Shentu Wo: 3064 Power, 3,136 Followers
Kikai Senso: 9,468 Power, 235 Followers, Next Form Progress: 28%
Lin Sun: 780 Power, 750 Followers
Con Lai: 5477 Power, 3, 858 Followers
Caine: 4307 Power, 1,761 Followers

General:

Eli attacked Solium (the Divus Capital) in the middle of the day. After his visit Naomi went insane and tried to kill Moses. She collapsed the entire grand cathedral and her fight with the other paladins wrecked a city block, but she was stopped by the other paladins though managed to get away. Eli’s appearance was surprisingly brief but the city has fallen into chaos as a result. Moses issued a statement that Eli is to be blamed for this, and Naomi will be remembered for what she did when she was truly herself. That being said, if Eli somehow controls her in a way that he cannot heal (as he already tried) then she has to be killed. She is one of the most dangerous people in Divus and now she’s serving Atlantis as far as they can tell.

Meanwhile back in Akhetaten’s expanded territory, the rebellious acts of terrorism continue. However, Akhetaten have engaged them in a dangerous game of espionage and uncovered Maliken’s influence. However, that didn’t mean much as knowing he’s here has only made the situation escalate in paranoia. No one knows what his power actually is yet, but being the chosen heir of Nergal can’t mean anything good.

The new dragon cult of Drakon that follows Shenlong have established a new high prophet of Shenlong since his own died when the Jakaal razed the Imperial Throne. That’ll be in the roster update, but taking on a strider high prophet has strengthened his ties to the Imperiya even if still unofficial since he hasn’t sworn loyalty to Vechnost yet, and the strider was found in his own country by Innokenti for him.

Si Da and the Drakon continue to clash, Drakon easily pushes the demon armies back but have regular losses against the heroes of Si Da. Van Djao outright snapped a dragon’s neck with his bare hands and has left some gruesome stories behind that make Drakon a little wary of just charging into Si Da’s home territory. Though for the most part, Si Da is back in its own borders.

The conflict turned out to be a valuable source of information about Van Djao though, people with high regeneration seem to survive his gaze. Dmitry was able to fully withstand it and keep fighting but was overpowered by Van Djao’s raw strength and combat skill. Due to how long Dmitry stood up to Van Djao it sparked interest and the Jade Empire started asking questions that agents of Carmilla and Con Lai’s realm managed to deduce information on. Spies report that Dmitry is actually not very high on the totem pole of striders as he merely works as a replaceable champion for Nazarius. The ones that work directly for lords like Innokenti are reportedly vastly more powerful then Dmitry.

Fortunately all that Drakon stuff is mostly focused on Si Da, but with Si Da retreating into its own land Drakon has acquire time to regroup and strategize further colonization efforts.

Meanwhile, across the wasteland of Taiyo and Divya, other Dragon Masters seem to be setting up their own little colony outposts that are unassociated with Nazarius. Since Taiyo was evacuating and Divya was destroyed there isn’t that much resistance but Svarga is currently under threat by Krovkom who demands submission to him. A small group of vampires seemed to have joined him although they were rogue already so its not a significant loss.

The spy network reports that Krovkom, like Nazarius, serves a dragon lord of similar aspect. These dragon lords are still back at the Drakon mainland watching over their own respective kingdoms while the young masters travel to the new world in search of their own fortunes. Though Krovkom has definitely come to see about this whole beacon thing the blood aspects can all sense.

 

Meanwhile Altepetl has become just a little more integrated into Hale’a and vice versa. Though under Song Yi’s “don’t you dare” gaze they put down the dark magic they’ve been exploring since not only did Saldis leave but it just keeps making all kinds of other problems. Isis’ explains her phase in exploring it didn’t go well and that they should probably stop before they get too deep like she did and unlike her, a god of magic, its likely they wouldn’t be able to escape once the powers behind it started getting greedy.

In all things are actually going pretty well for you guys with consideration to the last few clusterfucks you got into. I mean sure shit is happening all over the world but locally things are pretty sweet right now.

Also roster updates!

Replacing Naomi, Saint Joan immediately became Paladin #1. She was originally a member of the templars as one of the high commanders but with the sudden emergency to replace Naomi she was given the blessings of a paladin and relieved of her command in the templars. Her weapon blessing lets her bring the wrath of heaven to wherever she wants. She can summon angels anywhere at any time. Though it specifically has to be angels, other paladins and templars don’t appear to work and she doesn’t seem to be able to send them back home quickly. Though they are authentic, she can summon Anahita or Uriel for example.

Her aspect blessing lets her act in similar fashion to a war flag’s banner. But the power of it is determined by the number of people present not her own abilities. Convenient that she can summon people.

I suspect no one remembers her story from Doi Cho Len so here we go. Her grandfather was a Lengdonian who did not complete the traditional rite of climbing the mountain alone and instead emigrated far to the west in shame and settled down in Akhetaten. His son would later go on to the west and settle down in Divus where he met Tena’s mother.

Tena herself wasn’t of noble enough birth to get much attention in Divus and chose to travel back east to Doi Cho Len when the revelations of the black pantheon happened. She has the genetics of  Lengdonian though her family is two generations removed from the culture. However, at the age of thirty two she made it to the top of Yaosai by herself just to claim that she passed the ancient Lengdonian ritual. Sure Lengdon was already dead at this point, but she did it because she could. Later she’d go hang out with Lin Sun. She’s one of those who are greatly inspired by Song Yi but she liked the whole Aetas preservation creed thing and Song Yi is kind of inaccessible now days. So she’s Aetas now.

Her black magic aspect is war and she has the power to become part of the field of battle. Because of this she can not only perceive anything anyone under her command can, but she can give people the will to act how she wants them to without having to even talk to them. She is a dangerous commander with this power of mass perception and command during battle and as the former Vithanyalai professor of war she knows how to exploit this to its fullest. However, she is generally an educator and hasn’t been sent to actual war in a very long time. She is the sole survivor of Doi Cho Len’s destruction because her ability let her see it happening and avoid the things that killed everyone else around her.

Yeah her entry is long as she’s one of the first characters and has a full page in the pdf about her.

I suppose we might as well actually acknowledge him now then. Sheridan is one of Carmilla’s spies and travels the world extracting information and seducing everything in his path on accident. The Glamor vampires are almost all made by Carmilla and she tends to pick the good looking sort to get close to, Sheridan was a pretty obvious choice for her.

Like all glamor vampires he can hypnotically control people who look directly into his eyes if he can hold their focus. He isn’t as powerful as Carmilla who can control everyone around her, but its effective for intel gathering. He also has the strength, regeneration, and speed you would expect of a vampire even of the glamor line.

He’s back, with Raijin’s cult in a mess thanks to his time away and Ryujin dead Ishimoto was adopted by Raijin to be the new high prophet. With the sword of Hayashi that the Aetas returned, Ishimoto now has the exact same powers that Hayashi did, even if he isn’t as good at performing the trick yet or exploiting the electrical powers to its fullest yet.

 

 

 

New high prophet for Zaeed. We all know how he picked her and why he picked her and what her abilities are now. Moving right along.

 

 

 

 

 

Freyja found a new friend. She’s a viking type obviously, and she has the power of a death aspect bow. Unlike Astrid, Oydis is not a black mage and only has the aspect abilities from Freyja’s blessing. So she’s a bit weak in comparison to others. She’s super friendly though.

 

 

 

 

His great great grandpa was a famous warrior and ever since then everyone in the family line has been exceptional in the field of battle. Innokenti’s discovery that they have a dragon aspect family line explains that.

Anyone who recognizes his family name trembles in fear at the mere mention of him, and though he is a young warrior who simply travels the land, his skills exceed hardened veterans. With the help of Krovkom, Lu’s full potential was realized. Blessed by Shenlong, Lu Tao is a strider of the storm. He can control lightning, wind, and rain in equal measure. While not as powerful as Fujin or Raijin in their specific areas, Lu Tao has never needed super powers to destroy his enemies before. So now its just a bonus at this point.

Someone left Kikai, Lo’c, and Isis alone for too long and mad science occurred at the whim of Kikai’s latest desires. Umetsu is the only jinko of its kind and its chassis cannot be replicated, but its metal body is self repairing as if it were flesh. Granted it takes awhile sometimes, also its core is only a vessel unlike the typical Jinko.

This may have been too successful, no one’s entirely sure if it can be killed. However, it is a little sluggish and the wielder of this power seems a bit iffy sometimes but hey, science bitches.

 

Likely more to come later on, still working out some more for various groups. Hopefully I finish the stories of lore for next update too.

 

Shento:

Snake cult tabs: Joseph Sheridan has gotten in so deep he’s found influences by Asmodaeus and Nergal at play. This revelation has been more of a hindrance then anything else, because now Joseph is engaged in a murderous game of espionage with the demons. THE GAME IS AFOOT!

Anna’s attempts to harass the Drakon don’t go well. Mostly because no one else competent enough is with her. The other Goethe’s aren’t as strong as her and the striders number in the hundreds. With their recent defensive position setting in after encountering both the Jakaal and Atlanteans there aren’t very many opportunities to pick off stragglers. Mostly because the types who straggle already met the Jakaal and gave Vo Kim his reputation. Ever since then they’ve been in much tighter formation around their outposts and move in larger numbers, as well as on dragons.

The anti dragon volley ballista design is easy enough to come up with just by handing it off to the RFC department. The problem comes in production. With Con Lai’s submarine project, the Jinko production, the building of Kagayakashi, and Isis’ mad science with electricity the city of Lo’c is already overworked. Making huge amounts of these anti dragon weapons would take a massive amount of manpower and material that just isn’t available beyond the prototype that was made unless other projects are canceled (as they’re already all slowing each other down).

The investigative team ends up enlisting the help of Baron Samedi from El Dorado to come and see about this dark storm over Doi Cho Len. This team didn’t take long to immediately find bad news. The storm and rains are concealing more Drakon forces and an outpost, they don’t seem to mind the storm at all and if anything are studying it themselves. There is a port on the eastern side that was invisible due to the storm until a closer look was taken, but this is the actual primary landing point of the Drakon. The Jade colony is simply for those who are interested in Shenlong as a new master and Nazarius’ forces. Samedi’s investigation of the storm itself proves it to be what you would expect, some bad juju. Its dark magic and even Fujin can’t affect it, the storm just won’t go away and he’s not sure if its a dragon or something else, but there’s something in there that no one on the scout team is willing to look deeper into. Samedi says Eli might not be the only thing that came with Lin Sun.

The inquisitors aren’t doing well, sometimes they settle things well enough but two of their teams have been eaten by the jungle’s residents after being called to solve some problem that apparently the people resolved on their own. And the winners of that resolution ate the inquisitors too.

 

Lin Sun:

The hunt for a knowledge aspect is taking longer then expected, the aspect is a little rare as most people who have it just get eaten by people with more combat Savvy ones. Results pending next week’s update roll.

It turns out with your power set you can actually learn interesting things from Raijin because his style exploits that he’s lightning fast. You have ways to apply such techniques yourself.

Kaisa’s vacation is actually spent in Shahira instead of the blood jungles. With the ability to summon ice in the desert, she’s very popular there and seems to take amusement in that.

The Thyme Flamer flame is under construction as demanded. It actually is taking longer then expected because your underground city is suspended from the ceiling and Song Yi is off doing something else not terraforming so a bunch of guys with chisels have to spend some time on this one.

Con Lai:

Spy Report: Problem with building the door is the slaves aren’t really trusted with construction stuff, mostly because they’re weak and flimsy compared to striders and take forever to build anything, but because dream doors have to be rather sturdy its hard to get the stuff together for this without arousing suspicion. Work in progress is also finding a location for it.

After some inquisitive questions they’ve determined that Drakon are pretty familiar with spirits, Dragon Shaman’s went to the Jade Empire to confirm the existence of Shenlong who in their nation has become known as the spirit dragon and sparked a revolution of mysticism within their culture as more go to see the invisible dragon in the sky. They are not particularly used to acknowledging smaller spirits though, the ones in trees, bugs, and rocks for example. While they can work with larger more powerful ones, they lack Halea’s mystical ability in mass acknowledgement of smaller spirits. That kind of intricate mysticism often requires a lifetime of dedication since communication with non-verbal spirits is difficult and mostly based around empathy on both sides.

As for how striders recognize each other, they seem to all innately just be able to tell. Dragons can sense other dragons it appears. This is why even colossal dragon lords can tell a strider from a regular human even though they’re the size of ants to him. Similar to how Tyrant Vampires can detect and find any other vampire bloodline.

The submarines have been under constant development, and with the last mad science breakthrough of Isis progress is going along. However, the process is still slow given the sheer volume of tech work people want from Lo’c all the time.

Jin and Malati’s journey to Akhetaten to team up with Sheridan has gotten him involved in a very peculiar sort of adventure. While its out of the normal gimmick for the naval experts, Malati’s power is useful in this regard and Jin himself is of course a master spy.

Rena reports a noticeable increase in powerbase and followers after all this dragon crap happened. The dream PR campaign hits pretty hard when a pilgrimage via boat leads to a dream realm where you don’t get eaten by dragons.

 

Caine:

Yes you can make a shield on your arm, but its not terribly effective as its still your arm. So it kind of hurts still.

In regards to Otoroshi’s remain, Divus offers to let you have it if you bring them Naomi. At this point they’ll accept alive or dead, whatever happened to her she is a phenomenal danger to just about everyone if she becomes another of Eli’s prophets.

The adventures of the Snake Cult hunters isn’t terribly great for trophy gathering. At least not yet. However, Nila seems to excel at this kind of work in particular. Being a bounty hunter from Svarga, she’s quite effective at hunting down people and ultimately eliminating them. She has the sanctions from Akhetaten to do so as well given that the snake cult is kind of a problem.

The issue with the Artemis elite recruitment program thus far is there aren’t many naval people in the hunting nation. There are some notable sea monster hunters but they don’t quite number enough to crew a ship this large or the supporting fleet you have planned since Con Lai has absorbed a huge amount of the naval interests in the nation. Its functional enough to sail but not fully staffed quite yet nor is the crew fully trained.