“
Do you hear that?

The salt-strewn melodies that blow from the MoghraÝi through the canyons and the hills of yore? That is Qud calling on us for change. For an end to the discord and madness that has plagued us since the death of the Final Sultan. Tonight’s discussion involves a menagerie of delegations from all across Qud but I would rather have strife in our discussions than contentment.

This is no time for safety. It is time for progress, to remove these fulcrete foundations and don chrome, my kin.

It is on the first and last day of the incipient Ut Yara Ux that I hereby charge the Fellowship of Wardens with the following:

To safeguard the citizenry of Qud from neér do wells.

To seek out and destroy threats to the sanctity of our burgeoning civilization.

To maintain a solemn vigil until we return to rust.

Thus, with great hope in my twin hearts, this first Warden’s Moot is adjourned.

“

Adjucant Warden Ionas Medjay








It is the 14th of Tishuru Ut Ux and Qud wakens. You arrive on the summit of Gamma Rock, deep within the rolling karsts of Qud’s mountain canyons. Even this far west from the wasteless white plains of the Moghra’Yi, you could feel its brine laden winds sting your skin. The Spindle towers to the east as you turn your head, beautiful in its seeming improbability as it reaches past the azure firmament.

It is a common saying in Gamma Rock that one dies of thirst before justice is served. You wait in a motley throng of impatient individuals, all itching to make their case with the Council. As time passes by, imid greetings and shouts of blustered conversations in twisted tongues hazily filter past your mind like marsh mirages. The trio of dromad merchants in front of you converses excitedly amongst themselves about weep ownership and debt voiding whilst the Mechanimist priest behind you murmurs a prayer to Dagon the Orator. Most scholars would say that trivialities such as these are eminent signs of change in Qud, that the bygone days of anarchiac tribalism have finally fossilized into the shale below as a part of one of the many layers of Qud’s history.

You believe it’s just bureaucratic mishandling at best and long for Qud’s traditions of trial by combat to return if Reseph hadn’t dissolved the Sultanate all those eons ago.
When you finally reach the front of the line, you are met with two statues standing shoulder to shoulder in front of a gaping dark cave. Well, from an outsider’s perspective. The arms of the statues begin to move precipitously and you inwardly cringe at the grinding of stone on stone, like a miniature landslide. The crags mensch of Bethesda Susa raise out their mountainous hands to halt your advance and you stop, not out of respect for law-abiding authority, but out of fear of getting crushed to a greasy smear by a hundred and twenty tons of shale and marble.

You hear shouts of disagreement and noises of gavels ringing on rock before silence reigns. You make out a hunched figure leaving the cavern, an individual swathed in an oversized trenchcoat and a floppy brimmed hat with a dawnglider tail feather poking through the rim. They give you a look-over before passing by you. One of the makes a passable attempt at speaking at the rhythm of a smith’s carbide folding hammer.

“ YOU MAY ENTER. LIVE AND DRINK.”

The cragsmench nods and lets you walk past into the yawning mouth of the cavern. Shivers invade your skin as the frost-ridden air of the cave invades your senses, suffusing your mind with the stink of stone. You huddle as the temperature becomes treacherously more frigid and the entrance becomes fleetingly more dim and dim. You are now in the heart of the underground, the ancient earth humming underneath your footfalls.

Then, light. Overwhelming. It nearly blinds you. You blink the dots out and then, see six figures surrounding you on a dias, each illuminated by a glowsphere next to their shoulders. The figure in front of you, a mottled yellow cactus, wraps one of its roots around a obsidian staff and taps against his seat six times to get your attention.

“ Rise, Warden.” You don’t hear it as much as you feel the embrace of the Warden Elder telepathically wrap around your mind. You obey his command and stand resolute, awaiting their judgement.

“ Councillors.” The cactus now speaks in a slow, echoing cadence, the air shimmering in front of him as he manipulates it telekinetically to mimic sound. “ A neophyte is amongst us. One that would give their life for the safety of Qud. We have heard your requests, young one, and after much deliberating, we have decided to grant you this honour of joining our fellowship. But we must hear your oaths.”

The cactus pauses, letting the gravitas of the moment sink before continuing.

“ Do you swear to defend the citizenry of Qud?”

“ I do.”

“ Do you swear to maintain vigil over your station and only your station?”

“ I do.”

“ Do you swear not to consort with those who might return us to the dark days of the Injunction or ruin us to the Shattered Age once more?”

“ I do.”

“ Then, by the light of the Beetle Moon and the shade of the Salt Sun, you are decreed as Warden Neophyte. Rise, Warden….”



CHOOSE ONE

[X] - You are Warden HONK HONK, a chimeric mutant hybrid of an extinct species of waterfowl and a humanoid being patrolling the salt marshes as an eccentric vigilante.

[X] - You are Warden Cloroh Tistle The XII, an escaped orchid heir to one of the many merchant families of the Consortium of Phyta.

[X] - You are Warden Tishum Ave, formerly a True Kin galevane of the Sky Temples of O’aris and now cartographer on assignment in these tainted grounds of Qud.