Larasa Farleth looked over the vast expanse of the world. It was no use, of course -- all she could see was the glow of the crumbling mountains between where the black earth stopped and the ashen clouds they spewed into the sky began. Edited for clarity Above her, the blackness was pierced by only a few points of faint light.
That settled it... It wasn't clouds or the smoke of fires; those might cover half the sky, or even all of it, but they would not leave a few scattered open spaces left. The stars really were going out. And already you've got me shivering. Great.
A cold, sulfuric wind blew in from the north, and Larasa reflexively turned away from it, back towards the breach she had made in the walls of the Grand Fortress. It wasn't much of a hole, she told herself, just an opening where her elders had bricked up the way to the balcony from the Terrace of the Prophets when the Darkness had become too much for them to gaze upon in every waking moment. This sentence is getting a bit long Still, she should seal it back up before going in.
Somehow, the thought of going back inside made Larasa feel sick. Why? It was her life, tending the vines that grew by the ancient wizard-lamps and stoking the eternal flames with her magic. She had lived that life since she had been a child, and now her elders said she was almost old enough to be considered a woman.
None of that seemed to matter any more. The stars were going out, another piece in an ancient mystery that wouldn't be solved within the walls of the Grand Fortress. More than anything, Larasa wanted answers, and in wanting them so fiercely, a mad thought struck her. She reached out to the breach, and battered bricks and mortar assembled behind her, sealing the way.
The sun had gone out in the youth of Larasa's great grandfather's great grandfather, and since then no one had gone beyond the wards of the Grand Fortress and returned to tell the tale. Her people were sealed inside. The artificial mountain was home to millions, though perhaps half as many as it had been built for. It was also their prison, and their tomb. Larasa was going to leave it.
In the seeming invincibility of youth, she told herself that she would be the first to dare the Domain of Darkness, and come back to the Grand Fortress as a hero, with answers to their questions and their problems. She put one foot on the ancient railing of the balcony, and looked over. It was a mile to the ground, at least, where the pinprick light of the ceremonial torches at the gate of the Grand Fortress burned. Larasa realized it would be wise to open the wall again, provision herself, and leave through that same lower gate that others used to look out upon the world and keep up the seeming of their knowledge of it.
Larasa jumped.
As she fell through the blackness, she conjured wings of wind, stretching out half a dozen arm spans to each side of her, allowing her to glide towards that foreboding, sulfur wind. As she fed power into the enchantment, they became great wings of flame, a sight for any elder who happened to be watching the sky for vanishing stars that at least one person dared to live.
~~~
"The Waning of the Sun began in the year 1432 by the calendar of the then-mighty Imperium of Vox. The Last Dawn passed in what is recorded as Year of Light 17,413 -- the Vox did not survive to see what would have been 2118 by their calendar. It is impossible to know how many years have passed since the last Year of Light, for in the panic that surrounded its coming, very few records were made. I suspect that it was between one hundred fifty and two hundred years before the present. I also suspect that any attempt to divine it more precisely will shortly become an exercise in futility as our last natural means of understanding time, the Stars, are vanishing from the sky."
Morgan was in training to be the last Lorekeeper of Voor. Who, what, or where Voor was supposed to be had been, in a fit of irony, lost from the preserved records of its lorekeepers. As such, it was his duty to peer through telescopes and scrying glasses and record what he saw in endless books that no one would ever read.
His elderly mentor, the man Morgan regarded as an uncle yet knew to have kidnapped him from his family cradle, was no longer fit to restore the wards over the crumbling 'university', nor to walk the long distance from the observatory tower to the Hall of Records to the Chamber of Ebon Mirrors as was required to make and record a Lorekeeper's observations. He hadn't even the strength to feel fussed when Morgan told him about the stars vanishing from the sky.
Or perhaps he just didn't care. Indifference, after all, was what he touted as the highest virtue of a Lorekeeper of Voor. Never interfering with the matters of the world, simply watching them and recording the unbiased truth... that was supposed to be the Lorekeeper's path. Even as the order had dwindled to such small numbers that they had become unable to sustain themselves, resorting to using scrying and teleportation to steal children to replenish their ranks, they maintained their absolute isolation from the world. Now there were only two, and Morgan's mentor was not long for the world.
Morgan sighed at his log of the Vanishing of the Stars. Impartial recording of the slow death of the world was nonsense. Every word, even the shape of his handwriting, reflected his anger at his place. Still, what else could he do but continue his vigil? He finished recording the constellations that had vanished, which by now was most of them, and then picked up his candle and made his way to the Chamber of Ebon Mirrors, to take watch over the last populations of the world.
There were thousands of mirrors, each attuned to scry upon a specific site, almost all of them reflecting only the blackness that remained when life had passed. The largest, twenty feet tall, showed the Grand Fortress that held most of the world's remaining intelligent life. A few dozen remained attuned to the other populations that were still alive, decaying villages each unknown to the others.
One of those lesser mirrors had changed, and Morgan recorded the change in his log. He could have written much, but after his disgraceful paragraph in the Observatory, he tried to force himself into the dispassionate observer his mentor desired.
"The village has been destroyed. Ashes smolder in the darkness. Severed body parts and mangled corpses are observed. No obvious post-mortem damage, indicating that the destruction was not predatory in nature. The destroyer was not observed. To the best of the knowledge of the Lorekeepers, the elven race is now extinct." Holy ****. That last line really, really got to me.
A point of light appeared in the corner of Morgan's eye, as bright as his own tiny candle. He turned to face it, the massive mirror that reflected the Grand Fortress. Without a doubt, there was movement, a point of fire descending from the heights of the Fortress, streaking towards the north. Immediately, he began to work spellcraft, getting as close a view of the firelight as he could. It was still frustratingly far away, the great scrying mirror incapable of approaching its target near enough to reveal detail. But the outline, the general shape was made known to him, and Morgan made a new and exciting record. He sketched what he saw furiously, and though his words held the valued dispassion, he felt nothing of the sort when he wrote them:
"A human has departed the Grand Fortress on wings of fire." You've really got some stunning lines in this one.
~~~
Larasa had traveled north for her full glide, and three sleeps thereafter before she could no longer make out even the faintest light from the Grand Fortress behind her. She was now utterly within the Domain of Darkness, the wreckage of the world that had been lost to the people of the Fortress when the Last Dawn passed. The crimson, volcanic glow of the crumbling mountains was the only natural light in the world around her, as the last star their smoke clouds did not obscure had winked out before Larasa's very eyes. It was a far off light, and didn't really provide any relief from the darkness that was immediately around her.
The Earth out here in the darkness felt sick, too. It had been growing sicker all the time, and she suspected it was sick back in the Grand Fortress too. The whole world was... mourning the stars? Or were the stars just another sign of something greater and more terrible yet to come?
One thing was certain; Larasa was not alone in the darkness. Sometimes, giant shapes moved, revealed against the background glow of volcanism, titanic things that Larasa hoped were merely the products of her imagination, for if they were real... it was best not to think about it.
Smaller horrors had set upon her. Larasa did not know if firelight attracted the monsters, misshapen black things with shockingly human-like eyes that scratched and howled when they came, or if it scared them off, but at the very least fire did seem ultimately capable of protecting her, and when she set down to sleep she conjured a ring of it about herself, a pale imitation of the holy wards that protected the Grand Fortress.
At least those hideous black creatures tasted good enough well-roasted that Larasa's hunger was staved off. This just keeps getting more awful. Well done. Thirst was more difficult to solve, as it required dealing with the pained and sickened stone beneath her feet. There was water down there, no doubt part of the same underground waterways that provided safe drink to the Grand Fortress, but of all the elements of creation, Water was the one that Larasa was least comfortable with. Still, whether by calling it upwards or forcing the stone to squeeze it through a fissure, Larasa was afforded at least enough drink to survive.
Many times, Larasa had considered returning. Surely, she would be hailed as a hero if she simply came back from beyond the wards at all, and certainly bearing trophies of her victories over the Things in the Dark. She would be the first human to have ever dared the eternal night and won. Her name would be remembered forever.
And yet... Something still called to her, farther out there in the dark. Perhaps it was the Giant Shapes, the gods of these hideous black things that assailed her in the night. Larasa hoped that it wasn't that, some lure to her death, but rather a true and honest hope, that she might find something more worthy of bringing back to the Grand Fortress than the filed teeth of the hideous night hunters and vague words of monstrous gods silhouetted against the volcanic glow of the northwest horizon.
And so Larasa pressed on, ever into the northern dark.
~~~
Morgan omitted the apparition of the Wings of Flame from his report to his mentor in that set of rounds. On the third set after, he was recounting the vanishing, before his very eyes, of the last of the stars when the murmuring of the old man ceased. Morgan approached after calling for his mentor several times, and checked the aged man over. He had no breath, no pulse... he had passed away listening to another cycle's reports of the world, reclining in his chair amidst the powerstone-fed gardens as he always seemed to be.
Morgan buried him there, where his old bones might feed the vines that had, in life, fed him. Irony was not the prerogative of a Lorekeeper of Voor, but Morgan was the very last Lorekeeper there world ever be, he had decided, and so he felt no need to shackle himself to what had come before. If there were to be no more Lorekeepers, what had the lore been kept for? For Voor, a term that had no meaning and no relevance? No, Morgan decided, it had been kept for him. Here, at the end of all things, a Lorekeeper would interfere.
Morgan packed the few possessions he considered valuable, along with food and maps and candles that he could have light without burning magic he might need to shield himself against the assault of the terrible creatures that dwelt in the darkness. The most common were lithe, black Nightstalkers that had once been humans, their ancestors surrendering their minds and magic to devilish ways in the last Years of Light. I like how you set this revelation, and its implications for Larasa, up in the previous section only to deliver here. Another subtle masterstroke of horror. They did not need to eat, though they were flesh and bone, but they constantly hungered, especially for the blood of their close relatives, humanity.
Other horrors no doubt dwelt out there, where there was no light. Demons? Almost certainly, but Morgan dreaded darker things that past Lorekeepers had recorded seeing after the passage of the Last Dawn, unfathomable and titanic. Most wrote the sightings off as clouds of smoke in cruel shapes, though one of the former keepers had gone mad and clawed out his eyes trying to make sense of them
Even so, Morgan was determined to go out into that dark and barren world. Alone of all its inhabitants, he might know its secrets. Perhaps, combined with whatever knowledge awaited beyond the sight of his scrying glasses and ancient tomes, there would be some hope for it.
As he prepared to leave, he considered his course, and in so doing remembered the figure with wings of flame, gliding north from the Grand Fortress that sustained the last millions of the world. At least one other soul had had the same idea as he, to venture out into the world. He examined his maps and charted a course. North from the Grand Fortress would take a body through the chimney fields of the Scar Lands or over the still-festering morass of the Sea of Rot, either way leading to the burning coal-fields and ruined cities of the Plains of Despair.
From his own position, the Plains of Despair were south, the easiest route through Stalker’s Fell, or if he did not want to dare great populations of the damned, over the broken ground of the Boiling Pools. It was a mad hope, to find that other soul out in the world. The odds were that whoever it was had been killed by something upon landing, and at the very least would not make it to the Plains of Despair.
All the same, the Plains of Despair might hold some secrets for him among the ruins of long-lost Tolkas. And furthermore, that road would take him eventually to the Grand Fortress where humanity’s last millions held sway.
It was worth a try.
~~~
Larasa had lost count of the sleeps that she had passed in the outer world by the time she stood amidst thin towers of stone that belched black smoke up into the blacker sky. The earth below her feet was dying – not just the ashen ground the chimneys coated with their soot, but the whole, deeper world. The life-giving mana she had always felt was waning every day. Fortunately, the mana that let her call fire and command stone remained, but even that she feared was starting to fade away into nothingness.
A world could survive without light, but without its own mana? Larasa doubted that such a thing was possible, and had quickened her pace since sensing it. Now, her quest had a purpose. She had to find a way to restore the mana of the world, however long it took and however hard it was. She had shaped a crude dagger from obsidian and bone, and now used it to fight off the creeping things and man-like stalkers when possible, practicing for the day she no longer had fire to save her.
That day wouldn’t come.
With a massive shudder, the earth buckled beneath Larasa’s feet. Cries followed, impossibly titanic and impossibly far howls of rage and victory alike. The giant shadows, the gods of the forever-night! They were calling to each other, to everything! And there's another one of those lines. [shudder]
The ground heaved again. Chimneys shattered, and the entire world shook. The droning, howling cries continued, only to be drowned out by the sound of shattering stone. Larasa tried to shield herself, but there was nothing to the land, no mana she could reach. In one calamitous moment, the last of it had spilled like water from a shattered pitcher. This was the end.
Larasa fell as the ground gave way beneath her feet, with no magic to arrest it. All around her, what little she could sense was falling too, mountains tumbling down into boulders, boulders to pebbles, pebbles into sand and the sand into … nothing. Larasa screamed in terror, but then she felt it. There was something else there, some human presence. She strained out towards it, reached out for it with all her heart and caught onto something. She was still falling, but at least she wasn’t falling alone.
She landed softly upon a bed of grass like the sort she had grown in the depths of the Grand fortress. Above her, there were stars again – countless, shining stars lighting the world! The horizon glowed with a near unfathomable brightness, far brighter than the fire lights of volcanos even in the full fury of their eruptions.
Clasped in her hand was the hand of another. She looked that way and found a boy perhaps a bit older than herself sitting up from the grass.
“Well, hello.” She managed with a hoarse laugh, “I’m Larasa.”
“Morgan.” He replied. “It’s good to meet you.”
An instant later, the horizon became blinding, impossibly bright. Larasa looked away from it in pain, and clutched Morgan’s hand tighter, and yet it was not fear that she felt, but joy.
All the tales of the elders had not recounted half the glory of a real dawn.
~~~
Morgan told himself he should have taking the path of the Boiling Pools. For what should have been two full sleeps now, Morgan had been forced to stay awake, pressing on towards the Plains of Despair and hoping that numberless dark things would lose interest before he lost the last of this strength. Personally, he was drained almost fully, but the powerstone he had salvaged from the vine garden was, for the moment, enough to sustain his circle of protection against the assault.
It was not enough to sustain his hope that he would not, sooner or later, die beneath the filed fangs of the nightstalkers that had caught his scent. The powerstone shed faint, white light that cast the black things in sharp relief. Their claws were bestial, their gangly bodies demonic, but the eyes that stared back at him from the darkness, testing the strength of the circle, were all too human.
At first, Morgan thought the quaking he felt was just his exhaustion, but then the creatures stopped their hissing and baying as well, looking up and around in a panicked fashion. Wind picked up over the Stalker’s Fell, and they scattered. Morgan knew better than to take solace in that fact. It meant something worse was coming.
Then he heard it, a hideous droning echoing from all directions. He told himself it was the wind, a wind vaster and more terrible than any the world had known in all the Years of Light and Darkness, but part of him could not shake the stories of the mountainous titans wandering the world after the Last Dawn, and he could not stop himself from imagining the sound to be their voices, raised in a chorus of damnation.
With a violent crack, the shaking intensified. In the powerstone’s light, Morgan could see rifts growing in the ground. The fiery mountains on the southern horizon were truly crumbling, their red light brightening for a moment before being extinguished as they tumbled down into the earth, or perhaps into nothing.
The ground Morgan was standing on gave way, and he fell too. The light of the powerstone faded… no, there was simply nothing left for it to reflect off of. Stark, unreasoning terror and despair filled his mind, tumbling downward in emptiness. As his dread mounted, crushing and near absolute, something else appeared on the edge of his consciousness, another, straining to reach him. He reached back and caught it. Somehow, the darkness of the fall had itself faded, and with it the apprehension.
He landed on a field of grass, brightly illuminated by stars and a great golden-red glow on one horizon. No open field like that, vibrant and growing, had existed since the Waning had become severe. They had all withered and died…
He noticed he was holding someone’s hand. He looked, and saw a girl perhaps a little younger than he looking back at him.
“Well, hello.” She said, voice horse, then made a small laugh. “I’m Larasa.”
“Morgan.” He replied. “It’s good to meet you.”
In this strange place, vibrant and alive after the end of all things, nothing made him happier than no longer being alone. A moment later, the horizon exploded into light. Not all the words in all the tomes of all the former Lorekeepers had done justice to the Dawn.
Well done.
There's a few things that I think could use revising. First, I don't think you've given Larasa enough character motivation. I mean, it's there, but she leaves so immediately at the start of the story that we don't get a strong sense of what drives her impulse. Second, you don't really give a good rational for her ability to survive in the wild. If no one else can do it, why could she? I don't think this needs to be anything major, but it struck me as a little off.
Finally, part of me feels like the sudden rewind back to Morgan's perceptions at the end here dulls the impact of the ending. I'm nooot entirely sure how you can fix that, but I do think it needs to be fixed somehow, because otherwise that ending is extremely powerful.
Oh, and one last criticism:
I WANT MOOOOOOOAAAAAAR T_T It's so damn good and now I'm going to be agonizingly awaiting further installments.
Although, actually, I've already got some ideas for what might be done with these two characters... aaah, you've put something together here that has a lot of potential. I think this might be your greatest work yet, and that's saying a LOT considering your other contributions.
On an unrelated note, I hate to bug you about this, but there's a few worldbuilding threads up here right now that could use your input, and both Skibo and Phyrexian Hailstorm have work that needs to be voted on. I know you're busy with actual work, but if you could drop by some of those threads briefly that would be great.
I could probably cut Larasa's Ending at Planedeath, do Morgan's variation of Planedeath, and then have a single scene of the fall through the blind eternities and the arrival/dawn. If it's the doubling up of Planedeath that's the problem, Morgan's final segment may have to be cut, and some "Trials in the world". It'll certainly need a lot of polish on the ending and, as you mentioned, conveying Larasa's side, to reach 1.2
~~~
While I work on the final entry for the Planeswalker's Guide (Nightstalkers), here's some material from the Planes contest over on YMTC I used Taramir for. The contest itself is linked (right now) in post 4.
Not all of this quite jives, since I was doing my Card Creation for the Age of Darkness, which would be the hardest time period to support a set in. Hopefully, you'll find some of it entertaining
The sun went out before the times of our grandfathers' grandfathers. Since then, the darkness has been constant, the incandescent glow of volcanos, the flickering warmth of torches, and the pale shine of powerstones the only light in a lightless world...
Yet in the darkness, life continues. Whether the humans huddled together around what feeble light they can produce, or the massive fungi that consume the rotting husks of the world's great forests; the black and gnarled bushes that grow in volcanic ash by the light of constant eruptions, or the Nightstakers that haunt the shadows beyond mortal sight, that which lives upon the world perseveres, even as the world itself slowly dies.
There can only be one end to the story of our world, but isn't that always the way? We know how things end, painfully aware of their mortality. But the getting there -- ah, that is worth the telling.
In the Waning of the Sun, when life became hard for the people, some made bargains to preserve themselves at the cost of their humanity. They bartered their souls to demons, or perhaps to the darkness itself, and were transformed. The jet-black, lanky creatures that resulted from those pacts and the progeny of those lost to them are called Nightstalkers. They hunt through the eternal night in small, roving bands or even great hordes, not seeming to need sustenance so much as they crave the flesh of pure humanity. While no successful attempt to communicate with the Nightstalkers has ever been recorded, they retain a frightening sort of cunning intellect -- They navigate challenges no beast could, and have sometimes been observed to use tools or even set traps.
Physically, Taramir Nightstalkers are similar to the Nightstaklers of Caliman , especially when their gaunt frames are the main point of consideration. Taramir Nightstalkers are always dark of skin, and many have shorter, more human-like faces (their eyes are always human). They are mostly associated with Black magic, though there is a minority represented by red, and a trace in green: being unreasoning and amoral, they are never blue nor white.
We persevere. Though, I must admit I don't honestly know how the villagers do it. The Grand Fortress protects its numbers, but the smaller settlements have to fend for themselves against a threatening world. Each is alone, isolated from the others, possibly not even knowing whether or not they're the last humans left alive. Still, they hold out against madness, starvation, and even predation from the Nightstalkers, leeping on with their lifes and refusing to let anyone change them. I wish them the best of luck, I really do.
Humans of Taramir are the dominant species, or at least they were before Sundeath may have placed Nightstalkers in the lead. They survive in two major ways -- within the City-building known as the Grand Fortress, or in smaller towns that are isolated and constantly endangered. Humans in the Grand Fortress tend towards White and Blue, while town-dwellers tend towards White and Green. Since survival itself is so essentially communal, you see very few if any black-aligned humans.
Most of the windows were bricked up generations ago, in the immediate wake of the Last Dawn. I find this to be good... not because there's nothing to see out there that's worth the draft, but because I fear I have gazed outside, and seen more than nothing. It was only for an instand, but a shape moved against the distant fireglow or the eruptions, no doubt vaster than mountains! No one believed me, of course, but they have not seen with their own eyes! I live in fear of the day that titanic thing or its fellows (heavens forbid they exist) try the Wards. I do not think we could hold before such an onslaught. - Fortress Lunatic
The Grand Fortress that holds humanity's last millions is kept safe from the nightstalkers, demons, and whatever other foul things may lurk in the darkness by a great magical circle that hedges the creatures out, a thin line that stands between civilization and extinction. Outside the Wards, the only humans that live do so balanced upon a razor's edge.
Like everything else on Taramir, the Wards of the Grand Fortress are in constant danger of failing, guttering out like the sun did never to return. Its strength is maintained by the combined efforts of countless mages of the Grand Fortress, the task a full-time job that's always hiring.
As for the Titanic Thing in the Night... well, it's probably the product of a fevered imagination, mistaking a smoke cloud for a living thing or simply hallucinating the entire experience. Probably.
"Darkness is unrelenting and omnipresent, but seldom is it absolute. Civilized peoples carry lights, always, and the glow of volcanism may illuminate landscapes that would be otherwise hidden from sight. Even lights that are too dim to see by are a blessing, for we can at least see them. To be totally without light, left to the mercy of the Darkness, is to be truly lost" - Kalas, Lorekeeper of Voor
When the the smoke shroud the glow, when sulfur clouds fill the sky, when the last torch or powerstone gutters out... That's when you're truly alone. Exposed to that kind of darkness, most will go mad...
The Night Lands are the collective term for all the lands of Taramir out of the reach of civilization, from the smoldering coal-beds of the Plains of Despair to the fungal forest known as the Sea of Rot. These are the domains of the Nightstalkers, and other inhuman creatures besides.
Their character is both eroded and erosive. Without human hands to tend to them, the Night Lands are constantly breaking down. Cracked earth, jagged spires of broken rock, fungus feeding on the decay of ages -- nothing is totally whole in the Night Lands. There's always a part broken, or missing. Nothing where there ought to be something. But that's the way with Taramir...
"I saw a vision of boundless light Fairest of fair! World before the Waning Rays shone upon the earth through clear air raining Undimmed by sulfur clouds or blackest night
I stared transfixed at glory of the past Azure rivers ran to sapphire seas And over bright cities stood high aeries But, alas for all! It was not to last
The light guttered and failed o’er the land The mountains splintered into sullen crags And spat up smoke and cruel volcanic slag Not forests nor waters nor sky could withstand
That is the way; all things decay and age Eternity crumbles but will not change." - Poem discovered, written upon a scrap of hide, in a Nightstalker den.
Fortified Aqueduct Land - Plains Island (: Add or to your mana pool) Whenever you tap Fortified Aqueduct for mana, put a depletion counter on it. If there are three or more depletion counters on Fortified Aqueduct, sacrifice it.
Sea of Night Land - Island Swamp (: Add or to your mana pool) Whenever you tap Sea of Night for mana, put a depletion counter on it. If there are three or more depletion counters on Sea of Night, sacrifice it.
Smoldering Chimneys Land - Swamp Mountain (: Add or to your mana pool) Whenever you tap Smoldering Chimneys for mana, put a depletion counter on it. If there are three or more depletion counters on Smoldering Chimneys, sacrifice it.
Lavalit Grove Land - Mountain Forest (: Add or to your mana pool) Whenever you tap Lavalit Grove for mana, put a depletion counter on it. If there are three or more depletion counters on Lavalit Grove, sacrifice it.
Powerstone Vinebed Land - Forest Plains (: Add or to your mana pool) Whenever you tap Powerstone Vinebed for mana, put a depletion counter on it. If there are three or more depletion counters on Powerstone Vinebed, sacrifice it.
Nightstalker Flenser Creature - Nightstalker , Pay 1 life: Nightstalker Flenser deals 1 damage to target creature. Pain is a language even they can understand. 1/1
Wild Nightstalker Creature - Nightstalker Haste, Protection from Artifacts and Enchantments Never has bargaining with dark powers been so successful as with the Nightstalkers. They got exactly what they wanted: Freedom 2/1
Hunting Nightstalker Creature - Nightstalker : Hunting Nightstalker fights target creature. Activate this ability only when you could cast a sorcery. You are, therefore they hunt. 3/2
Night Watch Creature - Human Soldier Flash, Defender "It's quiet... too quiet." 2/5
Fortress Archmage Creature - Human Wizard. : Return target creature to its owner's hand Banishment is the first lesson. Summoning comes much later 0/1
Wards of the Fortress Legendary Enchantment Cumulative Upkeep - You have Protection from Everything. When Wards of the Fortress leaves the battlefield, sacrifice half the permanents you control, rounded up. "We dare not hope they will last forever, but perhaps they shall last 'long enough'." - Fortress Magistrate
The Last Light Fails Sorcery Discard your hand, then exile each nonblack, non-nightstalker creature with power less than the number of cards discarded this way. Only the strong and the foul can stand firm in the face of utter darkness.
The Night Lands Plane - Taramir When you Planeswalk to The Night Lands or at the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice a permanent. If you can't, Planeswalk away from The Night Lands. --- Whenever you roll , choose any number of permanents and/or players with counters on them, then remove a counter of your choice from each of them.
"Enjoy your screams, Sarpadia - they will soon be muffled beneath snow and ice." THE COALITION WAR GAME -Phyrexian Praetor Round 1: (4-1-2, 1 kill) Round 2: (16-8-2, 4 kills) Round 3: (18-9-2, 1 kill) Round 4: (22-10-0, 2 kills) Round 5: (56-16-3, 9 kills) Round 6: (8-7-1) [current round]
I think your idea of cutting their sections right as the world ends is the right way to go. That would really ratchet up the tension, since you don't know what happens to Larasa until the end of Morgan's section. Try it out and see if it works, at any rate.
Man, those lands would be really strong in older formats, and any format where you're wrapping things up in the first few turns. I like how your cards here have this implication that you've got to end the game quickly or you're BOTH going to suffer horribly.
Also, the flavor text for Wild Nightstalker is fantastic. There are so many implications there, and so much you could spin off of that one line...
You know, it occurs to me that one of the advantages of M:EM style fan sets is that they can go for a particular experience that wouldn't be possible with mainstream magic. In particular, a set where most of the cards are driving home the horrible futility of your fight proooobably wouldn't sell too well, but man, for a small audience that can print the cards from the internet, it could get to the people who are interested.
Also, this is forcing me to rethink some of my design plans for the Nightstalkers in Jakkard, which is great.
Larasa and Morgan 1.1.1 (Revised Ending Mockup)Show
Larasa Farleth looked over the vast expanse of the world. It was no use, of course -- all she could see was the glow of the crumbling mountains between where the black earth stopped and the ashen clouds they spewed into the sky began. Above her, the blackness was pierced by only a few points of faint light.
That settled it... It wasn't clouds or the smoke of fires; those might cover half the sky, or even all of it, but they would not leave a few scattered open spaces left. The stars really were going out.
A cold, sulfuric wind blew in from the north, and Larasa reflexively turned away from it, back towards the breach she had made in the walls of the Grand Fortress. It wasn't much of a hole, she told herself, just an opening where her elders had bricked up the way to the balcony from the Terrace of the Prophets when the Darkness had become too much for them to gaze upon in every waking moment. Still, she should seal it back up before going in.
Somehow, the thought of going back inside made Larasa feel sick. Why? It was her life, tending the vines that grew by the ancient wizard-lamps and stoking the eternal flames with her magic. She had lived that life since she had been a child, and now her elders said she was almost old enough to be considered a woman.
None of that seemed to matter any more. The stars were going out, another piece in an ancient mystery that wouldn't be solved within the walls of the Grand Fortress. More than anything, Larasa wanted answers, and in wanting them so fiercely, a mad thought struck her. She reached out to the breach, and battered bricks and mortar assembled behind her, sealing the way.
The sun had gone out in the youth of Larasa's great grandfather's great grandfather, and since then no one had gone beyond the wards of the Grand Fortress and returned to tell the tale. Her people were sealed inside. The artificial mountain was home to millions, though perhaps half as many as it had been built for. It was also their prison, and their tomb. Larasa was going to leave it.
In the seeming invincibility of youth, she told herself that she would be the first to dare the Domain of Darkness, and come back to the Grand Fortress as a hero, with answers to their questions and their problems. She put one foot on the ancient railing of the balcony, and looked over. It was a mile to the ground, at least, where the pinprick light of the ceremonial torches at the gate of the Grand Fortress burned. Larasa realized it would be wise to open the wall again, provision herself, and leave through that same lower gate that others used to look out upon the world and keep up the seeming of their knowledge of it.
Larasa jumped.
As she fell through the blackness, she conjured wings of wind, stretching out half a dozen arm spans to each side of her, allowing her to glide towards that foreboding, sulfur wind. As she fed power into the enchantment, they became great wings of flame, a sight for any elder who happened to be watching the sky for vanishing stars that at least one person dared to live.
~~~
"The Waning of the Sun began in the year 1432 by the calendar of the then-mighty Imperium of Vox. The Last Dawn passed in what is recorded as Year of Light 17,413 -- the Vox did not survive to see what would have been 2118 by their calendar. It is impossible to know how many years have passed since the last Year of Light, for in the panic that surrounded its coming, very few records were made. I suspect that it was between one hundred fifty and two hundred years before the present. I also suspect that any attempt to divine it more precisely will shortly become an exercise in futility as our last natural means of understanding time, the Stars, are vanishing from the sky."
Morgan was in training to be the last Lorekeeper of Voor. Who, what, or where Voor was supposed to be had been, in a fit of irony, lost from the preserved records of its lorekeepers. As such, it was his duty to peer through telescopes and scrying glasses and record what he saw in endless books that no one would ever read.
His elderly mentor, the man Morgan regarded as an uncle yet knew to have kidnapped him from his family cradle, was no longer fit to restore the wards over the crumbling 'university', nor to walk the long distance from the observatory tower to the Hall of Records to the Chamber of Ebon Mirrors as was required to make and record a Lorekeeper's observations. He hadn't even the strength to feel fussed when Morgan told him about the stars vanishing from the sky.
Or perhaps he just didn't care. Indifference, after all, was what he touted as the highest virtue of a Lorekeeper of Voor. Never interfering with the matters of the world, simply watching them and recording the unbiased truth... that was supposed to be the Lorekeeper's path. Even as the order had dwindled to such small numbers that they had become unable to sustain themselves, resorting to using scrying and teleportation to steal children to replenish their ranks, they maintained their absolute isolation from the world. Now there were only two, and Morgan's mentor was not long for the world.
Morgan sighed at his log of the Vanishing of the Stars. Impartial recording of the slow death of the world was nonsense. Every word, even the shape of his handwriting, reflected his anger at his place. Still, what else could he do but continue his vigil? He finished recording the constellations that had vanished, which by now was most of them, and then picked up his candle and made his way to the Chamber of Ebon Mirrors, to take watch over the last populations of the world.
There were thousands of mirrors, each attuned to scry upon a specific site, almost all of them reflecting only the blackness that remained when life had passed. The largest, twenty feet tall, showed the Grand Fortress that held most of the world's remaining intelligent life. A few dozen remained attuned to the other populations that were still alive, decaying villages each unknown to the others.
One of those lesser mirrors had changed, and Morgan recorded the change in his log. He could have written much, but after his disgraceful paragraph in the Observatory, he tried to force himself into the dispassionate observer his mentor desired.
"The village has been destroyed. Ashes smolder in the darkness. Severed body parts and mangled corpses are observed. No obvious post-mortem damage, indicating that the destruction was not predatory in nature. The destroyer was not observed. To the best of the knowledge of the Lorekeepers, the elven race is now extinct."
A point of light appeared in the corner of Morgan's eye, as bright as his own tiny candle. He turned to face it, the massive mirror that reflected the Grand Fortress. Without a doubt, there was movement, a point of fire descending from the heights of the Fortress, streaking towards the north. Immediately, he began to work spellcraft, getting as close a view of the firelight as he could. It was still frustratingly far away, the great scrying mirror incapable of approaching its target near enough to reveal detail. But the outline, the general shape was made known to him, and Morgan made a new and exciting record. He sketched what he saw furiously, and though his words held the valued dispassion, he felt nothing of the sort when he wrote them:
"A human has departed the Grand Fortress on wings of fire."
~~~
Larasa had traveled north for her full glide, and three sleeps thereafter before she could no longer make out even the faintest light from the Grand Fortress behind her. She was now utterly within the Domain of Darkness, the wreckage of the world that had been lost to the people of the Fortress when the Last Dawn passed. The crimson, volcanic glow of the crumbling mountains was the only natural light in the world around her, as the last star their smoke clouds did not obscure had winked out before Larasa's very eyes. It was a far off light, and didn't really provide any relief from the darkness that was immediately around her.
The Earth out here in the darkness felt sick, too. It had been growing sicker all the time, and she suspected it was sick back in the Grand Fortress too. The whole world was... mourning the stars? Or were the stars just another sign of something greater and more terrible yet to come?
One thing was certain; Larasa was not alone in the darkness. Sometimes, giant shapes moved, revealed against the background glow of volcanism, titanic things that Larasa hoped were merely the products of her imagination, for if they were real... it was best not to think about it.
Smaller horrors had set upon her. Larasa did not know if firelight attracted the monsters, misshapen black things with shockingly human-like eyes that scratched and howled when they came, or if it scared them off, but at the very least fire did seem ultimately capable of protecting her, and when she set down to sleep she conjured a ring of it about herself, a pale imitation of the holy wards that protected the Grand Fortress.
At least those hideous black creatures tasted good enough well-roasted that Larasa's hunger was staved off. Thirst was more difficult to solve, as it required dealing with the pained and sickened stone beneath her feet. There was water down there, no doubt part of the same underground waterways that provided safe drink to the Grand Fortress, but of all the elements of creation, Water was the one that Larasa was least comfortable with. Still, whether by calling it upwards or forcing the stone to squeeze it through a fissure, Larasa was afforded at least enough drink to survive.
Many times, Larasa had considered returning. Surely, she would be hailed as a hero if she simply came back from beyond the wards at all, and certainly bearing trophies of her victories over the Things in the Dark. She would be the first human to have ever dared the eternal night and won. Her name would be remembered forever.
And yet... Something still called to her, farther out there in the dark. Perhaps it was the Giant Shapes, the gods of these hideous black things that assailed her in the night. Larasa hoped that it wasn't that, some lure to her death, but rather a true and honest hope, that she might find something more worthy of bringing back to the Grand Fortress than the filed teeth of the hideous night hunters and vague words of monstrous gods silhouetted against the volcanic glow of the northwest horizon.
And so Larasa pressed on, ever into the northern dark.
~~~
Morgan omitted the apparition of the Wings of Flame from his report to his mentor in that set of rounds. On the third set after, he was recounting the vanishing, before his very eyes, of the last of the stars when the murmuring of the old man ceased. Morgan approached after calling for his mentor several times, and checked the aged man over. He had no breath, no pulse... he had passed away listening to another cycle's reports of the world, reclining in his chair amidst the powerstone-fed gardens as he always seemed to be.
Morgan buried him there, where his old bones might feed the vines that had, in life, fed him. Irony was not the prerogative of a Lorekeeper of Voor, but Morgan was the very last Lorekeeper there world ever be, he had decided, and so he felt no need to shackle himself to what had come before. If there were to be no more Lorekeepers, what had the lore been kept for? For Voor, a term that had no meaning and no relevance? No, Morgan decided, it had been kept for him. Here, at the end of all things, a Lorekeeper would interfere.
Morgan packed the few possessions he considered valuable, along with food and maps and candles that he could have light without burning magic he might need to shield himself against the assault of the terrible creatures that dwelt in the darkness. The most common were lithe, black Nightstalkers that had once been humans, their ancestors surrendering their minds and magic to devilish ways in the last Years of Light. They did not need to eat, though they were flesh and bone, but they constantly hungered, especially for the blood of their close relatives, humanity.
Other horrors no doubt dwelt out there, where there was no light. Demons? Almost certainly, but Morgan dreaded darker things that past Lorekeepers had recorded seeing after the passage of the Last Dawn, unfathomable and titanic. Most wrote the sightings off as clouds of smoke in cruel shapes, though one of the former keepers had gone mad and clawed out his eyes trying to make sense of them
Even so, Morgan was determined to go out into that dark and barren world. Alone of all its inhabitants, he might know its secrets. Perhaps, combined with whatever knowledge awaited beyond the sight of his scrying glasses and ancient tomes, there would be some hope for it.
As he prepared to leave, he considered his course, and in so doing remembered the figure with wings of flame, gliding north from the Grand Fortress that sustained the last millions of the world. At least one other soul had had the same idea as he, to venture out into the world. He examined his maps and charted a course. North from the Grand Fortress would take a body through the chimney fields of the Scar Lands or over the still-festering morass of the Sea of Rot, either way leading to the burning coal-fields and ruined cities of the Plains of Despair.
From his own position, the Plains of Despair were south, the easiest route through Stalker’s Fell, or if he did not want to dare great populations of the damned, over the broken ground of the Boiling Pools. It was a mad hope, to find that other soul out in the world. The odds were that whoever it was had been killed by something upon landing, and at the very least would not make it to the Plains of Despair.
All the same, the Plains of Despair might hold some secrets for him among the ruins of long-lost Tolkas. And furthermore, that road would take him eventually to the Grand Fortress where humanity’s last millions held sway.
It was worth a try.
~~~
Larasa had lost count of the sleeps that she had passed in the outer world by the time she stood amidst thin towers of stone that belched black smoke up into the blacker sky. The earth below her feet was dying – not just the ashen ground the chimneys coated with their soot, but the whole, deeper world. The life-giving mana she had always felt was waning every day. Fortunately, the mana that let her call fire and command stone remained, but even that she feared was starting to fade away into nothingness.
A world could survive without light, but without its own mana? Larasa doubted that such a thing was possible, and had quickened her pace since sensing it. Now, her quest had a purpose. She had to find a way to restore the mana of the world, however long it took and however hard it was. She had shaped a crude dagger from obsidian and bone, and now used it to fight off the creeping things and man-like stalkers when possible, practicing for the day she no longer had fire to save her.
That day wouldn’t come.
With a massive shudder, the earth buckled beneath Larasa’s feet. Cries followed, impossibly titanic and impossibly far howls of rage and victory alike. The giant shadows, the gods of the forever-night! They were calling to each other, to everything!
The ground heaved again. Chimneys shattered, and the entire world shook. The droning, howling cries continued, only to be drowned out by the sound of shattering stone. Larasa tried to shield herself, but there was nothing to the land, no mana she could reach. In one calamitous moment, the last of it had spilled like water from a shattered pitcher. This was the end.
~~~
Morgan told himself he should have taking the path of the Boiling Pools. For what should have been two full sleeps now, Morgan had been forced to stay awake, pressing on towards the Plains of Despair and hoping that numberless dark things would lose interest before he lost the last of this strength. Personally, he was drained almost fully, but the powerstone he had salvaged from the vine garden was, for the moment, enough to sustain his circle of protection against the assault.
It was not enough to sustain his hope that he would not, sooner or later, die beneath the filed fangs of the nightstalkers that had caught his scent. The powerstone shed faint, white light that cast the black things in sharp relief. Their claws were bestial, their gangly bodies demonic, but the eyes that stared back at him from the darkness, testing the strength of the circle, were all too human.
At first, Morgan thought the quaking he felt was just his exhaustion, but then the creatures stopped their hissing and baying as well, looking up and around in a panicked fashion. Wind picked up over the Stalker’s Fell, and they scattered. Morgan knew better than to take solace in that fact. It meant something worse was coming.
Then he heard it, a hideous droning echoing from all directions. He told himself it was the wind, a wind vaster and more terrible than any the world had known in all the Years of Light and Darkness, but part of him could not shake the stories of the mountainous titans wandering the world after the Last Dawn, and he could not stop himself from imagining the sound to be their voices, raised in a chorus of damnation.
With a violent crack, the shaking intensified. In the powerstone’s light, Morgan could see rifts growing in the ground. The fiery mountains on the southern horizon were truly crumbling, their red light brightening for a moment before being extinguished as they tumbled down into the earth, or perhaps into nothing.
The ground Morgan was standing on gave way, and he fell too. The light of the powerstone faded… no, there was simply nothing left for it to reflect off of. Stark, unreasoning terror and despair filled his mind, tumbling downward in emptiness. As his dread mounted, crushing and near absolute, something else appeared on the edge of his consciousness, another, straining to reach him. He reached back and caught it. Somehow, the darkness of the fall had itself faded, and with it the apprehension.
He landed on a field of grass, brightly illuminated by stars and a great golden-red glow on one horizon. No open field like that, vibrant and growing, had existed since the Waning had become severe. They had all withered and died…
He noticed he was holding someone’s hand. He looked, and saw a girl perhaps a little younger than he looking back at him.
“Well, hello.” She said, voice horse, then made a small laugh. “I’m Larasa.”
“Morgan.” He replied. “It’s good to meet you.”
In this strange place, vibrant and alive after the end of all things, nothing made him happier than no longer being alone. A moment later, the horizon exploded into light. Not all the words in all the tomes of all the former Lorekeepers had done justice to the Dawn.
Just the simplest version of the ending retool, a plain 'ol cut, to see if it flows approximatley right. I should have Nightstalkers (and a reformat of the Planeswalker's Guide post) shortly.
"Enjoy your screams, Sarpadia - they will soon be muffled beneath snow and ice." THE COALITION WAR GAME -Phyrexian Praetor Round 1: (4-1-2, 1 kill) Round 2: (16-8-2, 4 kills) Round 3: (18-9-2, 1 kill) Round 4: (22-10-0, 2 kills) Round 5: (56-16-3, 9 kills) Round 6: (8-7-1) [current round]
NIGHTSTALKERS “Though the darkness breeds only death for civilized people, there are other things that it has spawned. Some superstitious fools say that the Nightstalkers are the remnants of barbarian tribes that sold their souls to demons in order to survive when the survivors of Tolkas took their land. A preposterous notion – there are far too many of the vicious creatures for that to account for them.” – Screed, Rumor-monger of Vishtal.
Nightstalkers were first sighted around Year of Light 17100. For a few years, their existence was doubted, but the sightings and then numbers quickly increased, making traveling the world alone somewhat more dangerous.
Their nature was swiftly uncovered by the Lorekeepers of Voor, who (as was their way) let the other peoples of the world keep guessing, though many hit upon the right notion without the aid of scrying magic. That notion was that the Nightstalkers were creatures that used to be human.
As the world grew harsh and dark, peoples without a steady home, such as the tribes of the Plains of Hope who did not join with the people of New Tolkas, found survival an increasingly difficult struggle. Several such groups, independent of one another, began to barter with the only forces that would listen to ensure their continued survival and, with at least the first, freedom from the march of civilization in New Tolkas.
Whether they bargained with demons, or with spirits of darkness aligned with the new nature of the world, the result was the same. Those humans who accepted such deals were physically transformed into something else. The resultant creature, the nightstalker, was possessed of jet-black skin as well as cruel claws and fangs. Their bodies tended to be thin and sinewy, perhaps a relic of the starvation that most driven to become nightstalkers endured.
Some Nightstalkers presented prominent chins similar to those seen in the Nightstalkers of Caliman (Creatures of currently unknown origin; it is unlikely they share the genesis of Taramir Nightstalkers), while others were short faced. A few were observed to have other physical mutations such as long tails, horns, or other adornments, but the majority lacked such alterations. Always, their eyes remained unchanged – a vestige of humanity set in their now twisted forms.
Certainly, Taramir Nightstalkers were not exactly biological creatures in the end. They were formed of flesh and blood, as many humans that slew them and Lorekeepers that dissected captured specimens could attest. However, they were never observed to require meat nor drink, though if offered the opportunity to feed upon flesh they, like ghouls, would engage in the grisly feast.
“No records of peaceful contact with Nightstalkers exist, and all scholarship suggests that their intentions towards untainted humanity are nothing but murderous. Yet still I wonder at the old tale of my order, of a girl not killed but… taken. Certainly, they have some sinister cunning, the image of human intellect, but perhaps there is more to it.” – Morgan, Last Lorekeeper of Voor
Sages never discovered what became of the human’s soul in such transactions as created the Nightstalkers. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, perhaps the soul was preserved, if perverted. Perhaps it was simply discarded as so much slag, unnecessary for the Dark Powers. And what of second-generation Nightstalkers, then? Their numbers were such that it is assured they were capable of breeding. Were those born that way soulless while their parents had souls, or could they perhaps possess the souls their parents had lost? One horrifying possibility considered by scholarship is that Nightstalkers birthed untainted humans, children that were immediately subjected to the same transmutations as their forbearers.
In any case, the intellect was another matter altogether. Communication with Nightstalkers was never, to the knowledge of the Lorekeepers, met with success, but it is certain that Nightstalkers were capable of communicating with their masters – Demons and Spirits of the Darkness – and with each other as well. While few of them were observed to use tools, this seems to have been a matter of choice rather than ability. Nightstalkers captured by one force or another in order to study them defied cages that would baffle and contain animals, their problem-solving skills as keen as a human. At least one was able to pick locks.
Those in the wild preferred their teeth and claws to manufactured weapons, and though seen to wear no clothing (for their mutations hid what features any remaining human mores would consider objectionable and rendered them tough enough to go out in the world without protection), some were seen to carry adornments, either fetishes of bone or jewelry won no doubt from the destruction and consumption of some human settlement.
All this evidence leads to one inexorable conclusion – the Nightstalkers were probably capable of achieving anything their human forbearers had, but were simply unwilling to form themselves into a building civilization like the dominant races of Taramir that had come before them.
"Enjoy your screams, Sarpadia - they will soon be muffled beneath snow and ice." THE COALITION WAR GAME -Phyrexian Praetor Round 1: (4-1-2, 1 kill) Round 2: (16-8-2, 4 kills) Round 3: (18-9-2, 1 kill) Round 4: (22-10-0, 2 kills) Round 5: (56-16-3, 9 kills) Round 6: (8-7-1) [current round]
Nightstalkers Gain > Predatory teeth and claws > The supernatural ability to see in darkness > Tougher hide/flesh, giving them mild resillance to damage (not enough to really be worth higher average toughness, but enough that they can, say, walk over nasty turf without resorting to shoes like their human counterparts > Enhanced average strength > No need to eat or drink normally, freeing them from the struggle for survival -- they gain their nourishment from mana
The other side of the Bargain > Nightstalkers are driven by new "instincts" that tend to blot out rational thought including a drive to consume the flesh of sapeint mortals, and a distaste for society-level building (A nightstalker may opportunistically pick up and use a tool or weapon, or create a crude den to sleep in, but will not forge a sword nor build a house). Essentially governed by their Ids, they can refuse these crass demands, at least for a time... > The biological changes render human speech exceedingly difficult, bordering on impossible -- further severing any one that may come to know regret and overcome the first point from attempting to revolt. (of course, they hardly forget language... so they know what you're saying, and have surely developed their own language to communicate between themselves) > Their Souls? (Possibly -- it's unclear if they're soulless, their souls are "marked" for some neferious post-death purpose, or if the powers that created them simply wanted tools that would willingly spread pain and fear)
It's easy to see wny many pushed to the brink chose conversion. If one does not fear for the mind or the hereafter, Nightstalkers are much better equipped for survival in a crumbling world. at the same time, the Power offering the conversion, either a Demon or a Spirit aligned with darkness and decay, recieves an agent that, for the duration of its existance, will further the Power's general ends whothout any further investment of time or effort, as well as potentially a soul (and we all know those are spiffy to have if you're into black magic)
"Enjoy your screams, Sarpadia - they will soon be muffled beneath snow and ice." THE COALITION WAR GAME -Phyrexian Praetor Round 1: (4-1-2, 1 kill) Round 2: (16-8-2, 4 kills) Round 3: (18-9-2, 1 kill) Round 4: (22-10-0, 2 kills) Round 5: (56-16-3, 9 kills) Round 6: (8-7-1) [current round]
So, now I have to decide where to go from here. Larasa, Morgan, and their story need some work. I also have the big idea in my head to write stories for the Waning Age and Age of Darkness (Specifically the timeline events regarding the Princess of Efaruna and the Nightstalker taken lorekeeper). I could try to flesh out the Nightstalker entry. Specifically, my idea for "Spirits of Darkness" as opposed to demons (In fact, I think it was the Spirits that made the very first deals, even if demons got in on the business later)
For now, here's a Comparison: Years of Light Canon Events. Taking the "Present" to be 4605 AR and the guess of Year of Darkness 200 for Planedeath as accurate.
Year of Light 1 - According the the Lorekeepers, the first moment of remembered history or sentient thought on Taramir, and possibly the creation of the world. 1992 years before this, Nicol Bolas battled the Leviathan and created the first Rift in the process. Bolas is 5000 years older still (or about 7000 years older than Taramir is suspected to be) Year of Light 8170 - Yawgmoth is born, in what is the middle of the Age of Forests on Taramir. Year of Light ~11710 - Birth of Sorin Markov. Taramir's humans will rise from barbarism in the first few centuries of his life. Before he is so much as half a millenium old, they'll be shaping world events. Year of Light 13008 - Urza is born, during what is the Age of Heroes on Taramir Year of Light 13458 - The Ice Age begins on Dominaria. This is about the midway point of the Age of Heroes, perhaps on the early side. Elves slowly withdraw into their Forest Retreats. Year of Light 15942 - Freyalise's Worldspell breaks the Shard of Twelve Worlds and ends the Dominarian Ice Age. The first Vox Emperor Reigns. Year of Light 16293 - The Tolarian Academy is first founded. On Taramir, the Age of Empire is at its height Year of Light 17118 - Death of Feroz (and Serra?). Nightstalkers are noticed by the civilized peoples of Taramir Year of Light 17213 - Three years after the destruction of New Tolkas on Taramir, the Phyrexian Invasion of Dominaria occurs. Year of Light 17313 - Three years before the final campaign of Dorias, the "Scourge Event" occurs Year of Darkness 100 - The Mending. The Age of Darkness has settled down into the state it will remain in until Planedeath.
"Enjoy your screams, Sarpadia - they will soon be muffled beneath snow and ice." THE COALITION WAR GAME -Phyrexian Praetor Round 1: (4-1-2, 1 kill) Round 2: (16-8-2, 4 kills) Round 3: (18-9-2, 1 kill) Round 4: (22-10-0, 2 kills) Round 5: (56-16-3, 9 kills) Round 6: (8-7-1) [current round]
1) Figured out a title for Larasa & Morgan's story. the next version will be properly called Before the Dawn 2) Worked out an outline for the new opening of Before the Dawn 3) Created a general outline for two other Taramir stories
Upcoming, in no particular order:
1) Planeswalker's Guide to Taramir: Dark Powers. 2) Planeswalker Dossiers: Larasa Farleth and Morgan of Voor 3) Before the Dawn (ver. 1.2)
"Enjoy your screams, Sarpadia - they will soon be muffled beneath snow and ice." THE COALITION WAR GAME -Phyrexian Praetor Round 1: (4-1-2, 1 kill) Round 2: (16-8-2, 4 kills) Round 3: (18-9-2, 1 kill) Round 4: (22-10-0, 2 kills) Round 5: (56-16-3, 9 kills) Round 6: (8-7-1) [current round]
Rasilla is having a bad day today... That really tends to happen to anyone whose exploits are placed in sblocks, doesn't it?
(no title for this one yet -- I'm waffling between a few) Story Part 1Show
Rasilla sighed heavily and looked out the window to her left before remembering that the Sea of Rot was in sight that direction. At least inside the carriage, she could only barely smell the hideous decay. She drew the curtain over the window and looked to her right, where the crimson sun, its bright disk sporting dark lesions, was beginning to dip behind the Emerald Peaks. Dissatisfied with that vista as well, she looked straight ahead, at the handsome but sometimes grating lordling, Jericho, who was her escort for the time being.
“Are we there yet?” she groaned
“No, highness.” Jericho replied, exhausted, “We’re still quite far from Fort Beryl. I suspect it will take us most of the night to get there.”
Rasilla rolled her eyes.
“We wouldn’t be having this problem if they had just sent the skyship to the Fortress in the first place.”
“Well, highness,” Jericho said, “It is your family’s ship, and your parents agreed it wouldn’t be right for it to go on its maiden voyage without a member of your family aboard.”
Maiden voyage was an interesting way of putting it. New skyship or no, Rasilla wasn’t looking forward to meeting with every country noble’s half-wit son – which was the entire purpose of the journey.
“This whole trip is a farce anyway.” She said. “There are plenty of good matches in the Fortress itself, proper young men who would do anything for the future queen of Efaruna.”
Jericho swallowed. The only way Rasilla had ever managed to make him nervous was reminding him of his place in that number.
“H-highness.” He said, trying and failing to regain his composure, “I do not presume-“
Rasilla laughed.
“All I’m saying,” She said, “Is that if anyone wants my hand, he had better be prepared to go out of his way to get it. I’m sure you understand.”
Jericho’s face was bright red, and not just from the crimson sunlight. For a moment, Rasilla considered that she might be enjoying teasing him a little too much, but catching Jericho off guard was a monstrously hard thing to do and she intended to take a little more advantage before he recovered.
Before she could speak again, the carriage lurched to a sudden stop. Any harder, and Rasilla might have been thrown from her seat.
“What is the meaning of this?!” She shouted. “Driver!”
A moment of silence passed, and then, cacophony – a chorus of screaming and shouting from the outside. Rasilla turned to Jericho.
“I thought this road was supposed to be safe!”
Eyes now wide with fear, Jericho struggled to answer.
“I don’t know,” He said. “All the reports were that the Nightstalkers were massed west of the Fortress.”
Rasilla looked to the window. To the west of the carriage there was still only the land of Efaruna, the distant mountains, and the baleful red sunset. The picture was eerily calm and still as the sounds of battle reached a crescendo to the east.
Jericho must have seen it too. “We have to get out of here.” He said, “If we make a break for it, we should be able to get away while the guards still have whatever it is engaged.”
“What if the guards win?” Rasilla protested.
There was a ragged scream, and something hit the west-facing side of the carriage hard
“Point taken.” Rasilla said, and made for the door. Jericho stepped halfway in front of her, and threw the door open.
The stench of the Sea of Rot was strong and close, permeating the air all around Rasilla. She gritted her teeth and reminded herself that this was not a time to worry about minor discomfort.
Jericho climbed down from the carriage, and Rasilla followed. He drew his sword as one of the outriders came into view from around the front of the carriage, his clockwork steed diligently and fearlessly carrying the coward away from battle.
He had not gotten three feet past them when something shot out at the legs of the clockwork horse, fouling its gait and sending it toppling over. Rasilla almost bolted herself, but Jericho caught her shoulder.
“Wait.” He hissed, “We don’t know what we’re up against.”
A moment later, worms began to appear from the fighting, first one, then two more of the foul, bloated, maggot-like creatures, each at least a foot in diameter and four long. The fleeing soldier was still pinned under his steed when the worms descended on him and, without hesitation, began to feed.
“I’ll take my chances getting away from it.” Rasilla hissed.
Jericho nodded, and broke into a run, Rasilla as close behind as her skirts would allow.
One breath, no disaster. Two breaths. Three breaths. She was only seconds from a low ridge, somewhere to duck under, when she felt a sharp shock around her legs. Something hard struck her, bearing her to the ground. She heard a sickening crack, and screamed in pain
“Rasilla!” Jericho screamed.
Rasilla had a chance to look at the cause. It was a bolas, a human weapon, wrapped tight around her legs, one of which even she could tell was broken by the impact.
Jericho appeared beside her, and started to help her with the tangle
“Run!” Rasilla yelled. She didn’t know why; the last thing she wanted was to be left behind to become food for those hideous giant worms, but all she could think to do was tell him to run.
He hesitated. “Rasilla, I-“
“That’s an order!” she yelled, “Get out of here!”
Jericho ran, and Rasilla tried to struggle with her bonds. Don’t panic, she told herself. Unwind the cord rather than just pulling at it like an animal. She started, and stopped almost as quickly as the changing pressure brought new pain. Maybe if she could crawl out of sight…
She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and told herself yet again that panic wouldn’t help. As calm and centered as she could manage to be, she opened her eyes.
At once, she panicked, for one of the great white maggots was almost upon her, followed closely by a bulky man in ragged robes and a brightly colored cloth mask, carrying a red-tipped, gnarled wooden staff.
Rasilla tried to squirm backwards, but made almost no progress. The worm seemed to sniff at her foot for a moment, and then the man made a hissing noise and tapped it with his staff. Mercifully, the worm turned away from her, and with another few hisses and jabs of the staff at the air, began to crawl back to the wrecked wagon and carnage there. Unmercifully, the man walked to Rasilla’s side and , grabbing her arm, pulled her rudely to her feet.
There were another two men approaching, in garb as ragged as the worm-guide’s, but of different styles.
“Definitely her.” One of the new men croaked.
“A man got away.” The one holding her said, “I was out of bolas.”
“Bah,” The other, presumably the leader, said. “It’s probably for the best. Long as we have our prize!”
All three laughed, and the leader started back towards the wreck as the other two bore her along.
Rasilla wasn’t sure she wouldn’t have been better off as food for the worms.
"Enjoy your screams, Sarpadia - they will soon be muffled beneath snow and ice." THE COALITION WAR GAME -Phyrexian Praetor Round 1: (4-1-2, 1 kill) Round 2: (16-8-2, 4 kills) Round 3: (18-9-2, 1 kill) Round 4: (22-10-0, 2 kills) Round 5: (56-16-3, 9 kills) Round 6: (8-7-1) [current round]
: Add 
or 
to your mana pool)
to your mana pool)
to your mana pool)
to your mana pool)
, choose any number of permanents and/or players with counters on them, then remove a counter of your choice from each of them.