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Fractayle: The Collision of Worlds

Realms of Wonder

  

Contents

  

Introduction

"...if you peer down from the pale yellow sloping apex of the ancient Passage you will have the raging red waters of the Blood Ocean at your back and see the Imperial Kingdom's feudal lands spreading out with hilly green, stream blue, and city grey until they are overshadowed by the ragged Daemon Mounts with their snow capped peaks and jagged black stone sides.  Stretching beyond these awesome walls of earth swirls the stormy snow and frozen lands of the Icy Wastes dotted with savage nomadic barbarian tribes all dressed in wolf furs.  If you were to glance to your left you would witness a great river mouth stretching just past the mountains busy carving a great divide that runs deeper that just the land in which it runs.  You would see past the Great River the savage dark green of the densely twisting Karak Jungles and all the dark secrets they hide.  Just past the distance that your eyes can see and where the Jungles and the Wastes meet at the source of the Great River begins the uncharted rolling expanse of the Endless Wilds and the windswept bones of those that have tried to travel into those dry and desolate lands of lost dreams..."

--Excerpt, Words from a Wandering Monk

The Temple of Aur in the Imperial Kingdom believes that the Realms of Wonder were forged from the union of Aur and the void.  Aur, the Golden God, brought forth the lands that men walk on today and shaped the Passage as a symbol to remind man of this beginning, his duty to pay respects to his creator and the custodians of it, and as the path to his eventual salvation.

The barbarians of the icy wastelands believe that the Realms were forged by the great ice ogre, Graâg, and brought to life with the fiery blood of the imprisoned war god, Ragnorak, who is held beyond the prison of the Passage.  When he breaks free the Passage will open and Ragnorak will sweep the Realms destroying existence itself in his bloodlust and the final battle with the rest of the gods.

The savage tribes in the Karak Jungles believe a third set of creation myths that centre around a mysterious creature called Sultra Sagara--or Old Woman in common tongue--and a strange mythical beast called the Bananag and their own set of dark beliefs that demand regular sacrifices to, amongst other things, the Passage.

These are just a few pieces of the tapestry that weave the magick of the Realms together around the ancient and mysterious pyramid that is the Passage.

The Imperial Kingdom: Dynasty of Steel

Illustrative Pictures:

Background & Landmarks

The Imperial Kingdom carved out its place by bloody tribal warfare five centuries ago when the strongest barbarian tribes fought over the best lands that surrounded the—even then it was ancient—Passage and was united by the victor: the Yellow Emperor.  The legendary status of the Yellow Emperor runs through the early years of the old Kingdom, as his famous decree of “sword or axe; loyalty or death” enslaved or killed many of the unaligned or misaligned barbarians and their tribes.  The remaining fragmented barbarian tribes took their old gods and savage ways and escaped over the Daemon Mounts into the Icy Wastes to vanish from Imperial History for about 400 years.

The Yellow Emperor was the figure that tied the original five tribes—now called the Families or the Royal Families—by inter-marriage, kidnapping, coercion, and martial force.  The Yellow Emperor also introduced a new and unheard of god called “Aur”, the Golden God, which centered on the Passage as the path to and the goal of enlightenment of all of mankind.  The Yellow Emperor claimed that a being of words and light had appeared before him one night during a meditation in the Passage and had commanded its recognition in the form of "Aur".  It had spoken of a far world and the merging of souls upon a path that would lead to either salvation or destruction from the Cycle; of how when the Passage opens the world shall be judged.  Aur then touched the Emperor and left his mark on him as the rightful ruler of the Realms of Wonder.  In this way the Yellow Emperor brought Aur to the newly united Imperial Kingdom.

This was all in the space of a decade or so…and then, suddenly--during a ritual within the sanctum at the top of the Passage--the Yellow Emperor vanished and has remained lost in the history of the Imperial Kingdom.  Some sages cite assassination by the Families, and some—more superstitious—cite that the Yellow Emperor was a god and left through the Passage after his work was done on the mortal plane.  Other’s mutter quietly about his return far in the future when the Passage opens...and one madman even claims to have met him in the future already.

The five royal families were quick to step in and take control of the Imperial Kingdom and forged a tenuous alliance that saw them all jointly ruling through a Council of Magus and a corrupt set of elders and to jointly appoint king to rule publicly for the common people to look at.

During the next 400 years the more things changed the more they stayed the same.  Through a brief civil war that nearly saw the Kingdom slit, two new tribes were added to the Council of Magus and the ruling class.  The original barbaric ways slowly evolved into the modern ways, the language moved away from the original guttural barbarian and towards more its modern poetic sounds, the Temple of Aur grew in power and stature…

...and then the savage Hordes from the Icy Wastes attacked just as the Passage flew open amidst the public Ceremony of Aur.

In the chaos that followed the opening of the Passage, six of the seven royal families had a rare moment of combined action and took the opportunity to assassinate one of their own: the entire seventh family.  In one bloody night—while the common men were reeling from the implications that the opening of the Passage put the existence of  Aur into question, the Barbarian Hordes swarmed in from the Icy Wastes destroying village after village as they moved, and the inter-galactic starship, Pendragon Battlecruiser, tore through the sky to explode into the City of Aur and send pieces of itself all over the Realms—all of the seventh Family were executed and their castle surrounded by royal forces.  It was only a matter of time before the castle fell and the remaining bloodline of the seventh Family were killed.

The reasons for the mass assassination are uncertain, but some rumors point to ties between the seventh Family and the advancing Hordes while other point to connections to the Passage.  It is rumored that the Imperial soldiers could not locate the remaining family member of the seventh Family, but this has never been officially confirmed.  If found, then the remaining member of the seventh house could be easily identified by the nexus mardi or “royal tattoos” that mark the full right arms of all the royal bloodlines.

Either way, the seventh Family is no more and the Imperial Kingdom turned to face the barbarian threat that had breached the Imperial Kingdom’s borders already and surging forward in a bloody trail of destruction at the same time as the Temple of Aur is loosing power and new cults are springing up around either new ideas or based on old ones...

This is the Imperial Kingdom.

Politics & Public Characters

Of the remaining six Families, the following four are the most powerful and focus on the following area of civilized life.  In order of most powerful to the least:

  1. L’aure: This Family controls the Temple of Aur and is loosing a lot of its religious power due to the Temple's failings caused by the disproving of the Scriptures of Gold upon the opening of the Passage.  L'aure, along with the Temple, maintain that the judgment of the world is occurring, but its followers point to sections of the Scriptures where Aur appears himself to weigh the world and banish the Hordes and various other inconsistencies with what is actually happening.  Despite the Temple's religious power being put into question L'aure have managed to accumulate a vast amount of wealth through this channel and the Family has begun to view this wealth as the future of its power in the Imperial Kingdom.  Unscrupulous and unforgiving, the L'aure are a zealous force in the Imperial Kingdom.  Their nexus mardi  or "royal tattoo" is of the Passage envisaged by the Scriptures.
  2. Duavre: Where L’aure are the religious power, Duavre are the army and either hold or control most of the influential positions with the military.  They also have the largest private army with the only fleet of military ships in the Imperial Kingdom that brave the Blood Ocean.  Often in the past and still to this day the Duavre use the military for their own purposes to augment their private army and "persuade" matters of state.  Apparently it was the Duavre that initiated the assassination of the seventh Family and invested most of the forces dispatched to kill them.  Aggressive and militaristic, the Duavre are the Imperial Kingdom's only hope against the invading Hordes.  Their nexus mardi  or "royal tattoo" is of a great eagle sweeping the land with fire in its eyes and swords as talons.
  3. Du Sauvre: This family controls the School of Magick in the Realms from which most of the most skilled occult powers originate.  Added to this is the fact that the Du Sauvre have managed to get the King to maintain that magick is supposedly regulated in the Realms for the benefit of the kingdom.  But this was just an excuse for the Du Sauvre to claim the monopoly on the supply of occult knowledge and maintain loose control over their major asset.  In reality, though, there are many "illegal" wizards outside of the School of Magick and even rumors of an underground network of high-powered wizards that spans the length of the Realms.  Dark, twisted, and ruthless, the Du Sauvre are rumored to be headed by an immortal demon from which the family is descended.  Their nexus mardi  or "royal tattoo" is said to be carved into them with a demon's blood and takes the form of an intricate seal that is rumored to be upon the iron casket that holds their immortal demonic leader's heart.
  4. Raffail: This family runs a vast, ruthless, and well-connected criminal network called many things that range from the Jade Dice to the Tyrelian Alliance, which has a finger and ear everywhere from gambling dens to brothels to opium lairs.  Through this network they not only manage to influence decisions from the shadows, but also keep close tabs on the other Families and trade in information between them.  It is said that one in all seven people have sworn the secret Black Oath to the Raffail and will serve the Families needs till the day they die.  Cunning and secretive, the Raffail are both poison in the Kings wine and the dagger in the drunks back.  Their nexus mardi  or "royal tattoo" is a coiled black serpent with emerald eyes and fangs dripping poison.

Each of the Families is headed by the oldest male member that also represents them in the government as the elder sitting on the Council of Elders.  The most learned member, be they a magick user or not, also serves on the Council of Magus.  The Council of Magus serves as an advisory board to the elders and together they rule the Imperial Kingdom and command the Imperial Army.  Theoretically the King heads the government and the elders then advice him, but in reality the King and his family are more a puppet bloodline and through sheer intimidation the Families jointly rule.

Latest Developments

The barbarian Hordes are gaining momentum as they hurl themselves into the reeling Imperial Kingdom and its fragile border defenses crumble.  The common man has watched in dread awe as the Passage opened and the Pendragon Battlecruiser was hurled through it, torn apart by Fabric Shift, parts hurled to every corner of the Realms, and the body of the inter-galactic starship dropped out of the sky in a fiery blast into the Ceremony of Aur and the City below.  Hundreds were killed by the crash and thousands by the riots that followed that left the City burning for weeks.  And, within days of this, one seventh of the Royal Families has been murdered in the name of treachery, deceit, and power lust…

All this has thrown the Kingdom into a spiral of chaos that it might never arise from.

  • The Imperial Army has sacrificed the far lying villages to the barbarians and have laid fortifications to hold them to a new frontier
  • Rebels have begun sowing seeds of open rebellion against the King and the Families.  Some have the idea of joining the barbarians, some have the idea of gaining power and driving the barbarians away, and some just believe it is the end of the world as told by the barbarians Ragnorak and what to meet the end with steel in their hands.
  • The Priests of Aur have suddenly and spontaneously lost a lot of their religious power, as their religion has been proved to be based on false beliefs by the opening of the Passage: Aur has not appeared, the Hordes have not been banished, and the world has not been judged...yet.   But the priests still have the wealth that they have built up over the ages and the ceremonial magick of their order; to this end they have realized that their only hope of existence as an order is to grab hold of ultimate power: the Kingdom.  Armies of Templars have begun to move in the shadows towards some greater plan of the corrupt Priests of Aur and their god.
  • The final family member of the seventh Family is rumored to have escaped into the barbarian Hordes and his actions are unknown.
  • A number of Far Worlders have survived the wreckage of the Pendragon Battlecruiser.  Some of the Far Worlders’ numbers appear to have defected from their leader due to some internal troubles and this group’s crazed movements and strange and powerful weapons have seen them fighting their way back into the Passage.  The rest have formally entered the service of the Kingdom as ambassadors to the Far World and speak of great wonders and weapons more powerful than any could imagine.
  • A large part of the City of Aur has destroyed by the Pentdragon Battlecruiser's crash and then been burnt through religious riots after the opening of the Passage.  Imperial soldiers have been patrolling streets and violently enforcing royal order that merely adds fuel to the fire of civil war and panic at the Hordes advancing army.

In the chaos the only thing that is constant is the strange pulsing white glow of the ancient Passage now open.  The Templars of the Temple of Aur still guards its entrance and have taken to killing any unwelcome visitors…but it is also rumored that some Far Worlders have bargained their way into the Realms of Wonder--as the Far Worlders call these lands--by trading bizarre machines and powerful technologies to the disintegrating religious order.  There are even more disturbing rumors strange creatures sneaking out and evading the Templars to wander the nights of the Imperial Kingdom…

The Icy Wastes: Grokkenlud (Land of Grâag)

Illustrative Pictures:

Background & Landmarks

Five centuries ago the scattered tribes of barbarians that were brave or foolish enough to not bow at the Yellow Emperor's feet and strong or lucky enough to survive the carnage that this similar decision brought upon other tribes fled into the frozen lands that lie beyond the infamous range of rugged and unforgiving mountains called the Daemons Mounts.  There they faced a far greater—but more subtle—foe than the Yellow Emperor: the cold.

As the Hordes' saying goes, “nothing kills like the White Ogre's embrace”.

Precious little is know about the history of the Fragment Tribes—as the Imperial Kingdom sages sometimes call them—after they crossed the Daemons Mounts…but that’s not to say that nothing happened.  Those of the Old Gods walked a scattered path in the Icy Wastes that saw a number of smaller and weaker tribes vanish into oblivion.  It also saw the strong tribes slowly merge through warfare, marriage, and the need for safety into the greater collective that is known as the Hordes.

The Hordes learnt to adapt to the harsh climate and over 500 years grew an unnerving stamina and resilience to the cold; some of the more extreme tribes are rumored to throw their new born children into the open snow—a ritual called Rűgna—and those that survive the night in sub-zero temperatures are deemed worthy by the Old Gods.  The Hordes do not "serve" any gods, but rather barter and bargain with their gods--as they would with an equal--in the same way as the old tribes that made up the Realms of Wonder used to do before the Yellow Emperor's religion took hold.  Of the Old Gods, Grâag, the violent ice god or the White Ogre, is the most prominent and powerful of those mentioned in all of the Hordes' shaman’s prayers and scant religious references.

Although the magick that these shamans practice is raw and powerful it is not a verbally transmitted art and few--if any--have captured it in their crude runic writing.  There is a rumor of an ancient book written long ago--before even the times of the Yellow Emperor--bound in human skin and written with demon blood called the Viz'zagar that holds dark secrets of deal with devils and unholy magicks best not described.  it is said that the book was cursed with the dying breathe of it's author to bring destruction to all that even glance at it.  The tales of this curse are lent credibility by the uncanny appearance and disappearance of the book throughout the Hordes' 500 year old history--and even in some Imperial tales--and all the gruesome ends that come to those that indulge in its lore and the resulting destruction of their tribes.  The only exception to this curse is the Blood King, which is said to have studied from this book while being tutored by Loki, but that a trickster ice demon stole it from the god during one lesson.  There are even more disturbing rumors of the book resurfacing in the Imperial kingdom in the hands of a rouge Templar that has started his own cult.

The most common manner of passing on the tradition of magick is that an old shaman will notice--green eyes are viewed a strong connection to magick by the Hordes--a young child that shows promise and then take them as their underling.  The underling will then be put through training that takes years and may well end in death.  It should be noted that the Hordes’ warriors regards the shamans with extreme--and sometimes violent--superstition and take a dim view of their children being taken for training.  Often the shaman must trick the parents of the potential underling or trade something of equal value, like a good quality steel blade or a bottle of Imperial whiskey.

Or sometimes the children just disappear, as in the case of the Blood King.

The Hordes lead a savage and violent life of extreme physical exertion and dangerous activities that has culled out the weak, slow, and sickly and bred the strongest, quickest, and smartest.  This nomadic existence also keeps them forever outrunning the howling winds of the Great Wolf, Elasir, and the deadly embrace of the White Ogre, Grâag, but it also means that the Hordes have no cities or towns to speak of.  In a landscape like the Icy Wastes where huge glaciers rivers slice the very earth and snow storms can obliterate entire mountains under skies full of ice very little stays constant.

Very little, save the eternal cold.

Politics & Public Characters

There are many legends of the great warriors in the Hordes that defeated icy hydras single-handedly, stalked demons in the strange mechanical ruins that dot the Wastes, or arm wrestled the White Ogre himself—the latter often don’t survive—but there is only one tale of the Blood King...and it is so far unfinished.

Whether or not the rumors that he is half-human half-god are true, Barak'nara of Magjera has realized the power of straying between the lines of the glory and respect demanded by great warriors and the superstitious political power of the shamans that walk the darkest possible path of the seven elements: blood.

In the Hordes if you are strong enough to take something, then it is yours; what you can kill you can keep.  In most aspects of their lives the tribes literally live by this creed of the Old Gods and the full extent of this philosophy truly comes out in this tale that birthed their present king.

When Barak'nara was born to the old Axe King, Magjera of Rugrera, he was considered weak in their eyes and almost died during his first night out in the cold.  He only survived because of being saved by a mysterious old shaman.  The old Axe King viewed his son’s decent into the superstitious realms of magick as the equivalent to death, thus cut him off and bothered no more about the event.  As the adult name of a warrior is chosen after his ordeal in the cold, his father had not even named him yet and he was forgotten to the Hordes with his childhood name still unwritten in the elements of the Hordes: fire, earth, air, water, wood, metal, and blood.

And so the old Axe King’s son disappeared for about twenty winters.

Despite the fragile political merging of thousands of fragmented tribes into the one that forms the Hordes, many battles still rage on for any number of reasons.  A number of years ago one was being fought between a number of rival tribes when a stranger suddenly appeared in the combatants midst: the stranger was larger than even the largest warrior on the battlefield, his skin was all died dark red, his wild red hair was tied up with bones and strings of teeth of ice hydra and his eyes were the same icy green as the—now old—Axe King’s eyes.

Barak'nara had returned for his rightful place as the King of all the Hordes: none survived upon that battlefield save the Barak'nara, a mute child of one of the lesser tribes, and the crows.

From this dramatic start Barak'nara began to intimidate, coerce, and collude with minor tribes using his birthright and blood, shamanic magick to fuel the superstition that it invoked in the Hordes, and his supernaturally good skills as a warrior to eventually swing the major weights of the Hordes behind him.

Eventually his power grew to the point where the old Axe King, his father, was unable to ignore him anymore and a duel to the death was fought atop the Birugra Maul—the old Shaman’s Hill found at the centre of the Icy Wastes, which is one of the few stable landmarks in the lands and is characterized by it’s still-warm black volcanic rock and the very human-like wailing sound that the wind makes blowing around its craggy sides.

In front of all the Hordes and all the gods atop Birugra Maul the Barak'nara broke his father's great black-iron axe with magick, split his father skull in two with his own blade, and donned the Agorn Blüden—roughly translated into “the necklace of the blood of all the Hordes' enemies”:  Barak'nara of Magjera was now the Blood King.

Then the tayle of the twenty missing winters was told by the Blood King: he claimed that the shaman that had taken him from the cold on his night in the cold was none other than Grâag himself.  The White Ogre had taken him into the very heart of the cold lands and had taught him the ways of the gods, let him drink of the waters trickling from the heavens and quench the roots of the Tree of the Worlds, and shown him how the greatest battle was yet to come: Ragnorak.

The White Ogre had taught him how to lead and taught him the wisdom of the gods.  The Great Wolf had taught him fight with teeth and claws.  And the Dark One, Loki the Trickster, had taught to him the secrets of the Path of Blood, the command of magick, and the secrets of the Tree of Life and the bloody waters that fed it from human trial and suffering.  The Dark One had shown how the claws of the beast, Ragnorak, was the fire that would cast the entire world into Rűgna, obliterate the Imperial Kingdom and their feeble god, and bring the world into a golden age of strength and glory in which the Hordes that survive will walk like gods across the world.

And then, under the command of the Blood King, the Hordes turned their eyes upon the Imperial Kingdom and that which lay at the heart of it and held Ragnorak: the Passage.

The war had just begun.

Latest Developments

Although the Hordes are a savage race that worship violent gods the Blood King has the cunning of a wolf and the fear and respect of his people; using his finest warriors he has cut a fast, sharp and destructive path deep into the Imperial Kingdom.  He has realized that the emotional impact of having an enemy halfway into your country affects morale far more than having them slowly eradicate borders and creep inwards.  And that the loss of moral in an army as spread out as the Imperial Kingdom's is in trying to defend a wide border actually has a devastating effect far greater than any nominal number of deaths could ever do.

The fact is that the Imperial Kingdom still do out number the Hordes--contrary to their respective names--but what the Hordes lack in numbers they make up in sheer numbers of skilled and brutal warriors that are the product of 500 years constantly on the battlefield in a harsh and unforgiving climate and a culture that does not forgive weakness.  Thus, the Blood King has directed the violent Hordes in a sharp line towards the Passage in a desperate bid to open the doors to Ragnorak and cast the world in the Days of Glory—as the Hordes violent religious view sees it...or at least destroy the Imperial Kingdom, their ancient nemesis.

Despite this tactic, the Blood King has not simply abandoned all defenses; the Hordes are the greatest of all survivors and none of them would simply discard their lives in pursuit of a vague religious notion or blindly seeking glory.  They want to win: the Hordes intends crushing the Imperial Kingdom and enslave the remainder into their expanded lands.  If this involves taking and opening the Passage, then so be it.  Else, most of the tribes simply seek to grab as much good land and slaves as possible before consolidating their gains.

Tied into this the Blood King’s basic strategy is speed: his best warriors and the strongest tribes push the hardest and fastest into the unprotected and green belly of the Imperial Kingdom and leaving the remainder behind to “wash away the blood, as the Hordes' expression goes.

As said above and despite the fact that the Hordes are fewer in number than the entire Imperial Kingdom populace, the Hordes are all warriors.  In terms of pure military might, the Hordes' warriors almost equal the Imperial Kingdom soldiers in numbers, but far over power them in terms of sheer battle prowess.  Further more, the Hordes are concentrated in number, while the Imperial Kingdom is spread out defending borders that go on for thousands of miles from the Icy Wastes to the Karak Jungles just over the Great River.

Then when the Passage opened and the Pendragon Battlecruiser was hurled through it, the Hordes took this as the appearance of Ragnorak’s chariot and--driven by bloodlust and vengeance for 500 years of cold--they doubled the speed of their push into the Imperial Kingdom.  At the moment the Blood King is calling for all speed, no survivors, and pushing his best warriors forward without rest.

The villages in the way of the advancing Hordes are beginning to be deserted long before the Hordes arrive and the lack of battle that is added to the fatigue of constant travel without rest is beginning to dull the conviction of the best barbarian warriors and fuel their famously quick and violent tempers.  More fights than usual are beginning to break out and at present there have only been minor scraps between frontline warriors, but the situation could quickly turn sour as old wounds between rival tribes flare.

The border Imperial guards that managed to escape the Hordes and are managing to keep just ahead of it in flight are beginning to realize this and have begun to band together with displaced villages and have started employing guerilla tactics to antagonize the Hordes.  They will launch sudden and brief attacks, land a few wounds or even kill one or two and then vanish into the countryside without any fight.  These tactics are seen as cowardly and are the source of a great insult in the eyes of the Hordes.  Being subject to them is not doing anything good to the flammable tempers of the fatigued frontline warriors.

It is also rumored that a number of men from Ragnorak’s Chariot have made contact with the Hordes frontline and, after killing a large number of them with weapons of the thunder and lightning gods, the Hordes have come to a tentative truce with them to join forces in the Imperial Kingdoms demise.  The Blood King has apparently taken them into his inner council and they have presented him with one of their divine weapons in exchange for him sharing some of this blood magick with them.

...and while the world teeters on the brink of change the savage mass of the Hordes crashes head-first into the creaking war-machine of the Imperial Kingdom...

The Karak Jungles: Tribes of Midnight

Illustrative Pictures:

Background & Landmarks

A tale is told how before the world existed, Old Woman lay in the nothingness that existed outside of the time.  She was bored; there was no one to complain to, no one to laugh with, no one to teach to or learn from, and no one to hear her tayles.

As she was lying there the Bard--a mysterious being that often appears in both worlds legends--whispered into the winds of time a thought that found its way into her ear and then her mind.  So, she plucked out two of her feathers, tied them together with a strand of her own hair, and then bound them with the female blood that comes without a wound.  She dipped this into the primordial streams that flow beneath the Wikka-world and then spat into the soil to make the mud that she then shaped the worlds form around this object of blood, air, earth, and water.  When it was shaped to her desire, she baked it in her ebony bone oven and the fire of change was given unto the world.

In that moment, the world was birthed.

The Old Woman was happy with her creation and decided to walk within it to amuse herself.  She took on one of her forms, as a large black crow, and she soared down to play amongst her creation.  While viewing the wide world from far above she relished the dark green interwoven chaos that was the Karak Jungles, as it reminded it of the complex web of flesh, bone, and spirit that forms man.  Thus, for the time being she decided to make the Jungles her home, as she amused herself with mortal affairs.

This is how many of the secretive tribes that live within the dark depths of the Karak Jungles believe the world began.  The Old Woman appears to do nothing to dissuade the matter, as she emerges once every year to claim the sixty-six hearts of the annual sacrificial victims that the Tribes’ of Midnight bring to her hidden temple complex.

The Tribes’ of Midnight are the collective Elders that rule the myriad of smaller tribes that fill pockets of the vast and tangled Karak Jungles.  This is not to say that the Karak Jungle is densely populated with savages; the savages are out numbered by the more deadly beasts that hunt them.  Indeed the entire twisted expanse of the Karak Jungles teeters on the fragile balance between the hunter and the hunted.

The Karak Jungles appear to have been inhabited by a vastly superior race with technologies of metal and light that far outstrip even the Imperial Kingdom’s most prestigious School of Magick.  But, who and whatever this race was, they have long since left or died and only the broken and ruined metal skeletons of their strange machines, buildings, cities overgrown by the Jungle’s writhing mass are left as testament to their tayle.

One of these cities now forms the hidden temple complex--known as Manag Sagara--that the Old Woman and her mute virgin servants inhabit.  Various other ones are occupied by the larger Tribes.  But, a large number are empty, inhabited by beasts of the jungle, or have not yet been discovered or opened.

Politics & Public Characters

The most influential figure is the mysterious the Old Woman--also called the Sultra Sagara in the Jungles' native tongue--who permeates the bloody religion of the Tribes of Midnight.  Once every thirty-three storm seasons she walks the jungle trails through the hidden villages of the Tribes till she finds her reincarnation.  The girl is taken into the Manag Sagara where the Old Woman ties the bond between their spirits, casts off her bonds of flesh, and awakens within that of the girl.

Tales are told how the annual sacrificial hearts brought by the Tribes are taken by the Old Woman and used to secure the blood of the world so that the edges do not unravel, the Jungles dry, and the Bananag leap through the Passage to stalk the mortal nights again.

Of the many Tribes' of Midnight the two most powerful--Crimson Snake Tribe and Black Spider Tribe--have used their powerful sorcerers' magick to take control of certain Forgotten Machines, which are rumored to be able to foretell the future and talk to other machines in the spirit realms of the Wikka-world.

Nothing is what it seems in the Karak Jungles, as the Tribes' of Midnight council of Elders wage secret wars on each others through poison, magick, and assassinations.  One of the most public of these acts was when the Elder of the Black Spider Tribe bribed the Old Woman--with sacrifices of lost travelers and slaves taken in battle--to give to him a magickal artifact that he snuck into the Creeping Fox Tribe's hidden village.  The mysterious artifact, called the Paw of the Bananag, brought the fires of destruction upon the Creeping Fox Tribe and killed almost the entire tribe when it erupted into light and noise.  The remaining Fox Tribe then bribed the Old Woman--with their chieftain's new born daughter--into helping them lay a trap for the Black Spider Elder.  He was summoned unto Manag Sagara, where he was tricked into drinking poisoned wine and was fallen on by the survivors of the Creeping Fox tribe and his beating heart given unto the Old Woman.

This tale shows both the murderous politics of the Tribes' of Midnight and how the Old Woman is not only a divine figure, but also a being that can be bargained with and--occasionally--bribed: almost as human as her subjects.

Religion, as with politics, in the Karak Jungles is neither a simple nor safe matter.

Latest Developments

The softest whispers of the opening of the Passage has reached the Tribes' of Midnight's Elders.  Most of the whispers appear to have originated from the two tribes strongest tribes, Crimson Snake and Black Spider, which are rumored to have learnt of the event through the Forgotten Machines they control.

The Old Woman has spoken no words about the opening of the Passage, but her demand for hearts has begun to increase and she has become more open to bribery as of late, which of course fuels inter-tribe warfare and is slowly turning the Karak Jungles into a battlefield.

Some of the outlying tribes on the edges of the Karak Jungles speak of the sky spitting forth fire and the ground shaking.  Others speak of divine beings entering the Jungles, speaking foreign tongues, and using their command of Forgotten Machines to kill with sound alone and spew forth the Hairs of the Bananag.  Many, once hearing of this, believe that these are the Ancients that built the machines and cities coming back to claim their world, their lands, and their machines.  Some even believe that that will do battle with the Old Woman for it.

There are also rumors that since the opening of the Passage some of the Machines that litter the Jungles have suddenly sprung to life.  Some have disappeared into the night, some have begun to babble in foreign tongues, and some insidious ones have even entranced those tribes near to them to do their strange bidding.

The Endless Wilds: Windswept Bones

Illustrative pictures:

Background & Landmarks

Past the Icy Wastes and past the Karak Jungles where the Great River dwindles to a mere stream that flows down the ascending plateau the wet Eastern Hurricanes do not reach and the air dries, the chill of the Western Wind do not reach and the air heats up from the baking sun...and the ground begins to flatten: the Endless Wilds stretch from here until the imagination and minds of those mad few that wander it break.

Little is know of the Endless Wilds, save that most of those that go there never return and that those few that do return are babbling madmen with tales of windswept bones, wandering demons with yellow eyes, and mysterious gods with unpronounceable names and inconceivable magicks.  Most discard these tales as the babblings of madmen, but just enough believe them or are curious enough to make for a small trickle of wanderers and adventurers braving either the Jungles or the Wastes to reach the Endless Wilds.

Politics & Public Characters

A being that has appeared more than once in a madman's babblings of the Endless Wilds is the Bastard.  This is more than probably not its name, but in each tale the madman is tricked by his cunning out of food or water or possessions and--sometimes his or someone else's life--in a manner that always inspires the namesake.

Latest Developments

Anyone surviving in the Endless Wilds would be a "Latest Development"...although, there are rumors of ancient demon stirring in his age-old sleep around the time that the Passage opened...

The Passage: New Myths

Since the opening of the Passage many old beliefs have slid and many new ones have begun to surface.  With each action, there is a reaction...in the realms of mythology and belief and within the magickal fabric of the Realms of Wonder these two do not always equal each other.

The Red Hand Order: Devoir

One of the surviving Far Worlders of the Pendragon Battlecruiser was found wandering the streets around the Passage by one of the Temple of Aur high-level Templars.  Being within the Temple circle he understood the panic that the opening of the Passage had had on the priests and how they feared that they had lost most of their religious power.  The Templar--called Luecivir Devoir by the Order--seized the moment, killed the two fellow Templars with him, and took the Far Worlder--a lady by the name of Susan May--to his private residence.  She was crazed by the crash and the strange world thrust upon her and, with a little dark magick, she was convinced of her divine blood and how Father Devoir--as he now calls himself--would guide her and the people into a Golden Age.

Susan May had been a mechanic on the Pendragon Battlecruiser and had been exposed to a significant spectrum of recto-linear radiation from the collapse of the Justin and Philser Drives when they were exposed to the Fabric Shift of the Realms of Wonder and the jolt of the crash into the City of Aur.  This level of radiation has left her entire body with a half-life and a  strange red glow that can only be seen in the dark.  All converts must touch her with their bare hands, from which their hands get a slow and corrosive form of radiation that also causes their hands to glow red in the dark.

Despite the popularity of the Red Hand Order--as non-converts call it--Devoir is aware that Susan May is actually dying (coughing blood often gives this away...although he does not understand why), thus he has realized that he must stage some great feat wherein she is killed and, thus, changed from a human that can die into a martyr that will live forever.  In  the meantime, as Susan May is getting sicker and sicker she has begun to speak of a strange red being that exist beyond the Passage and how their fates are all connected.

All is not well within the Order, as it is whispered by those that know Devoir personally how he has begun to stray down the paths of very dark magick indeed...far beyond any included in Templar training.  Perhaps it is the magick or perhaps his plans for conquest, but his inner circle has also grown wary of his violent moods, secretiveness, and degenerating appearance.  Those that know the Hordes' tales speak of the Viz'zagar coming into his possession, while others believe that the Templar's connection to his former church was a lot more than just in name and perhaps the curses from broken oaths sworn to loyalty are beginning to work on his soul.

The Old Ways

With many of Aur's Scriptures being proved false by non-events at time of the Passage opening many in the Imperial Kingdom are beginning to revert back to "Old Ways" that have been lying underground since the religion of Aur was officially instated.  These ways hark back to days before the Imperial Kingdom and the Hordes and revolve around a mythology of gods that are said to walk among men.  The present day Hordes pantheon is directly descended from these gods, but has been adapted--with special emphasis on the gods of cold and ice--to suit the barbarians needs.

Aur is still the official religion of the Kingdom, but many have begun joining circles in secret and meeting out in woods and empty places to practice rituals that are older than the lands themselves.

Nihilism

Many of the Hordes do not believe the Blood King's words of Ragnorak coming, as they believe that it should have already happened when the Passage opened...if ever.  Their reactions are to go renegade: rape and plunder outside of the loose structure of the Hordes, and some have taken it on themselves to start Ragnorak by waging wars with all insight or bartering with the Demons that some of the Hordes apparently have contact with.

Many in the Imperial Kingdom now believe that the Temple of Aur lied to them and, because of this, it has lost almost all of the spiritual power it once had.  That's not to say it doesn't have financial and military power through its close connection to the L'aure Royal Family.  Still, many Imperialists have stepped out of the church and a general air of chaos and change reigns through the religious circles of the dynasty of steel.  Some cunning few have begun their own cults or strange mystical circles to fill this void and some--like the Red Hand Movement and those that are harking back to the Old Ways--are having surprising success and gaining growing power.

See Also: