Callistus

A scholar of distant lands could not help but to proudly acclaim this distinguished work among his peers, far and bygone as his lands were from the noble fields of astrology and such scholarly lores. The old sayings rang true; Knowledge truly found its demise in the rotting barrow of Arcas, a corpse of a land, save within God’s chosen.

 

((

If you wish potentially to discuss further joint work, I am present on Discord at Callistus#6280))

 

 

1 hour ago, Zarsies said:

higher genus concentration, Ascended bloodlines, inferis, vargs, and azdrazi even more so

I apologize for the confusion around the subject of blood in the initial werbeast submission, but vargr are in fact entirely deprived of genus and will no doubt prove any cuisinière a much unsavory meal given their dissocation to holy substance and the sheer flawed prospect of their existence (they are, after all, living failures).

Disclaimer: Accounts written here and in former records are not common knowledge

 

---

 

Found originally in Ponce, recovered to a group of scholarly antiquarians

Whereabouts unknown, 1643

 

Wrych’e verz, c. 1439

 

It is no mere fallacy that the truths conveyed upon this strange being’s presence defy much of the logic presently imparted to Man — and no weaker truth that they related heavily to ignoble sacraments and heinous old devilry, born in the foulest chambers of a devil who lies now entombed in penance for carnal sin. It is in such light and ignorant blight that I set henceforth to bare the fangs of darkness my neck and publish this recital in risk of bleeding dry my feeble soul.

 

It all began in old and paltry Istria, whence this person of ***** antics had his first reported sighting, dancing at first to the tune of a fading bonfire and its crackles of singed bone. When asked of his well-being and intent (for he truly appeared mad in this instance, though not at all madder than shall be detailed further on), the madman scoffed and said; “Fire, and weeping cinder; look how it flames the flesh so tender!” And under further pressure, and greater inquisitiveness, and after holding a hand out to the fire, he bridled and howled resentingly, saying “Let them all in madness cry God’s name, when God is nameless, and wallows in shame!” He here spoke, we conclude, of the “misguided” Canon chapel, whom he had accused unscrupulously and numerously of heathenry, deception, wickedness and desertion in accused abandonment of God’s righteous path. 

 

It could not be helped to note this man’s quaint retardancy to fire, which had not etched upon his bare hand even the faintest of burns; and that surely, if it were truly so, this man, if not an abled and conspiring madman, is a mere devil in the fell of Man.

 

Probing deeper thereon (for there were no further written accounts in this particulate incident), another curious sight was later reported upon a pale moonlit night, where, in the shadowy depths afore a rotten woodshed, there stood a monument of hewn oak, so well defined and finely detailed that the fact it had been so suddenly built aroused a great suspicion into our minds of it its origin and ingenuity, and even questioned deep into the limits of common logic, and Man’s basal knowledge of things; for we sure knew with great certainty that no man or novice devil could have erected a thing so worthy of praise in the span of a single day, before which it had not been even slightly present, nor was the oak through which it entirely apparated. This statue, in the shape of some humanoid, depicted anything but, and rather seemed to describe an ungodly figure, a thing so damned and yet saintly that one might simply regard it a fanatic’s impression of a God. For when we speak of its eyes, it bore not two, but six eyeballs, winding across the thing’s temple and the shorn parts of its head, designating perhaps a degree of higher wisdom. It had no hair, no scalp, and why would it? It’s head in fact appeared carved out at the crest that its brain stood in the nude, differing in large from the conventional anatomy of Man’s god-made image, and resembling instead a rabid cultist’s notion of perfected divine existence.

 

Not more could be surmised from the image, however, and not from a lack of interest, but solely for the fact that as soon as our eyes had wandered, it (the sculpture) disappeared no less swiftly than it had come, leaving our inquisition wildly crazed. 

 

We desired to carry ourselves farther in inquiry after the tracks of this unnatural being, who much resembled us in shape and form, and at times even speech, but of whom the nature and mere belonging to Man’s progeny we still greatly doubt and put into severe question.

 

The rest of the excerpted text appears largely illegible, consisting of redacted texts long worn to the curse of all aged antiquity.

 

 

 

Older accounts (Vargr folklore)

 

 

 

 

“A wretched hamlet.. abandoned, all but forgotten. See you the things that clamber on its roads? Yes, yes- you thought right. . . 

A hearth now only to the damned.”

said a man who knew very well the corners, dim monuments, and pale memorials of the riverside province.

23 minutes ago, duscur said:

The Count of Rochefort sits inquisitively upon the chest of his sleeping companion, staring the painter dead in the face with demonic gaze. Looking back to the fallen figure the blonde imp then reached out a satanic finger to flick them on the forehead. “Hey kid, the paintings finished, you can wake up now. . . hey kid, hey kid.”

 

 

“A slave to the painting, and an ink for mortal kindling.

Ooh, ooh! A canvas named death, that pale thing, to snuff the very life away! You need only shred your blood now, and appease this gentle painting.

What a sweetly wilting maiden to ponder on!”

A much quaint being lying in the back deigned to whisper on the imp’s precedent

*slow claps*

*steps out of the shadows*

 

Heh... not bad, kid. Not bad at all. Your meme, I mean. It's not bad. A good first attempt. It's plenty dank... I can tell it's got some thought behind it... lots of quotable material...

But memeing isn't all sunshine and rainbows, kid. You're skilled... that much I can tell. But do you have what it takes to be a Memester? To join those esteemed meme ranks? To call yourself a member of the Ruseman's Corps? Memeing takes talent, that much is true. But more than that it takes heart. The world-class Memesters - I mean the big guys, like Johnny Hammersticks and Billy Kuahana - they're out there day and night, burning the midnight meme-oil, working tirelessly to craft that next big meme.

And you know what, kid? 99 times out of a hundred, that new meme fails. Someone dismisses it as bait, or says it's "tryhard," or ignores it as they copy/paste the latest shitpost copypasta dreamt up by those sorry excuses for cut-rate memers over at reddit. The Meme Game is rough, kid, and I don't just mean the one you just lost :^). It's a rough business, and for every artisan meme you craft in your meme bakery, some cocksucker at 9gag has a picture of a duck or some **** that a million different Johnny No-Names will attach a milion different captions to. Chin up, kid. Don't get all mopey on me. You've got skill. You've got talent. You just need to show your drive.

See you on the boards...

“Pray, I say. Pray to the white flame that danceth on the barrows of evil!”

 

 

---

“Come, oh pale death.”

 

   Indeed, one may ascribe this man no mere figment of horrid madness

       For this man is still among the accursed, and his grave is still black marked.

     Death is a lying wench, but it bears a man’s name.

And in fact, his grave has long been marked. And of that matter the godly man knew very well.

 

    In the dim, moonlit fields of night, there became a melodious ensemble among the trees.

         A song, one might say, but this man might so beg to differ.

      For though a chant is oft a product of pure Man, this baleful chant was of no such origin.

 No man in-fact dared ever to utter its words, fearing rightly the wrath of divine damnation so ever wrought upon his accursed blood.

 

      But I truly ask, vir, what is damnation? Man is damned since his very first inception.

   The whole world, after all, is but a basin for the nameless damned.

         Even you, foul lectorem, whose name I dare not even utter of mere respect.

     And even that watchful corpse in its pitiful grave.

    Why, everyone ought to be damned, for they too were cast from the fields of heaven themselves.

         But the primeval debate yet stood, and there ever so rose the question from unproclaimed wiseful men; what, exactly, and at length; why?

     To that, there is shorn but a vestige of an answer.

  Let me recite to you here, dear vir, this ludicrous tale of one such damned

     A meek creature, or man if you so wish, and it’s wont to suffer death, time and time again.

               Enough death, little dear, to make a man mad.

 

  Madness ought to consume. And did I not thus forewarn?

 

    And so it goes, in the steps of rancid, entirely hideous beasts, who trod an unmarked woods and let off tired neighs.

            And there stood an oak that plainly watched, a curious sight (but it had no eyes!) laughing at the very matters these few men so spoke of.

        The cosm, after all, and the unmarked wood, and the wasteland, and the burial ground, so forth, are endless things in abbreviation, but they all connote a singular fate.

          Take your time, friend, and appraise this matter so well as your name.

 

      Onto the man’s q̇ueer tale, there came after his presence a most fearsome pack of brigands, to whom death was all a staked game!

        Their names, after all, coined themselves upon martyrs of their sword, and the pallor of their face so betrayed the truth of lustful sin.

 

       Is it not, after all, but Man’s great wont,

       To damn themselves in the lust for sin?

 

   One might even say their blades grew that same, wontful desire!

        Quaint, is it not? How death bonds all, of damned and accursed? 

             

      Thus marching still on steady course, there sounded amongst the men some saintly echo

  But fear not, it is but a mere small omen to the chantful ode of their mirth.

 

     By GOD, dear vir, do not make me laugh!

 

        Only a fool, a drunk madman, deep drowned in his righteous scruples ever denied the carnal pleasures that derive of cutting up an old, weak cripple, at tales of such lustrous coin. By GOD there still, who would not deign to prance and                       delight?!

 

A limb for a hundred marks, they so danc’d, that even the crows made rejoice.

 

  These damned, barking birds,

      even their song was hideous!

Their beaks defied the very abyss and wailing heavens, for it wept of cruel, white rain. 

 

     And these men so trod on geldings of ash, tongues starched.

   Intent, as told those little marks on their face, to savor each, hanging limb of the sickly vicar.

      A weakly thing.

     But the weak are made to be preyed upon. Is not death their carnal right?

Thus is their hateful fate.

 

 

Silence! Haer, how the pillar of madness madly speak.

 

Why, even the heavens cried and croaked.

 

  We hence arrive near to the tale of so damned a man.

And yet as we bring forth our ears to hark,

  or hear tears of this broken thing’s fear,

    why, silence becomes.

 

Naught indeed, only the empty, curious ballads, shrill voices, dead muses, wrought from most hollow graves.

  One even comes to beckon the dubious wonder, is it truly blood that so lies steep in Man? 

 

But I acquit. Nothing lies there. For only ghosts dwell’d such silence, beneath such dark moonlight.

   Yes, vir, only poor death lie there. To mock the stray or passing soul.

  He, that death, was even said to smile; deep in sepulchure, scraping coffins, touching his new gifts.

     But do pray, sinful man, is there a thing that would not?

   Death feeds on all, and whom upon do you feed, worthless, filthy thing? Not even life. Not even dirt.

 

But q̇ueer lies, the rest of it all.

  For a basin of death may not speak; I digress, it merely cannot! It is all but humorous jests, cast from those black, serpentine tongues of elves.

Damn them all! Damn them with Leprosy, mayhaps, or the horrors of a vacuous mind!

 

 

  But see, death simply savors the old.

And striding there on emptiness was, quite simply, a savory old, old man.

   That damned, whoreson of a man of whom we prior spoke.

     And this man, in his hauntless crow feathers and black garbs, was not.

        He cursed every name. Why, he even cursed God

      For he was already damned, just like the rest of us all. And little ever mattered to this man.

For this man, fled, and seldom did he ever flee. 

    A droll thing, indifferent from those little, fleeing rats. Who with conviction also ran.

 

But foolish are they who so think to outrun the grave.

 

  He ran fast, and floundered faster, cowering beneath the crowns of pine-trees, shrinking from the bitter, fiery cold.

    He ran from rain, and ran from death itself.

      Wet, black boots crossed him from tree to tree, but the old man still shivered, still panted like a dog with dropsy, glancing fearfully behind himself, praying.

         He peered at the sky he so cursed

    At the tearing firmament he so foolishly left

   Staring, sitting, limping, merely waiting.

     And in waiting did he watch the laughing clearing, laugh.

     And clear.

 

    But it dare not stare back. Only the abyss did, they whispered him a silent, ever shallow gust of ash. 

       And hell pranced in its devious voice.

 

    “Nameless,” the voice dared speak, breaking in senile prayer.

      “Accursed, echt, arrashhe.. .

          Pity this low and  dying soul.”

 

                                     

 

                  And ever so damned was his wish, for death was old and deaf.

 

      The riders fast arrived upon their pale geldings, and resent still hailed in their vert eyes, with fleeting wraiths in a whist, cold barrow long old, yet danced.

       They set their eyes on, and about, and they grazed at bleak truth itself.

 

     Thus one, whom deathly gaze glimmered of cruel firn spurred his beast.

        And a blade so sung and swung, thirsting more than the man himself. This bashful, unkind thing, damn it too; it did not even spare the man his arm.

 

     Thus pain cruelly shot within that resigned, black pilgrim, and a shriek spurted from his very gullet, shoal, and weak. 

          But a sorry little thing, marked for harrowing death.

 

        He cradled the lost arm upon his breast, and ran, howling not much unlike a pitiful, rabid dog.

      And the carnal ravens flocked above the trees, awaiting patiently  the fall of this feeble, fragile little prey. 

     

         And true enough, he did not run very long

           for his leg buckled.

 

And poor, poor Emreis.. why, even his lungs gave in.

 

      He lived, at best, a hundred and twenty years of age, propped merely by the curse of patchwork sorcery, and some laughable, lesser breed of spells.

        A cruel, dread mark, yet carved on his wearing flesh, denotative of  sinful rebirth.                  Incarnation.

 

    But not even virgin’s blood, could sustain a man so bygone, drivelling, old and so festering.

 

        “Wretch!” he quoth,

  But, only imperious voices, and broken, foggy words croaked back.

 

        “Wretch!” the old pilgrim recited, and laughter, too, rang in his voice.

                  Crazed, at once perhaps thunderous.

 

             But merely laughter rang.

    He concocted in his mind a choir - why, he had not even a vocal chord - and lifted, with a single, bleeding hand, that relic.

      Of a bygone arm.

 

      He offered it to heaven. A shrill thing, that unsightly man, parading his own idle limb in so great a frenzy, curiously then laughing. 

 

    These devilish men descended their eunuchs, baring hard steel, sputtering sheer black mucus

     Cursing with vile perfidy that very man which spoke them.. oh, so, very wrong and deathly.

 

             “God is with me!” he crowed and cowered like a desperate child, form haggard, yet hunching down like that of a broken thing;

      “Look! See! The skies, even its empty sea.. And the left hand is with me!”

 

      But they regarded little this old, raving pilgrim, and his mad and spoken antics.

     They wrenched back his shawled head, and extended there a dagger to the throat, nearing to slit.

 

And he laughed quite viciously, if I may say, it so seemed he laughed not of his chords - for he had none - but of his heart.

 

          Yes, vir, his heart. It is prevalent that the heart itself speaks loudest, and loud it truly spoke.

     So loud indeed that said heart burst, where the man sat there drowning.

      Drowning, and bathing in his own choke, in his own blood.

         Not from the knife! Oh, no, no, but of his own heart, that burst and broken heart.

   Such dim, sickly blood in fact poured, drenching - or some might say blessing - the earth, with that old, viscous blood.

 

And yet eyes, oh, such bloodshot eyes stared alive, and the mouth, much contorting as if to so whisper vainly of great and forgotten things.

 

      But they could not hear what spilt of that heavenly chant.

        Hurriedly they diced his arms, and stole his watchful eyes. Poached this wrathful, imperious black tongue.

 

For soon, they would vanish.

 

                           

 

          But the pilgrim alone would not.

  He lived, in the words of men. 

      And the eyes of this maddened pilgrim, looked never far from the moon. As if drunk, or indeed aware of its pale light.

Ah. . that lavish thing of old moonlight.

    Like that of a starved, addled blood-freak.

 

        For there he stared; at that singular, dull, ashen eye of God,     ever hung from the old stars.

 

 

              Until the carnal crows lapped him clean.

 

 

 

 

 

 

”Valtr ine treth. . the blood moon weeps upon the dying, eyeless vicar. Beware the anguished light.”

 

 

The Minstrel of Gor

That Trod on Foure

---

 

 

Shrieking out a song of death, the winds trembled, shook, and a man there stood, fiery, all foul in his dread eyes.

 

Hollow marked, for the brands beneath the eyes were that of weariness, and his lip was parched. For he starved, but not of mere sustenance, of the common man, but he strived in his starve, for flesh to tiredly carve.

 

His hands came fore to rise, in preach to the heavenly skies; heavens, he cries, and prayers he wearily tries.

But the laments of worthless vermin fall unheard, villy, like the fate of the wingless, dying bird.

 

The Minstrel of Gor was no man, that men would count amongst their own, but no beast either, that beasts thought kin of their blood and bone.

 

He was a ridiculous thing, drabbed in that frivolous fell of wulf, and the men as of old curse his name at every step; as if his very guts they loathed.

 

He resented so their grit, deep in that lonesome pit, and at his own, ragged skin he clawed, tore, even rent with hatred; hollering to the old dark, “Mercy! This damned curse thee hath lent here, by all saints I beseech thee; Mercy, mercy and mine plague, absolve me,!” but he pled, for respite was all he wanted, and yet his wish remaint ungranted, deep in that lonesome pit, flogging in a mad, crazed, horrid fit, stunted.

 

And the anguish never ended, and the pained, wronged flesh still mended, and the minstrel there lamented; but the God of silence pretended.

The night hence came and soon, he saith, might the sun wane; in the moonlight, dancing, relished the beast in rain, and thus revealed his black, pesterous stain.

 

Indeed, for a wolf in black ghastly guise he became, and who into the night thus rode in fell mane, bounding, wailing, slavering in shame.

 

Depravedly the wolf beset a poor herding farmer, in whose flesh he did wolfishly gloat, and feast, when suddenly his pain went unwrought. 

Mercy, the monster thought, and clasped the cross from at the dead man’s throat; Mercy, to me God has brought. . .

 

The cursed, and yet blessed minstrel of Gor wished for more, and more blood he did monstrously pour. For God of all afforded him a chance, and it danced in pale, pale gore.

 

13 hours ago, Zarsies said:

I don’t think I read it

Then do so.. lest thou seek with foul impunity to insinuate here an affront?

Hah- I jest and merely gibe, it is true.

lest.. ?

 

MACABRE VANITAS

Once fell darkness upon a man’s dim, lowly eyes, and in there shadows quaintly peered through a window, past snows and thick winds, gandering, gravely mourning the old keep out thither; so barren, unvisited. A sorry tale, he thought, and so there held his heart and to God pray’d.

 

“Vita agitas, maldictus . .” spat the thing in hatred.

What went thee back into this wilderness to find?

 

You’ve never apprised me of the Arcane Displacement rendition I put up in tribute to your (and other’s) fine work. Tell me, truly I exhort!

look what the plague dragged in.

https://www.lordofthecraft.net/forums/topic/188030-misc-feat-arcane-displacement-ancient-art-of-the-planeswalker/

 

I had already submitted a rewrite. Is this perfidy I witness?

I’d take a dump here but bad sh*t happened last time I tried shitting on vampires

 

literally nothing has changed. you nerfed down some of the abilities but that minor setback still doesn’t make it a detriment – they remain an effectively ungrounded powergaming instrument.

18 minutes ago, TranscendentalPoet said:

Do you even roleplay?

ah oui, the go-to argument to **** on admin regardless of the answer

34 minutes ago, rising said:

The only things you’ve said so far about the lore is that it’s bland, and unoriginal, that its sucks or it’s some rip-off.

That I said about the changes your people had conducted to the original lore, which I completely stand by because it precisely is just that. And in your baseless comparisons you repeatedly liken the variously inspired mechanics of the Werbeast to the ones made here, but that is in-fact far from the truth. You cannot excerpt almost any segment of the Werbeast and attribute it to a singular franchise (bar the aforesaid) but the references here to Netflix’s Drakula are nearly innumerous, so your comparison still falls short. This is especially profound because you yourself had been at odds with the very tropes and themes that you now stand by, again proving contradictory (refer to Mordew’s vampire serfs). Is it simply because you had a hand in this?

 

We shouldn’t have to argue and put into comparison two entirely different lore pieces at all and I’m hardly pleased in having to disperse your notions, but you had to stoop low by referecing another lore piece in response to what was initially a widespread consensus. This isn’t going anywhere.

43 minutes ago, rising said:

 

 

https://www.lordofthecraft.net/forums/topic/188841-playable-ca-vargs-accursed-werbeasts/

 

None of what your post consists of was from scratch. Every culture in existence has had some version of Vampires/Werewolves, both exhibit universal tropes in popular culture too; it's naive to pretend otherwise. Everything written has been written before or inspired by something else; Blood Memories have probably been included in every piece of fiction I’ve read or played on the subject since I can remember (from VTM to Bramstoker, to Underworld etc etc). I think it’s cool, you don’t like it and I’m fine with that, but the pointless whinging cuts both ways. Your botchling babies were ripped from the Witcher, transformation and mechanical transmissions of the curse are essentially ripped from Helgraen’s ritual, people are revived in the same way too; point is that doesn’t ******* matter, I really don’t give a ratsass how you want to spin your lycanthropy.

 

No one piece of lore should ever be drawn from one source I agree. But all you do is illustrate your own horseshit because it’s easy to call something bland and whine about originality. That doesn’t make it any less annoying though, so go settle back down into whatever hole you popped out of to defend your blatant shitposting and give it a rest.

 

Another defunct argument, Jack. You entirely misinterpret the meaning I convey for another. We essentially built our lore from the ground up (hence the “from scratch”), whereas you had a framework to do with and hardly kept true to it at that. If you wish to botch the lore for dawnguard vampires, then by all means, go for it – but then it’s hardly strigae anymore. The only notable Werbeast segment you could attribute to another franchise is the Botchling, which contradicts your initial statement (that the lore is in entirety a blatant skyrim and witcher rip-off) and in that case, I iterate that it had long been played by the ET prior to its induction and all we did was realize it into the canon through our lore. It’s nothing new.

 

It’s a losing fight, I again am not involved with the strigae in any manner so either use my criticism to further your work or take affront to it and retort with childish jabs. There’s no point in responding to an initially misguided retort, so I’ll leave it at that. 

2 hours ago, rising said:

I need to address the furries in the comments first though.

 

This:  https://www.lordofthecraft.net/forums/topic/188841-playable-ca-vargs-accursed-werbeasts/ Don’t moan about tropes when your own lore can logically fall into the same rabbit hole; if people want to role-play a particular fantasy nishe let them. Nobody is past their time, please desist from Skyrim-Witcher werewolf botchling rp masked behind ‘oh its Mediterranean folklore’ and maybe you’ll have a leg to stand on. It’s a stupid reaction so as a member of the story team try to give some real criticism so it can be changed accordingly and modified to fit with the standard.

 

The entire response feels a forced and petty bite back at us and our piece because you had let yourself be insulted by critical comments, but here’s the thing Jack.

 

The difference that sets apart a bland trope from ours is that we diversified intensively throughout the lore and saw its conception from the bare foundation, from scratch. To say that our lore should draw heavily from one source at large and in any part is plainly unfounded and an insult borne of scorn – show me one aspect of our lore that in any way resembles “Skyrim werewolves” or “Witcher werewolves” beside skin-deep similarities and an ET creature that was already being played by ET prior to its induction and realization into canon through the lore. It’s not “masked beneath a veil of folklore”, as clever as this might’ve made you feel typing; because in reality we’ve been conceptualizing this document for over a year’s time and not only to design and write, but also scour deep into basal mythology and little-renowned legends to achieve that folkloric leg on which we stand. At least the effort was there at not being a barren and bland transcription, whereas all that was done in this rendition of yours is essentially nothing short of – forgive me my sincerity – a rip-off, though stripped of the only redeeming qualities and attributes that gave strigae their original esthetic; a uniqueness for which many people willingly gave up their classic vampire hatred to see come into fruition. I iterate: nothing of relevance was corrected (don’t argue this by referencing our lore again)  – you ripped a piece off up front, plastered it as is, and then didn’t even bother committing to this “new aesthetic” of yours beyond strewing several edgy abilities like venom fangs, Netflix drakula’s memory reading and (if the reference art were to be taken seriously) disfunctional wings. That’s not why strigae were shelved, it instead sounds like someone’s excuse to appease their l'amour massivecraft fantasies. It genuinely doesn’t serve you, and I couldn’t give less of a **** whether or not strigae were a thing. The general consensus outside of your clique is that the lore has seen its culmination, so why ruin that? To quote my close confidant, its time has passed. Give it a rest.

22 minutes ago, KBR said:

Blood Memories 

“Blood is lives.” 

-Emerick aen Anerhyd

pretty sure I’ve heard this elsewhere..

but please desist the bland and recurrent trope of “dracula” skyrim vampires, it only brings pain unto my eyes. the lore (mostly excerpted from the original) isn’t bad per-se, but it doesn’t fix what strigae were shelved for.

32 minutes ago, Ivorey said:

Mary feels personally attacked at the shoulder rule.

An old man refers the proclaimed harlot to a divine rendition of law, in which written in detail is the iniquity of baring one’s flesh to the temptation of men.  

 

 

Update

---

 

A band of mercenaries, on scouring the land from the Monk Temples into the Orenian capital, relate that the site from which these incidents are rumored to originate lies in a village south of provinicial Haense and Rubern, not far from their crossways in a field of meadows and heath. The alderman is old of age and appears to be among only few inhabitants.

 

Cases of disappearances and the like do not yet appear to worsen, but they are of unpredictable nature and so caution must always be exercised.

 

 

---

 

 

“How do you find the country, Count? Have you acquainted yourself with your new province?”

 

The wind howled ominously among the great Vrakaian keeps. At the highest chamber of a black tower, poising always defiant in the face of fell conflict and strife, stood cousin of the erstwhile prince Vladrick, Cato II, who gandered quietly at the rain drenched hills beyond. Beneath the aging black towers was an old village grown bleak of life and men, its former populace having unscrupulously dispersed after word spread of a nearing war. A war that had already been on course for nigh-on a decade. The home of the Black Reiters has had its share of grievances and bloodshed, and so no one thought to lodge by any longer to weather out the storm. No one thought to wait until fate itself arrived and laid merciless slaughter to the armless kinsmen. The Count was therefore left to his lonesome, consorted by the gloam with which he had already grown a strong acquaintance.

 

“No, your royal highness. I’m afraid not. The place is barren and dark. My people, what was left of them that hadn’t already waned to war, had deserted the land. And with nary a word, at that.”

 

The Royal Prince of Rubern stood from his seat, uncrossed his hands. Stiboricz was a figure of noble eloquence, being a prince in reign, and had risen to such eminence by merit of the education he had attained growing up; the highest at that time. But he was quiet of speech – what folks would relate in an hour’s worth, he surmised in but a short-lived discourse.

 

“If your reign grieves you so, Count, then come. I shall show you to my province - blessed by God and eulogized by men.”

 

And in answering the duty bestowed upon him did Cato return to provincial Rubern, abandoning the waste that had become of the renowned keep.

15 hours ago, MeteorDragon said:

This isnt a question, it's an order. Make your username LotsOfBoruto, that's all, have a good day

I’d sooner walk the streets of Wuhan bare-skinned

 

6 hours ago, Apostate said:

how do you feel about kurdistani's

Never acquainted myself with one of theirs, but the Kurd is an enemy of Byzantium’s usurpers. You know how goes the adage – the enemy of my enemy...

 

in the end, Kōnstantinoupolis delenda est.