General:

Si Da and Nazarius are still at odds but for now Nazarius is able to defend the Jade Empire fairly well. Over 8 months more ships eventually came, they didn’t really bring anyone too scary though. Mostly striders to reinforce Nazarius and a good host of some who were interested in this Shenlong business. Several dragon whelps but only three more dragon masters one of which who is dead already (see 3 paragraphs down). Though despite how promising a new master Shenlong makes, not too many people are keen on the whole ‘non physical’ thing and many are here just to see if Innokenti is messing with them.

In other interesting encounters, Nazarius and team met Eli and team. Mostly because the pirates were hijacking some of the new ships coming to visit this strange new land. Since Drakon ships are very shiny and covered in gold quite often, it attracted pirates pretty quickly. They were quite offended once they discovered Eli was the master of Vassago and not the other way around, even questioning what he must have done to the poor dragon to turn it into something resembling a beast rather then an intelligent creature. Which was a fine moral high ground and all except for the immediate problem that Vassago is much larger then Nazarius and the whelps that were coming to visit from Drakon’s homeland.

While the combined efforts of the dozens of dragons that came from Drakon this time managed to force Vassago to retreat and lick its wounds, and the pirates didn’t quite succeed in taking ships from striders, it has set a weird atmosphere among the Drakon. As they just met someone who controls a dragon large enough to fight several of their own. In their circle Eli is the first man in the new world to earn the feared title of Dragon Slayer which apparently in their culture is a way to indicate humans dangerous enough to kill dragons. After Vassago ate three of the whelps, they decided to acknowledge Eli as being “pretty dangerous” hence the title. While the pirate raid wasn’t terribly successful as they underestimated how strong the striders on the ships were, the Drakon are now a bit worried about the Atlanteans and they already fear the Jakaal. The new world seems a bit scary and even though this second wave includes more soldiers the situation has definitely changed since they were first sent out as during their voyage Nazarius truly came to understand the threat the Jakaal in particular posed to them. As a result, they’re bunkering down in the Lengdon mountain range along the coast of the Jade Empire to prepare defenses and to create a landing point for future Drakon reinforcements. Shenlong seems to have conveniently not mentioned who actually controls those mountains, just in case he decides he doesn’t want them around anymore.

With the arrival of the Drakon forces, more dragon masters and their striders have appeared to stake claims in the new world and they’ve begun to explore the landmass even further since Nazarius has been primarily focused with surviving Si Da. A particular dragon master didn’t believe him when he warned about Si Da and why he is trying to keep things under control within the territory of Jade Empire. Said cocky master was convinced his striders were far better then those of Nazarius and flew straight to Sthan Thi to “get rid of the hive for you” in a typically annoying manner. This was a fairly significant battle as several dragons were involved and tried to burn Sthan Thi to the ground immediately, their striders also coming along to massacre and enslave the populace. However, in the end their assault was defeated. Shen Rai’s capabilities caught them offguard and Saldis kept reanimating dragon corpses as they fell. So Si Da now has undead dragon pets, and Drakon calls “the teleporting scythe guy” a dragon slayer as well.

It isn’t all doom and gloom for the forces of Drakon though, the Jakaal have been set back heavily in the Jade Empire and pushed back to the wild lands where the cover of the forests offer them protection from the flying dragons. Nazarius has been quite successful at adapting his tactics to recognizing the abilities of his enemies and even managed to attack and destroy “The Pit” with the reinforcements he was brought from his homeland and force the Jakaal to become nomadic.

Now they are trapped by enemies on both sides as Shahira is basically a home of dragons right now, the wide open desert provides no protection against them and the only reason Akhetaten still stands is the united nation was able to rally enough champions to produce a show of force. On the advice of Nazarius, the Drakon decide to deal with just one problem at a time for now until more of their forces arrive, and perhaps one of the dragon lords.

This has had the slight effect of uniting the western nations, including Hale’a, deeper into their joint alliance as its quite clear the dragons are the “take over the world” type of empire. So far Innokenti has not traveled far enough west to discover Bahamut though.

However, due to the curiosity of the blood strider they found Hale’a Jeongsin and have definitely taken note. Despite attempts at diplomacy it didn’t really take long for this to devolve into a fight and figuring Hale’a to be one of the pagan tribes they’d already killed a few of so easily they just sent a couple dragons and striders to investigate. They might have actually reached the blood jungle if they hadn’t pissed off Song Yi, not that doing so is particularly hard. In the end Fujin interrupted their ability to fly and grounded them into the forests where Song’s abilities turned the situation around pretty quickly. Sange also proved problematic for the striders as they had no idea what to do against that thing, defending his territory quite well and replicating himself with the remnants of their weapons and armor. Hale’a has also gotten on the ‘we’ll deal with it later’ list as they’re still preoccupied dealing with Si Da.

In the meantime, Fujin has found a home in the caverns under Hale’a with some help from Song Yi to make him his own section to house his people in. While most of the nation has defaulted to hanging out with Raijin as the main figurehead of Taiyo, some of the more mystically inclined have realized the role Fujin played in keeping the nation alive for the last few years and his city prospers well with the assistance of the Aetas cake shrooms. Fujin has given the underworld a very unique effect, wind and thus technically ventilation. This has had the major effect of making underground living more comfortable for everyone as its less…cave like. But it also turns out to make cake shrooms grow freakishly quickly, and the silk spiders are growing larger then normal as well. In all, his contribution to the underworld has made it actually a pretty nice place to live as long as you don’t miss the sun too much.

Raijin on the other hand houses the shogunate within his new territory Song gave him, insuring their way lives on. So hey, samurai army, cool. More importantly though, Isis goes mad scientist on him and along with Lo’c furthers the power of electrical invention. These projects are still a work in progress but progress has been made and now Kagayakashi has fancier lighting then everyone else along with some peculiar machines.

Isis’ latest project has yielded some result in making hovering rocks that don’t require constant power to work. They don’t do much else really, and can’t support any weight. But Zaeed created basically an air hockey table with them.

Shento:

The situation with the renegade vampires turns out to be fairly mundane, it is actually just a renegade vampire collection who became irate with the constant attempts to send them out of the way. The problem with them being out of the way is that their food supply also becomes rarer the further into the middle of nowhere you send them. While the plan was to leave them spread out to make their attacks less potent, the tyrant clan in particular is very social with other vampires. By the nature of attempts to spread them over the east you broke apart their little family and they wanted to stay together, the problem was if they kept together they caused the original problem.

The few that could be captured helped to reveal the previous information, but many fought viciously. The paladin and knights were almost overwhelmed but Anna took over and just massacred the rogue vampires. Killing probably a quarter of them personally, the city is just a field of gore and you have few captives to show for it. Notably every one of them were captured by the knights, no one survived Anna’s brutality. Sure she could have captured them to let them suffer as livestock for the rest of the vampires, but she isn’t interested in how much others suffer. Just that thrill she gets when she does it herself.

The cult in the territory formerly known as Thykenae is apparently a series of hijacked movements.  First there was a group of angry citizens about being annexed and all their gods being demolished, then someone sort of rallied that particular cause into a rebellion movement much like the Svarga situation. Then that got hijacked by a much more dangerous cult that actually originated from Akhetaten based around Apophis promising some assistance and power to fight back properly and without having to turn to dark or black magic. So even if the cult is full of weird ass snake people worshipping a chaos god, it still seemed on the alright side of things to most people who are more wary of all the magics named by goth kids.

The primary Agent (Joseph Sheridan) journeyed north to Akhetaten looking for more clues about the cult of Apophis and its weird snake people. Discovering the snake god to be imprisoned by the pantheon for being…well a big ball of chaos. Basically the Otoroshi situation all over again. The cult is always looking for ways to release it and have hijacked the Thykenian movement to attract more to its cause. Akhetaten isn’t incompetent though, and knows what is happening. Most of Sheridan’s info came from some of the members of the Horus cult. The issue is, even if they do know its happening its pretty goddamned hard to deal with these guys.

Sheridan suspects the involvement of the demons but at this point we just suspect everything wrong with the world somehow involves them.

Ailani ditches mysticism lessons several times and shows zero interest in it. Kekoa also has no interest in it and doesn’t even try to keep her in line. Despite Akamu’s best attempts, she just keeps doing whatever she wants and recruiting her younger siblings into her own mischief. He warns Su that Ailani exhibited some dangerous “traits” for a ten year old. Mostly in that she was aware that she had way too much power in any given interaction they were having. For example, she’s the daughter of their creator, and even if that position wasn’t acknowledged her bodyguards can kill Akamu’s whole tribe single handedly. While she didn’t do anything overtly crazy to throw her position against Akamu, as a mystic he got the impression that she was very aware that if she wanted to be, she was in control.

Which brings into note her new childhood friend, the one that makes Akamu’s whole tribe shrink when the two young girls come around together. She has met and befriended Hei Song. While Hei hasn’t done anything evil, every mystic in the land is terrified of the girl. Someone so dark and frightening to anyone remotely spiritually attuned turns out to be rather lonely and since Ailani is kind of used to being surrounded by cannibals and other such scary individuals she turned out to get along fine with the creepy goth child of Song Yi. Su is concerned Hei Song is a bad influence, an idea perhaps put forth by Akamu who is mystically inclined.

Lin Sun:

Thykenians turn out to be good educators and take well to the university. The university itself also winds up adopting Tena Xequin, the only survivor from Vithanyalai. (I bet all of you totally forgot I named her as the sole survivor of Fluffy’s cult). Experiments in having Lavet teach go poorly, and she’s back at work in the library. It turns out that even though she can quiet down a noisy class room, the absolute silence she creates actually causes mild panic and she was deemed “too scary” to be an educator. She is head librarian though.

One of the more interesting developments is the arrival of an ambassador from Akhetaten. After staying for awhile, usually talking with Vris, they wind up taking Vris with them back to Akhetaten where she visits the archives of the old empire. This ends up keeping her away for a little while but she memorizes an old nations whole library while away so that’s pretty useful. While there she ends up meeting with agent Sheridan and gets involved in the study of the Apophis cult he discovered.

After piecing together a large portion of Akhetaten’s history she determines the cult to be a serious threat but then again Akhetaten is already on top of that one and Hale’a has its own problems especially with the incoming Drakon Imperiya. Though for the most part that problem is just solving other problems as they’re still primarily fighting with Si Da.

Freyja declines the offer for help with finding a high prophet, she can find one if she wants but just hasn’t found anyone interesting enough. She has normal prophets in the meantime.

Also Vris informs you that she is just equipping her kids with the education needed to pursue whatever they want in the future. You know she’s being nice and could snark you to death using Eret as an example though, at least she’s not as vicious towards you as your last high prophet could be. Also their dad is the fun one, her job is to be the strict one that keeps the family somewhat orientated. She hasn’t stopped one of her kids from training with the Aetas after all, though that kid’s unhealthy idolization of Song Yi is concerning given how Song Yi rose to power.

Con Lai:

The scout ship found this mysterious continent! Success. The problem is that dragons can fly and spotted the ship coming from very far away. Unbeknownst to Drakon though, the Vua Cai communicate in their sleep and are able to send valuable information back to you even if they are currently enslaved. The report goes that well before they actually saw land they saw the towers of a coastal city and whatever lived there also saw them. Resistance was a bit futile given the fact that the dragon that came to take a look could have crushed the boat just by landing on the deck.

As it turns out, the Drakon idea of “slavery” isn’t all that unappealing to the average person. It is part of Drakon culture to be a ridiculous showoff, and as a result the slaves are not quite worked to death at the end of a whip. Your own people, that were cooperative, are currently adorned with gold and jewelry and personal projects of some of the dragon masters. As foreign slaves are apparently rare and all the rage right now, and your scout force reached them before Nazarius even sent any back since they set sail so quickly on such a speedy ship.

Abusing the power of the dream realm they managed to get into contact with the Aetas and have been spent quite a lot of time breaking down the Drakon language as they’ve observed it while awake. The ability to (apparently) learn the language on their own has only elevated their status as prize pets to the Drakon and made their whole spying job even easier as no one has the faintest idea there what the Vua Cai are good at doing.

Unfortunately, after the initial interesting fact that they are standing next to dragons wears off, there isn’t much to spy on. They can confirm the dragons are all very intelligent and rule over the society, the city they’re in is massive and beautiful, all the slaves are super well dressed and are forcefully educated from a young age as smarter slaves are worth more. Its actually not that bad a life, you just have to shut up and move out of the way of striders. Districts of the city are more akin to personal ant colonies, slaves can move freely throughout however much space is ruled over by their specific master. In the case of our Vua Cai spies, they have free reign over a dozen square miles or so as they are exotics and thus possessed by one of the more powerful masters.

On the downside, they lost the boat and their door building materials. They also aren’t labor slaves, actually that turns out to not be a thing in Drakon. Humans are physically very weak compared to striders and it would take a dozen to do the work of a single strider. The Drakon seemed to have decided that it takes too long and takes too much organization to make slaves do construction given that these structures are massive and often made with accommodating full grown dragons in mind. That does bring to mind the Vua Cai noticed the dragons are not the size of Shenlong or Bahamut, at least not the masters. Some get fairly large but Vassago (Eli’s dragon) is also bigger then anything but the city’s dragon lord. The lord is huge though and the difference between the masters and the lords appear to include a very sudden gap that they have yet to discover the reasons for.

So basically your spies live a life so luxurious the royals of Shahira (the Bakkali family) would be jealous. They’re okay with this assignment and will send back more information as they go along. While they weren’t able to construct the door, they do know where in the world this place is now and Milenkosi might be able to land there.

Caine:

The order of demon hunters progresses, while its only been half a year its definitely making headway. With its own facility and research department alongside standard training. However, Fuma has yet to take them north to make direct contact with the demon legions as they aren’t quite ready for something like that. Lo’c has developed a small variety of ammunition for Nila’s guns increasing her adaptability in the field to deal with the supernaturally empowered demons and black mages who are typically very sturdy against firearms.

On the other hand, the dragon hunters are having a rougher time. There are only two dragons really available for study, Nazarius and Vassago. Both of which are not appealing prospects to get close to. Maona works to theorize many tactics but Nazarius being a skeletal dragon definitely makes planning somewhat tricky, the best they’ve managed for practice is working with one of the spirit monsters of the forest who is particularly large and kind of the right shape.

Logan and Gaetan’s team winds up on a particularly long adventure. Tracking down the remnants of Otoroshi led them to Shahira but no merchant there was willing to hold onto such remnants for too long, they say they get bad vibes from any pieces of the akuma and they offloaded them as quickly as they could. So who would want to buy such things? Shady people in hoods of course, which meant they didn’t have much information to give. Logan managed to acquire an object one such figure traded and tracked them all the way to Divus.

While there they encountered a series of cultist who worship the demons, and by extent the Akuma are included in that. The fragment of Otoroshi was in the possession of a nobleman who collected the object along with several other demonic relics and was one of the agents of Mammon. Their first encounter didn’t go well, with both Gaetan and Logan being forced to retreat from a conflict.

This conflict in the middle of a city with a demon cult attracted the attention of the templars and their knights prompting them to get involved. The nobleman went into hiding soon after and most of his collection disappeared with him. This brought up a whole other problem, Logan and Gaetan aren’t supposed to be in Divus as they are both black mages and now the templars were onto them.

Going on the run they managed to escape the city and eventually the nations’ borders before having their identities discovered. Through a series of careful information trading they managed to deduce the aftermath of the event resulted in a scandal being uncovered, a noble house being denounced, several demon cultists being discovered, and also several black market connections being shut down by the templars. Finally though, the fragment of Otoroshi was confiscated along with the rest of the demonic collection and the nobleman’s head. Many objects disappeared into the black market but several, including the fragment, are now in the hands of the templars. Logan awaits further instruction as this makes the situation a bit dicey.

The artemis has finished its construction and is significantly larger then even the Sanyang, Jin Zhang’s flagship. However, it is not even half as wieldy and it doesn’t have the same cannons, its made to hunt the kraken and with that comes sheer mass so it can’t be taken out with a quick chomp and firing anti air weapons at dragons presumably but that takes up all its armament allotment. Fortunately its size is also part of its advantage against the dragons given that they can’t just sink it by landing on it, it acts more like a carrier then anything else as pure bulk was a major factor in it so it has a lot of room for people to hang out. Be warned though, in ship to ship warfare it is surprisingly weak for its size and can merely survive bombardment but not necessarily return it.

Your attempt to train with Song Yi herself goes about as well as Lin Sun’s in the past.

Kikai Senso:

Teozix makes a brief return to the university life as he pays a visit to the Aetas university and just kind of hangs out a little bit and offers a lot of “Vithanyalai had ____” to unintentionally remind them that the god of knowledge made a much better university in that innocent robotic flatness that lacks any snark thus making it sting all the more. He wasn’t asked to come back.

Shentu Wo: 2485 Power, 3,344  Followers
Kikai Senso: 9,418 Power, 145 Followers, Next Form Progress: 27%
Lin Sun: 699 Power, 695 Followers
Con Lai: 6757 Power, 2,621 Followers
Caine: 3916 Power, 1,823 Followers
General:

Song Yi decides this is getting ridiculous and just summons all your crossover training champions to the conveniently constructed super large arena in the blood jungle so the attempt to get each champion trained by another god’s specialist champ stops getting unnecessarily complicated. Everyone step into your local dream door, and come to Senshi-Con. Its held during the crimson fist off season so its not like anyone else was using the arena. Also the healers at the arena are rather exploitable in case someone accidentally lethals someone else.

After years of brutal war and excessive violence, Senshi Con turns out to be a rather good idea for the champion level characters. The Crimson Fist is only for amateurs, but Senshi Con becomes the sort of pro-level event with its style swapping, sparring matches, and Carmilla’s bright idea to have a champion level friendly tournament. Akhetaten declined to show up as they don’t know you guys that well right now.

<- Tournament bracket and results. There were a few surprises and several people got sent into terrible matchups for themselves, but all in good fun anyways.

Takeshi fought Song Yi, with Song not using any of her powers or her actual spirit blade, and he managed to actually last longer then her opening hit. In the end though, he’s not quite on her level. Though to even it out, Raijin beat her again. She still hasn’t quite caught up to his level either.

Meanwhile the event was largely successful and a welcome distraction for a week or two from the ongoing apocalypse where gods and heroes are dropping like flies. So back to the apocalypse now.

The Drakon seem to be basically killing demons 20 to 1, but pull relatively even with Jakaal. Indicating that despite their power the dragon aspect does not mean tier zeroes for everybody. In fact, the Drakon have become notably terrified of the monster known as Vo Kim who has taken down 6 dragon striders by himself and only Dmitry has survived coming face to face with him.

Though for the most part, the Drakon colony force is able to set up comfortably in the Jade Empire and push the demons back as they grow more careful. Nazarius is inhumanly intelligent but his strategies prove to be weaker then Azazels and despite having a vastly superior military force, Azazel’s cunning use of his assets is taking a toll on the Drakon.

Meanwhile, Akhetaten is now one of the super power nations having taken over Thykenae and they seem content to mind their own business for now and develop their new acquisitions. Some evil cult sprouted up from the remains of Thykenae and offer active resistance though. Its actually very similar to whats happening in Svarga all things considered.

Shento:

Envoy Work:  Divus Altepetl and Akhetaten join along the alliance to create possibly the largest stretch of allies territory in the Era’s history. Shenlong however feels the need to probe into the matter some more, given the situation he’s in with most of his pantheon and population dead or dying. Bahamut remains vehement in protecting his nation of castaways and doesn’t like the concept of the Drakon mindset towards his people or even his fellow pantheon members.

In sending the vampires up there you wind up hitting the exact thing that lurks in the wild lands west of the jade empire and south of Si Da, the Jakaal. This excursion did not last long.

Reports from Jade spies turns out to be pretty uneventful. Even the noble houses are collapsing under the Si Da assault as many of the upper lords have been assassinated by the Siwang of the Black Pantheon, who know how to kill Jade nobles very well. The Drakon scout force turns out to be quite welcome, even if Nazarius is an undead dracolich thing, he is nice to see on their side and boosts morale. Many people seem to think this Drakon thing isn’t such a bad idea given the current alternatives.

One of the colonies along the coast in Divya have been wiped out by a vampire tribe gone rogue, primarily composed of Tyrant members although a little bit of everyone is in it. The remaining ones all get those anti air siege weapons under construction though it will take awhile to build enough to create ballista bolt clouds as without the original Kagayakashi it takes awhile to mass produce weaponry.

In the meantime, Ailani becomes edumacated by the general Aetas instead of Vris directly. Vris has a lot to do and Ailani cannot learn with Vris’ kids because they’re basically those nerds whose mother forced them through AP Calc at age 9. So Ailani lacks the educational background the elves have to sit in their classes and just gets lost. While learning about exploration and archeology she keeps getting bored and zoning out, so far her retention of the subjects are not going well.

Lin Sun:

While the Aetas school of Black Magic and Mysticism is nowhere near as complete as one might dream, it is functional enough for the time being. Some thykenian refugees have taken up well in the scholarly environment, more so then your closest neighbors at least. Too bad they don’t really talk about history, more so philosophy.

Vris gives you a funny look at the implication she isn’t giving her children a decent education. Her kids look at you with desperate and pleading eyes for a rescue.

Kahl remains quite fond of his shell. He humors you enough while you attempt to socialize with him but when you’re not directly focusing on him he goes back to being his quiet and largely observant self.

Due to how Hayate’s powers work, he doesn’t really have much reason to train with Maona. Maona doesn’t have a combat style, just a planning and execution. When he attacked Rackham he just literally bit Rackham’s hand and kicked at him like a cat. There is no real technique here, just objective and execution. Though he can already beat up Vris before she even teaches him anything as he learned ever combat style she knew while she was trying to hit him with it.

Kaisa, Hayate, Vris, Vris’ kids, Zhi…Kahl…and really half the Aetas officers go to Senshi-Con. Kaisa wound up getting cocky about her skills and challenged the leader of the Senshi, Ira, to a sparring duel. Su Shento was unable to heal the damage to her pride. Hayate continues to make jokes about it weeks later.

Hayate’s trip was a lot more beneficial as he could test the limits of his new aspect ability, while it is pretty potent he still cannot overcome many opponents, maybe if he became more powerful by munching on some people his aspect ability would become even better or had a strength blessing to keep up with the super physique of Senshi. Either way, he was eliminated from a tournament by Nila Bhatt. He argues there is no technique in shooting your opponent with guns like hers.

Also Kaisa lost a bet and had to go to the convention “with” Hayate.

Con Lai:

Hanzo’s aspect is darkness.

The army/navy continue to colonize the island chain and the maritime culture becomes more and more significant. Turns out the ex-pirates are particularly good at living on the islands because in Atlantis they had to boat around for transit a lot, so short hops via boat are not strange to them.

The Ocean Boat for Hope sets sail, this could take awhile (or a time skip) before they turn out any real progress.

An Lahn has no ability to cause damage from the dream realm to their physical body, this is actually been why he’s such an effective torturer in the past. The problem is his questioning methods require them to stay asleep, and his torturous nightmares tend to jolt people awake if they aren’t asleep via medicine or his own powers.

After being so cooperative with Song Yi about the doors in Taiyo she gives Jin one of the spirit blades Senshi use. The particular one she gave Jin has elemental spirits in it and as a result is capable of elemental amplification. Turning jin’s .5 fire aspect into a much more potent ball of fire and destruction then he would normally be capable of. It also can be reshaped into any weapon shape, which matches well with his abilities. He beat people up at Senshi-con using it in the shape of a square as a joke.

Though there is still now way to make him stronger without the nibbling on people, and as he is not a member of the Holo Eka the hunt trophies don’t work for him.

Caine:

The demon hunting team has an easier startup with Fuma since he’s been at the job for awhile. The Dragon Hunters not so much as there is a lot of speculation and no one has actually fought a dragon before so its a lot of theorycrafting. Hopefully it survives first contact.

The spirits are actually just as surprised as the gods of every pantheon that there’s an eastern land full of dragons and the dragons are quite surprised there is a western land full of not-dragons. In the past dragons have been fought with other dragons, notably Shenlong/Ryujin vs Otoroshi. Dragon aspected people that have shown up from time to time have all been physically gifted and had to be taken down by equally elite warriors.

The hunt for Otoroshi turns into quite the adventure. Otoroshi was the last apocalypse 2000 years ago and the details and relics surrounding him are often considered taboo objects to be seeking out. The hunt is ongoing but it was in neither easy location and the team sent to get them are traveling to Shahira following a lead.

In the meantime, team demon hunter goes through basic exercises as Fuma needs to get everyone in proper demon hunting shape. They seem to be focusing mostly on agility training over anything else. They can be found jogging, stretching, and practicing parkour.

About everyone points out the Artemis might either take awhile for Lo’c to make or won’t really be up to kraken hunting. The Kraken took out 2 ships in the Vua Cai’s fleet while they had someone who could see the future combating it, and the Vua Cai ships include ironclad ships or better, fighting the Kraken with a single ship will take a very big ship. For now its considered to be an “under construction” project.

Ilo Hae’s campaign for cave living is going pretty well, the hunters aren’t really that adverse to sneaking into a cave at the end of the day so that goes fairly well and the underworld that Song Yi constructed beneath the nation is vast so there is plenty of space for people to live comfortably in. While many in Holo Eka tend to be a bit claustrophobic about living underground, the giant undead dragon flying around the east is a really good motivator.

Also Half your champs take a week off for Senshi Con.

The other teams were getting jealous that I kept giving you guys so many characters. So I call this roster update “OH COME ON!” since we’re introducing some of the world’s other badasses.

Oh yeah, she’s overpowered as shit and is also kind of the empress or princess depending how you look at it. Horus is the eternal pharoah, and Hatshe is his daughter and chosen high prophet. Meaning she is the mortal with the highest authority in all of Akhetaten since Horus is classified as a god. Given her father, she is a demigod.

With the high prophet blessing of Horus, she has the aspect blessing of every other god in the pantheon. She can control the sands, summon dead spirits, send people to said spirits, cause massive windstorms, and trigger war buffs for entire armies.

A “gift” from Shahira to Hatshe. He is a part of the Bakkali family and gender roles be damned he was presented as a husband to Hatshe.

So he got the blessings of Horus too. Exact same powers. Fortunately he’s far less dangerous then she is, has had less time to learn how to use them and isn’t a demigod. He is actually more carefully guarded then she is, because he’s way more vulnerable. He still commands some of the military though, and his command has grown significantly since taking over Thykenae.

Despite his immense power, scary outfit, and powerful voice – Menes is a pretty nice guy. As the high prophet of Anubis his primary duties usually involve managing the main temple and helping the grieving with passing their family on to the next cycle. Along with burial rites. He won’t be on the battlefield unless shit has gone wrong.

His power is to entomb. The dead and dying that pass through his hands enter a strange immaterial storage he controls. Anyone whose death he has entombed does not pass on to whatever awaits and he has the ability to summon them as spirits to serve him. Beware the ghost army.

One of the primary war leaders for Bastet’s forces, she leads her own army and is one of the major vanguard generals. Perhaps one of the more feared members of Akhetaten’s champions given that she is a part of the more aggressive section of it. The other champions listed so far tend to stay at home, Sihet is the first one you’ll meet if Akhetaten is on the offense.

Her ability is geomancy, though due to her native environment she is most comfortable and creative when that comes in the form of sand. That won’t stop her from just throwing a rock at you if that’s what she has to work with though. Beware sandstorms if you know she’s in it, usually its just a blender.

One of Horus’ daughters, she is the younger sister of Hatshe but found her calling in the temple of Osiris.

She has the power of Reincarnation. She can assure that the dead pass through the domain of Osiris to be renewed and born again somewhere in the nation. She has a convenient synergy with Menes, as he can hand her a bulk of souls to renew into the world. All high prophets of both Anubis and Osiris have had this relationship as long as Akhetaten has stood.

Ranno has one additional and very specific power with reincarnation. If they are a reincarnated soul, she can return their memories to them should they make their way to her once again. Many people make a traditional pilgrimage to her to see if they had a former life.

A champion of Inuit and another member of the vanguard that often can be found near Sihet. Bakat falls in line as being one of the more command savvy champions. Her power over the skies comes from both her aspect blessing and her familiarity with sky spirits, allowing her to alter weather patterns dramatically. Unlike most mystics who can use sky spirits to similar effect, because Bakat also has the sky as an aspect blessing she doesn’t really need the spirits and can actually override them. However, she prefers the synergy to get more potent results.

Amaterasu typically prefers utility champions or just a bunch of prophets. She isn’t really one for violence, but in these uncertain times sometimes you just need a dependable guy to go fuck something up.

Mach Tong is a native to Si Da and is actually a survivor and 4th place runner of the Iron Fist from many years ago. His abilities allow him to create hardened light, similar to a spirit blade but in practice its more like a manifestation aspect.

His favorite is called the hammer of dawn.

Despite Asmodaeus being primarily seen as a guy that gets everything done himself, he is still a demon prince and firstborn son to Lucifer. So he has an entire legion of demonic minions and none are more terrifying then Crocell.

Crocell is a demon who looks like a rather attractive man so usually people don’t notice, as he doesn’t even have the eyes of a black mage. There is no indication that he is pure terror. His power is inherited from Asmodaeus and is known as command. People do what he says, including “kill yourself”. Its like a weaker Eli. A comparison which pisses him off given that he is older and sees himself as the original. Its made worse by the fact that Eli doesn’t even seem to care enough to acknowledge the potential rivalry’s existence.

Also known as “The Devourer”. He’s actually a black mage and at some point just decided to rename himself as a demon because his name was the equivalent of “Jim” and he felt it wasn’t intimidating enough.

Demogorgon has an aspect power to consume anything, and with the power of Mammon he can consume a lot of it. He grows stronger the more things he consumes, and it is most evident when he consumes humans and gains more black magic power. His regeneration and strength are very closely tied to how much he has eaten and he can be exhausted of power and permanently weakened. But he can also reach Ryner levels of physical power in exchange as long as he finds enough things to eat.

One of Azazel’s demon officers, commander of demons and black mages alike. Baraquiel has the boring power of wielding hellfire, which many other demons can do. That’s kind of the dime a dozen power among them and Daezra is honestly better at it…and he’s a human.

Fortunately, or unfortunately for the reader, his skill lies in his ability to command strategically. Similar to his master Azazel, he is a thinking man and plans his maneuvers carefully, and with Azazel’s aspect blessing he can create war aspect buffs across his forces.

Less commanding, more face punching. Moraxus is just the kind of guy to straight murder you and is one of Azazel’s few champions purely dedicated to offense over strategy. He does command a demon platoon and leads them to battle, but he primarily acts under the command of other major players and is most often deployed to break enemy formations with a mixture of brute force and fear.

He has the classical ability to wield hellfire and a highly advanced physique, but some suspect the fear he creates might be supernatural as even some of the most well drilled of men flee in terror. Then again that could just be intelligence on their part.

The current “prince” of the Jakaal. With Ningi No Mikoto dead by way of Eli, Vo Kim takes the title. As a black mage he has a dark aspect and can plunge the world around him into darkness. As the high prophet of Shen Rai, he has inherited Shen’s teleportation and the power to make anything he kills stay dead.

Vo Kim is one of the most feared warriors in the world for obvious reasons. Fighting a teleporting permakilling Jakaal grandmaster in total darkness is not an appetizing prospect to anyone.

Song Fang’s replacement. He was 6th but then he ate Tai ket when Tai Ket was injured fighting Song Yi at Songbowl. He’s not nearly as big a threat as Fang, and depending on the situation you might fear Vo Kim more. That being said, Van Djao wields the coveted destruction aspect, and is so powerful with it that he is the first avatar and not a champion or prophet.

Celebrated the nation over as the greatest of all serial killing mass murdering cannibals, though as you know the public doesn’t quite see it that way.  Van Djao has the power to simply unmake things (and people) with his gaze alone. We know it has limitations, but we don’t know enough.

The last update was fairly large and I forgot to introduce him with the other striders. Ruslan is a strider from the east, a blood dragon aspect. He came to see what this whole blood beacon thing Shento apparently totally forgot about was.

As with all dragon aspects, he is a physical monstrosity and he wields the blood aspected power of hemomancy. While Dmitry’s regeneration is still far more advanced, Ruslan’s is higher then the average strider would have.

Hei Lang is Song Yi’s pet giant wolf spirit that follows her around. To the mystics who can barely perceive it, it is a looming darkness and ball of malevolence following her around. To those who can hear it, Hei Lang is surprisingly charismatic and doesn’t sound that spooky at all. He is the same kind of evil as Asmodaeus, wickedly charismatic and fiendishly clever. He is blamed for some of the recent bursts of violence in the east before Song dragged him home with her as her pet. As a result, it has been kept in careful check since falling under her care as it seems to be one of the most dangerous of the dark spirits and capable of causing mass mayhem and anarchy if left alone too long. Freyja is somewhat bothered by a spirit as violent and clever as Hei Lang being constantly around Song Yi though.

A good old fashioned Altepetl guy with an axe. Maquilla is one of those front line warriors leading the charge and has the blessings of Bahamut. Though he has a pure strength blessing instead of power or aspect and as a result has the physical attributes of a black mage, including basic regeneration and superior strength. Its not terribly exciting but Altepetl isn’t exactly geared to fight Si Da or Drakon. Which was why they made that thing with Saldis in the first place.

Sometimes people forget that Ishtar is a war aspect as well, and despite the sex cult thing she’s most known for she does have quite a heavy stake in the nation’s most powerful warriors. The sex cult just happens to fuel her with the power to spread her blessings to lots of warriors.

Shappa has the powers of Ishtar’s war aspect and gains strength the more enemies he fights and the longer he fights. While a lot of Altepetl prefer to skirmish, Shappa is a bit more of a long haul combatant.

Another of Ishtar’s chosen warriors, Leyti’s weapon is remniscent of Song Yi’s old mountain sword and can summon blizzards and freezing winds. Ishtar gave her a more strength oriented blessing recently to give her the power needed to go up against the black mages of Si Da.

In general Leyti roams around and was one of those who decided to fight the zombie apocalypse solo, which is how she made a name for herself when she single handedly took down a bone golem.

She is formerly from a western pagan tribe that raided trading caravans. She has more modernized armaments as a result, but eventually she found her way to Altepetl and a purpose working for Pele. Also a steadier paycheck.

With Pele’s blessing, Aiyana wields fire. Its pretty simple.

Also known as the viper, or “the snake bitch”. Kachina’s blessings gave her a series of spiritual powers related to the snakes that range from summoning them to imitating their venoms. She is also immune to all other venom and poison as a result.

As a follower of the Raven, she is one of the more powerful shaman’s in the nation to accompany her devious hit and run fighting skills.

Another of the nation’s super shamans that work for The Raven goddess. Shiye wields specialized weapons that can attack spiritual beings as well as physical ones and they seem to be especially powerful against anything non-mortal such as demons, dream denizens, spirits, and angels.

Shiye is one of the new champions practically made in a rush after the Saldis problem to try and get some things together in the event Si Da, Drakon, or Akhetaten come after them.

It seems the people like tier lists, so here is a new updated tier list. I will reiterate that the tier lists are assuming they stepped into an arena blind with no idea who their opponent is or what they can do. Maona is a good example of the flaw in the tier list, he is ranked pretty low if he were to blindly walk into an opponent in an arena environment yet he’s taken down the tier 0 Alday in 2 rounds before. It also doesn’t count minions, so war commanders might not be properly represented in where they do well. Really this only is a measure of head on 1 on 1 punchfist ability, so most assassins, commanders, planners, and supporters tend to not score well. However, I have not listed anyone in tier 0 that are gimmick reliant. Meaning if they’re in tier 0, you can take their powers away and they still have enough combat experience and expertise to beat an opponent who also had their powers taken away (or sometimes even against an opponent with powers). Gimmicks that just work stupidly well in a blind arena fight get stuck in tier 1 if the wielder isn’t a combat master. I.e. Crocell is a terrible fighter, but his ability would pretty much auto win the tier listing arena fight.

Tier 0: Saint Naomi, Ryner, Vassago, Vo Kim, Van Djao, Nazarius, Hatshe

Tier 1: Saint David, Akasiya, Sahar Tahani, Kaja Molum, Takeshi, Hasin Bava, Jin Zhang, Ira, Gaetan, Sanyar, Eli Pierce, Swain, Moraxus, Dmitry, Alyosha, Ruslan, Helaku, Sihet

Tier 2: Milenkosi, Jakaal/Praeliator Master, Kulina, Hercules, Anna Goethe, Hasina, Kaisa, Kazuo, Rikuto, Roku, Jericho, Malati, Johnathan Zhi, Hayate Hirata, Aiko, Mach Tong, Galina, Maquilla,

Tier 3: Average Jakaal/Praeliator, Senshi Masters, Upper Templar,Saint Andrew, Saint Chloe, Saint Jacob, Shichiro, Arima Naoko, Kekoa, Kahl Jung, Nila Bhatt, Neil Macleod, Daezra, Maliken, Innokenti, Nadejda, Aiyana, Shappa, Leyti, Menes

Tier 4:  Carmilla, Average Senshi, Templar, Mazaki, Saint Caleb, Daisuke, Vris, Sofia, Lavet, Saint Rachel, Eliza Rackham, Shiye, Kachina, Bakat, Prince Reseph

Tier 5: Siwang Assassin, Teijin Monk, Average Lengdonian or Phoenix clan, Rajput Soldier, Su Shento, Gorou, Hei Lang, Akamu, Logan, Maona, Fuma Kawakami, Demogorgon, Baraquiel, An Lanh Tien

Tier 6: Lo’c Thua, Teozix, Rena, Malu Jio, Alexandria, Ishikama Hanzo, Mulgogi, Ilo Hae, Ranno

Stories of Lore 20 (may want to start here)

Shentu Wo: 2636 Power, 2,936 Followers
Kikai Senso: 9,318 Power, 135 Followers, Next Form Progress: 27%
Lin Sun: 480 Power, 350 Followers
Con Lai: 6613 Power, 2, 458 Followers
Caine: 3511 Power, 1,561 Followers

General News:

Thykenae rolled a 3.

Twice.

It has been just basically raped. Somehow 12 gods got beaten by 4, not just distracted into stopping their attack on Divus…outright beat. Bastet and her forces rolled over them with a K:D of 8 to 1 and at this point Thykenae’s track record is so bad its kind of a running joke.

Thykenae as a nation has disbanded because this is just embarrassing and at this point its time for them to just bow out before this gets any worse. Temples are gone, cities are razed, just…just throw in the towel already. Akhetaten now shares power with Divus as the major super powers of the west because look at all this fertile farmland they just annexed from their desert. They’re quite happy and uh…expect them to get a big roster update soon because heroes were definitely made in this war. Some Thykenian gods remain with Akhetaten, some are dead, uh..thats a thing.

Divus has retreated from the war with Si Da after three years because they’ve taken significant damage and they still never fully recovered from the last crusade, plus Thykenae attacked them back home its a bit of a mess.

The Jade Empire has started to push Si Da back a bit after they were distracted with fighting Divus to their west for awhile, and then suddenly some new dragon showed up with a whole team of dragon aspected warriors to retake the Imperial throne as an offer of embassy toward Shenlong. They appear to be explorers from the far east who came after all that dark magic got their attention. Speaking of which…

Drakon Imperiya hails from the east. As you may have guessed, the dragon empire is very heavily focused on dragons. In their society dragons rule over all men, keeping humans as pets or servants. As is well known, the dragon aspect is very powerful and it is not unreasonable that a culture developed centered around those who have it. They seem unaware of the Ascension event or how it has really impacted things. They do not seem aware that dragon aspect humans can ascend into dragons. We’re not entirely sure if we should tell them that though.

One particularly notable feature Shento may have noticed about their “ambassadors” is that every single one of them has a dragon aspect. The breeding in their empire has been so selective for so long that they have dragon aspects by the thousands. Those without the aspect seem to be slaves. It stands to reason that this privately funded scouting team is only an omen of what could come visit later on.

Social Hierarchy

The Dragon Striders are the lowest class of dragons though they have their own hierarchy since they are the most populous. They are technically just black mages with dragon aspects, humans without dragon aspects are referred to as humans but that word is synonymous with many degrading connotations.

The Dragon Whelps are the next tier up, these are full dragons the form associated with the word. There are many of them and they tend to gather throughout the land at random. Whelps will sometimes enslave a human here and there to try and move up the social ladder by having their own champion. The general rule to upgrading from a whelp is to come into the possession of at least one hundred people.

The Dragon Masters are fully grown and powerful creatures. The barrier for entry is, as stated, to have command of over at least one hundred subjects. While slaves are acceptable, the prestige of having a dragon strider and whelp population is significantly larger.

The Dragon Lords are the guys who own cities and usually the associated lands that make up the territory. Most territories are similar to our nations, except instead of villages and settlements scattered throughout the land almost all of the population is pulled together into a few supermassive cities to showcase the power of the dragon lord. The surrounding territory is considered to be the city’s for providing resources to its people. While some territories will have farmlands away from the major city, this is not preferrable and will usually barely have any population.

Vechnost is the final authority in the Drakon Imperiya. There is no title like ‘dragon god’ or ‘dragon king’ for him. As far as the Imperiya knows there has always been and only is Vechnost. In terms of power he is on the level of Jehova.

Judging by Eret’s prophecy and Raijin/Fujin’s experience with meeting them, they aren’t here as diplomats. Freyja has suddenly been really friendly toward Bahamut though. On the upside, while we know that we’re royally screwed if they have anywhere near what they claim to have back home we still have a lot more time before they start coming over in large numbers and this scouting force seems to be spending time trying to get in Shenlong’s good graces and recruit him to their empire.

People have started moving to the underworld none the less though, as now it makes some sense why. Dragons can fly, and flying dragons can generally breathe death all over surface cities.

Shento:

Kaja and the Order go zombie slaying. This is extremely one sided because armored calvary beats shambling flesh. Good practice for the squires though.

Anna eventually does root out hidden deathspeakers who stayed loyal to Saldis and helped her enact her revenge. Unfortunately she also rooted out several normal people that she killed for various reasons or another claiming them to be suspects. Essentially some of her inquiring was not particularly well received, and so those who tried to impede her for any reason wound up dead.

The attempt to civilize the Svargan mafia does not go terribly well. For the first few months they seem to put up with it but as they become angstier, and the vampires rule over the jungles of Koko they opt to just be sneakier about the murders in Svarga. Then Anna got there after the Altepetl thing was dealt with.

Anna winds up killing the former yet still kind of criminal gang’s leader twice (the sucessor) before they get with the program. She may have killed several more and there are stories of her brutality floating around.

Over time the crime ring does start to establish more legitimate trade and becomes a bit better behaved though if anything this makes them even more comparable to a mafia because now they all have that layer of civility barely concealing their more sinister mannerisms. Taking cue from the lessons of Anna, their “law enforcement” is basically still a gang. There is still law and civility, its just the method of enforcement can sometimes border on insane as city police show up to drag offenders out of their homes and enact justice without much semblence of trial. With the cult of Holo Eka stopping the bounty hunting shenanigans though it definitely leaves the ruling family to take up the slack of hunting criminals in their own fashion.

WAAAAGH!

They’re becoming adults now, they grow up so fast…well because you made them mature in 10 years. But the sentiment is still the same right?

The current leader of the Orcs chosen by way of “no one remaining objected”. Despite how grim that sounds, he actually got the position because he kept giving orders and people stopped objecting. Kind of mundane really, but as they all grew up together with the exception of Kekoa, he was just sort of the “big brother” of the first generation. As a result he has a particularly caring and gentle manner despite the scars he got from meeting the black mages of Koko Mulum.

The black sheep of the orc family, Kekoa grew up following Ailani around. Very different lifestyle. He always had to prove himself a worthy guardian of the blood god’s child and would intentionally pick fights with the monsters of the jungle that they called men to hone his skills as he realized he was maturing much faster then his companion, and that his job was likely to persist on into adulthood.

Unlike Akamu or the other orcs, Kekoa is mean as shit and will crush your skull in if you look at him wrong. He recently succeeded in the Crimson Fist tournament.

At 10 years old Ailani manifested her powers…just because she felt like it. Though given the track record of demigods born from gods, it does seem to be  a trend that they don’t need black magic to activate their aspect powers. Ailani is only ten and has very little control or mastery over her abilities, but she already demonstrated hemomantic capabilities, but more importantly she can upgrade people’s power around her. All black mages near her become more powerful, the effect is currently minor but the child shows potential. She has exploited her ability to attract a following of people that she takes on adventures through the jungle whenever she feels like it, Carmilla banned her from her personal manor though. Something about the kid’s effects on the glamor power being a very unsuitable environment for children. Despite the many tours of the land from pops, Ailani

Con Lai:

As ordered by Song Yi, the gates were opened at Sekai Taki and along the northwestern border of Taiyo in the wild lands where people could flee to. Some have instead fled south for the gate at Svarga depending on distance but in all the bulk of them have decided to leave Taiyo itself.

The dream realm is a bit flooded with refugees…again. This seems to be a common occurrence, thankfully Milenkosi seems to calm people down just by being near the portals they come through, which is strange given its a giant lion. Most people are scared of lions after all.

One of the two major shinobi chapters has taken residence in the dream realm for now. The other chapter moved to Holo Eka.

Sanyar has acquired a few palace treasures from Taiyo and in his recurring theme of art Appraisal has delivered a presentation on it to the sleeping lords, most specifically the ever-curious purple one. It went like this:

“See here, this piece depicts sexual intimacy between two people. This is considered ‘smut’ by the general art community.”
“Wait I thought they liked nature scenes?”
“Apparently sex is not natural.”
“How do they reproduce?”
“Sex.”
“Humans are stupid.”

Malati has joined Jin’s personal team of misfits and the power blessing allows her to take another individual with her for a longer distance then she could do previously.

The food struggle seems to be alleviated within the first few months after everything settled down a bit and Song came back to get the spirits back to work, so at least that has gone well in feeding the people. Though by now Svarga has already gone through so much chaos that providing it with food no longer alleviates its political state.

As a military update, the navy remains the Vua Cai’s strongest point and emphasis given its necessity in the trade networks. The army has grown quickly as its a rather cushy job all things considered, it doesn’t really go to front line against the big scary guys like the Crimson Order. The marines are just basically legal pirates and part of the navy as is. Most of the sailors know boarding practices anyways.

Alright lets face it, if he has a card he’s not a harmless old man. Ishikama Hanzo, the master shinobi. Posing often as a harmless old man, Ishikama has traveled the world with nothing more then an opium pipe and sometimes some other implement.  While some members of the Shinobi wear black masks and wield exotic weapons for combat assassination, Ishikama is more of the subtle type. He sometimes takes awhile to complete a mission, and is less effective against targets who can regenerate, but he’s very good at solving political rivalries. Also he’s in charge of the house that now lives in the dream realm and often acts as their trainer and administrator.

Caine:

You stalk friendly gods around, they find this a little weird.

Logan and team go with the crimson order to go zombie hunting, mostly focusing on strays, tracking, and camp security rather then full frontal assault on large hordes which are left to the knights in heavy armor.

Nila Bhatt turns out to be particularly cheap against zombies because she has a ranged weapon and they are zombies. She’s also awfully lucky at shooting off limbs and joints.

Gaetan is just on a level where zombies don’t matter to him so he just kills a bunch as they travel around Altepetl with the crimson order.

The life story of Mulgogi: Covered in the stories of lore because its too long to fit in here

Due to Maona’s aspect being a morph he actually just gets more physically powerful like a strength blessing but it includes his senses as well.

Mulgogi goes fishing.

The opposite end of the spectrum from Ishikawa, Fuma is made to kill black mages, demons, and what have you. Armed to the teeth and specialized in stealth via sneaking around in the dark. While he has less ability to penetrate populated areas and prefers to ambush in forests, he has extremely progressed combat abilities and trap laying skills. While he suffers from a lack of practicing black magic himself, his ambush techniques make him adept at killing targets before they have a  chance to showcase whatever powers might give them an advantage over him.

As one of the current major food providers Holo Eka has received some of the incoming refugees from Taiyo, including the crazy exotic weapons Shinobi House, to shelter for the time being if nothing else to make logistics a bit easier.

Lin Sun:

Vris is now high prophet, making her high prophet however turns out to have weird effects on her powers. She still remembers everything, but now she can alter things around her to be as she remembers them. Uh…the city isn’t cracked anymore so thats cool. While the power has some logistical limits especially considering consumable resources, she still has a lot of power to restore things through time powers. This does not include healing or altering people though, it seems to extend mostly to object restoration.

Over time Freyja is eventually less mopey but she still doesn’t seem interested in getting back together with someone who had her ambushed, chained up, and then did the exact thing she said was going to get them killed…and getting killed. Something about trust and silly pride…you are distinctly aware that is hypocritical given her history but your keen instinct tells you saying so will only make this situation worse.

Song’s basic response: “You killed civilians in your way first. As champion of those I supposedly rule, I am literally dictated by my abilities to mirror my society. There is no moral high ground here, I am a reflection of the kingdom whether I agree with you all or not.”

Getting Kaisa reigned in isn’t hard, she shapes up pretty quick once your back but Vris is aware that Kaisa is a true Si Da black mage. She is with the team as she is loyal, but without a leash she acts like a Jakaal almost and just starts hunting down victims to prove herself against. Ever since her first touch with large scale battles she seems to have fallen in love with it, and is basically a walking ball of cocky violence.

About that ‘moving underground thing’. You still have that giant suspended city in the cavern, so…that was easy.

Getting to know people:

Kahl is from Si Da natively and followed along when the Aetas left to Hale’a. Originally his powers were uncontrollable and he would summon things at random but over time he learned to control it. Though the phase where he couldn’t left him often isolated because summoning tigers was kind of bad for social conductivity, as a result he’s been a bit of a quiet person ever since and is used to just minding his own business until otherwise needed.

Lavet shares some similar traits of being reclusive but for the reason that she just doesn’t like people and has become very comfortable in the total silence zones she can create. She babysits for Vris sometimes and takes care of the kids as well as acting as an assistant around the library as needed. She doesn’t talk much, and kind of creeps people out.

John Zhi is the child of an eastern father and a western mother, really the story of his parents is long and fascinating as the two travelers met from opposite sides of the world and traveled the land together. If anything he actually has more to say about the adventures of his parents, who are now an old couple that lives in Aetas and invite you for tea, then his own. He hasn’t had much opportunity to truly acquire his own legacy when compared to the likes of those around him in the Aetas and is basically just a grunt soldier for now. Though, like Mazaki, he used to be one of the time cops and was pretty good at spotting people hiding anything from him.

Recently with the incoming members of Taiyo being sent in bulk to Aetas lands because well…you have the space. Your city is getting a bit crowded again, though this is generally good news at least. Up until now you’ve never been particularly scary on the black mage field so they’re comfier hanging out with you then Shento for now at least. We’ll see how things go after the knowledge at all cost thing gets into high gear.

As part of Raijin and Fujin’s agreement with Song, some members of their nation have entered into the service of other gods here to sort of help with the integration front. Though we’re pretty sure Hayate joined the Aetas because he thinks Kaisa is cute. He’s pretty laid back and finds the Aetas mission statement interesting, that and the libraries are pretty fascinating too and he’s been spending time with Vris and Lavet.

He has no black mage abilities since he’s from Taiyo, but instead has a spiritual sword that gives him the ability to summon and wield fire. If his name wasn’t a giveaway, he’s a former member of the Phoenix Clan.

Kikai:

With the influx of Taiyo natives, Daisuke has actually become an important PR guy…because he speaks their language fluently. The city of Kagayakashi has also grown significantly in the last few years thanks to help from the incoming and along with the vampire assistance. With Eret’s doomsday close at hand, Kaga might become the new capital of Hale’a at the rate it is expanding and becoming an important piece of the underworld society.

Song makes Kagayakashi start looking into sustainability for non-jinko since it might be important in the near future, so now you have weird cave mushroom farms in some places of the city, at least they are easy to maintain and just need water, plus forge fires turn out to be good for cooking them.

The strike team is assembled as well for whenever they need to be sent out to do anything, with the more heavy hitting team lead by Shichiro and the stealthier special ops team led by

With the death of Akio and Kikai’s demand for a special forces team, the project had to be revisited. All of its members are the sort of mix-matched projects from Siwang and Yi projects to create a specialist team with a whole new model line. But the team leader was a pure project shade model and is a stealth and assassination expert. He’s also pretty handy with a bow and is said to be so sneaky that he can infiltrate a city with only a rice hat to disguise himself. He, like the rest of the team, have mounted wrist blades in the forearm. Also like the rest of the team, he has a sword for more…direct confrontations.

Shentu Wo: 2022 Power, 2,736 Followers
Kikai Senso: 8,998 Power, 85 Followers, Next Form Progress: 27%
Lin Sun: 0 Power, 50 Followers
Con Lai: 3308 Power, 1, 861 Followers
Caine: 2493 Power, 1,246 Followers

After the battle of Atlantis, things became a clusterfuck.

Jin Zhang replenished his crew with pirates as per Con Lai’s plan to have him go recruiting around. After the death of Rackham, Alday, and the eastern lord along with the chaos of the southern sector Atlantis was in for a bad time and many recognized it and jumped aboard the offer to join the Vua Cai navy.

The chaos of Atlantis was only made worse by the fact that Sahar, the last pirate lord and sole heir to both the heretic and the city, just resigned and flew off into the distance.

With the death of Rackham his power over all artifacts ceased and Naomi’s wings came back to her. However, all the dead paladin weapons suddenly stopped working and were just reclaimed as memorabilia.

The remnants of the Aetas start to fall apart fairly quickly, while they still had the organizational skills to prevent total chaos, the loss of their god was noticed by the Svargan former cultists. There was already rebellion going on against the Aetas occupation, but once this was noticed the rebellion increased dramatically.

Svarga is starting to became a bit crazy as hunters look for insurgents, natives rebel against the occupiers, paranoia of ones neighbor settles in, the Raja hasn’t been seen in weeks, the Vinasa and Indra cults have barricaded inside their temples and Rena is now being held under constant protection in the Raja’s palace or the dream realm after an assassination attempt shot her, thankfully Daisuke was able to get her to blood healers in time.

Fortunately for the march towards the Si Da front, the Aetas were entirely absent from Song’s war party and his death hasn’t hindered her any. Though it has made her depressed and cranky.

Aina is at least not too chaotic since the people there are generally nicer but a few of the black mages suddenly decided to just start eating people again now that the god telling them not to was gone.

The march in Jade is going fairly well as many people at least remember Song enough to not get in her way, atop of that some still remember her as a hero of the people due to her time as the imperial warlord that killed corrupt nobles.

Eventually, against Shenlong’s advice, Song Yi found the Si Da army and engaged them. The sequence of events and battles took over 5 months to play out and probably would have been a longer odyssey style event were not for the fact that there isn’t too much for the players to do at the moment so here you go, mass resolution.

Battle #1: A shiny brand new wasteland crater

Song Yi encountered the forces of Si Da just northwest of the Imperial Throne. The ensuing battle did not go well for her, Azazel seemed prepared and he managed to situate the engagements to what he wanted. Pairing Daezra against Anna, or Eleazor against Nergal. Constantly setting matchups to his favor and outmaneuvering the rather bold Song Yi with ease, resulting in the early deaths of Eleazor, Saba Kuu, and Kenji.

Yi’s first engagement with Fang resulted in such catastrophic destruction that both armies had to retreat thanks to the earthquakes, lava, and giant lines of destruction caused by both Yi and Fang’s swords. The entire area is now field of igneous rock with sharp dips into miniature canyons and rise into mountains that were clearly not there before, and still became a jagged mess as chunks were torn out of them.

The undead hordes fought the demons at first but as the Yi and Fang battle raged on even the undead horde retreated due to a lack of progress, since pursuit meant likely melting and being cut off from reinforcements anyways while approaching the enemy lines.

Denied her proper revenge Yi was pissed off for the next week.

Battle #2: The Bloody Victory

Two weeks later, two sub-groups had a skirmish closer to the coast. It mostly consisted of the Crimson Order and neither Song was there so the battle actually happened that time. Demons battled with undead, deathspeakers collided with fallen angels, and it was just spectacular.

This far from the main force, Kaja’s military strategy outmaneuvered the demons since Azazel wasn’t there to react in time to Kaja’s repositioning in the days leading up to the battle.  Daezra was defeated by Jericho but managed to retreat before being eaten by blood oozes. Noelle was killed by a giant demon with a lot of teeth. The Crimson order pushed forward around the flank after their victory to complete their original mission.

Battle #3: The Dark Song Event

The undead hordes collided with the demons a few times but eventually Asmodaeus got to Saldis and then that went to shit when she rejoined Si Da, enraged at Song Yi and Bahamut in particular upon learning about her previous life and the part where she killed Raji herself and everyone knew that was her daughter but did not tell her.

Now faced with both demons, undead armies, a dead Lin Sun, and being beaten by Song Fang again – Song Yi flipped out as far as anyone can tell. The effect was called the Dark Song event when she started summoning, manifesting, and infusing dark spirits all over the place. The result was a wave of twisted and sinister monstrosities colliding with the dead forces of Saldis and the corrupted demons of Azazel. Erelim and Salathiel died to the dark spirits.

Despite the numeric advantages of Si Da’s two big hordes, the spirit kill count is staggering since Song keeps messing with the terrain and dropping people into canyons. The ominous nature of her dark spirits helped by the ash in the sky that darkened the world once again as she continues to exploit volcanic powers to wipe away demonic and zombie hordes in rivers of fire. While the war didn’t end during the event, it was the most memorable battle as people far and wide thought the world was coming to an end as the undead, demonic, and dark spirits all collided on a day the sun blocked out.

Shen Rai was defeated by Song Yi’s new approach of “just fuck it, fuck all of it” but Fang was torn away from the battlefield by Azazel to prevent losing him to her rampage.

Battle #4: Holo Eka, Senshi, Jinko vs Jakaal, Siwang, Nergal

This matchup happened again but in full this time. A Jakaal team flanked Song’s forces from the south by surprise and along with the Siwang assassin decided to try and take out key commanders. Holo Eka caught the trail before they could strike and with the Senshi were able to engage in a less surprising matchup.

Ira MVP’s with 5 kills, Gaetan went into critical condition but the blood healers saved him from actually dying. The new high prophet of Heisi was defeated by Takeshi. In the end Ira the Song Forces were forced to retreat, the Senshi order losing half of its members to the Jakaal. While significant damage was done to the Siwang and Nergal forces, the Jakaal eventually overwhelmed.

Battle #5: Svargan Chaos

With the ongoing chaos in Svarga reaching a peak, it is hard to say if it is technically a battle or not. Svarga turned into a war zone as former members of god cults, liberation guerilla forces, and just straight dicks started to become even more violent in the wake of the Holo Eka hunting and the paranoia reaching its peak from the new breed of bounty hunters that the environment created. While there was no big clash of forces, the urban skirmishes became so common and violent that the food shortage stopped being a problem.

The remnants of the Tekno Jagara arsenal that still function have seen heavy use and this includes several bombs that have been released throughout the city. The Raja’s palace even came under attack twice, forcing security around him to be bolstered which in turn lessened it out in the chaos of the Svargan streets. After the death of Lin Sun the Aetas fell apart and Mazaki has gone missing while Velius was assassinated by insurgents. Aetas Black mages went rogue and just started finding people to consume, sparking more waves of panic and violence against both the Aetas and just the general populace as some even began to turn to black magic.

Large groups of super-violent criminals seek to take control of the city, some with plans to take up the offer by Shento and thus delving into black magic themselves. Others who detest these black mage tolerators and even one group achieving notoriety for its decision that the situation is so fucked that they’d rather just kill everyone and everything indiscriminately resulting in suicide attacks. Rena was moved back to Adelaide, the situation has been deemed a total collapse. Not long after she pulled out, the Raja was assassinated. So many groups claim credit that its hard to tell who actually did it.

Sanyar absconded with some of the palace treasures and gave a presentation on possessions to the sleeping lords on how human’s value art. They found it peculiar that since the human world cannot lucidly summon their dreams, they take to creating artwork to stare at and make their lives less drab. Sanyar has yet to figure out how they determine the value of art since some of this stuff was deemed super valuable by the appraisers of the Vua Cai, but look like someone just threw colors at them whereas super realistic paintings are merely considered “neat”. “The Purple One” has demanded an artist make two paintings of him, one of high value and one of ‘neat’ value. So far the confusion continues.

Battle #6: Fall of the Throne

In the aftermath Song’s forces had to flee and get further from the wild lands, this resulted in a retreat as far as the Imperial throne. The Jakaal, led by Shen Rai, pursued Ira and her team all the way there and they clashed in the city once again in an attempt to defend the palace. While the Imperial Lotus and its heroes were able to help, the Jade Emperor, 80% of the Lotus, and all but 24 Senshi were wiped out. Satoshi, Yoshikazu, Makaio and Tihalt all died in the battle at the palace. The remaining members fled the city and the Jakaal took many prisoners back to their pit.

Battle #7: Song Showdown

In an attempt to slow Song’s assault so the loss of her Senshi and many supporting units would allow Si Da to surround and kill her, Si Da’s forces retreated northward to draw her towards Fang. However, Azazel made a serious miscalculation when he assumed Song Yi was…well Song Yi.

Using civilians to deter her from launching a full attack with all of her abilities, he positioned it to make her suicide charge her last one while the forces coming from the south would push her further into their chosen field. She instead released the dark spirits again and murdered every living thing in the area, civilians included.

The battle came to an apex when she forced Fang to fight her, denying Azazel’s plan entirely and doing the one thing no one ever thought she’d do they were unable to get reinforcements to overwhelm her nor lure her as far north as they intended to by slowing her down with civilians. In the chaos, Ra was reaped by Kikai Senso. The cataclysmic battle resulted in Song Fang being dragged down into the earth by Yi. Her description was that she left him in a place where there is nothing but eternal molten fire, and after a century he’ll finally be out of power to regenerate. Removing the risk of them resurrecting him as well. Though we’re pretty sure she just wanted him to suffer.

This marked the end of the Hale’a crusade, they went home and left the two armies to continue their little fight now that Fang is presumably dead in a hundred years or so.

Meanwhile…

The year proceeding the Atlantis battle was a good year for the Vua Cai. Managing trade routes is much easier with the pirates of Atlantis have no leader to organize them and no super pirate king with ridiculously strong powers. Though the navy did start to become a bit overdoing it given that their major threat was diminished dramatically.

The Crimson Order came out of the war with Si Da fairly on top, while losses were suffered it was a good day for their publicity. Since they were to the east and did not actually encounter the Jakaal force their battle with the undead and the demons wasn’t too bad for the heavily armed and regimented military.

Ever since the death of Ra the curse on vampires has been lifted and at long last they can touch the sun again. Shento now has an issue of Vampires being completely out of control. The jungles population is diminishing too quickly now that the vampires have seemingly no weakness or ‘non hunting hours’.

The order of the spiked tree in Kagayakashi continue to build their glorious underground city even though it has nowhere to go in this cavern beneath Lo’cs workshop. Despite the loss of Yoshikazu and Satoshi, they’re doing pretty well and turn out to be some of the most pain in the ass things to kill. While even Takeshi suffered defeats and serious damage, his core was recovered and well…yeah just put him in a new one and off he goes. For disposable soldiers they’re turning out to be the most ridiculously difficult ones to kill.

Freyja has given up on Lin’s university project and become a little bit less…fun. She spends her time focusing on her own people and since she is now frequently incarnated she hasn’t bothered to find a new high prophet in some time.

Song Yi herself has become twisted by the Dark Song event, surrounded by pure nightmare fuel and some of the most malevolent spirits in the world. Her personal temple deep beneath the mountains in the ocean of fire has become so haunted by these spirits that any non-senshi mortal that attempts to enter it will almost certainly die to unseen forces within minutes. As evidenced by the servant who wandered towards the city then suddenly turned left and walked into lava. While she is still fairly herself, she seems to be losing her grip on her morality as more and more of her nation demands a darker streak from her. The era of the lawful stupid leader seems to be coming to a close, and while she hasn’t exactly turned evil she isn’t shy of using the evil spirits to accomplish things now. As an experiment she creates a second child, but unlike the first one this one is composed of the dark spirits.

Some remnants of the Aetas called her out for losing touch with her nobler side, but then they were eaten by black mages. Aetas black mages. Slowly but surely the illusion of civility and goodness slips from Hale’a Jeongsin, just as with Si Da. Even with attempts to contain black magic practice to the jungles and avoid the open practice, as the Aetas lose Lin Sun and all its remaining leaders were composed entirely of black mages the result was inevitable. Since no one really had any real grasp on Lin Sun’s eventual returns, those who were more composed tended to get eaten by the one who just went back to the Si Da habits. This notably included Kaisa, one of the most prolific murderers, even without her blessing she’s become fairly powerful just from consuming tons of people.

Svarga, a year later, has become almost like Atlantis. An anarchic super city filled with rogue murderers. The black mages have begun to win out and inevitably crushed the more orthodox gangs. Conveniently, it is actually now one of Shento’s colonies. As the gang that took over the major government center took up his offer. Inconveniently, they are savage murderers and just butcher anyone they capture to grow in their black magic. The food shortage has been solved though.

A few other colonies form something known as the blood highway, adhereing to Shento’s plans and jumping at his offer they wound up making a highway that leads from Hale’a to Svarga. So his cult is doing well for themselves.

The war abroad between Akhetaten and Thykenae is a much longer affair and it continues just like the war between Jade and Si Da. So far, Thykenae is losing once again though. Akhetaten may have a very small military but their heroes turn out to be some serious badasses….and rolled freakishly high at some key engagements.

A crazed  Aetas cultist managed to resurrect Lin Sun after a year by sacrificing Eret and Doi Cho Len with the ritual conducting help of Samedi. As a result, Doi Cho Len is now a hellish landscape with a permanent storm hovering above it. Problematically the storm seems to be growing larger, slowly, but growing none the less. It will be a century or three before it reaches the mainland though.

However, by this point the Aetas had long since crumbled, Lin Sun returns to find the cult all but disbanded and the city of Aina in ruins. What is left of the cult are merely the survivors of the Aetas black mages suddenly going with ‘lets just eat everyone’. He joins Kikai in the “we have no followers” club.

At the same time, a particularly bizarre phenomenon happened. Sensing the ritual, the Heretic suddenly turned from its meandering course and made towards the ritual with such intense speed it burst into flames and shattered, releasing the dragon inside of it in its full form. Almost no eastern nation missed the giant demonic dragon and the trail of fire it left in its wake as it sped towards Doi Cho Len.

It then proceeded to totally ignore the descended demigod Lin Sun, didn’t even seem to see him hiding behind the rock. With all the fondness of a dog who hadn’t seen its master in ages, the dragon and Eli flew off back towards the direction of Atlantis.

“Its ironic that Eret’s sacrifice means his other adoptive dad’s memories are intact as well isn’t it?” -Baron Samedi

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While not technically a religious practitioner or follower, Nila Bhatt is often hanging out with the Holo Eka and can be convinced to hunt people down for a sum. She is the daughter of a Tekno Jagara engineer that happened to work with the Divya guns and wields freakishly effective handguns. With the early stages of the Svarga take over the food shortage meant not everyone was gauranteed food everyday if they just waited for the Vua Cai’s handouts. If you wanted to eat for sure you had to buy it, and the farmers started only accepting Halean currency since Divya was falling apart. Not content to wait for charity, Nila found the one open employment job available – Bounty Hunter. While technically this makes her part of the problem that devolved Svarga into absolute chaos, she is pretty good at what she does. Finding people she once called neighbors, shooting them, then coming back to Holo for money to buy food with. As Svarga got worse and worse she eventually bartered with Logan for a new home for her family. He sets them up back in Caine’s city to live comfortably, and then she’ll travel abroad to help with the hunt. So, she may not be a devout Caine worshipper, but she is technically a hunter under his employ at least. She has only recently started to delve into black magic since entering under the official employ of the Holo Eka, eating the hearts of her bounties to gain her powers. However, they have not yet manifested.

One of the pirates Jin recruited, she’s actually the one who was at the battle of Rackham and likely one of the most powerful. With black magic she can teleport, while she is limited to shorter distances then the super empowered djinn, she is still quite effective as she doesn’t seem to have a cooldown timer. While her fighting style clearly lacks formal training, she has taken her combat skills to a high level after so much pirating around the world.

Prior to joining Atlantis she fought and sailed for Divya. Eventually choosing to become a pirate for seemingly no particular reason at all other then it paid better. While she had a family at one point, she seems to have just broken up with them and ran off to do whatever she felt like. With the death of Rackham it was easy enough to convince her to join the Vua Cai with Jin’s sales pitch about the lucid dreaming benefits.

Shichiro is one of the new jinko warriors and happens to be part of that idea that got Rikuto built. Flying jinko! His flight is not only more stable then Rikuto’s but he is also more durable given that he is not as modular. In homage to the spiked tree, he’s really spiky. There isn’t a practical reason for it, its just Loc’s jinko assistant decided “lets try to make this one spikier” and no one was supervising him at the time.

Shichiro is a bit on the serious side, remnisent of Satoshi or Takeshi in personality instead of the more wild Yoshikazu or Rikuto. Though he does seem to resolve a lot of his problems by flying into them really fast.

One of the remaining Aetas who stayed loyal to the shell of the cause and one of Vris’ two personal assistants/apprentices. Lavet has the peculiar power to make everything around her dead quiet, to the point of driving people a little mad from the total lack of sound. She is a reasonable warrior, it turns out the ability to function in total silence is useful as most of your opponents do not have that ability, and you’d be surprised how often they need to hear.

For the most part, her primary function has been keeping the library quiet and untouched by the rest of the cult’s descent into anarchy. Vris uses her to keep her work space quiet when she doesn’t want to be distracted from her reading.

One of the few members of the Aetas who not only stayed true to the original tenants, but survived the others who did not. He has been holed up with Vris in the depths of the temple where it remains somewhat Aetas-y.

He has a perception aspect, and can actually see everything around himself at all times. He developed the habit of wearing the blindfold to hide his black magic eyes when out in public, and long after joining a world where black magic is allowed he decided to keep up with it. He actually does fairly well around Hale’a by pretending he is a mystic instead of a black mage.

He’s baaaaaaack. The Pirate King, The Dragon Pirate, The Godslayer, The God of Madness, The Sea’s Master, The Undying, and fifty more titles.  His arrival at Atlantis was met with immediate revitalization. The dying nation of pirates and anarchic murderers was falling apart since the death of Rackham.

Eli’s reappearence has rallied them so hard even members of the Aetas switched sides. Pirates from around the world heard he was back and sailed to Atlantis, the four lords were reinstated and Sahar returned to Atlantis. Hail to the king baby. Now he’s going to need a new crew…

Well…that happened. Vassago isn’t as powerful as Bahamut, Shenlong, or Ryujin and doesn’t seem anywhere near as intelligent. The story goes that Eli messed the dragon up so bad it became more like a domesticated animal rather then an intelligent creature like all other dragons. Either way, Vassago is capable of fighting gods and is so huge that an entire pirate crew can ride it. Its less comfortable then its form when it was trapped in Eli’s ship, but it still has plenty of surface area for riding.

But yeah Eli rides a dragon now. Way to go Aetas Fanboy.

The direct daughter of Rackham. Don’t get too excited though, her mom was raped so its not like it was that special. In the end though, Eliza took to piracy of her own accord, once she searched for her father to get revenge only to discover that she became a pirate just like him in her quest for revenge. By the time she found him she just wound up a member of the Atlanteans. However, she is more then happy to serve Eli, the true king of the pirates.

Fortunately she doesn’t have the same aspect as Rackham. She took after her mother’s aspect and is a hydromancer.

A former friend of Kaga Molum’s, one of the knights of Divus. Just like Kaga, he felt under appreciated within the empire and traveled the world pursuing his own fortune and name. Delving into black magic himself, its really the same story as Kaga Molum, just different end locations. Kaga eventually called the Crimson Order his home, and Swain eventually called Atlantis his own.

Swain has immense power as a black mage and is basically a tremendous cheater. Any wound that appears on him, appears on whoever inflicted it on him instead. He once took a cannon round and it killed the operator of the cannon on the other ship.

She may be related to Machera in some distant way as she has not only the same aspect but the same variation of it. Capable of creating slashes in the air at basically nowhere for any reason. She waves her hand, and 20 cuts appear somewhere and you really hope none of them are in you.

Aiko grew up in Taiyo Teikoku, and was formerly trained and educated as a member of the Shogunate. After Lengdon fought with Divya along the coast of Taiyo she became discontent  the way things worked in life. During the era of Rackham she acted mostly solo, not interested in the same things he was. She’s always been true to the Eli cause, kill the gods. Now that he’s back, so is she.

Some Scenes that were finished within a day, good enough.