Dark Jack

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Yanin, basement inside Fadewatcher station, Borstown

Looking over the dead presumed attackers, Yanin would find that most of them did not seem to carry much on them besides a scabbard for a missing sword, an empty quiver or a sheathed dagger on their hip or calf. Two of the six dead did each have a small pouch tied to their belts. Upon checking their contents, he would find that one contained four rodlin and the other seven rodlin.

Unfortunately it did not appear that any of them had any other clues on them. In fact, with how little they had on them, it seemed very likely that they did not bring everything they had to Borstown and likely had somewhere else that they left the rest of their things.

Jordan, outside the Fadewatcher station, Borstown

The girl nodded her head vigorously in affirmative. “Most of the time he gives people drinks that taste bad but makes them heal really fast, but sometimes he does magic, too!”
The older boy nodded his head in agreement, though less enthusiastically so. “Bren was our healer. He knew some alchemy and could do arcane healing, too.”

Madara, main room inside Fadewatcher station, Borstown

The Fadewatchers – both the seemingly intact one and the wounded ones – made no attempt to stop Madara and immediately cooperated with her without question. It was clear that these were desperate people, and that the two who seemed mostly healthy still had tried their best, but were immensely relieved to hand off the responsibility of treating the wounded to someone better suited to the task than themselves.

The slashed shoulder, upon closer examination, had received a deep cut across the side and front of the shoulder almost exactly at the joint. The bleeding seemed to be under control and his life out of danger, but she would know enough that without expert treatment – and ideally magical healing – this man might never regain the full use of his arm.

Irah, inside the Fadewatcher station, Borstown

The Fadewatcher Irah examined barely even seemed to register her presence, his eyes staring off into space, unfocused and erratic. He babbled quietly to himself, seemingly delirious but also clearly in intense pain.

Checking the wound beneath the head-bandage, she found that the scalp had indeed been lacerated, though she would recognize that it was the type of injury caused by blunt force trauma rather than a bladed strike. The wound had almost completely stopped bleeding already, however, and it seemed as though the skull itself might be relatively intact. She would recognize that the more serious part of this injury was likely concussive force to the brain.

Healing brain damage through mundane or magical means was tricky under the best of circumstances, Irah knew, and she recognized that this would definitely be the kind of injury where divine healing would be a major boon. Knowing the process required for this healing to occur, Irah would place a hand so that there was skin-to-skin contact with the patient, upon which she felt the angel currently residing inside her shift its attention toward the Fadewatcher.
“Poor thing,” Kinder's gentle voice said compassionately in Irah's head. “Though my Lady can't answer your prayers, I will do my best in her stead. Receive Reina's mercy.”
Irah would feel the familiar sense of the divine spirit inhabiting her body flare up and suddenly get even hotter than it had been before, painfully so, as divine energy radiated from the angel, through Irah's body and into the wounded man. A faint white light could be seen where Irah and the Fadewatcher's skin touched, though no other immediate signs of magical healing could be seen: the head-wound did not close in the least, nor did any of his other minor injuries. Kinder knew to focus on what mattered and minimize the amount of divine taint she exposed both the patient and Irah to.

After a couple of seconds the Fadewatcher suddenly started blinking his eyes rapidly as he stopped babbling, suddenly seemed to shake and convulse as if having a fit, only for him to calm back down again as abruptly as it had started but a second later. He inhaled deeply and opened his eyes, only to swiftly find Irah's gaze and meet it with his own.
“M'lady,” he muttered through trembling lips, a desperate smile curving his lips as tears started to well in his eyes. “Thank you.”
As Irah removed her hand, the skin she had touched would be reddened and irritated, but otherwise healthy. She would know that this meant she had already exposed this man to an amount of divine taint that bordered on the unhealthy, but that in doing so she had likely mended what would have been permanent damage.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Jordan, outside the Fadewatcher station, Borstown

“I dunno if they took anything,” the boy mused, sniffing loudly again and wiping his nose in his sleeve. “But I heard old Lady Bor's guys tried to help. They might know something.”
“Bren's nice,” the girl reiterated shyly to the question. “He always smiles and everyone likes him. One time Dad broke his arm and Mom and Dad got really sad because Dad couldn't work right and they didn't have money, but Bren fixed Dad's arm anyway. Then Mom baked him a pie, and Bren let me have a piece.” She smiled.

Yanin, basement inside Fadewatcher station, Borstown

Entering the basement, Yanin would be faced with the usual storage facilities these kinds of barracks had attached to them, which were usually basements like this or separate shacks to the main building. All manner of items, from equipment to food, oil and miscellaneous supplies were arranged either on wooden shelves, in crates or in barrels that lined the walls of the small subterranean room.
What was different about this basement compared to those of other Fadewatcher stations was that another four figures were laid out on the ground side-by-side, hands folded over their chests. All four of them lay perfectly still, and it was likely not difficult to deduce that they were all dead. Three of the four were in Fadewatcher uniforms, while the last – a man in his forties that looked quite well-groomed compared to the rest, at least for a corpse – wore no identifying heraldry and brigandine rather than the coat of plates assigned to rural Fadewatchers.

Just as unusually and immediately obvious was a pile to the left of the stairs of what seemed to be another six armored bodies that had seemingly just been dumped off the side of the stair. None of them seemed to have any heraldry on them either, and there was no discernible pattern in what armor they were wearing.

Madara, main room inside Fadewatcher station, Borstown

The other four seemed much better off than the two who had expired. They were all injured in somewhat debilitating ways: one had a head-wound and likely a severe concussion; one appeared to have likely sustained tendon damage from a slash across his right shoulder; one had lost four fingers on his right hand, leaving only the thumb, and seemed to have a broken jaw; one had a nasty gash across his left calf; and the last seemed to have a compound fracture in his right arm.

While serious, none of it appeared to be immediately lethal, at least.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Jordan, outside the Fadewatcher station, Borstown

Several of the children shook their heads no when Jordan asked about the bandits, and the oldest boy said: “It was in the night. We di'n't see anything. No one's telling us anything.”
A moment later when he mentioned bringing more supplies, the boy spoke up once more: “I think they already took what they could from Bren's house, and people come with more from time to time. It's been hours.”
Finally, when Jordan mentioned finding their healer, another child – a girl that looked about nine years old – spoke with a halting, nervous voice: “I w-... I want Bren back. Bren is... Bren's nice.”

Yanin and Madara, inside the Fadewatcher station, Borstown

The young Fadewatcher seemed to relax a little when Yanin declared himself to not be an enemy, though he still looked nervous and exhausted. “Y-yes,” he replied when queried about whether there were anyone else in the building, “he's –”
At that time a second young man, looking only a little older than the first, also in Fadewatcher gear and decorated with his very own faintly blood-speckled bandage on his left upper arm, came trudging up the stairs from the basement with a bundle of cloth, likely bed-sheets, under one arm and carrying a basket with several brown jugs in the other. He looked a little calmer than his younger colleague, but also a little paler and just as sweaty.

The newcomer seemed surprised to see Yanin, and even more so to see Madara abruptly push through and announcing her intent to help. Despite how evidently unnerved he was, however, he quickly set down the things he was carrying – what was intended as improvised bandage-materials and four jugs of ale – and wordlessly went about following Madara's instructions, tending the fire and preparing a pot of water for boiling.
The younger man stood clumsily from his kneeling position, his body trembling, grabbed the lantern he had had sitting beside him and bringing it to provide what light it could for the half-palanter.

As she examined them, it quickly turned out that the two quiet ones were still for a reason: neither of them was breathing and there was no heartbeat. Even at a glance, Madara's practiced eye would likely recognize that, among several less severe wounds, one had bled out from a cut across the inner thigh and likely had a severed femoral artery, and the other seemed to have expired from a stab-wound in the abdomen.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Irah and Lhirin, Outside Healer's House, Borstown

With both of the deigan travelers examining the scene, each perceptive and intelligent in their own way, it was not too difficult to deduce a general state of affairs and series of events.
Lhirin's casting of elucidate revealed that the only magical energy glowing in the area was what he was spending on the spell itself. Whatever had happened here, it did not appear that magic had been involved.

Looking at everything else, a vague outline of the situation began to crystallize for the two of them:
The door to the healer's house had been beaten in from the outside, and the pattern of cracks in the wood seemed to suggest that it had been smashed in by multiple impacts side by side. It was not localized enough to suggest the use of an actual battering ram, nor did the door seem sturdy enough to call for such measures. It rather seemed as though someone, perhaps multiple someones, had destroyed it just by repeatedly throwing their body-weight against it.
Outside the house the tracks were chaotic, overlapped and made it difficult to follow any one set of specific tracks. It was clear that there had been at least a dozen people here in fervent motion, boots digging up ground and kicking up bits of grass and soil.
Blood was similarly going this way and that in the area, having been splattered and sprayed over the ground in a way that clearly suggested that fighting had happened here, with numerous injuries. There were also four much more localized puddles of blood in places where the grass had been flattened top-down rather than in any particular direction, in ways that seemed to draw a contour that could be a close approximation of a humanoid figure.
Combined with the other signs of a skirmish having taken place, it would not be a stretch to deduce that the broken wooden handle on the ground was either from a spear or another polearm that had snapped during the fighting, though it appeared the weaponized end of it had been carried away.
Two distinct trails seemed to leave the scene: one that seemed to have fewer drips of blood along it and thus be less obvious that lead around the right side of the healer's house and seemingly toward the forest to the northeast; and one that was much more obvious owing to the smears of blood along the ground starting at the puddles, suggesting that bodies had been dragged along that path. This trail headed up the road to the northwest, toward the crossroad.

Pushing aside the broken door hanging off its hinge, Irah would see that the inside the house was remarkably mostly intact. A small table and a chair seemed to have been knocked over near the door, but there was no blood inside the house. Otherwise the house was about what one might expect from the home of a healer and pharmacist: a pleasant, if slightly cramped, space in the front to live and receive patients, and a combined workshop and storage in the back, with cupboards and cabinets lining the walls and a table with quite a kind of assembled alchemical equipment that would be quite familiar to Irah.
All of the cabinets and cupboards were open, however, and many of them seemed to be empty. Otherwise the interior of the house seemed untouched.

Yanin and Jordan, outside the Fadewatcher station, Borstown

Yanin listening at the door would not hear much in terms of voices other than the sounds of pain and injury he had already identified at first. After a couple of seconds, however, he might have been able to hear the sound of quickened footfalls on a wooden floor for just several seconds, followed by a male voice, muffled by the door, seemingly speaking in a soothing, if panicked, manner.

The children being addressed by Jordan – five human children, seemingly with ages ranging from around eight to thirteen – stared at him with nervous fascination, though none of them seemed particularly inclined to follow his instructions to leave.
When Jordan mentioned bringing a healer, the presumably oldest child – a thirteen year old boy – sniffed loudly before bluntly stating: “The bandits took our healer. There's no one to get.”

Yanin yanked the door open and revealed the interior of the station. The interior itself was somewhat familiar to him, standard as it was for this type of minor Fadewatcher station: the end furthest toward him was occupied by tables, chairs and a fireplace that was faintly smoldering, but practically burnt out. On the right side of the room there was also a stairway going down to a basement. Past this living area were the rows of beds lined along each wall.
Blood dotted the floor in here in varying degrees, most of it in relatively sparse drips, others in more worrying, larger and more frequent splotches, and others yet that seemed smeared from a body being dragged. The smears seemed to mostly go from the door Yanin had just opened and down the stairs.
Six of the fourteen beds arrayed in the other end of the barrack were occupied by people, many of which were still in partial armor with only obstructing pieces having been removed, with bandages covering various wounds. Some bandages looked fairly clean still, others with dots of blood. A few bandages looked as though they had been soaked through entirely. While four of the six were making noise and gently writhing in place, the last two – the ones with the most obviously drenched bandages and mattresses – lay completely still.
A seventh figure, a young man that looked to be in his late teens or early twenties, was on his feet, drenched in sweat and in the middle of changing a bandage of one of the wounded. He was still in his almost gear, including the tabard with the Fadewatcher-insignia on it, though he had discarded his helmet and gauntlets for the moment.
The intact-seeming Fadewatcher jolted upright when the door was opened and stared at Yanin with eyes wide in panic, looking as though he might burst into tears at any moment. “Please, no more!”

From Downfall ReRisen

Gramps merely nodded his in understanding as Enn spoke, first when he explained that he was not the first to attempt to desert the Anderekians, then when he stressed the importance of keeping his equipment, and finally, with a deep sigh and a face that furrowed deeper with lines of worry, when he reported on the usage of AI.
Kay just looked from one to the other with wide-eyed wonder, at once smiling excitedly to actually be part of something this new and important and slightly unnerved about what it all meant. She was also still quite concerned about what was going to happen to Eighfour and confused as to why Gramps was being so calm about them being discovered and Enn's being here when it should mean impending annihilation. Was it just a facade? Was he just putting on a brave face to comfort everyone else while he knew the countdown for Eighfour disappearing in a mushroom cloud had begun? Was he unmoved by death approaching? Or did he know something she did not? Obviously things were already progressing in ways Kay had never expected with what seemed to be preparations for an evacuation underway.

“It's as I thought, then,” Gramps mumbled, his voice barely audible as his gaze shifted to Kay for a second – looking, it seemed, specifically at the box-like interface embedded in her skull – before moving to the front of the cupboard, turning his back to his guests, opening it and starting to rummage through its contents. “The drone was too big to be a bug, too small to be a manned vehicle, and it can't have been remote-controlled during the sunstorm. So it's probably the thing to the west.”
He nonchalantly threw a small wrapped package over his shoulder that landed on the table between where Enn and Kay were seated. The impact seemed to jostle it enough to make the wrapping come partially loose, revealing what appeared to be some very stale-looking and crumbled salted crackers of some kind.
“You're allowed to speak freely, by the way,” he remarked as he turned back around, a dented old metal kettle in his hand. “I'm sure you have lots of questions.”

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Name: Sir Freagon, AKA Freagon Grimglare, AKA Freagon the Half-Blind, AKA Patch

Species: Nightwalker

Age: He refuses to tell anyone. He looks middle-aged, which would put him at 70-100 years old.

Occupation: Claims to be a Knight of the Will, would make him the last of their order if true.

Sex: Male

Magic: None

Languages: Can speak Rodorian, Fermian, Penin and some Tarahn. Can write and read Rodorian and Penin.

Affinity: Earth

Strength of soul: Unknown

Currency: 16 rodlin

Appearance
Height: 194 cm

Weight: 95 kg

Hair: Black with dirty-gray streaks, tangled and unevenly cut with shears to 5-15 cm in length.

Eyes: Wears a large leather eyepatch over his right eye. Left eye is jet black, as is typical for nightwalkers.

Skin: Slightly tanned but covered almost entirely in scar-tissue from a wide assortment of burns, cuts and punctures.

Build: Athletic and muscular, slender yet sturdy.

Face: Only small patches of facial hair and only partial eyebrows, since facial scarring has rendered him unable to grow hair in most places. Broad jaw but narrow chin with a faint cleft. Pronounced, somewhat low cheekbones and slightly sunken cheeks. Long, narrow nose with a swell in its tip and several bends and indentations in the bridge of the nose. Thin, pale lips. Narrow, close-set downturned eyes. High brow with a low hairline.

Equipment
The hand-and-a-half sword Roct, typically kept in a scabbard with an interior of steel and an outer lining of leather. The sword has a blade measuring 110 cm, is made of sartal and has an extremely smooth surface, giving it a very bright silvery, almost platinum-like sheen. The blade is double-edged and leaf-shaped; it starts out at a width of 6 cm into a concave curve from the hilt outward where the blade narrows to a width of 4 cm at 30 cm from the hilt, before widening and transitioning into a convex curve that broadens to a width of 9 cm at 60 cm from the hilt, before tapering into a very sharp point. It has an unadorned steel crossguard that is 22 cm wide. The handle is made from two semi-cylinders of wood attached to the tang of the blade with three steel pins, and is wrapped in leather cord and shaped for a secure, comfortable grip. It bears an unassuming steel pommel at the bottom of the hilt in diamond shape.

Roct illustrated

A cuirass of scale armor made of lutrium, giving it a color that shifts from golden to purple depending on the lighting. It has sleeves that go to the elbows and a hem that goes to halfway down the thighs.

A thin gray cotton gambeson.

A pair of wrought iron bracers secured with leather straps.

A pair of steel-plated gauntlets.

A pair of plain steel greaves.

A pair of sturdy but worn dark-brown leather boots.

A set of armored headwear, consisting of a padded coif, a chain coif, a bevor and a bascinet helmet with an unusual double-layered visor. The first visor layer is mostly normal, faintly rounded visor that can be shifted upward to clear the face, has round eye-holes and a number of smaller holes to make it easier to breathe. The second visor layer is like a lid that swings to the side, attached to the right side of the helmet, which covers the right side of the face and obstructs the holes on that side entirely.

A dagger with a blade of sterling silver with a 22 cm blade and a small crossguard.

A long black leather coat, the hem of which goes to halfway down his calves.

Other notable possessions
A mottled-gray gelding with white markings on the face and haunches called Xilos.

A set of saddle and saddlebags.

A worn, faded brown hooded linen cloak.

Three different worn gray linen shirts.

Four pairs of tight-fitting linen trousers in gray, black and two that are brown.

A fire striker.

A bedroll.

A woolen blanket.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Name: Jaelnec

Species: Nightwalker

Age: 25 years old, looks about 18-20 by human standards

Occupation: Page to Sir Freagon of the Knights of the Will

Sex: Male

Magic: None
Languages: Can speak, read and write Rodorian, though he is slow at writing

Affinity: Kinesis

Strength of soul: ~0.4 kWh

Currency: 4 rodlin

Appearance
Height: 185 cm

Weight: 90 kg

Hair: Honey-blond cut to shoulder-length and typically worn in a small ponytail tied with a leather cord. Mostly smooth with a hint of waviness toward the tips.

Eyes: Jet black as is typical for nightwalkers
Skin: Pale on the body and faintly tanned in the face. Somewhat calloused on hands, feet, elbows and knees, but otherwise remarkably clean, smooth and mostly hairless, with what hair he has in his armpits, forearms, shins and stomach being short, delicate and difficult to see due to its coloration closely matching that of his skin.

Build: Athletic and muscular, slender yet sturdy.
Face: He only has faint hints of adolescent, fuzzy facial hair that is nearly impossible to see unless you are looking for it specifically, adorning mostly his upper- and lower-lip, along the bottom of his jaw and around the tip of his chin. Has an average-width but sharply defined jaw, squarish chin. Subtle, tall cheekbones and full, slightly rounded cheeks. His nose is somewhat average in terms of the width of the bridge, but with some flare to the nostrils and a long, pointed tip. Wide mouth with a thin lower lip and an upper lip with a pronounced cupid bow and pale lips. Has a long cut-scar stretching from just below his right cheekbone and to the left, curving downward and crossing his lips toward his chin just below right nostril. Large, round and slightly upturned eyes. High brow with thick eyebrows and a tall, rounded forehead.

Equipment
A fairly standard hand-and-a-half sword of steel with a blade measuring 90 cm in length, with a scuffed surface and faintly chipped edges. The blade is double-edged and straight, measuring 5 cm in width where it meets the hilt and tapering gradually along the entire length to a thin, sharp point. Has a standard hilt with crossguard and rounded pommel.

A hauberk of steel, with several links missing on the chest- and abdominal-areas of the mail, around which the metal is also slightly rusted. It has no sleeves and is split into flaps past the waist, with one flap on the front and one on the back, reaching to just above the knee.

A thin gray cotton gambeson.

A pair of wrought iron bracers secured with leather straps.

A pair of thick leather gauntlets.

A pair of sturdy but worn light-brown leather boots.

A hat that looks almost comically large for him, with a somewhat floppy brim that extends 18 cm from his head and a tall, rounded top. Inside the hat is a cervelliere of steel with a padded interior.

A steel knife with a blade 12 cm blade.

Other notable possessions
A brown mare with white markings on the face, neck and flanks called Sabicia.

A set of saddle and saddlebags.

A worn, faded brown hooded linen cloak.

Two linen shirts, one white and one gray.

Two pairs of linen trousers, one gray and one brown.

A fire striker.

Two wooden practice swords.

A nearly empty pouch of salt.

A brass pot and skillet.

A small bag of eating utensils (forks and spoons).

A bedroll.

A woolen blanket.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

The year is 630 of the Second Mundane Age, the date is the 4th of the month Akleth, in the great kingdom of Rodoria. It is a country founded on the first day of the current age, a country built upon the ruins of the nation once known as Gazzeralesh, and one of the most influential countries in the central northern part of the continent of Kirirak.
The country is divided into ten duchies, each one the domain of a separate duke: Wenal, Nemhim, Seclyr, Zerul, Relimon, Anaxim, Pelgaid, Etlon, Fokon and Gilmah, nestled around the colossal Center Lake. Each duchy has some autonomy and are governed by their duke, but all the dukes answer to the monarch, who reigns as the ruler of all the kingdom.
It is a country stricken with plague; for 11 years the terrible disease known as the Withering has ravaged Rodoria, during which it has killed 2.5 million people, or about one fourth the population. Among the dead was every immediate member of the royal family, leaving the Rodorian throne empty for the first time in over six centuries, and sending the Rodorian duchies into civil war as they each vie to assume the throne. As the armies turn on one another and the enforcers of the law, the Fadewatchers, find themselves divided by the fracturing of the kingdom, lawless ruffians, wicked schemers and terrible monsters thrive as the opposition against them weakens.
It is a dark time in Rodoria, and looks only to get darker, as both the Withering and the civil war continues to sunder its people.

Our story, however, begins much smaller than that. In the eastern part of Rodoria, within the duchy of Nemhim, sits the small barony of Borstown. An unremarkable hamlet to look at with a population of less than a thousand souls, Borstown sits at a crossroad about 80 km southeast of Nemhim City.
Many small homes are lined up neatly along the dirt roads that act as the main thoroughfare of the town, humble and unremarkable places for commoners to live. It is about an hour before noon, and though the year is transitioning into autumn, the day is bright and warm under a mostly cloudless sky. Children are playing in the street, and adults are out working either in the fields and pastures closer to the actual crossroad at the center of town, in the farmlands that dominate the landscape to the south and west of the town, or out working in the forest to the east, either collecting firewood and timber or hunting game. The air is full of shouting, swearing and laughter, carried by a gentle, chill breeze.
Here, since about two months ago, the lady of the hamlet has sent out a call:

My name is Baroness Vela Bor. I’m the last surviving member of my party of adventurers, the Melody of Freedom. I had a lot of adventures, collected a lot of treasures, but now I’m getting old and I have no heirs. I’m too weak to do much myself, but I invite any active and prospective adventurers to pay me a visit at my manor in Borstown, Nemhim, so I can get to know you. At worst, if I don’t think you’re cut out for making Reniam a better place, I offer free food, drinks, a place to stay in my home and advice. At best, if I think you can carry on the adventurous spirit of me and my friends, I have a lot to give you out of all the riches, equipment and spellbooks my party collected over the years.

Since then there has been a continuous trickle of from all over Rodoria to this insignificant little town of people seeking to visit the baroness. Some wish to take advantage on the aging noblewoman, hoping to deceive her and take as much as they can get of her wealth. Others come with a genuine hope to begin adventures of their own, or to obtain aid that will let adventures already in progress continue and succeed. Others yet may be here out of sheer curiosity; to see what this strange baroness is like to make such a strange offer, or to see what kind of people will respond to her call. Even people who came just in the hopes of filling their bellies or being able to brag about having rubbed elbows with a baroness were welcomed in. So far every visitor to her home of Bor Manor, many dozens of them, has been fed and given a warm bed to sleep in for their stay, but have left empty-handed, rejected by the former adventurer.
The trickle has just started to slow, as more and more people start to suspect that Vela Bor may never deem anyone worthy heirs of her and her party.

It is on this day, at this time, we find some of the latest applicants come to meet the baroness.

Along the main road, a short ways southeast from the crossroad, the ascended deigan Lhirinthyl reading in the back of a stagecoach while the true deigan Deo'irah has just arrived by the front door of the local healer's house: a small unassuming cottage with a herbal garden in the back and two apple trees in the front on either side of the short gravel-strewn path leading to the door. A signpost at the corner of this path and the main road declares it as the “Borstown Healer and Pharmacy”.
Even at a glance, however, it is clear that something is awry. What appears to be the broken handle of some long tool or weapon lies discarded in the grass by the path, and both the grass and gravel have spots that are red rather than green or gray. The front door is not only open but broken, the wood splintered near the handle and hangs askew from its upper hinge, seemingly torn off its lower one. The place lays in silence.

Just a short ways up the road from there, at one corner of the crossroad, the human knight Sir Yanin Glade and his equally human squire, Jordan Forthey, are in the process of checking in with the local Fadewatcher station and barracks. It is a elongated, plain wooden building with a small gravel-strewn yard beside it, decorated with several racks of wooden practice weapons, some basic dummies and a line of archery targets. On the end of the building, above the entrance, the wall was decorated with the eye of the Fadewatchers.
The wide double-doors stand closed before the two travelers with no Fadewatchers in sight. However, here too they might notice small splotches of red on the ground and on the handles of the doors. Sounds of panicked voices can faintly be heard from inside, along with the telltale groans and wails that told of wounded.

Just past the crossroad and down the road to northwest, the half-palanter Madara was just leaving the shop of the local carpenter, declared by an ornate, well-carved wooden sign out front as “Prooga Carpentry”. The building itself was probably no bigger than the surrounding residential buildings despite serving not only as the carpenters workshop, but also a store for selling furniture, wooden toys and various little knickknacks, so it had been no surprise when the interior had proven rather cramped.
The inventory of the store had been of middling quality, no worse than one would expect but also unremarkable. The furniture was mostly plain and utilitarian, if sturdy, and the toys had been simple and unimaginative. The most interesting and unique things for sale in there had been various carved wooden goods in the theme of the most significant event in memory of Borstown: memorabilia of the fight between the Melody of Freedom and the Nemhimian Prooga. The shelves had been stocked with carvings of prooga in varying sizes, stances and quality. Some of the best ones had been surprisingly detailed, even getting some of the texture of the fur to express through the wood.
As she left to head for Bor Manor, Madara would soon reach the crossroad and have a direct line of sight to the Fadewatcher station.

Going back to the crossroad and down the southwestern road instead, just a little ways away from the Baroness' home of Bor Manor, the Dark One Nabisisstra Rhe'anyl Qelarn – a rare sight that earned curious stares and surprised whispers everywhere she went – was visiting what the storefront sign declared as the “Borstown Winery”.
It was a fairly large and relatively well-maintained and decorated building, with the front door having scrolling in the style of grape vines, and a large window on either side of the door that gave a good view of a store with shelves full of bottles of red wine. Most of the building was not visible from there, but it was probably a fair guess that those would be the facilities were the wine was actually made. Behind the winery was a large field with rows of grape vines, and crowds of people in the midst of harvesting and tending the vines or carrying baskets of dark-red grapes.

Finally, going back to the crossroad and in the opposite direction, to the northeast along the road through the small forest that cast the land there in sun-speckled shade, the nightwalkers Sir Freagon and his page, Jaelnec, were just getting to where the trees started thinning and the first residences marked where nature gave way to the artificial. Slightly uphill compared to the rest of Borstown, the two of them had a mostly unobstructed view of the entire hamlet.

None of these groups are aware of each other yet, but they will be soon. They are all here to meet Baroness Vela Bor for one reason or another, merely the last in a long line of hopeful visitors. Yet something is different on this day; something strange is afoot in Borstown. Whether these people know it or not, their adventure is about to begin.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

So long after the premature end of its previous iteration, The Prophecy with the unofficial subtitle of Power demands sacrifice... after a major overhaul and rework of large parts of the world, its species, its mechanics and more... here we are. It is my pleasure to present:

This is your story. Within the stage of the universe called the Realms, the player characters have the freedom to go where they want, do what they want and be who they want. As the GM and narrator of this tale, I will be controlling and keeping track of the world while simultaneously ensuring that there is always something interesting for the characters to do, be it through an epic main plot-line or numerous secondary plot-lines I tailor to the interests of the player characters.
The world is huge and deep, with plenty to explore. This will be a long one.

An important note: Unlike the last iteration of The Prophecy, which was always recruiting players and open to new applications were always welcome, this one is not. I have learned the hard way that too many players will just stop posting without warning or explanation, and having an actor in the story just suddenly go missing like that invariably puts a wrench in the gears of the story.
For this reason, for this roleplay applications will be by invitation only. I want players I can trust and rely on to keep the story going.

For information about the world, please consult our new and updated Compendium. Though still a work in progress and incomplete it is already quite extensive, and I will continue to expand it as the story progresses.

Now, for the cast of our story:
Jaelnec, Page of the Will – played by Dark Jack
Freagon, Knight of the Will – played by Dark Jack
Yanin Glade, Knight of the Glades and Fadewatcher – played by Shienvien
Jordan Forthey, Squire of the Glades and Fadewatcher – played by Shienvien
Madara, Seamstress and surgeon – played by Shienvien
Lhirinthyl, Exiled vagabond – played by yoshua171
Nabisisstra Rhe'anyl Qelarn, Expeditionary trooper – played by Howe
Deo'irah, Iterant alchemist, scholar and priestess of Avalz'lihn – played by Tuujaimaa

The Prophecy

Okay first of all, props, that's a really cool graphic. Simple, but elegant even if I don't remember some of the terms lol. These changes sound fascinating and have further piqued my curiosity.

@yoshua171

Thanks. One very likely reason that you don't remember some of these terms is that they're new. Reniam was always just Reniam, but in theme with giving the planes "-realm" names I gave it its secondary name of the Corerealm. The Ether/Dreamrealm is essentially what was called the Spirit Realm in the previous iteration, and Stupor is still pretty much what Stupor always was: the space between realms. The Divide is also pretty much the same thing, with the main difference being that it is no longer between Reniam and Hell, but rather between Reniam and all other realms and keeping out all gods rather than just the "bad" ones.

Tidall and Drigall are both "new" in a sense, though there is somewhat of a relation between them and the old Hell and Heaven. Essentially in the new version, the creator spirits divided the gods and angels between those two realms rather than the "upper" and "lower" planes. The gods who vied for dominion over the other gods, Reniam and the "mundane" (the class previously labelled "mortals") became the Everbound and sent to Tidall the Everrealm, and the gods that fought to preserve peace and freedom became the Neverbound and sent to Drigall the Neverrealm.

The sun and moon are probably self-explanatory, but the Voidband is probably the most significant new addition aside from just the complete change of structure. You see, Tidall and Drigall are actually semispheres encompassing Reniam, as depicted, and can be seen in the sky. Not in the sense of "there is the crust of another planet outside the planet", since those realms are semi-metaphysical, but in the world the "stars" are powerful magical presences in Tidall and Drigall, meaning that in the space that separates the two realms there is a completely vacant stretch of sky at night that is just uniform black (clouds notwithstanding). I have a lot of little interactions in mind with this new mechanic, but among other things this new sky-structure has an easily observable effect on how Reniam sees the moon. When the moon shines through the Voidband it is white; when it shines through Tidall it is orange; and when it shines through Drigall it is green. The sun also takes on different hues depending on what it shines through, but its more intense light makes it somewhat less noticeable than with the moon.

There is one thing that still really fascinates me in particular about your world, and it's the idea of making bargains with Demons, for power and whatnot. Just the idea of having to go through a contract like a lawyer, and the margin for error (and the cost of such errors) being so high is absolutely intriguing to me. I remember I was going to do something with that in regards to Ilitas, but I'm thinking I'd design a different character, but keep that throughline since it intrigues me so much.

@yoshua171

Heh, that one is hardly unique to The Prophecy, it's just an existing concept I adapted because it suited the Grand Master.

So that's where my brain's at. I'd love to hear some of the changes for various things. Like the Laws of Magic in particular :3

@yoshua171

I actually don't think I've changed the Laws of Magic specifically, though I would have to check my notes to be sure. It's more that I've pondered the origin of magic quite a bit - where do spells come from? Why can spoken words invoke specific effects? That kind of thing - and addressing those unanswered questions made me reconsider some of the mechanical aspects of spellcraft. The short version is that internal magic (elemental, arcane, black (no longer called that) and summoning magic, as well as necromancy and the Art of the Warden) has become much more closely tied to the Dreamrealm.