In what is now to be known as the First Canticle - formerly Year 347 of the Seventh Aeon - mankind's sins rose up as if to swallow him. War set fire to the Known World, terrible beasts swarmed from the jungles of its edges to devour his most ambitious holdings, and in the kingdom of Yachiel, ruled by the city of Dais at the world's strong center, a black flower of corruption took root and then blossomed. Men gave themselves over to unnatural pleasures - astrology, meditation, the seeking of visions, taking council with unclean spirits - and grotesque arts and theatre, and in this way Dais turned its eyes from the world, as it burned and was ravaged, and those wisest gathered in its defiled universities to whisper that all was lost.
But God had not turned Her eyes from the Known World, though it had rejected Her long ago, and She sent Her angels to save us.
Rejoice! In our blackest hour She smote the Black Flower of Dais and burned it clean with Her light - and though the city was destroyed, its people were saved! Reborn as Blessing, the City-upon-the-Altar, it has been made beautiful, pure, and a refuge for all Her wayward children, wicked or unworthy though they be. Now Her Blessing flows forth to blanket the Known World! Her angels soar to do Her work, raising men and women of good heart to an incredible holiness, charging them to strike back against the darkness and bring Her light to this awful world. They offer peace, freedom, and strength to us all without let or lien, asking only that we keep the least of Her graces:
Do not raise thine eyes to the stars.
Let not thy mind be empty; let not thy flesh fall idle.
Seek out no false truth, no false future.
Never must thou take council with an unclean spirit...
But God had not turned Her eyes from the Known World, though it had rejected Her long ago, and She sent Her angels to save us.
Rejoice! In our blackest hour She smote the Black Flower of Dais and burned it clean with Her light - and though the city was destroyed, its people were saved! Reborn as Blessing, the City-upon-the-Altar, it has been made beautiful, pure, and a refuge for all Her wayward children, wicked or unworthy though they be. Now Her Blessing flows forth to blanket the Known World! Her angels soar to do Her work, raising men and women of good heart to an incredible holiness, charging them to strike back against the darkness and bring Her light to this awful world. They offer peace, freedom, and strength to us all without let or lien, asking only that we keep the least of Her graces:
Do not raise thine eyes to the stars.
Let not thy mind be empty; let not thy flesh fall idle.
Seek out no false truth, no false future.
Never must thou take council with an unclean spirit...
Here we go! First and foremost, I'd recommend reading the Interest Check here, which contains a lot of helpful information about the setting and aesthetics. If this sounds like the right game for you, consider hitting up the Discord so you can workshop your character with me and with others, discuss and share ideas, and start building connections with prospective fellow players. Raring to go? Awesome! Here's what you need to know:
The Beginning
Elatreis, the Wolf-Haunted Kingdom, one of the surviving Eight Nations - a land of sprawling forested hills and recessed and rumor-shadowed noble estates, boasting many market towns but only one true city: Silver Spear, home to the royal seat of Elatreis, where rule Queen Isande and her two consorts, the Dueling Kings Ixil and Rajara. Here the trade of four nations - once more - passes beneath the watchful eyes of a small army of fanatic officials and through the teeth of the thousand-and-one trade laws of Elatreis. Here the walls stand tall and strong, mounted by six great ballistae at key junctions, and the war seems very far away - at least physically; whispers are everywhere regarding the Queen's efforts to procure a weapon great enough to repulse the angel Quoliel, who even now stalks Elatreis' borders and tests its legendary Great Hunt legion for weakness. Here...you have been led and now kept by signs in the stars and the low thrum of an earthbound scream gone unheard for half a hundred thousand years.
Every god and witch in the city can feel that something is wrong, something is changing, but only you, as sorcerers, can feel something more floating plague-like on the evening breeze: power. Opportunity. Destiny? Within the walls of the city, the omens are obvious, almost overpowering in their efforts to lead you to the undercroft of Silver Spear's immense Verimos Cathedral, where are interred the bones of the six hunter-saints who slew the behemoth Stonefur and founded Elatreis. It is the First Festival, a grand celebration of exactly that fundamental event, and above the city sings, sweats, and dances in a stylized re-telling of that mighty deed. You and those like you have gathered in the dark - a gathering of the sort not seen in an age. A sorcerer's gathering.
Elatreis is a divided, wild kingdom where the noble class holds tremendous strength and freedom and the royal seat is primarily a mercantile power, rather than a military one. True to its name, its vast forests are dangerous places home to Elatreian wolves - huge creatures interbred long ago with beasts from beyond the Edge of the World, possessed of singular cunning and appetite. Its guerilla-like legions contend with woodsbeasts, bandits, overtly rebellious or corrupt nobles (usually with the tacit support of other noble estates) and it's dotted with hidden villages, market towns, and clandestine fey revels. The gods are powerful here, and before She came, Elatreis was harshest and least forgiving of all nations when it came to practitioners of sorcery - a sentence of death, carried out by its famously vicious Shadowcatcher legion. Since the beginning of the time some are now calling Apocalypse, those restrictions have been relaxed, and any sorcerer willing to aid the war effort is offered letters of marque by the royal seat itself.
Are you a native of this ferocious land, or did you come to it to disappear? Are you a refugee seeking shelter, fleeing the fires of God, or an outlander seeking asylum, fleeing a fate entirely of your own making? Perhaps you survived Quoliel's last sortie, and are among those few survivors come to the city to report the near-total loss of the Great Hunt legion. Do you imagine your passage through Silver Spear to have been entirely coincidental, or did strange events already alert you to some guiding hand ushering you towards the city? How is that you come to be here and now, at the heart of the fate of the Known World?
The Character Sheet