Wyrvun, feeling seen and heard, accepted. Thus Kaz’Arkon Az’Adarram or the Monument of Heroes (literally: castle-history of champions) was erected. To this day the Crestfallen sculpt memorial statues and engrave histories and epitaphs to mortals whose lives or deaths have touched their hearts. Realm Fymlvetr, a desolate plane of mountains, caverns, glaciers, cliffs, pits, and valleys under eternal, oppressive winter. Ice creatures slumber in depressive comas across the world while Crestfallen wander and mope around, occasionally breaking into fights with one another from which they will always heal and forget, play in its powder, or work the heroes’ hall. Wyrvun has a unique relationship with Aeriel. Iblees saw him as vulnerable and ripe for abuse. She sees greatness and beauty is his power of preservation and endurance and so in her mercy she brokered a union with him. The Crestfallen have become masters of winter and masonry and build colossal monuments when they are active in their own depressive cycles. Aeriel gifts them illustrious materials and allows souls to wander its halls so they may create grand architecture and prose in their memory depicting their triumphs and character. Some souls even find these statues to be perfect vessels for their eternal sleep and inhabit them. Following Wyrvun’s followings shape into two main camps: frost witches who know only the myth of their making and the touch of Father Winter or the lineages of Aelthos and elves of their boreal traditions. Worship in the name of Father Winter is rare and typically understood as occult whereas worship in the name of Wyrvun commonly attributes him with a grandeur, benevolence, and respect as a guardian or teacher. In the days of his rage as Ondnarch cults sprouted mainly to harness his malevolent winter magic but since his purification such worship has faded into history. What power he feeds into the mortal realm is limited to what Fjarriagua reap from their dark tether. Present Day Presently Wyrvun sulks on Fymlvetr in a depressive episode yet is kept aloft by the simple pleasure of watching his wards mill around and etch, stack, and sweep rocks. On occasion he views Kaz’Arkon Az’Adarram as well as the souls that visit it and quietly savors the joys and pleasures that can be found after death. He is pleased to not be wholly alone with his storms and ice puppets. What may stir him into action next is difficult to parse but he holds a grudge against Iblees for his centuries wasted as puppet, holds a quiet affinity for the Aspects and their dedication to his domain of winter thus particularly Nemiisae, respects Aeriel, and is sympathetic to mortals. Tragically sympathetic. Purpose Wyrvun has been a long-established deity with minimal written presence, the vast majority of his existence in the canon relegated to the memory of those who engaged in events in 2014. Per our philosophy on what deity domains are I’ve seen fit to shift (that is, expand) his sphere from winter to the broader concept of sorrow as to allow him wiggle room with its many associations. The cold and winter, bitterness, loneliness, intensity like storms, and death, yet also quiet, solace, play, fond remembrance, and small community. My hope is that this piece serves to inspire others as all deities should; an object of worship in roleplay or culture writing, plot or characterization in lore or events, and for the know-it-all fiends. Citations Frost Witches Skjoldier Frost Salt Credits: Zarsies (author)

Defeated and bound to a new master, the Biting Bat Draz-Kulzattar disincorporates into a swarm of whirling black bats and spills from the fortress' mouth. They fly far in search of new slaves, a new cabal, and a new future.

Sage advice.

Kids these days man

This is why I stan you.

The lost soul of a once-herald roils in the deep. Heed the call, brother. Rise, Judge.

polygamist lore :*