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Peanut
4:34pm, March 15, 2010
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[Delete] | Dakkarta is a stable city. Surely, it has its maniacs, its murderers, its rotten souls bent on harm rather than good and destruction rather than prosperity, but these things rarely ripple the surface of Dakkarta's every-day existence.
There was of course that one Councilwoman found cavorting with a twelve year old boy but that is a story in and of itself!
What was I saying? Oh, yes. Forgive the ramblings of an old man, my dear..
Stability. It is the foundation of every Republic - consistency. Predictability. Reliability. The parent-Gods left us this peace and prosperity in the wake of the terrible Halfling War that destroyed the bulk of our world and made it hospitable. For our survival, and to always thank the Gods who gave us the tools to survive, we maintain these ways with a staunch single-mindedness. Not much has changed in the thousand years since the war, but it was not always so..
Hm? Oh, forgive me. I tend to drift in my old age! My mother would be ashamed with how empty-headed I've become! So where was I..
Yes. Things were not always as they once were. Once, the world was covered with us humans, swarming with kingdoms and fiefs and war between lords and ladies and the Mother and Father of us all walked amongst us and bore their children into our ranks. This only added to the madness of the world: nothing was predictable, save perhaps the weather - at least until the godling Shavrin was born, she who had dominion over the skies, and then all that normalcy was corrupted. But I digress.
Even in the chaos, there was some order: things and people died, returned to the earth, and came again to the Mother and Father to be cycled through for another go at this interesting experience called life. Of course, men have always feared death, and the half-god-children of Parshta and Grimslaine, being of men as well as gods, also feared death. Legend has it that being godlings, and more or less immortal when faced with no physical threat, the Halflings tore at their own human souls to preserve a piece of themselves forever, so that they would never be truly gone from the world. This process did not seem to hurt them; perhaps there is a property to a godling's soul that is missing from a mortal man's, who can say?
They hid these treasures holding a portion of themselves all about the world. When they finally brought War upon themselves, it is said that many a Champion slew a Halfing while he or she was smiling - if this is true, if any of this is true, the death-grins could be explained.
After all, if one never truly dies, what is a sword to the heart?
- From, "Conversations with Teachers: Chapter Five: A Discourse with Teacher Advar Floronz," by Teacher Breser Nifflin, a.w. 1096
Edited 4:07pm, March 16, 2010 by Peanut, author. |
| Hard Lessons |
Peanut
4:07pm, March 16, 2010
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[Delete] | Teacher Advar settles himself into the depths of a chair meant for a giant and not an old man, sighing contentedly. His sharp gray eyes study the pupils before him, noting that some are eager, others are already bored, and not a few look as if they're just waiting for him to start rambling so they can take a nap. Children, he scoffs internally. They never do appreciate their youth.
Adjusting his robes more comfortably around him, he claps his hands together once to silence the mild chatter and draw all eyes to him. "Now if you don't mind, we will begin. Long ago, the world was safe. Once upon a time, long before the War, all the lands were ours to tame, and all the animals were ours to feast upon, and all the water was ours to drink. We were many peoples, instead of just a few. We were many kingdoms, some greater than others, and we were conquored by empires and we rose up and conquored others. The world was a place of constant change, perpetual movement.
"We asked the Mother and the Father, "Why is peace so difficult?" but they would not give us the answer. Instead they came to walk among us and they bore for us their children, godlings of great power and human feelings. They each of them came to represent and have influence over some aspect of our lives. There were thousands of them, and each had a purpose - to give us an explination for the weather, to tell us why the sun moved and the stars sparkled, to give us meaning and answers to all of our questions.
"Still, there was no answer to the one that men desired most to understand: the nature of peace, and why it was that we could not seem to grasp it. What so few of us realized then was that peace could not be controlled or influenced by the power of godlings or even by Grimslaine and Parshta themselves, but had to be held in our hearts and our minds. It must be desired by us, and we must work to see it achieved. But we were not hungry enough for it, you see.
"We plead with the Gods for peace, we begged our rulers for peace, we established movements meant to inspire peace, but it would not come, despite our efforts, for we did not yearn for it badly enough. After all, we had lived with war for so long; we had lived with chaos and discord, and there was even a godling who cherished these things and roused the hearts of men into madness - Raginvold, he was called. If the Mother and Father had birthed a godling who had sway over and represented our darkest urges, did that not say everything? Did that not simply mean that we were creatures who valued chaos over contentment? Surely no such Halfling would have been born if that were not so, and so as men are wont to do, we took the easier path and settled for termoil.
"As the decades passed and the godlings grew more hostile with us, until at last setting upon us with the intent of genocide, we began to see the error of our ways, and some of our wisest came to understand that there can be no peace if men do not desire it with more passion and drive then they gave worship to our Gods.
"Some say that it was Raginvold who instigated this hatred of humanity - for how long had men existed with the Halflings in a strange co-existence that was not peace but also not chaos. And Raginvold, being a godling inclined to chaos and war, was said to hate this tepid neutrality. It is said that Raginvold learned the ways of men's hearts and could turn them against all they loved, and his brother and sister godlings being partly of men, could also be as stirred, though one would hope it took all of Raginvold's effort to sway a godling, relative or not.
"Needless to say, we suffered through the Hafling War, and to this day we still pay the price for our easy acceptance of madness versus the difficult path to peace. It was only after we had suffered great loss at the hands of their children and cried for forgiveness that Grimslaine-maran and Parshta-faran came down to us once again and taught us the mighty and sacred gifts that would win us our peace. For do not mistake that peace is won, not given, and kept through force, not carelessly expected. We fight even now to maintain peace, to maintain the comfortable, content lives we lead in our fortified cities. The nature of men has not changed, but our desires have shifted, and that is the truest truth I know."
Edited 4:14pm, March 16, 2010 by Teacher Advar, moderative. |
| Dreams of Disaster |
Peanut
6:44pm, March 20, 2010
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[Delete] | (This is where we'll be posting people's dreams, visions, feelings, or premonitions of doom prior to the culmination of "Not all things are Darkness and Light.")
Healer's Dreams
d28, ¤Pristrin Rarven: *Usually, her daydreams were green. When she was alone in her offices at the Hall of Light, she remembered her childhood before things had gone bad. Thick forests lush with all shades of green, vibrant and dark, healing and lethal. Now, resting inside a nook carved out of the edge of a thick limestone windowsill, the sun that penetrated her closed eyelids shifted from welcoming yellow to vulgar red. Within her mind, the calming, pleasing shapes of her homeland's forests were consumed in the acrid, terrifying fingers of a raging fire. But the flames were not the orange-gold light of Parshta. They were thick red hands of bloody death, burning and boiling; consuming everything in its path. Her father's farm destroyed, and their bodies mangled and maimed before being devoured by the red plague. The scene shifts, and corrupted green mayhem becomes mud. Wave upon wave of it, sand and blood, and the bodies of thousands - no millions, the world's population - ruined and violated, lay upon the ground - and the perpetrator - the responsible party - it was them. It was Dakkartans. The Bright Guard and the Champion, the priests, the priestesses - all of them, armored and armed with the tools of the Forge and the world, the world was theirs, and - and - ...*
d28, ¤Pristrin Rarven: *Gasping, she tumbles from her ledge to the carpeted limestone floor, struggling for breath around the hand of horror that clenched her throat and heart. Just a dream. Oh Thank Gods it was just a dream. Just a dream of the Past, it had to be - legends existed of before the War when nations dominated nations and Dakkarta had not been immune to such urges. Wiping her brow with the sleeve of her robe, she picks herself up off the floor and shakes her head vigorously. It was time to go find Bard Aric. Certainly his songs could soothe away this strange dream.* |
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