The missing story I hadn’t finished by the last update but posted because I wanted people to start working on their update plans.

The winner of the second crimson fist tournament, and by a significant margin. While he was a technical denizen of the forest, myths about his kill count confirm that much, we’re pretty sure this is not his first rodeo. However, he still technically met the qualifications to be called an amateur competitor. He then proceeded to win quite handily against his tribal opponents.

Kaja is a black mage with the power of momentum control over himself. By stepping forward and magnifying it he just flies forward at ridiculous speeds and stops right where he needs to. In practice it looks  very similar to being super fast but he’s not actually moving his legs, meaning he lands in perfect stance and does not have to concern himself with going too fast. He can also use these powers to make his shield extremely difficult to push through, or collide his sword into you hard enough to take down  a tree in one shot.

His past is rather mysterious, no one knows where he came from, but he had that armor already when he got to the forest to partake in the games. He is generally quiet and doesn’t talk much, but its been discovered he has the understanding of warfare as if he had perhaps at one time been a military general.

Alexandria, or just Alex, must have come from Divus purely by their name alone. They are actually a sort of plague aspect, but they’re capable of using that to sicken and weaken their opponents much quicker then normal.

They earned their name from cursing opponents in the blood jungle and letting them fall ill. Creeping up on them a day or so later when they were too weak to defend themselves before taking the kill. Their diseases however are not infectious, it simply causes dramatic symptoms in its target.

As a person Alex’s youth is evident, and she is always slightly cocky in her abilities despite how weak her skills with her sword are from all this lack of real conflict in her life. Though as a hunter and assassin she proves to be fairly effective as the skills of using her methodology has earned her the attention of the blood cult.

Shentu Wo: 700 Power, 1082Followers
Kikai Senso: 2,040 Power, 50 Followers, Next Form Progress: 12%
Lin Sun: 2,354 Power, 956 Followers
Con Lai: 842 Power, 1256 Followers

Mission report:

With the execution of order 66, we did a bit of a live battle. Stats!

Masashi’s dead, Cataegis Dead, Zachariah’s dead, davids probably dead, sarah’s dead, baal’s dead, lillith’s dead, bunch of demons are dead, andelko is dead, abalam is dead. Lo’c and teozix are kidnapped. Oh and Neith has gone insane.

The land of Hele’a Jeongsin now exists and has started to get rolling.

Shento:

Talked to Bahamut, he was not very receptive just like with Lin Sun

Creation of the Uhanesin-yi was successful but only after Song Yi came to help and enabled them with the ability to be that level of receptive to spirits.

Mystics recruited

Nameless smithy apprentice #5 given the power to create spirit constructs and sent to work with Lo’c.

Vris explains Traitor Fang’s aspect has the quirk of being more powerful then any other, including dragon and creator. She isn’t sure why or what it does, but she suspects the demons plan A is to ascend him. This coincides with the notion that Si Da is holding all the sun gods in one place as a backup plan instead of their go-to. Though given the ease of access, she’s relatively certain this black out the sun thing is more complicated then it seems as they could have killed Ama and Ra already. The implication is that there is yet still another layer in the plan or that Freyja’s guess was slightly off on how the sun thing works.

Double the prophets double the fun.

Zaeed’s financial investments go a long way in helping to create this particular arena. Durings its opening Song was quoted as saying “Why are the spirits okay with this!?” Apparently the spirits are some of the main spectators too and they have some sort of spirit beer and hot dogs at the stadium. She’s not quite a fan though, Zaeed says she’s only mad because she’s not allowed to compete.

Lin Sun:

Kaisa turns out to be pretty talented as her training goes on, in focusing on martial combat over raw power she develops faster and more efficient techniques over grand sweeping ones. Meaning instead of learning how to do cone of cold she learned the ice slide instead.

Zachariah dead, and while you didn’t get to personally watch it you do know Anahita destroyed the black library.

If they were worth knowing they’d get a card. Also Thandar was and still is the commander, the other guy is a level lower.

Con Lai:

In learning about the denizens and the eleven sleeping lords you also comb around and find out about the other beasties that lurk about. Not everything in the dream world is sentient and there are other kinds of intelligent life forms in here. As indicated by Baridi though, most are not very interested nor understanding of the same concepts you are. The Sleeping Lords wind up teaching you about the realm over time and helping you learn how it functions even further, increasing your effectiveness here.

You currently have shrines at Sele’akala and some other port cities. The bulk of your followers tend to be merchants due to your constant upkeep with them and Gremory’s work before he died. One could wonder if you were really a greed aspect.

Kikai Senso: Covered everything you do live.

The Timeskip Update over skype

Stories of Lore 15

Eret’s Odyssey Pt.2

Sima Wa sacrificed himself in a super massive ritual that changes the face of the game significantly.

Here you go.

Shentu Wo: 99 Power, 644Followers
Sima Wa: 298 Power, 957 Followers
Lin Sun: 112 Power, 243 Followers
Con Lai: 442 Power, 399Followers

It seems the demons found out whats going on, you’ve also recently learned that Abalam has a few books with him even outside of his library. It turns out he kept a book of every high prophet with him just in case. In response to learning of Lin Sun’s plans, they have mobilized to remove him from Sthan Thi, opting to strike first rather then try to outposition.

The Aetas have already been denounced as being in league with the rest of the world by Amaterasu, turning the city against them. Though during the chaos that ensued their escape the city hadn’t yet united in opinion against the once popular temple, buying them time to escape with the help of Con Lai’s temple and the wily Jin Zhang and Freyja.

The doors were closed after the Aetas escaped, but in response the demon’s also attacked the temple of the Vua Cai. As it turns out Abalam also know’s the plans of Machera, however that turned out to be far less simple. Machera was last seen standing just outside the city on the road in a ‘come at me bro’ pose. Senshi left the corpses of nergal’s assassins along its outer walls. The city remains safe for now, sheltering the remaining vikings who would have been targeted for Freyja’s helping the Aetas otherwise.

Conveniently, all of Sthan Thi’s weapons had been appropriated for the battle with the paladins, their troops were in disarray after having to deal with squeezing through the door twice. The bigger demons were also prepped for war with the paladins, and for once in his life Nergal jumped the gun and screwed up, resulting in a kill count of 0 somehow. That was rather…lucky. Zaeed got Milenkosi drunk while he was at it too.

Most of the Thykenians returned to their land upon hearing of all this crap going on, at this stage they just want to duck out of the way of anymore trouble.  Those that remained joined the Vua Cai after being brainwashed by dreams for so long. The dust has yet to really settle.

All other actions got sort of offed by the very sudden need to deal with this.

Too much shit to turn into stories of lore:

Anna Von Goethe replaced Johann Von Goethe by way of brutally murdering her two competitors. Dracula approved.

Kharis recovered,  Song Fang still missing.

Eli’s Pirates killed Athalia and took her weapons. In attempting to attack Naomi and take over her weapons Eleazor noticed and retook control over them for her using rackham’s own power and copying the titus effect. Turns out when Eleazor can copy the cheap tactics of his opponent he is outright more skilled then Rackham. However, he was defeated by the rest of the pirate gang long enough for them to retreat before Naomi could kill them all in a fit of rage.

Pirates pursued by demons shortly afterward, they fled to the high seas once again.

Dracula and Anna currently in dream realm along with the aetas and Zaeed’s crew.

Kagayakashi done movethed. Its a slow process achieving speeds of a whole 2MPH, but its a fucking city.

Much of the population from Doi Cho Len is currently within the valleys between the mountains along with the vampires still.

Con Lai with the help of Milenkosi discovered the dream denizens, the naturally occurring population within the realm. They’re all weird as shit and don’t really seem to understand the concept of war. They busy themselves with maintaining the dream realm and its visitors, if Milenkosi is king there are 11 denizens below him that make up ruling masters of various territories of the dream realm. They are called the Sleeping Lords, and according to Milenkosi they are respectfully powerful. Out of curiosity, one has broken its habitual tending to the realm to come see what this Con Lai thing is all about.

While it did not originally have a name, nor understand the purpose of one, Milenkosi has given it the name Saba Kuu to make things easier for everyone. While Saba is clearly intelligent, very much so, they do not really understand many concepts we’d consider very basic. Such as names, war, possessions, and nations. Though they do always seem to know a few things we don’t. Milenkosi explains that the dream denizens tend to be very isolated from the world you are used to, which is why Baridi is so curious and outgoing. Saba seems to share the curiosity, but with a more detached composure. In the physical world, Saba’s powers are not well understood or consistent.

Given the suddenly, and dramatically, decreased team roster, I thought we’d throw her in. Sabriya is the high prophet of Zaeed, god of luck. Zaeed chose her by visiting a tavern in Shahira. He saw a beautiful woman he just had to flirt with, so he walked up to hit on her, only to discover she couldn’t hear or speak to him in his godlike state. So he made her his high prophet so she could hear him hitting on her.

Weirdly enough, turns out she is like Jin Zhang in the sense that despite her behavior her powers allow her to cheat the fact that she should suck at everything with her lifestyle. Blessed by the powers of Zaeed, everything seems to work out alright for her quite often.

Stories of Lore XIV Link

Eret’s Odyssey Part 1

The commander of the Valkyries, or whats left of them anyways. She is the major representative for the vikings that have moved into Si Da lands. Her main temple, as well as the viking immigrants, can be found between Kagayakashi and Sthan Thi, a bit north of the main road.

Her primary interests are in seeing that her people survive the century and at the pantheon’s political table she has yet to really take any particular side as most of the arguments have little to do with her people.

Holds the power of force, similar to the shockwave effects Thandar could produce but branching slightly. While its clear that Thandar’s aspect is formed from telekinesis, Velius’ is formed from manipulation of force. He can amplify and reduce it by large amounts, while he has yet to approach Song Fang’s unstoppable weapon, its a respectable power. He typically leads the Aetas on missions abroad, often making visits to their various projects to check up on them and ensure all goes smoothly. With the recent vacancies on the roster, his name comes up as one of the stronger, wiser, and more important available.

Its your favorite, a freeze mage. Freezing is technically time related right?

Kaisa is a cryomancer, able to control ice shards and induce incredible cold into objects to make ice shards. She’s actually pretty talented and well educated, but she is young and inexperienced. She still needs further training and has yet to refine her powers or specialize in any particular job. She is a lower member of the Aetas but is one of the few to showcase innate talents and have an actually powerful aspect so she makes the list instead of her superior officers. Also Kinzoku brought her up, its all about who you know in this business.

Mazaki is a fairly stalwart gal. Her aspect power is regeneration, while it isn’t as potent as people like Naomi’s its still useful. Especially when coupled with full plate armor. Unlike the talented Kaisa or powerful Velius, Mazaki stands out through a mix of skill and tenacity.

She’s a bit serious and not a lot of fun, guess who recommended her? Thandar has often relied on her for local matters with the time cops. Despite her lack of significant powers, she has taken down dangerous black mages several times over. She has demonstrated squad command tactics and the solid intuition required to fight bigger badder monsters then oneself.

While technically these characters have been here the whole time and haven’t changed, due to current events I thought we’d get a refresher on them since most players have long since forgotten what Altepetl has going on.

The master of the entire Altepetl pantheon. He is seen as a particularly kind god. Adopting strays to form his nation’s pantheon, while he could have likely had a much more prominent nation he decided to adopt the remnants of destroyed nations and give them a place to call home. Each successive apocalypse has left many gods at the risk of being forgotten forever, Bahamut prevented that for almost all in his care and adopted the ruins of nations that stood to become pagan tribes in the wild lands.  Because of his past history with the topic, he is particularly spiteful towards Lucifer and his multiple world ending attempts to achieve his goals.

If Bahamut is the king Pele is the queen. She’s been living in her volcano for so long Bahamut isn’t even sure if she’s younger or older then him. Unlike most of the strays he adopted, Pele was doing fine on her own. However, she agreed to join his pantheon and add the volcanic mountain to his territory anyways.

Pele is thought of very highly even amongst other nations. One of the kindest gods in the land and despite her beauty she is thought of more as an old woman. Natives refer to her as Tutu Pele out of both respect and affection, which means “Grandmother Pele”.

She is primarily known for the sex goddess part. By a very large margin. So much so that this explains why Altepetl is so bad at military conflict and no one is sure how she became their war goddess in the first place. Blame 3500 B.C. mythology.

She is so prevalent as a sex goddess that her cult’s major feature is literally prostitutes. Offerings at her temples are traded for sex with her priests and priestesses. She has become so prominent within their culture that it is actually not considered infidelity to lay with a member of her church.

I didn’t even make that up. In ancient Mesopotamia there actually was a church of Ishtar whose major feature was its “sacred prostitutes.”

Known for being both a friendly prankster, wise, helpful, and mysterious. The Raven is thought to be a spirit of the wild lands that became a god over time.

What is known for sure about her is her ability to foresee events as her major power. While it isn’t as accurate as Eret’s power, The Raven is not restricted to mortals.  What stands out most though is her ability to communicate with spirits and control them. Whether it is actual control or simply their willingness is unknown. Her cult is capable of delving deep into the wild lands far better then any other group in the world, and that includes the Jakaal/Mao Yachi.

Unlike most sea gods, Sedna does not control any great leviathans. She has power over many of the smaller and less monstrous aspects instead. She also cannot produce storms but she can calm them.

While most sea gods tend to wield great destructive power, Sedna is instead an aspect of guidance and calm. Preferring to help her people rather then hinder her foes.

Altepetl’s fishing culture is quite healthy thanks to her, all Altepetl seagoers cast a piece of metal into the ocean in tribute to her before they take to the seas.

The Great Eagle, known for controlling the winds with a single beat of his wings and watching the world from above with his eagle eyes. While we know he is intelligent he doesn’t have the ability to speak human languages, even if he can clearly understand them.

He mostly hangs out and polices the nation’s borders in case of invaders.

A massive creature whose pure intent is to protect the nation from its enemies. It will incarnate any time any where to protect Altepetl. However, it is not particularly powerful compared to other godlike beings. It usually warded aggressive spirits from the wilds away or small pagan tribes.

Similar to Roc the Quetzalcoatl cannot talk, while it seems to understand simple language and commands it is more like an animal then anything else. Just a particularly smart one.

In summary the Altepetl pantheon easily showcases its weakness in conflict. It is a nation built around keeping their head low and living with the land around them. Were it not for Bahamut the nation would just be more wild lands. They are composed of dozens of small tribes who loosely come together under the pantheon, but no national governing method.

While you wouldn’t necessarily call the nation peaceful, warring tribes and their tribal heroes are actually quite fierce, they aren’t going to last long against organized militaries and far more confrontational god aspects.

Even their war goddess is really just known for sex. Pele is known for the warmth and security of the fire, as her volcano is stable and doesn’t really catch anyone by surprise. Bahamut is also known as basically that one god who picked up all the orphans in the aftermath of huge wars.

This is why they’re so afraid of everything going on around them. Ofrior and Thykenae just got eradicated, and those guys had real armies alongside very powerful gods. If they come under attack by any nation, they know they’re just banking entirely on Bahamut to route them off while they escape into the wild lands.

It is unknown who first suggested whatever this dark super-ritual is, but they somehow got the entire nation to get in on it and keep it on the down low. Were it not for Asmodaeus’ attempt to recruit them from within he would have never discovered the colossal altar they’re building. No one else in the world seems to know its being built, because its on the far side of the volcanic mountain.

Shentu Wo: 99 Power, 644Followers
Sima Wa: 298 Power, 959Followers
Lin Sun: 112 Power, 223 Followers
Con Lai: 284 Power, 339Followers

Battle Report: Technical Success?

Valkyries sent by Freyja joined the battle. They primarily engaged the Shinigami.

Vithanyalai, Co So, and both YuDai Nao and Shento’s original temples destroyed bombarded to pieces before the fight even started, due to the location of Sekai Taki Song’s forces could not move far enough south to protect it.

The plan changed slightly, or perhaps dramatically, when Dyaus Pita pseudo-incarnated using every ship in the fleet to transform into his body and create a super-ultra-mighty-morphin mech avatar of himself.

Carmilla and Sarnai took over a few Taiyo ships instead to try and sail to the northenmost point of the islands engagement and begin evacuation to the lengdonian mountain range.

The locustening Did a lot of damage throughout the course of the battle, constantly diminishing Dyaus Pita’s avatar but after Ryner and clan were beaten back by Sun Sanika Locust was injured in the ensuing skirmish.

Ryner and clan under attack by Sun Sanika, who were prepared for vampiric enemies. After Halima provided Ryner a shadowy form that could survive the sun weapons Ryner pushed back and fought along the coast to protect their assets from Taiyo and Sanika assault after rescuing Locust from the Sanika.

Kharis makes executive decision to reroute the Goethe clan to fly with her, part of major boarding team into the depths of Dyaus. Halveti killed in the process.

Song Yi’s ice plan went out the window the instant Dyaus incarnated. Taiyo military engaged her forces along the southern range of Lengdon, Song Yi held a defensive line to provide an evacuation landing point on the eastern coast of the mountains.

Ningi No Mikoto engaged Tsukoyomi, managing to barely win. Valkyries reaped him

Izumi a part of boarding forces on the Dyaus avatar, worked separately from Kharis to cause external damage by moving around the body in the moonlight.

Marshal Devada injured by nameless soldier who got a lucky hit in after Devada defeated Mara. Sanika suddenly pushed hard to retrieve their commander and retreat him before he could be finished off.

Izanagi and Izanami reaped by Shen Rai

Forneus killed by Ryujin.

Murugan defeated by Song Fang, reaped by Shen Rai

Shen Rai defeated by Dyaus Pita, respawned in Sthan Thi.

“The Heretic” appeared, shooting sea monsters that attacked it, Dyaus Pita, Ryujin, Abaddon, and Izumi indiscriminately.

Eret teleported to Carmilla and Sarnai somehow and helped guide them through until they were safe enough. Commanded Halima to assist Ryner. Disappeared before anyone could ask what the hell he was doing here.

Goethe brand fish food™ (killed by leviathan after an Akasiya tore his wings off and threw him into the ocean)

Teijin defeated by Wukong and reaped by Izanagi

Wukong defeated by Hotaru, reaped by Valkyries

Abaddon major part of fight against Dyaus Pita, but wound up defeated in the end and reaped by a shinigami.

Sea calmed long enough for boats to sail from Doi Cho Len to the eastern tip of Lengdon by Zeus. Who threw a hail mary lightning bolt from mount olympus right into Ryujin, stunning him for a week.

Eli Pierce appeared and caused a shitload of problems. Drove the Shinigami to chaos. 80% of all the shinigami dead. 70% of Valkyries also engaging them dead.  Ningi No Mikoto has not moved, spoken, or blinked since the incident, was also stabbed and sent to respawn in Sthan Thi. Izumi has been curled up in a ball in Yaosai as well and killed the first three people to enter her room and check on her. Several hundred more afflicted by Eli, but Su Pinpua has been able to cure them.

Raijin and Song Y i engaged in duel, Raijin won and critically injured her. Raijin driven mad and killed by Eli, Song Yi extracted to Yaosai by Izumi.

Remnants of acidic blood ooze was in those ships when Dyaus incarnated and being present in an avatar of a god while it was both created and destroyed has given it sentience. It has fed and grown from the locust swarm on shore that fell when he did, providing it valuable metal. It then fled into the wild lands to add to the roster of monsters that lurk within. No one was really paying attention at the time but in hindsight it was noticed, Ra not happy about that.

The Heretic and the rest of Eli’s following disappeared to the south.

Sarnai “abducted” by Rei and moving south toward Divya Samrajya on an unwilling adventure.

Total count:
All of Fluffy and Kyle’s shit is dead with the exception of Tena Xueqin, who is now with Lengdon for the time being.
Abaddon, Halveti, Teijin, Forneus, Mara, Goethe, Song Leng, Song Shan-Tai, Izanagi, Izanami, Tsukoyomi, and Murugan dead

Fujin, Raijin, Ryujin, Dyaus Pita, Marshal Devada, Song Yi, Shen Rai, and Ningi No Mikoto defeated.

Raijin Izumi and Ningi No Mikoto driven insane

Song Fang and Kharis missing.

387,000 of Song Yi’s troops dead. 1600 Sanika Dead, 146,000 Rajput dead, 800 of Shogunate dead, 87,000 taiyo troops dead. 70% of Valkyries dead (roughly 80 remain). 80% of Shinigami dead (roughly 130 remain).

Special note: After nearly a decade and a half of constant campaigning as the brave and noble vanguard, this battle’s losses finally marked the end of a legacy. Coupled with emigration during the initial integration with the jade empire in Act I, 3% of the entire Lengdon population remains. All that remains is Song Yi, Izumi, Song Cao, Song Xiao, possibly Song Fang. A handful of citizens remain, and you guys are still kind of a part of it. Due to how close to home this battle was there were many volunteers to march to the battle. For the first time in 7,000 years, the sun-kissed forges grow cold, and the mountain city lays quiet.

Doi Cho len evacuated to Lengdon, but now near uninhabitable for black mages.

Final Summary: Objective completed, Doi Cho Len civilians saved. Cult of Shento not really losing too many members in the battle and one of the evac ships got dragged down, needs to pick new temple location though. Everyone on both sides just want to go home now. Except that one boat full of lunatics that charged off to the south.

Everything else:

Shento

With everyone being evacuated to the northern point of the island Dracula was able to peer into the many aspects of its people. It turns out the blood aspect is extremely rare (which explains why Shento is the only one with it), as are death ones obviously. He found some healers though that he offered to join, his sales pitch of them being needed in wartime went well, the cult now has more healers. He also found a few people with interesting aspects but they’ve so far proven not strong enough to matter even if they do use them. His most relevant find was someone with the aspect of water who he conscripted into helping the war time evacuation plan via boat before he got whisked away by Milenkosi to safety.

In deciding a new location, he is pretty sure Kagayakashi would be a good place. Its well defended, lots of production, and combining the blood and forge cults could allow for the city having a loooot of power to play god so to speak. Atop of that, with some help from Machera’s governance, a district could be made for the vampires. Only kagayakashi could build a city shrouded in permanent darkness without costing way too damned much. While this would make Kagayakashi no longer mono-religious it could stand to become the new face of the entirety of Si Da. Kind of like how no one cares about Albany compared to New York. Sure one’s the capital but everyone doing interesting shit was over in the other city. The problem with Kaga is that food is a bit harder to come by, its average citizens include Senshi. hard to feed on them.

So Sthan Thi seems pretty good alternative if feeding issues can’t be dealt with due to the oblivious nature of people in the multi purpose city. More food, more space, more protection for the blood cult to continue its strange work.

Alternatively, Dracula also really likes Yaosai. Its a city inside of a mountain. There is no sunlight there, and its population is now gone. Plenty of room to expand. That being said he wouldn’t dare ask to move a predatory blood cult into the sacred mountain just days after its queen lost almost everything.

The recruiter back with the Mao Yachi hangs out, Eret has gone “on vacation” according to Lin Sun.

Carmilla turns out to be a really good recruiter while everyone is gathered in one place and panicked. While several followers were lost in the evac attempt, the net change is +120 followers.

Ryner has gone to Yaosai after the battle and is currently a guest in Song Yi’s palace.

Lin Sun:

Vris was already hurrying back. Following increased due to PR effect of being the incarnated god on the throne personally. Tends to draw attention. Naberius wanders dream realm, Milenkosi has yet to find Abalam again, but someday maybe. Mao Yachi situation still kind of the same, while it looks promising they’re all still descended from the same mother. Without dracula’s help they will have to mate outside of the tribe to avoid incesting everywhere. Lykopis has been trying to consider what to do with that one.

Quan Yin arrives at the gates of Sthan Thi to everyone’s surprise. No army, no backup, just herself. She came to pay respects to the deceased Guan Yu and has requested that they give her his weapon to take home.

Mental tabs: Well Rei lost Eret on day 1, and the last vision you had of him was him traveling with Sahar and her friends…onto a ship. A big ship…with black sails and Eli’s personal pirate flag. Once he set foot on it you could no longer keep track of anything thats going on with him. he would be detectable again DURING THE BATTLE OF DOI CHO LEN, as he was put on one of the ships to use his visions to help steer the boats away from disaster. He almost got eaten 6 times, and then disappeared again. He would later reappear in Divya Samrajya, right there in the middle of eastern enemy numero uno’s territory. He has apparently become some sort of eco-terrorist lately. Its getting harder and harder to keep track of him though, Eli’s ship has made things a bit fuzzy when trying to scry on him. She may have dragged him into one hell of an adventure, the likes that could rival even yours in life with your adventuring party.

The elves are doing alright but most are still too young to say much about. These updates haven’t been skipping time very much recently.

Naberius after about a week or so did actually come across Abalam with Milenkosi’s help. He took the madness from Abalam to try and help his master return to normalcy. This worked but Naberius went instead insane. In his conversation with Thandar, Naberius said he was of sound enough mind, and he did indeed hold a conversation without problem. He killed himself two days later. Abalam is back though, more on that in the general section.

Vris actually knows a loophole into freeing Sahar. Even if Eli has her sword, Ifrit is the king of Djinn and the only entity in the world that can break ownership. More so he frees Djinn from their artifacts permanently though, this turns them mortal. Effectively she would become a person with a mana pool and a lot of crazy abilities, but she’d never be able to replenish it again and could be actually killed.

Despite being on an adventure Eret is still a high prophet and still was able to tell you an omen that in ten years “Something big is coming.” He cannot tell what it is though because without Naberius he can’t see that far into the future and is relying on his non-prophet ability of vague sensations and omens to tell you that information. Whatever “something big” is, its not a god or his abilities wouldn’t have worked. Do with that information what you will.

Shady shit:

Lucifer points out that humans historically blow things out of proportion and sensationalize local news when they have nothing else to occupy their minds. With the war to the south east and west not touching home anymore, the people of Sthan Thi have become too complacent and don’t really have a common focus of the enemy as much as they should. They are living normal civilian lives, and normal civilian lives gossip and retell stories again and again. The entire Aetas could have collapsed if what Eret did got out, especially that early into your temple’s career. Besides, you demanded the aetas have a diet of at least 60% people. Those people have to come from somewhere. He’s done this three times so far and learned from his failures each time. While humans are the key to their own evolution, that key comes in the form of destroying each other. Nergal’s work cultivates human evolution carefully instead of letting the nation devolve into a state of total anarchy as people just try to eat each other left and right. That is also what the Aetas do with Eret’s help, they take out problematic people before they become a problem and time it to manipulate public perceptions. The last time he let them run free, Mankind discovered black magic and definitely didn’t help the propaganda war when they started wildly jumping on anything they could. If Nergal hadn’t removed those people, people might have demanded or attempted to eat Eret and gain his immense power. Without Nergal, the illusion of civility within a nation of cannibals would fall apart. Without him, the nation becomes small teams of cults trying to eat each other all the time for more power just like the pagans in the wild lands.

There is a vague hint in his tone that this demonic method of social stabilization goes deeper and darker, but investigating any further would not be beneficial to your ability to sleep at night…well if you slept. There is also a subtle mention that you should probably not talk to Song Yi or Izumi about this if you want to prevent the country from falling apart overnight, especially just before the paladins invade.

Con Lai:

The people of Thykenae that get caught in the dreams do seem very intrigued. As the exodus begins towards the north many do seem to intend to seek out  the offered sanctuary.

Alice finally reached the Divus imperium Sticking to her current orders she targeted smaller churches to avoid it being too busy to avoid killing priests. After summoning Baridi and destroying one she disappeared into the night. Within a day She had to summon Milenkosi and warp out. Sarah flew over the Imperium until she was found and then she and Athalia just ganked her. Alice is currently incapacitated as she was stabbed clean through by Athalia before she could escape and is barely still alive.

So far despite An Lahn’s bait, no paladins have actually crossed the border into Si Da yet. They seem curiously patient for how fanatical they are, it is likely they have a calender plan of some sort. Especially with how currently the bulk of their focus is on the Thykenians.

The temple is expanded to be even more massive as ordered.

Blood vault stuff is really just a room that sam blesses yes.

It turns out the dream realm is host to a lot of strange native denizens like Baridi and Milenkosi. Some weird, some wonderful, some bizarre, and some horrifying. Though they are closer compared to animals then anything else, sentients like Baridi appear to be rare. Some dwell within the temple, others roam the realm. But none have enough power so far to pull off the stuff Baridi does. So far you’re not really sure what causes something to be as powerful as Baridi and further investigation might be needed to cultivate your own breed of creatures within the realm.

Jin zhang’s powers awaken after being force fed power by his mean and uptight boss of a god. He’s also added some more recruits to his little team.

Sima Wa:

Its only been a week since the last update, Lo’c has yet to make any progress on determining individuality that can be reported with significant results.

When is the city not ready for a siege?

Valks flew off to DCL, Freyja and the vikings are still settling in a bit.

Machera has been working poor arachne overtime and instead of arming the city is arming the land surrounding it. If the paladins come, the steel city has no walls. She prepares instead for a guerilla campaign the instant they enter the borders to harass their numbers down before they actually reach the city.

Bad news is SOMEONE (Eret) taught Eli how to incarnate himself. The good news is that he now refuses to take his godlike form again. So basically he has willingly weakened himself because he hates his god form. On the other hand, now people can talk to him directly without going insane so he can communicate without Sahar.

Asmodaeus reports that Altepetl is up to some shady shit. He’s gleaned they’re intending to do something with a mass sacrifice, like a sacrifice on an unprecedented scale. That thing they were building last update? Its a giant ziggaraut for this ritual and only for this ritual. He’s not totally sure but it seems like the gods of their pantheon themselves are involved in this plan. Giving Ishtar’s recent increase in power he suspects that they are getting desperate with Thykenae and Ofrior basically falling apart and are scrambling for something to keep them from being the next in line as an already weak nation. They’ve probably got about a year to go before the ziggaraut is done at this pace, and he’s not sure what ritual they’re trying to invoke, but the scale of this is just impressive. He recommends sending ambassadors if you have no plans to stop them, because whatever it is you don’t want to be on the receiving end of a dark ritual of this magnitude.

Abalam’s reappeared in Sthan Thi. Amaterasu was in for quite a shock when he walked out of her bookshelf and just shuffled off to the main city. When asked about what he was willing to talk to about he declared that he could not remember what he learned since Naberius took it from him somehow, which is strange given that Abalam should be a god. He worries he might have died too many times while he was locked away and reverted to a demigod state. Though he as also stated of what he could remember, he could only remember that Eli showed him things that weren’t maddening because it was grotesque, but because it was like an alphabet of a language far beyond even his comprehension. Eli is trying to tell people something, but no one can understand what he’s trying to say. Even Sahar who can withstand the madness cannot comprehend the alphabet he’s trying to show people. He also remembers, Eli didn’t just come and drive him nuts. Eli took a book before he left, but only Naberius would know which book that was since he took Abalam’s memories. The black library’s doors await at the crossroads for any who would like to go, he will let them be able to find it. Abalam says he won’t be going back himself for awhile though, too many bad memories. That and the paladins are still lurking around the area. Abalam has taken to residing with Milenkosi in the dream realm for now, as he still has the heeby jeebies and would like to spend time with the cuddly lion to relax for a bit.

Vris has been working on some side projects and come across very peculiar information. In almost every culture there is a legend of a fire breathing dragon. We have otoroshi the death dragon, shenlong the storm dragon, Ao Kuang and Ryujin the sea dragons, Bahamut the earth dragon, where is the fire dragon? We already uncovered that Ifrit is actually a Djinn and he’s a decent stand in for a fire dragon but there should be an authentic one somewhere right? However, this is mostly historical stuff and is just a curiosity of hers. But if some heroes were to be interested in an expedition to the black library to do some research, that’d be super cool too.

After Zeus threw the lightning bolt across the world, well Divus noticed. Thykenians are scrambling to cross the wild lands and make it to Si Da’s borders before the inquisitors and templars arrive. Machera pointed out this means that the paladins, while powerful, aren’t going to take on an entire army, their gods, and their heroes at once. So they at least have some upper limit on how dangerous they are. Abalam has noted that Thykenae would reach the crossroads long before they reached Kagayakashi, but evacuating them with the black library could give away its location to Anahita. If Divus discovered the way in, they might also discover how to use its vast resources against the black pantheon. Nergal points out that Song Yi is broken and will not be back in Sthan thi for some time. If she were here obviously she would demand the library be risked for the people who risked premature exposure to help win the war in Doi Cho Len. But she’s not here, and the votes could be collected by Amaterasu anonymously.

While nothing big has happened yet, the Jade emperor seems to be under some degree of suspicion and observation since he didn’t lend any help to the battle of Doi Cho Len. Yuwen Hu points out he had rallied troops but the emperor insisted they stay out of this one. If they become too much more suspicious of him there could be problems. Aphrodite notes that if we extract him now we have a piece of propaganda, we would have the jade emperor publicly known to have joined the black empire. But if we do that we would definitely lose his help in the Jade Empire which has already been crucial, despite the risks of him being discovered.

The Cult of Madness or The Mad Ones

It finally happened. Eli made a friend. Not just one, but four! He decided that at long last he had companionship, so he should make them all his champions. But she’s made a good sales pitch and some people are starting to join his cause. While for now he has very few followers, they at least get a mention. Technically only one of them has a champions blessing cuz he has a budget and not enough followers to just hand them out willy nilly (its Rackham).

She has a lot of names now days. The Mad Djinn, the mad prophet, the mad queen, that hooker looking girl. She once traveled with the party back in their adventuring days only to strike out for adventure once the ascension happened, considering herself retired. Then Eli found her and forced her to join his cause.

Ability wise as a Djinn wielding a sword that makes wishes of her, her boundaries are not well understood. She is known to enjoy teleportation, fire, and explosions. But other then that she seems to practically make up her abilities as she goes. Recently she’s been getting pretty good at the whole illusion thing though.

The man who commands Eli’s old ship while the pirate was wandering around as a god. After the Ascension the ship fell to the crew’s first mate. John Rackham has the power to pillage, despite the will of the spirits he can wield anyone’s spiritual weapons even against their own aspect’s god. For some reason once he steals it they can no longer remove any blessings on it. There are gods paying power per session upkeep for items he stole.

His sword is hydrokinetc, it used to belong to poseidon’s high prophet. His dagger was stolen from Saint Titus’ left gauntlet, and finally his coat was stolen from some random person with  a scrying spirit in it. The scrying spirit can find other spiritually imbued artifacts, meaning he has loot radar.  In all Rackham is quite a bit more light hearted then his master, but don’t underestimate his capacity for cruelty. He’s still a pirate.

Remniscent of Rei Siwang, but with darkness. Halima’s champion powers allow him to instill darkness, more accurately blindness, onto everyone around him or just certain people. He can move through shadow and move the shadows themselves, affecting reality by contorting what it casts on the walls. Beware your own shadow, it just might stab you in the back.

Halima comes from Akhetaten, the awakening of Ra was an eye opener for him. And he decided that his pantheon sucked for trying to mislead their people. Then he decided Divus sucked…and Thykenae…and Si Da. Fuck it, rollin with the mad god. Burn them all.

Also known as the girl with the dragon aspect. Laylah’s abilities are extremely powerful, so much so that one would think she is a god herself. Her ability…is to seed life back into destroyed areas. Scary right? Under her influence entire forests can regrow and the ecosystem can stabilize. Oh and she can do this to a city to pretty much destroy it within 1 month as the wild lands come to claim it. Okay so maybe it is scary.

She never really thought much about gods and wars until the god wars started and she had to put up with all of it. The spirits she represent are furious with the destruction and the bold move to destroy the wild lands. She is the greatest enemy of Divya since the Akuma.

You know its not good when a new character enters the game who has a constellation named after him. Orion the Cosmic Hunter, he shoots arrows that will fuck you up. That is all you need to know. He once shot Neith’s arrow out of the air, caught it, and then shot her in the head with her own arrow.

His motivations are much simpler then his angsty cohorts. He was just out of challenges to hunt. So might as well hunt gods and champions right?

Raza is an entity with powers similar to Eli. People cannot perceive Raza appropriately. He is not invisible, they step around him. He’s not silent, he can shout in your ear and make it hard to hear your conversation. But people just cannot react to him and no one can truly remember his passing. Since being blessed by Eli he’s become able to modulate the power of this ability. He can stand there and talk to you, but make it impossible for you to attack him. Fortunately his abilities have one limiting factor, if he touches you then you can react to him. Limiting his ability to just start killing people left and right. He acts more like a messenger and spy then an assassin.

In all the mad champions aren’t actually that dangerous to Si Da compared to the paladins or Devada’s legion. They are just a total of six, and maybe a handful of pirates who decided to roll with them using pitchforks and torches. Sahar and Orion are the only ones who represents a real martial threat, and Rackham a threat through power (he has a large arsenal). But you just know they’re going to show up at an inconvenient time and ruin well laid plans as long as they’re running wild and free.

Jin Zhang eventually successfully manifests his power after being forced to by his mean boss. Turns out he has the aspect of mastery. He is a master at every skill possible. Archery? Can shoot a hummingbird out of the air. Sword fighting? He knows every possible style ever invented. Cooking? Get that man some herbs and watch him make food to bring even a god’s mouth to water. While he lacks the physical power of other black mage heroes and isn’t “the best” at everything, he is pretty adaptable to any situation. Master ninja, master chef, master debator. Just you watch him cite his sources and provide examples  without missing a beat. In all Jin Zhang is really good at everything. This has annoyed the shit out of many people because he’s so lazy, yet now has the skills of people who dedicate their whole life to their craft. That poor painter had never been so demoralized as when he saw the drunk and lazy Jin half ass a work of art so incredible it has been bought for a huge sum of money after a bidding war between the Jade and Taiyo emperor’s. The dollar signs in Gremory’s eyes practically popped out of his skull.

Shentu Wo: 86 Power, 524 Followers
Sima Wa: 176Power, 959Followers
Lin Sun: 167 Power, 223 Followers
Con Lai: 216 Power, 339Followers

Sima Wa: Espionage RNG Number 4-Shade has acquired an intact power core, complete with trapped tek spirit that just produces electricity forever. Currently traveling north to bring it home.

Automatons are being edumacated. As per research queue, unique model concepts are being explored by Lo’c. Though he has also begun a side experiment. All the current Jinko are being equally treated and educated, all born at roughly the same time with the same world experiences. He is having them carefully monitored to see how much variation there is in their personalities and skills. Does a unique body require a lucky soul, or do they transplant the soul of another one that has proven itself into it? So goes Lo’c’s experiment. Fuck that apostrophe clusterfuck of a name.

Teozix begins to take the role of educator despite his inferior body and model design.

Elements acquired for collection essence of: Moon, sun, phoenix fire, hellfire, destruction (it blew up in your face already but at least he tried), Teijin (no one knows wtf this does not even the guy who figured out how to make it), and a “lucky gold ingot”.

The steel gauntlets for ryner have been made

Shento:

Lin sun: Aided by the luck god and rolling a nat 15 out of 15, Vris the detective manages to actually find out the full readout of what each paladin does. Though all paladins have two abilities. The first comes from their aspect blessing, the second comes from their holy weapons.

Zachariah’s Aspect posses the power of equality. Everyone within approximately a mile becomes equal to a mere man. In mechanics terms, he can turn anyone and everyone level 1. While they keep their powers and aspects, the power and control over it they have diminishes. Most importantly, it works on gods. This is why Thykenae won’t pick that fight, as he strips them down into mortals with only the most basic of abilities. This does however impact those around him on his side as well.  Zachariah has two entirely different weapons. His wings can grow seemingly endlessly and the feathers can be animated. The other weapon is his two handed sword, it’s blade can turn into pure white light at which point it starts to do weird shit. Capable of expanding to massive lengths and exerting enough destructive power to blow right through buildings. Zachariah’s equality ability does not affect Divus blessings from Jehovah, but it will strip angels or holy weapons blessed by angels as well. Meaning it works on everyone but the seven paladins, Jehovah, and Moses. No one is sure how it would impact other kinds of beings though, for example no one knows if Milenkosi or Baridi is vulnerable to this as whatever the hell they are is  a mystery in itself. So in summary: Makes you a starter character, tentacle rape, and a bigass lightsaber.

Vris has since determined two things. One: according to the Djinn while Zachariah can possibly kill Eli himself, depending who draws first, he does know how to do it even without his super powers. Second: On the note of capturing its possible that even though his equality power is some bullshit, that only removes raw power. People who do not need their powers to fight might still be able to handle him.

Naomi’s wings are her most known power. They were originally one massive chunk of stone, this was declared to be her weapon. She has absolute control over this thing, and can move its fragments as she pleases. The level of force they output is unknown but so far no shield (or giant stone temple) has even slowed them. She shaped the stone into those decorative obelisks that float around her to make up her “wings” but they break into even smaller fragments when she wants to. In truth she can fly because she forced fragments of this stone weapon into her body to alter her physical abilities. She uses this total control over them to imitate things like super strength and the shards in her body are what hold her up when she flies. Her aspect powers on the other hand are rarely seen, because its rarely needed. With Jehovah’s aspect she got the ability of extreme regeneration, which is how she was able to not die when embedding her own weapon into her body. If you cut her head off or something she’s not getting back up from that, but she can still shrug off a lot of damage.

Saint Isaac, wielder of a death aspect blessing can obviously kill anything. His weapon is a massive scythe that can ignore any material, spiritually empowered or not. It doesn’t actually break them, just passes through them. Granted if the blade hits something its going to die, his victims often have no wounds because of this weapon’s unique properties. His aspect ability is very similar to it, he is incorporeal at will. However, his weapon is always incorporeal and so he cannot block/parry, and his body must be corporeal in order for his weapon to be effective, his corporeality is somehow tied to whether or not he is actually there.

Saint Eleazor seems mundane at first with no significant powers beyond his wings, but his weapon can copy any spirit’s abilities it sees. Meaning if you have a magic weapon, he has that weapon too. His aspect abilities are also the same thing, while copycat powers are not unheard of, Eleazor can also copy blessings and their power level. If he is looking at his target he not only copies their powers and stats, he also gains a full understanding of everything their abilities can do. He has sometimes found out how to do things with people’s powers they didn’t even know they could do, killing them with it before they could ever try to use this new and fantastic technique. Notably his power has a limitation, he has to be looking at the target constantly to maintain it.

Saint Athalia ‘s aspect blessing gives her the ability of mass teleportation. She can move up to an entire Inn and all its residents over huge distances. Its not enough to throw a whole invading army somewhere, but the seven paladins don’t need to fly if they’re in a particular hurry. Her twin swords can teleport as well. Either to her hand or to wherever she wants them to be within a certain range. She has been seen to make them appear right inside someone, ending the fight pretty quick.

Saint Sarah’s aspect blessing gives her the power of omniscience. She knows where every black mage within a hundred miles are at all times. Not only that, if she knows the exact mage she wants to find, she knows where they are no matter where in the world(s) they might be. Though she needs more then a rough description to go off of, the limits of it aren’t well understood. The more famous someone is though the more likely it is she can keep tabs on them. Her weapon is actually a bow that fires an arrow of pure white light. Once fired it splits into dozens of itself, all of which explode. Carpet bomber basically. Fortunately she can’t fire the arrows as fast as a normal archer, they take about ten seconds to replenish in her hand to be fired again. She can actually transform the white light from an arrow to any other weapon, but she’s known as the paladin’s archer as thats her favored use of it. But in close combat she will likely turn it into a more appropriate weapon.

Saint David’s weapon has the ability to create clones of itself and by proxy Saint David. While they last for all of maybe two seconds, David’s aspect power is basically super speed. While the laws of physics are reduced for him, he is still subject to inertia and cannot run at his absolute top speeds without a bit of a running start and the willingness to have to put a lot of effort into slowing down, but thats only if he wants to start breaking the sound barrier or something. While his movement speed doesn’t turn him necessarily so fast he becomes invisible in combat (granted he’s still moving faster then anything else you’ve likely encountered), his sword arm does. He can attack with his weapon, especially with his brief clones, fast enough to replicate Machera’s abilities. Albeit shorter range.

Vris has begun to head home after learning what both Sarah and Athalia’s abilities are. And she’s putting some hustle into it too since Zaeed’s taking off to the east.

Lucifer does actually divulge what the secret meetings are about Quy On’s continued membership. He’s the first dark god on the roster, and leaving him on it could be…awkward. Also a bit of a PR problem. They would have asked Song but she ran off already.

Thandar does practices. Eret already sold out some viking conspirators to Nergals “super happy fun time team”. They have suddenly gone missing.The problem with getting Thykenae’s assistance to the east is time. Its a long trip even for gods, and if some specific gods were to rush ahead of the others and the nation they might be noticed…and you don’t want him to notice you.

Freyja doesn’t actually know where to find Tyr, the pantheon is so shattered that their individual followings are not able to find each other. Since each one is in hiding. Not all of them even know that Saint Sarah can still find them.

Con Lai:

Gremory has expanded the network and works to do so always, as it means more money for him, but it wasn’t really worth noting that a few more merchants have joined the guild of greed. Alice still traveling. Milenkosi actually can’t manipulate the dreams of that many people at once, thats your thing. It is assumed you did so. The Vua Cai inquisitors are actually growing thanks to the works of An-Lahn, who has received information from Vris that he should not dare leave Sthan Thi for awhile. Sarah, and by proxy Naomi, are watching him. Baridi and Eret hang out too much during his trip to the dream realm. Jin Zhang has actually built a pretty good band of misfits already. The jakaal nature of his training has enabled to recruit other misfit types of the proper caliber. Its a small team full of weirdos but they’re pretty good. Milenkosi actually manages to extract his whole priority list except artifacts and all purpose worshippers, while the civilians are left on the island still all the HVT’s on the list are out.

Milenkosi points out “Grabbing raji” and “be safe” contradict, so he’s just gonna not do that for now since “be safe” has an above all tag.

Freyja and the vikings are traveling toward Kaga to seek shelter, unsure of where their missing friends have gone they have been assumed to have left in the night due to grudges against Si Da. They are not incorrect…technically. However, they have no time to investigate as they would prefer to minimize the time they are moving and thus the chance of a paladin finding them.

Loki has renounced his position as a god, incarnated, and declared himself a champion of Divus. Thor and his followers were more resistant and are now dead.

Mastema recalled to travel the world with Quy Ong. Asmodaeus reports the discovery of an amazing artifact from the southern wild lands, it somehow amplifies the power of the god it is devoted to. So far no one else has noticed that Ishtar’s powers have mysteriously increased…a lot. Altepetl has begun mass construction progress with the help of Bahamut’s cult, whatever it is its massive and stone. He also discovered what Altepetl has for a military is pretty shit. It has some impressive heroes though.

The praeliators have joined up with the migrating vikings on the road to Kagayakashi.

Jade Empire has come under suspicion from the eastern world due to its lack of doing anything about the army skirting its borders. However, Quan Yin has entered Si Da lands. What she’s up to nobody is sure yet, but she’s traveling straight toward Sthan Thi, though she is alone. Wukong on the other hand has left Shenlong’s perimeter and headed toward Sekai Taki.

Taiyo has called several clans to Sekai Taki to prepare for battle with Song Yi’s forces. Raijin and Tsukoyomi are also present and an army of shinigami possibly two or three thousand strong.