An attempt at a homebrew setting, designed for a few friends, some of whom I may not have met just yet.
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Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them,—ding-dong, bell.
--Shakespeare, "The Tempest"
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Hell is empty, and all of the devils are here.
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For thousands of years on Tlan, people have huddled by their fires in the depths of the cold wind, telling stories and singing the same old, impossibly old songs. A gust of bitingly cold and dry air comes down from the landward side of town, scattering townsfolk to their hearths and homes like so many dry leaves blown before the storms of the cold. As the wind paws at the shuddering eaves and rings the family's heirloom wind-chimes, people recite the epics of wizards, gods, dragons, and the golden age of warm weather and mighty heroes once again, always with a new difference, a twist that makes the old feel fresh. And as eternal as the winters are, the stories are longer, longer and always changing even as the voices of the tellers change. The tales of magic, told with clear pride, inspire restless children, kept awake by the howling wind, to steal downstairs in the dark on stormy nights, where they try to light the fire with their minds or flash a light from their fingertips into a threatening shadow. Most fail.
Sometimes, though, the spark jumps into the kindling, or a light reveals that the secret in the shadow is the same cat sitting on the same chair it claims in the daylight. Even more rarely, the families of these gifted young folk might allow them to develop their talent by sending them to a school--usually, one of the nine great universities scattered across the equatorial lowlands where the ice reluctantly melts in summer.
Eight schools stand for eight different branches of magic, but all teach the same first lesson: to learn magic, one needs not decades but centuries. Therefore, the short-lived folk are set a challenge: master life itself first. Once they construct their own philosopher's stone, a source of eternal life, they are free to master their respective school of magic. Of course, a curriculum that requires sixty years for a bright pupil is more than most can manage, and most wizards are elves and other beings who simply have more time. But even they usually study the Stone first. As a result, almost all wizards are old--old men and women and beings beyond caring about such distinctions (and if they look young, you can probably assume you're looking at an illusionist). Most are committed to the school of magic that shaped their Stone.
So, most of them look with some derision at the Unyversal Unyversyty, a place where magic is taught by a ragtag band of outcasts from the other schools of magic. The UU (or W) is seen as a place for dilettantes who want to try to master parlor tricks and then die, not a place for serious wizardry. Nobody could hope to shape a philosopher's stone while pulled in so many directions. Still, minor magicka is attainable there, and people would graduate in ten or so years able to mend objects, make crops grow, calm the angry, and sear the wicked. The religious orders, each devoted to an archetypal manifestation of the divine, send clergy to the W to learn something useful. Third sons and daughters might enroll to master one key professional trick--a shipwright's son could spend five years learning how to meld two planks of wood into a single tough, flexible, curved board, and those five years would pay dividends for the rest of his life. Even a small contingent of elves study desultory arcana, motivated by something other than the pursuit of perfection.
None is more dissolute than Ulyssia, the chair of the UU and the world's main proponent of universal magical studies. This impossibly old elf's students invariably perish or wander off before achieving a universal philosopher's stone, but she remains, casting spells and watching the seagulls soaring over the wine-dark sea, hoping someday to find a successor. In the meantime, she enjoys harboring exiles from the other schools of magic and learning every craft a little. A master of all schools, but a wizard of none.
Around the UU, the town of Morgen remains blissfully indifferent to the unyversyty's lack of respect in higher places. The townsfolk are proud of the institution and grateful for the occasional assistance that the wizards offer, even if the mages can be aloof sometimes, and other times they can be impractical to the point of frustrating arbitrary silliness.
For example, centuries ago, the professor of divination, an old elf named Kassander, warned the city to build itself within a relatively small circle, reinforced with walls. It's possible to walk from one end of Morgen to the other in a matter of minutes, and it's probably not much wider than a thousand feet at its thickest. This narrow ring encircles five hundred densely packed residents: townsfolk, students, faculty, and staff.
Not everyone is content to live in the teetering warrens of Morgen. Another two thousand or so people work the fields, forest, and sea, living in steads beyond the walls. When the wind comes in from the sea, people emerge from their strongly built houses to breathe in the mercifully humid air and tend to the crops before the temperatures drop again. Rain falls, people mingle under broad hats, and sturdy sheep are chased out of fields of sturdy crops.
There's no safe land route to any other settlements: a wall of low, but often snowy hills ring the Vale of Morgen, and they are surrounded by cold deserts inhabited by sabertoothed cats and dire wolves. Only experienced hunting parties climb those hills. But the town isn't entirely isolated: a boat is always leaving to some other place, and another is always arriving. People go on pilgrimages to the shrine-cities of various archetypes of the gods, and some bring home husbands or wives.
Kassander still throws a fit whenever someone tries suggesting that the town expand the walls or that someone could maybe build a structure outside the circle. If pressed, he will mutter about visions and a great danger that will come. While things have been peaceful for a long time, legends of outland invasions (and memories, too, among the older folk of town) keep the walls in good repair. The town grows up instead of out, with residences clinging to the buttresses established for old unyversyty lecture halls and small tower-houses characterizing the chaotic architecture. The wood-warping shipwrights and other students of the professor of Transmutation spend their apprenticeship making the impossible plausible in the stone, plaster, and wood architecture of the town. Sometimes, it feels more like a single building than a town--a useful attribute in such a cold place. Everyone knows everyone, with all the ecstasy and agony that comes with a lack of privacy and limited options to start fresh. People learn to talk through difficulties instead of holding grudges. It's more like a big family than most places on Earth, but it isn't too unusual for Tlan.
The only large semi-open space in town is known as the Octagon. Outlanders learn not to call it a square. If someone has something to say, sell, sing, or spell, it's likely to be announced, discussed, performed, or cast there.
No matter who you are or why you're in Morgen, seat of the W, you're bound to spend some time in the Octagon. You might be there now, standing where the streets (alleys, really) come together. At the center of the town is a fountain where people fill buckets with clean, cold water. Around the fountain is a small space planted with eight ancient, pollarded oaks, harvested yearly for poles--which keeps the canopies from growing into the surrounding market stalls, which rise on spindly, magic-reinforced scaffolds three stories off the ground, and which are reservable on a town calendar. You can get anything you need at the Octagon, and after the harvest of the pollards, the market stalls are converted to stands for the yearly theater competition, which is acted in the round. Everything changes for the theater--work is forgotten, school is canceled, and enemies find themselves laughing at the same jokes in the same market stalls.
It might be just the place to imagine yourself in the world of Tlan, where this season, everything will change, even more than it does for the yearly dramas.
Theosophical Interlude…
As years turn into decades and decades turn into centuries, apprentices (sometimes) turn into wizards, and wizards plot acts of magic. There are those who say that the people are just pawns in the games of the wizards and that life in this world, as normal people know it, is just a reflection of their collective will. But any cleric will quickly remind their flock that though there might be a grain of truth in this, it is not deeply true: all people are mere pieces on the chessboard of the gods. Even the wizards. A particularly daring zealot of a minor cult might even go so far as to argue that even the gods are just pieces on the chessboard of a higher being, a transcendent Deus or Brahm who stands above them all, or maybe that even this hypothetical Brahm might be a mere fancy of a fevered brain of a writer beyond the ken of this world… but such theology is no comfort to those who are trying to play the game of their own lives in the streets of the UU or the fields of Morgen. Most people are too caught up in the drama of their own small game to resent the wizards overmuch.
End Theosophy
People live lives defined not only by the dramas in the theater but all the petty squabbles and vendettas of two notoriously petty settlements combined: the university and the village. Not to mention the theater. And even the theater sometimes takes on a more violent aspect, converted to a boxing ring for entertainment, martial craft, and the hashing out of misdemeanors mano-a-mano. Despite it all, the W trundles on, whether forgiving (as usual) or unforgiving (as sometimes). Let’s just say people make their grievances known.
As, for instance, late one night when Kassander the Diviner begins to ring the pealing (some say shrill) silver bell that summons the chairs of each school of magic to his observatory, the highest point in the town, a narrow spire of stone that looms above his hall. Complaints arise from dormitory beds and private houses as the city groans collectively, mourning their lost dreams.
This is not the first time the star-gazing Kassander has rung the bell—no, his warnings have punctuated the lives of his neighbors and colleagues for many ages. As usual, the sleepy magicians show up in his tower. As usual, Kassander begins to prophesy doom and destruction and a flood that will purge the world. As usual, the winded wizards look to the chair of enchantment for a calming spell, something soft to soothe the old elf and get everyone back to bed. And as usual, the enchanter snickers and delays, preferring to keep the room captive in an uncomfortable emotional state, pursuing her own never-ending studies of the secrets of the (annoyed) heart.
But this time, Kassander’s frothy gesticulations towards the stars over his tower seem to have a special edge to them. He points to the stars, the planets, and the silver and looming grin of the horned moon. He talks more volubly of the waters that will drown the world, the heat in his words visible in steaming clouds in the cold air. Ulyssia, naturally enough as a universalist par excellence, finally pulls her hands out of her heavy robes and readies her own calming draft of magic, approaching her old, crazy friend with a glowing hand of rest—but of course, Ulyssia is not merely an enchanter, either.
Something in Kassander’s desperation makes her turn from charms to her own divining magic for a quick horoscope of the sky. Her face lights up in the cool white of starlight as the spell takes hold, and her eyes are dappled by the constellations that are the cryptic keys of fate. She turns to her faculty after casting the spell, looking wryly at their bemused, sleepy faces—it turns out that the spell is hardly necessary, nor will it be necessary to summon a cartomancer from the strands for a second opinion. For lo, a subtle fire clings to the horizon beneath the polestar, visible at first only to the more-than-opened eyes of the diviners, and then as an eerie green glow.
Ulyssia sighs and speaks, “I think this time we’re actually doomed.”
“A charming joke,’ quoth the enchanter, sidling over to Ulyssia’s side.
“Kass is just blowing off steam,” quoth the chair of evocation, sending up an illustrative puff from his fingertips.
“No substance to it,” quoth the transmuter, fabricating himself a chair and sinking into it, rubbing his eyes.
“Gods protect us from this nonsense,” the abjurer mutters.
“I’ll never get to sleep at this rate. Never,” the necromancer quips, chuckling to himself.
The conjurer simply yawns and opens a portal to her bedside, the warmth from the fire within causing a sudden gust of warm air to rush over the assembled mages.
The lovely illusionist looks on in apparently engaged interest, nodding encouragingly at Ulyssia. She seems totally unaffected by the news… until the abjurer snaps a Dispel her way. The illusion slips to the ground like a veil, revealing a much older-looking woman (still lovely in a multicentenarian fashion), fast asleep on her feet with a seemingly endless multicolored knit scarf wrapped in many layers around her neck. The dispel having been enough to wake her, she blinks and says, “Time to go home, right?”
But the diviner yelps and agrees with Ulyssia: “YES: you see! Ulyssia! You see now that we are all in grave danger! The fires grow at the poles, and the sea will rise and the prophecy will be fulfilled! The waters will rise and the age of ice will give way to the age of storm.”
Ulyssia, sensing the skepticism of the crowd, points to the far north and far south, where the eerie green glow is rapidly becoming visible to any who cares to look. “Anyone ever hear the rumors of auroras? Electrical phenomena in the sky far to the north and south? We… we really ought not to be able to see them here. Doomed.” She clucks and shakes her head. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
The wizards are looking much more alert by the time a sudden rising fog obscures the auroras. The illusionist begins unwrapping her scarf as a warm breeze rushes across the diviner’s tower.
Around the W, people had shuffled off to bed for the night. Those who had taken the opportunity to make a midnight visit to the lavatories noticed strange sucking and gurgling noises coming up through the pipes.
And nervous voices begin to rise at the strands, the dock by the sea where the fisherfolk live among their craft. The tide is higher than it has any right to be. And this fog is so thick…
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Whistling a tune he recently heard while attending an outside concert venue, the large 1/2 Orc busily continues mopping the bathroom stalls.
Disgusting slobs for Wizards 'round here! More piss on the f~%$ing walls than in the toilet!
Black hair easily topping the stall's barriers, the well muscled janitor graciously gathers his trusty mop and bucket for this opportunity to be a part of the Unyvyersyty.
Stupid turd blossoms belong in the Icy Wastes of home. Freeze their f%*!ing butt cheeks together. Save the Janitor, Save the World...
As that last thought rumbled in his head, the janitor begins to notice that his already previously done mopped tile seemed definitely wet...
And what the f%~+ this time did those smart asses plug them toilets up with now!
Toilets being plural being a truism, as every toilet seems to be overflowing....
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Dominic scurried through the back streets and alleyways of Morgen towards his family home in The Strands. He felt agitated. A few coins jingled in his pockets from the days readings, but he felt troubled. Since that fateful meeting with the shadowed stranger, Dominic’s relationship with the cards had changed. No longer did he read his marks, nor did he really read the cards either. Rather, the cards seemed to speak through him. He was a vessel, unaware of what he was saying until the moment the words spoke from his mouth, as much an observer as his customers. But, today, the readings seemed cloudy, stymied, obscured, much like this fog that was rolling in from the sea. It was as if some great portent was disrupting the Fates themselves. Bondye mwen! This fog is getting thick!
The tolling of the bells seemed to quicken his agitation, as well as his steps. Dominic was still uncertain of the strange gifts of the shadowed stranger, and the days experiences mystified him further. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had been here before. It all seemed so familiar, the here and now felt more like a there and then. Was it all a dream? Or a distant memory? If only he could reach home, crawl into bed and put it all behind him.
But, once he reached the Strands, instead of going home, the itching in his mind pulled him towards the docks. There, he saw the unusually high tide, the worsening fog, and the strange glow on the horizon. He spots a familiar face among the gathering crowd of fishermen, a young man, strange, a bit cold-blooded, but friendly.
Dominic approaches Utuk, "What strange tides are this, zanmi?"
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Realizing that the diviner's warnings are genuine, the wizards of the magical university quickly begin preparing the town for a new existence. Tlan would never be the same, but with luck, the wizards of the university would be able to save their neighbors.
Ulyssia calmly orders her departmental wizards to use their mastery of the eight schools of magic to save the town of Morgen before it drowns beneath the waves. Down by the beach, the waters are already rising. There isn't much time. She sketches out her plan: they will set the island afloat with the power of their magic.
First, the illusionist sends simulacra of runners to the surrounding villages and farms. These illusory messengers cry out their warnings far beyond the city walls, exhorting everyone to grab their most precious belongings and gather at the university. Farmers tumble out of their beds and listen to the illusory messengers, each a perfect copy of the illusionist wizard. Then, the simulacra rush on to the next stead, legs a blur of speed. Many people rouse their families and begin gathering their heirlooms and prized livestock, driving them on through the fog. As the sea rises, wagons rattle towards the university, and the wide-open gates quickly clog with traffic. The central square is soon a packed camp full of worried and panicky people.
The enchanter takes charge of the crowd. Working the subtle spells of emotions, she wanders among them, exuding a sense of calm and confidence that is quite literally magical. It is a masterpiece of crowd control. All the babies stop crying. All the scuffles in the traffic jam suddenly end in handshakes and mutual aid.
The conjurer begins summoning enormous earth elementals, creatures with a fundamental bond to stone and dirt and capable of passing through these solid materials without leaving so much as a ripple. She sends them swarming underneath the city with a mission: to sever the town of Morgen from the very bedrock below. Stone crumbles beneath the elementals' magic, and the city above begins to shake and tremble.
The transmuter, master of changing the size, shape, and quality of material objects, shrinks himself and the conjurer. They both hitch a ride on an elemental into the catacombs that are being swiftly carved out from the bedrock. The transmuter begins working magic on the ceiling of these new caves, reinforcing and lightening them. A master of engineering as much as a master of magical materials, he directs the conjurer's minions in the art of creating a durable, air-filled lattice of magically reinforced and lightened stone beneath Morgen.
Meanwhile, the evoker, master of the raw power of the elements, burns away the land outside the walls of Morgen, working down to the pan of bedrock that would soon be the hull of a massive, floating ship. Heat and light ripples from the wizard's fingertips, creating bright glowing clouds in the fog. As the waves rise, his work is occasionally interrupted in billows of steam as his magic cuts across the waters.
The abjurer, master of protective magic, swiftly begins working charms to stabilize the architecture of the city. As strong as the transmuter's latticed hull might be, the buildings above were not designed to withstand the rigors of oceangoing existence. That has to change, and fast. Lines of force ascend the ancient buildings of the university and the town around it, bolstering old buttresses and adding just a bit of give to age-old stonework. Just as he is finishing up, he finds himself accosted by tiny voices: the conjurer and the transmuter requesting help keeping the water out of the part-finished structure below. The abjurer works immense spells of force to turn back the rising waves, which had threatened to fill the hull of the town before it could be completely sealed.
Meanwhile, the necromancer summons a host of skeletons, with all apologies for using magic that many see as evil on the resting ancestors of Morgen. However, his undead workforce proves instrumental in saving their descendants, wading through the waves to bundle the last of the country folk in through the gates. Many would have drowned without the help of bony hands supporting them from below the waters. Soon the people were all safe inside. Under the necromancer's direction, the undead host also manages to haul a few of the boats in the harbor through the walls before the gates are slammed shut against the sea.
Then, Ulyssia works the final spell, the one that will set the new island afloat. With the help of her colleagues, she puts all the magical power at her disposal into the act of raising the town above the waves of the sea. The other wizards join her in concentration. The enchanted populace feels the world shifting under their feet, and suddenly, Morgen is afloat.
Blue eyes just staring incredulously at the continuation of flooding being perpetrated by every orifice able to extrude water, the 1/2 Orc janitor sighs.
Gonna need a bigger mop.
Suddenly the shifting of the tiled flooring beneath his feet cause him to loose his already liquid induced footing to allow for his falling into the aforementioned wet floor!
Ouch!
Heaving his hefty self back to a respectable upright position, Oswald Copperpot frowns at his now soaked work attire.
Trudging through the new knee high water rushing out of the bathroom, the 1/2 Orc bullies his way down the hall, to the stairs and begins his ascension.
I am definitely asking for overtime for this bullshit!
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An eerie calm prevails for a while longer. Refugees fill each of the eight main thoroughfares of Morgen, and things are crowded enough that Ulyssia's summons to the octagon doesn't take long to proliferate to the very outskirts of Morgen.
Country folk and townsfolk all swarm past skeletal rescuers, heading towards the public square/octagon, the scene of so many dramas, speeches, and fights of days gone by. Now, the drama is off the stage and in the lives of everyone. People gather in the tiers of the market stalls and wait to see what the head wizard of the W (and most influential citizen of Morgen) has to say.
She stands with her faculty at the center of the octagon. In her arms is a large, glowing stone, shaped like an egg and radiantly shimmering in many colors. She speaks loudly enough to be heard by all:
"Citizens of Morgen, you are now adrift, and soon you will have to make your own way on the currents of New Great Sea. Someone has made a horrible mistake. Centuries of magical stability have been overturned in some reckless error, some attempt to fundamentally rewrite the Law of the Conservation of Magic. Or maybe someone found something even stronger.
"Whatever happened, our magic is now nearly depleted. We poured the last of our efforts into building you this arcane ark, but we will now depart. Our philosopher's stones are failing, and we will now die."
She lifts the stone to show everyone how its colors are swiftly fading to grey.
The necromancer, Seth, twitches visibly, suddenly investigating his jet-black stone intently.
"Kassander, tell us what you know," Ulyssia ordered her diviner.
Kassander stepped forward, holding a clear blue stone that was beginning to cloud over. "Yes! The end is upon us! But you must go on! The sea is never-ending, and the world still turns. But if this island should fail, then life itself might fade from this planet. The future is uncertain, and my vision fades. The prophecies are clear that this is the testing of Tlan, the age of the eternal sea, of the mighty storm, of the end of the ice and the dawn of wind."
He shakes his head, resisting the urge to pontificate any further. "Where is the one with the gift? I have a gift for him." He scans the crowd until he spots Dominic. "You, humble one of the strands, come here."
Kassander hands Dominic the clouding crystal. "I can see you might need this someday. You probably already know that, right? Guide these people to a future that holds them, if you can." Dominic can see that the already ancient elf is rapidly aging, with wrinkles spreading like tiny fires across his aged face.
Meanwhile, the other wizards are each preparing for their end in their own fashion.
The transmuter seems to be building a plinth of stone next to the town well.
The enchanter seems to be casting extreme mind-altering magic on herself and sings, "Death can't to be feared when fear is impossible..." As she withdraws into her own fading synapses, her magic recedes from the assembled crowd, and panic begins to gnaw at the minds of many.
The illusionist stands next to a blurry double of herself, chanting rapidly.
The evoker sits on the ground, then vanishes in a gout of flame, leaving only a dull stone glowing with heat in a pile of ashes.
The conjurer opens a portal, waves farewell, steps through, and vanishes.
The abjurer speaks to the crowd briefly, saying "You will need to protect yourselves now. The island will hold."
The necromancer is muttering and pacing, casting dark spells at his stone. He's not paying attention to anything else.
Ulyssia, ever the teacher, says, "Please raise your hands if you have any questions! Don't be shy. We don't have long before your big test."
Utuk simply gawps at the crowd around him. He was only supposed to be here for a few days at the end of a long fishing season. He knew a few of these people as fellow merchants or occasional customers, but his home, his family, was far to the north. Inconceivable that this little island was all that was left; inconceivable that these few people were the world. He raises his hand before he quite knows what he will say.
"Ma'am. Miss. Hello. I, uh. The Diviner said that life itself might fade from this planet if this island should fail. Surely this is not the only place left? Are there not other islands and other people that your magics could reach out to?"
He has more, but the words elude him. He falls silent to hear her reply.
Ulyssia sits down wearily, nodding over to Kassander to answer the question.
The hunched and withering diviner responds: "I am not the only one to warn the people of Tlan. Many other lands now float on the seas. Most of 'em, even. It's a problem. But this isle has a role to play, and without it, everything sinks eventually. All (almost all) possible livable futures include this place."
Ulyssia answers from her sitting position, "Yes, all of us are ancient beyond our normally allotted lifespans. With the shift in magic, all of us will die. There will be no ancient wizards anymore. Some of our students, the youngsters of 60-70, might survive, but who knows if their magic will function? If we had more time, maybe we could figure this out. I wish I had found someone to take this place over, though... I wish I could help."
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The hunched and withering diviner responds: "I am not the only one to warn the people of Tlan. Many other lands now float on the seas. Most of 'em, even. It's a problem. But this isle has a role to play, and without it, everything sinks eventually. All (almost all) possible livable futures include this place."
Having trudged up the many flights of the prestigious (but can't figure out a lift system) stairs of the school to finally race through the empty main hall of the "W" to burst out the front doors to witness the burgeoning crowd of panicked people politicking precious pictures of proposed peace placated only by political satire, the Janitor just stares incredulously at the scene!
What the f%%~ is all this noise about!? My f##@ing floors are a shit swamp!
The rapidly withering diviner turns sadly to Oswald and says, "As I have forseen. The pipes no longer flow properly and the pressure differential has reversed their flow. You'll need to figure out a new system of plumbing, as the stars foretold. Also, you will need to find an awful lot of fresh water. It's amazing how clear it has all become, now that I'm at my end..."
Dominic had spent the night and day scrambling to help his (very large) family evacuate into the walls of Morgen, gathering among the other folk in the Octagon. Of course, he was very careful to collect his heritage decks, as well as the family store of very fine, aged cheeses.
Packed among the crowd of city goers, villagers, and more rural folk, he felt exhausted, if not bewildered by the chaos of the night. And now this announcement by the headmaster Ulyssia had his head spinning, trying to wrap around the implications.
As he thought of his family home on the beaches, whether it still stood or lay some 10,000 feet beneath the waves, whether his family could return, or would they have to carve out a new living within the city walls, he heard his name being called over the panicked din of the crowd.
He dodged through the throngs, darting between legs of the taller peoples, and soon emerged before Kassander, the Diviner. He was about to ask something along the lines of How do you know me? but soon understood. He reached out to receive the crystal, transfixed by its ebbing light. He looked back to the crowd, but spoke to the Diviner, "Pardon, mèt mwen, am I supposed to lead these people? I… don’t think… surely there is someone more capable."
The diviner squints at Dominic as he lays down and curls up on the stage. He says, "I don't know if you will lead them, but I know that some of the best possibilities have a rat drawing cards as a primary motif. You'll see it too, when you can look ahead a ways."
The rapidly withering diviner turns sadly to Oswald and says, "As I have forseen. The pipes no longer flow properly and the pressure differential has reversed their flow. You'll need to figure out a new system of plumbing, as the stars foretold. Also, you will need to find an awful lot of fresh water. It's amazing how clear it has all become, now that I'm at my end..."
The dubious looking 1/2 Orc begins to shake his head in the negative.
As you have foreseen? Then why the f#*# sticks is an invading armada of feces floating in my work station!The disgusted janitor flips all the Wizards the bird before angrily stomping off to find his employees handbook.
Got to be some shit disclaimer in that f@~~ing book!
The old elf yawns sleepily and shrugs, "Sorry, but the prophecy didn't come with a date stamp, so I was hoping it wouldn't happen. I mean, 'till last night everyone thought I was crazy."
Seeing the frustrated janitor emerge, vent, and stomping off, Dominic exclaims, "Zanmi, please, stay. Your strength is needed more than your anger. Our leaders are dying, and plumbing may be the least of our worries. We are adrift in an endless sea, please stay the course with us for the while."
He turns to the dying Ulyssia, "What is to become of the Unyvyrsyty?"
Naomi finds that magic feels very, very weird. What was once canny enough is quite uncanny--her minor cantrips, which would have been very difficult to learn in the old days, feel effortless. The stone leaps from the street and dances in front of her, spinning in place with the momentum of its jump. Magic just got a lot easier.
To Dom, Ulyssia sadly responds, "A school without teachers, subjects, or books? The answer to the riddle is: a school of fish. I fear you will need to think more about fish than school for a while. But I hope the Unyvyrsyty will flourish later. Don't neglect to research the new ways of magic. Someone will be able to figure it out, and they should be able to teach others. If we had more time..."
She rambles a bit, "We really never did believe that Kassander's dire warnings would come to pass. We hoped they were just metaphors... but he's been talking about floods for centuries and they never happened... sorry about that, old friend."
Kassander shrugs and smiles.
The transmuter has finished his plinth. He hops onto it and grins at the crowd, waving to get their attention. "Hey, y'all! Tell your kids to tell their kids stories about how the state is a real man! Tell them that, when the secret of the philosopher's stone is rediscovered, they should study how to bring him back. Much obliged! See you later!"
With a last crackling of transmutation magic, the town octagon now has a statue of a man waving farewell with one hand and a football-shaped stone tucked under his other arm.
The frustrated 1/2 Orc stops. His bulk bulges with a heavy sigh. Absently running a large hand over his black hair, he slowly turns around to look at the Ratfolk. The Janitor grins. His blue eyes brighten at the Ratfolk.
How much does it pay?
How much does it pay?
"Pay?" Dominic looks back at the panicked faces of the crowd, "Zanmi, I do not know what it pays, but it would cost our survival if we were to not now stick together. The wizards have made it clear, it is up to us now to lead the way."
With that, Dominic draws a card from his great-great-great-grandmother's heritage Harrow deck.
He smirks, knowingly, "How fitting, zanmi, The Empty Throne. We stand on the brink of a new world, unknown, frightening, and with the old world, our leaders too are dying. Who will rise to take their places? Who will guide the way in the Age of Wind?"
The big 1/2 Orc Strides easily to Dominic.
Alright then. You lead. I will follow. What's first?
Utuk is watching the crowd with some concern. Dominic he's met, and seems to be remaining calm and speaking with some others in the crowd, many of whom he's seen around on his bi-annual fish-selling trips, but by and large he doesn't know how most of these people will react in a stressful situation, or to anyone they might perceive as a relative outsider at that. He tries, without much success given the press of bodies, to shrink back against a wall of the octagon, though whether it's to stay until the crowd calms and offer his help or to flee if the crowd turns mob, he doesn't know yet.
What's first?[/b]
Dominic again looks about the gathered crowd. "I imagine getting everyone to safety is a priority. Return these people to their homes." He thinks of his own family, "... and those without homes, we should find some shelter. Perhaps in the towers of The Unyvyrsyty."
"Then... survey the lands outside these walls. What remains of our world? Clear the fog, if you will."
He looks down at Kassander's inert philosopher's stone in his hands, the statue of the transmuter standing over them, and then to the remaining arch-wizards. An uneasy grief hits him, "...But first we should honor our ansyen mèt for their sakrifis."
Dominic's ideas have some people nodding along, but others are feeling the ebbing of the enchanter's calming spells very keenly, and ripples of panic run through the crowd.
The remaining wizards perish peacefully--all except the necromancer, who is, as the folks say, wigging out.
"I know way more about dying than y'all do, and I'm not ready for that! I need time... just a little more time... maybe a lot more time..." He chants spells that seem to hold back the collapse of his philosopher's stone.
As his strength fails, he calls over the nearest group of skeletons to carry him into his departmental building: a grim, sepulchrous structure that most folks like to avoid. As he enters the necromancy building (just beyond the , he calls out a panicked order in a thunderous, magically amplified voice, "Listen to me, ancient dead! Don't let anyone bother me! Not now, not ever."
As he disappears into the building, screams start to rise around the edges of the crowd in the octagon: the skeletons, ever unpredictable in their interpretation of orders, have taken the necromancer's final, terrified command as a declaration of war. Long-dead ancestral saviors suddenly start slashing at the populace of the town as they move towards the Necromancy Department, pushing into the crowd from every direction.
The guard is just fifteen peace officers more used to handling tavern brawls than assaults of the undead. Exhausted officers, to boot.
And you're sure there are about forty skeletons working throughout the town!
Geography: While Morgen won't have stable cardinal directions on the sea, we'll use the old orientations for now. The necromancy department was in the northwest of the eight slices of town, between the abjuration department at due north and the invocation school to the west. Most of the skeletons were on the outskirts of town after their last orders. They are now rolling up the eight streets, violently lashing out at anyone who gets in their way.
Watching the frantic Necromancer wildly brandishing about in despair, Oswald Copperpot shakes his black haired head.
This won't be good. Wizards suck.
"Listen to me, ancient dead! Don't let anyone bother me! Not now, not ever."
At the announcement of pending promises of perpetual problems, the Janitor sighs. As the violence erupts suddenly by the misinformed (?) undead skeleton Saviors, the appreciation for the irony here 1/2 Orc reaches for his crowbar.
S'pose start with them then?
So, Utuk realizes, backing into the wall was actually a better strategy than he'd thought. Will these skeletons simply head to the necromancy department in a straight line and then post up inside, to be ignored or walled in at the town's pleasure? Or do they seem to be taking a more pro-active approach to preventing the townsfolk from bothering their cadaver-in-chief? Utuk scrambles atop a short stack of crates for a better view and tries to predict the skeletons' path: can they be dealt with by simply getting everyone out of their way, or are they hunting?
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Many people quickly see the good sense in the suggestion to get indoors (belted out at full bardic volume, no less), but part of the crowd sways unsteadily and presses in towards the center of the octagon, stumbling over their erstwhile wizards. Maybe they will figure it out.
Utuk can see that some streets seem to be squabbling with the squelettes, while others seem to be doing a better job of letting the flow of bones take its way down the streets of the town.
Being shorter than most humanoids, Dominic turns his head quickly this way and that as the sounds of panicked screams echoes down the streets of town. He lifts his nose and his whiskers twitch in the air. He looks up to the brawny half-orc next to him, wielding a crowbar like a club and looking to him, HIM!, (of all people), for some sort of leadership.
He tucks his guiding card of the day, The Empty Throne, into a padded harumaki sash around his waist, when he hears a powerful voice rise over the din of the crowd, Naomi's he gathers, instructing people to get inside. Undead?
He looks back up at Oswald, "We must protect the people, zanmi. Get them to safety first. Then, let's try to connect with the bard, make our way to the tavern."
"Quickly! You!" He points to a random nearby stranger, "Lead everyone to the Headmaster Ulyssia's tower. It will be safe for you there"
Oswald Copperpot only nods solemnly at Dominic's plan. The 1/2 Orc begins doing some arm rotations as he wakes through the panicked and probably placed precisely in the path of the swarming undead.
The Janitor then pushes against the flow toward the streaming undead....
We don't do f@*~ing Unions my green arse!
Oswald just continues to shout, bully through the panicked crowds and the 1/2 Orc somehow is seen eating a sandwich on the way....
It seems it is difficult to be Intimidating when eating a sandwich.
As Oswald pushes through the crowd, Dominic follows on his heels, hoping his instructive is followed and these people have the common sense to seek shelter. On the way, he ponders the Necromancer's own commands and if there is anyway to counter the magic involved.
It's hard to think in all this commotion.
Naomi's voice carries down all eight of the streets of Morgen, but her words, while excellent advice, might not pierce through the panic of every tentacle of the city's octopus (um, not sure about that metaphor).
Meanwhile, in the city center, the crowd decides whether to follow the leader delegated by Dom. Oswald's intimidating shoves and sandwich munches give the core a further +1 bonus.
As for that improvised leader... we'll say not a random stranger, but a randomized acquaintance, an authority figure of some kind who happens to be in the area...
1=Doria, Professor of Nonmagical Matters
2=Hammet, Justice of the Peace
3=Padric, Captain of the Guard
4=Cynthia, Priest of the Three-Faced Woman
5=Marta, Midwife
6=Corin, Respected Farmer
7=Dean, the ironically named Administrative Dean of the UU
8=Dorthy, goldsmith
9=Ken, the Baker
10=Mildred, the Jumble Saleswoman
Mildred cranes her neck around to see who Dom is pointing at, checking thoroughly behind her before gradually accepting that she's been delegated as the leader of the retreat.
Blinking through her spectacles, Mildred takes a deep breath, chokes down her own panic, and calls to the crowd: "Ok, everyone! Let's get into the tower now. No pushing. We just need to get off the street. Don't worry, Dorret, there's nothing wrong... erm, I mean... nothing wrong we can't handle, right? Alys, uh, you might have forgotten something... uh, it's uh, your son, you might go grab him, he's still standing by our dead wizards."
The crowd just barely manages to hold onto its sanity and begins to filter past Mildred into the main hall of the W, Ulyssia's tower.
Utuk keeps an eye on things from his perch and notices that things are going fairly well. Naomi has managed to clear all the streets except Hardshift Street. Squads of skeletons are converging on the Octagon, but only on Hardshift have things degenerated into an all-out brawl.
Oswald begins the long walk to Hardship street. The 1/2 Orc seems extremely familiar with the quickest route...
As they begin to walk towards the innocents being slaughtered by the risen corpses of their ancestors, Dominic meekly speaks up, "I'm afraid I don't have much to offer in a fight, zanmi'm yo."
The determined looking Janitor only smiles down at Dominic's self-deception.
You can help plenty. Stealth into Flanks with me.
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The sight of the half-orc proceeding toward, rather than away from, the obvious danger shakes Utuk out of his stupor and off of his crate-stack. Stepping lightly, he begins to walk, then jog, then all-out charge toward the brawl (whether in front of or behind Oswald depends on Oswald's pace). As he runs, thin black spines like a sea urchin's begin to speckle along his arms and neck, concentrating into long, dangerous looking points the size of carpentry nails on his knuckles and ulna, though whether anybody notices in the chaos he couldn't say.
Dominic gulps then straightens his countenance. He begins whispering strange sounds and gesticulating his hands and fingers and a shimmer of blue light begins to coalesce around his body.