Turn 3 - The Age of Brotherhood

''It came at first like the first spring thaw, that rain of dew from the icecaps in the ranges above. A trickle, and then a torrent - a torrent that would last so long that you'd be left wandering if your entire life might be washed away before the Sun might show itself again.''

The Scions of Fate:

The rules of fate are a cruel and uninterpretive mistress to behold, for it had decided the time for communing was nigh - for in the way of all things it is communion we seek with others. The gods had laid upon the world a great many living gifts in many forms, and it was Fate's happenstance that saw the need for these gifts to be bound by something ultimately ephemeral; ineffable but ultimately still binding.

The same autumn morning a child of every sentient race awoke in a cold sweat, threatening to give into a passing madness that gave them identical dreams. A group of children, alien and yet not so foreign for the divine energies within. All before a cloud of warm energies on a flat and endless plane of glass. Beneath the glass the stars themselves gathered and moved; aeons for instants below until the passing lights formed eldritch lines and shapes.

The children of fate, they were called, the Scions of a new future.

When they had awoken they discovered in time that they were not the same. They could commune through experiences with one another.

Although you might think that language would unbind any attempt at communication it was their very souls and minds that were bound together into a great cluster. And although it caused many of these children to become pariah's and outcasts through the suffrage of difference, they all came in time to understand the gift they had been given. They could perceive each-others livelihoods directly through each-others eyes, and ears, and minds. It is the greatest gift of all, it is said, to be bereft of falsehood, and in eachothers presence these scions knew only truths untold.

Every generation hence a new child would be born with the marks of this madness until their cluster was formed and their senses bound to the greater cloud of energies indefinably close, and eternally far at all times. Some would become great warriors, some prophets; others would seek to turn their pariahism into brotherhood through vast distances of travel and live amongst only other scions. In age and in time, with the wisdom of veneration, the most devout of these scions would grant insight and glimpses into the archaic strands of fate; beyond all space and time and reason. From these glimpses beyond the comprehension of reality; beyond the veil of our cosmos itself they might choose to extract some wisdom or reason of which madness and genius are equal insights.

The Races affected: (14 members at any given time)

Noshkalar

Jatairni

Vatarnkalar

Silverwood Tree's

Elterbrin

Brassborn

Humanity

Dwarves

Wyrd Dragons (Lesser + Greater)

Mushroomites

Sqrairriww

Devokwi

Devoeans

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Ruotta:

Ruotta looked upon the land he had created, Avuiro, and the birdfolk whom were his childe and thought that they should not be so alone. So he besot upon them fosterings of his pestilent will; and the Sqrairriww were inspired amongst dreams of a great garden where their father did lay to build a city in the mountains. As the ages passed their city, Corupus, carved into the very cliffside itself, was the epicenter of waves of divine energy which when concluded, would see the land itself around them expanded greatly. In their efforts to build a great city as instructed the birdfolk also learnt of tool making, construction, and masonry. All things their creator had inspired of them to know, so that they may accomplish wonders in their own way.

It was with this culmination of his efforts that Ruotta looked up from his chosen land and to the empty wilderness of the west, upon the primordial fungal terrain he did create a race of fungi folk to dwell within the wastelands. The Mushroomites were born from his flesh and will, a small but hardy people who had an intrinsic knowledge of all the things of the forest and how to prepare and cook them well. In their unique biology the gift of immunity to toxin and poison was given, so as to make their stay amongst the noxious clouds of spores more comfortable.

Uode:

Uode looked in avarice at the children of the other gods; of Man and Elterbrin and most mightily of all; the Dragons. Uode sought to wring out of his creations the same life and vigour that the other mortals had been created with but was not one to create from nothing. So with greater purpose he did bring forward the Kiloeati devowla and began tinkering and laying bare the mechanisms of life to be rewrought by their will. From their twisted winged remains the Devokwi walked forth in the name of their creator, humanoid and terrible in raw potential. They had been created to hunt and feast upon their predatory ancestors, the Devowla, and yet also intelligent enough to burrow out caverns for their communal needs and hibernations.

Aashirya:

Aashirya awoke from her slumbers in the cosmos abroad to the screaming and defiling of her creations beneath the great caldera in the north. She looked upon the Devowla who had burrowed their hideous liquid magma chutes into her hidden paradise and begun feasting and gorging upon her creation, populating and spreading like an infestation throughout the under-jungle.

Rather than destroying, she sought to besot her gift of free will upon the Devowla, and with her divine energies created a caste of them with the gifts of Aashirya. The previous Devowla, now Devoeans held their goddess's appreciation for life as well as a newfound sentience that they would use as lone wanderers and guardians of the underways in her stead. Not quite an intelligence like a man or brassborn; something archaic and shaded half way between sentience and animalistic instinct.

In order to complete this cycle of cleansing the Devowla would have to be removed, and with miraculous lifting of her ephemeral hands the winged beasts were flung far from the icey wastes into the middle of the forests of Miltourne, to hunt the prey and people of the continent as is the wanton need of the hungry.

Aeyandite:

Aeyandite sought to deepen the relationship between her and the Brassborn, her firstborn creations. In order to help their quests of wisdom and artifice through industry; she bequeathed them the inspiration to build their first great exosuits - master worked contraptions of plating and mechana that allow the Brassborn to be fully enclosed from the elements and insulated from hazardous environments. Whether walking in the heart of a volcano through thigh-deep magma or along the bottom of the ocean in search of a sunken ship, the Brassborn have had a limitation of their design removed through the growth of innovation.

Vynthrol:

Vynthrol  looked down from the pits of redemptive fire that he made his home and sought only to improve his creation. Under the gaze of his watchful lidless eyes, wreathed in eternal flame, the Elterbrin culture flourished and a new golden age was brought about of advancement, and dominion. The light of Vynthrol, a belief long-held that all those who worshipped the fire-god, became manifest as all the Elterbrin over generations manifested control and manipulation of the element of fire itself as well as the rock and sands of the earth itself. Fire and Earth, the necessary components for heavy industry and more importantly, the ideal balance to be held by the domineering children of Vynthraism. Within blinks of the divine gaze, the Elterbrin culture had rapidly upheaved to accommodate this natural affinity for shaping the elements about themselves, and industry followed. Along with this divine gift was the knowledge, the inspiration, and the will to build great ritual spires atop the 'redemption pits', from whence the arcane and eldritch energies of the forest delved forth. In these carefully shaped and mathematically precise chambers the Elterbrin, select monkhoods and chosen children could be sealed from the outside world for indeterminate periods of time - left alone with energies and influences from beyond the veil. They would return hence with knowledge and power from beyond this world, albeit their forms and bodies twisted and misshapen by the energies within. The greatest practitioners of this art were said to be capable of staving death off itself, miraculously predicting the exact time of their mortal peril and forstaving it with timely sacrifice. This dark sect would come to be known in time as the 'Shadow Flame', an increasingly fanatical sect of Vynthraic extremists who took the balance of life and death into their own hands.

In more pragmatic terms, the Elterbrin also developed a moral conscience for the preservation of the welfare of their indentured servants, the Jatairni. As such, they sought to improve their quality of living arrangements and life in general, whilst cementing the artifice of their 'working class'. Through the prodigious use of slave collars, and full restraints where totally necessary, as well as segregated districts for the working class and 'encouragement' in the favour of these working classes reproducing more, the Elterbrin solidified their stratified culture and management of the working class whose numbers grew pyramidally every generation.

With the powers of fire and earth the Elterbrin's smithing community flourished under new terms, and their ability to work with fire in their open hands allowed for shaping of metal into plating and mechanisms in revolutionary ways. Their ability to cast increasingly precise alloys allowed for a revolution in warfare, the Crossbow. Rather than precision of arms through knighthoods, skilled melee manouvres and ceaseless hours of sparring; the Elterbrin standing armies under each Amberaine would be equipped with both small one-handed and full-length crossbows to be used as primary weapons alongside more traditional melee arms. Volley-tactics and iron-shafted quarrels would turn the racial hunting expertise the Elterbrin held into definitively lethal wartime practice. Their ranged capabilities also allowed for a more effective and tight policing of their cities; open crime and dissent is held at bay with a well-placed shot from afar.

And the final gift of inspiration unto his children, Vynthrol allowed his children the knowledge of how to inspire their weapons with the same fire essence that they now could shape to their will. Fusing with their weapons of war and defense, the Elterbrin now possessed arsenals capable of turning white-hot to no effect on the wielder, but still perfectly capable of burning flesh or melting through lesser metals (bronze, tin, pig iron, thin stone).

Zanderas:

Zanderas, the Elder God, looked upon the creations of the other gods and saw where they had forsaken his children, the Dwarves, and so sought to include them in the great matters of all mortals. Improving upon Lirokof's original design, he placed a great planar spike of blue obsidian upon the doorstep of the home of the Dwarves, in Humbles, so that they might partake in the greater inter-planar trek's of the other mortal races.

Norjak:

Norjak, Bringer of Spawn would not be denied their chance to afflict the world with more of their divine design. Of the Elterbrin would be born Rarawah, a great avatar of foreignly divine might. Granted the Seal of Va, the body of the avatar may perish but so long as the bloodline of the mortals carrying it continues so will the seal continue to be passed. As long as that seal is passed and held intact the souls of the foreholders will be kept safe in it from the fires of Vynthrol, capable of communing with their descendents for strength or wisdom in times of direful need. it is Rarawah's journey through the world, and purpose as deified by Norjak to unite this greater race of the Elterbrin under a singular God-empire to ward off great future calamities with their combined might

Around Rarawah would be formed worshippers and believers in this foreign power, the power of rebirth and life, calling themselves the Arm of the Thundercrown, for the seal in the speech of the Elterbrin is called the Thundercrown, for its ability to grant its holder power of the weather and lightning itself.

Similarly, a scion of the Bringer of Spawn would be born in the mudhuts of the Vatarnkalar, the crocodilian hunters in the west. With a similar seal, Kavas the Black Dragon would be capable of reincarnating his spirit into a new, unattended form upon his death and indeterminate intermittent periods. The forms he possesses in each life would twist and corrupt to resemble his original form, black patterned scales along the body resembling more eastern traditions of war-paint. He would see over generations that his people would advance and grow in culture, building new cities and populating the western coast.