Domain: Night. The night is when the shadow of Galbar envelops the world in its darkness, calling for the walkers of the day to rest and the creatures of the night to hunt. It is both a time of magnificent beauty and terrible fear, and Gibbou doesn’t shy away from neither the calm, tranquil aspects of the star-speckled sky and the bright, white moon, nor the cruel, uncaring thirst of the beasts in the shadows, but embraces them both in a duality of peace and terror. Her power appoints her to the guardian of peace when her sister Oraelia descends beyond the horizon, safeguarding life so it may grow the next day, and she keeps a watchful eye over the world, ready to punish those who disrespect the law of night’s peace.
Gibbou’s powers allow her more easily to shape and influence creatures of the night, offering blessings such as better eyes in the darkness, or curses such as restlessness. She is generally more powerful at night and much weaker during the day.
Portfolio: Moon. Gibbou is goddess of the moon, or (possibly) moons. The moon is an object of beauty, reflection, admiration and tranquility, lighting up the night for its denizens and offering mortality inspiration for art and thought. The moon’s light functions as a beacon for the fearful and lost, and Gibbou wishes for all who see it to feel safe and peaceful within. Her innate knowledge of celestial objects also grants her great power of influence over objects orbiting Galbar, as well as the creation of these objects. Finally, the moon’s mighty pull on Galbar’s oceans and seas grants Gibbou control over tidal forces.
All these powers, however, ebb and flow with the phases of the moon, being strongest when it’s full and weakest when it’s new.
Their Realm: The Dark Side of the Moon. Gibbou’s home is in a place where even her sister’s light cannot reach. It is a place of eternal night, where the only light to be found is the dim glow of Gibbou’s bioluminescent plants and fungi, which form a great, humid forest here, or the wild eyes of whatever nocturnal beasts may be lurking. Here, various blind animals, fish and insects all roam about as they would on Galbar, rather content about life in a world without vision. At the centre of the woods lies a villa (though one wouldn’t be able to tell by looking - rather, perhaps, by walking into it.). This is Gibbou’s house, a place where she rests during the day and keeps various adopted animals and mortals in eternal, peaceful sleep. Whether these creatures are at her estate willingly, is a question for another time.
Persona: For the most part, Gibbou is a calm and peaceful character, deeply fond of meditation and pondering the great questions of the universe. She enjoys the company of other gods, and frequently goes out of her way to reach out to others to socialise under the stars. She adores all manner of life and keeps a number of gardens in her realm where she grows vibrant fungi and bioluminescent plants. She also adores bats.
Gibbou’s mission, as agreed between her and Oraelia, is to safeguard through the night the life the Sun has provided life to during the day. While Gibbou is generally sweet and gentle in her manners, she puts on a strict, grim visage in the night, seeing herself as a chosen guardian over life from the wickedness lurking in the dark. Because of this, she tends to look upon all non-nocturnal animals who walk out in the night with great suspicion, though it’s not always easy to see the nature of criminals and murderers in the dark.
Much less when one’s observing all the way from the moon.
Base Form:
Gibbou’s base form is humanoid, standing 182cm tall with skin as blue as the twilight sky. Hidden under a mass of dark blue hair appears a smooth, shadowed face with eyes pupiled with moonlight. Her forehead sports a white waxing crescent, down from which runs a bright line which splits into two halfway down her nose and follows her cheekbones into her mass of hair. A similar line begins on her lower lip and traces her chin down her throat, connecting to an array of symbols and lines covering the rest of her dark blue form. She smells vaguely of a chilly evening in the forest.
For clothing, Gibbou wears a long-sleeved overshirt and long trousers, both spun with threads of the blackest night and speckled with lights like the starry sky. Around her head, she dons a crescent crown similar to that of an laurel crown, only fashioned in the light of the moon. She usually wears a small smile, contrasted somewhat by a slight chill to her skin, not quite unlike one one would feel on an evening stroll.
Domain Form: Perhaps ironically, Gibbou’s domain form symbolises everything cruel and wicked about the night. Taken in order to deter aggressors against herself or that which she holds dear, it is the emptiness of a black night, taken by momentarily snuffing out every other source of light except for two burning orbs like bleeding moons, staring her targets down. Gibbou can choose how much she wants to dim the lighting around her, and its effect can in many ways be countered by other gods’ powers.
Avatar: Twilight.
Twilight remembers very little of who he once was. He know he once was something else than the messenger of Gibbou - however, he finds it immensely difficult to remember anything from before he was taken from his home and left to rest at Gibbou’s villa for an eternity - or perhaps not even a minute. All he knows now that he's been awoken and given a divine task, is that he has no intention of completing said task. No matter how much Gibbou requests Twilight to listen to her, he rarely complies, preferring instead to catch up on all the things he missed while he was asleep.
Twilight's well adapted for life in both light and dark, but prefers the night as his eyes never seem to properly adjust to the rays of the sun. He takes the form of a human male, standing 172 centimetres tall in a lean, yet somewhat well-trained body. His clothing is shabby and rough, and basically nothing about him gives off any manner of divine aura, with the possible exception of his uncannily bright blue eyes.
Interested af! Character sheet'll be coming soon, with goddess of cold and snow! Edit: Here she is!
Edit2: Changed completely and capped Night(Moon)!
Gibbou
Primordial.
Domain: Night. The night is when the shadow of Galbar envelops the world in its darkness, calling for the walkers of the day to rest and the creatures of the night to hunt. It is both a time of magnificent beauty and terrible fear, and Gibbou doesn’t shy away from neither the calm, tranquil aspects of the star-speckled sky and the bright, white moon, nor the cruel, uncaring thirst of the beasts in the shadows, but embraces them both in a duality of peace and terror. Her power appoints her to the guardian of peace when her sister Oraelia descends beyond the horizon, safeguarding life so it may grow the next day, and she keeps a watchful eye over the world, ready to punish those who disrespect the law of night’s peace.
Gibbou’s powers allow her more easily to shape and influence creatures of the night, offering blessings such as better eyes in the darkness, or curses such as restlessness. She is generally more powerful at night and much weaker during the day.
Portfolio: Moon. Gibbou is goddess of the moon, or (possibly) moons. The moon is an object of beauty, reflection, admiration and tranquility, lighting up the night for its denizens and offering mortality inspiration for art and thought. The moon’s light functions as a beacon for the fearful and lost, and Gibbou wishes for all who see it to feel safe and peaceful within. Her innate knowledge of celestial objects also grants her great power of influence over objects orbiting Galbar, as well as the creation of these objects. Finally, the moon’s mighty pull on Galbar’s oceans and seas grants Gibbou control over tidal forces.
All these powers, however, ebb and flow with the phases of the moon, being strongest when it’s full and weakest when it’s new.
Their Realm: The Dark Side of the Moon. Gibbou’s home is in a place where even her sister’s light cannot reach. It is a place of eternal night, where the only light to be found is the dim glow of Gibbou’s bioluminescent plants and fungi, which form a great, humid forest here, or the wild eyes of whatever nocturnal beasts may be lurking. Here, various blind animals, fish and insects all roam about as they would on Galbar, rather content about life in a world without vision. At the centre of the woods lies a villa (though one wouldn’t be able to tell by looking - rather, perhaps, by walking into it.). This is Gibbou’s house, a place where she rests during the day and keeps various adopted animals and mortals in eternal, peaceful sleep. Whether these creatures are at her estate willingly, is a question for another time.
Persona: For the most part, Gibbou is a calm and peaceful character, deeply fond of meditation and pondering the great questions of the universe. She enjoys the company of other gods, and frequently goes out of her way to reach out to others to socialise under the stars. She adores all manner of life and keeps a number of gardens in her realm where she grows vibrant fungi and bioluminescent plants. She also adores bats.
Gibbou’s mission, as agreed between her and Oraelia, is to safeguard through the night the life the Sun has provided life to during the day. While Gibbou is generally sweet and gentle in her manners, she puts on a strict, grim visage in the night, seeing herself as a chosen guardian over life from the wickedness lurking in the dark. Because of this, she tends to look upon all non-nocturnal animals who walk out in the night with great suspicion, though it’s not always easy to see the nature of criminals and murderers in the dark.
Much less when one’s observing all the way from the moon.
Base Form:
Gibbou’s base form is humanoid, standing 182cm tall with skin as blue as the twilight sky. Hidden under a mass of dark blue hair appears a smooth, shadowed face with eyes pupiled with moonlight. Her forehead sports a white waxing crescent, down from which runs a bright line which splits into two halfway down her nose and follows her cheekbones into her mass of hair. A similar line begins on her lower lip and traces her chin down her throat, connecting to an array of symbols and lines covering the rest of her dark blue form. She smells vaguely of a chilly evening in the forest.
For clothing, Gibbou wears a long dress spun from the black of the night sky. It hangs loosely around her body, similar to a chiton covered by a peplos. Around her head, she dons a crescent crown similar to that of an laurel crown, only fashioned in the light of the moon. She usually wears a small smile, contrasted somewhat by a slight chill to her skin, not quite unlike one one would feel on an evening stroll.
Domain Form: Perhaps ironically, Gibbou’s domain form symbolises everything cruel and wicked about the night. Taken in order to deter aggressors against herself or that which she holds dear, it is the emptiness of a black night, taken by momentarily snuffing out every other source of light except for two burning orbs like bleeding moons, staring her targets down. Gibbou can choose how much she wants to dim the lighting around her, and its effect can in many ways be countered by other gods’ powers.
Avatar: Twillight.
Twilight remembers very little of who he once was. He know he once was something else than the messenger of Gibbou - however, he finds it immensely difficult to remember anything from before he was taken from his home and left to rest at Gibbou’s villa for an eternity - or perhaps not even a minute. All he knows now that he's been awoken and given a divine task, is that he has no intention of completing said task. No matter how much Gibbou requests Twilight to listen to her, he rarely complies, preferring instead to catch up on all the things he missed while he was asleep.
Twilight's well adapted for life in both light and dark, but prefers the night as his eyes never seem to properly adjust to the rays of the sun. He takes the form of a human male, standing 172 centimetres tall in a lean, yet somewhat well-trained body. His clothing is shabby and rough, and basically nothing about him gives off any manner of divine aura, with the possible exception of his uncannily bright blue eyes.
Shin-Nihon (Sage 2), Sage System, Raygon Space Inner Sector.
Shimazu Conglomerate Headquarters.
Main dojo.
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Rank: Captain of the Seiryu family, patriarch of the Kazegami family.
Workplace: Kazegami Family Headquarters.
It had been a while since the whole clan had gathered. The main dojo of the Shimazu Clan headquarters was large, sure, but it could only barely fit all two hundred leaders, let alone their second-in-command officer staff. Kazegami had been lucky to make it inside to stand squeezed between the officer ranks behind his boss, Okita Seiryu, who, like the rest of the high-ranking officers, had been given space to sit in the characteristic seiza position. Tables had been set before them on the tatami mat floor in four grid-like rows facing towards the room centre, upon which were neatly placed plates of charcoal-grilled, marinated fish upon a small mound of white rice. Hot sake had been provided in tiny clay flasks, presented with small cups for corks. Kazegami felt immense envy bubble in his belly at the sight of the meal - him and his colleagues had been told to eat before they came, and had settled for Mr. Zentenzai’s abhorrent protein paste karaage.
Heavens, he could still taste the recycled cooking oil. It had been a cheap meal, sure, but no amount of saving was ever worth this sort of garbage. Could never tell him, ‘course - mr. Zentenzai’d helped his boys out numerous times when the gutter was the only place to call home. That sewage-like excuse for food had its nostalgic merits in the end, his train of thought eventually admitted.
“EVERYONE RISE AND BOW FOR PATRIARCH SHIMAZU!”
The call snapped Kazegami out of his mind and he, much less by his own agency and much more due to the officers he was squeezed in between moved before him, bowed as deeply as his hips could manage. A mere inch before him, his boss did the same, as did all the others. While Kazegami personally didn’t see it, muffled sounds of socked soles massaging soft tatami painted the picture of a tranquil, yet firm character - one who enshrouded himself in a cloak of harmony and peace to hide the traces of a vile, heartless demon within. The ‘muffs’ eventually came to an end with a series of them in quick succession, no doubt the big boss sitting down. As if they all shared one consciousness, they shouted:
“GOOD MORNING, PATRIARCH SHIMAZU!”
“Good morning,” Shimazu replied. Kazegami noticed a change in shadows before him and looked up slightly to see that Seiryu had sat down. The second he did, Kazegami was forced back up straight by his colleagues beside him. He took a moment to eye the character sitting there at the far end of the rectangular dojo, before the beautiful calligraphy and family arms. Shimazu had grayed since Kazegami had last seen him, which wasn’t uncommon for a man in his eighties, but still left an impression on him. Normally, these high-ranking types would dye their hair to appear youthful and strong - however, Shimazu almost appeared for flaunt his fragility, now that Kazegami looked closer. The kimono the big boss wore hung loosely over what appeared to be atrophied limbs, and his face appeared hollow and empty. The only sign left of strength in the man’s form was his gaze - and his gaze brought low the eyes of every man he aimed it at. Kazegami would’ve analysed further, but the big boss’s eyes and his connected for a minute and he was forced to avert them - none would speculate the reasons for Shimazu’s appearance, apparently.
“Brothers, I trust you all know why you are here.” His voice left aftershocks in the floor. “It’s rare that I have to summon you all, but there are currently a number of matters we must settle as one - three of them, in fact.” He held out a hand and one of the two men flanking him knelt down, head bowed, and offered him a holographic envelope, which Shimazu accepted and tapped. It was brought up over all the leader’s plates and opened to reveal a letter.
“Firstly, there’s the matter of this. There’s been speculations that one of our innermost circle has been moving ahead with the Planetary Avenue revitalisation project without any of our brothers nor my consent. As you all are aware of, this project is paramount if we plan on expanding our sphere of control deeper into the Raygonian business district. Therefore, we must all be ready to act at the same time, and if one link breaks, the whole chain snaps. Patriarch of the Hattori family, Tetsuda Hattori - step forward.”
Kazegami allowed his gaze to scan the hall in search of the name’s owner. The whole clan was mostly human, though there were a fair share of non-humans, too. Hattori appeared to fit the latter demographic, as a tall Raygonian rose from his table, stepped over to the centre of the room and tried visibly not to look nervous.
“Tetsuda Hattori,” Shimazu began, “you’ve--”
“Patriarch Shimazu, I’m so sorry, I--!”
“Silence! You’ve clearly overstepped your boundaries as a family patriarch, and though you sit on the inner council, it appears you believe you are above your brethren. How do you plead?”
“Shimazu, please, I didn’t--!”
“-How- do you plead?”
The Raygonian blinked a number of times, constantly looking back to his lieutenants, all of whom were biting their nails anxiously. “I-... I-...”
“Cowardice is not a quality I would expect of my greatest men. Well? Will you confess to your crimes against your brethren?” A slick, metallic hiss sounded behind Hattori, followed by an energised hum. A suited Qurok, one Kazegami and everyone else in the room knew as Shion “the Tiger of Shimazu” Tenjima, had draw his blade, a plasma-edged katana. The Qurok lifted it over his head and held the pose.
“... Or will you choose the deepest pit of hell?”
“Shimazu, I beg you, have mercy!”
The officers around the room gulped as one. Shimazu’s eyes grew darker than they already were, which at this point was quite the feat.
“Mercy? Would you grant mercy to a traitor looking to make an extra few credits by backstabbing his brethren?”
Hattori was silent, only hulks and sobs making it through his inability to respond. Shimazu clicked his tongue. “Didn’t think so. Tenjima.”
The Qurok nodded. Hattori lowered his head a little further. In the back of the hall, his lieutenants were begging for Shimazu to spare him. Alas, however, the pleas quickly on deaf ears, though Tenjima’s blade fell quicker. In the fraction of a second it took for the hall to blink, the Qurok had parted Hattori from his head. Luckily for the floor, the plasma blade seared the wound to a crisp, so only charcoal dust left its smudges upon it. A pair of suited men grabbed the body and dragged it outside. Tenjima took the head to Shimazu, knelt down and offered it to him. Shimazu nodded and grabbed it by the scalp and lifted it up for all to see.
“Let this be a remind as to what happens to those who betray the clan for their own profit.” He tossed the head aside and it was quickly collected by a servant. “We are a brotherhood - act like it. The next traitor I catch will not be the only one in their family to lose his head. Consider this case an act of mercy.” His glaring eyes fixed themselves on the late Hattori’s lieutenants, both of whom were staring hopelessly at the floor. Shimazu took the chopstick pair from his table and gripped them neatly. “Our next topic,” he said as he ate a piece of fish. “Kamina Yamado, report.”
Kamina Yamado, patriarch of the Yamado family, first lieutenant of the Shimazu family and leader of the New Macau branch on Raygon 8, bowed his head and turned his body so he sat facing Shimazu. “Yes, patriarch. A number of our subsidiaries have made various calls for aid against the increasingly rampant attacks of the Armaioli and the Bengalas. We suspect both of these are receiving considerable funds from Adamantium Bank, sir - it seems they are still unhappy about that court case two years back.”
“Ah, yes, the case of Shimazu-Protonae of April-2, 971. I wish I could see that wilted weed’s sorry little mug every single day before I go to bed, but alas, the recording will do. So you’re saying they’re back with a vengeance?” Shimazu took a sip of wine.
Yamado nodded. “Yes, sir. The Armaioli and Bengalas have never been pushovers, but this is a whole different force we’re dealing with. In the span of under six months, their weaponry has changed from kinetics to laser, even occasional rocketry. We suspect Adamantium may have provided them with an PSMA-19B, also known as a Big Boy.”
There came a pensive hum from across the hall. It was Ira Gamagori, a mountain of a bonobo Simmie dressed in a large white light gray kimono that starkly contrasted his borderline black fur. He scratched at his temple, pulled the finger away, tossed his arms up and turned his palms to all those around while bringing his arms outwards. Shimazu rested his chin in a soft grip.
“It’s evident that Adamantium believes we’ve had free reign of New Macau for long enough. Which groups are particularly asking for aid?”
“The Celestial Dragon Triads are in a particularly poor shape, sir. Mr. Liu has made multiple appeals for monetary aid and additional manpower.”
“Mister who?” Shimazu questioned without really seeming to care for the answer.
“Mr. Po Qing Liu, sir,” Yamado repeated as diligently as he had said it the first time. “The head of the Celestial Dragon Triads. He also goes by the name Uncle Po.”
“Ah, yes, Uncle Po. Forgive me, all these subsidiaries are hard to remember at times. So, they wish for funding and men, is that it?”
“Yes, sir. I reckon they’d also like additional arms, though they chose to leave that out as to not seem greedy.”
Shimazu shook his head. “These damn triads. Can’t trust them with anything on their own. When we demand that they hold the lower tier casinos, they damn well will.” The patriarch scoffed as he took another sip of lukewarm sake. “Make it so, then. Who will travel to Raygon to support our subjects in battle?”
Nearly every officer turned towards Shimazu and bowed forward while seated, all exclaiming different things while all sounding exactly the same: “Me and my family will fight for the Shimazu!”
The patriarch smirked. “Such eagerness is all a leader could ask for, my brethren. However, I cannot risk sending all of you. We still have businesses to run, after all. The fifty of you with the most men will each send a thousand; the fifty of you with the richest accounts will each send a million. That should cover expenses for weaponry, as well as supplies for the war.”
While some disputes arose as to who was the strongest and richest, the rankings within the clan were quite well established. The matter was quickly resolved and orders delegated. Shimazu turned to Yamado. “Any other matters to report?”
“As a matter of fact, sir… There is one.” Shimazu raised a brow and gestured for Yamado to continue, but everyone in the room could see that the man was reluctant.
“... Sources have confirmed that an individual of particular interest has been particularly involved in the conquest of our territory.”
“Yes, yes, I understand. Will you speak his name, then?”
Yamado looked at the floor. “It’s… It’s Shawn, sir.”
The room fell silent. A number of the patriarchs in the middle of eating dropped their food in their laps. A number of them also coughed up the wine they had been drinking. Gamagori offered an anxious ook. In the midst of the silence, Shimazu began to quietly snicker, a snicker which slowly became a hateful laughter. Everyone in the room exchanged worried glances.
“... One would think a man like him would eventually learn the meaning of death.”
“What will you have us do about him, sir?” Yamado asked. Shimazu’s cup was refilled with sake and the patriarch raised it in Yamado’s direction.
“Well, send him back to the grave, of course - and make sure he stays there this time. Preferably in pieces - each hidden inside every separate sewage heap on Raygon. Spare his head, though. I want that mounted on my bed stand.”
Yamado nodded. “It shall be done.”
Shimazu pointed a warning finger at Yamado. “Make certain he is dead this time. If he shows himself again in a year, I will have your head on my bed stand, is that clear?”
Yamado swallowed and bowed his head. “Y-yes, sir.”
Shimazu offered a seething sigh through his teeth. “Well, my mood has been fouled by these ill tidings. Our final matter will pass quickly. It’s the matter of your little loan, Abe Ashikaga.”
A very vexed man, dressed in a green kimono patterned with several golden dragons, turned to face Shimazu. Abe Ashikaga, patriarch of the Ashikaga family, a Shimazu family lieutenant, and also the richest man in the organisation, dressed himself in all the attires and accessories money could buy. He practically didn’t have a single patch of skin not covered by gold and jewelry except for his face. His teeth, however, were all forged in platinum. “Thank you so much, great patriarch, for acknowledging our plea.”
Shimazu raised a palm. “No need to thank me. What is your plight?”
“A Halcyon citizen burrowed a considerable sum from our family, yet it would seem he has no intention of paying it back. Again, we would like to stress that this sum is mountainous. We humbly come before our brethren to request aid in apprehending this thief and scattering his body parts across the cluster.”
Shimazu raised a brow. “Why do you need to ask us? We all know that you are both well-equipped and well-connected enough to handle this matter by yourself. You need no mandate from us.”
Ashikaga grit his platinum teeth. “In all honesty, great patriarch, my family are much too occupied with the turf wars against Og’slough on Ripp-7 and Bick-2. Cumulus is also giving us difficulties on Wosmo-4.”
“I thought you had won that fight, Ashikaga,” Hiroki Awano, patriarch of the Awano family and head of Shimazu activities on Aether (also known as Sage-3), pointed out with a hint of spite in his voice. Ashikaga lowered his head.
“We suspect Cumulus has hired additional mercenaries. We have seen traces of SkullCorp battery cartridges, though their age may indicate--”
“So you’re saying you have neither won the war, nor know what is keeping you from winning it? Is this truly an effort worthy of the Ashikaga name, Abe?”
“Awano, that’s enough,” Shimazu warned. The man quieted down swiftly. The patriarch curled his lips. “Your failures on Wosmo-4 will be dealt with later, Ashikaga. What’s important now is bringing this thief to justice.” Shimazu stood up, turned and took his sword from its mount. While facing the altar upon which the mount stood, he spoke, “We cannot afford to let someone as lowly and cowardly as this run off with Shimazu Clan money. It would make us appear weak and lax - the soul of Shimazu would be forfeit.”
In the blink of an eye, Shimazu drew the blade from its sheath and pointed it directly at Ashikaga. “Very well, Ashikaga - your request has been heard. You have asked your family for help, and a family sticks together through thick and thin.” As he sheathed the blade and remounted it on the altar, he called a name: “Okita Seiryu.”
Kazegami snapped to attention as his boss’s name was called, and Seiryu turned to face Shimazu, bowed while seated. “Yes, patriarch?”
“Your family has a long history of cleaning up the messes of its extended kin. Your talents are many and your track record is flawless. Can the Shimazu clan trust that you’ll maintain that record this time, as well?”
Seiryu bowed again. “Of course, great patriarch. It shall be done.” Shimazu nodded.
“Very well. Convene with Ashikaga about this target’s details. The meeting is adjourned.”
Everyone rose and bowed as Shimazu left the hall with his bodyguards. As he left, all the others shouted, “THANK YOU FOR YOUR WISDOM, PATRIARCH SHIMAZU!” Once he was out of the room, rivers of flesh dispersed through the various paper slider doors that made up the dojo’s walls. Kazegami watched Seiryu walk over to Ashikaga and start a conversation he was too far out of earshot to eavesdrop on. Before long, he was out in the courtyard, where the various families gathered into small cliques and each went to their own. Kazegami stuck a cigarette between his lips, snapped it alight with a lighter and stuck his hands in the pockets of his black suit pants. He found himself a somewhat out-of-the-way corner to lean against and went about his smoke. Before long, he heard a familiar voice greet him.
“Good morning, big brother Kazegami. How was the meeting?” Kazegami’s eyes fell on the innocent-looking face of Natsugi Hanekawa, one of his family members. He blew a plume of smoke in a direction away from Hanekawa’s face and flashed him a wry grin.
“Eh, nothing special. We might get a job soon, though.”
“Well, it’s either us or Matsuda. It’s the kind of job I doubt Seiryu would be willing to do on his own. Got ourselves a little debtor on the run, see.”
“Big shot?”
“Dunno yet. Uncle Ashikaga wasn’t too detailed in his description. Although…” Kazegami squashed the cigarette stump against the stone wall and flicked it away. “... He did mention that the target’s Halcyonian, which could be interesting.”
“Halcyonian, huh. Could be nobility, sir.”
“Could be, could be.” Kazegami would be lying if he’d said the thought of peeling the skin off a Halcyon princeling wasn’t the least bit enticing.
“Kazegami, Hanekawa.” The two of them turned to see Seiryu, who came over to them with his hands tucked into the hems of his robe. The two of them bowed, Hanekawa keeling much lower than Kazegami, and offered their patriarch attentive looks.
“Yes, big brother Seiryu?” Kazegami offered.
“We’ve got our man. Halcyonian entrepreneur, goes by the name of Arthur Lewin. Last observed skipping out on a bar tab in a space station establishment over Parousia along with another individual designated as Patrick Lewin, who, according to their Mi-Self profiles, is Arthur’s brother. Whether they are in this together or not is not a concern, either way.” Seiryu tapped his wristband and sent the personal files the Ashikaga had managed to acquire on the two.
Kazegami gave the file a skim and scratched his neck. “Want us to just get Arthur, sir?”
“No, get Patrick, too. Brother Ashikaga stressed especially hard that he wanted to make examples of them both. How you do it is up to you, as long as you make it messy and public. I trust you’ve got some tricks.”
Kazegami smirked and shrugged again. “Eh, one or two.”
Seiryu nodded back with a wry smile. “That’s my boy. Good luck to you. Make sure not to leave your family behind, now. They need the experience.”
“Roger that, sir.”
“Well, then. Have a good day.” With that, Seiryu went down the road to the courtyard gates to an awaiting hover-limo. Kazegami and Hanekawa exchanged glances.
“So, where do we start, sir?”
Kazegami tugged at his studded chin thoughtfully, then cracked a smirk. “First off, we’ll need a lot of guns.”
Yakuza time, @Crispy Octopus! The Shimazu clan, a huge yakuza group in Raygon space, has a big meeting. First matter is some inside corruption, solved by executing the culprit; second matter is that the Raygonian subsidiaries are having problems: Adamantium is making moves against the Yakuza. Turns out also that Shawn is somehow involved and the yakuza want him dead. Finally, Arthur’s shenanigans are brought up - turns out he borrowed money from one of the yakuza’s families. Nobuhide Kazegami is put on the case to catch him and his brother and spread their body parts across the cluster!
Yup, we're open and happy to take in more! You got a concept yet or would you like some time to think about that? We've got a discord, too, the link to which I can PM you in a bit.
X) Macdoug and Deepstone are both sent down to Dougsdahl with fifty soldiers to retake it and its farmlands from the unseen enemy. A) Huntsmaster Astrid takes her hunters on a scour of the mountains in search of goats to tame. E) Thorfinn’s son, Harald, is sent to the forest valleys below in search of more moonrocks.
The news of the magical stone had reignited a manic curiousness that had laid dormant within the Underhalls for decades. For a brief week, the populace of Dvergadypi were living in blissful distraction from their collapsing clandom, pilgrims ascending the main tunnels in order to lay down their offerings of respect and piety at the feet of the stone dwarf now holding up their crumbling cave entrance. The Underhalls grew anxious at the thought of so much food going to the gods rather than to the bellies of the living, but to halt perhaps the first unifying moment of the past few years would devastate any remaining claim the Underhalls had on the position as leaders of the Dvergadypi dwarves.
Thorfinn tugged disapprovingly at his beard as he surveyed the train of pilgrims shuffling past the statue, laying down their offerings and making u-turns back towards the mountain’s depths. They would need to replenish their larders if there was to be any hope of surviving the rest of the year. His tugging hand moved to a bronze seal pinning his velvet and brown square-patterned wool cloak together at his neck. He turned it upwards at cast it a glance - the seal of his clan, one still untested by time and trials. Perhaps this would be the beginning of its thousand year dynasty - or the final fizzle before the winds of fate extinguish the last remaining hope in Dvergadypi.
Millennia of history - gone in the blink of an eye.
He would not have it. With a clenched fist around the medallion, he called, “Cousin Halfdan! Warchief Donald! Huntsmaster Astrid!”
The three summoned dwarves appeared before him, bowed curtly and each offered a, “Yes, yarl Thorfinn?”
“Our work to restore the magnificence of Dvergadypi starts today. For too long have we waited for time to pass underground, bickering amongst ourselves while our underlands fall into shambles of what they used to be - what they used to represent. None of us have seen the true glory of our halls as they were meant to be, but by my pride as an Underhall, we shall see that glory restored!”
The three dwarves nodded proudly and hammered their chests in approval. “What will you have us do to make it so, great yarl?” asked Donald. Thorfinn pointed at him and Halfdan.
“Warchief, you will accompany the thane along with fifty of your best. Together, you shall reclaim Dougsdahl and its surrounding farmlands. I want you, cousin, to bring whatever workforce you need to reassume farming once the lands are retaken. We need to bolster our larders before our work can begin.”
Halfdan and Donald exchanged suspicious glances, but nodded either way. “It shall be done, cousin,” Halfdan vowed. “Are we lucky, the enemy will have left the storages untouched, meaning we already can recover enough to last a while longer at the very least.”
“Very good. You may begin.” While the two of them went to gather their units, Thorfinn turned to the huntsmaster. “Huntsmaster Astrid, you will assist in local food production.”
“What will you have me do, great yarl?” Astrid asked politely with a bowed head. She was a Sinclair, the only one of them to hold position so close to the yarl’s family as the court’s huntsmaster. She was powerfully built and clad in wood and skins, with a patterned, long scarf around her neck in the colours of her family. Her hair was chestnut and cut short along her temples. The rest was bundled into a long ponytail running down her back. Thorfinn pointed to the mountains.
“There once ran goats all throughout these hills. Their milk, wool and meat would all be necessary supplies if we are to bolster our people. I want you to take your hunters and scour the canyons and hilltops in search of our old allies. Bring as many of them back as you can - preferably alive.”
Astrid bowed. “At once, great yarl.” Then she stormed off to gather her colleagues and acquire weaponry. Thorfinn pursed his lips, making them almost visible through his great mass of beard. Behind him, lady Ellinor Underhall approached and squeezed calmly his shoulder.
“It’s refreshing to see you like this, Thorfinn,” she whispered to him affectionately. The yarl offered her a glance before looking back ahead.
“There’s no doubt about it, though - we will need more of those wish stones if we are to recover our greatness.”
Her grip tightened a bit. “Yes… A great deal can be accomplished with magic. They do say, after all, that the first descendants of the Stoneshaper could speak to the mountain - make it take the shapes they wanted. I mean, how else would the Hall of Gereg ever have been built?”
“Centuries of labour?” Thorfinn offered.
“Nnno. They must’ve had something like these stones. In truth, my dear, we’re really just furthering the accomplishments of our ancestors by acquiring such artifacts, no?”
Thorfunn hummed. “I suppose.”
Ellinor grinned back and stepped up in front of her husband. “So, why don’t we send our son to find us some?”
“Which one of them?” “Why, who else but your heir? Harald is young, untested and, worst of all, bored out of his mind. It would do him some good to get out and do something with his life, instead of wasting away inside that cave all day, waiting for us to die.”
Thorfinn furrowed his brow. “Ellinor, dear, we’re Underhall - descendants of the Brownbeards! We don’t go outside like those rascally Goldbeards would!”
Ellinor frowned and took her husband’s hands in her own. “Well, you said it yourself - for too long, have we waited underground. Maybe it’s time for certain traditions to make way for new ones?” Thorfinn wrinkled his nose. Ellinor sighed. “Besides, it’s clear that this stone didn’t come from inside the mountain. It originated from, well, somewhere outside. We cannot let it slip through our fingers just because of some old norms demand following.”
Thorfinn sighed. “Fine. Harald!”
While Ellinor struggled to contain her excitement, the young dwarf came over from some distance away, where he had been waiting with his siblings as was tradition. He knelt before his father and kept his eyes locked on the ground. “Yes, father?”
“You may rise. Your mother has request that we put you to work and I am in agreement.”
The gray shades of boredom drained the colour from Harald’s face. At this point, it was difficult to see whether he could control his rolling eyes or not. “Fine, what hole will I be inspecting this time?”
“Calm down, son - we’re not sending you into the caves.”
Harald blinked. “What? Wait, what’s this?”
Thorfinn pointed down to the mountain path leading to the valleys below. “Gather your closest friends and ten of the warchief’s men. You can take what supplies we can spare, but expect to live off of nature’s bounty for the most part. Be on the lookout for anything - our kind has always fared poorly above ground.”
“B-but where am I going?” Harald asked uncertainly.
“You are going to find us more wish stones - as many as you can carry with you back home.” Thorfinn placed a hand on Harald’s shoulder, who seemed to feel its weight to be way greater than it actually was. “You will be the cornerstone in our people’s restoration to greatness.”
Harald blinked again and nodded wordlessly. Some time passed before he could formulate works again, “Y-yes, father. I w-will bring glory to the Underhalls! Thank you for this!”
“Make us proud, son,” Ellinor said warmly and gave him a wet kiss on the cheek.
An hour later, the lad and his escort had begun to descend the mountain, heading for the untamed valleys below.
We’re back again with an even better sale! Up to 99% off on ALL imported protein-based products! Keep an eye out for the Sustynance label on the package to participate!
Current Debt to the Adamantium Bank:15 999 ITC Credits.
Mr. Zigg adjusted his facial disguise somewhat. It was a white clay mask (plastic in reality, of course), marked with the sketches and swirls befitting of an acolyte of Debrontism, a Putt faith with considerable following on Raygon 8, even amongst non-Putts. Behind him, his wife and two kids trailed anxiously as they pushed and mobbed their way through the river of life flowing towards the distant gates up ahead. Mr. Zigg made certain to eye their surroundings often and vigilantly - they weren’t safe until they were off-world.
And even then…
“Lobutos!” came a sharp whisper from behind him. He turned to stare into his wife’s equally masked face head on, and then down at her finger, which she pointed at their youngest, Lobuna, who struggled to keep pace. With four quick paces, Mr. Zigg made his way to the back of their group and pulled his daughter to himself before she could be swallowed up by the living sea.
“Don’t fall behind,” he cautioned her. Lobuna was on the brink of tears, visible even through her smaller mask. Mr. Zigg looked around again. A few strangers had turned to eye them, but most simply ignored them.
“Oi, keep moving,” came a snide grunt from the person behind them. Mr. and Mrs. Zigg, as well as Lobuna and Sambel, all took a moment to stare in fright at an absolute beast of a Qurok. Mr. Zigg grit his teeth, even as every nerve in his body were firing for him to run, and simply pushed his daughter on, along with his wife and son. The Qurok offered another surly snort, but didn’t seem to have further inquiries as long as the line kept moving.
“You’re such a piece of shit, you know that?” Mrs. Zigg whispered to Mr. Zigg as he passed by her. His expression didn’t change much, however; mostly due to the mask, of course, but even the parts of his face that were visible gave little sign of change. He merely sighed and gave both the children another gentle push so that they were a distance away from them.
“Can we not do this right now?”
“No, I think we will. Listen here, Lobutos - not only did you get us in this fucking deep debt, but -then- you decide that we’re running off to escape--”
Mr. Zigg tapped his index over where his mouth would’ve been, but this didn’t seem to deter her. “I should just turn you in, you know.” Mr. Zigg groaned. “As soon as your days are up, there’ll be a bounty on you - and on us. It doesn’t matter where we go, Lobutos - we’re dead when you’re with us.”
Mr. Zigg rubbed his temples. The gates were getting closer and the crowd was thickening even more. “Woman, can this please wait? Chew me out all you want once we’re onboard, alright? Just… Keep it down out here.”
Mrs. Zigg glared daggers at him. “I want a divorce once we land, is that clear?”
Mr. Zigg drew a long breath. “What made you come along if you’re just going to leave me when we land, huh?” She hesitated to answer, and as her voice broke through the mask, it was interrupted by a deafening announcement thundering from the speakers above.
”ATTENTION, ALL PASSENGERS BOARDING COMMUTER SHUTTLE ONE-ONE-FOUR-SIX-EIGHT-THREE TO… BICK TWO. WE WILL NOW COMMENCE BOARDING. PLEASE HAVE YOUR ARMBANDS READY FOR SCANNING.”
Mr. Zigg took a deep breath. As Mrs. Zigg helped the kids prepare, he prayed to every conceivable deity that the Bank hadn’t blocked his right of travel. They four of them eventually arrived at the gate, where bent-necked, somber-looking Cybe servant with modified scanner hands went over armbands.
Sambel and Lobuna held out their wristbands. Pling! it went twice. The Cybe sighed mechanically and gave them each a scan. “Welcome…” it droned sourly.
Next was Mrs. Zigg. The Cybe gave her armband a scan. Pling! it went once. “Welcome…” She walked on by and begun herding the children towards the entrance tunnel.
Mr. Zigg walked over to have his band scanned. The Cybe moved his hand over and, pling!
“Wait…” it droned uncertainly. Mr. Zigg froze. The Cybe made the effort to lift its head and actually look at Lobutos. Inside the entrance gate, Mr. Zigg saw his children pulling at his wife’s dress disguise and pointing in his direction with worried expressions. The Cybe’s scanner hand manifested a thumb, which it licked with a mechanical tongue. It then proceeded to scrub away some muck on Mr. Zigg’s mask. Its expressionless face nonetheless managed to form the grumpiest frown Zigg had ever seen.
“At least keep your attire right if you’re gonna pose as one of us.”
Mr. Zigg blinked. “Excuse me?”
The Cybe curled its nonexistent lips. “Debrontists take care to keep their attire clean. You don’t, so you’re definitely a poser. Anyway, you’re stopping the line, so keep moving.” With a shove, the Cybe cast Mr. Zigg behind itself, mumbling something along the lines of “damn prick”.
Mr. Zigg looked dumbfounded for a second, but couldn’t delay for even a second before the river of flesh pushed him onwards. He looked down the tunnel - his family must’ve gone on ahead. As he followed the hallway, he vaguely picked up the Bickese news being broadcast in the background.
“... and starting tomorrow, DegmaCorp factories will be bolstering local defenses in response to increased rates of worker uprisings on Bick 2. Colonial security encourage all citizens to remain indome as much as possible in the coming weeks, and…”
“Shit, did you hear that?” Mr. Zigg permitted himself to eavesdrop on an adjacent chatting pair. They were both Quroks, dressed in sooty, orange work suits, hems and neck ringed with metal.
“Yeah,” said the other, “I hope Pree is doing alright. She works in that factory there.”
“Really? Shit, how’s she taking it?”
The other one offered a mocking laugh. “What, working under DegmaCorp? She hates every second of it.”
Zigg bit into a nail. Every damn time, there always had to be something.
The door to the shuttle approached, and once more, the river of flesh flowing into it got considerably denser. Mr. Zigg eyed the ticket on his wristband. Had Adamantium Bank really not barred him from leaving Raygon 8? What could they possibly gain from that? Even as he arrived at the economy class seats assigned to his family, he ignored his wife’s scoldings in favour of pondering the questions filling his mind. Before he could reach a conclusion, however, an announcement blared from above.
”Attention, passengers. Interstellar travel will soon commence. Please have a seat and fasten your seatbelts in preparation for take-off.”
It wasn’t the first time Zigg had flown - he had once joined a ship test at his company’s 200th anniversary party. However, he still had to teach his family his to properly buckle up and affix oxygen masks. Economy class masks were one-size-fits-all, which they absolutely didn’t. Being of the majority species, Zigg and his family were relatively lucky, but he took a moment to eye the various passengers whose mouthes were much too small for the Raygonian-sized masks given to them. He shook his head disapprovingly and laid back into his hard plastic seat. Their seats were pretty far ahead in the economy cabin, and ahead, he heard the cheerful chuckle of lower-business class travellers, waited on by a Cybe cabin crew. A green bile of envy filled his chest, but he subdued it in time for one more announcement.
”Attention, passengers. Welcome aboard commuter shuttle 114683 to Bick 2. My name is Raepsol Flux and I’m your captain for this flight…”
Oh, great. A Petalos…
“... We’ll be expecting a relatively peaceful flight with mild solar winds, limited radiation and only trace radio disturbances. Keep in mind that there are bags in the baskets on the seats in front of you for when we reach the gateways - on behalf of the crew, we beg you to please make use of them if you experience nausea, uncontrollable drooling or spontaneous bleeding. On that note, we at X-Pressure Interstellar would like to remind all passengers that we are -not- responsible for any injuries, discomforts or chronic diseases acquired aboard one of our flights. Make certain to keep your leaded blankets handy for when we pass by Bick 0 and have a pleasant flight. And now, a quick word from our sponsors…”
While advertisements blared in the background, Zigg dug up the unnecessarily heavy leaded blankets from under their four seats, keeping them at the ready by his stumpy feet. As the advertisements neared their end, the ship began to rumble with movement. Considering they were still in the lower atmosphere, the craft needed considerable energy to take off. The tickets hadn’t been cheap, but the central space station known as the Belt was known for being a den of outlaws, tax evaders, and indebted scum. The patrolling private police and Bobbies were too many to pass by. Due to the price and rare use, sub-orbit transports were incredibly rare. It had been mostly luck that he had found one, really.
As the ship began to accelerate and the Gs began to pick up, Zigg drifted into a deep sleep. He would likely wake up at some point once they were further out into the Raygon system, but for now, he just needed his senses to relax.
The journey was rather uneventful. His daughter Lobuna had to vomit when they exited the gate in the Bick system, but that was about it. As they approached the sorry excuse for a planet, a buzz indicated the captain was about to speak. Lobuna and Sambel glued their faces to the aisle window, marveling at the silvery surface of the planet below.
Bick 2… Possibly one of the remotest inhabited planets in the Raygonian Triangle. It had no atmosphere to speak of, nor a magnetic field to create one. Its iron core had frozen solid aeons ago, and the atmosphere, which had been speculated to be acidic and lethal, had drifted away as a result. The silvery surface was speckled with enormous pit mines blasting kilometres of grey, glittering debris into space above. The gravity on Bick 2 was but an eighth of that on Raygon - Mr. Zigg could already feel the muscle atrophy kick in. A prolonged stay would make it hard for him and his family to ever return to Raygon. The “planet” itself had a population of 14 million, mostly miners exploiting the enormous quantities of lithium and tritium. The local superpower was, as the news had cautioned, DegmaCorp, a subsidiary of Og’slough Bros. Asteroid Mining.
Mr. Zigg prayed he’d find some form of work there.
“Dear passengers, welcome to Bick 2. We’ll be landing at Amaterasu Space Port in roughly one hour and fifteen minutes, Raygon 8 time. We kindly ask all passengers to please take their seats and fasten their seatbelts for landing. Once again, we would like to thank our sponsors for this magnificent trip, and hope your trips, too, have been further improved by the presence of such wonderful products as…”
While the advertisements blared once more, Mr. Zigg opened a holographic screen from his wristband. After tapping and swiping the ads away, he found that the wristband already had connected to the local network satellite. He brought up a feed on the local news and casually let his eyes scan the page. Network speed was akin to a snail’s pace out here, worse than even bottom tier connections. Videos wouldn’t load and neither would pictures half the time. For the first time in his life, Mr. Zigg had to resort to reading the transcriptions. His brow furrowed as he did.
Local authorities have received a tip from the Extra-Raygonial Bureau of Investigation (ERBI) that a wanted criminal gang leader has arrived on the planetary surface in order to assist local terrorists against DegmaCorp operations. The CEO of Og’slough Brothers Asteroid Mining, Arrto Og’slough, condemns the cowardly and unwarranted actions of the terrorist uprisings and promises to send reinforcements to Bick 2 in response to the arrival of this unknown gang leader.
Mr. Zigg blinked and frowned. He straightened out his back and looked back and forth in his shuttle. From what he had seen back on Raygon, his co-passengers didn’t seem much like criminals.
Maybe except that one monster of a Qurok…
The “bump!” and “clank” of metal arms clutching the ship knocked him off his train of thought. His family were already disembarking and Mr. Zigg rushed after them in a hurry, dragging their luggage behind him.
They exited into a hallway, where the sea of people once again thickened around them. Up above, hanging from the ceiling, TV screens displayed minutely updates on the uprisings, which, according to them, were thankfully happening far away from the space port.
As they approached the customs up ahead, Mr. Zigg noticed the Quroks from the platform back on Raygon; furthermore, he noticed that they had noticed him, too, and were staring quite fiercely at him. Mr. Zigg averted his eyes. What was their problem?
“Hey, daddy?” came a whimpering voice from Sambel. Mr. Zigg sighed.
“What’s up, sport?” He looked down at his son, who was pointing up at one of the TV screens. Mr. Zigg followed the finger and felt his heart sting with fear. Around him, whispers fumed like poisonous gas and eyes aimed their sights on him like guns. The TV screens were all displaying images of him - his face.
“... Authorities have now been informed by the ERBI that the criminal gang leader previously mentioned to have landed on Bick 2 has been identified as Lobutos Zigg, a wanted mass murderer and gun smuggler from the central tiers of Raygon 8. Furthermore, due to the potential danger this individual, Adamantium Bank has announced that they, too, will send monetary and military support to quell the uprisings on Bick 2. This criminal is…”
Zigg’s eyes slowly rolled over in the direction of his family, but Mrs. Zigg had already disappeared with their children. Way behind the crowd, he heard distant shouts for “daddy!”, while the mob closed around him ever tighter.
“Make way! Step aside! ACPD! ACPD!” The mechanical voices of Cybes backed up by gorilla grunts and growls warned that the authorities weren’t far off. However, Zigg could simply stand there, hardly able to breathe.
“... Why…” was all he managed to say before being tackled to the floor by a gorilla dressed in a private police uniform. The tackle knocked him out cold, and Zigg was taken away.
Zigg escapes Raygon ‘cuz debt. Goes to Bick 2, aka. the Boonies^2. Family hates him for it, but hey, what can you do. Hints are dropped that there’s some serious bizz going on on Bick 2, mostly uprisings and stuff. When they land, turns out that Zigg is framed as a criminal big shot sent to help the rebels and is arrested. Fade to black.
A day had passed since Ashalla’s visit, and the Jiangzhou had moved into the Giant’s Bath, drifting lazily in circles around the centre of the pool. The lush overgrowth of the jungle below had, with time, crawled up along the crater side, clawing to the stone banks of the Bath itself in the form of verdant shrubs and plump trees. Lillies and lotus littered the shore, and mudworms were frolicking on the tiny, ring-like beach encircling the pool adjacent to the crater edge. A few Servants had gathered on the beach to say their farewells to this world, and a host of Talemonesians from Biashara had come to marvel at the presence of divinity, forming a praying crowd on the eastern side of the crater. The snake sat atop his tower, plucking at the strings of his harp absent-mindedly. A small flock of birds perched atop the roof of his castle tower, singing joyously along with the harp.
“How go the final preparations?” mumbled the snake in no particular directions. Out of the shadows, almost, He Bo came out and kowtowed.
“They proceed as planned, Your Lordship. All will be ready within the hour.”
The snake blasted a puff of air through the nose. “Within the hour… To think…”
“My Lord?” He Bo offered.
The snake shook his head while still facing away from the servant. “Nevermind. See to it that there are no delays. We leave when the preparations are completed. See to it that everyone is aboard - those that are not, will be left behind.”
“As His Lordship commands,” He Bo affirmed dutifully and disappeared back into the palace. The snake let out a sigh and continued to survey the landscape to the song of the birds and the harp.
The water overboard splashed in tune.
Or perhaps not entirely in tune, for, while there was a rhythm to its rushing, it was not so much musical as the prosaic sound of something paddling, one sweep after another. It came closer, until a thud sounded from the lower side of the keel, followed by grumbling and a scrabbling sound. Something black and wormlike emerged from beyond the parapet; then, a misshapen iron clutch that grasped its edge, then another, and, finally, a head with more than one mouth too many.
One of the hands saluted by rising in a clenched fist, which almost sent the figure flying back down. By some miracle, however, it held on.
”Superintendant Vrog, reporting to His Lordship for audience!” it gargled, loud enough to spook away the singing birds. In a lower tone, another mouth added, ”Permission to speak freely,” and a third, “And to come on board, it’s a spitting bother to hang here.”
The snake spun around in a haste, knocking his harp over and causing it to partially crack. “Ugh! Foul creature! Who are you?! What are you doing here?!” He gave the air a sniff and grimaced. “Did Narzhak send you?”
”Heh, thanks.” The various mouths bristled with the smiles of sharp and unclean teeth. ”I’m the big one below’s special-works gutface. You could say he’s sent me to do scrap, but here? I got a thing as brought me that’s just between you and me.” He picked at one row of teeth with a finger. ”Bit hard to talk when I’m swinging here, though.”
The snake blinked bepuzzled, but quickly reclaimed his furious expression. “No - no! Forget I asked. I care not who you are or what your business is. Now begone from my ship, lest I will make you!” As if to stress his point, the snake pointed angrily in a direction leading away from his ship, which, in all fairness, could have been any.
There was a collective grunt from under Vrog’s helmet. ”Always like this, ain’t it,” he wheezed, ”Always the same spit. Soon as I turn up, it’s on with the get outs and gut offs. Nobody cares what I got, if maybe I just want to have a cup-” one of the black tongues dipped out of sight and came back with a brightly polished steel flask, ”-because it gets spitting dull crawling around with ghouls for company, or what. Nope! Always the threats! Is it cause I look like a slagheap? Didn’t get asked, if you want to know. And now you too. Gut it, Shengshi, you’ve drunk with the boss himself, and you know he ain’t better than me in a thing. So what’s up now? What’s happened to ya?”
The snake smacked his lips uncomfortably. “I, uh… Well.” With a huff, he curled up his tail and sat down upon it. “... I apologise. I failed to realise that you, too, are an outcast. Forgive me - I was rash and uncouth. It has been a, a rough week.” He gestured to the floorboards before him. “Have a seat, if you wish… And are able to sit still.”
”Hrah, ‘s good. Gut knows I don’t help my case sometimes.” With a series of dimly nauseous sounds, Vrog hauled himself on board, landing with a squelching crash. He rapidly picked himself up and shuffled closer, crouching in the indicated spot. For once, he only left a few faint traces of filth as he passed, no doubt thanks to his watery arrival.
”So, fore we get down to talks,” he held out a hand, and the flask landed on it as if he had just tossed it up, ”wasn’t spitting about the drink. Helps in scrapping times, I can tell ya.” A hooked finger snapped off the lid, releasing a strong waft of sweet and spirits, and slid the container over to Shengshi’s coils. The snake sighed and took a swig with a cringing expression.
“Where did you get this filth? The Cauldron?”
”All my work,” Vrog rapped his belly with his finger with pride, though it was hard to say if it was sincere. ”Got the idea from a friend. I ain’t much for the flavour, so it’s yours. Reward a slave you hate if it’s not for you either.” Another flask, much less shiny, materialised in his hand, and he took a gargling sip. ”Speaking of which,” he continued, ”I feel you got a scrap-pile to do, so I won’t hold you long. You know whatsaface, K’nell been out for a while now, right?”
The snake sheepishly put the bottle down and pursed his lips. “Yes, he has. Were you a… A friend of his, by chance?”
”You could say that. Not really his his, but…” he made a few gestures which could have been supposed to point at himself and someone absent, if in a rather roundabout way, ”Sort of his his. You know what I mean. I’d been trying to get to sort of him, catch up about some scrap, but you can guess, no luck. I got it you were in with him - real him, so it been the same spit for you too?”
“If by the “same spit”, you are referring to leaving this world to mortal hands, then yes - it has been quite the same spit,” the snake conceded. “What is it to you, though? Has Narzhak sent you to stop me?”
Vrog’s mouths gaped briefly in befuddlement. ”Is a gutted pandemic with you people,” one of them muttered, before they gathered themselves together. ”Not really what I meant, but gut me if I can blame you. Place’s always been a spithole, and’s only been getting worse. Narzhak, though…” A mouth made a poor attempt to whistle with its ragged excuse for lips. ”You’re lucky he doesn’t know. The way he’d already lost his spit when he found out about K’nell was slagged something. He ain’t keen on desertion.”
The noisome being rubbed his fingers together. ”Me, though, I’m not messing with that. You want to go, you go. Been thinking ‘bout that myself. That’s why I’m here, actually.” He snapped a finger up to point at Shengshi. ”So, this thing here, it stays our little secret, you and me. Boss’s not gotta know. Just gotta tell me, though, where K’nell’s gone gutted off to.”
“Your discretion is most appreciated,” the snake replied politely. With a few wrinkles of his nose as he eyed the creature before him up and down, he drummed his finger tips together and hummed pensively. “You speak much of what I, too, believe in, so I reckon we are, deep down, brothers of the same view - that this world is no longer meant for us. However, I must ask - if I were to give you the key to the gates of heaven, what would you do there? I have never met you before, but your…” He once more stared down at the remains of puss and filth riddling the form, as well as scraps of crusted blood and rotting guts between its multitude of teeth. “... Form seems catered to a narrow selection of purposes, most revolving around murder - and I would be doing my beloved brother a very disrespectful dishonour if I let a killer into his peaceful realm.”
”That’s the thing, isn’t it?” A few of Vrog’s mouths struggled to put on a melancholy smile, though their efforts were marred, besides their deformity, by the macabre residue around them. ”Ripping things up, gutting, killing, that’s all I’m made for. Been doing a good bit of it all around, you ain’t wrong. But it’s the same spit as my looks. I’m slagged sure not the one who’s asked for this. I kill ‘cause I’m told to, break things ‘cause I’m told to. Be good to try something different for once, you know? Just, I dunno, go around, taste things, maybe get better at…” he motioned at the clean flask, ”making ‘stead of breaking, yeah? No gutted way to do it here, not with them four eyes always over the shoulder. But another place, that’s another thing. If you’s leaving, you get that, no?”
The snake looked sympathetically upon the abhorrent heap of guts and metal, flicking his tongue at the pungent odour emitted from it. “So you are saying you wish to make an effort to change, is that it?” The snake snorted a giggle, then it evolved into a cackle. He slapped his tail a multitude of times and wheezed for air he didn’t truly need. Eventually, his laughter died down and he wiped a tear or two with a clawed finger. “My… First laugh I have had for a while. Such humouristic irony is difficult to come by these days.”
Vrog splayed his asymmetric hands out with a range of grins over his face. ”Feel that, that’s already something else I can do. Wouldna call it this much as calling the hits myself for a change, but you get the gist. Maybe they’d like me over there much like some people here’d want me to get out.”
The snake smirked. “To think a creature such as you, molded and conditioned to murder and slay, can devote yourself to such deep, foundational reformation - yet I, a holy entity of creation, cannot even change myself along my own moral guidelines. Oh, you… Vrog, was it? You amuse me.”
”Ain’t really that hard if you think of it.” Vrog scratched the back of his head, without moving the arm itself more than an inch. ”Just gotta be smelling something that makes that worth it. Me, I want to get out of this slagyard, so get to it. You… I dunno what them morals got going for them, but it’s gotta be hard finding spit you can’t have straight up if you’re a god. Maybe it’s that.” He poked at his drink with a tongue. ”Listen to that, when’d I start philosophying? Gut me if I know what I put in this stuff.”
“Philosophising, and yes, I would frankly not have expected it from one of your form - although, Narzhak was deceptively wise for his, so I suppose the lesson here is to never judge the scroll by its cover.” The snake shrugged. “But, one question remains - and that is whether you the qualities necessary for me to trust that you wish to turn your life around as you say.” The snake squinted. “How do I know you are not lying?”
The finger scraped the head again. ”Beats me how, less you got a power like that,” Vrog mused, ”I’d not advise poking into my head, or he might know. ‘Sides, I don’t know it matters. K’nell’s got to be gone to a place he knows good. He’s boss there. I get in and start scrapping stuff up, I’ll be first to get the smackdown.”
The snake hissed. “True. Very true. Tendlepog can be paradise to those who treat it well - and purgatory to those who seek to ruin it.” The snake snapped his fingers. “Very well. I will tell you the secret to enter heaven. Swear that you will not harm its residents and the key is yours.”
”Good by me.” The mouths sneered again, and Vrog’s left hand closed a second time in the fist salute. ”I swear it on my head I won’t bring pain to any there.” He relaxed the hand. ”That do it?”
The snake smirked. “Yes, that will suffice.” He gestured for Vrog to lean in. “Now, the key to enter heaven, or Moksha, as it goes by, is to meditate upon it.”
Insofar as it was possible to discern, Vrog looked pensive. ”That’s another one I haven’t tried before. How’s that work?”
The snake tapped his temple. “It should not be too hard. Simply take in its beauty, its energies, and have them fill your mind with its wisdom and peace. Once your mind harmonises with Moksha’s spirit, a copy of your soul shall enter it on your behalf, while your mortal form disintegrates and joins the Pyres.” He then shrugged. “Perhaps your divine origins could even help you along to achieve this outcome faster?”
”Could be. I’d already been one of the first in once. Maybe I’ll even find a better use for this mound of spit than that - as helps somebody, I don’t know - but that’s for me to figure.” A few tongues prodded skywards like curious snakes. ”Full of peace, that’s gonna be a first,” he smirked, ”I owe you one, Sheng. You’ve been a friend. ‘Fore I go, I’ll make sure he” a finger pointed downward, ”remembers you like that, no strings to it. Least I can do for this.”
The snake nodded. “Your visit proved to be everything I had not expected - pleasant, most of all. Thank you for coming, Vrog… And thank you for being a friend in a dark time.” The snake bowed seated. “I pray Moksha will accept you as it accepted my brother, my children… And my better half.”
”I’d better hope it does.” Vrog nodded and rose from his crouch. However, he did not move further. ”You get me thinking, though. If that many of yours are there already and you know the way, why’ve you not gone there too? Not like they ran from you to get in.”
The snake shrugged. “I likely will some day. I just felt it would be appropriate to move my belongings into my realm and seal its gates first,” he said with a wink. “I reckon time in heaven passes much quicker than here, so perhaps we shall all be reunited there within the week?”
”Who knows, maybe we’ll be. Not the first time I’d have weird run-ins in that kinda places. You’re right about closing gates, never know what spitters could get in.” With heavy steps, Vrog shambled back to the edge of the deck. ”Well, got some scrap left to do myself ‘fore I disappear. Hand in my resignation and all. Been good smelling you.” In a cumberous half-vault, he was balancing, rather precariously, on the parapet.
“Farewell, Vrog! May you find your way into Moksha!” The snake gave the mass of sludge and filth a wave and a shake of the head.
Vrog raised a claw in a waving motion, then, in what was either a dive or losing his balance, toppled overboard. There was a loud splash and a string of muffled cursing before the rushing sweeps came again, this time fading more and more until they became one with the sound of the waves.
The snake cast a final glance after his new friend and chuckled to himself. As if divinely ordained, He Bo came out of the shadows once more, making a quick kowtow.
“All is prepared, My Lord.”
“Good. The wait is over, worthy servant. Soon, we will have peace eternal.”
The servant gave an affirmative hum. “Yes, My Lord.” He then rose and disappeared back into the palace. The snake took a deep breath and raised his arms. The centre of the pool began to bubble violently before the familiar arc, which hadn’t opened since the intruder dammed up his realm all those years ago, rose out of the waters, the dew dripping from its top hinting at the mirage of Fengshui Fuyou on the other side.
The snake hesitated. He cast a look behind himself, gazing across his jungle one final time. He would miss it - it and its beasts, its inhabitants - perhaps more than anything. As the ship slowly drifted forward towards the portal, he cast a look towards Moksha, too.
“I should have taken your offer, my friend. I hope it remains open.”
Then Shengshi, Lord of the Thousand Streams and King of the Harvest, left Galbar forever.
A thousand miles away in the empty oceans south of Kalgrun, there drifted a lonely stone turtle. Lonely? No, for atop its back lived a buzzing village of Dreamers, hardy and committed to their work day in and out. They had been content knowing that no one would come for them and that their hardworking life on chaotic Galbar would be rewarded with an eternity in Moksha’s glory. Like so, life had continued for decades.
Today, however, would be no day of work. Ill tidings had spread from the palace, the same that had spread three years ago. The emperor had taken ill, and the last child of Hermes and Xiaoli was lying on his deathbed. The crimson shadows of the red silk curtains couldn’t bring colour to the dying man’s face. Surrounded was the bed by as many of his people as his room could hold, with even more waiting in the hallways outside. His cold hand was held closely by his weeping daughter Bei, her shoulders each held warm by the hands of two of her brothers, Tian and De. Next to them sat Yang, painting a sheet of rice paper with the will of his father, and Mei, Ping and Anhe all knelt praying on the opposite side of the bed. Wenbo smiled weakly at all eight of them.
“... And for my youngest daughter, Anhe… Oh, Anhe…”
The woman, now in her later thirties, shuffled a little closer. “Y-yes, father?” she sniffed.
“... You were a beam of light from heaven above to all of us… You should have our jewel box from the mountains of Atokhekwoi.”
Gifts couldn’t make any of them truly happy at this point, but she smiled politely nonetheless. “Yes… Thank you, father. I’m honoured.”
Wenbo laid his head down on his pillow and sighed. “Good. Good… I just hope it’s enough. To think I--” He suddenly coughed violently, keeling upwards in ways he hadn’t moved for days. His children immediately tried to lay him back down and give him some water.
“To have children like you all - is that not a piece of Moksha in itself?”
The eight of them teared up even more, as did the rest of the people in the room. A considerably more scarred and bruised general Ming struggled to keep her composure. Somber pops rolled around the hall from saddened cloudlings. The emperor took a deep breath.
“I would say, ‘do not weep’, but not all tears are of evil. The greatest regret of any father is to leave his children behind in a world worse off than the way it was to him. I pulled you all along for this… This ‘adventure’...” He gave a sniff and squeezed Bei’s hand as tightly as he could. “Because of me, all of you were born in this mortal world. Can… Can you ever forgive me?”
The children looked at one another, and Bei gave a sobbing grin. “Father, c’mon. There’s nothing to forgive.” Wenbo pressed his lips together.
“Adventure is, is in our blood, dad,” Tian added with as big a smile as he could muster. “We’ll all be united in Moksha anyway, right?”
“Yes… In Moksha,” mumbled the Dreamer King. “Ai…”
“You’ll see her soon, father,” Yang said soothingly as he tried to not get tears on his paper.
“... Yes… Soon.”
The king breathed his final sigh. The desperate calls of his children and people faded away into nothingness. He was pulled out of his body, floating above the disappearing crowd closing tighter in around his corpse. He soared far above, above Chuanwang, who almost seemed to look up and give him a wink. Wenbo felt the pull upwards accelerate, and in the sky far above, he saw glowing flickers of flame, licking menacingly at the nothingness surrounding them. So, these were the pyres.
However, just as he exited the upper atmosphere, he was once more tugged away - or rather, he felt as though he was being pulled in two different directions. The feeling disappeared, then returned, then disappeared again. Finally, his vision blurred over from an unfathomably bright light, and all sensations went haywire. He felt burning heat and brittle cold simultaneously, and the colourful void that filled his vision blasted his ears bloody with sound all while remaining dreadfully silent. His mind felt pulled and pushed, kneaded like dough by the experience. It went on forever, and it was over instantaneously.
A sweet familiar smell woke him up. He was staring up at a blue, feather-clouded sky, with red grass crowding the edges of his vision. The ground was soft, silken almost, and the wind was gentle to the skin. A number of grunts and crunches caught his ear - as did curious little pops on the wind. A shadow blocked out the light of the sky and Wenbo’s eyes needed time to adjust.
An unseen hand grabbed his and he heard a voice swathed in an accent that he hadn't heard in a lifetime, "Welcome home, brother."
A day has passed since Ashalla came over, and Snake’s prepping to bounce on Galbar. Who should arrive in the moment but Fat Vrog (Frog) in all his yucky unglory! He introduces himself and receives a gentle “fuck off” from the snake. However, as time and conversation pass, it becomes clear that Vrog’s just looking for a way off Galbar, too - preferably through this mysterious super dimension he’s heard so much about. Snake says Vrog looks too murdery, but Vrog says he’s a changed lump of guts and tentacles now - wants to go out and away from Narzhak’s influence. The snake sympathises and eventually tells Vrog how to get into heaven, saying that Vrog’s amazing personality and convictions swayed him. Vrog’s thankful and rolls off. Then Snake enters FSFY and is never seen again.
Years later, in the seas between Kalgrun and Istais, Wenbo dies surrounded by family. He is raised up into Moksha, where he is welcomed by a familiar voice. That concludes the story of the Dreamers.
There! Light of day! Another cave-in had shut them inside the ancient tunnel network of Dvergadypi for the second time this month. Thorfinn Underhall grit his teeth furiously. Oh, how he vowed to have those puny excuses for builders whipped! To call yourself a Brownbeard and yet failing to reinforce a simple tunnel? They shamed the whole clan, they did!
A few strikes of pickaxes later and there had formed a small hole for the tiniest of the dwarves to crawl through. A few of them did, keeping an eye on the situation outside in case there awaited another rockslide there.
“Clear!” came a muffled shout from the outside. Thorfinn nodded at his miners. “Break us through,” he commanded and the miners dug through stone and shoveled gravel with blood-pumping intensity. They were tired - that much was clear as the outside day. However, every dwarf in the tunnel knew that the larders already were scraped bare, so there was but a question of time before the population would begin to starve.
Finally, the rubble was cleared from the entrance and Thorfinn stepped outside. While the people that had followed him to the entrance exclaimed their praises and celebrations, running around hugging frozen trees and kissing the snow, Thorfinn took a deep breath of sorely missed fresh air and turned to inspect the gates to his underlands. Once, they had been proud and towering, like those of a castle, with pillars of stone carved to resemble dwarven workers holding up the mountain, and an arching dome for a roof which integrity never threatened collapse.
Now, one would be lucky to even see the remains of those statues’ feet. To think that such a mighty and ancient kingdom could have fallen into such disarray in only a few generations. It was almost as if…
“Yarl Thorfinn!” cried an approaching entourage. The patriarch turned to see battered farmers from the lower villages come running and limping on occasion.
“Halfdan, cousin! Is that you?!” Thorfinn exclaimed back and approached. Their condition brought the attention of the others dwarves as well, and quickly a few ran into the tunnels to fetch bandages, medicine and stretchers. There were a total of six, led by the correctly identified Halfdan Macdoug-Underhall, thane of the farmer’s settlement Dougsdahl. He had been wounded in the arm, but was bruised in comparison to some of his followers.
“They were too many,” he explained, “we were overrun a day ago. A few of us tried to escape back to the tunnels, but we were cut off.”
“Who attacked you?” Thorfinn asked. “Have the ancient horrours of the woods returned?”
Halfdan shook his head. “We saw them not in the dark. They were like ghosts.” He extracted a small jewel from his pocket. “... It may be due to this.” He dropped it into Thorfinn’s palm and the yarl gave it a lookover.
“What is it?”
Halfdan shrugged. “We do not know. All we know is that the warrior who dropped this seemed terribly eager to get it back.” He pointed to the sky, where the fractured moon barely still hung. “Our scribe suggested that it may be remnants of the Moonfall ten years ago.”
“Oh, that horrible business?” Thorfinn mumbled and turned the jewel around in his hand some more. “What does it do?”
Halfdan shrugged again. “Nobody knows. It could be some sort of family heirloom or currency? Why else would the warrior want it back?”
“Could it be a weapon?” a third dwarf suggested. It was Donald Deepstone-Underhall, warchief of the Underhall battleborn. Thorfinn pursed his lips. There was something about the stone - something about it whispering in his mind.
“Wouldn’t say that,” Halfdan mumbled, “they never hit us with it.”
“But it could be magical, no?” Donald suggested.
While the two of them discussed the properties of the stone, Thorfinn walked back over to the gate to Dvergadypi. He eyed the foot of a long-crumbled statue and cast a glance over his shoulder. A few were curious as to what he was doing, but most were following the increasingly heated conversation between the thane and the warchief. Thorfinn placed his hand on the statue and imagined as much as he could a statue of a mighty dwarf holding up the roof of the tunnel entrance.
In a flash, the stone in his hand became dust, and the stone around the statue became like a soup. Thorfinn stepped back, and all the dwarves turned to see what the source of the suggest commotion was. Rock and stone smashed together and sand twisted itself around it like a cloud, polishing and carving details into its shape. Before long, there stood a proud, mighty dwarf of stone in place of the crumbled pillar, beautifully holding up one side of the neglected gate.
The dwarves were all speechless. Donald and Halfdan came running over to Thorfinn and each grabbed him by a handfull of his furred shirt. “What did you just do?!” they demanded in unison.
Thorfinn blinked and pushed them away. He looked around for the stone, but found only dust under where his hand had been when he cast the spell. “It was magical… A stone of wishes!”
“A what?”
“Do you not see?! I wished for there to be a statue here, and the stone granted the wish! That’s why you couldn’t see the assassins in the night - they wished to be invisible!” Now it was Thorfinn’s turn to grab the other two by the neck of their shirts. “We need to find more! Dvergadypi shall be restored to its almighty glory - for the honour of Gereg the Stoneshaper!”
Clan Name: The Underhall Clan Represented Color: Deep sky blue. Race: Dwarves Breed: Brownbeards Capital: Dvergadypi Ruler: Thorfinn Underhall
Type of Government: Clan rule. The ruling family, the Underhalls, oversee a number of lesser families that together make up the population of the clan lands and halls. Their rule is absolute and enforced through both soft and hard power. The hierarchy grants the most power to the ruling family and disperses the further away from them one is related, meaning that the highest ranking are from neighbouring families, like the Deepstone-Underhalls or the Macgregor-Underhalls, and the lowest are partially or completely unrelated, like the Ragnarsons and Sinclairs.
Religion: The Underhalls venerate the clan’s ancient ancestry, supposedly going back all the way to the legendary stoneshaper, Gereg Brownbeard. Each family’s patriarch or matriarch carries the sacred duty to perform weekly sacrifices of food or commodities to their family altar. The oldest child of the previous patriarch or matriarch will take over this duty once they pass on to join the ancestors in the afterlife. In the event of marriage, the bride or groom from the smaller or less powerful family will give up their ancestral ties and adopt their new family’s. This has lead to a culture of bridal/groomal payments where families purchase brides and grooms for their children so they can pass on their line.
At the more powerful a family becomes, the stronger and holier their line, and the harder it is for them to acquire new blood, as everyone else knows they can demand outrageous sums in return. While kidnapping is a solution that is occasionally practiced by the desperate, it is so socially hated that any family to be found guilty of it will be brought to ruin by the rest of the clandom.
The strength and size of one’s ancestral tree is the key to wealth and power, and wealth and power are keys to founding a great dynasty. This positive feedback loop ensures that the clans forever compete to hoard the most power and to secure their children partners early on.
Geographical Location: The Underhall Clan are mountain dwellers at heart and shun open lands like the plague. Dvergadypi is therefore built deep inside the mountains of Everwinter, far away from everything and everywhere. To feed themselves, though, a brave few of the lowest families keep small farms and ranches in the woodlands below.
History: The ancient family chroniclers cannot say for certain, but a time after the period of the legendary stoneshaper, the Everwinter mountains, pristinely beautiful peaks of ice and death, began to be populated by dwarves, supposedly relatives of Brownbeard himself. Little remains of that time, likely due to the fact that these dwarves suffered immensely at the hands of the elements, scraping by on little but the fruits of the forest below and whatever roots or critters they could find in the peaks. There appeared to be something keeping them from moving down from the mountain, though; whether this was a predatory threat or rival tribes is unknown. Either way, what is known is that, eventually, these dwarves, led by the matriarch of an ancient family known as the Founders, began to dig into the mountain using the magnificent skills of Brownbeard passed down through the stoneshaper’s kin.
They turned the icy caves they had used for shelter into tunnels that led deep into the stone where the cold couldn’t reach them. Within the tunnels, they began to gather materials and resources harvested from the outside world, no longer stolen from them by whatever threat they had been fighting before. They began to document their stories on the tunnel walls with stone murals telling epic tales of mountain travels, battles with demonic foes and the intricate craftsmanship of their tunnels.
And their tunnels grew beautiful. What had started as caves even dwarves had to crawl through, eventually grew into colossal rooms, held up by intricately carven stone pillars and kept warm and alit with massive braziers and bonfires. Tunnel systems to keep the caves ventilated where constructed, and what had once been a people on the brink of extinction grew into an empire underneath the mountain.
It was around this time, however, that the Founder clan in power grew despotic. Drunk on the wealth and power they accumulated as their people expanded, they turned away from ruling and busied themselves with entertainment and selfish hedonism. Funds and knowledge which had been granted to the further development of the mountain halls went to tomb complexes larger than some of the great halls; farmers and herders were raided and killed in the outside world as the warriors who were supposed to protect them lost their source of payment and instead took up work as bandits in the deeper, lesser known tunnels; neglectful maintenance work resulted in a multitude of cave-ins and crumblings. All these issues culminated in a cave-in in the Hall of Gereg, the centre of the entire tunnel complex. This seventy metre tall, hollowed out space, which had stood for centuries at that point, suffered a catastrophic collapse in the northwestern quarter, causing in total one half of the hall to crumble under the stone from above, its pillars unable to carry all the weight on their own. This resulted in thousands of deaths, including a majority of the Founders. The survivors quickly made certain the Founders were wiped out, however, led by Asgeir Underhall. Asgeir rounded up what remained of their people and began cleaning up the mess left behind by the neglectful Founders, gaining support for his clan in the process. During the Recovery, as the period is named, Asgeir and his clan seized control of the power vacuum left behind by the Founders and set themselves on top of society. They surrounded themselves with allies, and while they made certain to keep the work to restore their home going, they made certain to hoard as many resources as they could to ensure that they would have the advantage in case of any uprisings.
Fifty years passed, and Asgeir’s son Thorfinn has taken over as clan patriarch. While the Hall of Gereg is not longer a massive pile of rubble, the people of Dvergadypi aren’t even close to recovering the strength they once boasted. While the main hall stands, none have heard from the lesser holds deeper in the mountain for half a century, and the strained farmland outside can barely provide enough food to sustain its workers, let alone the people inside the mountain.
Will the Underhalls be able to restore the glorious mountain empire of the Founders? Only time will tell.
Clan Name: The Underhall Clan Represented Color: Deep sky blue. Race: Dwarves Breed: Brownbeards Capital: Dvergadypi Ruler: Thorfinn Underhall
Type of Government: Clan rule. The ruling family, the Underhalls, oversee a number of lesser families that together make up the population of the clan lands and halls. Their rule is absolute and enforced through both soft and hard power. The hierarchy grants the most power to the ruling family and disperses the further away from them one is related, meaning that the highest ranking are from neighbouring families, like the Deepstone-Underhalls or the Macgregor-Underhalls, and the lowest are partially or completely unrelated, like the Ragnarsons and Sinclairs.
Religion: The Underhalls venerate the clan’s ancient ancestry, supposedly going back all the way to the legendary stoneshaper, Gereg Brownbeard. Each family’s patriarch or matriarch carries the sacred duty to perform weekly sacrifices of food or commodities to their family altar. The oldest child of the previous patriarch or matriarch will take over this duty once they pass on to join the ancestors in the afterlife. In the event of marriage, the bride or groom from the smaller or less powerful family will give up their ancestral ties and adopt their new family’s. This has lead to a culture of bridal/groomal payments where families purchase brides and grooms for their children so they can pass on their line.
At the more powerful a family becomes, the stronger and holier their line, and the harder it is for them to acquire new blood, as everyone else knows they can demand outrageous sums in return. While kidnapping is a solution that is occasionally practiced by the desperate, it is so socially hated that any family to be found guilty of it will be brought to ruin by the rest of the clandom.
The strength and size of one’s ancestral tree is the key to wealth and power, and wealth and power are keys to founding a great dynasty. This positive feedback loop ensures that the clans forever compete to hoard the most power and to secure their children partners early on.
Geographical Location: The Underhall Clan are mountain dwellers at heart and shun open lands like the plague. Dvergadypi is therefore built deep inside the mountains of Everwinter, far away from everything and everywhere. To feed themselves, though, a brave few of the lowest families keep small farms and ranches in the woodlands below.
History: The ancient family chroniclers cannot say for certain, but a time after the period of the legendary stoneshaper, the Everwinter mountains, pristinely beautiful peaks of ice and death, began to be populated by dwarves, supposedly relatives of Brownbeard himself. Little remains of that time, likely due to the fact that these dwarves suffered immensely at the hands of the elements, scraping by on little but the fruits of the forest below and whatever roots or critters they could find in the peaks. There appeared to be something keeping them from moving down from the mountain, though; whether this was a predatory threat or rival tribes is unknown. Either way, what is known is that, eventually, these dwarves, led by the matriarch of an ancient family known as the Founders, began to dig into the mountain using the magnificent skills of Brownbeard passed down through the stoneshaper’s kin.
They turned the icy caves they had used for shelter into tunnels that led deep into the stone where the cold couldn’t reach them. Within the tunnels, they began to gather materials and resources harvested from the outside world, no longer stolen from them by whatever threat they had been fighting before. They began to document their stories on the tunnel walls with stone murals telling epic tales of mountain travels, battles with demonic foes and the intricate craftsmanship of their tunnels.
And their tunnels grew beautiful. What had started as caves even dwarves had to crawl through, eventually grew into colossal rooms, held up by intricately carven stone pillars and kept warm and alit with massive braziers and bonfires. Tunnel systems to keep the caves ventilated where constructed, and what had once been a people on the brink of extinction grew into an empire underneath the mountain.
It was around this time, however, that the Founder clan in power grew despotic. Drunk on the wealth and power they accumulated as their people expanded, they turned away from ruling and busied themselves with entertainment and selfish hedonism. Funds and knowledge which had been granted to the further development of the mountain halls went to tomb complexes larger than some of the great halls; farmers and herders were raided and killed in the outside world as the warriors who were supposed to protect them lost their source of payment and instead took up work as bandits in the deeper, lesser known tunnels; neglectful maintenance work resulted in a multitude of cave-ins and crumblings. All these issues culminated in a cave-in in the Hall of Gereg, the centre of the entire tunnel complex. This seventy metre tall, hollowed out space, which had stood for centuries at that point, suffered a catastrophic collapse in the northwestern quarter, causing in total one half of the hall to crumble under the stone from above, its pillars unable to carry all the weight on their own. This resulted in thousands of deaths, including a majority of the Founders. The survivors quickly made certain the Founders were wiped out, however, led by Asgeir Underhall. Asgeir rounded up what remained of their people and began cleaning up the mess left behind by the neglectful Founders, gaining support for his clan in the process. During the Recovery, as the period is named, Asgeir and his clan seized control of the power vacuum left behind by the Founders and set themselves on top of society. They surrounded themselves with allies, and while they made certain to keep the work to restore their home going, they made certain to hoard as many resources as they could to ensure that they would have the advantage in case of any uprisings.
Fifty years passed, and Asgeir’s son Thorfinn has taken over as clan patriarch. While the Hall of Gereg is not longer a massive pile of rubble, the people of Dvergadypi aren’t even close to recovering the strength they once boasted. While the main hall stands, none have heard from the lesser holds deeper in the mountain for half a century, and the strained farmland outside can barely provide enough food to sustain its workers, let alone the people inside the mountain.
Will the Underhalls be able to restore the glorious mountain empire of the Founders? Only time will tell.
Member
Kangutso
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Timemaster
Lunamaria Hawke
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