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0ptemash · 1 year

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Nations and more context Part 1

So I noticed in my last post I made mention of a lot of nations being wrecked by the Reawakening. This probably wouldn’t have a lot of meaning to people since they don’t have a visualisation of the nations in question. So I thought it would be a good idea to provide more context on them. I won’t go too in-depth with each, just a little overview that gives you an idea of their character. Please keep in mind that some are more polished than others, and each will probably get their own seperate posts that goes into more detail later on. Each entry won’t be very structured either. It’ll just be what I think is the most relevant information, and condensing it. I’ll provide a photo of my map with the nation in question circles in red so you get an idea of where exactly they’re located.

I’ve been feeling a bit tired/unmotivated lately, so this will only cover three of the nations, hence the part 1.

Shackled Kingdom

Located in the far south, many consider the Shackled Kingdom to be a savage nation, loosely ruled by a single individual known as an Unchained. The region is not for the faint of heart. Its inhabitants, the Li'nki, constantly hold gladiatorial matches against each other and numerous beasts of the desert, in order to “attune” themselves in an attempt to become an Unchained.

The Shackled Kingdom was once a lawless land, with individual clans of the Li'nki fighting amongst one another, over the harsh desert. That was until the time of Recerix, Breaker of Chains. Recerix claimed to have had a vision of Tiamat, a mighty god of the desert. Depicted in this dream, was an event taking place thousands of years ago, in which Tiamat issued a challenge to the proud Li'nki, to break free of their weaknesses and bonds, their "chains" as many devouts would go on to phrase it, and reach a state of purity, become "Unchained". Arrogantly, the Li'nki attempted to overcome this challenge, but were unable to meet it, falling to despair and ruin, they disjoined from each other into smaller clans.

Recerix sought to reunify the split tribes of his people. He believed in order to do this; he must meet Tiamat's challenge. First, Recerix killed his family, and severed any ties with his tribe and allies, believing them to be needless bonds. He banished himself to the desert, where he dwelled upon his many past sins and regrets, bared them before the might of the desert sun, until he believed he was absolved of them, through the sun burning them away. After ten years in that desert, he no longer was plagued by fatigue, hunger, or thirst, and no heat could scold him. He had become the legendary Unchained of legend. Then, he believed that there was only one thing for him to do. Slay Tiamat.

He searched the many dunes of his homeland for three years, before finding what he presumed to be the deity, a giant adult Gilannt, in the Blistering Rocks, seemingly awaiting his arrival. Armed with only a blade of sharpened bone, he fought the creature in a great battle, ended by him piercing the Gilannts heart, ending the beast's life. Though Recerix believed that his life's goals had been achieved, he soon saw the folly in this. The divine quest had been offered to his people as a whole, not just one individual to represent them. All the Li'nki must reach his state of being. So, he spread the tale of his exploits, of his newly acquired status, and of Tiamat's challenge, inspiring the people to meet it as he did. Recerix helped construct the Iron Arena from the skull of Tiamat, as he believed that through battle could one burn away most, if not all, of their bonds, their chains. His final act would be the construction of The Marrow, the top of which would be reserved for any future Unchained, and their attendants. The Li'nki had finally been unified, becoming the Shackled Kingdom, but their struggles were far from over.

Since then, the Li'nki have fought against one another in savage gladiatorial battles, in order to purify themselves and wash away any weaknesses. Many have used the Shackled Kingdoms arena as a breeding ground for warriors of their own, or simply captured Li'nki to serve in their army. But still it remains unconquerable, its people too fierce to be overcome, too preoccupied with finishing the quest started by Recerix.

Keraphaos

Keraphaos is a great expanse of jungles, forests and scrublands, similar to the ones in the Untamed Reaches, which makes it a popular spot to travel to, due to visitors witnessing exotic life without much risk of harm. It is inhabited by the Skerioph, a peaceful race, concerned only with the documentation of Karvouns fauna, history and cultures.

After the Skerioph uncovered the lands above their underwater home, they argued with one another that such beauty must be kept alive, even if only in records. So they branched off from their landfall, the country that later become known as Keraphaos, and began to document the wondrous flora and fauna around them. Keraphaos wasn’t originally known as such by the Skerioph. They simply labelled the entirety of Karvoun, Keraphaos. In the beginning, Keraphaos acted as a hub for most of the Skeriophs' giant archives, almost as large as cities. These archives would be known as Tome Keeps, or simply Keeps. Their largest Keep, known as the Arch-Keep, was the first of these great constructs to be built.

It is widely believed that the Skerioph have been to nearly every part of Karvoun, and explored it as early as 15,400 B.R.

After the slow but steady progress made by humans on constructing basic societies, they became more than just another file in the Skerioph’s archives. They offered their assistance to humans, in the form of their vast reservoirs of natural knowledge. Most, like Draconia and Galandium , refused this aid out of the pure pride of their leaders at the time. Areasl however were a different matter. They willingly and readily accepted the Skeriophs aid. Though it wasn’t so much their knowledge on flora and fauna they desired, but their knowledge in advanced technologies. The Skerioph readily assisted them, pleased to promote the growth of a species with such potential. This assistance in technologies and sciences would cause Areasl to take a more pragmatic turn culturally, causing religion to take a great decline, and lay the catalyst for Galandiums cutting off from them.

It was only during the Three Nations War, that the Skerioph established borders around as large area as they could manage, which essentially protected their Keeps from the brunt of the war. This was since the nations participating in the war, Areasl, Draconia, wished to maintain Keraphaos for their own goals. And Galandium was concerned that by invading Keraphaos, they would provoke a combined attack by both Areasl and Draconia.

However, Galandium would eventually invade Keraphaos, sometime after the wars end. Galandiums leader at the time, Balor, was tired of his nations gradually fading superiority, and wished to investigate the Keraphaos’s Keeps in search of answers for his dilemma. They barred him entry into their nation of course, as they were at the time debating wether they wrong about the humans potential. Balor, unwell in the mind, entered the nation by force, and burnt down the Arch-Keep in a mad frenzy, in Ana event that would later be known among the Skerioph as the Desecration.

A few decades after the Desecration, a large, possibly sentient automaton, known as Phyphear, would call the ruins of the Arch-Keep home, and is currently in the process of repairing it and repopulating its shelves with both ordinary human books and Skerioph records.

Jeraspunt

Once located on its eastern coast, but due to the Reawakening it has broke off and has gradually drifted into the Glacier Sea.

Jeraspunt had always been the victim of subzero temperatures and scarce resources, causing it to be dependent on the generosity of neighbouring nations. This situation has worsened after the Reawakening. The air has become more freezing than before, due to the cold climate of the Glacier Sea, and blizzards are more virulent and frequent. Now that they have been separated from other Nations, their people have grown to be more independent and crafty, hunting creatures they never would have before due to their lethality and relatively low amount of meat.

Before the Reawakening, Jeraspunt’s early history was dominated by them invading other countries, in particular Areasl and Galandim, using advanced longboats, and a drug made from a rare arctic flower that, when ingested, enables an individual to be sustained for weeks without needing food or drink. This was of course due to their lack of proper resources, or rather, the difficulty involved in acquiring them. After a century or two, they realised it was far easier to form alliances and friendships with these Nations to get supplies from them, rather than sacrificing hundreds of their people for small amounts of food that would last for a month at best.

Jeraspunt has always been ruled by a single Empress. Such a leader is decided upon based on their supposed magical prowess, specifically in their ability to communicate with creatures via a form of telepathy. Spuntians claim this is so the Empress can communicate with a diabolical dragon, imprisoned in a gigantic structure of ice, and ensure it remains dormant. Though such a structure does exist in Jeraspunt, there are little to no records of such a beast residing in the formation. Nonetheless, a fortress taking the form of a wall or barrier as long as this structure is large, was built around it centuries ago, and even today remains manned.

#lore #Karvoun #worldbuilding #personal project #work in progress

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0ptemash · 1 year

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Crimson Oath

The following is probably the longest I’ve ever written for a single project. Its titled as a chapter 1 but I’m not sure if I’ll ever do more. I’m not even sure if I’ll tie this in to the world I’ve been working on. But, yeah enjoy. Just a forewarning that it can get a bit slow in some places, over descriptive and such. There is also mention of self harm, so if you feel like that will trigger you, then don’t read. I’m also open to critique, I always want to improve. So if you have anything to offer that would be nice as well.

Chapter I

The Oath.

The moon blazed a bright vermillion against the cerulean blackness of night's encompassing sheet, casting long and dark shadows against the emaciated figures of sickly leafless trees, with exposed gangrenous roots soaked in pools of a putrid viridescence that could just barely be classified as water. Despite that fact, Rose still drank it, with grimaces and many curdlings of her tongue. Her throat almost burst from such a vile and burning liquid. But she needed to stay alive, just a bit longer. So, like on many occasions before this, she punched her petite fist into the dry and barren earth, slapped her malnourished checks with hand as equally unprovided for, in a great effort not to regurgitate her last chance at survival. How odd, Rose thought. She thought she would’ve grown accustomed to the taste by now. Rose's throat still felt dry, but she had no doubts that her body was hydrated at least minutely, no matter what she felt.

Unfortunately she didn’t have a container of any kind to store the foul drink, so Rose relied on the chance of finding another repugnant pool, which seemed to be plentiful in the wasteland she had been exiled to. They were dotted erratically across the barren landscape in chasm-like holes as though they had been summoned by a blight summoning meteor shower.

Rose felt like collapsing right there, her eyelids dropped and drowsed like they were being weighed down with stones and cattails. She couldn’t remember the last time she slept. Her shoulders ached just with the simple act of keeping her head aloft, and her blistered barred feet had no feeling left in them at all, besides a sensation of liquidity and slickness, made worse by the oozing protuberances along them, a mix of infectious yellow and dark red. But her recent drink had kept alive that single spark within her which beat faintly and halfheartedly. A spark which told her that she must keep going, no matter the pain. A spark which honeyed her mind with promises of redemption. Sometimes the spark took on the form of a voice, sweet as the sweetest fruits-a food from a past too distant to even begin to imagine-and kind as the parents she should’ve had. It whispered all sorts of encouraging words, telling Rose to pull herself together, too be strong, to walk just a little bit longer. That if she did, her troubles would be over, and her betrayers slain. More often than not it was just a strong feeling that sent small waves of energy through her stick thin frame, an instinct of sorts.

Both were the only reason she didn’t just drop dead then.

Stopping only to get down the last of that mimicry of water, she continued on her seemingly endless path, with only a vague goal in mind. Sometimes it was hard to see with the moon's scarlet rays shining in her face, but her eyes adjusted to it easily enough. Nothing could’ve compared to when she had to travel under the sun. Most of her welts came from the blistering dirt that was heated by the scorching sun, and her eyes had almost been burnt out from the strain of its stunning glare. Luckily, summer was over, and the Eclipse had begun its quarter of a year reign of darkness.

As she dragged her body across grey sandy flats, a crow flew from its cloistered perch, an obsidian feathered demon that cawed hoarsely, and flapped menacingly in the direction Rose meant to travel in. In her dazed and confused condition, she took it as a sign of good fortune, and was drawn to its ominous magnificence, forgetting its tendency to be a follower of death. Its wings glowed a mixture of incarnadine and verdant brilliance, reflecting off the radiances of both the moon and the green pools.

Trailing it, and actually gaining a little speed, or at least it was quick in comparison to her usual lumberings, Rose found her heart beginning to beat faster than it ever had in what seemed like aeons, both from the sudden increase in physical exercise and a sort of primitive excitement. An excitement that was sharpened by the spark in her suddenly grew louder and clearer as she advanced closer to the crow.

Time had no meaning to her, in that realm of surface timelessness. The moon was always hanging eerily from the sky, the black bird always soaring beside it, just short of reaching no matter how far she caught up to it, and every decaying tree, every rock, every dilapidated pool, all resembled one another, blending into a single scene of ruin, that played over and over every few minutes. No doubt she stalked it for days, stopping only for a hasty drink of that repulsive water.

She remembered following a crow once, when she was younger. Such a distant memory. It had ended with her going beyond the borders of her village, deep into the woods. There she had seen something, someone. A ritual of sorts. There was a circle of robed figures, all women, and they surrounded another, but they were as bare as when they were born. The individual in the middle of the circle began to cut their chest with a serrated blade. That sight nearly made her regurgitate her insides, but at the same time, she was mesmerised by such a view. All that blood. Staining the grass around them, so much of it.

Then one of the robed figures shouted in her direction, and Rose remembered running. Such a distant memory.

Eventually, after a seeming millenia of chasing, of infinite treadings of a pungent smelling and desolate turning wheel, the crow stopped, reperching itself upon a thinly barked charred tree, with expansive branches that clawed the carmine sky like pleading and hungry hands. Its surface was so black, it appeared as though it had been struck by an otherworldly lightning. The tree was rooted in a solid islet of sorts, surrounded by a sinister appearing moat of the water she had been forced to ingest. Though this pool had a more cyanic sheen, causing it to almost glow an eldritch scintillation in the shadowed night.

Or maybe it really did glow.

To others, it might’ve seemed like nothing, just another dying tree in that lifeless habitat. Just another polluted stream.

But Rose was not like others, she never had been. This is what those tortuous hours of starvation, of thirst, of fatigue beyond what a normal human should’ve been able to withstand, had brought her. What that spark had promised her. Salvation.

Abruptly the crow began to convulse madly, making Rose jump back, almost to the ground. The bird's head snapped wildly this way and that, its wings contorting against an unknown force. Eventually its demonic seizures culminated in it finally diving into the lake surrounding the scorched tree in a deranged flight. Even as it drowned in the moat, it gave out a few fruitless flurries. Unexpectedly, in its final moments, it began to sizzle, its flesh and feathers peeling and melting, exposing veiny flesh scarlet and raw.

Just as she was attempting to decipher what had occurred, the ends of each branch attached to the scarred tree were set ablaze instantaneously and with near deafening cracklings. The flames burned an energetic vermillion, akin to the moon's illumination. From the lake, rose another flame, smouldering with an unholy twist of azure and cerise intensity, which, unbelievably, was almost brighter than the moon or the sun itself. Her eyes, which had lost sight of the meaning of rest, very nearly fractured from such a vivid image. It climbed higher and higher, reaching the top of the burnt trunk, eclipsing the moon as it reached the end of its ascension, hanging in the night air maliciously, like a drawn dagger that paused in mid stroke.

Time seemed to freeze as it hung there. Rose at that point had fallen to the ground on her knees, which were so dirt ridden they almost blended in with the soil beneath her, and her eyes had almost escaped their sockets.

And then time restarted as abruptly as it stopped, the flame bursting in a blinding explosion, which knocked Rose to the ground.

Her ears ringed like the gongs from home that announced both mealtime and religious ceremonies. Those gongs kept banging and banging, conjuring images from her past she wished stayed beneath the ground of her mind. Images of her bending before a golden statue, of a zealous priest giving lectures on an abstract topic to do with the spirit. Memories of her, after a time, rejecting such dubious ideals, of her-

No! Avaunt! That was not important now! She needed to focus on living, so Rose could deal with those images later.

“Or perhaps sooner,”

Rose's heart and mind stopped. Childlike fear flooded her from toes to head. Cautiously, she rose.

“Don’t be afraid,”

The whispering voice was soft and soothing, but still managed to send shivers down her spine. And it came from an impossible sight. Or perhaps, what others would think impossible. Before her, a tall and imposing figure of pure ebon towered over her, dwarfing even the tree that it stood in front of. The figure was so large and smothering that not even the moon could shine through its ethereal form. Its frame mostly resembled a human, but adorning its crown were two large and twisting horns.

Now she wondered if she was in Hell. If the creature that stood before her was the Devil.

“You aren’t wrong, exactly,”

Her heart began to race again, to impossible speeds. Eternal damnation. But the spark…she had trusted it, like a guardian angel.

“Oh, you poor wretch. This isn’t hell, far from it. But I am akin to what you mortals call “The Devil,”.

The whisperings which managed to echo despite their tone and volume, struck a chord within her. A chord of familiarity. Now she realised the voice resembled that of the spark which had been guiding her.

“Yes. I didn’t think you could find this place all on your own. Your former fellow townspeople didn’t offer any aid in the way of guidance,”

How does it know my thoughts? My, my past?

Rose tried to ask these questions aloud, but only a pitiful croak was emitted, which made the strings of her crippled throat twinge in despair.

“Shhh. Don’t even try to understand things. Not yet anyway. You need only know that I am what you have been seeking out. I am the conduit through which you can gain revenge on those that shunned you,”

Rose felt more comfortable now. This figure was a friend. The entity the forbidden scriptures she had read made mention of.

How? Please, I beg you. How? I would do anything for you. My life belongs to you.

“I will give you certain…abilities that can, to those you hate, rend flesh from bone, melt skin like wax, summon the incorporeal to do your bidding. You need only give your soul to me,”

Yes, anything for you. Please, tell me how?

“Walk. Walk into the pool, with nothing but yourself,”

Rose hesitated for only a split second. She had nothing left to lose. Urgently, she banished the image of the melting crow from her mind before it could perturb her.

She removed the dusty brown, and a hundred times a hundred torn rags from her shrivelled deathly pale body, fully exposing her broken physique to the cruel environment before her. Oddly, it was only now that she noticed the harsh coldness around her. Paradoxically, the freezing air made her sweat profusely.

The horned figure-Korul it was called, if those tomes the local priest had vilified her for were to be believed-shrunk into a small sphere of shadow, and moved aside. The pool awaited her. It bubbled and gurgled as though it could sense her resistance. No! She could not disobey. Rose needed this. This last chance.

Inch by painful inch, she walked. Each frail step, she offered affirmations to her mind, in order to assure her body would not betray her.

Keep going. There’s nothing to lose here. Keep going. You are doing the right thing.

She was at the very edge now. A piece of the precipice broke off and fell into the cerulean pool, causing a great sizzle to barrage Rose's ears. It was what made her stop there. What if this was a trick. What if this was just a mirage, conjured by her decaying state. She could just turn away, go

back home. Say sorry for all the things she had done, such things that were deemed unholy. Her studies into the occult, in rejecting the town's god, in criticising the clergy's archaic ideals. She could say sorry for them all, and agree with the high priest that she was a “bad girl”. She can do better.

The voice, Korul, spoke, somehow lower than it had before.

“You know you can’t do that,”

Rose edged away from the cliff edge…and jumped.

Agony beyond description flooded her as much as the boiling water did. She screamed hoarse croaks, eerily mimicking the crows' mad plunge not too long ago. Her skin was scorched and re-scorched infinitely, raw flesh crackling, and bones warping. Her mouth was a pit of furious stinging scorpions, filled to the brim with that accursed water. Rose thought she was going to rupture from how much liquid invaded her. She should’ve drowned immediately, her brain should’ve been fried instantly. But they weren't. Her anguish continued on for hours that felt like years. By the end of it, her interior felt like it had been drenched in lava, and left to dry out in the sun for centuries.

As Rose crawled out of that sorrowful moat, she felt…changed. Felt, stronger, purer. But her skin still throbbed with burns that should’ve killed her.

A chilly gust blew, causing her to wince and cover her bare skin with her arms. She could feel the wind more intimately now, able to predict where it had come from, what it meant, what it carried, what it could lead her to. But at present this supernatural sense was more of a curse than a blessing. Another gale went through her, ripping her flesh anew, and making her notice that there was really no skin covering that raw flesh, only a clever covering that cloned the resemblance of mortal appearances. And it felt so…cold.

“Yes. Excellent. Not many of your kind have survived that. Though it, admittedly, can have regrettable side effects,”.

Rose didn’t care. Anything for you.

“You need only pay one more price,”

A knife, seemingly made of the same otherworldly black material as Korul materialised before her. She knew what she had to do.

Taking the hilt, Rose plunged the blade into her chest. All of the breath in her body seemed to abandon her, and her blood rushed in response to her self assault. Gradually she cut around her heart, each wrench rending her soul further, drenching it in her own sanguine life force. Soon there was a hole in her chest, and her heart was in her crimson soaked hands. Approaching Korul, somewhat unsteadily, she presented her offering.

“You are now sworn to me, Rose Adele. Your destiny awaits,”

Yes. They would suffer.

The moon blazed a bright vermillion, and Rose glided confidently on the shadows cast against emaciated trees, with eyes that burned a similar pigmentation.

#Chapter 1 #short stories #karvoun #work in progress #fantasy #horror #kindve of horror

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