Stories of Lore 16

So we offered the book to Eliana for information about the dragonborn and specifically the old dragon shaman cult that Vasia wanted to look into. She spent about three hours reading the book…which I remind you is filled with boring tax records and information, and then decided to tell us what we wanted.

For all the build up of finding the remains of a dead civilization to point the way towards dragonborn, she just drew it on the map instead. According to her after the dark years they became a fallen empire and stopped being so nomadic once resources became too scarce to justify it.  They live near a river in the forests north of Cayetano, a place called Kirillobatov. She also mentioned they were a bit reclusive and liked to keep to themselves, so be prepared for difficulty in diplomacy. They once tried to expand but were crushed by the orcs until they were pushed back into their capital where they have since lived. They have also gotten into fights with Cayetano.

Iraeka and company are on their way to Okushiri and riding hard about it. We have also learned today that Iraeka is not good with horses, it was quite amusing.

Greetings keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. Iwanagi set up a trade route with the islanders he encountered, they seem quite happy to export their goods at least. Recruitment might be a bit more difficult however for similar reasons to the last villages Iwanagi encountered, this far out from our holdings makes their willingness to join us a bit smaller. We may need to start expanding our outpost collection to do such things.

Salahe has agreed to help the people of Haokim take sanctuary while the orc invasion is going on if they should wish to come by his place.

Quetzali said a second settlement isn’t necessarily a bad idea its just that a lot of her people have been traveling to Okushiri leaving quite a lot of open space within the city of Tonarooka. So it is unlikely for its population to be all that high unless people from the rest of our holdings start moving over. That being said that isn’t necessarily a hard sell given its a paradise island…I’m sure we can convince some fishers that moving out there isn’t such a bad idea. Especially after this whole orc business.

The inspection of the monastery does reveal a potential split in them already on the verge of occurring and Shime is clearly a major catalyst for it. Those who disagree with the use of the weaponry of the sohei due to it straying from their lifelong training of less violent solutions to their problems. Sohei are very talented at warfare, and the younger members seem to take a liking to its less spiritual and more direct path to violence. Though the elders tend to prefer Shime’s concept stating that it is in keeping with the teachings of harmony.

Konya traveled to meet with Kaylen and chat for a little bit. Currently they are staying with her as a guest.

Eliana arrived and promptly proceeded to eat at every street vendor we have as guided by Kaze. The Queen of Wolves also made an appearance and has integrated herself into the battle plans. Neither of them had any particular ideas for steering the orcs away from Okushiri, largely because our attempts to manipulate their movements thus far have repeatedly gone awry ever so slightly. The orcs are not entirely mindless, and the will of the warchief is definitely playing a role in their choice of actions.

Yamaoka reports that so far his findings don’t show anything necessarily extraordinary but the lakes he passes by in the north are consistently nice areas, he is continuing on to see what else he might find.

At least this week is a little easier…WITH NO REASON WHATSOEVER FOR ANSA TO VISIT. *checks over shoulder*

Anyways we gave fifty of the soldiers some horses and armor to create the whole cavalry thing. We used the ones in Sarkisa so they can study at the new training facility.

So the conversion from a blackguard facility to a proper knight training grounds cost us…2g. Had to make some new banners and put in some new furniture, though for the most part the building is still fine for the purpose of training armored people with sharpened metal sticks.

The anirace team might be more expensive though and I’ve had Irini look into the markets around there to see what to expect. While the team only needs to be able to field thirty the other girls wouldn’t be too bad to have around as support staff and B-string players. Not like it is safe for them to come home anyways. So registration as a formal team is actually free if you can present your team to the registration agency. There are actually a few independent teams just scrapped together who get mauled in the real games but keep signing up for fun and they just register the field right outside in Maji for simplicity.

The actual team itself however needs gear to play with any level of competitive possibility. As we learned before these games get a little crazy and you have to pick where you want your home field to be. So expense wise they need mounts, nine mile long field and all. You can just get war horses in the badlands and those are pretty good, and quite frequently used. Though the top of the line bike things the big teams used cost uh…a lot for one sports player. Irini got us some market prices which are over in the buy sheet. Keep in mind that teams are a total of thirty on the field, but this is a game where damage occurs. So backups aren’t the worst idea.

We sent a scout down to Cayetano to see what they might learn, we’ll hear back from that uh…who knows how long that voyage takes.

Ryo spotted some city along the river on his way south.

Iraeka has agreed to try and train at the university to see if anyone can be taught her particular set of skills. However, I did have the foresight to actually ask her how she was trained. For this reason I have made her training a part of a military affair, people studying at the university should not even be allowed to train with her. The drow are a bit harsh and apparently she likes to go with the ‘learn by doing’ approach. Mark my words there are going to be corpses in the snow by the time she’s done. Don’t worry I only let the peasants join her training, so it won’t be much of a loss.

Also involving her, she doesn’t really have any useful contacts with house Vaslochar. She likes to keep away from them for the most part. Though in regards to demonology she points out that because they control the church they likely also keep all of the best notes locked away in there should any pillaging opportunities arise. She also reminds us that Eilsath are mercenary in nature, if we were to contact her mother with some sort of trade they could likely be convinced to send any Vaslochar writings to us they might happen to ‘stumble’ upon.

Though I would personally advise another route. It could take awhile before tensions get high enough between them now that Ghaun is gone there is less desperation for space. However, if we want to know about the drow demonology we should have the Katara come up here. Both the drow and Katara are matriarchies tied to dark powers. The blackguards in particular have direct association with a demon king. Nina is shockingly proficient in demonology already given her position within the hierarchy, if we could request her assistance I feel she would be the most capable of converting a ‘diplomatic visit’ into knowledge we can use.

In regards to all the new villages being built, I will bet you mana that everyone of those people are about to die if you don’t send an army to protect them. The outpost at least you sent some staff with and a militarized governor to direct it. The other two villages are just bait with no trap to spring as it is.

The excavation team has gone through but not come back yet, mostly due to Hillevi becoming spontaneously obsessed with archeology and combing through the whole city. Found some loot though, so that’s nice. However, they are a long way from home and though we gave them the mana needed to come back the stone will remain where it is. If we want to reposition the stone we will need to take the long road to do so, not to mention every time we use it where it is we will need to send mana to power the return trip. The ruins themselves are east of the elven gate to the forest, on the other side of the mountains. So keep in mind there are orcs in the way of the return trip, or the badlands which could be just as bad while transporting a valuable artifact. On the flip side, could flank some orcs if we wanted.

Also with the ten monks we got from Oda still on payroll we technically could try to build a monastery up here. Though honestly if you want a military that doesn’t cost so much mana to maintain we’d be better off capturing orcs or enlisting more of Eilsath. That or just some humans from elsewhere. Ansa could visit Faelyn to see if any arrangements could be made, as I suspect that woman will at the very least know how to find mercenaries from the badlands to work for us full time.

In that vein of thought, I have adjusted your sponsorship numbers because we can field more then 13 people for the price of the sponsorship. Its 90. Fortunately we don’t need to send a military to escort the ladies to the badlands given they’re all inclined to combat already, so I’m sure they’ll be fine.

Ylermi noted a peculiar series of events happening around Uudistar. The observation lab for the monsters has not figured out how or why but bits of beast keep turning up in the lake. They haven’t observed carcasses being thrown in so they aren’t really sure where they’re coming from.

Former military, then officer of the city guard, now the governor for the new outpost we’re constructing. Hannes was mostly hanging around Uudistar and was there as artillery crew during its construction phases. So he seemed a natural fit for the outpost due to the familiarity of the major threat out here in the frozen north. He’s a decent enough guy, very calm, likes tea. He graduated from the university several years back, he used to be a bit of a bookworm. Interesting to see how he has changed since then, I suppose contact with monsters does that to about anyone. Except me, since I grew up around a monster far worse then the beasts.

Also we do technically already have a female manifester, you could just drop her off on her return trip after the war, if she survives contact with the orcs. However, I must point out one problem with sending someone to the coven. They don’t use science in their magic, and more then half the people who join die during initiation. This is not a factor controlled by any variable we understand, so a powerfully talented wizard has the same odds of surviving the coven’s initiation as a small child. Largely due to the conference with dark spirits that are involved. Let us remember that Ankathi watched her daughter be murdered by those spirits, and if anyone would have had an edge in becoming a full member of the coven that must have been it. Speaking of the devil, she’s in the city right now and I need to go see about this whole orc specimen business.

Greetings keeper! It is a glorious day for the Oda people. The research team, if thats what we’re going to call them, are working on the weapon you mentioned. As for making a boat larger, that seems a fairly reasonable thing for them to attempt though these do get expensive once they start getting really big.

We’ve had the haven begin construction a bit to the west of the Katara’s location.

As for the upgrades to the buildings, nothing that really needs be done. The monastery in particular is already huge and serves a purpose that wouldn’t be upgraded through magic. Its really just a place for monks to train, all development in that field can be left up to them. The shipyard itself perhaps someday as new technological innovations are made requiring them.

The scouts have ventured into the abandoned docks more fully on the island to the south. It appears it was once constructed for a singular use. No infrastructure around it, and no signs of being intended to be a permanent facility. There is no road leading from it to anywhere, though by following the most naturally available path the scouts discovered a cave sealed with very large and sturdy stone doors with markings that appear to be in the aesthetic style of Cayetano.

Serizawa has contacted the northern village. The place seems to be hostile, several people attempted to attack him and steal his boat. When he got the hint and started to sail off they then tried to destroy his boat. Obviously not the most friendly people. They are reminiscent of the last northern village that the nalkas encountered.

As for turning the fishing village lake into a mana lake, I have no idea how we would do that in any reasonable amount of time or effort. Ecological science is not my strong suit, maybe after we build the haven we could eventually get a bit more insight on how that might be done.

Also we don’t really need to hire any of the Sohei just to train more of them with Yuzuki as it were. Mostly because as members of the temple they’re already somewhat obligated to do so if she tells them to until they find some job potentially roaming around.

Iwanagi’s contact reveals that the inhabitants are definitely rather naval focused. The outpost definitely seems newly constructed. They have extensive ship docks and have walled off the area around the coast, a fleet sits in the harbor with some sort of flagship that is absolutely colossal. You could fit a city block in that thing, and Iwanagi reports its guns are so massive in size that he could fit a dawnbreaker’s cannon inside the barrel of theirs. The entire outpost is even more technologically advanced then the nalkas, perhaps even a rival for the badlands. Though he couldn’t understand the language they were speaking, they had some people available to translate. Apparently they come across the sea from the east, and while they were amicable to meet him the people translating made mention that Iwanagi should start running. None of the natives in this outpost lived here before it was built, nor did they want to be there. They describe the foreigners as underhanded conquerors, notably they were all too interested in the prospect of trade with us and kept pushing for as many details as they could get.

As a potentially important note, the monster classified as the eighth bounty has been spotted very close to Sarkisa. Notably, with several friends.

In possibly related news the construction of the road to Tethalyn has been halted, the entire road construction team has been found either dead or missing. So assumed dead. Those who found them report significant evidence that the monsters of the jungle got to them, said evidence including a good few dead monsters so I would call that fairly convincing.

As for the war, another few hundred teams of our civilian army have been slain. No commander to show for it though, now that Nina’s flank is less of a surprise the orcs have been reacting to it. Given she is well outside the range of the elven artillery, as not to get hit by it, she has little help or cover while a rather large horde of orcs is fighting her back. Though she has managed to inflict very significant damages, we now know those damages don’t count for much if she can’t catch the commanders.

The city is on the verge of falling as well, the elves are preparing to retreat. The Archdruid reminds us not to lead the orcs away from the path to the sanctuary again if we aren’t prepared to finish that fight on our own.

Ryo is still exploring the badlands but reports that it is growing difficult due to roaming bandits, Nyssa has been experiencing similar issues.

Ankathi has made her way to Jamsa and is…doing whatever she’s up to over there.

Oh and some of our people are now headed to Maji under the Nalkas sponsorship to see about this tournament it appears. You may wish to send someone with them before they get eaten on the way or something.

Phantoms of the Purge part 3 –  SoL oddyssey arc yet with a grand total of 63 pages counting parts 1 and 2. Also start here obviously.

The alien invasion finally rolled around, by finally I mean within 2 updates of you figuring out it was coming. The planets page now has a little section at the end for each place to give a rough idea of what they’re like now. https://www.manticoreproductions.com/ArcanistEndless/planets.html

The chaos is still ongoing, while the first attack was mostly a “scout” force the main armies are reluctant to actually attack now that Arkaric has plunged a dozen alien civilizations into war and paranoia and the scout force was destroyed. Sol as a whole is becoming more unstable as people turn on each other for basic resources – food in particular. Though this problem is affecting aliens as well.

Faction statuses-

Alnae
In the aftermath of all this fuckery Alnae is seeing a schism of ideas. Many people feel the empire is going to fall soon after this and the SR3 incident and are looking for a place to bail to. Due to Valdir destroying more of the alien fleets then anyone else…again…many people are looking to go hang out there. Some even fleeing to Shetou figuring their chances might be better with the drow, especially if they aren’t elves. High ranking members of the military are also defecting but instead just declaring themselves rulers of small areas with all the military personnel and equipment in their possession, some even attempting to overthrow the council in favor of a military dictatorship. The empire is dangerously close to fracturing and going into a war with itself as all these factors continue to pile up. It doesn’t help that in this chaos they simply cannot do anything but ignore the Selona gang that is mass supplying weapons in this time of fear and uncertainty to anyone with something to trade.

The COA and AIC are falling apart as their main buildings were destroyed in the attacks along with many of their personnel dying off. The AIC was a massive resource sink for the empire and they no longer have those resources. Only a few agencies and the 314-C stand out as standing loyally with the current state of the empire.

Desoir
The vampire family was actually hit much harder then either empire due to their power relying on economic control of trade. In the chaos after the phantoms event money itself is of questionable value and people care a lot more about the good they would buy with money. However, Valencia is still alive and very good at her job. With prices in wild fluctuation around the system she is quick to buy and sell using her massive fleet of trade ships that just stayed out of the fighting since they were cargo ships. Despite the massive blow to their powerbase, they’re rebuilding it fast by being capable of moving stuff around as necessary. Also, due to her gamble with Indal awhile back she already had trade deals being set up with alien civilizations who are now desperate for trade thanks to Arkaric blowing them up.

Selona
One of the only groups in all of this mess to actually become even more powerful, for obvious reasons. The Selona criminals could expand even further then they already did if they wanted to given their resources, though for some reason they seem content to just stay where they are. Though they did open up recruiting in some places they wanted more people, an easy sell given that now almost everyone were becoming criminals to survive.

Shetou
The political game of the houses has been shaken up a lot by these attacks. With the destruction of the city of Kaifen a lot of the human houses have lost too much power to remain on the council. Shetou’s nature makes it less inclined to be helpful to one another and we know Yasrena is part of the Phantoms, actively making the situation worse. The drow empire is fracturing as houses withdraw to their fortresses and try to stabilize with little care for actually helping one another out. There is trade between them if trade is mutually desired but they’re definitely not sending aid or giving discounts to each other. Fights between houses are breaking out and its on the verge of a war between houses for resources rather then pecking order as usual.

Solvang
Despite people’s fear that Solvang was going to be wiped out in a battle with Selona, they’ve stabilized and as pirates they are now a lot more dangerous and powerful since so much of the system relies heavily on trade to even attempt to keep people alive. More people turning to crime means more Solvang members, more pirate fleets targeting military convoys shipping things as simple as food, and the aliens for some reason conveniently never came across the Solvang stations hidden around the system. Many people are paying up membership fees just to live on Solvang stations where they feel safe. It’s a bad sign for the rest of civilization when living among pirates is “safe”.

Valdir
While the damage they sustained wasn’t insignificant, the mothership makes it not really much of a problem. They are fast to restore themselves to what they once were and are now the dominant super power of the system since their theocratic government still has its leader. Even in hard times the people who aren’t assimilated to Valdir and just live there have the resilience to carry on since they’re often zealot nutjobs. After the war Indal and his big scary ship went back off into space to resume colonizing Althe and focusing on its own thing.

Okay we did all the roster stuff earlier. Player pages have been updated with the new hires and B team was founded, also Kala made Aryn the headhunter replacement should it be needed. Annnd then that thing happened.

Financial update new money total: 568,652,000

Yenneiros Whitetalon

You have an army standing around still, its kind of valuable. Business is up given how bad the state of the system is now. +15 profit

Mordekai Aberhoff

Thanks to madhammer security a lot of your infrastructure has managed to survive the attack. Though there were still some losses in factories, but more importantly business is down as people scramble to fix other problems.

Aerovent filters is technically down at the moment as shipping and stuff is in flux. Though the suits predict things will turn around once the process of reconstruction gets around to full scale implementation.

The cult was hurt the hardest by this, as a lot of people in the circles are now dead or no longer interested in cult activities while worrying about getting shot. However, Zex of all people survived and is on the path to restoring it to its former glory. Technically he’s operating rogue of the cult’s orders and assembling the cult leaders who were in on the whole thing to him to redistribute throughout the system as necessary.

Mhaldaru foods is still functionally up and running, the problem is the supply of food it processed and packaged. They didn’t exactly farm things themselves, though if they had they’d probably be on fire by now. Even if demand is high for the product, the ability to produce the product has been severely damaged. -14 profit

Expansive Psionics is seeing a large dip in sales as population desires aside, the distributors are fucked and the money is in food transport right now so the independent shipping companies are a bit hard to hire right now. -11 profit

The Sahad research facility station is completely gone, turned out they deliberately targeted it along with several other research facilities in the hope of stunting out tech progress in the only field they had over us. Asi Nilliams died aboard.

Lumber Company is actually sitting pretty. Since they were in forested areas they didn’t see too much trouble as the invasion targeted major population centers, also the wood business is doing quite nicely. +8 profit.

B team is up on the page as their own team.

Plans to form a C team don’t quite work out since the Raven was destroyed and Kanika has gone missing.

Also your bodyguard had a rough first month since the world ended.

Edric Vandross

With the current instability of the economy as well as several offices being blown to pieces, Divinity Vaults profits are down -22

Grand Guardian is doing fine since it was insuring new colonies which happened to not be attacked. Profits are up +8 thanks to “oh shit aliens are mean” Suits expect this to continue to rise as the colonies expand.

The SV3 shipyard was destroyed. Though the super carrier actually survived among the rubble, its still not finished and it did sustain a lot of damage but it does still move and the bridge can maintain life support. The other projects are completely gone. Fortunately, the Nomads rescued much of the science crew and both Faye and Raymond survived, along with the stealth drive tech progress. Things aren’t too bad given the station is now space debris fragments, but you’re going to need a new station to move these projects to. Obviously progress on the stealth drive and supercarrier are halted until they find a new place to continue working.

Hightower Industries business is booming, there’s a lot of things that need fixing and building right about now. It was a concern of the management that they were getting more contracts then they had people, but with so much gone now it turns out finding new employees is pretty easy. +34 profit but -800k due to having to buy a bunch of stuff and hire new employees to keep up with demand.

The Raiders of Abbathor are completely fine, they stole three alien ships. Because they’re crazy bastards. Though they have no real shipyard to dock them at for research since the SV3 shipyard blew up. On the upside that’s 3 free FTL drives if you want to pull them out of the ship. Piracy is good business right now, +3d20

Raven is no longer available, the station was destroyed and Kanika is gone.

Raiders successfully get a frigate for B team.

Sethis Tyne

Nah division lost a few hideouts and people but given the scale of what happened it could be considered nearly unscathed. Though expenses are up due to resource scarcity now days.

In a snap decision by Vaeri, Sophia has been introduced to the real hideout and the people within it to avoid her death during the alien attack. On the upside, she didn’t die. Vaeri figures if this result is unsatisfactory you can just have her killed to set it back to the other possibility.

Despite the increase in expenses for the division, the black market trade is doing really well in this age of paranoia and chaos. Black market profits are up +14

With the current changes to the environment, despite the battlecruiser not having its stealth setup fully fitted the tech division has been moved onto it for safety. The exception is Aryn, who is being detained until you decide what to do with her. You called it.

Nila, Vanjin, and Setani are off to try and find Jhaeros. With things as they are now they could be away awhile trying to track the bastard.

Your branching out into agriculture was short lived as it was heavily targeted during the attack.

The cyborgs could theoretically be reprogrammed just as necrocarnates can rewrite people but it involves the live capture of them as there isn’t a wireless access to their important hardware. They also don’t get software updates so a virus won’t work.

Luci Serrano

There are a lot less people to consume media now, Sol Media and Sol Media records see profits drop -28

Lush and Angel are both still alive at least.

Since Sol Mining was based among asteroids it pretty much escaped the invasion unscathed. Since it relied on slave labor there wasn’t even anyone on shore leave to get killed. Lot of people need resources right now, Sol Mining profits are up +11

Sol Lumber business is also up +8

Sol Technologies business is dramatically down but the suits predict this is temporary until reconstruction efforts get back underway in full.  Profits -9

Planet Express was mostly in house so their numbers are about the same.

That shipyard of yours got blown up.

As requested Kala searched around on behalf of Vandross for admiralcy candidates Sam highrolled it into a person who’d be useful to anyone really. Also psionic thrown in as per Johnson’s request, so go check the hiring page.

Stories of Lore 4

Yenneiros Whitetalon

War continues, fill in your sheet the day after instead of the day before dang it.

Mordekai Aberhoff

You too. Kala found some psionic for you in the hiring section. More details on cult activity come when i can work on it over the week.

Edric Vandross

Ikesha went a little rogue in offering Halaestra a job as the Noctis captain and instead made her the seemingly ranking commander of the Raiders entirely.

Meanwhile back on SV3, Alnae seems to have actually shown up beyond transporting Siwa’s stuff. Establishing the major port for travel and seem to be establishing the area as part of their Sovereignty. Experts predict this will accelerate the new colony’s growth but will also attract their most notorious criminal parasites.

+4 bonus profits for filling the thing out quickly. This shows business initiative apparently.

Sethis Tyne

Bad news is Jhaeros was able to close in on his target before enough defenses against him could be prepped. Good news is Vanjin murdered him faster.

Vaeri and Julius get back just after faceless teams leave to go find them in Necrosi. So now a faceless team is looking around lost and confused somewhere out there. Their adventures in Necrosi might have been a story of lore if I hadn’t written so much about Vanjin instead. Long story short, there’s a colony now blown half to pieces and Vaeri is amazed in the sheer number of ways Julius can use explosions to kill things stealthily. From what they gathered, the people your predecessors on the board pissed off are a less so grand conspirators countering your efforts to fulfill their own conspiracy and rather a coalition of people out for revenge over the deaths of people they rather liked. Almost as if in perfect timing, or as if you hit a quest trigger, this lunatic has been giving Sophia and the sniper teams a lot of trouble.

+4 profits, black market going well…and sheet was filled out in a sane amount of time.

Luci Serrano

Added character to your company page. He recommends looking into other non media businesses so you have more to do during updates.

Also +4 profits for filling sheet out quickly, business initiatives.

Shentu Wo: 12,817 Power, 30,216 Followers
Sima Wa: 10,151 Power, 8,420 Followers,
Lin Sun: 4,275 Power, 8,647 Followers
Con Lai: 28,158 Power, 12,841 Followers

Stories of Lore 29

All things considered its a rather peaceful time as Drakon still has a lot of space to build their colonies without direct conflict in the wake of all the destruction and a lot of room in their existing ones from striders who died to Otoroshi. They also take longer to populate their colonies then we do. Angra is gone and while Lucifer is at large again he hasn’t been up to anything overt as he dwells in his secrecy once again. However, a rumor has returned to the world. That in the wastes of Si Da there is a place where roads cross, if you truly want to know something, it is here where you can find a man who will tell you any secret you could ever want…for a price.

Naomi has sent the inquisition, led by High Inquisitor Genevieve, to find if the crossroads have somehow returned in a new location.

While we know Pandora is loose we still haven’t actually seen or heard from her since she freed Lucifer and killed Apophis. Though given Lucifer’s primary method of operation its not too surprising they have such a lack of visibility.

The Pantheon+Naomi still have yet to come to a final decision on what to do about the information Eret brought us but things are growing more tense and it seems the two sides could come to conflict and break the nation apart over the matter if a unanimous decision isn’t reached. Song Yi remains oblivious for now at least.

Eret himself has disappeared once again after delivering his message and was last seen having snuck into Senshi-con for no apparent reason other then he felt like it. His crew have become a bit more whimsical as of late as they travel the world and stir up minor trouble here and there to the frustration of local authorities who are not equipped at all to deal with the seven super pirates, not to mention Drakon as well who while better prepared for such things still have a hard time working around Eret.

Aphrodite has helped bring about a peculiar issue. With the dream portals individual nations are so accessible that a man can walk from one side of the continent to the other with so little trouble that he would do so just to visit a “local” tavern he happens to like. It was originally considered a good thing that cultures could mix and meet each other so easily, but there is a darker side that was recently brought to prominence. Different cultures have different tolerance levels for certain things. In a medievalish world “the gay” is still not terribly well understood and especially not terribly well accepted across the whole continent. Even though Song Yi is the divine empress, her relationship with Izumi isn’t really paid much attention to just kind of like how many weird stories there are about the Thykenae pantheon. When two guys are together in a local area instead of on some divine level, things get uncomfortably tense depending what nation they’re in. Not to mention jinko, demons, spirits, dream denizens, orcs, and many other possible matches that could be made. She feels its important as an empire for this to be addressed before hate crimes become all too common, as such things persist even now but was somewhat ignored by the ruling class due to all the damned wars. This particularly came up because it was recently discovered Prince Ezra of Divus is pretty darn gay, and as the crown prince in a homophobic empire this becomes a bit of an awkward issue that needs to be addressed on an empire-wide scale while we’re working on it.

Senshi-con has rolled around again, much lower turnout then last time given the recent battle with Angra. However, the tournament was still the most fantastic yet with some of the most powerful champions around the world colliding. The general bar for the top of the line champions has definitely been raised and even former reigning champions or finalists have been dethroned. This time there was no need for a special showcase bracket for the supremely powerful, though this might be because Naomi didn’t opt to compete this year. Si Da’s joining of the empire allowed for some powerful new champions to show up and show just how strong the black mages can still be. Represented by Whately and Kaisa in particular who proved devastating opponents. Behold the tournament bracket!

Despite Akhetaten’s former position as the most stable part of the empire, with the loss of so many of their pantheon they have been somewhat destabilized. Fujin has taken over as the head of their pantheon as he is the most capable ruler available who is not otherwise occupied.

Shento:

The Census team reveals scary news, with the mass death of the black mages from Otoroshi you have a majority population of demons instead of black mages. Were it not for Saldis’ undead horde Vedahl probably would have become queen instead. Though the city also has a lot of vacant spaces so plenty of room to expand.

The Osiris pilgrimage project found at least one person of interest already, coming across the reincarnation of Hayashi. Not that they’re all that interesting without Raijin to give them their powers but uh…well that’s what you rolled. Interestingly though, Hayashi had previous lives before Hayashi that he didn’t even know about as he never made the pilgrimage in that life. Before becoming Hayashi he was from Divus and before that he was from Akhetaten.

So far the crimson order can create an ideal all purpose squad or a specific one. For now they’ve gone with roughly all purpose but mostly aimed at dragon slaying with the help of Aeth to line up what the requirements are in order to kill dragons. Turns out the most important thing is some sort of manifestation aspect or defender like Akuhiko, basically anyone who can make shields to deflect breath weapons. While Aeth lacks this power he’s actually good at his job, so its mostly for the benefit of teams without access to super champions.

The research outpost is under construction.

The plan to buy black mage aspects from people actually works fairly well. Though members of the project are all still trying the ambitious project of trying to buy Naomi’s champion aspect. Though this isn’t going well for two reasons, the most obvious of which is she doesn’t need money. The second of which is that she now knows what her aspect is really capable of thanks to Eret and is a bit hesitant to part with it.

Despite how intense your wife can be she’s actually not all that hard to get along with, the art of seduction goes along well enough.

Lin Sun:

Morale around the Aetas receives a mix of highs and lows regarding Kaisa. She was the most powerful member of the Aetas to some and the representative of the Aetas’ full power because of that, she had become an icon within the city to the general population even before she hit the avatar state. On the other hand those in the military who are familiar with how monstrous she is are happy she’s gone and they can sleep a bit more soundly. Elves in particular are happier that spirits are coming by more now that she’s gone.

Lucas now looks snazzy and decorates the coat with his military command ribbons and such.

Xiaoli only gained Tena’s powers interestingly enough. Since you were the one that sent Kaisa away and Adin never really went bad just grew up and moved out of home. They aren’t really marked off as your order’s failures so Xiaoli didn’t get their abilities. On a related note, despite insisting she’s not really elf enough to represent elves Adin is a celebrated hero of the elves and whenever she stops in to visit they get really excited and want her autograph. Leaving her awfully confused as to her popularity.

Before you even get halfway through attempting adding mysticism to the university every mystic in the city tells you that it won’t work. You can’t streamline mystic learning like that and those that do learn the art have to leave the city and live on the outskirts in the wild where few people are. A  key part of mystic training is being away from other people for long stretches of time, so classroom style teaching just won’t work. This is why the Senshi live in such an isolated area and learn one on one.

There is a slight danger to putting Vris in the reincarnation loop. It is a black mage power for her to retain all of her memories, if she’s reincarnated and gets them all back and doesn’t have that power she’s either going to forget most of it or just explode. Osiris isn’t actually sure which will happen though.

Con Lai:

Educating Van Tien seems to be extremely difficult. Her attention span is incredibly short as is her short term memory. Often having to be taught the same thing in full detail multiple times before she retains enough of it to only need small details on the side. It doesn’t help she recently started dating so that’s kept her distracted.

Milenkosi didn’t have any children the way you’re thinking of. But he did create thousands of denizens, turns out every time he napped a new denizen was born and all of the sleeping lords were created this way originally.

Tatuu’s war against Rei Daiheb has been a bit of a rough ride. Every time his legion gets closer to finding her they experience setbacks, he has uncovered that the remnants of the snake cult now serve Lucifer which has contributed to the difficulty of getting to Rei. The other problem is that Eret and his team aren’t fully integrated with any other team and finding seven pirates operating on their own is really hard let alone when they get occasional help from the masters of espionage.

Kamari has become adopted by Nane Kuu so to speak, joining her legion and she now oversees his progression and deploys him on various jobs. He is one of her warriors she uses to help scout the nightmare realm.

Sima Wa:

Projects make progress though no completions for now. In general the acquisition of resources has taken up some more time as huge amounts keep getting spent on the existing ones and need to be replenished constantly.

Inaji finally finished building the Tekuna home base in Divya and has set up shop there where she works with her runt squad in attempt to produce big monster slaying toys as she foresees imminent conflict with Krovsokol.

Always late…every time.

The first orc blademaster to make enough progress that Hayate says they don’t suck. Haunani is a mystic swordswoman able to rival a novice Senshi, she also packs a lot of regenerative power to keep her going and seems to have unbelievable stamina. Having once sprinted around the jungle and only been a little out of breath afterwards.

She is a stronger fighter then mystic, but she still wields a spiritual blade. Tends to be a bit of a loner though.

While Eztli was named the grand commander, this was the runner up for control of the crimson order. Standing at seven feet tall, he is a giant and swings damned hard. He is a natural blood aspect and has hemomancy, while Eztli’s demigod status and power blessing make him stronger in every category Clayton’s is described as a hammer. Instead of more intricate hemomantic methods, he’s known to just use it as a wrecking ball or to form his trademark bloodblade which Anna admittedly does better too but she is using a god’s blood after all.

Clayton is well liked by the order as being a wiser and more experienced member and in the battle against Angra he managed to smack a dragon so hard it fell over.

One of the Valkyries that weren’t kidnapped by Eret, Idonea is one of the older ones among Freyja’s daughters. She is generally described as being kind and gentle, but is known to have the strength to swing a tree like a club and the death aspect to make the tree lethal.

She also has the ability to heal others up to a certain point, and is known around Freyja’s province as the go to doctor.

The most powerful Valkyrie Freyja ever produced, child of her and Hel. Which may raise some questions, don’t worry Lin she’s 900 years old. Though, no one knew Eira existed until recently when her existence was revealed while Freyja was freaking out trying to get her daughters back from Eret. Eira even battled with Vassago and survived.

While she reaps people like any Valkyrie can, she has a distinct ability to grow massively stronger by tapping into Hel’s dimension and can willingly cross into it.  She has turned the souls of the dead in Hel’s realm into spirit infusions and weapons on command. Unless reaped she goes right back into Hel’s dimension which she can escape on her own. Eira grows more powerful with every soul Hel or Freyja reaps, and can summon a spirit weapon (kind of, not authentically a spirit blade but similar properties) that eclipses even Ryner’s. It is however not the same as Song’s, but still pretty damned powerful.

No one knew she existed because she lives primarily with Hel in the underworld, Freyja only recently got so desperate as to summon her for help which ultimately wasn’t enough. While Eira has gone back into the underworld to mind her own business, everyone is looking at Freyja like “YOU HAD THAT THIS WHOLE TIME?!” lately.

Shentu Wo: 3747 Power, 2,586 Followers
Kikai Senso: 14,822 Power, 210 Followers, Next Form Progress: 52%
Lin Sun: 1,245 Power, 628 Followers
Con Lai: 2,675 Power, 2, 621 Followers

A quickie since I was too lazy to write about battles, Stories of Lore 22

General:

Eventually Svarga managed to repel its invaders even if at heavy cost. Though in the end it became a confusing mess. Once again with strange synchronization they managed to destroy dream doors at the cross roads, Svarga, the University, blood jungles, and the snake cult took out one in Adelaide. The first one, not the river of dreams one. While rebuilding most of these isn’t really all that hard, it happened while most of the armed forces were at Svarga including western allies that had been sent to help as per the alliance.

First the bad news in Akhetaten. Every god there incarnated very suddenly and during the battle of Svarga it was hard to discern why. It turned out an army from Si Da came from the north to assault the capital, two hours into the seemingly easy battle the cult of Apophis all surfaced out of their hiding holes and made a sudden assault on the prison of Apophis. This is what prompted every god in Akhetaten to incarnate at once.In the end, Apophis was not released while Akhetaten continued their running tradition of RNG superiority. They managed to repel the invasion with some effort but the nation is in a bit of chaos as many snake cultists just disappeared after Neith started shooting at them and decided not to charge to their deaths.

Back in Divus it got really bad as Asmodaeus himself finally reappeared alongside Nergal, Mammon, and Heisi Siwang. Granted no one knew it was them until way after the events occurred. Orujov was assassinated and somehow this polarized everyone immediately. People either blamed the angels or blamed Naomi and just tore into each other. Then to make matters worse, Eli showed up. Though oddly enough Eli didn’t do much, his pirates just pillaged while others fought and Vassago burned down a few outlying cities for fun. If anything it actually seemed they weren’t here to invade and go god slaying, but here on a recruitment drive of “do you want to die fighting for one of two uncertain teams or live at sea with all the loot of your neighbors?”

In the end Arthur sided with the church and the angels, but Galahad sided with Naomi. The remnants of the inquisition have instead gone rogue entirely. The ensuing battle actually was at least 10x more epic then the battle of Svarga. Naomi battled with Uriel, Ryner fought Anahita, David battled with Gabriel. The sky itself seemed to explode over Divus as the full might of the most powerful nation engulfed itself.The battle is still ongoing a week later, angels patrol the nation and occassionally get into skirmishes with the templars or paladins.

Saint Caleb was killed by Galahad, and Jacob died to Naomi. Anahita was killed by Ryner. Saint Andrew was killed by Arthur and Naomi has sustained severe injuries from her encounter with Uriel. At this point the big earthquakes we felt turned out to be Bahamut ending a few disputes and snake shenanigans as well as creating a way for his people to retreat underground into the underworld Song Yi had once urged them to make.

Meanwhile the Jade Empire storm turned out to be Shenlong vs Drakon. Some of the masters didn’t believe that Shenlong really existed and decided to try their luck so they could declare Nazarius crazy. Well they weren’t smart enough to make Shenlong scared to act like Azazel, so that is a surprising amount of dead dragon masters. This also has resulted in Shenlong getting a lot of recruits now that they believe he is real.

Shahira started to begin a mass gathering of all its many estranged people. Enough shit went down that for the first time in about a thousand years or so they decided to stop being nomadic and all get their shit together because this is getting out of hand. Culminating in Dahika Al-Mazah, Ifrit has finally chosen prophets and champions of his own to lead his nation. This also resulted in Zaeed leaving Hale’a to go back home to Shahira, as he decided his people needed him more then you guys did as Ifrit has no pantheon but himself so far. This does bode well for an alliance with Shahira as opposed to their usual neutrality though, and you are neighbors with them as it were.

He left some people in charge of his city for now and left Song Yi as its ruler while he went to go rebuild in Shahira. Since Song Yi lost her capital in the battle with Divya this works out pretty easily, even if she’s uncomfortable with all the gold and expensive stuff around that place.

In other developments, it seems the Vua Cai took initiative once the involvement of Asmodaeus was uncovered in the west. Sacrificing some of their will hidden spies within Si Da, they managed to reveal to the Black Pantheon the same thing you guys learned awhile back that caused this split. Aphrodite’s reaction was basically “I knew it!” as she was originally a Song fangirl.

Amaterasu was overcome with grief as she realized what had happened. She originally went to the former land of Taiyo to see if she could somehow find forgiveness for everything she’d accidentally done. And then she met a Baron Samedi who was in the area conducting field research.  After a long discussion with him she went back to Sthan Thi, and then dark magicked the shit out of the capital while no one was looking. The entire capital is engulfed in another dark magic storm of tremendous size as she did the exact same ritual that brought back Lin Sun. Seeking repentance for her own stupidity in trying to lead a nation while being so out of touch and feeling responsible for everything the demons have been doing she sacrificed herself to bring her sister back, hoping she could do more good then her. Since Ryujin is dead, Izumi’s curse is gone and she is capable of ascending into a full god again but she’s in a demigod state right now. Obviously Izumi went back to Song Yi’s side after getting over her sister’s sacrifice.

So to summarize, everybody is fucked up. Sthan Thi has finally fallen, the Si Da forces are a bit disorganized with all the war stuff going on. Drakon masters picked a fight with Shenlong and lost but survivors converted to the church of giant storm dragon thing. Akhetaten is okay for the most part but recovering from their own battle. Divus is still an active warzone. Si Da might actually be about to fall leaving Lucifer and the demons forced to go find a new nation to hang out with. After Azazel sacrificed mass villages to bait Ryner, the war against Shenlong and Song Yi, and this most recent stunt, they’re running out of resources.

Shento:

Unfortunately Intel operations in Divus were unable to do much. Divus proves the hardest nation to operate in as they are extremely volatile towards black mages, and as a result they were unable to prevent the death of Orujov despite having a feeling it was coming. Since Orujov was the high inquisitor, they were almost incapable of getting close to him as the inquisitors are known to be the most relentless in their hunt for black mages.

After the battle with Krovkom the church of Sanguinism is actually in pretty good shape when you consider the rest of the world. Svarga is not quite lost but its not really worth that much as its just a wasteland of rubble and the few die hards that still live there and the blood jungle wasn’t really subject to much attack even if a lot of vampires have died now. Kaja may be dead but the order is still around. Anna is the new ruler of the duchy and considered the queen of all vampires since the only one left with the strength to oppose her has no interest and is running around in Divus.

Some people are studying growing coffee now as well. It turns out to grow pretty well here though needs to be near the borders where it isn’t too wet but just wet enough.

After the death of Abel, Nelo has become the new leader of the Tyrant bloodline and through a series of exploits in the game of blood thrones has taken over managing the duchy. We mention the word managing because the actual ruler is now Anna Von Goethe. With Ryner living in a form of self imposed exile Anna is the most powerful vampire by a wide margin now and basically glared at people until they just gave her Carmilla’s old position.

He is more adept then Alex at politics but we’re far enough down the dracula line that he isn’t very physically powerful and isn’t quite as good as Carmilla so the game of blood thrones continues. He has the protection of Anna in exchange for doing the boring work for her, and her being the official ruler makes him far less targetable since she could just replace him with a new assistant. The general political situation with that has been getting a little weird.

With Anna taking over the duchy, Alex has been with the Crimson Order for the most part since their relationship is a little bit questionable and Anna got the position by declaring it was hers. So far no one has stopped her, on the upside it is highly unlikely she’ll be assassinated.

In non-war and death related news, Ailani and her siblings appear to have a gang of some sort in the jungle. With Ailani’s abilities she has an easy time finding recruits. At fourteen years old she has a small team of black mages that serve as her escort with guest star Hei Song showing up from time to time. Su Shento seems a bit concerned that Ailani just wanders the jungles so nonchalantly but she does have about ten other empowered black mages and Kekoa following her around so she’s not in much danger.

Lin Sun:

Saddles are made, this is one of the easier tech things to get made at least. Riding Kaeta actually turns out to be surprisingly easy as they were somewhat made for that. Vris and Hayate can easily control them, the issue is actually that they are kind of skittish. They’ll fly someone around, but if they approach predators or hit each other in mock battle the Kaeta kind of run away.

The spiders are alright though given the portal to the trade port of Adelaide there is no such thing as excess. Easy to sell and all.

After the battle of ninjas in the heart of Ui’Akini eventually things were sorted out when Freyja finally arrived to help out. Though many professors are dead and a chunk of the library was burned before it could be put out. What stands out is that they didn’t target very many military assets nor cult specific things. They directly went after those who could teach along with artifacts and books. They definitely put a lot of effort into getting to Vris but they didn’t seem to have Intel on what the hell Zhi’s power was because they fell for it repeatedly. Two of Vris’ children were murdered along with her husband, though she seems to barely notice with all the other crap going on. She has two surviving children, and its clear she was definitely a priority target for the attack on the university.

However, not every assassin was ever found. An unknown number must have retreated upon figuring out that getting to Vris wasn’t happening, no one really knows where they went and the university is just decorated with corpses now.

Con Lai:

The war with the snake cult continues with its back and forth. With Jin almost being killed on three occassions but managing to pull through with a bit of luck. He got involved in the battle of Akhetaten on accident because it was just so huge that he had to. This wound up compromising some of the stealth he had built up and now the Snake Cult seems far more wary of his presence along with general discomfort across Akhetaten given that Jin and Mariah are black mages even if the rest of their shinobi buddies are not.

The quest for internal spies continues to go on, though nothing exciting as a big name has been found yet.

Naomi for the most part will take any military support if it comes to a throwdown between her and the angels of heaven. Though other then that she really just wants to find Jeb and kill him.

The shinobi were unable to capture Jebediah. This is because he is under extremely heavy guard and the public are not allowed to see him since Naomi is very aggressively hunting him. The primary issue is actually finding him at all.

The attack on Adelaide itself seemed more like a suicide attack. Several snake cultists were eventually found and killed but not before causing massive damage to the docks, ships, and warehouses. Dismantling as much of the Vua Cai’s trade network or faith in it as possible. Military ships seem to have escaped being targeted so the navy is still around at least.

General:

Si Da moves through Shahira to the northern border. With all militaries tied up with all the other ongoing wars in every direction the only opponent Azazel deals with is Song Yi, who accomplished nearly nothing despite her power and wound up getting respawned after essentially falling into three traps in a row and being taken down by Van Djao. Spies report that Krovkom is likely in league with Si Da at least a little bit.

Meanwhile Shenlong’s forces, though messed up from battling Si Da, are offering to help if Con Lai gives them the door at the Imperial Throne they need to get their forces to Svarga. This does, however, include Nazarius and his crew who at the behest of Shenlong intends to prevent the temple of Brahma from getting into Si Da’s hands. Raijin and Fujin have also gone to Svarga to prepare to lend assistance. The politics of Krovkom vs Nazarius/Shenlong basically amounts to this new continent being their lawless lands and the two of them are battling for power and influence Krovkom seems willing to team up with Si Da, but Nazarious already threw his lot in with Shenlong.

Meanwhile, the dark storm over Doi Cho Len seems to be developing more strange behaviors and Baron Samedi has come back to the main continent to study it in person.

Back in the west, Naomi manages to start a whole lot of chaos anyways since no one stopped her before she went after Nergal’s new high prophet. That and it had been a month anyways and stopping her is already enough of a headache.

After engaging the paladins in another fight, Saint David, Andrew, and Rachel have sided with Naomi. It actually went a bit better then expected since all those paladins kept their powers which lent a lot of credit to their claims. Arthur stays on the side of the church, but his trusted knight Galahad feels Naomi might be right. But Orujov decided that his job is to investigate this in both directions anyways and the inquisition has utilized their ultimate power. Allowed to overrule even the king in moments of extreme necessity, Orujov has declared martial law under his now autocratic rule until his investigation goes one way or another.

However, while Arthur, Galahad, and Orujov are all for “lets see how this pans out” the angels are a bit less tentative and Uriel immediately called for Naomi to be killed before the madness spreads further through Divus thanks to her. This has made the projected civil war go somewhat all over the place, while a surprisingly large portion of the nation is at least willing to let the Inquisition reach a verdict a smaller but more aggressive portion feels the need to defend the nation from Eli’s corrupting influence and have taken immediate action in trying to hunt down and kill Naomi. So the masses are undecided, but a few minorities are taking immediate action on both sides. Naomi collapsed the entire cathedral with her initial assault on Jebediah, who managed to escape a falling building somehow.

Shento:

All the planning goes well except that Krovkom still seems content to watch as Lucifer engages Song Yi to the north among the wild lands, gathering data and all.

So far no one who knows the plans seems to be relaying them to anyone else.

Con Lai:

Blessings delivered.

Counterintelligence sent around, but without actually attacking any of those locations its impossible to tell if any of them counter any leaked plan as no possible targets have started doing anything abnormal that might be related to them.