Esterlen

Very very nice. Reminds me of the heket from Guild Wars, which to my mind is a good thing! +1

As an elf, Kolohe may have been deprived of ascendancy in the Seven Skies - or so the Church of the Canon taught. Nevertheless, from some flinty corner of the afterlife, the ghost of an old emperor looked down upon his friend and associate as he met his fate. He was a good man and a true man, yes. He would have welcomed him if he could, yes. Of that he was sure. For he had been brought up to believe that non-humans were naturally evil and self-serving, and that they had cursed his people to bitter weakness and destitution too many times before. As he sat upon his throne for those twenty-one years, there had been those that had proven him right in this sentiment and those that had proven him wrong in it. Kolohe Finnigan had fallen within the latter category. He only wished that he had thanked him again for that before he died.

"I don't think that's true," offers Benda Chivay, Governor of the province of Agathor in Aeldin, "In fact, we haven't seen a person from Vailor here in Aeldin for something like forty years!"

I'll be honest and state that I haven't even really thought about this part. I haven't participated in monk RP since around 2012 I think, and so I really am not an authority about any of those matters. Do we have to abide by these restrictions or can an exemption be made? Is the change-your-mind clause codified into rules? It's a process that would require OOC consent, and so it's unlikely that anybody would change their mind. I think people who want to become one of these creatures will be completely understanding of the various restrictions imposed on them and so I don't really see the necessity of such a rule. But if we have to roll with it, we have to roll with it, I guess. Again, this isn't something I know a lot about nor have I thought about it for that reason. I'd suggest that they weren't immune to magically created diseases, but would probably have some resistance to soul puppetry and blood magic. But I really don't know. If you can come up with some suggestions as to that, post them, because magic's a topic I know barely anything about. You'd be better to take that up with Matt. I mean again, I don't know the nature of these curses but I don't see why not. Unless we're running the risk of creating characters who are a layered trifle cake of different curses. What do you suggest? I love the Witcher and the world of the Witcher. That's obviously very clear, and I've been inspired greatly by Sapkowski and CDProjekt's works alike in writing this lore. With that said, the key word here is inspired. You're doing me a massive disservice by insinuating that things are 'completely plagiarized' or a 'carbon copy' because if you read the post, nothing could be further than the truth. Yes, tropes, influences and themes have been taken from a variety of different sources, predominantly the Witcher, but also historical folklore, Warhammer and even the Underworld movie series (Even though Bill Nighy's gone down the drain lately). Does that make anything copied and plagiarized? No. Every word of the original document is my own or Matt's. We are not using anybody else's work and trying to pass it off as our own, even if we are references other forms of media. The answer to this is simple: We did this because we thought it was cool. We thought it added some cool flavor, you know, and saw it as a way of including a wide breadth of historical characters and personas in our lore. This lore is inclusive by nature, not exclusive, and I've always adhered to that principle. With that said, if anybody doesn't want their character being used in this post, I'll take them out. I don't have much right to use them without your permission, after all, I just thought it was a cute nod to various prominent individuals of the server's history. As for the ruahdrel - consider it a placeholder name. Find me a translation for 'blood-sucker' or something of the like and I will sub it in post-haste! You know what us human players are like! Alas, it can't be helped. If it's an issue to the LMs or the general playerbase, we'll change it. Location is not the most important part of this lore by any means. SupremacyOps sort of raised this when we talked to him about this. I think the conclusion we came to is that the original document of this post was chiefly reflective of IC belief and not necessarily canon. The Unseen are probably aengudaemonic in nature and from our world - nobody really knows in-character. It's a mystery. If we have to come to an OOC canon, then we'll do just that. We just thought it makes sense that some lunatic sorcerer who accidentally summons them came to the (Probably erroneous) conclusion that they were unspeakable demonic horrors from another plane. I'm not really sure what to do with this as again it's something I'm happy to compromise on, so if you have any suggestions that would make things more acceptable to the detail-stickler LMs, I am all ears! Thank you for your kind words though, father Michael. Of all people your criticism is valued immensely. I've already responded to this in a prior post, quoting you directly. Please, please read it and respond to what I've said there, for the sake of my sanity. It's very easy to manipulate information (Especially strengths and weaknesses) in a particular way that serves your agenda. I can do it as well. You need to look at things from a much more critical viewpoint instead of just falling back on lore orthodoxy and conservatism. I'd expect somebody who pushed through 'mud maiden' lore to be infinitely more open-minded. Regardless, I'm prepared to add more weaknesses to achieve the balance that you want. Offer me a few suggestions, and I'll consider them. I think you need to stop looking at lore from an adversarial, challenger's perspective (This should be denied because of x) and instead of evaluate things based on merit alone, especially in a circumstance such as this one where I will happily compromise. I thought about this and I thought it was too cliche and impractical to make sunlight intolerable to strigae. Given that night lasts only what, 20 minutes on the server, I just don't consider it viable. But a weakness (Diminished capabilities) in sunlight is something I'm willing to think about, definitely. No, I actually like this. I'll consider a few options about things that can act as 'vampire repellent'. No, they can't really do this. Blood is like alcohol to them, and they're all inherently alcoholics. It's technically not necessary, but it's damn hard to go cold turkey - and why would they? We could easily say that there's something (Genus?) present in the blood of descendants that they can't get from animal blood. It's an intricacy that again, I'm open to suggestions for. Think of it through the lens of a lich's phylactery. I believe I mentioned in the original post that the minimum time for regenerating a new body once the brain has been destroyed is 9 years - that's 9 solid weeks of not having a character combined with absolutely no use of the Monks under any circumstances. I definitely think that's a decent drawback, combined with the concept of being too weak to even walk for the first few years in a new body. But I want to make it clear that the time it takes to regenerate might have a minimum but is usually more depending on how a striga has died, on a case-by-case basis. If a pyromancer turns you to ash, you can expect to be out of action for the greater part of a real-life year. Similarly, if another striga doesn't help you regenerate for whatever reason, you can expect to stay dead. If you're killed by another striga, you can expect to stay dead. The memory loss rule still applies in all cases. I agree that it practically needs to be elaborated on a tad, but that's something that wouldn't require more than a few lines of clarification. The body's destroyed, the ethereal spirit lingers around, if another striga finds that spirit then over the span of a nine year minimum period they can regenerate a new body. I think it's not much different to lich lore in terms of being 'unkillable', in fact it's more difficult to cope with because of the time restriction. I was thinking this: the counter is, you're not meant to be found out. Obviously this is the same with frost witches, but the foremost aspect of striga RP in the lore we've written is that they're masters of deception and hiding in plain sight. I don't think we're going to be that under-powered. ^^^ I agree completely. They won't be running around attacking people and causing mayhem. They'd be blending into society trying not to draw attention to themselves, or alternatively living on the fringes of society. They are supposed to be masters of subversion and not destruction. I've always held to the principle that this kind of lore should have an OOC vision of providing RP and dynamic RP enrichment to others, often to the detriment of those playing the characters. You subordinate your own interests, plans and often your enjoyment for the benefit of the greater tapestry that is the community's story. If prospective striga players cannot accept that and want to simply cause as much chaos as possible, they will not be playing strigae. Strigae are inherently secretive creatures who don't particularly want their peace disturbed by mortals paying excess attention to their kind. This lore is for the server as a whole to develop roleplay out of, not simply a small minority. I think people feel disillusioned with frost witch RP because they don't perceive it as following this OOC vision. Originally yes, but this is changeable and unimportant. Basically, we thought it was ridiculous to have the boons of a striga combined with those of any sort of mage. Yes, it's a restriction to appease the staff but also we personally feel it'd be too unfair and unbalanced to have things any other way. We could attribute this reasoning to something like their greatly diminished ability to naturally produce genus and mana. Exerting themselves through the use of what tiny amounts of mana they have latent would just kill them, for example. Yes, I'd love to do this. I'm a massive fan of any cultural development. I'm already even in the process of it now, but if this lore never sees the light of day there'll be no point. You're welcome to help me if you want! We did talk about this, but I thought it would be detrimental to the general feel of the lore and just result in unnecessary drama if we put players in a position where they are forced to cause as much conflict as possible. It'll get to the point where nobody finds it enjoyable. An issue I have with frost witches is that they're always forced into a particular archetype because of the constant necessity to prey on mortals. I want striga to be diverse - I'm not advocating for 'vegan vampires' here, but rather a diverse range of striga characters whose individual approach to their addiction to blood is different and calculated, as opposed to 'well we'll just sit in a tower and try and lure some people in to eat them'. Not trying to bash you here, frosties, but this is another difference. There are only two forms and neither of them can change. A bestial form and a mortal one. A mortal form is what you looked like prior to transformation, with a few differences such as paler skin, green-yellow eyes and slightly sharper teeth. A bestial form is the true form and is still humanoid, save animalistic facial features. Neither form carries any real benefit except arguably longer teeth in the bestial form and the ability to blend into society in mortal form. Talons can be grown in either form. When agitated, emotional, feeding, hunting, fighting or exposed to massive quantities of blood (A battlefield) a striga is forced to assume their bestial form. Lulu's made effectively all the points I have, and better at that. I implore you to read her post. Refer to this post and my prior ones, specifically my immediately last one where I compared strengths and weaknesses of a striga and frost witch. I don't think things are unbalanced. Super-strength is a myth - I never said anything about it. But if that's the general consensus more weaknesses can be added. Advocates with bias and a political agenda have endeavored to manipulate and omit strengths and weaknesses so as to prove their point, but I can do that just as well. I'd be in favor of doing something like this. Unfortunately I know nothing about souls and the lore submission post told me to stray away from ever mentioning them. I think Matt has already addressed most of your concerns, @Dohvi.

I think the issue here is that you're deliberately manipulating information in a particular way to serve your end. A more accurate list would go: Strengths: -Immortality -Marginally extra strength and speed (Read the original post, under the strengths category - since this was cause to confusion, I changed it to be explicit in its wording) -Talons and fangs -Regeneration I've omitted smell and saliva because they're absolute minutia. Neither are needed for the lore. The first is a nice RP mechanic, but can it detract from anybody else's experience in any way? A real advantage can't actually be gained from saying 'we have a heightened sense of x'. According to lore, elves have a heightened sense of sight, but is this really useful aside from enriching RP with a throwaway emote? For what it's worth, frost witches are able to identify their own kind as well. Saliva was again, just my attempt to add flavor in. It can be axed. Weaknesses: -Infertile -Other holy/immortal weaknesses such as gold -Dogs, canines, most mammals can know what they are -Lose grip on reality if exposed to too much blood -Absolutely no magic -Numerous ways of discovery, upon which they're liable to be dealt with speedily In contrast- Strengths: -Immortality -Ice magic -Talons and fangs (Frost witches have them as well!) I don't consider shapeshifting a strength to the frost witches just as I don't consider it a strength to strigae. To my mind, it's more or less cosmetic in origin. Weaknesses: -Infertile -No special magic while appearing normal (Is this really a weakness? I can easily apply the same to many of the 'heightened skills' [which might I add are being hyped up by a few people as being some superpowers they're legitimately not] and say they can't be used in a normal form) -Numerous ways of discovery, upon which they're liable to be dealt with speedily -Fire and heat See, I can manipulate and interpret strengths and weaknesses to serve an agenda as well. We need to look at this from a more holistic viewpoint and I'd urge you to be less influenced by the 'lore orthodoxy' of the Fjarriauga. There is room in this town for the two of us. There are a few things I'm more than happy to amend so as to keep the peace. I will cut out the 'saliva paragraph' completely. I will, on zaezae's suggestion, change it so that a striga who has not fed recently feels hot to the touch, not cold. I will endeavor to find another weakness or 'identifier' comparable to the frost witch's lack of blood when cut. I have already clarified that the level of strength and speed a minority are railing against is not what you think it is, and amended the original post accordingly. I will even change it so that strigae are not immortal and ageless, but merely live relatively long compared to humans, not that this practically means anything other than semantics. I want to respond to your post in full @Mithradites but I'm dying of sleep deprivation and so will hopefully get around to that tomorrow. To answer your question about the word 'ruahdrel' though: it's an absolute placeholder because I had nothing else. If you can get me an approximate ancient elven translation of 'blood-sucker', I will use that instead. The quotes are meant to just add flavor and if they offend anyone's sensibilities can be changed or outright canned. My apologies about the references to Aeldin and the Witcher inspiration, but you know how us human RPers are!

It seems to be necessary since you seem to be ignoring what I'm saying and only hearing what you want to hear. Meanwhile, what you're repeating is something that just blatantly isn't true. I'm inspired by a great many sources Witcher, Warhammer and folklore, but I never copy from them, and to say that I do is insulting. I've used a lot of art from the Witcher in the original topic, yes. But every single sentence of that post is my own writing, or Matt's. I haven't ripped anything off and merely 'changed' a few words as you're putting it. You're doing me a disservice by saying so. I don't know why I have to spell this out to you in simple points. Read the document again, in its entirety, read every word of it. Don't just skim over it. And if you still genuinely see nothing 'specifically making them different' from Fjarriauga, then I'll make you a Venn diagram if it'll keep you happy.

The thing is, I think this argument is based on a strawman, a completely false premise. It was never my intent for this lore to come across as giving strigae super-strength or super-speed. I said in a former post that (Pardon the shitty copy paste): "I don't care too much for buffing a character up to an unreasonable degree. Strength, to my mind, was never intended to construe anything greater than that of a relatively fit, mortal person for their respective body size - swiftness, agility and 'evasiveness', is the same. Not to any sort of supernatural extent but rather just comparable to that of an athletic, well-rounded person. " To me, that hardly construes a 'massive boost' especially compared to a wide breadth of magical abilities that frost witches have access to. I admittedly have no idea what you mean by 'very specific situations'. Stop repeating yourself. You won't find a single part of this document copy-pasted from any Witcher source, except for some nomenclature and some images. I haven't plagiarized a thing, and if you were as well-versed in Witcher lore as you're making out you are you'd recognize that there are ample differences.

I know it doesn't - which is why I'm not making it in regards to frost witches. Your lore is your lore and you are entitled to restrict that to whatever demographic you so please, in fact I literally said I'm no proponent of equal opportunity semantics, however that aforementioned phrase applies to me and my lore as well. I'm merely questioning why you feel it necessary that a demographic be denied from even the tiniest bit of niche overlap which seems to consist of 'feeds on mortals' on account of your own unrelated lore which does deny it. wow are you seriously still angry about princess vittoria please grow up that was ic and happened legitimately over two years ago now I'll be as abrasive as I want when an argument is introduced to me in an equally abrasive fashion. In my response to _mkkk_'s post, you'll notice I hold no such demeanor. Seems fairly reasonable to me. "i don't like you so your lore is therefore invalid. you can't have anything to do with my clique" I'm extremely committed to developing and enriching the server and its lore for the benefit of the entire community and dynamic roleplay as a whole. My own personal interests do not come into this, nor does my personality or my RP history with you of all people. You err greatly to decry me as evil and toxic merely because I hold an opposing viewpoint to you and moreover because I responded to you in the same aggressive manner you initially attacked me in. As I think SupremacyOps once said, a very long time ago: Don't dish it out if you can't take it. I've done a great deal of worldbuilding and writing and I see no issue here. Your uniqueness is not being infringed upon. We share a few theoretical qualities and in my eyes they're completely immaterial and moreover can be compromised to a degree. For cold skin, I wanted a weakness and another 'identifier' that picks out a striga. Blood-drinking is obviously the natural premise of this kind of creature. Shapeshifting in my eyes is of a completely different nature to that of a frost witch. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what's a frost witch's 'bestial' form but that of a slightly bluer, fanged version of their normal form? I don't know why we can't share the niche - hell, you can even have the lion's share of it if you want. That does happen in natural ecosystems, after all.

This was always intended to be a very mild chemical boon - hardly the kind of agent that would leave you bleeding to death and totally unaware of a wound you've suffered. I'm more than happy to tone the wording down or even remove it completely - to me it just made sense as these are adaptations that blood-drinking animals like the vampire bat have developed naturally. I'll edit things immediately to clarify that we're not talking Prince Aleksei Nikolaevich hemophilia here ("Papercut yourself and bleed to death") with the painlessness of modern local anesthetic. I don't care too much for buffing a character up to an unreasonable degree. Strength, to my mind, was never intended to construe anything greater than that of a relatively fit, mortal person for their respective body size - swiftness, agility and 'evasiveness', is the same. Not to any sort of supernatural extent but rather just comparable to that of an athletic, well-rounded person. As for regeneration and the fatality of wounds - look at things from the lens of a walker from AMC's the Walking Dead. You can only 'kill' a walker by destroying its brain. Other wounds have little to no effect. How much harder to kill does that make a walker than a normal human being? The answer is not much. Of course I'm being facetious and not taking into account variables like a walker's slowness, but the point's still there. No, I agree with what you've said about memory recollection. Truth be told, I didn't even think about that, and it'll be added in post-haste. 'Deaths' in this fashion will be subject to the same restrictions Cloud Temple revivals are, to prevent meta-gaming etc. No recollection for the 30 mins/1 hour (Or whatever it is, I have no idea since I haven't revived myself at a Cloud Temple since 2012) before a death.

Not at all. I knew the frost witch lipstick critics would be ready to leap upon this - I invited you to, after all - but I had hoped that they'd at least do me the courtesy of reading the post in full before attempting to crucify me for it. Not two sentences in and you've contradicted yourself. The paragraph explicitly mentions having sharp teeth as well as numerous 'bad traits' (By which I presume you mean clearly identifying traits) such as pale skin, a singular eye color and diminished skin temperature - what do you mean without? Yes, frost witches share some of these traits - how is this a bad thing? We've written eight-thousand words here, the least you can do is take it in its entirety instead of focusing on a few extremely general sentences that overlap with frost witch lore, taking note that it's not even your lore to begin with. I don't know what's going on with Urara these days and we didn't always see eye to eye, but I know that one thing she did stand for was lore creativity and the development of anything innovative and new that would enrich dynamic roleplay. I find it hard to believe that she'd take the first opportunity to bash something that possibly threatened her lore's 'special snowflake' (Pardon the pun) status. Yes, these are weaknesses. I don't know if there's some language barrier issues going on with you or something because to anybody who has any real understanding of the way those sentences are very clearly phrased, they are weaknesses. Period. If you want to roleplay as part of this lore, you are doing so under extremely strict and moderated regulations, which you pledge to adhere to under all circumstances. Nobody will get away with ignoring them, not even the lore's creators. You definitely have missed it. Read the document again, in full this time. Again, read the document again. There's a whole plethora of drawbacks which you're obviously being either selectively blind to or just plain ignoring. I daresay there's a great deal more weaknesses than your frost witches - the inability and lack of any respective creature magic being key here. There's a great deal of uniqueness here and if you read the document you'd see that. The overlapping traits with frost witches - and I don't think there are many, seeing as the completely different nature of the creatures (i.e strigae are capable of being infinitely more diverse and heterogeneous in their characters than the same old tower-dwelling, butch, man-hating frost witch archetype, which has been done to death since 2012) - are insignificant enough to raise the question of "What reasonable person actually cares?" Nobody's going to denigrate lore for a new and unique type of wolf because it too closely resembles the server's existing dog population. This isn't much different. If it's your concern, I haven't, nor would I ever plagiarize lore from another source. Every word of the writing in this topic is my own or Matt's. I'm not following. This is not even a remotely valid point. Because it's been suggested many times before doesn't make it inherently bad - if I didn't think our attempt was infinitely higher in quality than those past suggestions, I wouldn't have posted it. What? Can you elaborate on this? How on earth are they 'stronger' than frost witches? Not only are they completely different, we expressly wrote many of the weaknesses as worse and more debilitating than those of the Fja - absolutely no magic is a key point here. They have access to teeth and claws, so do you. So do mostly any predator. I can't address your concerns if you're just going to throw me the blanket phrase of 'but they're stronger'. Frankly, I don't think they are. To your concerns about making a female only clique group obsolete, I laughed. I'm hardly an advocate of equal opportunity when it comes to lore so male frost witches aren't something I particularly want to see - but what do you gain other than smug self-satisfaction from opposing an alternative accessible to male characters? Do you feel simply that with another cannibalistic monster on the loose you'll lose your niche and go extinct? The same could be said of any mage to another magic archetype. I hate taking this kind of tone with anybody in a public forum, but when they so rudely initiate with it, it's clear there's only one sort of language they understand.

For the greater strigae - player creatures comparable to frost witches, however similarly under a high level of regulation and extensive rules, with the understanding that 'overindulging' results in degeneration into a beast. Some of the degenerated strigae would be good for event creatures, however.

((The following concept and design was a collaboration between myself and mth_dew. We encourage any feedback to be posted publicly from anyone who feels as if they have anything worth saying - if any lore team members wish to discuss flaws or canonical errors/impossibilities they find in this piece that they would like amended, please get in touch with me instead of just keeping it to yourself and formulating your opinion on the lore as a whole on that basis, because I'm always very much willing to compromise.)) STRIGAE The Children of the Unseen “There is, you say, an issue with monsters here?” The leaves of autumn crunched beneath Stefan de Witte’s doeskin boots as he stood before the alderman, in the centre of the village of Ashworth. A royal witch-hunter of the highest order, there was very little ground in provincial Exeter that he had not scoured in his dangerous trade. This village was known to him fairly well, it having been plagued by vodniks and the like before, however it had evidently elected a new alderman - the last, Deremir, had been known to de Witte, and had died of dropsy the year past. The new village elder was a middle-aged man of grey hair, clean-shaven and quiet of speech. The governor had assigned de Witte to speak to him, to attain the root of the hamlet’s problems. “Aye, sir. Not just any monster, either,” responded the alderman in hushed tones. He was briefly interrupted by a hound that barked at him as it passed, “The cooper’s son was found behind the chapel, with his throat torn open, his blood drained. It’s the third such murder in three weeks.” “Were there any witnesses to any of the killings?” asked the witch-hunter. “Only the village drunk, Henry Evein, and to the first murder. He says he saw a figure transform into a ghastly beast and tear the victim apart with dreadful talons, but in an instant, it was gone, disapparated into the fog,” retorted the elder. “A figure of what kind? Were they from around the village? Might I speak to Evein?” “I fear you cannot. For he was the second murder,” responded the alderman hesitantly, “If you would like to examine the body, it was taken to the crypt. I shall show you to it.” Introduction “With a striga? To what end? Did you kill her?” -Baron de Wett to the Hexer, Adeon Fableknight, 1521 Common elven legend has it that the first striga (Plural: strigae/Singular: striga) was a child born the sixth son of a sixth son, (Truly, an exemplary number of children for any elf to bear) and the tradition of human small-folk states that strigae are the reanimated corpses of great sinners, unable to find solace in death. These are the kinds of tall tales and folklore circulated between villages, propagated by peasant preachers and taught to children in lieu of discipline in order to scare them into submission. In truth, strigae are not undead and are of such variation that to quantify them is difficult, however scholars have managed to broadly categorize them into two classes - the greater and lesser. In the elven tradition, these beings are referred to as ruahdrel, and in dwarven texts they are called the ardolar. Savoyards and Imperials may call a female (But never a male) striga a bruxa. Most familiar to any reader is the universally commonplace appellation of choice for these mysterious creatures: vampires. “Give us a maid of unspoiled stock, That we may hew her limbs, And on a pile sacrifice her flesh, Before this earthly prison of her bones, A virgin’s blood, so that the Taker of Souls be appeased.” The elven sorcerer, Gedym aep Helgraen, and his seven acolytes had spoken the words in unison before the assembled altar, as the texts they had found in forgotten crypts described. Everything was proceeding as according to his plan, his exact measurements prescribed and carried out with an expert eye for detail. A runic pattern drawn in ground manticore horn adorned the basalt floor of the highest chamber of his great black tower. Demonic icons garnished various points of the pattern, and the walls of the chamber were covered in murals depicting the most disgusting and violent of excesses. Magic and power aep Helgraen had in abundance, and he had conjured himself an army of filthy, bestial servants to attend to his every need - it was not temporal desires, then, that had led him to spend the greater part of his life endeavouring to summon Iblees. It was his wish for eternal life. It was aep Helgraen’s virgin daughter who would serve as his first sacrifice, once he and his students had spoken the proper incantations. Bound tightly to the heavy rock altar, the girl made not a sound as her father slit her throat with his silver dagger, her lifeblood spilling out and pooling onto the sorcerous symbols that had been arranged so carefully. “We call Him hither,” ordered aep Helgraen imperiously in a forgotten, black tongue, and nothing came. The blood continued to flow as the girl choked on it, her eyes glazing over slowly. A dim glow was emitted from the runes cut into the altar, but naught else emerged from their chanting. “We call Him hither!” commanded the sorcerer again, and the earth rumbled from far below. With a terrible groan and a vile laughter from the realm beyond, each of his seven acolytes were torn apart by hideous, eyeless and winged creatures, their talons rending flesh as effortlessly as they had appeared in the chamber. Afeared, aep Helgraen took a step back from the spectacle, holding his staff aloft and preparing an incantation. His students were paralyzed, cut to ribbons by the demonic beings he had accidentally summoned, who lapped up their blood like the night-bats of Varendoz. The First of the Unseen “Fear not, Gedym aep Helgraen, who hath so foolishly called us to this world,” spoke the first and tallest of the beings, “You have sought immortality, and so we shall grant it to you.” And swearing allegiance did aep Helgraen thence become the Unseen’s first follower, and the first of the strigae. “A vampire? Get together a band of militiamen, weave a few wreaths of garlic and get the smith to forge some aurum weapons, herd it into sunlight. It’s hardly a difficult matter to deal with, hexer, so why is it taking so long?” “Lord Godwine, the matter’s hardly that simple. We could kill the striga, sure, but these are beasts of ancient breeding and dark magic. It’d be back in a few years time and I doubt it would be very happy with you.” -Godwine Horen, Regent of Lorraine, and Coren Isil of the Hexicanium, circa 1530s Origins The Unseen summoned by the wicked sorcerer Gedym aep Helgraen were foul, demonic creatures sworn to the fallen daemon Iblees. They wielded dark, unutterable sorcereries, and toyed with mortal life like playthings. They were faceless and eyeless, and what features they bore were sunken and protruded, like skin taut against bone. Their flesh was pale and grey, like stone, and great, torn wings adorned their backs, carrying them throughout the planes of the daemon and the world of the mortals, whereupon they served their master, however sparse their service was. The creatures, of which there are only seven, were powerful casters, capable of great feats of dark magic, and fond of cursing the unsuspecting and the foolish. This was the case of Gedym aep Helgraen, an ambitious elven sorcerer, who sought to further his agelessness, and create himself master of death - unkillable, and undying. Through an ancient, odious ritual, the elven mage aspired to gain this gift by favor of the daemon Iblees. His power was magnificent, but out of reach. Helgraen made hearth in Aeldin, in the era of the elder races where humanity were little more than hut-dwelling savages and elven kingdoms dominated the continent. There he was hidden away in the northern reaches of the continent, as unforgiving as time is voracious. The savages residing in the lands were said to be easily ensorcelled, and made fit servants and cultists for the sorcerer, proving useful in the elf’s pursuit of true immortality. When the time came, and the means had been set, Helgraen performed his dark sacrament, crying out to the fallen daemon to summon him for reward. He erred in some intricacies of the incantation, for his pleas fell upon the ears of the Unseen, a coven of otherworldly beings who came to the elf from another dimension, with ill intent. Savoring in the misfortune of mortal beings and desiring to create for themselves a race of servants, the seven creatures granted that which Helgraen sought, but not without burden. His skin grew paler, and an almost insatiable compulsion took hold. He felt himself yearning for something, as if he were incomplete. The Unseen were quick to enlighten the sorcerer as to what he had become: a striga, the first of his kind, a new kind of being damned to hunger for the lifeblood of mortal creatures. In exchange for timelessness, he now craved corporeal pleasure, and where he had been an accomplished wizard before the arts of magic were now lost to him. He became capable of assuming two forms. When resting, he was able to appear much the same as he had before his transformation, albeit paler in complexion. When in an agitated and activated state, he would lose control of this form, his nose and ears becoming bat-like, flat and pointed, his canine teeth being elongated into fangs and his fingernails growing into long, vicious talons capable of rending flesh with ease. The Unseen had sown the seeds of darkness, and set out across the land, falling dormant, finding themselves unable to return to their plane. The seven creatures began to sleep, each awakening in intervals of fifty years at a time per ancient tradition, leaving the cursed elf to his relative lonesome. The striga came to become familiar with his new form, and took for himself a collection of human worshippers, idolized as a powerful lord by the short-lived creatures, who so greatly admired the triumph over age and time. Their curse was already outshined by the long lives of the elves, but now, even that was well and truly trumped. Helgraen’s immortality would eventually come to be desired by his servants, and the sorcerer himself desired to increase their longevity and diminish their fragility by sharing his blood curse. Eventually, after many horrific failures and experiments, he developed a means by which to create new strigae. Helgraen had attained the ability to survive even the most dire of wounds, and so he feared not the loss of his own cursed life-essence. The aspiring mortals were bled, and rid of the majority of their own blood. Once drained, the host of the ceremony, the striga in question, spilt its own blood, sharing it with the bled mortal, and allowing them to take it upon themselves. The process is a dangerous one, and fails often. Many of those who undertake it die horrible, slow deaths. Others reject the blood, and merely rot, suffering violent reactions as if it were poison in their veins. The select few who survive and remain living become strigae, bearers of the curse first bestowed upon Gedym aep Helgraen. New generations of striga were born, and in time, they slowly spread across the world, traversing the continent and establishing small covens and enclaves, relishing in their immortality, while constantly battling the price it bore. The true origins of the Unseen and the curse conveyed upon Gedym aep Helgraen are in actuality shrouded in mystery. It is widely believed to those few scholars and enthusiasts in maleficarum that they are demonic creatures from another world, however in actuality they are a group of seven fallen aengudaemons pledged to Iblees, meaning their origins are in the present dimension after all. The body of the cooper’s son was truly wretched. His throat had been torn open and made a ruin. His torso carried innumerable slashing marks, and where his heart should have been there was now a simple, gaping hole. Looking over the cadaver, de Witte could see the stone slab upon which his body had been placed in the crypt through the hole, slick with dark blood. Of course, the witch-hunter had seen worse. Perhaps this was the work of some particularly careless frost witch? After making a few more observations, he exited the crypt, returning to the alderman. “I’ll need to question a few villagers,” he said at once, to which the man nodded fervently. He checked that he had all of his golden blades, just in case he encountered this beast. De Witte would keep his suspicions to himself for the moment. If word were released that a town were plagued by a greater vampire, a striga, the governor would sooner burn the village and massacre its inhabitants than even risk the chance of such a creature escaping. For the sake of these people, he prayed that the fiend was a mere ghoul or rotter. “A higher vampire, Your Imperial Majesty, is truly more like us mortals than it is a bestial lesser vampire. They are like your people in speech, behaviour, and intelligence. You will not find them lurking in caves or forests, but within your very cities, practically indistinguishable. We of Haelun’or call them the ruahdrel.” -Kalenz Uradir, advising Robert I on magical affairs, circa 1460s Greater strigae Greater strigae (Flexio: vampirus superiores) are the masters of camouflage and deception, in many cases appearing nearly identical to their form prior to transformation. These immortal, ageless beings (In actuality they are not immortal, having natural life-spans of around four thousand years, only appearing so to shorter lived species) are just as varied and capable of thought and emotion as any sentient creature - in fact, they often feel the latter to a higher intensity than mortal creatures. In contrast to their lesser forms, whom they typically loathe and shun for their animalistic instincts and lack of grip on reality, greater strigae may fall within any alignment and have just as diverse aspirations, abilities, moralities, feelings, goals and personalities as any mortal. Some strigae may be inherently more bestial than others, depending on their prior lives. They may desire to live among mortals in cities or live solitary lives, hidden away from society. Even their individual approaches to their addiction to fresh humanoid blood may be heterogeneous. Physiology The normal and ‘passive’ form of a greater striga is very similar to the appearance assumed prior to their transformation. They are humanoid, allowing them more or less to blend into greater society, and while they look much as they were before when mortal, there are a few very subtle differences that the trained eye can notice as telltale signs of a striga. Firstly, a greater striga appears paler than average, though not necessarily unnaturally so or to a degree that appears unhealthy or abnormal such as albinism. Secondly, the canine teeth are slightly pointed and elongated into tiny fangs, however this is usually hidden by a closed mouth. Thirdly, the iris of a striga’s eye is always a yellow-green colour - however, again, this is not necessarily unnatural among many mortals. Finally, a striga who has not fed on blood for a considerable amount of time feels cold to the touch. A male greater striga in bestial form However, greater strigae are able to change their corporeal shell and shapeshift. This bestial and ‘activated’ form can be willed by the striga or brought on by intense emotions such as anger or fear, especially when the striga is hunting for prey or triggered by excessive blood. This form is still humanoid in nature, however is distinctly more monstrous in appearance. The cheekbones appear hollow and sunken, with eyes dark-rimmed and totally blackened (To the point where there are often no pupils) as if those of an insect. Skin appears sallow, with black veins beneath becoming slightly visible, and the nose is flattened and the ears elongated as if those of a bat or wolf. This similar appearance is believed to be the origin of folklore’s identification of vampires and ruahdrel with bats, however in actuality the two creatures have no affinity at all. Fingernails become extended to extremely long, strong and sharp talons, perfect for the rending of flesh (These talons may also be manifested as a singular feature while the striga is in their normal, ‘mortal’ form) and are durable enough to sometimes even capable of parrying blades. Finally, a striga’s canine teeth also become elongated, for the purpose of biting and thrashing. It is worth noting that there are only two forms a greater striga can assume - their mortal form, which resembles their appearance prior to transformation albeit slightly changed, and their striga (Albeit humanoid) form, the details of which are described in the paragraph above. As the striga's monstrous form can be either willed for utilitarian purposes or triggered inadvertently by intense emotion, more level-headed strigae may never need to assume this shape. A female greater striga in bestial form Though strigae are not undead and are technically living, being somewhat a halfway point and hybrid between their mortal husks and their Unseen predecessors, the curse has greatly diminished and slowed their ability to naturally produce the life-essences found in mortal bodies (genus, lifeforce, etc) and so they are blindly compelled to consume blood in search of it. Despite this compulsion, the consumption of blood serves as a powerful addiction for which they will always have a taste, but not an absolute requirement to survive. Greater strigae can theoretically sustain themselves on mortal food and drink alone, however this rarely happens in practise. The blood of mortals serves as a powerful drug which conveys upon strigae several temporary boons - greater strength, speed and regenerative capabilities among them, as well as the pleasurable sense of being ‘drunk’, senseless and intoxicated - and as a result very few strigae can ever totally overcome the addiction, if they indeed would even desire to. A lack of blood will often result in weakness and lethargy as signs of withdrawal, however an overindulgence will usually result in a greater striga’s degeneration into a bestial lesser striga with no grasp on reality (See below for lesser strigae). This occurs usually if a greater striga partakes in more than one ‘meal’ of blood (Presuming that enough blood is drained to kill an adult victim) in the timespan of a seed-month. A male greater striga in his normal form In contrast to the tales of folklore, garlic, sunlight and holy iconography have no effect on greater strigae, and though they are naturally nocturnal they are able to adapt to daytimes accordingly. Strigae are also totally infertile, and can only reproduce by transfusing their blood to create more strigae, a dangerous process which usually ends in failure and degeneration. They also possess a heightened sense of low-light eyesight and smell and are able to identify and track familiar blood through its particular scent. Similarly, animals with developed olfactory ability such as dogs, cats or horses are able to identify a striga merely through smell, and are usually averse to one’s presence. This makes it practically impossible under normal circumstances for a striga to mount a typical horse, as the animal will be too afeared and inevitably throw off its vampiric rider. In the presence of an extreme amount of blood, such as in an abattoir or large battle, a striga is liable to become overstimulated by the scent of excessive blood, and is typically driven into an animalistic, uncontrolled rage made manifest in the striga’s bestial form. This tends to make strigae very poor soldiers of any army intended to face battle. Depending on how much time a striga takes to feed, they may imbibe minutes amount of blood in a short amount of time, taking not enough to kill the victim, (Though that is contingent on their ability to both literally restrain their ‘meal’ and physically restrain themselves) or they may drain a victim of blood to the point of their death. They may feed on victims living or very freshly killed, however cannot feed on putrefied corpses. A striga will appear the same age as they were when they were transformed across their lifespan, with very little signs of aging - for example, a striga transformed at age twelve will appear twelve forever. As they are considered to be creatures of darkness, all strigae greater or lesser are anathema to the monks of the Cloud Temple, and accordingly they cannot be healed or restored by them. They possess an immunity to diseases, poisons, toxins, plague and sickness. This does not apply to those created by magical means. Abilities and characteristics Heightened skills Strigae are blessed with skills heightened since their transformation. They are endowed with a level of strength (Though not that exceeding an orc or olog) comparative to a being of their size, and are able to adeptly apply this strength to use of their elongated talons. They are capable of being swift in their movements and reflexes, though again not to a supernatural degree, and their level of agility is typically high. They possess a heightened sense of smell (And are able to recognize the scent of another striga through this) and are able to detect many scents of blood, as well as keener low-light eyesight than most mortals, and an almost cat-like ability to survive higher falls than would a typical mortal. When a striga is under the influence of blood, these skills are slightly increased in potency. Regeneration Strigae possess an unbelievable ability to regenerate from wounds sustained that would kill or gravely wound a mere mortal. Natural, mundane fire such as that from a torch or pyre has almost no effect on them, and wounds such as a stake through the heart may be shrugged off and regenerated in a matter of hours after they were received. Strigae have even been known to regenerate lost limbs after they have been severed - this takes a considerable amount of time, however, and cannot be performed in the moment. Magical fire may hurt them, but burns sustained from it can still be regenerated. Similarly, wounds inflicted by aurum or holy magic take considerably longer to be healed - usually a matter of months or years. Regardless, the only certain way to destroy a greater striga’s body is by destroying its brain somehow, through either mundane means or the magical. This is immortalized in a little-known Istrian nursery rhyme which reads: A blade through the arm/You’ll come to great harm/A blade through the heart/You’re not very smart/A blade through the brain/You’re the vampire’s bane. Even though a greater striga’s body may be totally destroyed and their ‘life’ ended, they are not so easily eliminated. A byproduct of the curse is that the spirit lingers on (Initially bound to the general area of the site of death - upon discovery by another striga it may move in order to commune with its corporeal comrade) and with the help of another striga’s donated blood and fraternal aid, in a regenerative process vaguely reminiscent of the transfusion ritual, their ethereal form may reform into another body, identical to the last, with the same memories. This process has never been known to take less than nine years at a minimum, depending on the level of fatal injury sustained (Being totally burned into ash by a pyromancer’s magical fire would take around half a century to regenerate from, for example) and indeed for the first year or two in a new body a striga is usually too weak to even walk unaided, let alone hunt or feed. It is believed that a greater striga whose blood is forcibly drunk by another greater striga will be unable to regenerate in this fashion, suffering a final death, and similarly without the assistance and blood of one of their own species, a striga’s spirit will be not be able to return to corporeal form. For this reason, the Codex of the Unseen dictates that strigae must never quarrel among their own kind, and must always help their own when it becomes necessary. Strigae typically prefer to regenerate from their wounds in an isolated place unfrequented by mortals, and it is this preference which has led to their reputation of residing in crypts, mausoleums and coffins. They cannot employ any form of magic, with any prior learnt skills becoming lost to them upon their transformation. This regeneration is subject to the same restrictions as revival by the Cloud Temple Monks, including short term memory loss, and carries with it the added burden of taking great time. Strengths and weaknesses summarized Strengths Strigae are immortal, unaffected by time or disease. Strigae are endowed with some significant strength relative to their size, though not beyond that of an orcish creature. This is not super-strength. Strigae are able to be very quick and evasive, capable of moving and concealing themselves in the shadows adeptly. This is not super-speed. Strigae may grow long talons for use in combat when enraged, hunting or blood-drunk. Greater strigae are capable of regenerating wounds that would be fatal to mortals very quickly, such as a stab through the heart or a slit throat, unless inflicted upon them by gold or holy magic, in which case such wounds take considerably longer to heal and are able to more easily incapacitate the striga. Greater strigae are unkillable under most circumstances. While their bodies can be totally incapacitated in much the same manner as would a normal humanoid (Rapid dismemberment, beheading) and destroyed through destruction of the brain, ‘death’ in this fashion only serves to destroy the corporeal body and banish the spirit from this plane. With enough time (Recorded in this document as a minimum of nine years) and the aid of another striga’s blood, a greater striga may regenerate a new body, identical to the last. However, if a greater striga is killed by one of its own kind, it suffers a final death - and similarly, if another striga refuses to offer aid to a comrade whose body is destroyed (Whether this is because they are anathema or for other reasons) they may not regenerate. Weaknesses Strigae are compelled to feed on blood, hungering for it like a powerful addiction. Though this ‘alcoholism’ can occasionally be overcome by the most controlled of strigae, it is always latent. Strigae who have not fed on blood for an extended period of the time are cold to the touch and usually significant weaker in combat than those who have. Greater strigae who overindulge (More than one adult 'meal' per seed-month) on blood will devolve into one of the many forms of lesser striga. Many animals with developed senses of smell, hounds and horses especially, are able to detect the scent of a striga and are averse to one’s presence. Like most unnatural beings, strigae are susceptible to aurum and silver, and cannot immediately regenerate wounds inflicted by blades of gold. To a striga, any form of aurum or silver is very uncomfortable to the touch, and must be handled with gloves. Similarly, strigae are vulnerable to holy magic, and are unable to immediately regenerate wounds inflicted by it. They tend to avoid practitioners of holy magic such as paladins, being uncomfortable in their presence. Accordingly, they cannot be healed via magic. Becoming a striga is irreversible. Strigae are infertile and can only reproduce by inflicting their curse (Or as they often see it, a blessing) upon others. Strigae are completely unable to learn and utilize magical skills as a result of their affliction. Prior magical skills that were learnt prior to transformation become unusable. Strigae cannot utilize the Cloud Temple monks to heal their bodies. The scent of excessive blood such as that of a large battle or slaughterhouse will drive even the most controlled striga temporarily wild and rabid, forcing them into their more bestial form and causing them to lose control of their emotions. The pyre was so bright that it illuminated the Exeterian countryside around Ashworth for miles. It seemed to reach metres into the sky, an array of logs and brush upon which was bound the burning figure who had been de Witte’s adversary. It had been heard of for strigae to masquerade as herbalists and alchemists in villages, and so the obvious culprit of the murders was Johanna Varens, the hamlet’s primitive witch-doctor. Mysterious and maligned, it was her who the villagers would turn to in place of a physician, which the rural folk had no access to. She would brew her remedies and salves in her cottage just outside of Ashworth, charge a hefty price, but otherwise trouble nobody. None of them would have suspected the old woman to be a greater vampire as ancient as the continent itself. The witch-hunter was slightly disgusted at their non-perception. He would lie to the governor, though, for their sake, and tell him that it was merely a frost witch or something of the like. They had gathered around the pyre, dancing and rejoicing as the herbalist burnt alive. The moon was weak and waning, and so the cold night was lit up exclusively by the arrangement of burning wood and flesh. Stefan de Witte did not partake in the pomp and ceremony as the local priest proselytized against wickedness, instead going straight to the main hut to inform the alderman that the deed had been done, and the village was safe again. “Thanks be to God!” said the elder, producing a coinpurse of Imperial crowns with which to compensate him. The witch-hunter waved it off, for his actions were merely his civic duty. “If there’s nothing else,” he said as he turned about-face, going to exit the elder’s house. “But you forgot something, Mr. de Witte,” stated the alderman with quiet certainty. The witch-hunter turned around impassively, an eyebrow raised. “Did they not teach you in the academy,” began the middle-aged man, bringing his candle-light up to his face as if to demonstrate the point, “...that fire will not kill a striga?” Before de Witte could respond, the alderman fell upon him as quick as lightning, sinking long teeth into his exposed neck. Then, all turned to darkness. “Helgraen was immortal, and so too did the lesser folk desire to be. Thus, a method of transfusion was discovered by the sorcerer, and the creation of more strigae came to light. The process is a vile one, steeped in failure…” -Texts found in Tor Styx, unknown author, circa 400-600s The ritual of transformation To become a new striga, a transfusion of blood must take place. A mature striga must be present to host the ceremony, as must be the requisite runes and incantations in reflection of the procedure aep Helgraen originally used when he summoned the Unseen. This process is mysterious, with the full details and preparation unknown to most. Theoretically, any striga can perform the sacrament necessary to create more of their kind, however knowledge of the ritual, its incantation’s exact pronunciation and reagent’s explicit alchemical measurements, is required and that itself is a private mystery to any but the most venerable and senior of strigae. A newly turned female striga, in their bestial form after having fed Generally, (The following information being all that is known to strigae and those educated in the dark arts) the process begins with the bleeding of the aspiring striga. They are drained of a great deal of their blood, to the point of killing them. Once drained, and on course to death, a striga must share its own, cursed blood with the aspirant. The ritual is a risky one, often resulting in the death of the aspirant, and a bloody mess. In the case of success, the cursed blood will flow through the aspirant’s veins, afflicting him or her with the curse. There is much more to the transfusion than this, however many of these riddles are as yet unanswered to any outside observer. A newly turned striga must feed at least once shortly after the experience of turning, or else it will starve and wither. Alternatively, if it overindulges on blood, it will turn into a lesser striga. For this reason, a living sacrifice is often retained to be fed upon at the end of these rituals. Most of the information available to mortals about this dark sacrament comes from those rare sacrifices that have escaped, having observed the clandestine process. “Pray you the striga we hunt has not degenerated. We’ve come equipped to reason with something more akin to man than beast.” -Glaeddwen aep Invaerne to Marked initiate Luka of Flotsam. Lesser strigae Lesser strigae bear only a marginal resemblance to their greater striga origins. In contrast to the latter, who are capable of as much reason, thought and emotion as they were prior to their transformation, lesser strigae are little more than beasts, barely sentient. All that is unanimous between the two varieties of striga is a mutual thirst for blood - however, while the sentient greater striga are capable of going about slaking their thirst through calculated means, lesser striga are not. They are unable to regenerate wounds to even half the degree greater strigae are, and will not be able to form into a new body upon death (On account of the unwillingness of their kin to help them do so) making them a particularly undesirable state for any greater striga to reach. However, their regenerative abilities are still latent, and their brain must be destroyed to be sure of their death. Lesser strigae are mindless in their pursuit of blood, having completely lost their grip on reality and become totally animalistic in nature. They shy away from sunlight and the day, hiding away in sewers, forests and caves. They may not assume either of the two forms a greater striga assumes, instead being confined to their own twisted shell, and are therefore unable to blend into society as they once were. In contrast to greater strigae who retain some delicacy in their feeding, lesser strigae do not simply bite a victim and drain their blood. They more characteristically tear a victim to shreds in a show of gory dismemberment, licking up the blood from the ground with long, rasping tongues. A striga will usually suffer degeneration if they overindulge on blood, draining more than one adult meal of its life essence in the span of a seed-month. Degeneration is incurable and irreversible - it can only inevitably proceed further, and will never improve. There are many different types and forms of lesser striga depending on their level of degeneration, with the most immediate kind and the state of the least devolution being the upir, the greatest the carcoran. These labels are merely those which have been applied to the various lesser strigae by scholars of monsters such as the Marked Men - they are biologically the same creature, just at varying stages of degeneration. Portrait of a male upir The upir is a fiendish, crazed striga who has recently succumbed to their blood-drunk bestial habits. Their flesh is taught and grey, and their faces are sunken. Their claws are permanently present, and their maws distort and protrude from beneath their lips. They often linger in forests and the darker recesses of cities, looking to remain near ample sources of blood. With enough cloaks and at a great distance, an upir might appear mortal on account of its humanoid shape, however in close quarters they are anything but. Walking on two legs, they shy away from sunlight, living a distinctly nocturnal lifestyle. Their humanoid physical appearance is deceiving, for they have the mind of rabid beasts and are only capable of thought in regards to one thing - their next meal. They can speak and grunt a few rudimentary words, and generally have a painful memory of their identity prior to their degeneration which they are unable to verbalize, however appear to communicate with one another. They are weaker and slower than the greater striga they once were, their bestial mind making them far less dangerous, however nevertheless a monster to be feared. In their desperation for a cure for their hungering condition (Which does not as yet exist) they have been known to attempt to appease greater strigae into tolerating their otherwise shunned presence in striga communities. They may do this by hunting and attempting to kill greater strigae who have been marked as anathema, however they rarely succeed in this ‘redemptive mission’. Their original gender is typically discernable from their appearance. A sewer-dwelling alp feeding upon a city guardsman The alp is the second-greatest stage of devolution, resulting from when an upir exists for an extended period of time, such as several years, gorging itself on blood. An alp is barely humanoid, with a belly like a barrel of beer, a thick grey trunk covered in coarse hair and a vicious, animalistic face with deadly teeth. They are strong and stout in their body shape, and possess little to no signs of the being they once were save for a few - Coren Isil records in his Journal of the Maleficarum an instance where a striga with auburn hair eventually degenerated into an alp with a head of hair the same colour. It walks on either two legs or all four, like a great ape, and reviles sunlight. Utterly incapable of speech or sentience, they are pained creatures that retain no memory of their former identity save that deep in the subconscious, tearing apart their victims and devouring both their flesh and blood indiscriminately. They have been known to feed on corpses, and often hang around crypts and mausoleums as a result, however the disgusting creatures cannot digest rotting flesh - leading to their propensity to uncontrollably vomit and purge themselves. An alp’s sole response to any stimulus is to attack it indiscriminately, and their eyesight is very poor, undertaking much of their sensation through hearing. A hulking carcoran The carcoran is the greatest stage of degeneration a striga might reach, and is arguably the most dangerous form of lesser striga. They are violent and bestial, originating from the extreme devolution of an older alp which has fed on blood for an extended period of time. The degeneration from upir through to carcoran typically takes at a minimum five years - a period of time many upirs or alps would fail to survive, as their monstrous and stupid nature makes them considerably easier to kill, even by peasants in great number. The carcoran is significantly more dangerous than its weaker counterparts, however, possessing of over-long dangling limbs bearing bloodied claws, a thick, hulking, batlike appearance and an ability to move very swiftly in the darkness. They may walk on four limbs or stoop up on two. They are blind and unable to operate in sunlight, navigating through echolocation, and as a result they mostly reside in caves and sewers similar alps, emerging only to hunt. Like any lesser striga, they are not sentient, and their mind is incapable of higher thought, their pursuit of fresh blood and meat endless and unrelenting. Bearing very little resemblance to the original form of a greater vampire, a carcoran is strong, fast and capable of some moderate intelligence by which to hunt, making them a deadly foe for even an experienced hunter of monsters. The cavern made for an unsettling, dark scene, silent aside from the steady drip of overarching stalactites. They dotted the rocky ceiling in a morbid homage to the unwelcoming maw of some unnamed behemoth. One could easily find themselves lost for an eternity in these caves, devoid of any human life. Certainly, this site was one to avoid, and as such much of the town, only a few miles back, adhered to this. Yet the trail ended here, spatterings of blood painted here and there up to a mile back ceasing abruptly at the unhinged jaw that was the cavern’s entrance. His apprentice had been taken the night before, having been sent out on his daily chore of preparing the torches for night. It had only been dusk, the setting sun still offering its deplenished rays upon the oceans of barley and hay. The cottage was only a short ride out of town, yet the abduction was seen nor heard by nary a soul. As a witch hunter, a tradesman tasked with the culling of beasts birthed from darkness itself, it was hardly his job to handle abductions, yet the crime held a particular nefariousness to it; none of the common townsfolk would dare welcome the wrath of the witch hunter on the hill over yonder, much less make off with his apprentice, an excitable yet obedient boy of about ten. This was the work of a beast of darker character, a demon beyond town lines. There would be no quarter for the culprit, vowed the witch hunter. As the hunter sauntered into the cavern, fingers twitching instinctively around the hilt of his blade, the scene became more clear. A huge cavern enveloped around him, walls absent from the sparse light offered by the moonlight peering in through the maw of the formation. His footsteps worked in unison to the uniform drip, drip of the cave, a welcome accompaniment to the ominous absence of sound. A certain mustiness found itself to the man’s nostrils as he descended into the labyrinth, a cloying, heavy scent he found easily recognizable from his line of work: death. Death was not foreign to these caves, and the hunter immediately understood the reaper’s touch had graced this abyss only too recently. As the man found himself deeper and deeper in the cavern, the friendly moonlight had dissipated to no more than a hint, causing a halt in his descent. From his pack the man withdrew a hastily prepared torch, one of those left unlit in the chore of the apprentice. He deftly lit it with his tinderbox, immediately illuminating the cave in bouncing red hues. Continuing along the path, the hunter passed the torch into his left, calloused fist, his right hand still knowingly fingering the grip of his shortsword. A bend in the path approached, the walls of the cavern veering abruptly towards the right. As the hunter rounded the bend, the opening immediately sunk deeper, ominously akin to that of a tomb. Urgency of the cause driving him on, the fellow delved deeper into the abyss, his own safety largely shelved for the wellbeing of his apprentice. The stench of death grew in magnitude as the figure descended, illuminated by his torch, burning brightly against the surrounding darkness. As he reached the bottom, the walls of the cave stretched apart, forming a chamber. As light struck halls absent of light for a thousand years, the scene became clear to the hunter. He found the young apprentice draped against the rocks opposite him in the chamber, body strewn in an inhuman, broken manner. As he hastily approached the corpse, it was clear the body was handled in a monstrous manner, work beyond the capabilities of any man. The boy’s clothing was ripped to rags, long, slicing wounds dotting his body. The throat of the apprentice had been roughly ripped open, blood and gore splattering his face and hair, yellow like the fields of wheat dotting the edge of the hunter’s property. The incisions lacing across the boy’s corpse were like nothing the hunter had seen, the work of a creature undoubtedly gargantuan in stature. His examination of the cadaver, a gruesome process having already dealt an unsettling blow to the hunter, was abruptly cut short as the deathly silence of the cave erupted in a raucous noise, a thundering blow to the cave floor shaking the vicinity and giving the hunter quite the start. Pivoting around hastily, the hunter was met face to face with a beast perhaps only ten feet beyond the flames of his torch, its fire illuminating the scene far too well. The behemoth at his opposite stood perhaps eight feet tall, a hulking beast possessing milky white limbs as thick as tree trunks. Sharp, unkempt claws caught the light of the torch, gleaming menacingly in a manner that emphasized their deadly make. It glared at him with calculating, hungry eyes, devoid of humanity yet equipped with an animalistic predation. The hunter’s frozen, shocked form broke free from the demon’s hypnotizing figure with a roar emanating across the hall, a bestial scream shaking the very foundations of the cavern. He expertly withdrew his aurum blade with a right hand, leveling it towards the beast as he once more gathered his senses. Very little time was allotted to the hunter in this regard, the gargantuan figure wasting no time in charging the man. Leveling its claws up towards the man akin to that of a stabbing saber, the beast flung itself at the hunter with strength unmatched by any man. Parrying the veering weapons of the beast, the hunter whirled to the left, allowing the monster to charge onwards into the wall. He desperately stepped away from the creature, once more attempting to gain his footing. As it pivoted and attempted a second charge, he shoved the blazing torch towards the behemoth, stopping it in its tracks with a screeching hiss. Fire was undoubtedly a deterrent, giving the creature pause that no blade could rightly produce. Gripping the torch with all his might, the hunter waved it to and fro at the beast, leveling his blade vertically in the air. The beast watched him with furious yet hesitant eyes, halting in its tracks as if waiting for the slightest mistake. For a few moments, a tense peace settled on the chamber. The peace was broken abruptly as another shattering explosion detonated across the cavern. This thunder of noise came from behind the hunter, who spun to face the new threat in the heat of the moment. Before his eyes could analyze the second beast, he had been hit with the strength matching that of a galloping horse, slamming into the rocky ground. As he gasped for air, from his grasp rolled the torch, sputtering once, twice, before extinguishing against the damp floor, plunging the chamber once more into the darkness. Rolling onto his belly, the hunter desperately fought for his bearing, scrambling across the floor of the chamber. The pure darkness of the cavern was accompanied by the returned silence he had found at the cave’s entrance, only the consistent drip of the stalactites echoing through its empty halls. Stumbling around the chamber on his hands and knees, the hunter abandoned his blade in a desperate search for the torch. He knew there was little time to locate the device, the beasts undoubtedly but a few feet away, yet his desire to find light once more in the choking, pressing darkness powered him onwards. After a few moments, the gasping hunter felt a hand wash over the familiar wood that comprised the torch. Fumbling once more with his tinderbox, the trembling hands fought to light the torch once more. After several heart-wrenching attempts, the torch gave birth to a blast of flame, once more illuminating the cavern. As the hunter gazed upwards, powered on by his small victory, he came face to face with the hulking beast, a mere three feet ahead of his prone form. Having been delivered no more than a moment of the sweet salvation that is light, the hunter found himself fallen on by the beast. The Codex of the Unseen Before they departed into hibernation, the Unseen established a code for their children to follow under pain of death. Strigae (To whom the code exclusively applies to the greater kind) take this set of principles extremely seriously, for to defy them would mark them for a permanent death at the hands of their fellows as the anathema. It is worth noting that of the seven of the ‘demonic’ Unseen, one is always awake and six remain dormant in hibernation, ruling in ‘terms’ each for a span of a roughly a hundred years. Trusted greater strigae are allocated the role of seeking out the next of the Unseen to awake in sequence on the year of the ‘change-over’, a temporary position known as the Herald of the Unseen. This cycle is considered inviolable, and the last ‘change-over’ was believed to be around 1533. The woken Unseen is known as the most ‘senior’ elder of the striga at that particular time, and his command is law so long as it is in accordance with the Codex he and his six other compatriots agreed upon originally. He or she has the power to issue a summons to any of the greater striga in the world at will. Despite this, his location is not known to any but the designated herald for the next change-over, and he leaves his servants alone and is accordingly left to his own devices, likely in some forgotten cave network. In the Unseen’s relative absence of active involvement, communally-minded greater strigae have been known to establish covens ruled over by their own (Non-Unseen) elders in accordance with the Codex, while the more solitary of their kind prefer to live among mortals or alone. There is an entire manuscript that makes up the Codex of the Unseen, however the crudely translated volumes elucidate seven key points which form the foundation of the golden law followed by all greater striga. One must never drink the blood of and kill another fellow greater striga. All those who defy this principle shall be considered anathema. One must always remain unquestioningly obedient to the Unseen. All those who defy this principle shall be considered anathema. One must always provide fraternal assistance to any fellow striga whose body has been destroyed, and they must be helped to regenerate. All those who defy this principle shall be considered anathema. One must never consort with the lesser striga, for they are beasts and a shame upon our kind, and are considered to be anathema. One must never consort with the anathema, and must consider them exempt from the privileges of any greater striga, and thereby anathema are worthy of present death. One must always endeavour to avoid bringing the attention of mortals onto the greater strigae. One must always consider it their duty to cremate the cast-off flesh, leavings and destroyed bodies of any fellow striga.

The Victors of Hoar Hill, from left, Henry of Rothesay, John I, Augustus d'Amaury (1541) LINE OF SUCCESSION TO THE IMPERIAL THRONE Revised as of 16th of Malin's Welcome, 1593 The Imperial Crown adheres to a semi-absolute agnatic primogeniture system. The firstborn legitimate son of the Emperor would inherit, followed by the sons of the firstborn, and so on and so forth. The secondborn would follow, followed by his male progeny, and continuing down the line of sons and their progeny. In the absence of sons, the succession may pass to a line of daughters, however in accordance with the principle of Adriatic law daughters cannot inherit the Crown in their own right, with their legitimate male sons placed in the succession in their stead. In the absence of daughters with legitimate male sons, the succession passes to uncles, and great-uncles, etcetera. According to this system, the moment an emperor dies or abdicates, his heir first in the line of succession is legally considered to be the sovereign emperor, until his own death or abdication, and so on. As a result, the throne may never be considered vacant, and a coronation (While a powerful and generally employed tradition) is not necessary to convey the inheritance. The eldest legitimate son and heir apparent to the Imperial Crown is referred to as the Prince of Alstion, and cannot be displaced in the line of succession by births or deaths. Regardless of age, legitimized bastard children, while their legitimization places them in the line of succession, come after all trueborn children regardless of gender. Succession is confined to the trueborn descendants of Prince John of Marna, second son of Horen I, Holy Orenian Emperor, successor to the Exalted Godfrey. Incumbent: Philip I, Holy Orenian Emperor John Godwin, Prince of Alstion (b. 1590), first son of Philip I, heir apparent Prince Peter, Duke of Mardon and Marna (b. 1591), second son of Philip I Prince Philip, Duke of Corazon (b. 1593), third son of Philip I Louis d'Amaury (b. 1589), first son of Princess Charlotte, Archduchess of Lorraine Prince Alexander, Duke of Balamena (b. 1552), second son of John II Prince Joseph, Duke of Furnestock (b. 1555), third son of John II Stephen Alexander Horen (b. 1571), first son of Prince Robert of Marna Prince Leopold, Baron of Senntisten (b. 1544), third son of Prince Alexander, Duke of Marna Caius Sigismund Horen (b. 1574), first son of Prince Leopold, Baron of Senntisten Prince Philip, Baron of Cantal (b. 1546), fourth son of Prince Alexander, Duke of Marna Charles Horen-Balain (b. 1575), eldest son of Prince Charles, Viscount of Balian Edward Horen-Balain (b. 1578), second son of Prince Charles, Viscount of Balian Prince Henry of Furnestock (b. 1543), second son of Prince Charles, Duke of Furnestock

Mate, she's fit

Rat Tom plotting his demands to the Emperor (1581), John Morley "A soft, craven and weak man, who shares his bed with youthful boys and indulges in the foulest of excesses at his table, returning generosity with outright treason [...] I say now I am no apologist for despotism, least of all in the form of our Emperor, the Pontificist, but the Ostavarite's actions fly in the face of all singular virtue. Think little upon him, Your Grace, for I am certain he is of no consequence or so small a consequence as to not concern your approbation for better or worse." -Malcolm Lawrence, clerical nonconformist, in his private correspondence with the Duke of Leone (1557) ----- "To posterity, 'Rat Tom' Ruric and his incitement of the Rurikid Rising of 1556 has stood as the archetypal traitor in Imperial history. In addition, modern and contemporary historians have been liable to view him as a highly mentally unstable man whose lust for power ended in megalomania and bloody conflict. In his work and magnum opus, the Universal History of the Orenian State (1616), Macdonough draws upon many neo-Huguesian arguments in an attempt to justify both the Renatian Wars and the Duke's War alike, many of them contingent on the widely-held belief that the sovereign had breached the social contract owed to his subjects in giving them just government. Curiously, neither he nor any other scholar of note make any effort to exonerate the Rurikids in their rebellion, which in his words 'brought the country into violent war for no other reason than to sate an up-jumped Northman's lustful hubris'. In this way, and as one of the few times myself and Macdonough write in harmony on political matters, I must contend that the Ostavarite conflicts of the reign of John II are intrinsically more reminiscent of the Harrenite risings of the First Empire (That is to say short, abrupt, uncivilized and without real cause or justification) than they are any organized rebellion where ambiguity has surrounded the righteousness of either cause. Rat Tom was one of the most debased, cruel, arrogant, spineless and ultimately purposeless creatures of the 16th century, and on account of his actions the name of Ruric would eventually become a byword for a failed treason." -William Godfrey, in an excerpt from his Encylopaedia Johannium (1621) ----- "The common-folk of Riga have taken to burning effigies of Rat Tom Ruric in the street this night, on the one year anniversary of the Sack of Seahelm, singing all manner of ominous chants as they do so. I have read much and more of the pagen (sic) chants of antiquity, praising the sun and flame gods, and I daresay that this be reminiscent of what I imagined them as. The largest effigy was at least six yards tall and weaved expertly of reeds and other wooden parts - in the belly of this effigy of the Ostavarite traitor were a number of caged domestic cats, who upon the flames reaching them in their captivity unleashed the most horrid of noises and smells as they were immolated alive, much to the delight of the peasantry. The Duke of Courland banned the celebrations after he judged them to be 'dangerous to public order'. A wise decision truely (sic). My finer garbs are very eaten by moths, and I must acquire a replacement. The pain in my head, behind my eyes, plagues me also, and I must remember to take some of the salts the apothecary has given me." -Ferenc Horthy, a Carnatian traveler around the provinces, in an entry from his personal journal (1559) ----- "Remember, remember, the Earl of Ostavar, The Rurikid's treason and plot, I see no reason, Why the Islander's treason, Should ever be forgot." -A Crownlander folk verse, source unknown, circa 1560s

Signing of the Treaty of Malinor of 1414 by Michiel de Loquelier, 1784, in anachronistic dress (Bringing the elf-lands under Kaedreni rule - the elven delegation refused to pose) Lucien Ashford in anachronistic dress, by Patrick Tilley, 1778 Jason Clamedeus in anachronistic dress, by Massud Mainayar, 1767 Thomas Chivay in anachronistic dress, 1792, by Mark Micloskey Baldir Toov in anachronistic dress, 1783, by Penyo Saraliew

A long letter dated from the year 1546 may be found on the Archduke's person, addressed with a simple J.F.I monogram. A letter from you calls up recollections very dear to my mind. It carries me back to the times when, beset with difficulties and dangers, we were fellow laborers in the same cause, struggling for what is most valuable to man, his right of union and ascendancy over those southern rabble. Laboring always at the same oar, with some wave ever ahead threatening to overwhelm us and yet passing harmless under our bark, we knew not how, we rode through the storm with heart and hand, and made a happy port. But whither is senile garrulity leading me? Into politics, of which I have taken final leave. I think little of them, and say less. I have given up my war councils in exchange for writers of antiquity, for Locelarius and Hadrien, for Virosi and Camoryn; and I find myself much the happier. Sometimes indeed I look back to former occurrences, in remembrance of our old friends and fellow laborers, who have fallen before us. Of the signers of the Treaty of Metz I see now living not more than half a dozen on your side of the Dreiden, and, on this side, myself alone, with those who you keep company with so terribly discontented with me. You and I have been wonderfully spared, and myself with remarkable health, and a considerable activity of body and mind, for those who ought be failing in middle age. But that I fear irrespective of our health the union will be compromised, either before my death or thence immediately after. There are ample blackguards on both sides of that great Dreiden, though I fear agitators that wish for such a breakdown come from your own and not mine. I have toiled - nay, for that, we have toiled, since to the depths of ineffectuality I would have been cast without you and yours - to preserve the union of the two halves and maintain the most contentedness among my people, and no doubt I have erred since despite my throne I am as fallible as any wheelwright, but I go to war knowing that should I die I have done everything in my power to empower the Orenian people in their totality. I have eschewed dynastic ambitions for the good of the many, and to those who call me a warmonger I deny such labels. We most merry bunch have merely endeavoured fully to revenge the human plight upon the Urguanite menace, to the death of thousands mayhap but to the greater cause of humanity, for it is our manifest destiny to reign over such perfidious curs and despite our political differences, this you cannot deny. Together we have endeavoured this to no personal gain of our own, for I am no prostitute to the people and wish for not a single copper or scrap of land for my own incomes. Though I fear this war is failing, I know that without your aid it would have failed years ago. I implore you, since the people of Lorraine listen much to you and little to me, to acknowledge to them that what we have attempted and in fact achieved in the name of humanity has been much greater than what has been achieved since the days of Peter... Perhaps I have been harsh in many of my approaches, but I have also been merciful, as have you been. You yourself once told me years ago that the label of tyrannous is ill-fiting to those actions performed for no personal benefit but instead for the betterment of the country and its people. You used those words to describe your own actions and those of your father in the Duke's War, and it is my most earnest belief that it applies to us even still. We are more akin that you would think and I pray that we persist in such harmony for many decades to come. You are one of the greatest men in Oren, greater than myself even, and that is why you are Archduke, Archchancellor and every manner of hero to our realm. With the greatest love, your friend, John

12th of the Grand Harvest, 1547 “You shameful curs, you common wretches! Stand and fight!” John I Frederick’s orders fell on deaf ears. In a bloody rout on the green fields of Dunland, the Orenian corps, sorely whipped, retreated north across the great Eroch. The coursing river tossed up a haze of mist, and the beat of hooves on slick stone was occasionally interrupted by a crash and a clatter: the water claiming another rider. In panicked pursuit were the unmounted warriors of the peasant levies--young men bearing clubs and spears--pushing past their fellows as the enemy closed in. Last, the emperor and his retinue followed in a fighting retreat, half berating and half bolstering whatever troops they could corral. The timbre of John’s voice was incredulous, harshly barking his righteous anger at both the army’s defeat and what he saw as the cowardice of his commanders. Another defeat was unacceptable, and without the taking of Fort Dunamis, the war’s course looked bleak. As a symbol of his resolve, the emperor trailed after his retinue, keeping as near to the battle as possible without abandoning his guards entirely. Guided by the volleys of elven archers from the Eastern Isles, the imperial retinue finally approached the near bank. Like water against a stone, the hail of arrows parted wherever the banner of House Horen went; but even with a clear path, fording the river would be treacherous. Fog obscured its far side, and deep furrows surrounded the few safe passages. Led by its lesser members, the retinue cleaved into five single-file lines. In center rank, John Frederick’s warhorse cantered after the Duke of Carnatia and was followed by his second son the Prince Alexander. The emperor was quiet, though his sword was unsheathed, brandished wildly, and his face steely. Around him, his procession cursed the names of Revlis, Rhewen, Ubba’Ugluk and all the others, swearing to return in vengeance. “Any man who disperses from the fight will be hanged by the wayside! Hear me, damn you!” The Holy Orenian Emperor’s baritone trailed off as he looked to the opposite bank, where a cavalcade of Urguanite crossbowmen stood stalwart, their arbalests aloft. The ruler grew silent, his words replaced by a simple, stony-faced glare as he turned his destrier around to face away from the retreat, holding his broadsword aloft as if in triumph. His brown hair had grown thin and receded over the years of stress, much akin to his famous resolve, and his usually neatly trimmed moustache and beard had become unshaven from the weeks of neglect in the field of war. An iron bolt or two flew past his warhorse, and the cries of the dying resounded across the foggy river as they were peppered by dwarvish shafts. “Your orders, sire?!” asked the Duke of Carnatia frantically. The Emperor swung his steed around again as if to respond. But fate’s hand stayed John’s reply. An errant swell of the river, kicked up by an outcropping upstream, swept into his steed. Its foreleg pushed aside, the horse misstepped, slipping on the slick stone, and stumbling; John tumbled from his saddle like a stone. He crossed the water’s threshold with a violent gasp, his words inaudible. Alexander’s hand shot out, but it was too late. The Holy Orenian Emperor’s ornate steel armor dragged him into a deep rift of the river Eroch. John’s last sight was the tumbling of his blade into the depths, and the light of the Seven Skies before him as he sank to the riverbed, the muddy water filling his lungs and choking the life from him. Even so, pushed forward by a bombardment of Urguanite bolts, the son had no time to lament his father, and the retreat continued. As they completed the crossing of the river, the emperor’s retinue--now without its emperor--began the speaking of last rites. They had lost no other man as they forded: only their ruler, his death as swift and barbarous as any in this godforsaken war. The singular priest in their ranks intoned on the virtues of the sovereign, and the pastoral glories he awaited in the Fifth Sky. In his soldiers’ words, the Seven Skies would suit the Emperor better if they were are cold and wintry as he. For Prince Alexander, his only hope was that his brother could yank the dogs of war about with the same strength as their father. After the loss of its twenty year ruler, Oren became vulnerable to the same cycle of civil war that had wracked it for three centuries. Several days later, an unnamed Erochlander merchant of spirits would come across the sovereign’s body washed ashore just north of the location he had fallen, decayed so much that it was identifiable only by the rich cloak and armor on his person. The merchant and his crew placed the emperor’s cadaver in a barrel of dark rum to preserve it, sending it by river-barge to Luciensport, where John Sigismund, the Prince of Alstion and the successor to the Imperial throne would await to collect the moribund relic. VALE JOHN I FREDERICK, HOLY ORENIAN EMPEROR (1498-1547) John I at His Table, 1623, Carlo Bragonolo “As long as his conquering armies went from one victory to the next, John’s subjects remained boundlessly obedient, his rule and claim unchallenged. When a string of humiliating defeats by the nonhuman alliance proved him and his tacticians fallible, his enemies domestic would crouch, ready to strike like vipers from within. He had ruled for twenty-one years, eighteen of which were total war, aging from a youth of twenty-and-eight winters to a bitter, gouty despot who had lived for just under half a century. His detractors called him a tyrant and his apologists said that such was necessary in times of war and conspiracy. John sought to provide strong leadership and steadfast unity in a time of political disarray, in opposition to the debased and inhuman masses of the south who wished to see humanity divided and weak. While he had ultimately failed in breaking the cycle of disharmony, for a time he succeeded in stalwart opposition to perfidious Urguan, conquering a number of provinces (See appendix for Cascadia, Avar, Erochland, Esterwick) and bringing peace, culture and law to much of the Imperial heartlands. The Emperor would leave behind seven children, six of his wife and one illegitimate, with his daughter Charlotte believed to have predeceased him, as well as five young grandchildren. The partnerships he fostered with the various first ministers he employed in the seat of the Archchancellor were legendary and the source of much of his success - firstly his father the monk Charles Polycarp, secondly the Courlander Publius Bracchus, thirdly the prodigious Adrian of Rothesay and finally the greatest of his favorites, Augustus d’Amaury, whose unparalleled diligence was alone responsible for most of his success during the last third of his reign. This relationship with the Archduke was judged sorely by many of the other nobility - who found such a reliance befitting of any active monarch. However, historians have revisited the emperor’s complex relationship with the enigmatic d’Amaury - the wordsmith and poet Patrick Tilley contends the belief that ‘their various skills complimented one another, and on a personal level their friendship was vital to the continuance of the union, for in the many fields where John was weak, Augustus was strong, and vice-versa’. The contemporary clergyman Michiel de Loquelier was far more critical of John I, writing that he was a ‘flinty, prickly, pale creature who hunched upon his throne, nursing whatever minor grievance he could perceive’ and that his ‘singular true virtue was his apparent lack of the vices of greed and lust’. Similarly, the bard Hugh Anthony Cregg, more commonly known as Hugh of Lewes, wrote the following limerick (For which he was flogged by the Duke of Istria, Arthur Roswell, then Count of Pompourelia, in 1531): “Our emperor wears a saintly ring, His word no man relies on, He never said a foolish thing, But never did a wise one.” My opinion on the matter is best reflected by the writings of the Kaedreni scholar Morvran aep Rheyndeith, who called John I Frederick ‘irrevocably flawed, though arguably an improvement on his immediate predecessors - his reign was not only characterized by his selflessness, fairness and his incomparable dedication to the betterment of his country and people, but also by his inability to attain their love and approval,’ writing further that ‘his hatred for the old aristocracy and reliance on several favorites meant that his every action would inevitably transpire contrary to the people’s wishes’. Almost immediately after his death, the (Somewhat apocryphal) manner in which his body was preserved became an urban legend among the peasantry, who took to calling the kind of dark rum his body was immersed in ‘Emperor John’s blood’ or for short ‘Johnsblood’. One thing is certain - the Holy Orenian Emperor who, at the height of his popularity all thought would lay the Urguanites to rest would ultimately fall short of that goal, being laid to rest in a tomb of his own before he saw his work come to fruition.” -Logan Macdonough, a Harrenite scholar, in an excerpt from his treatise Reflections on the Emperors of Mankind, 1602

Imperial Letters for the Duchy of Carnatia, 1547 Issued and Confirmed by His Imperial Majesty the Holy Orenian Emperor John I Frederick, 2nd of the Grand Harvest, 1547 TO OUR BELOVED SUBJECTS, It has pleased the Imperial Throne to reward the service of Our leal subject, Jan of the House of Kovacs, with a tenure in fealty to Our Imperial Crown. Accordingly, with this grace of God and the counsel of Our court, We do enfeoff Jan of the House of Kovacs, to the Duchy of Carnatia, a role they and their legitimate issue shall hold in trust to Our throne for the duration of their loyal service. They are enjoined to maintain the law of Our realm, to abide peacefully by Our rule, and to rise to Our defense when necessary. In return, and as a sign of Our august graciousness, We do privilege their head to levy law and taxes upon their vassals. IN NOMINE DEI, His Imperial Majesty John I Frederick of the House of Horen, by the Grace of GOD, Holy Orenian Emperor and rightful Emperor of Aeldin, forever August, Apostolic King in Oren, of Savoy, Westphalia, Kaedrin, Haense, Renatus and Salvus, Defender of the Faith, Grand Duke of Kaedrin, Duke of the Crownlands, Carimea, Erochland, Kingston and Leone, Margrave of Greater Kreden, Count of Felsen, Louvain, Beauclair, Wett and Metz, Sovereign of Humanity and Protector of the Elves, etcetera.

“Never make a defense or apology before you stand accused.” -Guy de Bar, King of Oren, dated 1524 Despite its grim implication, the role accorded to Augustus d’Amaury, Archduke of Lorraine was the envy of the Orenian command. That warren of filth and lawlessness, Fort Dunamis, had long plagued the Empire--long enough that the honor of its eradication was an enticing distinction. Nonetheless, the Iron Duke took scant satisfaction in his assigned duty. It was little more than a perfunctory execution; the cowardly, dwarf-like Dunamites were accustomed to hit-and-run tactics. Surrounded by a prison of their own construction, unable to make use of their marauding cavalry, they would easily fall. His men, however, were less stoic. Shouted from regiment to regiment from between gulps of ale, the most common campfire topic was the legendary fifty ways to gut a Dunamite. Archduke Augustus gladly permitted this. He did not begrudge the men their celebration, even when a spirited brawl broke out over the difference between gutting and eviscerating--a highborn word rarely heard by the rank and file. And all the better that their arguments were heard easily from the walls of Fort Dunamis. On the eve of the battle, of course, a determined calm would fall over the camp, as kegs were packed away and horses re-shoed, swords polished and levies drilled. From the east, siege towers and ballistae would arrive through the Marnadal Valley, and elven scouts would take their place among the human columns. In accordance with tradition, the Emperor’s envoy intended to make a final offer for the surrender of the Dunamites--wholesale capitulation and appropriate punishment for each criminal. Assuming the shameful brigands even bothered to leave their den, they would foolishly reject this last mercy. And when the time came and the battle was won, Augustus d’Amaury would personally swing the sword that removed Revlis’ thieving head. _______________________________________ WARCLAIM DETAILS TYPE OF BATTLE: Siege TIME: Saturday the 20th of February, 10 PM GMT, 5 PM EST, 2 PM PST (Proposed) ATTACKERS: The Holy Orenian Empire and allied forces DEFENDERS: The Dunamite rebels and allied forces LOCATION: Fort Dunamis TERMS OF VICTORY: VICTORY FOR ATTACKERS- If the defenders are killed, or if their keep is taken, or if they are forced into an underground bunker. VICTORY FOR DEFENDERS- Attacking forces are killed or driven from the field of battle. REWARDS: Orenian victory: Fort Dunamis and its surrounding region is annexed to the Holy Orenian Empire. Dunamite victory: The area will be non-warclaimable for a one month timespan. RULES: -No status switching. -If the Dunamites are driven into an underground bunker or cellar, they immediately are conceding victory. -All LOTC rules. -If the Dunamite side do not show to their side of the warclaim, they implicitly forfeit and the Empire is allowed to take control of the region being sieged and can force a date of the next skirmish or siege as determined by Orenian command.

The Holy Orenian Emperor raises an eyebrow to the final rendition of the document, having directed his youngest son, Charles, to oversee the composition of the agreement and sign it as his representative. All the while, the Imperial forces battered from Kal'Ordholm marched south-east - under Fieldmarshal Rothesay, the defeated Army Group Center would meet up with the Lorrainer cavalry of Augustus d'Amaury, fresh and ready for battle, in an arid field just south of Luciensport. There they would make camp and wait for a few weeks. What the men were waiting for exactly was not unclear: soon enough, Emperor John himself would march south from the capital with as many levymen as he could muster from the heartland and the provinces and join the combined armies of his two best generals. From their meager camp of hide-tents and palisades in the Palatinate, they would march along the eastern foothills of the Blue Mountains and circle around to the Vandorian fortress of Ard Ghorrock, at Lord Protector Nafis' invitation. From there they would conduct further operations, through the Marnadal Valley, against the dastardly steppe-raiders who had plagued both the Emperor and his many predecessors. All in due course.