Buckle up, here is the ten turn reports of the free form fantasy domain game I just ran with 8 players. The protocols I used are here: https://lizardmandiaries.blogspot.com/2023/03/some-freeform-domain-play.html . The referee document I used is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pq7D7ZPyWKEPbYvZZ2v7bJBVvT4wyWNFdDb8vsYozBU/edit?usp=sharing . If you are on the discord there is also a huge pre history thread, illustrated with AI art, that outlines the prehistory implied by the player characters.
The game was crazy, and a lot of fun to run! I am hopping to plot out the setting for normal party based RPGS at some point in the future.
Prelude:
500 PF (Post Fall of the Ancients):
500 PF (Post Fall of the Ancients):
The swamp of the demon king has grown in foulness. All that venture there either not coming back, or returning with disease that quickly kills them.
The elves in their forests to the east forbid travel there. They isolate themselves even further from the concerns of the realm.
Strange and bountiful harvests abound in the wastes, the work of the sand mages.
These harvests often pillaged by the scourge of the land, the sand sailor pirates of the western sand sea.
Dragons brood in their caves, content to fixate on their hordes. Forgotten relics of an elder age
In the great and grand city state, Narghai rules! His army of undead servants maintain order, supported by the warmage army of Abel.
But simple Kerry O’King the publican knows of things the great do not, rumours of a madness to the north, the fisher people turned to the worship of some great beast beneath the sea…Only rumours though.
All this watched by the sad ghosts of mountain, trapped here to witness their ancient sins bring horror to the land.
You have one day at the start of what could be momentous events…what do you do!?
Prelude:
The First Day of 500 PF:
Screams and wails and foul gibbering wafted all day from the swamps of the demon king! Several elves who strayed too close were never seen again! A great orgy of harvest shuddered through the ranks of the Mibos of the swamp!
Silence from the cavelands of the dragons, a boon for the other races of the land. But later rumours would tell that this was the day Lord Pyrois uncovered a great forgotten treasure within his horde…
Oberon, king of the elves, also found a treasure today. The pinecone of Thragglenor - a seed that could drain the corruption from the land and turn it to a magical forest.
In the realm of the city state, the sorcerer Narghai sent a great compliment to sand mages of the wastes - a delegation of necromancers and battle mages to request a cohort of sand mages join his court. The sand mages agreed to sending 10 of their number to the city of Narghai but this cohort was waylaid en route later in the day by sand sailors!
10 sand mages, promised to the royal court, were kidnapped by the infamous sand sailor pirate JJ!
The sand mage Goata Hardly, not involved with the politics of his order, and fearful of the rumours of madness in the north, spent the day conducting a great and bloody ritual! Many cowbeasts were slaughtered by the mage, sacrificed to steel the mind of the people in the wastes, and the southern farmlands of the city states!
The Archmage Abel also left the city and travelled south, to investigate the rumours of disease spreading there. It was confirmed that people had been dying of disease, any who travelled to the swamp or came into contact with those who returned from there. A horrible pus and boil causing pox had killed a number of farmers in the southern farmlands…
Generous Kerry O’King won the favour of many in the city and farmlands by hosting a great harvest festival! Food and drink flowed freely from his tavern all day and a merry and raucous time was had by all in attendance.
In the evening a grave portent, reports of ghostly flames spreading across the mountain of the ancients! Blue white flames flickered across the cliffs, valleys and caves of the ash coloured mountain!
Did this ghost flame portent bring the dreams that afflicted most of the city state’s citizens during their slumber? Dreams plagued all in the northern farmlands and many in the north of the city! Dreams of that which they desired most! And the dream told them they could find that which they desired most free for the taking in the north, in the beaches of the north of the continent, amongst the fisher folk there!
Those in the south, perhaps protected by the blessing of the sand mage Goata, had no such dreams, and thus did not join the pilgrimage of many thousands of the city state’s citizens travelling north to the ocean!
Turn 1:
500 - 510 PF:
These harvests often pillaged by the scourge of the land, the sand sailor pirates of the western sand sea.
Dragons brood in their caves, content to fixate on their hordes. Forgotten relics of an elder age
In the great and grand city state, Narghai rules! His army of undead servants maintain order, supported by the warmage army of Abel.
But simple Kerry O’King the publican knows of things the great do not, rumours of a madness to the north, the fisher people turned to the worship of some great beast beneath the sea…Only rumours though.
All this watched by the sad ghosts of mountain, trapped here to witness their ancient sins bring horror to the land.
You have one day at the start of what could be momentous events…what do you do!?
Prelude:
The First Day of 500 PF:
Screams and wails and foul gibbering wafted all day from the swamps of the demon king! Several elves who strayed too close were never seen again! A great orgy of harvest shuddered through the ranks of the Mibos of the swamp!
Silence from the cavelands of the dragons, a boon for the other races of the land. But later rumours would tell that this was the day Lord Pyrois uncovered a great forgotten treasure within his horde…
Oberon, king of the elves, also found a treasure today. The pinecone of Thragglenor - a seed that could drain the corruption from the land and turn it to a magical forest.
In the realm of the city state, the sorcerer Narghai sent a great compliment to sand mages of the wastes - a delegation of necromancers and battle mages to request a cohort of sand mages join his court. The sand mages agreed to sending 10 of their number to the city of Narghai but this cohort was waylaid en route later in the day by sand sailors!
10 sand mages, promised to the royal court, were kidnapped by the infamous sand sailor pirate JJ!
The sand mage Goata Hardly, not involved with the politics of his order, and fearful of the rumours of madness in the north, spent the day conducting a great and bloody ritual! Many cowbeasts were slaughtered by the mage, sacrificed to steel the mind of the people in the wastes, and the southern farmlands of the city states!
The Archmage Abel also left the city and travelled south, to investigate the rumours of disease spreading there. It was confirmed that people had been dying of disease, any who travelled to the swamp or came into contact with those who returned from there. A horrible pus and boil causing pox had killed a number of farmers in the southern farmlands…
Generous Kerry O’King won the favour of many in the city and farmlands by hosting a great harvest festival! Food and drink flowed freely from his tavern all day and a merry and raucous time was had by all in attendance.
In the evening a grave portent, reports of ghostly flames spreading across the mountain of the ancients! Blue white flames flickered across the cliffs, valleys and caves of the ash coloured mountain!
Did this ghost flame portent bring the dreams that afflicted most of the city state’s citizens during their slumber? Dreams plagued all in the northern farmlands and many in the north of the city! Dreams of that which they desired most! And the dream told them they could find that which they desired most free for the taking in the north, in the beaches of the north of the continent, amongst the fisher folk there!
Those in the south, perhaps protected by the blessing of the sand mage Goata, had no such dreams, and thus did not join the pilgrimage of many thousands of the city state’s citizens travelling north to the ocean!
Turn 1:
500 - 510 PF:
After the dream of at the start of 500 PF, 50’000 people of the city state’s 500’000 people marched north in a mass and spontaneous pilgrimage. Once arrived at the fishing village of the coast, the pilgrimage coalesced into a religious commune - with members focused on the worship of…something, beneath the waves. Members of the northern religious movement would travel south in recruitment drives, offering the promise of the heart’s desires of those who would be willing to come to the fisher coast. And, many did, the commune of the northern coast increasing by hundreds each month.
Though the strength of the dream that brought the initial 50’000 was not repeated throughout the decade, reports of similar dreams were reported all across this land - the experiencer of such a dream often joining the cult on the northern coast. Even a number of elves were amongst the ranks of the faithful…
The sorcerer Narghai, discontent with so many citizens fleeing his city state steeled his army with a great summoning of the undead. Travelling south to the foot hills of the mountain of the ancients, and drenching the ground with the blood of a herd of cowbeasts, dredged up the animated bones of giant ancient skeletons! The ghosts of the mountain sadly watched their bones march away. 10’000 giant skeletons joined the sorcerer's army!
A great host of battle mages and undead were then commanded north, to crush the… rebellion (?) of the coastal cultists. When the army of Narghai demanded they give up their esoteric beliefs, none would, and thus the coast was drenched in blood - the faithful murdered and thrown into the sea, or left to rot on the beaches and in the abandoned fishing towns.
The army of undead and battle mages returned to the city state, leaving the northern coasts choked with the corpses of about 60’000 (peaceful, if religiously obsessed) civilians.
While Narghai sent his forces north, The Archmage Abel went south, to attempt the cleanse the city state of the disease of the plague and piracy. A strict quarantine was enforced, and any who became infected were swiftly burnt alive. Sand sailors were attacked without question and mercy too, greatly slowly travel between the southern farmlands and the swamp of the demon king. After the loss of several sand boats, the sailors and piracy in the south stopped, the danger from the occupying force of battle mages too sheer.
With travel from and to the south ceased, instances of the plague still erupted, until eventually Abel and his forces uncovered hidden nest hives of gestating and fetul Mibokopros. Foul bestial larva, ripe with puss and disease…A great effort of eradication took place and by the end of the decade both piracy and plague and been removed from the southern farmlands of the city state… unfortunately instances of disease had began to occour in the city itself…
Another disease was spreading through the city, wanton alcoholism brought by the ever expanding publican empire of Kerry O’king. With the rulers of the city state focused on other issues, the opportunistic business man took ownership of every inn, tavern, pub and watering hole he could and flooded the market with cheap booze. He was a very rich man by the end of the decade. A lack of dreams accompanied the city states descent into drunkenness…
It is not known whether it was drunken delirium, or otherwise, but reports of ghost sightings increased hundred fold during the decade within the city state. Sobbing ghost were most commonly reported, with many able to provide ectoplasmic pools of shed tears as evidence of their claims to apparition sighting.
An unusual amount of birds and beasts have also been reported in the city this decade…though these could also be delirium visions.
His piracy career growing too dangerous, JJ the sand sailor, took briefly to adventuring, trekking to the mountain of the ancients with the intent of looting its ancient ruins. Unfortunately for him, whenever he sought to enter the depths of the mountain great ghostly flames would threaten to immolate him, and he was turned back from its secrets and its treasures…
The enigmatic sand mage Goata Hardly sacrificed much birdbeast stocks to lumpen together a great mountain of sand in the wastes. A great boulder at its peak was transfigured into a diamond, which then super heated the sand into an enourmous mountain of sparkling glass! A wonder of the world created!
His work completed, the mage then sprinkled 8 sparkling stones of magical other sight around the perimeter of the mountain of the ancients, in make shifts shrines of his own design and focus.
Attracted to such glorious shinyness, the dragon Lord Pyrois flew forth from the cavelands and stole all 8 of the stones of other sight, as well as the enormous crystal at the peak of the mountain of glass! He was accompanied by a fleet of smaller dragons. Such an alliance of dragonfolk not being seen in the human’s of the realm’s lifetime!
His saurian kleptomania knowing no bounds, Lord Pyrois assaulted the forest palaces of the elves with his band of dragon raiders and stole the pinecone of Thragglenor! About a hundred elves were killed in his assault, and the king Oberon was thrown into a state of absolute mourning at the loss of the treasureous pinecone!
Adding to their sorrow and horror this decade, the scouts of the elves witnessed a terrible ceremony conducted by the Mibos of the demon king swamp, the summoning of a demon prince! The untold thousands of mibos throughout the swamp banded to gather to hunt all the humans and animals throughout the swamp, and more than few stray elves, and heaped them onto a hill of flesh. Then, Zorlton the watcher, ancient Mibo, led the ritual to transfigure the flesh into a lumbering demon!
The earth now shakes with the demons foot steps as it stalks through the swamps spreading destruction and disease as it goes…
Through the drunken taverns of the city state talk has turned to a prophecy, of a human who will deliver the pinecone of Thragglenor from the dragons back to the elves, and in doing so will transfigure themselves into an immortal god-emperor whom will rule over the realm in an endless golden age…
Food has become somewhat scarce in the city state, with much of its grain devoted to alcohol manufacture, and much of its meat devoted to magical sacrifice…Fish too has disappeared from the market with the slaughter of all northern fisherpeoples.
Finally, the decade ended with a mystery - on its final day, Abel the archmage climbed the tower of sorcerer to visit his lord, Narghai but found him…gone! Searching the entire city found that the sorcerer lord of the city state had vanished! As to his undead army of 10’000 skeletons and 20’000 giant skeletons - they were mindlessly marching south…into the south towards the sea of sand…
Turn 2:
510 - 520 PF:
With the lord of the city state absent, The Archmage Abel stormed the tower of the sorcerer in the heart of the city. Laboratories and libraries were examined by Abel and his army of battle mages, and then after weeks of rituals, Abel took control of the army of undead that were once Narghai’s.
20’000 skeletons, giant and otherwise, who were slowly sinking into the sea of sand marched back to the city under the control of Abel. The Archmage, and new lord of the city, with the backing of both the undead army and his army of battle mages, instituted harsh taxation on the sale of liquor throughout the city. The gold from this tax greatly enrichened Abel’s government, and he in turn promised to use it to fund his war on the plague.
As to the ex lord Narghai, he remains missing. His undead no longer searching for him…
Kerry O’king, his profit margins threatened, turned to a new business - a mercenary, security and miscellaneous adventuring guild. While most warriors of a magical persuasion would seek employment in Abel’s battle mage army, the mundane warriors of the land chose to join O’King’s Guild. With his considerable wealth and real estate holdings, O’kings Guild swiftly became a powerful organisation.
In the southern elven forests, the king Oberon declared a strict doctrine of elven isolation. No elf was to leave the forest. Several disobeyed this edict and found themselves sacrificed to the protection of the forest by Oberon’s blood priests.
This protection perhaps kept the shambling demon prince from entering the pristine forests of the elves. Instead, the monster of flesh and disease made its way across the ashy foothills of the ancient, then thundered northeast into the wastes of the sand mages.
The demon prince brought with it destruction and death and disease to any it came into contact with in the sparsely populated wastes. This was not many, as with the help of the sand mages, anyone in the wastes moved away from the prince.
But eventually, after several years shambling the wastes, the monstrosity reached the south eastern farmlands of the city state…
From 510 to 515 reports of dead rotting fish on the banks of the realm’s rivers and lakes. Any who ate or came in contact with these dead fish became infected with the plauge and died shortly afterwards. Of note was any practitioner of magic who came in contact with an infected fish died after several hours, rather than days…
While isolated instances of the plague were recorded throughout the city and its farmlands from 510 to 515, with the arrival of the demon prince to the farmlands in 515 - the sickness erupted.
Most severely affected were the battle mages of Abel’s army. Battle mages sent to investigate instances of the plague in the city died several hours after being in the same room as some one infected with the plague. Hundreds of battle mages died in a few short weeks before Abel quarantined himself, and his army within the tower of the sorcerer. He remains here still, half in control of the city he had seized from Narghai - alongside 4000 un-infected battle mages.
Kerry O’King found his mundane army of 5000 fighters and operatives much more resistant to the plague than the magically infused battle mages. He seized on the terror of the populace and promised to cleanse the city of threats, disease, demon or otherwise.
Great hunts took place, and hidden mibo hives were found hidden all across the city. The discovery of such foul infestments drove further hysteria - disease and demonity were every where, under the beds! In the churches! Under the floors! In the sewers! And thus the hunts ramped up in intensity! Many sections of the city were destroyed and burnt in looking for mibo hives, and all foreigners were blamed for their being there. It is unsure when the first elf or sand mage in the city was killed, but by the end of the decade hundreds of both groups had been murdered - both groups driven from the city.
With the city cleansed - something needed to be done about the elephant in the room: the massive disease-spreading demon in the farmlands. Kerry O’king demanded his army drive back the beast, and brave, and alcohol-maddened warriors that they were charged at it during 518!
Sensing danger, the demon prince retreated, away back south to the wastes and finally into its foul swamp home.
Kerry O’king grew in adoration, with Narghai disappeared, and Abel locked away in his tower the city began to see O’king as their true leader. A leader who may have cleansed the city of outsiders and some mibo hives, but continued to beset it with drunken madness and revelry. Fires, accidental or for mibo cleansing, were common in the city throughout the decade.
Only the army of undead were able to some how enforce the rule of Able. But in 519, the skeleton army slowly began, one by one, marching North. Abel found his command of the skeletons waning, A more powerful force wrenching the undead to the north…four months into the year the skeletons were gone - Kerry O’King’s mercenary army happy to let them go…
The 20’000 strong skeleton army now stands aimlessly in the northern fishing villages, staring out across the dark hungry sea…
With Abel and his army quarantined in the tower of the sorcerer, Kerry O’King and his mercenary army became the sole source of power in the city. “The Hunts” were legitimised, weekly forays around the city and its farmlands burning, looting and killing in the name of cleansing the land of disease and foreigners…
Early in the decade, Lord Pyrios, holding a shimmering orb in one claw, landed at the peak of the mountain of the ancients. The ghostly flames spluttered out on his arrival, and the green-blue glow of ghostly magic faded away from him as he approached. Him and his greed of bandit dragons raided the ancient ruins witin the mountain, gaining a glorious treasure!
Little did they know, that JJ, pirate lord, snuck behind them in their ghost melting wake. He too pillaged a great relic from the ruins.
As the dragon and his orb left the mountain, the flames quickly flooded back into place!
Not content with ancient treasures, Lord Pyrios and his greed flew to the waste, to the mound of goata, where the sand mage Goata Hardly had been spending many years constructing glorious glittering spheres. The dragon could not look away from such a glittering, desirable treasure, and flew to grasp them for his horde.
As the grey dragon dove from the sky and clasped the first glittering bauble, a cry went out from Goata, and there was a mass launching, from magically camouflaged trebuchets, of the the very glittering baubles the dragons desired!
These spheres hit the dragons, then collapsed into their armoured scales in thousands of magically hardened razor shards! Magical imploding glass bombs! Several dragons fell to the sands of the wastes and were bombarded with the magical ordinance! Destroying their inner organs with an untold number of shards!
Lord Pyros himself was grievously wounded and fled back to his cave - leaving behind several killed dragons! An enraged roar filled the land when the grey dragon returned to his gloomy home…
The hero Goata Hardly grew in renown in the wastes, and in the farmlands, none in this age had dared assault dragon kind… perhaps finally their foul pillaging would come to an end!
All decade long, the Mound of Goata hardly lit up the night! Some burning core was seething in the centre of the heroic sand mage’s inscrutable mound…
Though driven from the city itself, the prophecy of the one who would claim the acorn pinecone of Thragglenor for the elves and become an immortal god-emperor whom will rule over the realm in an endless golden age continued in the farmlands and the wastes…those invested in the prophecy began to treat it with religious reverence…
Some portents and prodigies from the decade; many reported seeing visions when looking at the horizon over a body of inland water (lakes and rivers) - strange and hypnotic rainbow visions. Many reported a green haze leaving the body of their loved ones as they passed, the haze always travelling towards the mountain of the ancients.
The sand mages no longer associated with the farmlands of the city state, the risk of near instant death too great. The sand mages have migrated south in the wastes. All magic practitioners within the city proper (save those in the tower), or farmlands, have been killed by the plague. Many thousand, mundane and unmagical persons, have also perished…
Food is no longer scarce, due to a decrease in population and lack of outrageously wasteful animal sacrifices…
Outside of the elven forest, there are no fish left in any lake or river, they have all died.
Turn 3:
521 PF:
War in the Cavelands of the Dragons! After the appearance of a ghostly dragon apparition, going cave to cave, whispering sweet jealousies into the most prideful of dragons, conflict erupted amongst the lizards of Lord Pyrios greed! Blood vendettas spread out from Lord Pyrios cave until all of dragon kind was at one another’s throats! A great territorial bloodletting took place, with dozens of the great beasts slain!
The great Lord Pyrios was not seen leaving his cave the entire year…perhaps slain in the blood-soaked skirmishes?!
Kerry O’King’s Mercenary army secured the city, re-establishing order after the chaotic decade of the plague. Defences were constructed, facing north, trenches, and bottlenecks, to keep the undead army of skeletons from returning. These preparations proved unnecessary this year, as the skeletons simply marched beneath the waves. Disappearing beneath the dark waters of the hungry sea.
After several weeks of meetings, between representatives of the kingdom of the elves, the battle mages of Abel and the mercenary army of Kerry O’King, a delegation of elves were allowed back into the city. These elves were marched to the tower of the sorcerer, and allowed entry by the arch mage.
Here the arch mage, his battle mages, and the elves, worked together to find a cure that was killing so swiftly the magic users of the land. As work took place in the tower, Kerry O’King’s tavern empire crept out across the realm, leaving the borders of the city.
A fleet of small, wheeled, drinkeries creaked out from the city and filled the farmlands, then spread south across the wastes, and finally entered into the southern forests of the elves. Kerry O’kings network of drinking spots and rumour mills and mercenary guild houses had spread far, far south, into the hallowed canopies of the elven forests.
Elves who had never left the forest were introduced to beer and spirits and many took a liking to it, becoming enamoured with drunken human bar culture, and the rough and ready lives of adventure mercenaries. Some even went so far as to sign up as mercenaries within Kerry O’kings army.
Several months into the year, a treatment for the plague was found! While not a conventional cure, or medicine, the treatment could allow magic users to live after contracting the sickness. The procedure involved taking a live sacrificial creature, flooding it with magical energy, then moving the sickness from the patient to the creature with a transference incantation. The magic user would find themselves well again, and the sacrificial animal would die a few hours later.
While the procedure left the practitioner somewhat magically drained for a day afterwards, death could easily be avoided by simply “tricking” the disease to move into another creature who had artificially been overloaded with living mana.
Magic users, including all of Abel’s army, now take to always having a living sacrificial animal on their person. A small mouse or snail on a neck chain for example, or a bird on the shoulder attached by a slight chain to the wrist. Magic users could now walk freely through the city again!
Perhaps the plague was heaving its last desperate attempt at removing life from the realm, but midway way through the year a great mortality was recorded. All humans of an extremely dubious moral composition (those prone to crime and vile acts) suddenly all died en masse. A day of mass death of all those of very weak character! The jail cells of the city state were filled with the dead! A large number of Kerry O'kings mercenary army dropped dead! In a single breath they ceased breathing, and a great green mist left their forms, coalescing through the streets and farmlands of the city and winding up through the foothills of the mountain of the ancients, entered that great ruin-filled peak!
Though the plague subsided after this exhaustion, and a “cure” readily available, after a few months of health and stability, new madness and hysteria and disorder began to corrupt the city later in the year!
Nightly sightings of a giant of bone, stalking the outskirts of the city! A massive man, made of writhing, clanking, grinding masses of human bone began appearing eveyr night. A dark rainbow warped the night sky where the things skull should be. THis strange and enormous portent simple walked the outskirts of the city, in the farmlands, beyond its walls, and made strange and arcane markings not of this land in the ground. Those who investigated the engravings on the earth in the morning light found them filled with fast disapating prismatic ichor.
Not long after the apperance of the phantom giant of bone, the wailing in the street begun…Men and women would take to the streets at midnight and shriekd and scream till just before sunrise. A few weeks after this, the stray cat and vermin of the city became oddly elongated, and aggressive…their limbs too long, their claws gouging and hooked and they sprouted additional tails and fangs that sprouted from their jaws. A few weeks after this, reports of cowbeasts and other livestock ballonning over a few days, their stomachs distending before the poor beasts toppled over and eventually their gas filled forms began floating into the air and then exploding into a mass of diseased flesh and organs on the ground below. And then, in the final month of the year, people began to change - sprouting a tiny baby arm, or leg on their otherwise normal torso, or whole new sets of teeth forming behind their existing teeth, or nails that hardened and would grow into talons that couldnt be cut..though these mutants would try to hide their new apendages when middnight came they would find themselves unable to stop screaming endlessly from their windows out into the city…
Though it was hard to tell the number of citizens who had received mutations in the daylight hours, in the evening, the deafening volume of the wailing made it sound that nigh everyone had been infected with the shrieking madness!
To the south of the city, the dragon slaying Goata Hardly summoned a great dome of glass that enveloped his already standing Mound of Goata. A large entrance to the dome was opened, facing towards the city state of the absent sorcerer!
Other rumours pervading the realm throughout the already strange and portent filled year: A great pyramid of glass was seen by many flying through the air! Mibo hives disintegrating of their own accord, seeping into the ground, bubbling down into a sludge of brown liquid mud! Endless mounds of dead fish on the shore of the land’s beaches! Trees and shrubs and grasses dying in great swirling patterns all across the land, including the sacred forest elves! The chosen one has been found in the farmlands!
Turn 4:
521 PF:
The year started with a message, engraved mystically across all of the glass surfaces of the city.
“Come to the Dome of Goata for Safety and Succor and Rest. All are welcome, sick, well or otherwise!”
And so a great migration began, 75’000 souls of the city’s population of 375’000 decided to make the short pilgrimage to the great Dome of Goata (south of the city, in dead plains of the wastes of the sand mages).
As they did so, the nightly screaming and wailings continued in the city, and even more concerningly a pink mist began to waft up eerily from beneath the streets. The mist was thin at first, but grew in volume with each passing night.
On arrival at the Dome, the refugees from the city found it dead, empty and abandoned. Goata Hardly, the heroic sand mage was nowhere to be seen. As those who had travelled here seeking shelter began to create camps, and settle into their new glass covered home, the shrieks and wailing the nightly erupted in the dome wafted out hauntingly across the wastes.
As the pink mist slowly filled the streets of the city, Kerry O’King did a grand tour of the farmlands of the city state. Using his acquired fortune, alongside underhanded extortion tactics using his army of mercenaries, he purchased all of the city state’s surrounding farmland in several months. At this time all those willing to leave the city to seek shelter in the Dome of Goata had done so.
Life in the dome was foul and chaotic, those there only able to survive due to the help of kindly sand mages and importing in grain from the farmlands (at ever-increasing prices due to Kerry O’King’s ownership). There was no work, nor purpose, and open and wanton mutations had begun to manifest: Long limbed, great mawed, spider-like humans who stalked through the dusty camps wailing and screaming. Rats, birds and cats scuttling on through the filth with enormous taloned spindle limbs too many in number. When Kerry O’King had finished his tour of the farmlands, purchasing all of them, open conflict and cannibalism were taking part in the dome of Goata. Spindly, screaming, too many limbed mutant humans fighting and eating one another in the searing horrible magnified heat beneath the dome. The mutation spread quickly in the dome and halfway through the year all those within were mindless and misshapen, screaming and wailing in endless pain, terror and confusion. The dome became avoided by all of sound mind.
In the city, the streets thick with pink mist, that filled the mind of those that were brave enough to leave their homes with sounds and sights that were not there, Kerry O’King proclaimed a second great migration! He had built a secure village in the East of the farmlands. Great walls and trenches would protect all those who moved there. So, under the protection of his army, he moved there, but only a small reminder of those left in the city were of sound mind enough to come with him! 20’000 people - so far untouched by the spreading corruption, madness and mutation, in the city traveled to Kerry’s Compound. Some of those mutated by corruption attempted to leave the city, but were cut down by Kerry’s mercenaries under strict orders to slay all those who were tainted.
The screams that nightly filled the city were deafening, and just like in the dome of Goata to the south, great spindly spider humans stalked to the streets, plucking up corrupted vermin and bloodily devouring them with oversized fang maws. The mist slowly filled the streets, pink, shimmering and loud with the clanging of ceremonial bells, or the running of rivers and waters, or the calls of alien beasts, or the roar of engines that don't exist and the sights that could not be documented, explained, or comprehended by those that witnessed them (even if they were of sane mind!)
The 20’000 farmer folk, now removed from their lands by Kerry O’King were fearful of both Goata’s Dome of Madness and the Pink City. The endless wails and visions and sounds that streamed from both were horrific omens. And nightly the homeless farmer folks would witness the appearance of a giant of bone who would stalk around the city, etching increasingly fervent symbols into the earth. The farmer folk would have despaired if it wasn't for the Hero that appeared among them!
This hero, a man just come into adulthood, was able to gather the farmer folk together across the farmlands, and lead them to safe places of refuge and find them stores of food. He took them north, to the empty villages and found them shelter. He knew farms that were left empty by Kerry O’king and his army and could still be worked. He was a great leader, saved the farmer folk, and helped them resettle successfully in the north.
The leader of the farmer folk’s heroship was cemented when he gathered his people together one morning and proclaimed he had recovered a great artifact. The Sword of True Death! A powerful grey blade, burning with black flame! He held it high above him to prove its existence (as it was assumed lost forever within the tower of the sorcerer ) and told the farmer folk that on this night he would travel south to slay the skeletal giant that haunted their old fields! Though it it is not known how the hero recovered the blade, rumours tell of elves often visiting him late in the night, some who were reported to have traveled from the tower of the sorcerer…
The hero traveled into the empty farmlands, haunted only by the giant of bone, in the middle months of the year. The hero found the giant horror, working at its eldritch etchings. Without a hint of hesitation or fear, the hero charged at the colossus, as black flames leapt from his sword and began burning the legs of the giant as he hacked at it! The giant attempted to fight back but found the black flames were disintegrating his bone mass form! The hero hacked and the giant fell! The ground thundered, and the giant of bone was engulfed in black flames! Before the thing could disintegrate to dust, a huge glob of scintillating rainbow light disentangled itself from the head of the giant! It lumbered, like a shambling tentacle mass of dreams towards the pink mist enveloped city.
As the hero watched the rainbow tentacle mass flee to the city, he saw that it began to float the closer it got to its walls before it seemed to fly up and over the towers of the city, growing in size and joining its prismatic rainbow light with the pink mist engulfing the city! An unnerving portent indeed.
The leader of the northern farmer folk, returned to his people, a hero!
And then…the city was ablaze!
On a night when Kerry O’kings mercenary army moved from the east to the eastern wall of the city, explosions erupted through the city. Followed by fast spreading flames! The blaze spread quickly, the near mindless 280’000 mutants left in the city seemed incapable of mounting any defense against the flames! Those mutants that had the sense to flee found that all exits were blocked save the east, and there they found Kerry O’Kings army waiting! But even as those mutants who were able to find away out of the flames ran out fo the inferno they found themselves infected with some overwhelming lethargy…sleep came to them as they charged towards Kerry’s army! The mutants who escaped the flames fell asleep and were murdered in cold blood by the mercenaries…
And so it seemed that all those left in the city were to burn alive. The only building saved from the inferno was the tower of the sorcerer, where Abel and his battle mages remained. The arcane power in the structure was too powerful a ward for the flame.
Unusually…the flames did not stop after the night the city burnt…they fused with the pink mist and since that night the city burns with ghastly pink flames. Flames that ooze and melt and flicker and fly and shimmer and contort and warp the mind when looked upon with visions of things that should not be…
The sand mages of the wastes noted that on the night the city burned, Goata’s Dome of Madness was utterly quiet…
As if the fire was catching, the next day the mountain of the ancients began to smoke…
By the end of the month the mountain had transformed into a bubbling volcano, smoke and streams of magma spewing from its peak.
When the pyramid of glass deemed to descend into the magma filled peak of the mountain the land was witness to a great and terrible spectacle.
The volcano of the ancients erupted! A primordial explosion of fierce and angry red yellow magma that exploded into the sky and seared the sides of the ancient ash covered mount! The sky was darkened, filled with ash and soot and dark smoke!
For several days the volcano raged, dimming in intensity…the ghost flames slowly returning to haunt the mountain alongside the streams of magma pooling at its base.
But then the pyramid reappeared! Sparkling resplendent in the dark smoke filled sky! It had survived the magma it had been pulled deep down into!
The pyramid went east to the wastes of the sand mages…where the Abels army of battle mages and a cohort of elves were waiting…
Captain J.J, Lord of the Pyramid, landed his crystal pyramid fortress in the wastes. He stepped from his craft out onto the grey sands, followed by ten sand mages, and 50 sand sailors. It is not known what reasons brought him to the wastes, but he was not prepared for the ambush that awaited him! The hero of farmer folk, The Archmage Abel and his 4000 battlemages and 1000 elves all appeared suddenly from beneath an illusion! The pirate lord was quickly overwhelmed, though his sand mages and sailor retinue fought savagely against the overwhelming odds to their deaths! JJ himself was encased in a preserving crystal of holding by local sand mages, then loaded on board his commandeered crystal pyramid fortress.
Abel, The hero, the elves, the battle mages, and ten local sand mages entered the great pyramid of glass and flew it to the city where it landed on top of the tower of the sorcerer!
Those still in the tower had a near perfect vantage point to witness the wanton destruction and vandalism of Lord Pyrios! The great dragon appeared finally from its cave late in the year. It seems that though the interdragon war raged in the cavelands, he was cured of his wounds from the attack by the Hero Goata!
The foul great dragon took no treasure this year…but instead burnt all over the farmlands over several weeks! With the fields near empty after being purchased by Kerry O’King, the fields were defenceless, and the land burnt. The crops and the livestock all across the abundant farm lands turned to black dust…
His destruction wrought, the vengeful and spiteful Lord Pyrios returned to his lonely cave - the remaining humans of the land facing starvation…
Some time after the burning of the farm lands, the screaming within Goata’s dome of madness quietened…the mindless wailing was replaced with a singular, chant, uttered from bestial and inhuman voices, “Corruption is salvation!”...
The sand mages who dare stay close to the dome report that the chaos within has died down, that the mutants are working together and amassing and preparing to break forth from the dome…All other sand mages have traveled as far away from the dome as they can - cursing the name of Goata the once hero.
With all the other events of the year, it nearly went without notice, the Swamps of the Demon King had, at some point, rotted to dead black oozy dust. The trees and ruined had all crumbled to nothingness. No life remained. All that was there was rocks and pools and rivers of lifeless black sludge…A portent…but of what?!
Though the strength of the dream that brought the initial 50’000 was not repeated throughout the decade, reports of similar dreams were reported all across this land - the experiencer of such a dream often joining the cult on the northern coast. Even a number of elves were amongst the ranks of the faithful…
The sorcerer Narghai, discontent with so many citizens fleeing his city state steeled his army with a great summoning of the undead. Travelling south to the foot hills of the mountain of the ancients, and drenching the ground with the blood of a herd of cowbeasts, dredged up the animated bones of giant ancient skeletons! The ghosts of the mountain sadly watched their bones march away. 10’000 giant skeletons joined the sorcerer's army!
A great host of battle mages and undead were then commanded north, to crush the… rebellion (?) of the coastal cultists. When the army of Narghai demanded they give up their esoteric beliefs, none would, and thus the coast was drenched in blood - the faithful murdered and thrown into the sea, or left to rot on the beaches and in the abandoned fishing towns.
The army of undead and battle mages returned to the city state, leaving the northern coasts choked with the corpses of about 60’000 (peaceful, if religiously obsessed) civilians.
While Narghai sent his forces north, The Archmage Abel went south, to attempt the cleanse the city state of the disease of the plague and piracy. A strict quarantine was enforced, and any who became infected were swiftly burnt alive. Sand sailors were attacked without question and mercy too, greatly slowly travel between the southern farmlands and the swamp of the demon king. After the loss of several sand boats, the sailors and piracy in the south stopped, the danger from the occupying force of battle mages too sheer.
With travel from and to the south ceased, instances of the plague still erupted, until eventually Abel and his forces uncovered hidden nest hives of gestating and fetul Mibokopros. Foul bestial larva, ripe with puss and disease…A great effort of eradication took place and by the end of the decade both piracy and plague and been removed from the southern farmlands of the city state… unfortunately instances of disease had began to occour in the city itself…
Another disease was spreading through the city, wanton alcoholism brought by the ever expanding publican empire of Kerry O’king. With the rulers of the city state focused on other issues, the opportunistic business man took ownership of every inn, tavern, pub and watering hole he could and flooded the market with cheap booze. He was a very rich man by the end of the decade. A lack of dreams accompanied the city states descent into drunkenness…
It is not known whether it was drunken delirium, or otherwise, but reports of ghost sightings increased hundred fold during the decade within the city state. Sobbing ghost were most commonly reported, with many able to provide ectoplasmic pools of shed tears as evidence of their claims to apparition sighting.
An unusual amount of birds and beasts have also been reported in the city this decade…though these could also be delirium visions.
His piracy career growing too dangerous, JJ the sand sailor, took briefly to adventuring, trekking to the mountain of the ancients with the intent of looting its ancient ruins. Unfortunately for him, whenever he sought to enter the depths of the mountain great ghostly flames would threaten to immolate him, and he was turned back from its secrets and its treasures…
The enigmatic sand mage Goata Hardly sacrificed much birdbeast stocks to lumpen together a great mountain of sand in the wastes. A great boulder at its peak was transfigured into a diamond, which then super heated the sand into an enourmous mountain of sparkling glass! A wonder of the world created!
His work completed, the mage then sprinkled 8 sparkling stones of magical other sight around the perimeter of the mountain of the ancients, in make shifts shrines of his own design and focus.
Attracted to such glorious shinyness, the dragon Lord Pyrois flew forth from the cavelands and stole all 8 of the stones of other sight, as well as the enormous crystal at the peak of the mountain of glass! He was accompanied by a fleet of smaller dragons. Such an alliance of dragonfolk not being seen in the human’s of the realm’s lifetime!
His saurian kleptomania knowing no bounds, Lord Pyrois assaulted the forest palaces of the elves with his band of dragon raiders and stole the pinecone of Thragglenor! About a hundred elves were killed in his assault, and the king Oberon was thrown into a state of absolute mourning at the loss of the treasureous pinecone!
Adding to their sorrow and horror this decade, the scouts of the elves witnessed a terrible ceremony conducted by the Mibos of the demon king swamp, the summoning of a demon prince! The untold thousands of mibos throughout the swamp banded to gather to hunt all the humans and animals throughout the swamp, and more than few stray elves, and heaped them onto a hill of flesh. Then, Zorlton the watcher, ancient Mibo, led the ritual to transfigure the flesh into a lumbering demon!
The earth now shakes with the demons foot steps as it stalks through the swamps spreading destruction and disease as it goes…
Through the drunken taverns of the city state talk has turned to a prophecy, of a human who will deliver the pinecone of Thragglenor from the dragons back to the elves, and in doing so will transfigure themselves into an immortal god-emperor whom will rule over the realm in an endless golden age…
Food has become somewhat scarce in the city state, with much of its grain devoted to alcohol manufacture, and much of its meat devoted to magical sacrifice…Fish too has disappeared from the market with the slaughter of all northern fisherpeoples.
Finally, the decade ended with a mystery - on its final day, Abel the archmage climbed the tower of sorcerer to visit his lord, Narghai but found him…gone! Searching the entire city found that the sorcerer lord of the city state had vanished! As to his undead army of 10’000 skeletons and 20’000 giant skeletons - they were mindlessly marching south…into the south towards the sea of sand…
510 - 520 PF:
With the lord of the city state absent, The Archmage Abel stormed the tower of the sorcerer in the heart of the city. Laboratories and libraries were examined by Abel and his army of battle mages, and then after weeks of rituals, Abel took control of the army of undead that were once Narghai’s.
20’000 skeletons, giant and otherwise, who were slowly sinking into the sea of sand marched back to the city under the control of Abel. The Archmage, and new lord of the city, with the backing of both the undead army and his army of battle mages, instituted harsh taxation on the sale of liquor throughout the city. The gold from this tax greatly enrichened Abel’s government, and he in turn promised to use it to fund his war on the plague.
As to the ex lord Narghai, he remains missing. His undead no longer searching for him…
Kerry O’king, his profit margins threatened, turned to a new business - a mercenary, security and miscellaneous adventuring guild. While most warriors of a magical persuasion would seek employment in Abel’s battle mage army, the mundane warriors of the land chose to join O’King’s Guild. With his considerable wealth and real estate holdings, O’kings Guild swiftly became a powerful organisation.
In the southern elven forests, the king Oberon declared a strict doctrine of elven isolation. No elf was to leave the forest. Several disobeyed this edict and found themselves sacrificed to the protection of the forest by Oberon’s blood priests.
This protection perhaps kept the shambling demon prince from entering the pristine forests of the elves. Instead, the monster of flesh and disease made its way across the ashy foothills of the ancient, then thundered northeast into the wastes of the sand mages.
The demon prince brought with it destruction and death and disease to any it came into contact with in the sparsely populated wastes. This was not many, as with the help of the sand mages, anyone in the wastes moved away from the prince.
But eventually, after several years shambling the wastes, the monstrosity reached the south eastern farmlands of the city state…
From 510 to 515 reports of dead rotting fish on the banks of the realm’s rivers and lakes. Any who ate or came in contact with these dead fish became infected with the plauge and died shortly afterwards. Of note was any practitioner of magic who came in contact with an infected fish died after several hours, rather than days…
While isolated instances of the plague were recorded throughout the city and its farmlands from 510 to 515, with the arrival of the demon prince to the farmlands in 515 - the sickness erupted.
Most severely affected were the battle mages of Abel’s army. Battle mages sent to investigate instances of the plague in the city died several hours after being in the same room as some one infected with the plague. Hundreds of battle mages died in a few short weeks before Abel quarantined himself, and his army within the tower of the sorcerer. He remains here still, half in control of the city he had seized from Narghai - alongside 4000 un-infected battle mages.
Kerry O’King found his mundane army of 5000 fighters and operatives much more resistant to the plague than the magically infused battle mages. He seized on the terror of the populace and promised to cleanse the city of threats, disease, demon or otherwise.
Great hunts took place, and hidden mibo hives were found hidden all across the city. The discovery of such foul infestments drove further hysteria - disease and demonity were every where, under the beds! In the churches! Under the floors! In the sewers! And thus the hunts ramped up in intensity! Many sections of the city were destroyed and burnt in looking for mibo hives, and all foreigners were blamed for their being there. It is unsure when the first elf or sand mage in the city was killed, but by the end of the decade hundreds of both groups had been murdered - both groups driven from the city.
With the city cleansed - something needed to be done about the elephant in the room: the massive disease-spreading demon in the farmlands. Kerry O’king demanded his army drive back the beast, and brave, and alcohol-maddened warriors that they were charged at it during 518!
Sensing danger, the demon prince retreated, away back south to the wastes and finally into its foul swamp home.
Kerry O’king grew in adoration, with Narghai disappeared, and Abel locked away in his tower the city began to see O’king as their true leader. A leader who may have cleansed the city of outsiders and some mibo hives, but continued to beset it with drunken madness and revelry. Fires, accidental or for mibo cleansing, were common in the city throughout the decade.
Only the army of undead were able to some how enforce the rule of Able. But in 519, the skeleton army slowly began, one by one, marching North. Abel found his command of the skeletons waning, A more powerful force wrenching the undead to the north…four months into the year the skeletons were gone - Kerry O’King’s mercenary army happy to let them go…
The 20’000 strong skeleton army now stands aimlessly in the northern fishing villages, staring out across the dark hungry sea…
With Abel and his army quarantined in the tower of the sorcerer, Kerry O’King and his mercenary army became the sole source of power in the city. “The Hunts” were legitimised, weekly forays around the city and its farmlands burning, looting and killing in the name of cleansing the land of disease and foreigners…
Early in the decade, Lord Pyrios, holding a shimmering orb in one claw, landed at the peak of the mountain of the ancients. The ghostly flames spluttered out on his arrival, and the green-blue glow of ghostly magic faded away from him as he approached. Him and his greed of bandit dragons raided the ancient ruins witin the mountain, gaining a glorious treasure!
Little did they know, that JJ, pirate lord, snuck behind them in their ghost melting wake. He too pillaged a great relic from the ruins.
As the dragon and his orb left the mountain, the flames quickly flooded back into place!
Not content with ancient treasures, Lord Pyrios and his greed flew to the waste, to the mound of goata, where the sand mage Goata Hardly had been spending many years constructing glorious glittering spheres. The dragon could not look away from such a glittering, desirable treasure, and flew to grasp them for his horde.
As the grey dragon dove from the sky and clasped the first glittering bauble, a cry went out from Goata, and there was a mass launching, from magically camouflaged trebuchets, of the the very glittering baubles the dragons desired!
These spheres hit the dragons, then collapsed into their armoured scales in thousands of magically hardened razor shards! Magical imploding glass bombs! Several dragons fell to the sands of the wastes and were bombarded with the magical ordinance! Destroying their inner organs with an untold number of shards!
Lord Pyros himself was grievously wounded and fled back to his cave - leaving behind several killed dragons! An enraged roar filled the land when the grey dragon returned to his gloomy home…
The hero Goata Hardly grew in renown in the wastes, and in the farmlands, none in this age had dared assault dragon kind… perhaps finally their foul pillaging would come to an end!
All decade long, the Mound of Goata hardly lit up the night! Some burning core was seething in the centre of the heroic sand mage’s inscrutable mound…
Though driven from the city itself, the prophecy of the one who would claim the acorn pinecone of Thragglenor for the elves and become an immortal god-emperor whom will rule over the realm in an endless golden age continued in the farmlands and the wastes…those invested in the prophecy began to treat it with religious reverence…
Some portents and prodigies from the decade; many reported seeing visions when looking at the horizon over a body of inland water (lakes and rivers) - strange and hypnotic rainbow visions. Many reported a green haze leaving the body of their loved ones as they passed, the haze always travelling towards the mountain of the ancients.
The sand mages no longer associated with the farmlands of the city state, the risk of near instant death too great. The sand mages have migrated south in the wastes. All magic practitioners within the city proper (save those in the tower), or farmlands, have been killed by the plague. Many thousand, mundane and unmagical persons, have also perished…
Food is no longer scarce, due to a decrease in population and lack of outrageously wasteful animal sacrifices…
Outside of the elven forest, there are no fish left in any lake or river, they have all died.
521 PF:
War in the Cavelands of the Dragons! After the appearance of a ghostly dragon apparition, going cave to cave, whispering sweet jealousies into the most prideful of dragons, conflict erupted amongst the lizards of Lord Pyrios greed! Blood vendettas spread out from Lord Pyrios cave until all of dragon kind was at one another’s throats! A great territorial bloodletting took place, with dozens of the great beasts slain!
The great Lord Pyrios was not seen leaving his cave the entire year…perhaps slain in the blood-soaked skirmishes?!
Kerry O’King’s Mercenary army secured the city, re-establishing order after the chaotic decade of the plague. Defences were constructed, facing north, trenches, and bottlenecks, to keep the undead army of skeletons from returning. These preparations proved unnecessary this year, as the skeletons simply marched beneath the waves. Disappearing beneath the dark waters of the hungry sea.
After several weeks of meetings, between representatives of the kingdom of the elves, the battle mages of Abel and the mercenary army of Kerry O’King, a delegation of elves were allowed back into the city. These elves were marched to the tower of the sorcerer, and allowed entry by the arch mage.
Here the arch mage, his battle mages, and the elves, worked together to find a cure that was killing so swiftly the magic users of the land. As work took place in the tower, Kerry O’King’s tavern empire crept out across the realm, leaving the borders of the city.
A fleet of small, wheeled, drinkeries creaked out from the city and filled the farmlands, then spread south across the wastes, and finally entered into the southern forests of the elves. Kerry O’kings network of drinking spots and rumour mills and mercenary guild houses had spread far, far south, into the hallowed canopies of the elven forests.
Elves who had never left the forest were introduced to beer and spirits and many took a liking to it, becoming enamoured with drunken human bar culture, and the rough and ready lives of adventure mercenaries. Some even went so far as to sign up as mercenaries within Kerry O’kings army.
Several months into the year, a treatment for the plague was found! While not a conventional cure, or medicine, the treatment could allow magic users to live after contracting the sickness. The procedure involved taking a live sacrificial creature, flooding it with magical energy, then moving the sickness from the patient to the creature with a transference incantation. The magic user would find themselves well again, and the sacrificial animal would die a few hours later.
While the procedure left the practitioner somewhat magically drained for a day afterwards, death could easily be avoided by simply “tricking” the disease to move into another creature who had artificially been overloaded with living mana.
Magic users, including all of Abel’s army, now take to always having a living sacrificial animal on their person. A small mouse or snail on a neck chain for example, or a bird on the shoulder attached by a slight chain to the wrist. Magic users could now walk freely through the city again!
Perhaps the plague was heaving its last desperate attempt at removing life from the realm, but midway way through the year a great mortality was recorded. All humans of an extremely dubious moral composition (those prone to crime and vile acts) suddenly all died en masse. A day of mass death of all those of very weak character! The jail cells of the city state were filled with the dead! A large number of Kerry O'kings mercenary army dropped dead! In a single breath they ceased breathing, and a great green mist left their forms, coalescing through the streets and farmlands of the city and winding up through the foothills of the mountain of the ancients, entered that great ruin-filled peak!
Though the plague subsided after this exhaustion, and a “cure” readily available, after a few months of health and stability, new madness and hysteria and disorder began to corrupt the city later in the year!
Nightly sightings of a giant of bone, stalking the outskirts of the city! A massive man, made of writhing, clanking, grinding masses of human bone began appearing eveyr night. A dark rainbow warped the night sky where the things skull should be. THis strange and enormous portent simple walked the outskirts of the city, in the farmlands, beyond its walls, and made strange and arcane markings not of this land in the ground. Those who investigated the engravings on the earth in the morning light found them filled with fast disapating prismatic ichor.
Not long after the apperance of the phantom giant of bone, the wailing in the street begun…Men and women would take to the streets at midnight and shriekd and scream till just before sunrise. A few weeks after this, the stray cat and vermin of the city became oddly elongated, and aggressive…their limbs too long, their claws gouging and hooked and they sprouted additional tails and fangs that sprouted from their jaws. A few weeks after this, reports of cowbeasts and other livestock ballonning over a few days, their stomachs distending before the poor beasts toppled over and eventually their gas filled forms began floating into the air and then exploding into a mass of diseased flesh and organs on the ground below. And then, in the final month of the year, people began to change - sprouting a tiny baby arm, or leg on their otherwise normal torso, or whole new sets of teeth forming behind their existing teeth, or nails that hardened and would grow into talons that couldnt be cut..though these mutants would try to hide their new apendages when middnight came they would find themselves unable to stop screaming endlessly from their windows out into the city…
Though it was hard to tell the number of citizens who had received mutations in the daylight hours, in the evening, the deafening volume of the wailing made it sound that nigh everyone had been infected with the shrieking madness!
To the south of the city, the dragon slaying Goata Hardly summoned a great dome of glass that enveloped his already standing Mound of Goata. A large entrance to the dome was opened, facing towards the city state of the absent sorcerer!
Other rumours pervading the realm throughout the already strange and portent filled year: A great pyramid of glass was seen by many flying through the air! Mibo hives disintegrating of their own accord, seeping into the ground, bubbling down into a sludge of brown liquid mud! Endless mounds of dead fish on the shore of the land’s beaches! Trees and shrubs and grasses dying in great swirling patterns all across the land, including the sacred forest elves! The chosen one has been found in the farmlands!
Turn 4:
521 PF:
The year started with a message, engraved mystically across all of the glass surfaces of the city.
“Come to the Dome of Goata for Safety and Succor and Rest. All are welcome, sick, well or otherwise!”
And so a great migration began, 75’000 souls of the city’s population of 375’000 decided to make the short pilgrimage to the great Dome of Goata (south of the city, in dead plains of the wastes of the sand mages).
As they did so, the nightly screaming and wailings continued in the city, and even more concerningly a pink mist began to waft up eerily from beneath the streets. The mist was thin at first, but grew in volume with each passing night.
On arrival at the Dome, the refugees from the city found it dead, empty and abandoned. Goata Hardly, the heroic sand mage was nowhere to be seen. As those who had travelled here seeking shelter began to create camps, and settle into their new glass covered home, the shrieks and wailing the nightly erupted in the dome wafted out hauntingly across the wastes.
As the pink mist slowly filled the streets of the city, Kerry O’King did a grand tour of the farmlands of the city state. Using his acquired fortune, alongside underhanded extortion tactics using his army of mercenaries, he purchased all of the city state’s surrounding farmland in several months. At this time all those willing to leave the city to seek shelter in the Dome of Goata had done so.
Life in the dome was foul and chaotic, those there only able to survive due to the help of kindly sand mages and importing in grain from the farmlands (at ever-increasing prices due to Kerry O’King’s ownership). There was no work, nor purpose, and open and wanton mutations had begun to manifest: Long limbed, great mawed, spider-like humans who stalked through the dusty camps wailing and screaming. Rats, birds and cats scuttling on through the filth with enormous taloned spindle limbs too many in number. When Kerry O’King had finished his tour of the farmlands, purchasing all of them, open conflict and cannibalism were taking part in the dome of Goata. Spindly, screaming, too many limbed mutant humans fighting and eating one another in the searing horrible magnified heat beneath the dome. The mutation spread quickly in the dome and halfway through the year all those within were mindless and misshapen, screaming and wailing in endless pain, terror and confusion. The dome became avoided by all of sound mind.
In the city, the streets thick with pink mist, that filled the mind of those that were brave enough to leave their homes with sounds and sights that were not there, Kerry O’King proclaimed a second great migration! He had built a secure village in the East of the farmlands. Great walls and trenches would protect all those who moved there. So, under the protection of his army, he moved there, but only a small reminder of those left in the city were of sound mind enough to come with him! 20’000 people - so far untouched by the spreading corruption, madness and mutation, in the city traveled to Kerry’s Compound. Some of those mutated by corruption attempted to leave the city, but were cut down by Kerry’s mercenaries under strict orders to slay all those who were tainted.
The screams that nightly filled the city were deafening, and just like in the dome of Goata to the south, great spindly spider humans stalked to the streets, plucking up corrupted vermin and bloodily devouring them with oversized fang maws. The mist slowly filled the streets, pink, shimmering and loud with the clanging of ceremonial bells, or the running of rivers and waters, or the calls of alien beasts, or the roar of engines that don't exist and the sights that could not be documented, explained, or comprehended by those that witnessed them (even if they were of sane mind!)
The 20’000 farmer folk, now removed from their lands by Kerry O’King were fearful of both Goata’s Dome of Madness and the Pink City. The endless wails and visions and sounds that streamed from both were horrific omens. And nightly the homeless farmer folks would witness the appearance of a giant of bone who would stalk around the city, etching increasingly fervent symbols into the earth. The farmer folk would have despaired if it wasn't for the Hero that appeared among them!
This hero, a man just come into adulthood, was able to gather the farmer folk together across the farmlands, and lead them to safe places of refuge and find them stores of food. He took them north, to the empty villages and found them shelter. He knew farms that were left empty by Kerry O’king and his army and could still be worked. He was a great leader, saved the farmer folk, and helped them resettle successfully in the north.
The leader of the farmer folk’s heroship was cemented when he gathered his people together one morning and proclaimed he had recovered a great artifact. The Sword of True Death! A powerful grey blade, burning with black flame! He held it high above him to prove its existence (as it was assumed lost forever within the tower of the sorcerer ) and told the farmer folk that on this night he would travel south to slay the skeletal giant that haunted their old fields! Though it it is not known how the hero recovered the blade, rumours tell of elves often visiting him late in the night, some who were reported to have traveled from the tower of the sorcerer…
The hero traveled into the empty farmlands, haunted only by the giant of bone, in the middle months of the year. The hero found the giant horror, working at its eldritch etchings. Without a hint of hesitation or fear, the hero charged at the colossus, as black flames leapt from his sword and began burning the legs of the giant as he hacked at it! The giant attempted to fight back but found the black flames were disintegrating his bone mass form! The hero hacked and the giant fell! The ground thundered, and the giant of bone was engulfed in black flames! Before the thing could disintegrate to dust, a huge glob of scintillating rainbow light disentangled itself from the head of the giant! It lumbered, like a shambling tentacle mass of dreams towards the pink mist enveloped city.
As the hero watched the rainbow tentacle mass flee to the city, he saw that it began to float the closer it got to its walls before it seemed to fly up and over the towers of the city, growing in size and joining its prismatic rainbow light with the pink mist engulfing the city! An unnerving portent indeed.
The leader of the northern farmer folk, returned to his people, a hero!
And then…the city was ablaze!
On a night when Kerry O’kings mercenary army moved from the east to the eastern wall of the city, explosions erupted through the city. Followed by fast spreading flames! The blaze spread quickly, the near mindless 280’000 mutants left in the city seemed incapable of mounting any defense against the flames! Those mutants that had the sense to flee found that all exits were blocked save the east, and there they found Kerry O’Kings army waiting! But even as those mutants who were able to find away out of the flames ran out fo the inferno they found themselves infected with some overwhelming lethargy…sleep came to them as they charged towards Kerry’s army! The mutants who escaped the flames fell asleep and were murdered in cold blood by the mercenaries…
And so it seemed that all those left in the city were to burn alive. The only building saved from the inferno was the tower of the sorcerer, where Abel and his battle mages remained. The arcane power in the structure was too powerful a ward for the flame.
Unusually…the flames did not stop after the night the city burnt…they fused with the pink mist and since that night the city burns with ghastly pink flames. Flames that ooze and melt and flicker and fly and shimmer and contort and warp the mind when looked upon with visions of things that should not be…
The sand mages of the wastes noted that on the night the city burned, Goata’s Dome of Madness was utterly quiet…
As if the fire was catching, the next day the mountain of the ancients began to smoke…
By the end of the month the mountain had transformed into a bubbling volcano, smoke and streams of magma spewing from its peak.
When the pyramid of glass deemed to descend into the magma filled peak of the mountain the land was witness to a great and terrible spectacle.
The volcano of the ancients erupted! A primordial explosion of fierce and angry red yellow magma that exploded into the sky and seared the sides of the ancient ash covered mount! The sky was darkened, filled with ash and soot and dark smoke!
For several days the volcano raged, dimming in intensity…the ghost flames slowly returning to haunt the mountain alongside the streams of magma pooling at its base.
But then the pyramid reappeared! Sparkling resplendent in the dark smoke filled sky! It had survived the magma it had been pulled deep down into!
The pyramid went east to the wastes of the sand mages…where the Abels army of battle mages and a cohort of elves were waiting…
Captain J.J, Lord of the Pyramid, landed his crystal pyramid fortress in the wastes. He stepped from his craft out onto the grey sands, followed by ten sand mages, and 50 sand sailors. It is not known what reasons brought him to the wastes, but he was not prepared for the ambush that awaited him! The hero of farmer folk, The Archmage Abel and his 4000 battlemages and 1000 elves all appeared suddenly from beneath an illusion! The pirate lord was quickly overwhelmed, though his sand mages and sailor retinue fought savagely against the overwhelming odds to their deaths! JJ himself was encased in a preserving crystal of holding by local sand mages, then loaded on board his commandeered crystal pyramid fortress.
Abel, The hero, the elves, the battle mages, and ten local sand mages entered the great pyramid of glass and flew it to the city where it landed on top of the tower of the sorcerer!
Those still in the tower had a near perfect vantage point to witness the wanton destruction and vandalism of Lord Pyrios! The great dragon appeared finally from its cave late in the year. It seems that though the interdragon war raged in the cavelands, he was cured of his wounds from the attack by the Hero Goata!
The foul great dragon took no treasure this year…but instead burnt all over the farmlands over several weeks! With the fields near empty after being purchased by Kerry O’King, the fields were defenceless, and the land burnt. The crops and the livestock all across the abundant farm lands turned to black dust…
His destruction wrought, the vengeful and spiteful Lord Pyrios returned to his lonely cave - the remaining humans of the land facing starvation…
Some time after the burning of the farm lands, the screaming within Goata’s dome of madness quietened…the mindless wailing was replaced with a singular, chant, uttered from bestial and inhuman voices, “Corruption is salvation!”...
The sand mages who dare stay close to the dome report that the chaos within has died down, that the mutants are working together and amassing and preparing to break forth from the dome…All other sand mages have traveled as far away from the dome as they can - cursing the name of Goata the once hero.
With all the other events of the year, it nearly went without notice, the Swamps of the Demon King had, at some point, rotted to dead black oozy dust. The trees and ruined had all crumbled to nothingness. No life remained. All that was there was rocks and pools and rivers of lifeless black sludge…A portent…but of what?!
Turn 5:
522 PF, Month 1.
The war in the dragonlands is over!
The spiteful and bickering dragons reunited under the Lord Pyrios! Impressed by his scorching of the human’s farmlands and several rousing speeches that indicted the ancients for sending slanderous false dragon ghosts, the remaining 30 dragons vowed to put aside their conflict if Lord Pyrios would lead them to great plunder!
A great migration took place! The hero, resplendent in new armour and carrying a great bow on his back led the 20’000 farm folk from the empty and abandoned northern fisher villages, south to the great pine forests of the elves! The hero’s people were joined by 19’000 city folk from the compound of Kerry O’King.
Fear of starvation and offers of safety, security and food from the ancient elves brought the people south, on a trudging journey by foot that took the entire month. By month’s end 39’000 humans wandered, wide eyed, into the dark and primeval forests of the elves!
The humans were settled in camps spread across the forest, the elves loath to allow one section of the forest be brought to ruin due to sudden overpopulation.
Discontent has begun spreading through the human settlers though. The elves only provide minimal amount of foods, again, loath to take too much from the forest. Rumors have begun to spread through the humans, paranoid rumors, that the elves always intended to bring the humans here to weaken, and ultimately kill and eat them. Why else would they spread them out like this? And even stranger and more paranoid rumors, that the elves intended to breed the humans in the forest for the sole purpose of eating there fresh offspring, in fact, some said this had already begun happening in this or that distant camp in the forest…
Kerry O’King remained behind in his compound, his army scrounging root vegetables from the burnt and blackened farmland he had spent his fortune on. Kerry himself has not left his private chambers for many a week now…
Narghai! The Long Lost Sorcerer of the City State appeared! He too conducted a migration, him and a horde of thousands of beastial zombies and skeletons marched from the sea of sand, across the ruined farmlands, over the wastes…towards the Dome of Madness! But, several days march away from the dome a great calamity occurred!
The dome was suddenly filled with a burning white light, as whatever core within the glass mound housed within the dome superheated. Then a deafening boom as the mound exploded! In the first few moments torrents of blood soaked crystal chunks and shards flew out of the grand entry to the dome. These hurtled towards the city, smashing into the walls and towers of the dream burning city!
Then the dome itself exploded, sending a plume of crystal and smoke and mutated flesh into the sky! Narghai and his undead horde were coated in ash and dust, and buffeted with after shock! Then all that was left of the dome of Goata, and all those mutants housed within, was a sparkling crater!
While several walls and towers and buildings of the dream burning city were destroyed the pink dreams of the flames soon began to twinkle with the millions of shards that had filled it! Giant chunks of rainbow filled crystals too began to float in place of the destroyed towers…such a portent…but of what?!
Several days after the explosions, tendrils of dream fire, sparkling with floating crystal and visions and sounds that should not be, began creeping beyond the walls of the city! Like slow flowing rivers of madness, the pink flames crept across the burnt and dead farmlands, seeking what, no man could know!
The Pyramid of Crystal, docked at the top of Narghai’s Tower (the only still remaining sane structure in the city), left only once this month. The pyramid flew out to the sea of sand and there, with king Oberon, one thousand elves, arch mage Abel and his entire 4000 battle mages, conducted some great and furious ritual! Only rumours hint at its purpose but…the marks of corruption that had sworled across the land since a year ago ceased ever since.
On their return to the tower, King Oberon was seized by a …strange mood. Quite suddenly he demanded that the pirate lord JJ be released from his crystalline encasement. The battle mages did so, assuming the king intended to kill the pirate then and there but instead he demanded that the pirate lord be given rope and provisions. Mere moments after these had been brought the ever fugitive pirate lord and fled the crystal pyramid, rappelling down the side of the tower of the sorcerer, down into the pink madness below!
JJ’s climbing down the tower was swift, so sure and confident, that all those who watched his descent remarked, “It is as if he has done this before!”.
When King Oberon’s strange mood passed, it is remarked that the King of the elves seemed quite upset with those that had let the pirate lord just simply flee the pyramid and the tower…
522 PF, Month 2.
A great disorder in the Elven Forest!
Elves who have associated themselves with mercenary cultural movement, perhaps mad with human alcohol, began violently seizing human women and children from the settlement camps around the forest. The kidnapped humans were then presented to King Oberon who, utterly bemused, ordered the humans returned. This happened so numerously that all 50 of the so called “Mercenary Elves” were arrested by the royal guard and held for questioning in the future.
Unfortunately, the kidnappings (although temporary and all those taken returned) spread great unrest through the human camps - already feeling unsettled from their pilgrimage and measly meals. A rumor spread through the camps, that solidified into a fact and a movement, that the Hero had given the order to attack the elves and regain freedom from their oppression!
A week of conflict exploded through the elven forests, with humans attacking elves and setting fire to grand old trees with hastily concocted flammable cocktails using supplies from Kerry O’kings mobile drinkeries. About 100 elves were murdered in cold blood by the rebellious humans. The royal guard quickly put down the uprising, arresting 200 of the key instigators and aggressors. 50 humans were killed during this process too. All fires were swiftly put out.
The hero traveled the forest after the uprising , setting straight the record that he had not given any order to attack the elves, and that it was foolish to do so. Though most of the humans have now settled and calmed, many still bristle under stricter, armed rule, they now live under - a contingent of royal elven guard now at each human camp…
Early in the month, The pyramid of crystal detached from the tower of the sorcerer, and traveled east to the compound of Kerry O’King. Here 100 humans boarded the pyramid, then returned to the tower.
Narghai and his horde of bestial undead marched to the east to the foothills of the Volcano of the Ancients. They stayed away from the ghost fire ridden entrances to the ruins under the mountain, and otherwise were peaceful and silent…
The pink flames of the dreaming city still burn! But as the days progressed they began to burn with a golden green hue too! Portentous!
On the last day of the month, the great crystal pyramid left again the tower of the sorcerer!
It traveled south, to grey plains of the wasteland, just before the foothills where Narghai and his horde rested.
Only Abel, the Archmage, stepped out of the pyramid, dressed in full war regalia. He was not joined by his battle mages - not another soul left the pyramid.
As the Archmage strode towards the undead horde above him the earth rumbled and an enormous demonic worm of white flesh, burning with black flame surged from beneath the sands!
The great creature swam through the earth, following the Archmage as he began to charge the undead horde!
But suddenly, as Narghai issued commands with arcane hand symbols and the fey utterings of esoteric words to this horde, and as those undead began their thunderous charge down the mountain towards Abel and his worm, Kerry O’King appeared!
Kerry O’king, The mercenary lord, stood directly in front of the massive white worm surging alongside Abel. And then, with a flick of his hand, the tower-sized worm was being wrenched from the earth. The red haired mercenary king of the tavern empire was using some fey power to pull the enormous worm and hold it up in the sky. Eventually, the massive thing was floating in the air above him, Abel, Narghai and the Undead horde all awed at the display.
The great pale worm, burning with black flame, roared and wailed and wrenched itself in the air, unable to stray from its position in the air!
With another gesture from Kerry a searing pink light pierced the earth from the heavens, striking directly through the enormous worm! The black flames around it disappeared and the beast exploded! White flesh splattered across the wastes in mounds that quickly dissipating into pink white steam!
A waterfall of black blood torrented on the ground, pooling to a lake then again dissipating into a mist! A great stench that quickly faded, a roar of pain, horrible visions of hurtling flesh chunks and blood rivers! And then the great worm was no more!
Kerry O’King had disappeared, but now the undead horde was charging towards Abel who found himself all alone on the battlefield! The archmage was not fool enough to remain, and fled back to the crystal pyramid!
As he fled, the horde quickly gaining on him,…the ground darkened…covered by shadow…LORD PYRIOS HAD APPEARED! Lord Pyrios and 30 dragons blackened the sky!
But there was no flames, nor smoke, the dragons only had one goal, one target…The Dread Sorcerer Narghai!
And so, the Sorcerer Narghai was grabbed in the great claws of Lord Pyrios and taken up into the air!
Avoiding the battle, the fleet of winged saurians flew east, over the ruined farmlands, to the compound of Kerry O’King.
Distracted by the sudden loss of their leader, the horde of undead beasts allowed Abel the Archmage to board the crystal pyramid - which then flew back to the tower at the center of the dreaming city! Those on board witnessed the fleet of dragons land nearby the compound of Kerry O’King, Lord Pyrios himself flying into the compound…The Dread Sorcerer Narghai in his giant claws…
522 PF, Month 3, Week 1.
At the compound of Kerry O’King, six filthy sacks of gold coins were dumped at the feet of Lord Pyrios. Then, the fleet of 31 dragons left the compound, stopped briefly at the cavelands, then flew directly to the forest of the elves with fury and greed in their saurian eyes!
Grim Lord Oberon seemed prepared! In a moment the Crystal Pyramid left from the tower of Nargai, and flew directly towards the dragon fleet! Within the forest 6’200 elves were gathered in a dark grove, and as swift as assassins an army of elven blood priests slit their throats! Elven blood soaked the forest floor. Sad elven wardens, thousands in number, stabbed blades into the blood sodden ground, then cut into the trees of the forest. These trees blacked, withered and died in minutes. As the dragons flew towards the forest, a quarter of its trees were sacrificed, alongside over 6000 elves!
A dome of barely visible metallic sheen covered the forest.
As the dragons flew towards the forest, the pyramid flew alongside them. A small opening appeared on the pyramid, and there the hero stood, glinting in reflective armour and holding a huge bow.
A moment later and a flash of white light shot from the hero's bow, and a dragon was plummeting, dead, towards the sand sea below! A great gash in his side sending torrents of dark blood into the air!
It was at this point that the huge lord pyrios flew away from his fleet, shooting up directly into the clouds above while his suarian brethren continued towards the elven forest! The pyramid chased him!
The dragons reached the forest and released great gouts of flame at it…but the flames were absorbed by the metallic sheening dome! Not deterred the dragons flew on, through the dome, down, down into the dark forest of the elves!
High above, the hero let loose flashes of pure white from his bow at the dreaded leader of the dragons! Lord Pyrios dodged the deadly projectiles, while down below dragons landed on the blood soaked forest floor and stormed the palace of the elves!
As if waiting a sign such as this, the discontent humans in their camps rose up and attacked the royal elven guard standing watch over them!
In the clouds, Lord Pyrios had a changed of tact and charged directly at the pyramid, hoping to claw the hero from its safe crystal chambers!
In the forest, the palace burnt, elves burned, royal guards were slain, humans were killed in retaliation!
The hero let loose another streak of pure white light, aimed directly at the head of charging Lord Pyrios. The shot entered the dragons snout and rand through the entirety of the beast’s body.
The dragons prowled the holy and sacred place of the elves and found no treasure…they became enraged.
Dead Lord Pyrios let forth a great belching vomit of sizzling blood. It covered the pyramid and the hero, but the acrid blood simply sloshed free of the hero, and plummeted towards the ground alongside the dead dragon.
The forest began to burn…the dragons, furious at the lack of treasure let forth their wrath.
The carcass of lord pyrios hurtled towards the earth, where it impacted with the dead sands of the wastes. A blood and carrion filled crater was created, burnt and horrid from the foul internal workings of the dragon.
The pyramid, and the hero, returned to the forest, and opened fire on the dragons. Nineteen of the beasts were hunted by the hero before they fled. The foul winged lizards fleeing back to their wretched caves as the elven forest burnt.
700 elves were dead from human and dragon attacks. 1000 rebellious humans were killed at the hands of the royal guards attempting to stop the uprising…
As the forest burnt, another cataclysm made its way towards the forest…this time from the sea to the south.
A wall of water surged towards the forest, a tsunami as tall as the trees, that pushed forward from the ocean then broke and crashed across the metallic sheened dome! The water crashed over the dome, as the fire raged beneath it! The massive wave swirled over the top of the dome, over the forest and broke on the mountain of the ancients!
Salt water flooded back down into the dead swamps of the demon king and the wastes of the sand mages. Miraculously the wall of water surged up the mountain of the ancients, filling the volcano and briefly extinguishing it, then rivers of mineral filled hot water seeped back down the mountain and pooled in the twinkling crater of Goata!
Beneath the dry dome, the forest still burnt!
Within the dream burning city a small quarter of normalcy appeared…the quarter of law. Suddenly, an entire section of the city was no longer burning. Perfectly cuboid towers and structures, somehow filling more space than ever existed in the city before now appeared. Within the dark stone, shadowy streets of the quarter of law were 140’000 perfectly formed humans. Half were men, half were women, ideal specimens of their kind. In grey, perfectly cut clothes, these perfect humans proclaimed themselves adherents to the tenets of civil law and order….
On the last day of the week, the entire world was beset by a great rumbling…
And then screams filled with sky, coming from the heavens, and below, and from across the ocean.
And within the city a great screeching grind of tearing stone erupted and then from beneath the streets, nearby the tower of the sorcerer, grew a new tower…
A tower of living stone, made of countless grasping arms, spinning and dancing and grabbing with long fingered taloned claw hands!
The tower grew, and grew, dwarfing narghai’s tower, then it left the earth and now…impossibly, this obscene tower of living grasping stone, floats in the air above the dream burning city, filling the land with madness inducing screams!
Turn 8:
522 PF, Month 3, Week 2.
The pyramid hurtled towards the city, onboard were Abel the Archmage, ten sand mages and a single elf. Below the city burnt with multi coloured dream flame.
As the pyramid breached into the dream flame of the city, the earth below warped, a perfect pyramid sized receptacle opened in the stone of the city’s foundation. The pyramid plummeted towards the hole.
As the pyramid crashed into the tops of towers above the city, a THING crawled out of the gloom of the alleyways.
A building sized spider, its flesh burning and melting, and pink, and chitinous and covered in gold and diamonds and eyes! It scuttled massively with ornately jeweled claws, one which it held up towards the pyramid and suddenly the craft was held in place!
Another moment and the pyramid was being wrenched towards the dream spider, its huge central eye intent on the craft, filled with longing and familiarity.
The entryway to the pyramid opened and there stood Abel, prepared to defend the craft!
But the massive spider pointed its claw and Abel was contorted and crushed and thrown aside, ditched down into the rubble of the city below!
THe spider leaped aboard the pyramid, and its horrific brethren followed him, an army of horribles, deformed and twisted and nightmarish! THey swarmed into the crystal hovering just feet away from the hole in the ground seemingly created for it. Over a thousand horribles swarmed into pyramid before it resealed. But not all entered, some of the heathen army of the spider still stalked and scuttled through the burning streets!
The pyramid sealed…and then..with a lurch slammed into the hole beneath it…another moment and the ground had devoured it! The dream streets of the city had consumed the pyramid…
With the pyramid sealed away, a field of a glass like material sealed in a dome the dream burning city. When it was complete it shimmered with diamond filled rainbows but…not for long…seemingly as soon it was complete the dome shattered!
A rainfall of glass filled the dream burning city.These doused the rainbow flames. As the flame receded, towers that should not have been standing fell. Giant floating chunks of crystal came hurtling into the ground. White dust filled the air, the air darkened as the flames vanished. THe city, burning with rainbow flame for so long, now looked dark and dying. Thunder filled the land as towers and buildings collapsed.
Much of the city collapsed. Heaved and fell to the ground with the disappearance of the dream flames. Narghai’s tower remained, as did the quarter of law. The dead, destroyed city was seemingly empty, save for the fleeing horribles of the spider. Only the men and women of the quarter of law remained.
In the center of the quarter of law, a section of the city that seemed much smaller and mundane now the flames had disappeared (plain boring cubes of grey stone - not so great in number), heaved a great aquatic beast. Choking in the dry air, an enormous rainbow coated squid, its glistening skin almost impossible to look upon, gasped and choked in great dying gurglings for air. The people of the quarter of law gathered around it, and looked upon it sadly as it writhed slowly, shuddering and near death…
In the sky above, the living tower, writhing with its tentacles of stone, began to fly south…
The week would give a final prodigy to the city…by week’s the wrecked and ruined streets of the once dream burning city were enveloped in thick forest. A long time from now it will be known that the forest had mystifying allure to all those that entered. Many finding it impossible to leave…and those mortals that did not leave lived for an unnaturally long time. Also, From this week onwards in history, no ghost could find the power to step foot into the forest…
To the east, in his compound, Kerry O’King gathered his people (some 4500 adventurers and about 1000 farmers). He spoke from a small dark tent, pitched on a wood stage in a amphitheater within his compound. His people could not see him, but heard his voice well as he proclaimed a new age was upon them! He bequeathed his farmlands to his people. They would work it together and as they worked cleanse the land of beasts and monsters! All humans would be free to join and enjoy the fruits of their collective labour!
When the cheers of the crowd subsided, Kerry O’King told his people that he would appear before them, and asked them …would they accept him? And they cheered yes!
And then…floating from the clouds above…was KERRY O’KING! The crowd of his people filled the farmlands with their cheers of adoration as he floated to the stage!
As the crowds roared with love for their leader, a foul sight emerged from the dark tent…A grimy, animated skeleton, its visage sad and dour, staggered next to Kerry on the stage. Silence filled the compound! What was this horror?!
Kerry O’King took a brief step back, but then was filled with confidence, “That old necromancer Narghai has sent some assassin to kill me, right before we would make the realm a utopia! KILL THIS ABOMINATION! SAVE ME MY PEOPLE!”. In a moment the crowd was surging on the the stage! THey stabbed and pulled and grabbed and punched and kicked and tore at the foul skeleton! It was ripped apart, covering the crowd in…blood? As it was ripped apart chunky bits of flesh splashed all over the people of Kerry O’king. The skeleton assassin was reduced to a mush of red filth, and a new era of governance had began in the realm, the collective farmlands of Kerry O’King!
(Later, the red mush and pulp was examined. Red hairs were found throughout).
As if ordained by the heavens above, The Collective farmlands of O’King were granted a most auspicious boon. The ten surviving dragons flew to the compound, and here, bowed their heads to Kerry O’King, promising to serve him and protect his kingdom of collective work and prosperity!
Somehow, within a single week, the burnt farmlands were made productive by the workers of Kerry O’King…again blessed and ordained by some heavenly order, crops were planted and harvested in a single week! Portentous most largely!
The living tower, floated over the mountain of the ancients, further south. It passes over the glittering lake of Goata…the lake glitters even more now…it is ringed by trees of glass and crystal….within the water swim fish of the sea in great number…
Beneath the dome of magical sheen, the elven forest burnt…until, the Hero, the chosen one of ancient myth, gathered to him all of the humans of the forest, and helped by 4000 battle mages (who were able to suck flame from out of existence), and the elves whose homes were burning, the fires were stopped! The forest was saved! Though much of it burnt, it would grow back…and the humans who had settled here from the north finally felt at home. Through the collective action of saving what would now be their home, the hero was able to make the settled humans feel as one, and they now trusted the elves…ALL humans of the forest now saw the Hero as their true leader!
This new people had not long to celebrate though…The living tower had arrived…and loomed menacingly above the forest…
Above the elven forest, a great being of living stone, a massive tower of endless tentacles hovered above the forest and sent down madness….
Any who dared to step foot outside of the protective dome above the forest were sent into fit of mad SCREAMING and gnashing of teeth and wailing…Any who left the dome and the forest risked swift madness and …worse…
A FINALNOTE: A disgusting brown sludge has infected the land! Largely around where the sentient beings of the realm live!
In the forest of the elves, around the burnt palaces of the elves, and the camps of the humans, DISGUSTING BROWN SLUDGE!
In the camps of the sand mages of the wastes, FOUL SLUDGE!
Circling Kerry O’kings compound, HORRIBLE SOIL PORRIDGE!
What foulness!
522 PF, Month 3, Week 3. Day 1.
As the sun rose, small humanoid shapes began to form in the squirming mud that had infected the land. In the forest of the elves, the wastes of the sand mages, and the burnt farmlands of Kerry O’king, tiny people of filth and grime crawled into being, pulling themselves up and out of the foul miasmas that had appeared in the last week. 200’000 Mibos formed from the mud! An army of foul diseases spreaders born from the muck of the land!
In the center of the forest where the city of the sorcerer once was, narghai’s tower detached from the earth with a great and thunderous crack! The great tower of the dreaded necromancer lifted up into the air above the forest, dropping dirt, rocks and masonry on the forest below!
Nearby, in the quarter of law, a great dying rainbow squid gave its last shuddering and heaving breaths….then stopped. With a silent pop the aquatic beast disappeared, and then those nearby were blinded by a shimmering, spreading, explosion of multicolored light.
This sphere of rainbow coloured light spread out from the quarter of law, like a great wave, and in a few moments covered the entire land! (Nearly) all sentient beings were dazzled by its brilliance and filled with love and calm! A glorious moment of unified oneness filled the land! And from that point on, no being could do anything in anger! No violence would taint this one perfect day! (Except in the forest of the elves, where the dome of protection only allowed a glorious view of the spreading light - but unfortunately stopped its infectious overwhelming induced feeling of joy and love).
In the burnt farmlands, the tens of thousands of filth mibos swarmed towards the farmers in the fields! They swarmed towards the dragons who protected those fields, who looked upon them fondly and prepared to receive their tentacled hugs of affection and kisses of muck. An army of love filled mibos surged to the compound, which opened its wooden gates to receive the glorious little creatures and return to them the love that they brought to the land! Mibos swarmed over humans, who could not feel any anger for the disease and pestilence spreaders.
As human skin began to rot and explode with boils and buboes, as fits of vomiting and defecation filled the mibo swarmed inhabitants of Kerry’s compound, a shadow overcame them. Those whose eyes had not rotted to puss looked up and saw…a tower…a tower flying in the sky?
The tower, narghai’s tower, was hurtling back down to the earth, towards the center of the compound. It burnt with flames of impossible colours. Crystals festered across it, glittering and enchanting. Ethereal and prismatic smoke billowed behind it…and then..it hit the ground and silence filled the land for a few brief moments.
Then a deafening roar as the tower transformed into a ball of blinding, burning energy. A multicolored orb of flame spread out from the site of the impact, ripping into nothingness all within or nearby the compound. Dragons, humans, mibos, structure, everything was ripped apart in an unholy explosion.
A few moments later, only a crater remained behind where the compound once was.
High on the mountain of the ancients, a great humanoid made of stone and ore, surging with red ghost flames, watched sadly. The man of ore and red flame slowly made a cart of the wrecked masonry of the ruins around him.
South, beyond the lake of Goata. The sand mages were unconvinced by the explosion of love early in the day. Goata had steeled their mind long ago against such frivolities. They were prepared for the horde of mibos, summoning a great dome of crystal to keep them at bay, at least for a day…Their hands were unable to raise in open anger though!
Deeper south, in the wastes, rode Goata…atop a log atop a great sphere of water that ran like the swiftest river ever forward…he rode the water south…towards what goal, no man could ever know!
In the forest of the elves, the mibos swarmed towards the camps and burnt ruins! The elves of the royal guard formed a defensive line, urging the humans to stay back (knowing that they elves were immune to the plagues of the past).
The dome above the forests protected the elves from such weak and horrible things such as loving the entire universe for a single day, and they hacked at the mibos as they swarmed forward to embrace them with loving pestilence!
The sheer number of the mibos meant the line was overcome at many points in the forests and screaming humans were swarmed with the foul things, that wriggled over their bodies spreading buboes and weeping sores and warts and pus and the coughing of blood and vomit.
ABOVE, the great living tower of stone, writhing with endless tentacle, began its slow descent DOWN into the forest! Right down into the center of the burnt elven palace grounds!
Below, elven blood priests, wardens and human battle mages chanted, and invoked strange gestures at the protective dome…
And then…as the great demon rod descended beneath the canopy, the dome of protection bowing beneath it, the dome snapped…and wrapped itself around the tower like some shimmering coat of gossamer!
The demon rod, still now with its magical bindings, thundered into the earth, causing the forest to shake…and there it came to rest…cocooned and inert…
All around the royal guard fought the mibos, slaughtering them in the tens of thousands in a single day…but still they swarmed…fleeing humans died in the thousand…chaos and disease spread like wildfire in the elven forest!
The day ended with great expulsion of black mist from the mountain of the ancients…it billowed up into the dark heavens above, joining the screams of agony from the elven forest…
Casualties/survivors/potential combatants in the Mibo War:
All humans at Kerry’s Compound + surrounds = 4500 souls = dead from explosion
10 x dragons Kerry’s Compound + surrounds = dead from explosion
70 000 mibos at Kerry’s Compound + surrounds = dead from explosion
9000 humans in the forest = dead from disease
20 000 mibos in the elven forest = dead from elven attack
50 000 mibos remain alive in the forest
30 000 humans remain alive in the forest (aprox 10k infected with some sort of sickness)
43 000 elves remain alive in the forest
4000 human battle mage remain alive in the forest
70 000 mibos remain alive in the wastes
10 000 sand mages/sand kin in the wastes
Turn 10:
522 PF, Month 3, Week 3. Day 2.
From the mountain of the ancients slunk a great horde of bony and rotting beasts, dragons and giant rats and other desert creatures, they shambled west…always to the west…
In the western burnt farmlands - that now shimmered with winds of pink day dreams, there marched a small army of nightmares. Men with the form of spiders, or shadows or slithers of forms that shouldn't be, killers and murderers all. They marched south to the shores of the sea of sand…and there they settled…a bubonic blight on the realm.
A river of green ectoplasm flowed from the caverns of the mountain of the ancients! The ghosts were leaving their subterranean home! South and east they flew, to where the hordes of Mibos swarmed towards human victims in the waste and in the elven forests!
The air was filled with ghostly whispers…the mibos slowed…they stopped, they swayed as the whispers swirled through the air….then the mibos all in unison charged west! Away from their human prey!
In the grey sands of the wastes, the mibos surged past two tall sentinels of stone - each twice the height of a man. The sentinels stood at a crude cart of stone. One swirled with red ghost flame, the other brown. As the mibos swarmed past them they held wide their stoney arms and ushered the mibos towards the cart…but the swarm ignored them…
Once the swarm had passed the sentinels sat down in the grey sand, dejected. They sat for a long time, next to each other, like two old friends, silently enjoying eachothers company without a care in the world…
The mibos left the forest of the elves too. And they all joined together in one mass in the dead swamp of the demon king. The whispers and the ghosts followed them, herding them. The whispers rose to a crescendo and then…the mibos melted back into mud. Their liquid muck seeped into the cracks of the black rocks of the dead swamp…
With the mibos gone, the elves and the battle mages focused on healing those sick and dying of mibo plague. Quarantines were put in place, and now that the royal elven guard no longer had to hold the disease horde at bay they could devote themselves to helping the sick and preventing further infection.
The hero, the chosen one of legend, gathered his people, and told them a great calamity had been avoided…that the dawn of a new age was at hand…he thanked King Oberon, the elf who had saved humanity and the humans cheered for the king of the elves! Oberon too was a hero to the humans that day!
In the afternoon, a solitary figure, crusted in salt and glittering with a leg and ear crystal, arrived at the shore of the ocean, just south of the elven forest. Goata, killer of dragons, and maker or lakes, lifted a blue wand high in the air and began intoning most solemnly:
“May the grand surge of coolest deepest waters be free to spill forth and greet the light…Too eager is the need to share its wondrous underworld so peacefully set in in the blue cosmos that is the deep!”
And then he was silent as the shore line receded away from him, leaving behind just a great stretch of drying sand. The old sand mage smiled as he saw the mountain of water approach.
And so a second great wave broke on the realm, this time directly into the forest of the elves with no dome to protect it!
The wall of salt water ripped into the forest, breaking trees and drowning animals. Elf and human, sick and well, alive and dead, a great mass of people were drowned and pulled down into the great wave!
The monster wave receded, taking with it those it had drowned, and many it had not. Much of the burnt ruins of the great palaces and temples of the elves were gone with it. A devastation was left behind. The demon rod, entombed in its blanket of holding, remained serene…
As the few survivors, sad king oberon among them, searched the wreckage for loved ones, two great figures appeared from the northern. More sentinels of stone.
King Oberon ceased his search for The Hero and watched them.
One, burning with purple ghost flame, strode to the demon rod and kneeled before it. Its great legs of stone sunk into the flooded earth. The sentinel assumed a stance of utter reverence and submission to the demon tower…and there it stayed.
The other sentinel, burning with flames of different colours, strode to the King of the Elves…it opened its arms wide in a sign of assistance…and from there proceeded to help the king with the slow, sad process of counting the lost, the dead and the drowned and clearing the ruin from yet another cataclysm…
As the sun set, the ghosts returned to their burning mountain.
Goata the Sand Mage, Kerry O’King, Narghai the Dread Sorcerer, Abel the Archmage, The Unamed Hero, Zorlton the Keeper of the Mibos, JJ the pirate lord, or any living dragon, were ever seen in the realm again…
Survivors of the Mibo War/The Great Washening:
15 000 humans remain alive in the forest (aprox. 10k infected with some sort of sickness)
33 000 elves remain alive in the forest
3000 human battle mage remain alive in the forest
8 000 sand mages/sand kin in the wastes
The End!
hott
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