Niflheim, the Guide for the RP Serie.

[FenrirRage]

“Welcome you all, to this magical world of ours… I’m your host for tonight, Shal, head-librarian of the royal family. So, you want to enlighten yourself with knowledge about our world? Or are you merely filled with curiosity about the arts of magic? You’re interested in the ideology of our race? Mythology that was written down ages ago? I’d be glad to help you out with all your questions and needs...”
~ Shal

"The land of Niflheim was barren, and the Gods weren’t fond of the empty plains, lacking both fauna and flora. Thus, they created, they pulled at the land, creating the mountains in the North. They punched the land, creating a hole big and deep enough to hold an ocean. They sacrificed a bit of their breath, creating the winds that blew through the trees they put down. They shaped a source of light, and a source of darkness, creating balance between the two.

Yet they wanted something different, they wanted something to look at, to play with, thus they created the Humans. In image of themselves, they shaped them, given them their appearance and their own will and mind. They bestowed them the gift of creation, giving them the ability to build and craft.

The Humans were smart, and created cities and villages to shelter in, to live together in harmony. The Gods watched them every day, happy about their creations, until the youngest God; Tihm, went down to land to play with them. He taught the Humans how to control the energy around them, giving them the ability to use Magic. The Humans, as glad as they could be, started to test their strengths, actually killing the God in the process by draining him off his essence and throwing it into the air of Niflheim.

Outraged were the other Gods, their disgusted huffs strengthening the northern winds, their cold stares making the winters harsher and longer. They didn’t completely strip the Humans of their ability to use Magic, but changed the essence of it, making it so they could only guide the energy, and not completely take control of it. After that, they left the Humans, leaving them on their own.

The Humans, now that their Gods were gone due to the use of Magic, grew suspicious of the powers handed to them by Tihm, making sure it would only be used under strongly controlled supervision. This sparked outrage among many of the Humans, causing them to revolt against each other, causing difference to appear in their bodies and soul as they moved away from each other...

That is why the Humans are considered different when they’re from another region."

"Whereas many fables of the Human Kingdom are based upon the stories of the Gods, there is one story which stands out among them, the story about the Second King, who was considered both the greatest, as well as the most disturbing of all the Kings Niflheim had.
The reason for the latter was simple, the older he grew, the more maddening he became, shunning not only many of his loyal followers but also his family in his last days of being alive. Many people blamed the King’s latest joker, who in a short period, became rather close to the old man.

At the amazing age of 89, the King ordered his tailors to create a new coat for him. However, he was never happy with the pieces of clothing they gave him, angered he ordered them to work till they could give him a coat that would suit his desires. So they worked, for weeks on end, until blood was shed from their fingers.
They weaved on, blood coating and drenching the string they used, until they handed him a beautifully coat, red as the liquid they spent on it. The King, realizing that no one could get a coat like that, and prideful as he was he wore it with no shame.

The tailors, angered at their King’s pride, got confronted by a sorcerer who overheard the story about the coat. The sorcerer confronted the King in his throne room, not even bothering commending him with his wise words, but instead punishing the old man for his ‘sins’. The sorcerer imbued the King’s coat with his magic, altering it until the coat itself became invisible.

Enraged, the King sent out the Execution Force to deal with the man, hanging him as an example, to show the people what would happen when they’d oppose their leader. The coat, nowadays unable to be found, is said to be in the possession of the royal family up until this very day."

Throughout the years, Niflheimic people experimented among themselves with the Arts of Magic. Never able to reach perfection, never able to truly control, those hungry for power began to look for way to obtain such powers. However, Magic by itself, is too fluctuant, too strong to contain. As Niflheim experienced, quite a few times.

It was a young man, a scholar, whose knowledge of the Arts, was known in all the directions of the wind. His life was that of a normal man, he had a wife and a son who would grow up learning like he would.

As winter came on the man’s 30^th year of living, he was spending the night like every other one. Dancing, in the grass, trampling the little bit of life underneath his bare feet as he moved around his magic. The small ‘living’, sparkling bits of energy he collected from the area and moved around with his hands in the fashion of a true art. He was perhaps, one of the few people, true to the art he practiced. Seeing beauty in it instead of practical use and strength.

From the shadows of the trees, of the woods he lived in, a spectre moved up to him. A charming man, as the story goes, who moved with the elegance of a professional dancer. His footsteps not making a single sound on the half-frozen bits of grass. Leaving not even behind a footprint, as he moved closer to the other dancer. They shared no words, no surprise, in each other they saw a match.

The sparks of magic, flew through the air, and while both were quite adapt, the charmer’s magic looked different. In ways, his magic didn’t move like he did, but as he wanted, it didn’t dance along with his movements, but with him as a partner. He didn’t guide it, they guided each other. The dance grew in pace, a beat of competition.

Thus the magic clashed, with the charmer’s magic quickly overpowering that of the simple man, like an animal it lashed out at what the man guided towards him. As if it reacted on it’s own command. When the dance stopped, the man realized his defeat, and his pride was hurt. Even after the dance no words were spoken, but the man felt frustrated. Frustrated that his beloved art wasn’t enough to beat that of the other.

They left each other, and each night he danced, alone, hoping that the spectre of a man would once again appear before him. Frustrated, the dancer started to bend the magic around him, make it succumb to his will. His will was powerful enough, since he vowed to defeat the spectre once he would come back. As magic succumbed however, it acted as a parasite, devouring the one who dared call it their host. Magic, is after all ‘living’.

He danced every night, every waking minute he couldn’t stop thinking about how to perfect his art. The man stopped eating, stopped drinking, he lost the will to sleep, lost the will to love those close to him. Like the magic he controlled, he only felt the need to move. Was he in essence not dead? Yet he felt ever so alive, when he found a challenge in his simple life. Which was the only thing he wanted, to be challenged.

Like the spectre had done to him, he appeared before people he deemed worthy, duelled them with his art to prove he was the very best in his art. That he was the essence of magic, unbeaten by those mere people he fought, unlike him, they never had the will to make him succumb like he had. He hungered, like a starving beast, to perfect himself.

In his eyes, he could see the magic he controlled, he could move it, bend it with the mere tips of his fingers. Thus he questioned himself, how it could be, what could be the strength in him, in that charmer, which gave them control? They were now only an embodiment of magic, a host living with his parasites. Therefor only they could’ve possessed strength, an essence that connected them both with the magic.

Blood, the essence of life. He decided that in a revelation, that it was the strongest substance to overpower magic, and that everyone contained magic to control it. For the experts on the Arts of Magic, such a theory was quite uncanny. The results of the man’s slaughter following his revelation were far more disturbing. Not only did he now defeat one he ‘duelled’, he out-right mauled them to dead with his bare hands. To drain them from their ability to control magic, cause they in his eyes unworthy.

Murdering for the perfection of his art, to understand it, to be it... The man lost his touch with his humanity, due to his pride and envy of another man. Just due to that, his fame grew across the land, his theories got wide-spread...

And what happened to the man? As proficient he was with magic, a blade through his neck still took his life away from him. However, his ways did show something fearful to the people of Niflheim, that one could obtain such powers with devotion...
That magic works in ways incomprehensible...


The charmer, was never heard from.

“When one enters the northern wastes of Niflheim, the tall, sharp-peaked mountains covered with layers of snow aren’t the only things standing out. The men and women, who after many years adapted from their other counter-parts, have grown much more accustomed to the harsh environment.

Often a lot taller, and with increased muscularity, the Nordics are considered a somewhat ‘barbarian’ version of the Human race. While they share the same traits of intelligence, they’re often just found using their sheer strength, agility and survival instincts to hunt and collect goods required for survival.

Most of them even began to neglect the art of Magic throughout the years, only leaving very few people called ‘Shamans’ around, who guide the energy of the ‘Mother’ around to communicate with the dead and the animals, Magic which can be both as warm and kind as a summer breeze, but cold as the ice that covers the foot of the mountains around their small villages. Their understanding of the elements and the cycle of life and death has given them a much more calm and collected view upon the world.

On the other hand, the Nordics are feared for their natural strength and endurance, as their small bands of soldiers are often far more capable to survive and fight, than soldiers of the Royal Empire with years of training on their name...

Whereas many cities of Niflheim are known for something prestigious or the housing of a royal family, Resl holds neither of those privileges. It’s more or less known as known as an absolute hell-hole.

While a city known for his harbours at first, Resl turned into a city where one could find all the means and goods he desired. Ever since the ‘darker’ side of the city grew, the people who ruled the place were slowly forced to back out of the city.

Whether one is looking for a ‘good’ time, the various mind-numbing, or body-numbing herbs, weaponry or flasks which hold liquids that could change the drinker’s appearance or personality.

And what happens to those who own money to those who actually run the place nowadays? They either disappear, or are tied to a pole in the harsh sun as an example for the others.
Or worse…