NuTRANESIV: Fallen Fantasy

[Abaddon]

Who/what/where are you?

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Edit: nvm... drunken melancholy.

 

[nutranurse]

Don't be sad! The update is progressing nicely despite the fact that CivFanatics locked me out for a good few hours while it was 'busy'.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Not sad. just lonely.

Made a turducken for Thanksgiving, today. was Delicious. and had alot of wine. quite drunk. and watched firefly with friends while it cooked... which was my Ex and I's show (we watched it so many times...) which was depressing, though im trying tor eclaim it.

Edit:
REALLY looking forward to this update: this and Starlife's NES are competing to become among my favorite Current NESes.

 

[nutranurse]

Well I can assure you that the Malachim have a lot going on! Too bad CivFanatics seems to hate me tonight :~I

 

[Abaddon]

It appears to be working again

 

[thomas.berubeg]

so, how's it going?

 

[Penguinraider]

Gah! Inb4 update...

RACE

Djata (Beastial)

The Djata are a race of 'winged lions' who gained sentience during the aftermath of the shattering. A simple race, they have mostly remained in small prides of about 20 or so, each with its own leader.

There is no great hierarchy amongst the Djata save for the first pride, or 'superbia primus' which holds the supreme leader (Djata Rex). The Djata Rex is not a ruler, however, more of a guide or national elder.

The Djata themselves are strong, having pride in their physique and skill. They are wise, valuing knowledge above all else. The Djata are for the most part pacifists, being slow to anger, but once enraged are not easily soothed. They have no formal religion, but are essentially animist in their views.

The Djata live amongst the blade-grass of Nurth, protected by their leathery skin and coarse hair, and sheltered from the outside world by the blade-grass itself. As a result, the Djata have very little history, but that will change...

Sorry if this prolongs the update :/

 

[nutranurse]

Ha! Well it means I have to go back.... I'll add yours separate because the middle parts of the Plains of Nurth are fairly empty save for a few scattered bands of Kathraki.

 

[Abaddon]

Eta on update? I'm excited to see this off!

 

[nutranurse]

Well depends, do you want your stats with the update or can you wait a few hours for those?

 

[nutranurse]

Update 0
0 A.F. - 450 A.F.
The Beginning of the End of the Beginning After the End

Greetings,

Before I begin I must ask...​

What happens when the world ends?
People pick up and move on. Life never truly ends until life itself is killed. Though the sky reached down and ate whole kingdoms; despite the seas boiled over and swallowed up entire cities; regardless of the earth split open and gorged on hapless populations life in Hos went on.

The people of Hos have erroneously called the cataclysmic fall of their doomed empires The End, ignoring that they still live to deem something at end. I smile at this irony.


The Akkalik

Spoiler :

The trappings of civilization were first re-assumed by the broken dwarf-things of Akk. Unlike most of the Hosslings, the Akkalik came to worship 'The End', correctly deeming it to be a change. From this knowledge a religion was born. Centered around the Changer and not the change itself, the Akkalik were motivated to explore the broken remnants of their former home and over the three centuries since 'The End' they embraced their new environment--and even became it.

A whole host of Akkalik;
Notice that they, unlike many other species, have retained most of their pre-Pop features, truly the only obvious mark of mutation is that their eyes are made of ice.​

The Isle of Akk is a frozen island. Winter sees it blasted by fierce storms and summer is barely long enough for the island to thaw out. This is of little matter to the dwarf-things whose own sluggish blood is ice water. Though they still sport the great tufts of hair all dwarf-things are known for, they need it not for warmth. The Akkalik eat the ice that grows around them, though they still prefer regular food as ice lacks taste. Because of the abundance of ice it did not take long for there to become an abundance of Akkalik, and were it not for the 'Melt' and the Tabbuk the Akkalik probably would have assumed control of their island a century after 'The End'.

The Melt presents a physical and mental threat to the Akkalik society. As one of the dwarf-things ages their bodies become more susceptible to the heat of the sun. Quite literally they begin to melt after prolonged exposure to heat, and it is normal for an Akkalik dying of old age to melt into a pool of grey-blue water. Though, were the Melt only an affliction of the elderly the Akkalik society would not regard it as much fear. Among the younger dwarf-things the Melt causes madness. Their brains literally melt, and with it so withers away any 'Akkaliknes' the victim possessed. Their skin shortly follows suit leaving behind icy, skeletal abominations.

Whole generations have suddenly succumbed to the Melt-Madness; the current Kingdom of Nak Akkal is recovering from a civil war brought on by their sons and daughters who overnight became rabid monsters. King Adak II himself had to kill his two sons, leaving the dwarf-thing monarchy without an heir. In response to this, and many other pressures from the Akkalik nobility, he declared his solitary leadership at an end, creating the Frozen Council out of the most prestigious families. The council's first task was to decide what to do in response to the increased Tabbuk attacks, ancient enemies of the Akkalik whose feud traces to a pre-Pop conflict between the Akkalik dwarf-thing and the Tabbuk elf-thing ancestors.

The Tabbuk reside on the southern half of the Isle of Akk (which they, antagonistically, refer to as the Isle of Tabb). Where the Akkalik are squat and ugly, the Tabbuk are tall and beautitul; where the Akkalik reside in dark, underground fortresses, the Tabbuk live in snow-covered forest cities. Both, however, share the affinity for ice that is a necessity to live on Akk (Tabb). Unlike the Akkalik, the Tabbuk mutations are prominently displayed by their blue skin and crystal-like hair. No Akkalik has seen what a Tabbuk face looks like due to a strange Tabbuk ritual that sees a mask permanently fastened to their head.

A Tabbuk warrior wielding the traditional ice-scythe;
Unlike the Akkalik who still adhere to the dwarf-thing metal fetish, the Tabbuk fasten their tools and weaponry out of the ice, how they do so is not known by any Akkalik.​

Contemporary conflict between the Tabbuk and Akkalik stems from their struggle over the ruins strewn across the island, and at the moment the Akkalik have been beaten back from the mountain-ruins-turned-dwarf-thing-home of Terenakka.

The Karinthians & Akonai

Spoiler :

Far west of the Akkalik the Karinthians ride upon the backs of Blood Steeds, strange creatures with an inverted anatomy--just like their riders. The mutations underwent by the famed Blood Steeds of the Plains of Nurth also afflicted the man-things that became the Karinthians. Like the Blood Steeds, the Karinthians became better attuned to their environment, able to feel the slightest change in the wind, hear the howling of an Akonai from miles away, and see the subtle sway of blade grass. Atop their blood steeds the Karinthians are formidable foes, flowing with the vicious, horned, horse-beasts like water. Off their blood steeds the Karinthians are like lambs to the slaughter, not the least of which is caused by their lack of natural protection against the Nurth blade grass.

An armored Karinthian Warrior;
Notice how very little of his mangled man-thing body is displayed in favor of armor.​

Where the Blood Steeds managed to grow a thin, yet adequate layer of protection against the blade grass of Nurth, their Karinthian masters are utterly helpless. For this reason the Karinthian man-things tend to settle near along the western shores of the Centet, where the blade grasses thin out due to their aversion to water. The Karinthians are actually as capable seamen as they are horsemen, owing in part to their intellect and curiosity. Tiny communities of part-horsemen, part-fishermen, part-scholars dot the western Centet, though the best and brightest Karinthians can be found in the central 'city' of Karinthia.

I must interject here to clarify that Karinthia is no more a city than a fish is a bird. The idea of Karinthia was formed around a four-armed man-thing called Laorth who first brought intellect and reason to the broken Karinthian ancestors. He also brought with him the teachings of metallurgy, central to Karinthian survival. Laorth preached that the only way the Karinthians would survive in this new 'Hell' populated by 'Wolf-Demons'. The man-thing single handedly convinced the entire Karinthian population that they were, in fact, in hell (which they not) and that their ghoulish appearances was a result of this. Laorth made a model for the early Karinthian societies from the packs of 'Wolf-Demons' that stalked them. The prophet pointed to the feared predators and exclaimed that all Karinthians are a 'pack', that all Karinthians are no stronger than the next, and that though individually the Karinthians are weak, united they are strong. Then, as many man-things have a tendency to do, he died.

In the chaos which followed the great man-thing's death the Karinthians splintered and spread across the plains of Nurth. Some, in an apparent fit of madness, approached the 'Wolf-Demons' as supplicants begging to be made into a member of their 'pack'. To this day ragged bands of man-things follow behind the 'Wolf-Demons', but our current focus is on those Karinthians who kept their heritage.

Priests rose up in the place of Laorth and, for a time, the Karinthians were no more unified than they were before. The only difference being was that they rarely warred with one another, believing in a peaceful path to prosperity when a matter concerned two Karinthians. To all others they turned into fierce enemies. Empowered by metallurgy techniques lost in the north, but present in the south, the Karinthians began to make for themselves armor that could protect their tender flesh from the deadly blade grass and the even deadlier beasts that lived in it. Around this time the Karinthians began to domesticate and breed the rabid blood steeds into more malleable creatures. A hundred years passed where the Karinthian tribes were a loose collection of warriors with a common goal: eradication of the 'Wolf-Demons'. When the present century dawned the Karinthian tribes had once again coalesced around a solitary religious figure, the Grand Shaman Syztos, who, like Laorth, formed a city around himself with sheer charisma.

Unlike Laorth, Syztos has yet to die. Further unlike Laorth, Syztos understands the necessity of a central place for an otherwise decentralized people, and to that end he created the city of Syztosthia and simultaneously his dominion over the Karinthians.

Challenging his power, however, was the equally charismatic and equally religious Plassphe 'Wolfkin', called such after her political defeat at the hands of Syztos and subsequent 'asylum' among the dreaded 'Wolf-Demons', or as they call themselves the Akonai.

Akonai were once simple wolves and a perfect example of life changed. Forced from their southern homes by the rise of the Sno and Bodomountains, the Akonai roamed the Plains of Nurth always on the brink of starvation. Many died when they attempted to consume to plain's blade grass, but while digging up the deadly grass the wolves unearthed small, green stones and, in their ravenous haste, consumed them.

One of the stones the Akonai lupine ancestors consumed;
When an Akonai wolf 'dies' its stone returns to the Hos Plane, where it is consumed by an 'initiated' Akonai pup.​

From that point on the Akonai ceased to be mere-wolves and became more.

The consumed stones brought intelligence and an intimate connection to the world around them, and not the least of all connection to the worlds beyond. Also, the stones brought them hunger. As the Karinthians would quickly find out, the innards of the Akonai were tied to another plane of existence, a dark place where all that the Akonai ate would go to be digested over a painful period of centuries. Understandably, the Karinthians deemed the Akonai 'Demons'.

In truth, the Akonai were cursed with the burden of intelligence and no means to satisfy any part of it. After the rise of the Laorthian Cult the Akonai were twice-over plagued by Karinthian attacks that saw Akonai packs cut down until there was but one Great Pack.

At the head of this single pack is the oldest Akonai in existence, a half-mad creature who calls itself Dmisai. Dmisai claims to be somewhere between 250 and 300 years old, and since all other Akonai in existence are much younger none can question him. Certainly the way the mad-wolf speaks of the 'Old Times' is enough to show evidence of his great age. Yet, Dmisai's power is far from absolute and is challenged by two younger wolves by the name of Obai and Ieuai, 'twins' in that they came from the same litter and survived the Karinthian raids.

The two wolves represent the two opposite modes of thought among the younger Akonai of the Great Pack. Obai looks to the packs of man-things following the Akonai and believes careful breeding and protection of this livestock is the future of the Great Pack. He and his followers fully believe that once enough man-thing flesh has been consumed and the other realms has been populated then the Akonai hunger will be sated. His sister, Ieuai, and her followers think that the Akonai are being punished for their ancestor's gluttony and that should the Akonai 'purge' themselves then they will also be rid of their ravenous hunger.

The two wolves Obai & Ieuai;
Notice the lavender eyes of the male, Obai, and the pink eyes of the female, Ieuai, this is a trait that is common among most Akonai​

The Malachim & Hitash

Spoiler :

Where the Sno Mountains now stand there once was a great forest home to the elf-thing ancestors of the Malachim. When the mountains rose the elf-things attempted to recreate their kingdoms atop the perilous mountains in its sparse forests, but whole communities were lost to the gigantic eagles that dominate the mountains picked off the struggling elf-thing communities. Much of the elf-things uprooted themselves and left--when we observe the Blaadven for instance we see the same slender elf-thing figures despite their froggy faces. The Malachim, though, stayed, and not the least due to the Malachim's famed arrogance.

Before the Fall the Malachim were the elf-thing's most noble, purest members of society, and to keep that purity they kept their numbers small and relatively inbred. They suffered after the Collapse the Malachim suffered without their numerous slaves to tend to them, and for a time they were on the brink of extinction. Yet, the last elf-things in the elf-thing homelands refused to uproot themselves from their ruins. They were saved only when the Sno Eagles, who called themselves the Kraw, roosted in the ruins. The eagles were surprised to find the ruins occupied by the Malachim's ancestors, and readily accepted the desperate elves into their flock, but as slaves, not equals, and most disturbingly as--unwilling--breeding partners.

The product of these bizarre parings were the Malachim proper, though called 'Low' Malachim by their purer parents. Somehow these half-bird, half-elf-thing retained their elf-thing features for the most part, though from birth they sported gnarled wings. The first Lower Malachim were incapable of flight, a flaw which both parents were all too eager to point out and find vicious mirth in. They were cast aside as the lowest of an already low civilization, and they lived in complete squalor and scorn. Upon the birth of Ophanim 'Lightbearer' the Malachim's lot changed.

Ophanim, unlike the past two generations of mongrel elf-things, was born with his wings fully formed and from puberty he was capable of flight. The rest of his generation shared the same avian capabilities. Immediately both the Kraw and the 'High' Malachim were horrified by the development; the Kraw because it potentially threatened their dominion over the skies; the Malachim because it meant their purity was rapidly nearing an end. The Low Malachim were cast out and expected to die in the harsh wilderness, but instead were lead into the Sutut Desert by Ophanim.

The Exodus of Ophanim & The Early Malachim;
Note that this depiction was made a few hundred years after Ophanim's 'Death'​

Ophanim and his followers were lucky to be greeted by the River Senn and not the harsh desert surrounding the river. There, at the threshold of the desert and the hills, the Low Malachim built themselves a home, united under Ophanim and the religion he preached.

Ophanism, as it is called today, does not espouse the worship of any God or Goddess. Instead, the Low Malachim themselves are elevated to godhood--or at least are capable of such 'perfection'. As the objects of their own worship the Malachims under Ophanim's rule rapidly reproduced little images of their perfection and just as rapidly built small, agricultural villages under the ultimate jurisdiction of Ophanim and his descendants. The dominance of Ophanim's line was established by his own bizarre determination to outlive his own death, going so far as to have himself encased in stone moments before his death in the belief that he would contain his soul so that he could continue to strive for perfection. To this day the statue of Ophanim presides over the courtyard of the 'Low Palace'; to this day all Low Malachim participate in this ritualistic suicide and encase themselves in various materials (stone if a member of the 'royal' lineage; iron if a member of the wealthy; and mud if anyone otherwise) moments prior to their deaths.

Ophanim's Malachim kingdom currently is split in twain due to the machinations of his great-great grandnephew and his great-great granddaughter, Kahdis-Ophanim and Nessa-Ophanim ('Ophanim' being a partly religious title equivalent to 'Priest-King' in the Low Malachim tongue) respectively. In an act of utter defiance to tradition Khadis usurped the throne of the younger Nessa upon the death of Nessa's father. Khadis was a much stronger candidate than his cousin only due to the patriarchal organization of the Malachim society. However, to ensure that any children Nessa could potentially bear would not challenge his own power, Khadis cast Nessa out into the Sutut desert fully expecting her to perish. Instead she found the Hitash.

Nessa-Ophanim's meeting with the Hitashi female Dmurth;
Notice that Nessa is riding a horse, though the Malachim are capable of flight the harsh climate of the desert puts great stress on their very fragile bodies, so for longer treks other modes of travel are preferred.​

Elf-things of the Fallen Era have long had legends of a strange, race of dragons that existed on the edges of their society. In these elf-thing myths the reptiles were plagued by a constant hunger, one a bestial need for flesh and the other an intellectual lust for knowledge. Thus the dragons existed in a perpetual state of conflict with themselves, never quite able to coalesce into a civilized society before it descended into savage anarchy.

The elf-thing myths were more correct than they realized, though they were incorrect in the assumption that the Hitash were dragons. A subterranean race of hyper-intelligent lizards, the Hitash, for the most part, escaped the effects of the Collapse save for the fact that each subsequent generation of Hitash were increasingly bestial. When Nessa-Ophanim chanced upon Dmurth she encountered the great lizard near the end of her slip into bestial madness. What ensued was a chase that in turn saw the mauling and near death of Nessa-Ophanim. Right as Dmurth was poised for the killing strike she emerged from her savage haze and saw what she honestly thought was a celestial being, and so she secreted her away to a cave to nurse Nessa back to health.

Over the next year Nessa told Dmurth of her plight and slowly converted the lizard-beast to Ophanism with the promise of mortal perfection. Dmurth in turn took the teachings back to her own kind, converting a small group of them while earning the complete ire of the rest. Before the Hitash elders could order for proper culling of these thoughts Dmurth and her small band fled with Nessa---back to the Malachim Kingdom.

With the aid of Dmurth and the other converted Hitash Nessa was able to take back a small portion of her ancestral kingdom, though at a great cost of life on both sides.

The Sheol, Puca, & Bodomen

Spoiler :

On the fringes of the great elf-thing empire before the Pop existed a small collection of man-thing kingdoms built upon the backs of gnome-thing slaves. The gnome-things were a wretched, dark-skinned race originally stolen from the thick jungles far to the south, sold on the elf-thing slave market, and purchased by the half-wild men who lived in the shadows of the Bodo Mountains. In Centet the gnome-things flourished, creating a rich slave culture which was arguably richer than the barbarian Bodomen's. Prominent in their belief was the prominence of water spirits--as Centet is a very wet region--and most prominent of those being the Puca.

Puca are water spirits that manifest primarily as water equines and doubly have the ability to manifest as man-things, elf-things, and most other things in general. They are not, however, things. Puca are celestial beings forcibly brought to Hos during the chaos of the Fall. As chance would have it they came at the height of the habitual 'cleansings' carried out by the Bodomen on their Sheol slaves.

Ever since the Pop the Bodomen have branded the Sheol, and more importantly the Shoel faith and culture, the source of all the world's evil--including their own strange affliction. For, as irony would have it the Bodomen mutated various animal-like features. The Bodomen are of the belief that somehow the Sheol prayers to their various animal spirits was actually a mass curse conducted by the gnome-things over the course of the entire Old Era. The 'Rose Ride', as the Bodomen nobility call the purges, is seen as a pious crusade against the heathen Sheol and the ultimate form of worship in the Bodo faith.

A Bodoman On The Rose Ride;
Traditionally the Bodomen cleanse their Sheol population every few years so as to keep the gnome-things weak and less numerous than the Bodomen who have difficulties reproducing due to the myriad of sub-species that now constitutes the Bodo population​

Whole generations of Sheol have been slaughtered and sacrificed to the Bodomen's bloody 'One-God'. During the Rose Ride of 370 A.F. the Bodomen hounded the population of the Sheol shantytown of Lof Yfel into the the surrounding forest, who were then forced to cross the Heol River were it raged worse. However, upon stepping into the river the Sheol found that the waters parted with each step the fleeing gnome-things, but when the Bodomen did the same the river collapsed once more. All the Bodomen were killed instantly by the fierce currents, but the gnome-things found themselves rapidly carried off into the oceans and would later wash up on the western side of the Mountains of Bo.

The Sheol of Lof Yfel swore that in the water they saw the figures of horses, and some even claimed to have grabbed onto watery manes. Regardless, they were free, for the first time in their known history, of Bodo oppression.

In their early years of freedom the Sheol of Lof Yfel wrought nothing but sadness for themselves. Joyous celebrations quickly turned into deadly competition as the Sheol found themselves without the orders of their masters. Though they possessed an intimate knowledge of how to work the land, the untamed wilderness they occupied was without the agricultural infrastructure the Sheol had built in the Bodomen's kingdoms. The Sheol of Lof Yfel floundered to recreate their lives and homes as slaves, and many instead married violence to their freedom by becoming brigands who, at times, would even eat Sheol flesh. For three decades the Sheol of Lof Yfel knew nothing of happiness, unity, or peace, but at the dawn of the new century Szandor LaVey was the first of his ragged peoples to dream of an empire.

Strangely enough, Szandor LaVey began his unification already a king. His parents were killed and eaten by the group of cannibal-bandits who adopted him as their own. As Szandor grew he quickly shot through the ranks of the tribe, eventually killing and eating the bandit chieftain who had done the same to his parents. Szandor was 15 at the time. The sanguine gnome-thing soon proved to be a capable statesman as well as warrior, demonstrated when he peacefully subsumed various nearby clans. His people proclaimed him 'King of South Heol' (for the Sheol had named the region after the river that saved them), but Szandor would not stop until he ruled the entire miserable sliver of land his peoples called home.

Pictured Here Is Szandor LaVey, Later Styled 'The Great';
Szandor had always imagined himself king of his whole peoples, subtly declaring so from the age of 10 when he adopted his iconic hair style that saw the manipulation of his hair into a mock crown.
Even upon being crowned king of the United Council, Szandor chose to forgo a crown for his own hair.​

Over the next years he waged war upon his own people, killing and consuming the hearts, brains, and eyes of the chieftains who opposed him while welcoming those who submitted with open arms. By the end of 420 he sat at the head of a 'Noble Council' filled primarily with priests Szandor himself had chosen. Though not a godly man himself, his ancestor's tale of flight and rescue at the hands of the Puca inspired a great reverence for both the strange creatures and the Sheol religion. For the next 30 years Szandor pushed his people to a somewhat more civilized state, even going so far as to create a colony on the shores west from Heol.

West of these developments were the unending civil wars of the Bodomen. Upon the sudden emergence of the Puca a great deal of the Sheol revolted against their masters, seeking to align themselves with the water spirits. However, the Sheol were met with responses ranging from outright hostility to sincere alliances. The Puca themselves lacked any uniformity, being dismayed to find themselves away from their 'Great River' and bound to the muddy-grey ones of Hos. Prominent figures have arisen, however, in the forms of Manfred and Bjornsling.

Manfred, also called Terror Mane, also called Dread Steed, has casually allied himself to a collection of vengeful Sheol who call themselves 'The Malcontent' and combine fanatical worship of the Puca with an equally fanatical desire to eradicate the Bodomen. Oddly enough, Bjornsling, the Puca who had saved the Sheol of Lof Yfel, has increasingly shown his favor towards a Bodo-Sheol alliance called "Sjelmar" after the Sheol catch-all term for the nature spirits of Hos. What normally would be a tenuous alliance is largely built upon mutual respect, though most of it coming from the Sheol half who have come to see the Bodomen as the nature spirits incarnate.

 

[nutranurse]

The Bladven & The Etet Swiech

Spoiler :

Far south of these warring man-thing and gnome-thing kingdoms is the unified realm of near-elf-things who call themselves the Bladven. Like the Malachim, the Bladven come from the great elf-thing empire that stood where the Sno mountains rose, though unlike the Malachim the Bladven were not haughty nobles, but the lowly workers upon which the great elf-thing society was created. When the great Kraw Eagles of the Sno Mountains began to pick off the elf-thing population the Bladven were among the first to migrate north and into the warm, wet lands of Centet, where they began to undergo their disturbing transformation.

There is no doubt that the first Bladven were not at all like the tall, froggish beings that populate eastern Centet, but more akin to their nobler elf-thing kin. For some reason the swamps bent the elf-thing physique, caused them to grow small claws and gills, sharp little teeth, and thick, curled lips around them. Fair elf-thing skin began to be anywhere from purple to green, and the sing-song voice of the elf-things became harsh croaks. Still, the Bladven prospered in their environment and mostly because of their disturbing transformations rather than in spite of them. Each new generation of Bladven was increasingly more frog-like than the last, though seemingly randomly a few Bladven are a shade more elf-thing than their brothers.

]
Above A Typical Bladven Of The Current Generation;
Within each generation are a few Bladven who are remarkably more elf-thing in appearance than frog,
these individuals are normally catapulted to the forefront of society and politics based on their appearances alone​

​

Keeping true to their productive heritage as artisans and laborers, the Bladven immediately set to building small towns that would summarily sink into the ground. Whole clans were wiped off as the earth seemingly opened up and ate them alive. The Bladven soon abandoned the inland parts of Centet to form their marine 'lilly-pad' villages kept up on stilts in the grey-blue waters of Centet Sea.

In truth, the villages sank due to the extensive underground burrows of a peoples who had been in Centet a century prior to the arrival of the Bladven: the Swiech. Swiech is something of a misnomer, as it simply means 'Rat' in the old man-thing Hulan tongue (the elf-things had no word for rat due to the absence of rodents from the impeccable elf-thing cities). Though the Swiech were once rats, they became a great pantheon of strange, twisted beings after the Pop, differing from region to region. The Etet Swiech that plagued the Bladven were smaller than the average Swiech, though much more intelligent and accustomed to the dark. In fact, they thrived in their underground homes, creating haphazard tunnels that spanned the greater part of the 'Strip'. However, they avoided the coasts solely due to the presence of the Nen'Guan, a snake-like mutant race which simply delighted in eating the Swiech.

The Bladven too considered their vermin neighbors a peculiar delicacy. The first contact between the Bladven and Swiech was a short and violent affair sparked by a clan of Swiech who dug their homes too close to the paltry farms kept by the Bladven (who prefer fish and seaweed). Quite simply the Bladven accidentally cut off the heads of the Swiech who poked up to see the source of the above-ground commotion, lumping the ugly little Swiech heads with the equally ugly tubers grown by the Bladven. Upon consuming the Swiech heads--raw, I might add, in fact the Bladven prefer their food alive--the Bladven farmers were greeted with an utterly invigorating experience not unlike the 'high' produced by potent narcotics. The Bladven quickly discovered their taste for blood and began to look inland for more sources, and upon returning to their former homes they found the Swiech pouring over the dilapidated ruins.

What ensued was a mass hunt that brought a unity to the scattered Bladven tribes that resulted in the first leagues. The Bladven, so caught up in their, literal, bloodlust saw other Bladven as potential competitors for Swiech blood and the leagues were formed around the creation of common hunting grounds shared by villages. The Bladven, quite correctly, thought that by forming these small unions they could deter other villages from poaching their rightful rat-men-things. The Bladven soon adopted their Swiech prey into other tribal uses, creating leather armor for Swiech skin, for instance, and using Swiech tails as decorative items. Trade sprang from the rat corpses and the hunting leagues transformed into merchant leagues headed by the richest, most successful hunting clans. Still, Swiech blood loomed large over all trade conducted by the Bladven and it became common to use vials of blood as an unofficial currency.

Depicted Above Are Three Bladven Attacking Their Defeated Sweich Prey;
By 400 A.F. the 'Reed Hunts', as the Bladven called them, became so intense that the Etet Swiech virtually disappeared from eastern Centet​

By 400 A.F. the Etet Swiech had been all but wiped out by the Bladven raids, leaving the near-elf-things in a plight akin to a junkie's. The scarcity of Swiech blood meant that hunting parties began to hunt other Bladven for the precious drops they horded. Leagues turned on other leagues, and occasionally in on themselves as lesser families long scorned by the more successful ones banded together against a perceived common enemy. In 405 A.F. the worst happened and Bladven began to consume Bladven blood, which yielded a similar high to Swiech blood, but resulted in the rapid degeneration of the user into monstrous creatures that escaped into the old Swiech tunnels.

Despite the horrific consequences of cannibalism Bladven consumed other Bladven in the name of their precious high. Beginning in 410 A.F. the Bladven entered the darkest period in their history called the 'Brood Wars', which would last until the rise of Agrota Pureblood in 435 A.F.. The prosperous trade leagues dismantled themselves and the a Bladven could only count upon his immediate family. Towns were left to sink into the Centet Sea as the Bladven moved further inland in desperate search of safety and Swiech.

In 433 A.F. a Bladven called Agrota happened upon the parcel his entire race was searching for: a Swiech Nest. On the eastern coasts of the Strip Agrota and his starving family found a thriving warren-colony of Swiech who had crossed the Etet Sea by way of boat. The colony was lead by a Swiech by the name of Mefi, a hard she-Swiech who greeted Agrota's clan with wary hospitality due to her unfamiliarity with the land. Unlike the short, black, subterranean species of Swiech native to the Strip, Mefi and her companions were much taller and had short fur ranging from white to brown to blue-black. Agrota clearly perceived that they were much more intelligent than the near-beast Swiech of the stip and so treated them as such, deferring to Mefi in all things to curry her favor.

The Muroid Explorer Mafi,
Among the Swiech-Muro Mafi's white fur was a mark of extreme nobility and purity, and her presence so far away from the Muroid royal court would have been indicative of political schemes at work​

From Mefi Agrota found that the Swiech were more numerous than previously thought. On an island across the Etet Sea the Swiech had rallied to the man-thing ruins left on the island's western plains, establishing their own ragged kingdom, called Muro, so as to better fend off the island's numerous horrors. The Swiech, however, knew that their days on the islands were numbered and with each year enemies closed in on Muroid lands. Her task was a simple one, find some place where her noble peoples could reestablish themselves, however all she saw in the Strip was a slow, muddy death.

The two grew so close that Mefi began to include Agrota as a member of her council, to the chagrin of the other Swiech-Muroids. He impressed upon her that the riches of Centet lay to the west, finally succeeding in his efforts in 438 A.F.. Mefi and her small army marched west, encountering broken Bladven families who fell in behind Agrota and breaking those who would not submit. By 440 A.F. the Bladven horde following Agrota was nearly twice the size of the Mefi's Swiech-Muroids.

Her kin voiced their concerns at the ways Agrota's followers regarded the Muroids, and even cited a few cases where the rat-men-things were forced into combat by Agrota's bolder elements. Mefi would have none of it, believing that in Agrota she had found a companion as honorable as herself and just as dedicated to the nobler ideas of comradery between warriors. Agrota attacked during the wet season later that year.

To the credit of Mefi and the other Swiech-Muroids they put up a fierce fight despite being disadvantaged by surprise, climate, and number. They did have the advantage of technology, for the Mefi found with weapons made from iron scavenged from man-thing ruins while the Bladven relied on stone, poison, and brute strength, but ultimately Mefi was defeated by her treacherous ally, though not before she plucked out his eye and escaped into the marshy forests.

Victorious, Agrota rounded up the surviving Swiech-Muroid to keep as chattel, distributing a few to the first families who had joined him as a gift for their loyalty. Over the next decade word of Agrota's victory spread, and more importantly word of the reappearance of Swiech spread ahead of that. Bladven families flocked to Agrota's banner and he founded the city of Groat upon the ruins of a former Bladven settlement, simultaneously establishing the Great League of Agrota.

Like previous Bladven polities, the Great League was run by a council of the wealthy nobility, unlike the previous Bladven polities Agrota was able to control who that nobility was through the strategic awarding of Swiech-Muroid slaves to those he favored. Without the Reed Hunts, Agrota alone was the source of Swiech blood. Rapidly the economy of the Bladven became dependent on the possession of Swiech-Muroid slaves kept as workers and food.

The Dohtel

Spoiler :

Separated from the affairs of the world, both pre and post-Pop, were the Dohtel elf-things. Prior to the End the Dohtel were widely regarded as half-mad mystics whose strange approach to magic often yielded strange results. Yet, the Dothel were also widely regarded as the best magicians known to any of the Hossian Empires. Kings, Queens, Emperors, and Empresses would humble themselves before the moon-eyed Dohtel magicians for the opportunity to employ one of these mighty arcanists. It is true that the pre-Pop Dohtel had solved a great many of wars by a wag of their finger that resulted in some sort of hellish punishment for the magician's target. I have heard the words of Dohtel Chanters despite the inconceivable distance of Hos from

. Pre-Pop Dohtel were as much beings of magic as they were beings, a fact which would ruin them utterly once magic went awry.

The Isle of Suisinas, the place where the Dohtel had always made their home, was torn to shreds by the magical backlash of the Collapse. More there than anywhere else the effect that magic-gone-wild had upon the land was felt. Whole cities vanished, forests were swallowed up into fire, Mountains crumbled and were rebuilt as bizarre monuments to beings whose visages were terrible to behold. Each part of Suisinas lies in places far from Hossian reckoning, and yet it is still on Hos.

The View Of The Sky From One Part Of Suisinas;
Daily the Dohtel have to relive the Collapse of the world. No sun sets on Suisinas--it explodes.​

The Dohtel fared no better than their island. Most Dohtel settlements were consumed by whatever alien beings inhabited that region of the island. Even those who thought themselves safe starved as their crops turned cannibal and consumed themselves. Magical winds wiped across the landscape, stripping flesh from bone and carrying off souls from bodies. At the center of the island only the glistening capital of Suin stood, and still stands today surrounded by wards that never failed, a testament to Dohtel skill, but instead changed.

No Dohtel live within Suin. Since the Collapse the walls that stood against so many attacks from greedy kings and queens now stand against twisted beasts whose power is immeasurable. The city seems to regard all living beings as enemies, making no distinction between a Dohtel child or a extraplanar horror; all simple crumble into dust upon drawing close enough. However, since 400 A.F. the wards have shown the signs of disrepair, randomly creating small pockets through which the Dohtel have been able to enter briefly before dying painful deaths. With each passing year the time it takes for this death to occur has been longer by whole minutes, creating a small hope for the otherwise broken people that they might regain their former selves.

A Typical Tribal Dohtel;
With the exception of attire and tattoos, the Dohtel are the only elf-thing race to have retained their elf-thing features with little to no alteration by the Collapse. Their bodies, however, age three times the rate of what they used to and the average Dohtel lifespan is just shy of 40 years.​

Yet, the Dohtel of today are a far cry from the great magicians of the past. No Dohtel since the End has worked magic, though it has continued to thrive within them. At birth a Dohtel is immediately assigned a caste, not by the society she is born into, but by the magic around them. Each Dohtel is born with an intricate series of tattoos on their arms and legs that reveals their place in life, covering all faucets necessary for a society to survive. The Dohtel are born to do whatever it is that they are born to do with such skill that the Dohtel not used the term for centuries. A farmer will always see his crops flourish; a warrior will always know his blade better than his mate; a king will always know how to inspire his people. Understandably, the Dohtel have completely stagnated due to the completely regimented structure of their society, but because of this they have flourished as a united people despite being beset by powers greater than they.

However, the tattoos have ceased appearing on the limbs of the current generation.

In the past decades 'Unmarked' youths have begun to rebel against their marked fore-bearers, splintering off from the Great Tribe and forming clans of their own. Unafraid of what awaits the, it is these small tribes that currently drive the Dohtel rediscovery of their land. Nominally they remain under the power of Soter XI, a hard old man of nearly 50, and answer to his call each year to reform the Great Tribe at the gates of Suin, but in truth Soter XI's power means nothing due to his lack of an heir.

The Orrachni, Berengei, Suth Swiech, & Kharlkallenal

Spoiler :

As irony would have it, mainland civilization was first recreated by the savage orc-things of the south. More than any creatures, the orc-things benefited from the Fall. Gone were the man, elf, and dwarf-thing kingdoms that harried the orc-things and kept them confined to the deepest parts of Kathraki. Gone too were many of the mental deficiencies that plauged pre-Pop orc-thing societies and the orc-things of Kathraki enjoyed something of a renaissance (though this is an anachronistic statement because the orc-things had no real culture to rediscover). Among the Orrachni in perticular was the prevalent belief that the End only effected the other races; to the orc-things it was an Awakening.

The early orc-things of the End found themselves confronting reason for the first time and from this confrontation came questions. Why were they here? Why in this jungle? Why did they kill? Many orc-things assuaged themselves with religion, attributing a higher purpose to the Fall and placing themselves as the chosen peoples of this new era. These tribes continued the history of violence that their ancestors mindlessly perpetuated, but now with the veneer of crusade painted over it.

The Orrachni were far less content and this was, perhaps, due to their own mutations hampering the traditional orc-thing lifestyle than helping it. The Orrachni grew a second set of arms, which normally would be a benefit to a warrior were it not for the fact that these arms sported cruel talons, not hands. Furthermore, the second set of arms threw off the Orrachni's dexterity, as the orc-thing body was not fashioned to have more than two arms. They did, however, possess incredible ability to climb the tall trees of the Kathraki Jungle, and the talons on their second arms secreted a mild poison that caused the paralyzing of an Orrachni's victim, but neither of these was enough to keep the stronger, more 'normal' orc-thing tribes at bay. For that reason the first Orrachni made their homes in the gigantic trees of the Kathraki jungles, far above most threats.

An Orrachni;
Of their four arms, only two are functional as arms proper, the other set bears poisonous talons that serve as climbing tools or weapons, which would make for a formidable race were it not for the lack of dexterity most Orrachni posses​

However, the Orrachni would eventually come to dominate their stronger orc-thing cousins due to the mobile lifestyles forced upon them by 'weakness'. Orrachni explorers were among the first things in Hos to make successful contact with other afflicted things, and perhaps most importantly make successful contact with the Suth Swiech.

Suth Swiech are unlike their northern cousins in almost every respect. They are small creatures with stark, white fur, long, wispy whiskers, and angry red eyes. Not frail like other Swiech, they are all muscle and fury and nearly twice as agile. What they do lack is the typical Swiech cunning. Orrachni explorers stumbled into the writhing warrens of the Suth Swiech who lived underneath the ruins of a great man-thing settlement on the edges of the Kathraki Jungles. The Suth Swiech eked out pitiful lives as hunter-gatherers in between their frequent infighting. For as long as the rat-men-things could remember no peace brokered lasted more than a few weeks before dissolving into territorial feuds.

A Suth Swiech In Customary Wooden Armor;
Note their difference in color and muscularity when compared to most other Swiech, also the small 'moustache' that all Swiech sport​

The Orrachni explorers were at first subject to the same hyper-violent treatment, but the four-armed orc-things eventually impressed the pitiful rat-men-things when the first 'Great Warlord' Zagrok Three Arm brought his tribe out of the jungles and into the man-thing ruins to take the unused, fertile plains for himself. In the ensuing battle Zagrok lost his arm, but earned his epithet and loyalty of a prominent Warrens-Lord by the name of Oktata, though the use of loyalty here assumes that the Suth Swiech had such a concept.

The flight of Zagrok's tribe was due to the fearsome presence of the Berengei in the same canopies that the Orrachni called home. Originally mountain dwelling apes the Berengei transformed into ape-things when the Pop caused them to mutate a dim intelligence and a second set of arms. However, unlike the Orrachni, the Berengei also grew tremendously in size to accommodate their extra appendages, though their intellect remained comparatively small. The giant ape-things found that the mountainous territory they once inhabited was too small to accommodate their entire number and so they began to migrate south, coming into contact with fledgling Orrachni tribes and utterly crushing them.

A Berengei Male;
Note that the long strands of 'hair' coming off a male Berengei's arms and back are in fact poisonous fungal spores. Females of their gargantuan species lack this trait.​

By 400 A.F. some Berengei had mutated beyond seeing the Orrachni as a lesser invasive species, but as lesser species to be enslaved. Over two bloody decades the Orrachni who did not flee their jungle homelands came under the power of Berengei overlords, which arguably benefited because of the protection the giant ape-things provided in exchange for equally large tributes. Zagrok was not the first to lead his the orc-things out of Kathraki, an earlier tribe fled under the leadership of a female orc-thing called Urzrah.

Urzrah moved through the Atil Mountains, where she encountered a host of horrific creatures I shall not spoil for you

.

The horrible creatures which are of interest dwell in the hills north of the Atil mountains.

Before the Fall the Sutut Desert was home to no empires, but many warring magician-princes who lorded over their host of bizarre affronts to creation. One such wizard was the dread-lord Gallazza, a gnome-thing practitioner of flesh manipulation. Gallazza's fascination with the meaty mortal form bordered fetishism and, in truth, many of the horrible meat-monsters that make their home in western Sutut are descendants of Gallazza's creations. Of all the monsters none held Gallazza's dubious praise more than the Kharlkallenal. The gnome-thing magician sought to recreate his small image by capturing the subjects of the more civilized kingdoms to the east and north and forcibly shrinking them to his stature. He failed utterly (sIZe EStrAnGemeNT iS an enTIREly DiffereNT aRt) and these subjects always died, but where he knew nothing of size-magics he had an intimate knowledge of necromancy. The dead flesh was pieced back together and in absence of a soul Gallazza provided his creations with bits of his own mind.

Here in lies the principal problem the Kharlkallenal faced when Urzrah found the shambling flesh golems. When the Fall resulted in the death of Gallazza, the Kharlkallenal lost their source of being, but gained a strange agency. Somehow magic sparked an independent will to live within the golems--but not independent thought, this would come later. Instead the Kharlkallenal were driven to maintain Gallazza's keep by the bits and pieces of Gallazza that remained in his monsters' minds. The rest of their minds were filled with the dumb impulses of the beasts they consumed in an effort to regenerate their flesh. As a Kharlkallenal aged its flesh began to sag off and so the flesh golem would be forced to consume more flesh to keep itself alive, but it also kept part of the creature it ate. Kharlkallenal never truly die and their numbers have remained the same since the Fall--in fact each 'generation' of Kharlkallenal is only marked by the 'purity' of the Kharlkallenal's mind.

As Gallazza created more and more Kharlkallenal he was forced to spread thin his mad mind, resulting in somewhat dumber flesh golems being 'born' closer to the Fall. Because of this the flesh golem society, if it can be called that, was stratified into those who Gallazza 'spoke' to and those who only heard his faint whispers. Upon Urzrah's discovery of the Kharlkallenal the elder flesh golems immediately ordered a great hunt to begin and the Orrachni refugees were captured and eaten down to the last orc-thing. The Orrachni did not die, however; though their bodies were consumed their minds remained intact.

Those Kharlkallenal who were more bestial due to their over consumption of dumb beasts suddenly found their minds blessed with Orrachni curiosity, intelligence, and thought. Those Orrachni who had 'heard' Gallazza found their minds split between Orrachni and Gallazza halves, each side trying to outdo the other all the while fighting back the savage impulses created by the animals they had eaten.

The Kharlkallenal society was then further stratified into those who were 'free' and possessed Orrachni thoughts and those who went mad due to the wars raging in their minds. The former group broke off and ventured into the deserts, lead by a Kharlkallenal who identified itself as Urzrah-Nu. The later remained in the mountain-keep of Gallazza, no longer maintaining it, but haunting its halls.

An Kharlkallenal & 'Orrakenal';
Following the 'Awakening' the Kharlkallenal split into two peoples, those who bore the minds of the Orrachni and those who bore the minds of both Orrachni & Gallazza.
Notice that the top creature is actually the more 'enlightened' of the two, though their bodies are more malformed than their older kin, their minds are capable of much more coherent thought.​

 

[nutranurse]

Map

Spoiler :

O (Circles) Cities
* (Asterisks/Explosions) Ruins

Overview
The Akkalik stand beset from within and without. The past generation was all but wiped out when The Melt took the minds of many young Akkalik-Dwarves, leading to King Addak II ending the monarchy and instituting a noble council of sorts with him as its head. The nobles are deeply divided on where the kingdom should go. They roughly fall into one of two camps: those who feel that war should be waged upon the Tabbuk to the south in order to reclaim the ruins of Ost; and those who feel that the 'Melted' who have fled into the mountains need to be eradicated.

The Akonai have coalesced into one Great Pack, but not out of any desire for unity. Over the past century or so they have been hunted by what they once hunted: the cursed Karinthian humans. Emboldened by their uncanny bond with the blood-steeds and armed with iron weapons not seen in the north since the Fall, the Karinthians have unified into an angry, small tribe and have successfully culled the once great and numerous Akonai packs. Now at the brink of extinction they are faced with internal qualms as the wolf-twins Obai and Ieuai seek to usher their people into a new era with spirituality instead of outright gluttony.

The Bladvenn have never experienced such unity in their lives since the emergence of Agorta and the creation of a great league that takes his namesake. With each month more and more Bladvenn come willingly to submit to the mighty Agorta, though not out of awe or reverence for the man, but out of desire for the Muroid-Swiech slaves he keeps.

The Dohtel have fallen far from their once great heights. 450 years since the Collapse, they have degenerated into a single tribe based near the empty city of Suin. Unlike the other races, magic did not abandon the Dohtel outright, instead it possessed them and left them with great strengths in narrow fields that has caused the rise of a highly regimented society. Yet, even this seems to be under attack due to the recent birth of 'unmarked' Dohtel who have no place in society, but all the skills needed to lead theirs into a new era.

The Hitash are mysterious beings with equally mysterious aims, though this opaque cloud is threatened by the sudden rebellion of 10 of their kind lead by the Ophanist-Convert Dmurth. Now a kingdom stands to the west of the Hitash homelands, a kingdom that is a 'union' between the avian Malachim near-Elves and Hitash outcasts who seek to perfect themselves and do away with the beast within them.

The Karinthians ride high atop their twisted blood-steeds. Once a sorry peoples beset by physical weakness, blade grass, and Akonai wolves, the Karinthians have experienced a surge of power due to the appearance of their four-armed prophet Laorth some 100 years ago. When Laorth died they splintered and some tribes went east, but a great shaman by the name of Syztos has arisen and united his peoples along the western shores of the Centet.

The Kharlkallenal are now cursed with madness and a war rages on in their minds between their bestial impulses, Gallazza's insane commands, and the pleas of the Orrachni they dined on. Some of the saner Kharlkallenal from the younger, more malformed 'generations' have split off and identify themselves as Orrachni-reborn. Lead by a Kharlkallenal who identifies herself as 'Urzrah' they have left for the River Senn.

The Malachim have had a history plagued with sorrow and misfortune, but for the first time in their history their current ill-state is a direct result of their own arrogance. When King Khadi cast out the rightful heir, Princess Nessa, he did not know she would return in a few years time with a small band of Hitash lizards capable of such violence his peoples has never seen before. With the help of these lizards Princess Nessa has sized the ancestral city of Malach and claimed queenship over all the Malachim peoples. However, many see her as apostate to their beliefs for bringing in such twisted beings as the Hitash and refused to submit to her authority, instead defecting to the usurper king and proclaiming him the true heir to Ophanim's legacy.

The Muroid-Swiech are beset by monsters horrible and unimaginable, but they are not our focus. Instead the plight of one female Muroid called Mefi draws our attention. Betrayed by her Bladvenn 'ally' Agorta, Mefi's small army of explorers has been utterly crushed and brought to new lows through enslavement. Mefi, however, escaped into the surrounding marshy forests and now plots her revenge.

The Orrachni and their Kathraki Orc-cousins were the first to bring civilization to mainland Hos after the Fall. Over the course of 400 years they built up numerous petty kingdoms, rediscovered even more technologies, and then watched it all fall at the gigantic hands of the Berengei. The Orrachni, more intelligent than most of their cousins, bore the brunt of Berengei oppression the most and almost 2/3's of their kind bow to ape-overlords. The rest of fled the jungles, and most prominent (and successful) of these migrant-tribes is a tribe lead by Zagrok. Based out of human ruins on the far east coast, Zagrok has created a 'United' tribe of Orrachni and Suth-Swiech, a virulent race of ratmen who compliment many of the Orrachni physical faults. How long this union lasts is anyone's guess.

The Puca are water-spirits from an entirely different plane, carried into Hos by the magical 'turbulence' created by the Fall. Stranded, the Puca have gone half-mad, rendering them unpredictable enemies and allies to the river-dwelling peoples in the Bodolands. When the region went to war with itself (not coincidentally at the same time as the Puca appeared in this plane) so did the Puca, and they now stand more independent of the 'Herd' than ever before.

The Sheol have been liberated from their Bodomen masters as a result of the Bodo Civil War. Some, such as the Malcontent, seek to eradicate the Bodomen once and for all, while others, such as the Sheol of Sjelmar, identify the Bodomen as the animal spirits they worship and continue to submit. The Sheol of what once was Lof Yfel, however, have done what no other Sheol has done for known history and created their own realm called Heol and lead by the charismatic bandit-king Szandor LaVey. LaVey, a great warrior and statesman in his own right, single handedly united the fearful clans that had forcibly been brought to the region west of the Bodolands. Though much more land and clans wait to be conquered, Szandor can confidently claim to have created the most united polity on the current world-stage.

The Suth-Swiech have never known peace this long. Specifically the Suth-Swiech of Kanarka, but others of the violent rat-men have heard rumors of the great Chieftain Zagrok Three Arms that has managed to quell many of his rat-subject's arguments. Some chafe under Orrachni rule, remembering the turbulence of their old lives with nostalgia; others, those younger Suth-Swiech being born in warrens without war, see the Orrachni as friends, even kin. Still, the violent urges of the Suth-Swiech press them to clamor for something to do.

 

[merciary]

OOC: So das it looks like I have to kill you now.

Edit: Great update by the way.

 

[nutranurse]

ooc: Don't forget that you can also undermine Frozen In Ice as the Suth-Swiech!

Once stats and the front page in general is in order I'll explain your positions in clearer terms if the story did not do a decent job of giving you all an idea (actually a "WHERE YOU ALL STAND" overview at the end is not a bad idea for future updates...). And feel free to ask any questions!

Rest assured future updates will be much more structured. I kind of did a mapcap cover-everything-possible approach to Update 0 because I have to explain why there are races of blood-junkie super elf-toads and mind melting meat golems, let alone connecting the two in a somewhat coherent lore!

 

[Frozen In Ice]

Which Orc settlement is which from the story? I don't believe it ever said. Other than that, nice update! I see you are making things difficult for my poor Orrachni though.

 

[nutranurse]

The Freed Orrakenal is red on the map, they are the flesh-golems that are possessed by the minds of the Orrachni lead by Urzrah.

The United Kanarka are the Orrachni lead by Zagrok who have settled in former human ruins and live alongside the Suth Swiech lead by Okata.

And yeah, sorry if things are a bit harsh for you :~C, but you shared a jungle with behemoth semi-intelligent four-armed apes.

 

[Adrogans]

Harsh?! The Dohtel have forgotten what night is

 

[bestshot9]

Awesome update, F_I_I, we need to collaborate on some stories here, man.