Master of Mana Xtended pedia entries

[esvath]

If you have writings or would like to write about leaders, units, classes, promotions etc please share them in this thread.

I will incorporate them into Xtended, for various pedia entries.

Thanks!

 

[esvath]

For Kish Rika

Long years we lived in peace and prosperity. We built our beloved libraries
and craftsmen workshops, mined precious metals and guarded our borders. Four
cities we raised on Erebus, Ithralia gem amongst them. We have rich fields
giving us more food we can eat. Our neigbours were bannor and they were nice
and kind to us from start. When the Clan, savage and clad it rusty armours
invaded their lands, they called for help and we came. Better is neighbour you
know for years, and humans are far more acceptable than orcs. Barnaxus led force
of wood golems into lands of Tethira and slew many of their enemies. He became
known as Orcslayer and Furious Blade. Our own cities were attacked as response
from orc warlord Jonas. But we love our cities, and our plate armoured artificers
with sturdy tower shields are too much for them to breach. Now we constructed
first of gargoyles and let me ask you? Have you seen blade able to bite solid
stone? We are not afraid of clan, nor we let Bannor fall... Rantine has to die and
mighty blade of Barnaxus is sharp. He seeks duel to prove there is no greater hero
on face of Erebus. We believe in our champion and we know Jonas will need to find
a new one.

 

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Was just scrolling around and saw this.

I don't play MoM and quite honestly never have, but I've been expanding on the civilopedia of EitB for a while. Most entries can be found here.

 

[esvath]

Was just scrolling around and saw this.

I don't play MoM and quite honestly never have, but I've been expanding on the civilopedia of EitB for a while. Most entries can be found here.

This is excellent! Can I use them?

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Certainly.

Most of them can be trawled from that thread and the previous mod-making one. I'm on limited internet atm, but here's a copy of my document with entries (a bit ungainly, and not all of each one, but I'm sure you know how to adapt those into the .xml file):

(Very long):

Spoiler :

”When first we sailed this ocean, these lumbering blighters could crush our galleys and send you to the bottom of the sea. Captain Ralaster was the first to tame the animals, castrating a hundred with his harpoon and making them submit. For him, they were circus animals, an oddity to amuse the Clown-King or even a source of meat. And now? Now we ride these monsters across land and sea to reclaim my husband, and Danalin help any horse-lover that dares to stand in my path!” – Pirate-Queen Maressa, on the eve of the War of the Nine Kings

Centaur Archer:

Maksim Wrote:His Royal Majesty's private secretary Wrote:The Kuriotate palace's waiting room was designed to impress guests - oversized fireplace, rare animals' heads on the walls, a large tapestry depicting the signing of the Pact with the giant Defenders of the Realm subtly reminding any foreign guests that right now, Kuriotates had the biggest clubs - three of them, to be precise. [PARAGRAPH:1]The room's primary occupant, His Majesty's private secretary, was of advanced years, and got his post a long time ago, when he was but a simple scribe, as a reward for asking questions of His Majesty without fear or flattery. Whether this was a true reward or just the king's twisted sense of humor, he often wondered - especially on days like this, when the Majesty requested a compilation of recent achievements to be presented. [PARAGRAPH:1]First, the new throne for His Royal Highness. Crafted by master Heron himself, it was engraved with pearls sacred to merfolk - a small and curious race taken under Kuriotates' protection. Previously, they assisted the fishermen and helped commerce by moving cargo barges quickly around the capital's many canals, but with the throne completed and their fealty assured, many were now being employed in the artisans' shops around town. [PARAGRAPH:1]His Majesty sat on the throne, praised Heron's skills and sent him away, but just as the craftsman was about to leave, asked mischieviously whether "his backside looked big in this". The secretary had to spend the next few hours watching over Heron, making sure the poor man did not break down crying. [PARAGRAPH:1]The next achievement was the opening ceremony of Deruptus' Brewing House, now the official monopolist and supplier of ale to all corners of the God-King's realm. This was a personal coup for the secretary, as the old breweries were run by ratmen and their ilk, with the biggest cut of the profits going directly to Veez, not treasury. [PARAGRAPH:1]The event, though, was a brink away from disaster - the Ilian ambassador showing off with his iced drinks almost caused a diplomatic incident when the mayor of Caledor gave him the key to the city in return "for another pint, my good fellow". As for coming to work the next day, that was one thing the secretary regretted bitterly, as that morning he personally authorized Veez to inspect the brewery's facilities at own discretion in the future; anything to make the rat and his annoying squeak go away.
Centaur Archer Pedia:
"Finally, there was the matter of research into matters occult and theoretical. His Majesty found an old Patrian warfare manual from past ages that clearly showed warriors riding horses into battle, using a saddle and stirrups, thought that the same could be achieved with centaurs and requested the Elder Councils to put their minds to this task. [PARAGRAPH:1]The brave elder who tried to put a saddle on the centaur got kicked so hard that he could not remember his own name for three days but that did not stop him - a series of contraptions were designed to place a saddle on a centaur from a safe distance via a system of pulleys and ropes. The goal was to place the saddle and retreat to a high vantage point which the centaur could not reach. [PARAGRAPH:1]The elder succeeded at his task, and proceeded to saddle several more centaurs, until one of them picked up a bow and arrow and shot him. [PARAGRAPH:1]Overall, this was felt to be an interesting approach to warfare, and soon unsuspecting centaurs all over the Kuriotate empire found that only regular practice in archery helped them to avoid being saddled by cackling bearded men of advanced age." [PARAGRAPH:1]– Excerpt from the diary of Maksim, private secretary to the Boy-King.


Heron Throne Pedia:
“The Kuriotate palace's waiting room was designed to impress guests - oversized fireplace, rare animals' heads on the walls, a large tapestry depicting the signing of the Pact with the giant Defenders of the Realm subtly reminding any foreign guests that right now, Kuriotates had the biggest clubs - three of them, to be precise. [PARAGRAPH:1]The room's primary occupant, His Majesty's private secretary, was of advanced years, and got his post a long time ago, when he was but a simple scribe, as a reward for asking questions of His Majesty without fear or flattery. Whether this was a true reward or just the king's twisted sense of humor, he often wondered - especially on days like this, when the Majesty requested a compilation of recent achievements to be presented. [PARAGRAPH:1]First, the new throne for His Royal Highness. Crafted by master Heron himself, it was engraved with pearls sacred to merfolk - a small and curious race taken under Kuriotates' protection. Previously, they assisted the fishermen and helped commerce by moving cargo barges quickly around the capital's many canals, but with the throne completed and their fealty assured, many were now being employed in the artisans' shops around town. [PARAGRAPH:1]His Majesty sat on the throne, praised Heron's skills and sent him away, but just as the craftsman was about to leave, asked mischieviously whether "his backside looked big in this". The secretary had to spend the next few hours watching over Heron, making sure the poor man did not break down crying.”[PARAGRAPH:1] – Excerpt from the diary of Maksim, private secretary to the Boy-King.
<TEXT>
<Tag>TXT_KEY_SUMMER_PALACE _PEDIA</Tag>
<English> When the Compact of the Courts first was made among the elves, there was but a single palace, and the Queens of Summer and of Winter lived together there with their courts, taking their places of rule or of waiting in their due seasons. As time went by however and the nation of the elves grew wide and strong, the Queens and their courts grew apart in their visions of what their roles should be. So at last one year as spring approached, the Winter Queen Faeryl Viconia approached Arendel Phaedra who would soon be Summer Queen once more, and said, "It is a shame to see your beautiful summer court shivering here in our winter palace when the jungles of the south have such warm and pleasant weather. It were well to build another palace for you there, that when the chill of winter approaches, you might retire to a home better suited to your time of rule. [PARAGRAPH:1]
To this generous suggestion, Arendel willingly agreed, though she regretted being so far from her beloved Winter Queen and all the Courtesans of Winter whom she loved, in their time of power - but she consoled herself, knowing that the people of her court would be well pleased, that the people of the south would rejoice at seeing her Court so near even in the dormancy of its power - and that in the joyous warmth of summer they all should always be together once more. [PARAGRAPH:1] So the Summer Palace of the elves was made in the land where it was ever summer, and so Faeryl Viconia arranged to be present with her Court and servants in the elven seat of power all year round, where she could build her network of schemes, spies, and assassins without interruption, and for half the year - and the half in which she held the greatest power - she could work without the slightest fear of interference or interruption from the Summer Queen.</English>
<Tag>TXT_KEY_BUILDING_SUMMER_PALACE_STRATEGY</Tag>
<English>The Summer Palace acts as a second centre of operations for your civilization. Build it if you want to reduce maintenance in nearby cities or apply Godking to another city.</English>
<Tag>TXT_KEY_BUILDING_WINTER_PALACE_PEDIA</Tag>
<English>In a certain year in the Age of Magic, when the elven people had spread far across the north, Faeryl Viconia decided that she had little left to gain by spending all her strength within the great palace of the elves in Evermore. Her agents and assassins were in place around the city, her influence was as strong as she could reasonably expect it to be for a Queen who ruled but six months in every year, and the cloying cheerfulness of the Summer Court each year was beginning to wear upon her. So she approached the Summer Queen Arendel Phaedra, and said to her, "It is a pleasure to share my summers with your bright and beautiful court, but the palace grows crowded, and it seems unfit to me that the Winter Queen should disport herself in summer play at a time when in the north of our empire there is snow and cold little milder than what we call winter here. It would be wiser, in the summer months, for me to bring a part of my court to a palace built for the purpose in the far north, that I might see up close how the people of those harsh climes live, and bring the knowledge with me to the aid of the rest of our people when winter comes for a while to all our empire."[PARAGRAPH:1] Arendel was deeply reluctant to agree, for she dearly loved the company of Faeryl and her court, but Faeryl returned to the subject again and again, reminding Arendel of how it would gladden the people of the north and help her best perform her winter duties, and though she could do so only in sorrow, the Summer Queen saw the wisdom in Faeryl's words. So at last, after many exhortations, she agreed, and the Winter Palace of the elves was built in the land where it was ever winter, and when it was finished at last, Faeryl Viconia and her Winter Court made it their summer residence, and she assisted the Summer Court by ruling those northern lands where the weather was always as cold as the season of her rule, almost as though in that place she were Queen still and had not performed the Rites of Spring - and when the time came to perform the Rites of Autumn, she left her hardiest lieutenants to maintain and strengthen her influence there in preparation for her return come spring - but the most deadly of her servants and secret attendants came never near the Winter Palace, for they had other secret duties to perform for her at the heart of the empire's power throughout the year.</English>
<Tag>TXT_KEY_BUILDING_WINTER_PALACE_STRATEGY</Tag>
<English>The Winter Palace acts as a second centre of operations for your civilization. Build it if you want to reduce maintenance in nearby cities or apply Godking to another city.</English>
<Tag>TXT_KEY_BUILDING_FORM_OF_THE_TITAN_STRATEGY</Tag>
<English>The Form of the Titan requires a level 6 unit to unlock, and grants experience to all units built. Use it to help build an army of highly-promoted units, or in place of xp-granting civics for the essential ones your army needs.</English>
<Tag>TXT_KEY_BUILDING_FORM_OF_THE_TITAN_PEDIA</Tag>
<English> With conquering limbs astride from land to land, [NEWLINE]Our Titan vast, its trunk of bronze-clad stone, [NEWLINE] Stands in the desert, high above the sand,
Titanic and unsinkable. Its frown [NEWLINE] And furrowed lip and stare of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read [NEWLINE] Which cannot die, stamped on these deathless things, [NEWLINE] And show the heart by which we all are led:
And on the pedestal these words appear: [NEWLINE]"My name is Camulos, the king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" [NEWLINE]Ever shall it remain without decay -
For its colossal might, boundless as air, [NEWLINE]Our city-studded lands revere each day.</English>
<Tag>TXT_KEY_LEADER_RIVANNA_PEDIA</Tag>
<English>No member of the army had ever seen the Court Swordmistress draw her blade, though her hand was often near the hilt. She would not engage in sparring or even teach her art as her subordinates would do, but it was rumored that in her secluded chambers, she met in secret with the Winter Court's greatest illusionists, where they designed horrific illusory beasts to battle her in seeming, for no true creature of the world could match her skill.[PARAGRAPH:1]It may seem therefore less surprising than might otherwise be supposed that when she was forced to leave the Winter Court and the city she long had known with only a small company around her, the first companions Rivanna chose were not such champions as she had at her command but the most promising young adepts in the Court and a hand-picked pair of deeply secretive illusionists, the depths of whose power was sometimes suspected but nowhere known. Last, she chose just two lieutenants from among her private guard and left them to select the balance of her retinue, with clear instructions but without prejudice. Then, as her warriors and manservants were assembled on her behalf, she went to meet the Winter Queen. [PARAGRAPH:1]Swordmistress Rivanna bowed low. "Majesty," she solemnly intoned, "I take my leave of you." [PARAGRAPH:1]With a mocking smile, Faeryl Viconia asked, "Ready so soon?" [PARAGRAPH:1]In answer, Rivanna bowed again. "All shall be in readiness by the time I return from this interview - unless you prefer that I stay by your side to help protect you?" [PARAGRAPH:1]The Winter Queen locked eyes with her Swordmistress. "We must travel in small bands," she said, "out of necessity. My own might and name shall be protection enough, and it were shame to guard a single little band with so much strength as yours and mine combined when so many of my people must make do with so much less." [PARAGRAPH:1]Their eyes held for a moment in silent communication that almost seemed a duel. The wisdom of Faeryl's intent was clear enough, whatever her words: Without the grand Court itself to divide between them but only a little band, how long could Rivanna suppress her ambitions and remain subordinate to her Queen even in name? For them to remain together when the Court began to dissolve would only invite destruction - upon more of their people, true, as Faeryl had warned aloud - but inevitably upon at least one of them as well, if not by the other's hand then by her cunning. "I bow to your wisdom," Rivanna said at last, and the interview was ended. [PARAGRAPH:1]Within an hour, Rivanna and her following had left the city gates, marching in tight formation, a strict hierarchy already established among them, with each role clearly laid out, though the manservants and many of the adepts had as yet no military training and few had worked together in a close unit before. Rivanna established the structure, and no one questioned her. She delegated heavily and made her expectations clear, and saw every expectation met for her. She saw to it in every moment, in every action, with all her followers, that each knew her place as clearly and as surely as their manservants knew that their place was to serve. [PARAGRAPH:1]Watching her go from a high tower window, Faeryl told her most secret advisor, "So passes Rivanna from our Court. Have we just given up our greatest asset, or have we turned aside our most deadly enemy?" [PARAGRAPH:1]There came a long and thoughtful silence then, and even when it ended, "Perhaps," was the only answer she heard.[PARAGRAPG:2]The snow fell thicker than ever, driven by a biting wind, and hunger gnawed at the party almost as sharply as the cold. Rivanna strode on, impassive, but her first lieutenant, Lady Andryl of the Blades, called out to her, "Is this where your adepts lead us, Swordmistress? Here to the base of this barren cliff? The forest gave better shelter and more chance of game to eat." [PARAGRAPH:1]The others marched on behind as best they could, listening intently but without surprise. The hierarchy of their band had long since been established, and with it Lady Andryl's right - and hers alone unless there was one as well among the adepts with whom Rivanna was so often cloistered - to question the decisions of the Swordmistress herself. It was a novelty at first to hear a leader's choices challenged, but with the right to speak extended, in a chain of single steps, all the way down to the lowest warrior in the band, though none but Andryl and perhaps a picked illusionist would dare disturb Rivanna herself, all felt that their voices were heard - and many a fearful or daring voice indeed had come together to be heard in Lady Andryl's demand by the frozen slopes at the feet of Mount Thriel. [PARAGRAPH:1]Rivanna barely glanced at her first lieutenant, striding on tirelessly. "They see further than you," she answered. "There is shelter ahead." [PARAGRAPH:1]Lady Andryl frowned deeply, pulling the cowl of her fur hood even lower over her face as another terrible gust came down across the mountain slopes, but it was not Rivanna's rule that the voice of her following should speak once and then fall silent. When the howling wind subsided enough for her to make herself heard once more, Lady Andryl demanded, "Better shelter than we left to cross this frigid plain? And is it but for this that we turned aside from our path after you met at such length with your adepts? Is it this that you called the mere ghost of a hope at which we must nonetheless grasp?" [PARAGRAPH:1]"Yes," Rivanna answered simply, and then with another glance back at her following - a glance in which some read pity or even compassion and others saw only disdain, depending more on the hearts and thoughts of those who saw it than on the sharpness of their eyes - she said, "Patience. Hope is ever slim in this frozen wilderness, but if it lives, it lies ahead." [PARAGRAPH:1]There was silence then, until they came to the cave. [PARAGRAPH:1]The entrance was blocked off completely, buried in fallen stones and and ice and snow, but Rivanna and her Svartalfar were no mere frostlings, orcs, or beasts of the snowy wastes. She organized her adepts and soldiers into tightly coordinated teams, melting and freezing portions of the avalanche by turns, hoisting and placing heavy stones to keep the bulk of ice and rock and snow supported in its place even as her people passed through. When their task was done, the blizzard was sealed outside the cave, beyond the frozen, high-piled rockfall, accessible only by the slender, curving ice-tunnel they had created as they moved - easily guarded by a single warrior or collapsed by a single adept who knew the arcane means of melting snow. Before them lay no natural cave, but a massive iron-bound door. They had come to the antechamber of an underground vault - a vault that by the markings and the carvings on the walls could only be an enormous tomb. [PARAGRAPH:1]"What good does this place do us?" Lady Andryl hissed, her voice barely above a whisper in the antechamber's silence. "Have your adepts led us here so we may lie in state when we meet our doom?" [PARAGRAPH:1]Rivanna didn't even bother to look back, her finger tracing the runework of the enormous iron door as she squinted to read it, a semicircle of adepts around her. Distractedly though, she answered, "You may bide a little while here." Her hand found the iron handle and carefully turned, pulling open the great vault doors by the span of a single hand. Beyond lay the darkness and the silence of the dead, and after peering into it for a silent moment, Rivanna at last looked back at her first lieutenant. "If you only knew it, this vault holds greater wealth for a starving, frozen band - greater wealth if we can claim it - than all the gold and jewels of a royal tomb." [PARAGRAPH:2]They shared their feast together - the first they had held in unnumbered days - with cause to hope at last that the long dearth was at an end. A few superstitious Svartalfar huddled as far away as they could from the doors of the tomb, but none had the strength to refuse the food that their leaders had stolen from somewhere within. [PARAGRAPH:1]"What I want to know," Lady Andryl told Maelsa, Rivanna's chief illusionist, when the evening meal was done, "is what happened to the food these dwarves left for their dead each night before we showed up to take it." She glanced at Rivanna, the first to finish her meal, already resting silently in a corner nearby, eyes shut in meditation, her sword in its scabbard resting across her knees. [PARAGRAPH:1]Maelsa shrugged very slightly. "The question does not arise. The tradition is a new one we convinced them to adopt." Briefly, she told the plan Rivanna had developed with her adepts, when their far-gazing illusions had seen the battle and then the stand-off between the dwarves who lived beyond the tomb, deep in the earth, and a tribe of lizardmen who had fled underground to escape the winter snows. She told of the illusion they had made once they arrived, of a ghostly dwarven army: The wraiths of all the soldiers buried in the tomb, led by their chief-in-life, Lord Kromarth Rin. The wraiths had routed the lizardmen, leaving them injured, exhausted, and scattered, virtually helpless against the dwarves, and after the battle, Lord Kromarth had promised his aid and the aid of his army in the defense of the Underhome, so long as daily offerings of food and drink and fire-stones were left for them within the inner doors of their tomb. The dwarves had all in ready supply, thanks to the volcanic vents that warmed and fueled their Underhome, and there was deep respect among the dwarves for the wishes of their heroic dead, and there had been many incursions into their tunnels from creatures fleeing the winter cold, so the agreement was readily made. [PARAGRAPH:1]Though some of her following marveled or laughed, Lady Andryl only frowned. "It sounds a mighty force indeed that you conjured from the air. Yet you and Syrella are only two, no matter how promising your young adepts may appear. What found you then inside that tomb that allowed you to create so mighty a seeming for the dwarves?" She watched Maelsa closely then, for she feared lest any curse her companions might bring down upon themselves in such a tomb might bring doom not only upon the tomb-breakers, but upon them all. [PARAGRAPH:1]Maelsa only smiled though. "We found the vaults in which they were buried, the engravings of their names and deeds, and carvings of some of the greatest as they appeared - or as they wished they did - in life. We used them only by reading and looking as the most respectful visitor might do, to know their faces, ranks, and ways. As for the power to conjure the host..." and she smiled sidelong at the Swordmistress who had led them in. "I think the time is right to tell: That power is Rivanna's. Without her aid, it's true enough, our ghostly force would be but poor and frail. Though our pretty Kromarth Rin of course would never say it, the true Lord of our Wraith army is meditating there." [PARAGRAPH:1]So came Rivanna, chief spellwright of the Winter Court, the truth of whose very power was long concealed by illusion and deep deception known to few even of the high arcane but the Winter Queen herself, hiding in plain sight as the Swordmistress who never drew her sword, to the title she would claim for the rest of her days. Yet it happens sometimes that even when a veil is drawn away from the greatest illusionist of an Age, the full truth of her nature does not stand wholly bare. So when asked to confirm Maelsa's tale, Rivanna answered, her dark and shadowy eyes on Maelsa herself, "We looked and read inscriptions, did we? Perhaps to your eyes, that was all. But I, your Wraith Lord, stood in the tomb of dwarven heroes who ever longed to protect their Underhome, and I had a way to fulfill their wish when their very bones lay under my hands. How think you I was able to make our illusions so convincing? On whom do you suppose our spells were cast, and how do you suppose I shaped them so even the Khazad of the Underhome accepted the aid that was offered them?" Her lips smiled - perhaps sweetly, perhaps cruelly, for which you would have seen depends upon your heart and not your eyes - and a faint gleam shone within her eyes and a ghostly glow appeared in each of her upturned palms as she said, "Have no fear of dwarven haunts who would watch over their tomb. I hold all their captive spirits in my hands."</English>

If you don't want to deal with that, remind me in 1-2 weeks and I'll get you individualized copies.

 

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More:

Spoiler :

<Tag>TXT_KEY_UNIT_BOAR_RIDER_STRATEGY</Tag>
<English> Boar Riders may be the slowest mounted unit of the game, but they pack quite a punch against any poor horses they manage to catch.</English>
<Tag>TXT_KEY_UNIT_BOAR_RIDER_PEDIA</Tag>
<English>Deep in the Underhome, the only crops that can be grown are certain fungi, roots, and tubers. Such livestock as the Dwarves can keep in the world below must learn to survive on a steady diet of crops like these - and only one type of livestock actually thrives on it.[PARAGRAPH:1]Fortunately, thanks to their compact nature, Dwarves who come to live in the surface world are able to use the powerful, hardy boars they raise this way as steeds. Often, they will give their mounts endearing names, in keeping with their people's love for these noble beasts. Thus is Kardir the Mighty famed for his exploits upon the back of Thromdim, and Formas the Bold for his audacious charges upon Sifissis - or, to render their names in the human tongue, Battlehammer the Mighty on the back of his noble Sausage, and Stoneback the Bold upon Bacon Grease.</English>
<Tag>TXT_KEY_UNIT_DWARVEN_SLINGER_PEDIA</Tag>
<English>"Slings'n stones'll break yer bones, a world of hurt befall you." -Unofficial motto of the Khazad 12th Vault Gaurd Militia.</English>
<Tag>TXT_KEY_BUILDING_TAX_OFFICE_STRATEGY</Tag>
<English>Tax Office's are a cheap way to multiply your gold production but be wary - building them will make your citizens quite upset.</English>
<Tag>TXT_KEY_BUILDING_TAX_OFFICE_PEDIA</Tag>
<English>"It is said that death and taxes are the only certainties in life. Try to avoid the latter, and you'll find the former soon follows." [PARAGRAPH:1]-Manish Deengar, Grigori Merchant.</English>
<Tag>TXT_KEY_BUILDING_PALACE_STRATEGY</Tag>
<English>A civilization's palace marks the centre of their lands, and is created in the first city they build. Palaces can be relocated after 4 cities have been built, which is ussually only a wise idea if your first city is not in the centre of your lands, to take advantage of the maintenence reduction.</English>

Lunatic Pedia:
"If I am mad, it is mercy! May the gods pity the man who in his callousness can remain sane to the hideous end!"[PARAGRAPH:1]- H.P. Lovecraft, The Temple

Valkyrie Pedia:
Now the terrible blood-red clouds[NEWLINE]Descend upon the horizon; [NEWLINE]Behold the sky drenched in warriors' blood[NEWLINE]As we sing our battle-cry! [PARAGRAPH:1]- Njal's Saga: The song of the Valkyries
The Nexus:
The Overcouncil's decree that the evil and tainted civilizations inhabiting the Ozalic continent be supressed and reformed had been attempted and failed by each of the council members in turn. The initial incursion by Ljosalfar rangers into the forests of Sheol were utterly unprepared of the conjured horrors of the Sheaim summoners and were wiped out utterly. The proud Kuriotate champions made more headway, but were ultimately no match for the Calabim warrior-vampires when challenged to single combat. The mighty Bannor crusade was sunk before it ever even sighted land by strange, tentacled sea-beasts. [PARAGRAPH:1]It is interesting that the reclusive Amurites were the ones finally able to affect the continent's subjugation, and it is much to the humiliation of the member nations that the invasion was conducted by a single wizard. Sailing in on a small, swift caravel, this wizard landed on the shores of the barbaric and largely unsettled area of Ozalic known popularly as the Dragon's Desert due to its loose affiliation with and rulership by the red dragon Acheron. Goblin witnesses say when this man stepped off the boat onto the beach, the sea came with him. Other Observers present confirm the phenomena was merely a large water elemental summoned by the mage. Regardless, the construct made short work of the remaining defenders of the goblin village who hadn't run off. [PARAGRAPH:1]By now several Observers had begun to congregate and the following is my synthesis of their testimony and notes. The Amurite stood alone in the village square and begun to chant an unfamiliar spell. After eight minutes a small black disc was seen to hover at the mage's eye level at a distance of four grommits in front of him. After seventy-six minutes this disc had grown into a large circle with a circumference between 8.2 to 9.1 grommits (exact measurements were unable to be collected due to the nature of magical forces at work around the disc threatening to reveal any Observers who came too close) and the mage had ceased his incantation . [PARAGRAPH:1]According to testimony and notes taken from Observers present in Amuria at the time, similar rituals were taking place in military yards throughout the country. At this point, several companies of swordsmen, firebows, war wizards, and their supplies emerged from the first disc in an orderly fashion and began to set up camp. [PARAGRAPH:1]Even the Svartalfar, whose lands bordered the Dragon's Desert, were taken completely by surprise by the Amurite mage-army marching to their cities from a wholly unexpected direction. [PARAGRAPH:1]-- Testimony of Cedric Tham, Sidar Observer, to the Council of Historians.
Breeding Pit Pedia:
"Contrary to their alluring name, and their nation's unsavory reputation, the Calabim 'Breeding Pits' breed animals, not people. You wouldn't want to be anywhere near one- the smell alone can render a grown man unconscious within seconds, and the wretched souls who labor in them have their nasal passages sewn shut. The average Calabim serf actually lives in conditions not dissimilar from the typical Bannor peasant- a brutal life of hard labor in spartan conditions, occasionally terminating in a brief period of terror as a conscript on some bloody field. Not that I recommend ever discussing the parallels with a Bannorman. Although I suppose they might have a point, I've never heard of even the most fanatic of Fanatics eating people." [PARAGRAPH:1]- Lo Pandu, Scholar.
Air Elemental Pedia:
“There are some, often of a most melancholy nature, who have asked me what the point is of striving in this world, if everyone's inevitable fate is to serve for an eternity as a spirit in the next. Would it not be best to slowly waste away in a small room while praying to the God one felt most inclined to join in endless servitude? Ignoring the obvious logical flaws in this argument, I am content to answer the question with one of my own- have you ever spoken to an Air Elemental? I have, and they have very little to say. 'Must move.' is the about most you'll get out of one. And these are the servants of the patron deity of freedom and carefree spirits. My point is thus, do not be so hasty to exchange this form for another." [PARAGRAPH:1]- Roberto Coldcost, Amurite Druidic Archmage



Profane Pedia:
The High Priests of the Ashen Veil, known as the Profanes, carry out their dark work with inhuman intensity, knowing all too well the fate that awaits their souls. Actually sending one to the Seven Hells however is a whole other matter entirely. Outwardly calm and collected, the Profanes fight with supernatural strength when cornered, and they are very rarely alone.
Battering Ram Pedia:
"HEAVE HO, HEAVE HO, down yer gates'll go!" [PARAGRAPH:1]- Traditional Khazad Battering Verse
Freak Show Pedia:
"L-look at that creature! It has two heads!"[NEWLINE]"Great Gods, I've never seen such monstrosities!" [NEWLINE]"What Gods would even create something so grotesque?" [NEWLINE]"Tentacles really do not belong there." [NEWLINE]"I think I'm going to be sick..." [PARAGRAPH:1]- Captives of the Freak Show in Hexam.
Deruptus Brewing House Pedia:
Everyone knows that a person named Deruptus made the first Brewing House in history, but no one actually knows who Deruptus really was. Many historians, along with all the dwarves in Erebus, claim that Deruptus was actually a dwarf who was tired of water and wanted something stronger, but there were several inconsistencies with the fact. Nevertheless, Deruptus made the first ale and thus had the honor of having all future brewing houses named after him. [PARAGRAPH:1]Although ale makes a population happy, and provides more jobs to the empire, a ruler must live with the knowledge that too much ale will make the citizens weak. After the heavily-defended city of Dion was destroyed by Doviello invaders due to the intoxication of the military, all other empires have learned the wisdom of not having too much ale. [PARAGRAPH:1]Nowadays, cities in an empire fight for having the honor of providing the empire's brewing house, as it provides many jobs, as well as ensuring that ale flows freely in the city. However, only cities situated on a river have the privilege to do so, as the brewing house requires flowing water to ensure that the machinery in it never stops. Depending on the technology level, the jobs in the brewing house is done by man or machine, but all brewing houses come with their trademarks, a red shiny roof and 2 huge ale barrels to the right of it.
Strategy:
As well as providing several copies of the Ale resource (dependant on map size), the National Brewery also increases commerce by 10% for every grain resource (Wheat, Corn and Rice) the city has access to. Unfortunately, it can only be built adjacent to a river. [PARAGRAPH:1]For the Luchuirp or Khazad it also holds a secondary benefit – giving +2xp to any Dwarven units built in the city.[PARAGRAPH:1]Whilst on the most happy-poor of maps it may be necessary to build simply for the Ale, its principle purpose lies in the large commerce boost it can provide to your best cities – up to 30% with all resources. Try to plan ahead where it will be placed and consider moving a good commerce location onto a river – remember there are very few commerce boosts, and making sure you can fit in the brewery can be worth losing a couple of cottages.

Prior/Unyielding Order Pedia:
Alan stepped nervously onto the platform. Although surrounded by the Kwythellar city guard, he could not help but fear for his life. He was the youngest person to ever achieve the rank of Vicar, but this mattered little to the crowd... no, the mob that surrounded him. He had been proud to don the golden robes a few days ago, but now they would only make him more obvious should he try to escape. Centaurs, humans, dwarves, and elves made up most of the mob, with a scattering of the various other races of the Kuriotate Republic. Except, of course, orcs. "Why do we tolerate these scum in our cities?" demanded a fearsome-looking old Dwarf, "why do we let them live fat off our wealth even as we fight the wretched Clan that spawned them?" The crowd murmured in agreement. Alan had been sent to talk sense into the angry hordes of Kwythellar, to explain why turning upon their fellow Kuriotates simply because they were orcs was as unforgivable as turning upon their on family, despite the continued, and indeed, failing, war with the Clan of Embers.[PARAGRAPH:1]Just as Alan was about to begin his speech, another figure walked onto the platform. His robes were those of an Order Prior, and while they had originally been purest white they were now quite dirty. The shield of Junil hung loosely from his neck, and he had a massive, unkempt beard, a worn old staff, and a flask on his side, from which he promptly took a sip. "Gonna try to calm 'em down, eh?" the Prior asked. Alan glanced at the Prior's flask. "Are you allowed... to have that?" "That," the Prior responded, "is sacramental wine, me boy! Well, it's sacramental rum at any rate. We're allowed some of that for blessings an' such... an' right now, I feel like blessin' me innards." Alan looked dubiously at the old man; his impressions of the fierce and unforgiving Order bore little resemblance to the dirty, rum-swigging, grinning old fool that stood before him. "Well, there's a crowd down there lookin' forward to yer speech, laddie. Don' keep 'em waiting; they don' look to be as forgivin' as that damned Empyrean ya follow."[PARAGRAPH:1]Alan began. "Brothers and sisters; for truly we are all family under Cardith Lorda." That would help; everyone respected and loved the boy king. "You would take up arms against your fellow citizens? You would strike down those you once called friends..." "Ain't no tuskie ever been a friend of mine!" interrupted someone from the crowd. Alan ignored him and continued. "You would slay the innocent because they look different, or they speak differently, or don't follow the same religion..." "obviously, we mus' also tolerate the ones that demand ya sacrifice innocents to Agares" muttered thePrior, but Alan barely heard him as he continued. "You would destroy all that we have worked to create?" "No!" came a voice from the crowd. "We are loyal to Cardith Lorda! We are loyal to all the Kuriotate Republic stands for!" Alan breathed a sigh of relief, but the man continued, "this is why we must wipe out the vermin infesting out cities! What next, shall we grant citizenship to the rats that eat our grain? Better that, me thinks, than letting orcs inhabit our fine city! At least rats don't seek to kill us all! Hells, I hear they can be trained; that's more than can be said of the tuskies!" A nervous laugh came from the crowd. "We must cleanse the city in the name of Cardith Lorda! In the name of the Gold Dragon! In the name of theKuriotate Republic!" [PARAGRAPH:1]As soon as the heckler finished speaking, the Prior banged his staff upon the platform. The air grew chilly, and the color seemed to drain from the surrounding city. A flawless crystal floated upon the platform. Alan knew better than to look directly at it, and thanks to years of practice, resisted; the Prior had done the unthinkable. "We follow the Empyrean," Alan said to the Prior. "That... that thing denies people their most basic freedoms, makes them into slaves! It is an abomination!" "Sometimes," the Prior said, "people won' listen. I don' like that thing," and with this the Prior motioned to the crystal, "any more than you do. But I'd rather use it, jus' fer now, than watch good people get slaughtered on account o' a couple o' nutjobs who know how to start a mob. Give yer speech, and when yer done..." from somewhere in his robes, the Prior pulled a knife marked with symbols holy to Junil, "pierce that crystal with this. They'll be free, aye, but they will also 'ave 'eard yer words. Really 'eard 'em, not just sorta heard 'em like before. An' make sure ya return the knife when yer done; jes leave it outside the local Temple o' the Order. It'll get back to me from there." The Priorwas about to walk off the stage, but then examined his nearly empty flask. "It's twenty silver pieces fer the finest rum... for sacramental purpose, ya know." The Prior held out his hand, and accepted the coins Alan handed him. He left the platform whistling a particularly bawdy folk song and left Alan to show wisdom to the now docile crowd. Alan began again, speaking this time not to an angry mob, but a crowd whose hearts and minds were open to the truth.

Gorilla Wrote:"The reclusive Silverback, rarely seen in any age of the world, has never been prized for its pelt in spite of its beautiful sheen. On the contrary, the beast is mostly valued, when it can be found at all, for the entertainment inherent in observing the hoots and whistles and almost-human gesticulations of the visitors who come to see it exhibited." -Maena Dryn, Scholar, Thariss Academy


Supplies Wrote:As winter lengthened and cities across the land were brought to ruin by icy beasts and raging storms, many peoples cached stores of building equipment and tools where they might lie safe and undiscovered until their owners could reclaim them, someday in the hoped-for future, with the melting of the snows. Through the long years of the terrible Age of Ice, some of these caches were robbed or destroyed, but others remained, often forgotten with the passing years even among the few whose owners remained alive, waiting to be discovered again and put to use at last by strangers in the Age of Rebirth.


Library Wrote:Legends tell of civilizations that used libraries as centers both of knowledge and of literate communities, and used them too as places to store the recorded wisdom of their people - to preserve their histories. Among civilizations known by more than questionable myth to dwell in Erebus however, a people's history is instead preserved by training soldiers enough to prevent at least some who remember it from being slain, and their records from being burned for kindling. The purpose of a library, then, is to serve as a storehouse of knowledge and a place of study, so that the next generation of scholars and engineers might conceive new weapons, or rediscover the means of building the mightiest of ancient ones, to better ensure those soldiers - and therefore their civilizations - are not overrun and destroyed after all.


Walls Wrote:"You can keep your magic and new-fangled siege devices. Just give me a good, solid curtain wall of Dwarven stone between me and the enemy." -Tarnok Grif to the Captain of the Guards of Dotremon

"Oh, look! They've changed the direction the ground is facing! How enterprising of them!" - General Loblally Blimmersmoot of the Balseraphs, coming in view of Dotremon, shortly before his pupeteered spell-beasts began the sack of the city

Celestial Compass:
“You said you had a proposal, Mr Merkwurdigliebe?”
“Y-yes, yes I did. It's a project we've been working on over at White Mesa. I'm sure you're familiar with that.”
“White Mesa? Tya Kiri's esoteric and frankly dangerous research facility? Yes, I am familiar with that. What's you're proposal?”
“It concerns spellcasting. It's the sort of thing you guys are interested in, being Amurites and all. In particular, it concerns large rituals.”
“How large?”
“Very large. The sort that get classified as 'rituals'.”
“And what is your proposal?”
“You know those 'rituals' I mentioned? We've discovered that the effectiveness of them is dependent on the relative position of the celestial sphere, by which I mean that at certain times of astral prominence the efficacy of ritual casting is improved. We have developed a device to aid in this matter.”
“What is this device then? Show it to me.”
Merkwurdigliebe showed Dain the device. “I call it a Celestial Compass, as it aids in celestial positioning. The constellation prominent in one part of the celestial sphere will not be so in another part, and this device allows us to calibrate the direction that the ritual is cast in. By using this device, we will be able to triangulate the correct position and direction required for a ritual to be cast at maximum efficacy, therefore saving large amounts of effort and magic on the part of the mages. This is a scaled-down version of it; the full model will be much larger.”
Dain pondered this for a while. “As interesting as your proposed 'Celestial Compass' is Merkwurdigliebe, I am unable to anticipate any situations where we would gain from the deployment of this device. Go back to White Mesa and tell Tya Kiri that we will not be buying this.”
“I shall go then Dain. But I warn you that if you don't buy this somebody else will. Somebody who needs it a lot more than you. Somebody who''l be needing to cast a lot of rituals.
“Somebody like Auric Ulvin.”
Merkwurdigliebe left.

Svartalfar Palace:
Phyris Nightbow stood at the gates of the little palisade that served her for a keep at the heart of Nethrael village, her arms folded in quiet defiance as the newcomers built new homes around her little settlement - courtesans and illusionists standing about and directing or helping to keep watch against the beasts of the wilds, while their manservants struggled and toiled with the gruntwork to which they were suited. Her own citizens were pitching in as well, and all seemed well in her little realm, but Phyris could see the confrontation coming.

That night, as the full moon climbed the sky, they approached: The flower of the Svartalfar in bygone days, reduced to a roving band at her winter gates. She and her people had struggled for years to build a life for themselves in the wastes, and unless she stood firm, the interlopers - habituated as they still must be to the life of the ruling class - would simply take it away. Already she felt off-balance; perhaps had she acted when they first approached ... but even then, the sentiment of her people was clear: They would help their beloved sisters of the blood, most of all the retinue of their deadly Winter Queen, and how could she gainsay their wishes without being knifed from behind? So the newcomers would be welcome, but would have to learn to work like the common people of the community. There were no armies here to enforce the Winter Court's law, and she would not be supplanted by a bunch of dainty courtiers whose court was no more. So even as the Winter Queen herself drew near, Phyris braced herself and stood tall to pronounce, "I bid you welcome, guests - or future citizens, should you choose to remain and work here - to my village of Nethrael."

A teasing smile briefly played across Faeryl's lips, belying the deadly tension in the air. "Surely, my little archer, you must know better than that. We come to take our rightful place, to rule among our people once more."

A shiver passed down Phyris' Nightbow's spine at the look in those royal eyes, but somehow she held her ground. "Not here; not now," she answered. "You need my help now, and my rule in this place cannot be questioned. Your court is gone, your palace in ruins, overrun by frostlings by this hour, and in my land, you are refugees, no more."

"How very sad," the Winter Queen murmured, resting a hand upon her bosom, over her heart, and looking upon Phyris Longbow with wide and innocent eyes. Her courtesans, already standing away out of respect for their monarch, backed off still further, not without haste. A true rival who knew the danger in such a look might have tried to flee or beg forgiveness, but a true rival would not have committed so grave an error. Phyris, unknowing, only drew herself up higher as her Queen asked, all sorrowing innocence, "My palace in ruins?"

And suddenly, Faeryl was laughing: A high, bright, cheerful laugh like sleigh bells on the sledge that bears a feast for winter nights. All eyes came to her, drawn irresistibly by the beautiful sound as Faeryl Viconia, Winter Queen of the Elven Court, turned as if to address them all, not striding to meet an adversary but merely stretching, twisting, posing where she stood, one slender hand reaching toward the sky, where afterward every witness, though they saw from many sides, swore they saw the full moon behind her, as though it rested upon the fingertips of her outstretched hand. Invisible power swirled around her, twisting and whirling her gown, shaking out the long, black tresses of her hair and their silken ribbons, lifting high even the silver jewels she wore, making them sing like wind chimes in the night. No manservant saw for more than an instant, for all dropped their labors at once - even those breaking their fast let the precious food fall from their hands - the faster to drop to their knees, their arms and hands outstretched toward her, and bury their faces in the snow upon the ground. Even the women of Nethrael knelt as their queen began a slow, hypnotic dance, singing ancient words in the oldest of elven tongues: "Winter is come," she chanted, "and the High Queen of the Winter Court has come into her home."

The sparse trees of the wastelands creaked as if longing to join her, and as the tempo increased, even the long-dead wood of the pallisade walls seemed to stretch and reach for life once more, to put down roots and blossom. The shadows of the pallisade, merging with those of her dancing body, seemed by a trick of the mind to shift and sway and take on new form, and where Faeryl moved or touched or shaped a shadow, the shadow stayed, no matter though she moved away. Soon, to the spellbound minds of all whose faces were not yet cast down in abject worship of their Winter Queen, from the corners of eyes that could not move from Queen Viconia herself, the moonlight seemed to cast across the village a shadow not of a hilltop or a pallisade, but of a mighty palace of the Svartalfar. And as their queen ended her dance, her arms spread wide, her smile outshining the full moon at her back, lighting up the winter sky, and as she laughed again, the clear, bright laugh of happy elven youth - a pure laugh of unguarded pleasure that even her closest advisors had never heard her sing before that night - they beheld that the palace was there: Grown up like a stonewood tree or cast into existence by its shadow and their thoughts. "My love," she said, addressing all her subjects and the heart of each one alone. "Did not you know? My palace is not of one city; it is of the shadows, the forests of winter, the mind's eye, and the night. No frostling, no ogre, no dragon can take the palace from me while I draw the breath of life, for so long as I am the Winter Queen, wherever I have a home, that home shall be a palace and a place of our people's power, for that power and that palace is mine."

Even her courtiers and illusionists bowed then to the ground, but glancing sidelong at the spot nearby where Phyris Nightbow had stood, Faeryl frowned. She reached out with the tip of one boot to turn over the snow and conceal the tiny drop of blood that stained its surface before returning to the bowed heads of her audience with a smile. Much later that night, in a private chamber deep within her palace, she would chastise Alazkan for leaving even that single drop of evidence behind.
REPLACED WITH:
Faeryl Viconia stood alone at the center of her palace, the last of all her people to depart. The endless winter that prolonged her reign had finally forced her from her seat of power, but if she felt the slightest pang of sorrow or regret, she showed no sign. Cold and hard as carven ice, the Winter Queen displayed emotion only when it suited her, and only as dictated by her scheming politics. It might be that she no longer knew how to show what she truly felt; some believed that she no longer felt at all. Yet she stayed until the end, and bade farewell alone to the Court that she had shaped ... and dancing slowly, swaying, weaving spellforms with her hands, sang a song of arcane power as ancient as the Winter Crown itself.

"Come to me ye forests of the secret winter night
"For the Queen who holds your secrets must depart.
"Come ye shadows, deepening the more in brightest light
"By the power of my deep and ancient art.
"Come to me ye dreamscapes and ye seemings of the mind
"That give shape unto the shadowy unknown.
"Merge into the dream-seed, leaving not a wrack behind;
"When the time is ripe again, ye shall be sown."

The eerie violet lights of her palace towers flickered, shifting, arcing from one to the next, and the shadows they cast from the palace walls seemed to sway and bend and gyrate as if to join their queen in her ritual dance. The groves within the courtyard bowed as if with snow and wind, shrinking, pulling themselves inward as their shadows flowed and merged with one another, with the palace's, and with Faeryl's own. Then the great walls of the palace themselves began to waver like the stuff of dreams and memory, as Faeryl's dance, her shadow, or her very will seemed to take her through each room, though she never left the throne room at the heart of her shaping spell. Tree roots seemed to stretch toward her; her shadow grew wild and long; her secret thoughts perhaps filled every corridor. Then at last, slowly, slowly, all began to shrink away, until Faeryl stood alone upon an empty winter hilltop, shrouded in snow, at the center of the vast, abandoned city that in the absence of her magic and the magic of her people already was beginning to go to ruin. The palace of the Winter Court was gone as though it had never been ... but as Faeryl Viconia bent and reached down into the snow, the shape and form of the palace danced behind her eyes, with all its furnishings, in the dreamscape of memory, and her shadow seemed deeper, darker, bearing many shadows more ... and as she rose, she lifted from the snow a new-made winter seed.

Faeryl went forth from the gates to join her hand-picked company, and didn't spare the city another glance. Behind her lay but empty walls, soon home perhaps to frostlings or winter beasts. Her palace and its Winter Throne she carried in her pocket, in her shadow and her thoughts, in the ancient arcane power of the Queen

 

[Qgqqqqq]

And more:

Spoiler :

Illusionist Wrote:
"Is this the end then? Have we given up?" Nysonna spoke as if to herself; Aevyxi, her hunting-companion-in-name, had barely spoken since they left the camp. At first it merely seemed that Aevyxi thought Nysonna beneath her notice - but as she followed, docile, allowing Nysonna to lead the way, it became clear that she despised the hunt itself and her duty in it: Her eyes abstracted, her hands and fingers in constant sinuous, mystic motion, she made it clear that her attention was far away. It was bad enough that the Winter Queen felt they had reached such dire straits that even her arcane retinue must join in seeking game, but at least if Aexyxi were willing to pay attention, there might have been hope that she could learn something.

Climbing silently over a massive log, her sharp eyes seeking in all directions for a track, a burrow, any sign, finding none, Nysonna dropped lightly to the snowy ground. "I know it was a blow when we had to abandon the new court at Nethrael, but we knew it couldn't last for long. That hopeless gambit can't have been the whole plan." It had given her hope, still-cherished, for some distant future when the winter might at last relent and begin to grow more mild - distant hope, but that was all. She glanced over her shoulder, saw Aevyxi poised at the top of the log, staring out among the treetops, weaving the air with her hands. Nysonna glared, her eyes turning hard as diamonds. "There's nothing out this way. That's why you're with me, isn't it? To weave illusions I can bring back as though they're food. And maybe you'll make the illusion so complete that we'll none of us feel hungry, even as we waste away - still looking fit and healthy no doubt, by more illusions - until we die of starvation, our bellies happily sated in their emptiness."

Still Aevyxi said nothing, and Nysonna bridled. "I won't..." but then she froze. A crash off in the distance had faintly reached her ears even across all the muffling snow. By the sound, it might have been a small tree snapping in two - not merely falling from the weight of snow alone. It was a sound of sudden violence - a sound of danger. Nysonna cursed. She knew she should learn what it was, and with another warrior for her companion, she would at least have tried, but Aevyxi was too important to the Court, too helpless on her own, and could hardly report the danger if Nysonna died trying to learn its nature - lost in her spells, Aevyxi might not even know it was there.

Nysonna planted her spear, vaulted back to the top of the log, and pulled it up after her. She peered through the winter-bare woods in the direction of the tumult - for now the noises, faint but growing, were almost continuous: Something big crashing toward them, reckless of branches and sometimes even trees, filling the air with howls and roars and growls and shrieking cries loud enough to be heard already, charging closer at breakneck speeds. A true hunter would have recognized at least the sounds of those mighty growls, but Nysonna had been pressed into duty, like nearly everyone else, out of sheer desperation, not because she had any real knowledge of the wilds. "Let's go," she hissed, seeing nothing, not wanting it to get close enough through the naked trees of the winter wood to see or to be seen. She dropped from the log, and cursed as Aevyxi took her time, slowly descending step by step on the same stubs of the log's branches on which she must have climbed, her hands still weaving magic, her eyes still far away. Again Nysonna urged, "Come on!" and started to sprint away, only to look over her shoulder and see Aevyxi still walking slowly, as if in a trance.

Aevyxi spoke at last, but she only called out, "Wait," in a distant, dreaming voice, and turned to face the giant log and the unseen approaching monster. For a moment, Nysonna thought she would run and leave the spell-blind fool to her fate ... but she knew that in comparison with the punishments that must await her if she returned to camp without Aevyxi, any pain or death she might suffer at the claws of winter beasts would seem a paradise.

"Let's go," she urged again, rushing back to Aevyxi's side, wanting to scream to awake her companion, wanting almost to whisper in case her voice drew the monstrous beast. "We've got to go!"

Aevyxi didn't answer; instead, as the sounds of roars and growls and crashing impacts drew nearer - the creature must have been enormous if it couldn't pass through those winter-stripped woods without hitting so many trees - in her far-away voice, she said, "Ready your spear."

Nysonna spun on her, eyes narrowed, in spite of the terrifying noises closing in. To raise a spear against such a monster as approached would be like wielding a porcupine quill against a bear. "It's yours, then? An illusion to sate..."

But Aevyxi was backing away from the log, almost in haste in spite of her trance-like state, and though her voice was as distant as ever, she seemed to plead, "Nysonna, your spear...."

Nysonna whirled again and saw bloody paws find a grip on the the top of the giant log, and then the enormous body - enormous though far smaller than the nameless monster she had feared - of a great ice bear. Its snow-white fur was stained and clotted with its own blood, thick with bark and twigs and tree-sap, snow and gravel, as if in its wild charge it alone had been responsible for all the crashing noises, veering into every possible tree and rock and snow-bank along the way. Its head was turned, staring wildly at something still behind it - some howling, keening, crackling thing that made Nysonna's blood run cold - but already she began to understand; already, though almost too late, she began to have hope, and as the ice bear scrambled forward, its limbs flailing, and fell forward off the log, she managed to leap forward and brace her spear so that the bear impaled itself upon the upraised point. Its massive weight came down on her, the spear's shaft snapped in two, and she felt a blaze of pain as its dying body struck out blindly, trapping her right arm, but though its hot, expiring breath fouled the air, and though its bulk brought her down into the cold, soft, welcome snow, though her right arm was in agony, she lived.

The bear's muscles convulsed once more, igniting another explosion of pain in Nysonna's arm, and then the beast lay dead and silent alongside her in the snow. Struggling to look up, she saw at last what she knew she must: The howling, screaming, keening host, led by fountains of blazing fire, of every terror that could take hold upon an ursine heart. The terrible phantasmal host soared above the fallen log, and as it passed, seemed to evaporate into the winter sky. How far had it driven the mighty bear, through injury, exhaustion and pain, to death at Nysonna's hands? She shook her head and tried to push away her own pain, still intense, so she could shut her eyes, so she could rest.

A hand on her left shoulder, and Nysonna forced herself to look up once more - to look up at Aevyxi, down on one knee by her side. Aevyxi's eyes were focused, bright; her voice was clear and present. "Are you all right, Nysonna?"

She felt she didn't have the strength to groan. "My right arm..."

Aevyxi looked and nodded, and she asked, "If I can take some of its weight from you, can you move enough to get free?"

At first, Nysonna couldn't answer, but Aevyxi read her eyes and nodded, and stood, and drove the base of her staff into the snow and shattered ice beneath the bear's left shoulder. For an instant, Nysonna expected a flash of magic power, but there was none; instead she saw the muscles strain in Aevyxi's legs and back and arms and shoulders, using no magic but the power of a lever to free Nysonna's arm.

Nysonna rolled clear, shutting her eyes, crying out with the pain, but glad at last when she came to rest, no longer trapped, her arm in agony and certainly broken but still her own, as Aevyxi stepped back, pulling her staff free, leaving the body of the bear to collapse again into the snow. Aevyxi ran her hands all along the length of her staff as she approached, then used it to lower herself again by Nysonna's side, down to a knee, resting her hand on Nysonna's good shoulder once more, holding her eyes earnestly. Quietly, Aevyxi said, "Rest now. Help will be coming soon. I sent the last of my phantasms back to camp to call for a healer, and for manservants to drag the body." She smiled. "Well fought, Nysonna. We dine on bear this night."

Nysonna shifted slightly, trying to find a less-painful position for her arm. "You could have warned me," she whispered, unable to hold the words back.

Aevyxi sighed, and she looked up at a snow-stripped treetop in the distance. "It was my first hunt," she answered. "I didn't know what to expect." And then her eyes returned, and a certain smile tugged at just the corner of her lips. "By the time I saw the bear through my illusory spies and realized what I could do with it, my mind was far away from here." The smile formed, as though her lips were finally unable to resist it. "Far, far too far away to speak to my companion, or to hear..." she withdrew her comforting hand just long enough to put a silent, hushing finger to her lips, and then continued in a whisper, all comfort and affection, with a look in her eyes that felt exactly like a wink, "...to hear what she had to say - though of course I know it would be confident praise - about the plans of our Winter Queen."

Volanna Pedia:

Another successful hunt, and the Winter Court would eat richly once more, but Volanna barely acknowledged the cheers and praise of her peers at the city gates as her huntresses and Nyxkin carried in the kills. Game was growing ever more scarce, she had to lead her hunting bands ever farther to find adequate food, and as countless moons waxed and waned without even a hint of spring, the winter was only growing deeper. As she rode to her stable-grove, groomed and fed her great war panther - tasks she would leave to no other's hand - she pondered the signs she'd seen, seeking solutions or hope at least, and trying to think of ways without risk to her life and her band's of bringing such advice as she had to the attention of the Winter Queen.[PARAGRAPH:1]She sang her war panther to sleep, crouched close beside it in the low branches of its favorite tree, her hands in its fur, a ritual to which she had trained it herself as a symbol and deepening of its trust and loyalty. Returning home, she bathed in icy water, in part to preserve a tiny portion of the city's dwindling firewood supplies, but in greater part to keep herself from going soft, from longing too much for the city. Her place was in the wilds, leading her huntresses and Nyxkin, and she had to be always ready to ride forth again. She looked askance at the gaudy court attire laid out for her by a servant, and much later, when a polite knock sounded at her door, the messenger had to be kept waiting while she finally, reluctantly draped herself to meet him. Her body no longer minded the cold; she had grown used to it. All she had bothered to do with the clothes before the messenger arrived was to carefully go through them in case of hidden needles or worse. She knew what it meant to be back in the city. [PARAGRAPH:1]The messenger bowed to the floor, his forehead touching the flagstones of her doorstep, but Volanna only wondered what he would be reporting, and to whom, once he left her presence. She thanked him, not knowing whether to dread or rejoice in the opportunity, when he informed her she was summoned at a private hour that evening to speak with Faeryl Viconia, the Winter Queen. [PARAGRAPH:2]Volanna stepped into her monarch's presence and went down at once to a knee, bowing almost as far as the messenger had done on her doorstep. In long-schooled tones of deepest respect, she said, "I obey your summons, Majesty." [PARAGRAPH:1]Queen Viconia strode to her side, apparently alone though a dozen archers and assassins might have been within easy reach in case Volanna wished to do her harm, and said, "Rise, Commander Volanna, Chief of my Nykin, and walk with me." [PARAGRAPH:1]Volanna followed obediently, beside and half a step behind the Winter Queen, alert to danger but seeking an opening to offer something - some advice or hint of the coming danger - to her Queen. Her voice calm and teasing as ever, eschewing the royal we and concealing any hint of her true emotions, Faeryl Viconia remarked, "You must feel popular, Volanna. Don't let it go to your head." [PARAGRAPH:1]The blood froze in Volanna's veins. It could only be a warning - or worse perhaps, a prelude to wielding her as a political tool. If the Queen thought she smelled even a hint of rivalry, Volanna was grateful even to learn of it before the knife came in the night, but she knew that if so, the only reasons she had been extended this courtesy were the skill with which she led work vital to the court's survival - and the very fact of her popularity. Hoping desperately to head off either dread possibility, Volanna insisted, "The meat I bring is popular. The reflected glory I seem to wear is all from bringing it, and lasts only so long as I continue to go forth and bring it home. It would fade away like the vapor of breath were I to remain in the city." [PARAGRAPH:1]Faeryl Viconia met her eyes with the dangerous, teasing smile that had won and broken so many hearts - and stopped nearly as many, just one of many possible distractions she used to conceal the faint taste of poison or the silent motion of a knife. "Perhaps so," said the Winter Queen. "Would you tell me that their fleeting love does not please you, then?" [PARAGRAPH:1]Carefully, praying that the faint hope of an opening she saw might be more than an illusion, Volanna answered, "It surely would, but that I fear for them lest I someday fail to bring all that they need. It grows ever more difficult to find game, and we must travel ever further afield to track any at all. Unless we can spread a wider net or find ways to subsist on less..." [PARAGRAPH:1]The Winter Queen moved her head, the barest fraction of an inch, and Volanna fell silent, terrified lest she had displeased her monarch, made herself seem more expendable, or both. Yet the Svaltalfar must survive, and it was unthinkable to Volanna to play at politics with her Queen when the survival of all their people might lie balanced on a knife's edge. Softly, softly, in the same teasing voice as ever, Faeryl asked, "Did you think this unknown to me?" She flashed her beautiful, teasing smile, more dangerous than a serpent's fangs. "Every hunting trip takes longer to return than the one before, and your band's alone are now still worth the cost to outfit them. We need to seek out other possibilities." Again the smile. "Or do you think you're different? Perhaps alone, without a whole Court to feed, you and those loyal to you would thrive better in this winter world." [PARAGRAPH:1]Volanna sank to a knee once more, bowing her head above clasped hands. "My queen, if it were so, I could not abandon our people. I could not abandon you. So long as it is in my power to help, I..." [PARAGRAPH:1]"Volanna," the Queen teased, haughty, "is it for you to tell me what you can and cannot do?" Before Volanna could muster an answer, Faeryl Viconia went on, "If you would please your Winter Queen, you'll go back to find the places where good game is not so scarce, but this time follow the trail instead of bringing the scraps back here. Find a place where the endless winter is milder and our needs will not dry up on us, and ready the ground for us to join you there." She winked and teased, "Well, Commander? Will you tell me now you can't do this for me?" [PARAGRAPH:1]No answer was possible - none at least could be permitted - and so Volanna said only, "I obey, my Queen." [PARAGRAPH:2]Eight full moons had waxed and waned in their ride away from the city before Volanna told in full the mission on which they were truly bound. She surveyed the group she had assembled, their loyalty and trust in her forged, tempered, and hardened to steel in battles' heat and the endless winter's cold. She had disposed of two assassins among them who had tried to act in the first month of the journey, when they thought she was unprepared, when they supposed the watches she set had been meant only to watch for danger from outside the camp. There had been no other attempts, but Volanna had dealt with three separate sleeper agents of the Winter Queen since then. In the city, in spite of her training, indispensible to a Commander or indeed an officer of any rank, she felt surrounded and uncertain, unprepared for assassination or betrayal that might strike from any side. Here though, she was in her element: No secrecy, no promises, no loyalty purchased at any price, from the confines of the Court and the city, could survive a moonspan in the wilderness under Volanna's watchful eyes. [PARAGRAPH:1]The first she told was Lyrae, her chief huntress, who approached with another report, much the same as the last. "The woodlands, where they stand at all, remain more fruitful than the icy plains, but there is no trail to follow to temperate climes. As far as can be told or known, in all directions, game is scarce and growing scarcer, dwindling with the snow-choked plants of this frozen land. There is no distant place with less-punishing weather; there are only the wilds, with game here more plentiful only because we are far from the home of any hunter but ourselves, and so what little is here has not as yet been despoiled." [PARAGRAPH:1]"I know it, Lyrae," Volanna answered. "I have known it, as I think the Winter Queen herself knew, all along. If by a miracle there somewhere lies a place of mild winter, then by all means let us find and claim that land, but I doubt if we shall find it, for I doubt if it exists, and while we search, in vain or not, we have a greater task." [PARAGRAPH:1]The huntress Lyrae stirred, not with the discomfort that would have taken her in Court when she was forced to swallow disagreements with ranking courtesans there, but with the passion of her knowledge. "Shall we be required then to also bring down the moon for her, and stars to light her bedchamber? All while proving ourselves against such tests-in-name as agents sent to betray us from our midst? The winter grows colder everywhere, the game more scarce, not less. Ere long, it will be task enough for us to survive in these frozen lands." [PARAGRAPH:1]Volanna set a calming hand on Lyrae's upper arm, a gesture that would have been almost unthinkable in Court. Lyrae met her Commander's eyes, and drew a steady breath, her passion soothed almost at once by the familiar sense of kinship that she found there. Softly and with sorrow, Volanna answered, "It shall indeed be task enough, and that is why it is our task. Not alone are we endangered by the freezing of the land, for the Court itself long since now has run out of lesser cities from whose stores to steal, whether by stealth or tax. Its own stores are depleting, most of all now that we're gone. Ere long now, should this winter hold, they shall be forced to scatter to the wilds, and leave the over-hunted wastes that now surround their city, in packs like ours that stand a chance at least of finding food enough to keep the few in each small pack alive." [PARAGRAPH:1]Lyrae looked out across the snow, toward the distant horizon, far beyond which lay the Winter Court and the city that served it still. "We could have helped them," she told Volanna. "Were it not for our Queen's orders, we could help them still. We could teach them the secrets of the wild lands and of survival, train them to do without the luxurious habits they now suppose are necessities, prepare them for the cold and the hunger of the trail, the joy and the skills of the hunt, and one by one help them form among themselves the bonds of trust and true loyalty that are as necessary to survival in the wilds as they are impossible to form or prove in Court within the city." She turned and met Volanna's eyes. "Could we not return in secret, and help them still? We could find their other hunters, far beyond the city's reach, and train them to the pitch of our own abilities, train them to teach the Court in turn and all the people of the city!" [PARAGRAPH:1]A moment passed in silence - the pure silence of the wilds when every sound is muffled by the snow. At last, Volanna whispered, "I feel my heart crack to know it, but we cannot now return. The other hunters cannot stray beyond the city's reach, for they are of the city's reach themselves. If even one returns, our Queen will soon enough know all, and even if we turn them all, and all stay with us in the wilds, we steal from our own people the best guides still left to them." [PARAGRAPH:1]Lyrae nodded soberly, sadly looking down. "I fear I see your meaning. No matter how we seek to aid them, it may seem to our Queen's courtly eyes a mere move in her great political game - perhaps even a prelude to revolution. So we continue on our mission as though there were hope of success - continue and survive as best we can?" [PARAGRAPH:1]"It is where every one of us, hunter, Courtesan, mage, and Queen, must soon turn all our strength." Volanna turned her steady eyes on Lyrae. "It may yet be that none of us shall see another spring. We, the hardiest, starting soonest, the most skilled in all the ways of this snowy wilderness, are the best hope left for Svaltalfar survival. There is nothing more important than preserving that best hope." [PARAGRAPH:1]With another grim nod, Lyrae murmured, "I wonder if our Winter Queen would agree." [PARAGRAPH:1]Volanna perked one ear at the distant cry of a hawk - but she knew no hawk had made that sound; she knew the crier by voice and name, and knew the call meant all was well to the south, with no further sign of frostlings. As her attention returned, she asked Lyrae, "And yet how could she not? Some at least must be preserved of all her people, come what may, and surely she would say so and agree, 'tis better that our band survive than none of us at all if ever we reach that point of misery. What's more, I think our Winter Queen herself a true survivor, and if it comes to that and any from the city ever reach us to survive with us in distant lands, I know the one to reach us would be she." [PARAGRAPH:1]Lyrae shifted in the snow and pursed her lips. "No doubt we'll make it easier on her," she answered. "If once we learn our people are scattering from home, striking desperate into the wilderness, then at least we may find and teach such of them as we can find and who separately are willing to learn. And perhaps hidden in some such group, we'll find the Winter Queen, and she will greet us as her friends and subjects, all else having failed." She met Volanna's eyes again and a fire seemed to burn behind them. "Perhaps she shall. What then? Hand over the reins of your panther steed and let a pampered daughter of royalty rule us all, spreading her special Courtly brand of betrayal and jealousy? Will our band then live longer than the Court she rules today - the court from which she exiled those who best could teach its people to survive?" [PARAGRAPH:1]At first, Volanna could not answer; she long had felt herself free of the Court and its baelful influence, deep in the wilderness that she knew, where she was strong, but she discovered of a sudden, by the burning light of the fire in Lyrae's eyes, that she was free indeed as she had never been before. She drew a long, deep, cleansing breath, and looked around her camp with pride and pleasure and new eyes. She knew each huntress, each Nyxkin, even each still-surviving manservant, more deeply than any mere Courtesan cared - apart from their political weaknesses - to know anyone at all. When at last Volanna's eyes returned to Lyrae, they shone with the light not of fire but of her smile. "Then, chief huntress Lyrae," she answered finally, "Then I think we shall find out, in this time and in this place, in this camp among our people, who holds the right to rule the Svartalfar."

 

[esvath]

These are great! Many thanks, Qgqqqqq!

 

[Alexej]

Those are really interesting to read after inserting those i will spend even more time just browsing pedia instead of playing