The Campaign Builder's Guild

[ic=Echoes]The woman lay serenely in the centre of the lawn.  Dew had collected on her gown and her ashen face, and though her throat had been neatly cut, she was smiling.

'I have seen this before.'

Eod frowned, furrowing his brow as if to recall some distant memory.  In the shadows at the clearing's edge, a morning-bird whistled softly.  He turned to his companion.

'In a past Age, a man '" a murderer.  Do you recall?'

Usant shook his head.  'If I was there the memory is faded.  What is it that echoes?'

'I'm not sure.  Just a whisper.  A remembrance in the smile upon her lips, the way the light is falling on her brow.  I think I know who it was who killed her.'

His companion followed him out onto the lawn, careful not to disturb the mushrooms that grew wild and untended around him.  The faint scent of spices lingered on her corpse, though he did not recognise the flavours.  'Do you remember his name?'

A sigh.  'I suppose I would with time, but we do not have that long.'  He glanced at the veranda behind him and the guards standing nervously by the door.  They probably thought they were suspected, and it did not help that they could not understand what he was saying.  'If he is like us, then there is little guessing what form he has achieved over the Ages.  For all I know, we could be standing upon him right now'¦

Usant arched his feet against the damp grass, and shuddered.  'Perish the thought.'  Such a thing had happened before, and the memory was not pleasant.  'I'd rather imagine he is a man.  A skilled murderer, but human all the same.  Regardless, we should be quick.  It won't be long before the household wonders where she has gone.'

Eod clasped the woman's hand.  It was still warm.  'Then contact the Clocktower '" see if we can delay the dawn.  If this is an echo, let us change its course before it plays out any further.'[/ic][ic=The Turning Wheel of Heaven]It is not in our nature to remember.  Time defies us.  It scours our thoughts and purges even the most recalcitrant of our desires.  The earth swallows us; the oceans rise and wash away the traces of our passing.  Even old age confounds us, wisdom corrupting and gnawing at itself like a maddened carrion bird.

That is our gift, the mercy offered us by the Heavens.[/ic]
Time is not as you know it.  The seconds are not arbitrary measures, but fleshless beasts that move in strange tides across the broad span of the Day, and breathe life '" or death '" into mortal hearts.  The Minutes fly above them as guides and taskmasters, and higher still are the Hours, twelve in all, who together define the Divisions of the Day.  In the shifting of Time's alliances, the suns rise and set; the snow lies heavy on the branches; the ocean swells toward the coaxing moon.  Sometimes, these alliances are broken.

The Colours are the kings of our desires.  They play across our vision, ruling our lives in silent secrecy whilst dwelling in plain sight.  They congregate in the rainbow's arch or Heaven's coiling aurora, and they speak with the voices of peasants and kings alike (though we often fear to listen).  We see them in every waking moment, and always they instil in us the longings that leave us corrupted or inspired.

There are many Gods.  They were mortal once, but eons upon the earth have changed their substance to better reflect their inner natures.  It is within every human's power to follow in the footsteps of such immortals and in so doing transcend the limits of the scheming Hours, who would ceaselessly break and remake all of Creation.  But even that is not the ultimate goal of the enlightened.

None know the nature of the Stars but the Stars themselves, but all count them among the most exalted beings.  It is said that we are all wrought of their essence and that in death we all inevitably return, but there are some who aspire to become one among their multitude number, a fount of creation from which the Infinite is born.

And then there are the Numen.  Only three have names, and these are not truly names as much as our total comprehension of their nature.  They are Irony, Agony and Transience, neither God nor Spirit nor Hour.  Their very existence is an act of defiance.

[ooc]The World is without beginning or end.  The twelve Hours, the unliving Divisions of the Day, rule the passing time and the shifting seasons.  With the end of every century they split the cosmos apart and reforge it anew, so that time is not a journey but an impotent cycle.  Kings bargain favours from the Keepers of Clocks, buying time or stealing it from their rivals, and the chiming of bells sounds the passing of the world's sovereignty into the hands of a new Lord of Time.

Their mastery is an illusion.  Always, things slip past the gaze of the proud kings, guided by prophets or the ghosts of forgotten worlds and released into the starry Infinite beyond the sky.

Every effort of control is surpassed by an act of liberation.

What does your life mean when the century's end brings the unmaking of a generation?  Are you any different from your antecedents, and what will become of those who follow?  What are you worth?

In quiet twilit streets the Coloured Priests whirl perfumed censers and call to the ghosts of air and vapour.  Immortal vagabonds wander the roads between the pale lights of civilisation, peddling secrets and songs of Transcendence.  Every human is heir to a bloodline and host to a dozen exultant spirits; those spirits cradle and guide us, and gnaw at our enemies' fortunes.  Every hundred years the World begins again, or so the sovereigns tell you, and thus are we eternal.

There are more stories in this place than could ever be spoken by the million tongues of the Green God.  Everyone has a secret miracle, though few are shared with one's neighbour, and every life tells a tale unrepeated through the infinite ages.  Magic suffuses all things, not as a quantified force, but as a numinous grace born of necessity.  It exists because it must; our hearts demand it, and we would wither and despair of its absence.

What does the Stone believe in?  The wind and waters that scour its skin, and the fire that burns its belly.  What do the Gods believe in?  Blood and spices given, and promises kept.  What do the Hours believe in?  Nothing.  For none can hurt them, and no-one can save them from themselves.

But what of man and woman?  

Nothing is certain, even for those who have lived a millennium and held conversations with gods.  We all hold to something, even our own nihilism, and it is these things '" more so than the earth, the stars or the chiming bell '" that define our World.  Often these things are respected in others, and there is an awkward peace, but when we war the Hours stand still, watching from their towers as we violate our brethren and split ourselves upon the rocks.

People die.  Accident, assassination, patricide'¦ killings of necessity or greed'¦ but no life is irrelevant, and no death is without consequence.  Blood is a silent witness to our crimes, and from the stars the Multitudes watch us, and we are judged.  All those who have ever died dream of us; they walk the same roads, beside us and yet a trillion lifetimes removed.  In their unnamed paradise they pray for wisdom in our actions, but we are shallow and thankless, committing the very same sins.  Is it any wonder that the World ends unrevenged?

Violence is its own reward.  Murder begets murder, and only the thirsting soil rejoices when the fields run red with blood.

You are an instrument, a vessel for those who are not yet born but who will surpass you.  You live only for your children's children, and survival is of the utmost.

No!  It is for our own births that we are born.  Not the first, fleshy genesis but the hundred births that follow!  We walk, then we fly, then we swim the darkness of Heaven's Waters.  Love and live in grace, and do not fear death for in Infinity no death is lasting!

Kill.  Feast.  Breathe.  Copulate.  The Hours have made your life irrelevant, and your sins, as echoes of the sins of your mothers, are truly no sins at all.

For those who break the Cycle, and live into a second age, the patterns of the past and the truth of the spirit's journey begin to reveal themselves.  Are we truly slaves to needless repetition?  Are the Gods really the masters of seasons?  What is the fate of those who outlive the world?

This setting can exist utterly without bloodshed, for the darkness of death and warfare is not counted among its themes.  There are so many things one might lose beyond one's fragile life that violence may never enter the equation.  People seek love, memories, forgiveness, joy, closure, parenthood, new horizons'¦ The World offers all these things, and for those who demand conflict, that is here as well.[/ooc][ic=The 'Duel']Suddenly this didn't seem like such a good idea.  The other man seized Chu, shook him, threw him to the earth.  A fist struck his side while pale lips spat bile and foreign phrases.  His knife was lost somewhere in the mud beneath the onlookers' feet, and though he could not understand the crowd's words he doubted they cheered for him.

He struggled, kicked, and rolled the older man over.  He swung blindly, striking his assailant's jaw.  The man coughed up blood, rainwater and his own tooth, then laughed and kneed Chu in the groin.  Only his fingers held firm, gripping the stranger's piss-soaked tunic as fell to his side and vomited something foul into the mire.

The stranger was still laughing as he rose shakily to his feet, brushing dirt and dung from his clothing.  Chest heaving, he spoke again, in words Chu almost understood, and collected the broken vase from the nearby gutter.

But the ghost had fled its vessel, its ashes mingling with the mud and rushing water.[/ic]
A Word of Caution:

This is not a terribly logical world.  A lot is left to the imagination, and numerous things typically explained in a setting will not be given explanations.  Is the world flat, round, square, or a Cosmic Mandela as the Hannuchegrem would have you believe?  Why does the Second Sun Chase the First across the sky, and are the Hours truly the pseudo-gods of Time's passing?  There are theories, myths and rumours, but oftentimes even the things I clearly state as canon should be taken with a grain of salt.  The reason for this is quite simple: the less you know for certain, the more you can accept as possible.  I will provide numerous options, and you can keep what resonates.

Ultimately, the amount you accept as true within the World will go to great lengths in determining how explicitly supernatural Glossolalia ends up being, but so long as you preserve much of its content as mythology it should not end up being any less fantastic.  After all, there is no rule stating that fantasy need have anything to do with magic, and Glossolalia is still filled with alien beasts, customs, philosophies and Heaven knows what else!

Also:
For those who have read my other settings, it is no coincidence that the Numen share names with other cosmic entities.  It's all connected, y'see?

[ooc]All comments are to be made in the Discussion Thread (http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?41820.last), and as always, enjoy.[/ooc]

[ic=Starfall]One legend calls the first sun a murderer.  When the two stars were young, they lived in the field at Gatton-Yun amid the red lilies that are the earth king's blood.  There was a third one, then, Yitteragi, and she was as bright as her sisters.  Every morning they would climb the dangling cord that fell from the Hook of the Heavens, and once at the top they would look out from their perch above the world.

It was a dangerous climb, but they made it every morning because the world was beautiful, illumined as it was by their virgin glow.  Every day they would search its face, and every day a new wonder was revealed before them.

One day Yitteragi looked out past the fields of Gatton-Yun, past the mountains of the Starving God and the endless cities of Tomorrow's Kingdom.  She looked to the very limit of her own vision, where the faintest limning of darkness gnawed at the edge of the world.  'What lies beyond our own bright kingdoms?' she asked.

'You can never know,' said her Second Sister, 'For we cannot see beyond our own brightness.'

But Yitteragi's curiosity was not abated, and with time it consumed her '˜til she thought of nothing else.  At last, when she could stand it no more, she hid away amid the red lilies and cut out the thing in her that makes stars bright.

When next morning came, and the sisters met at the cord that falls from Heaven, Yitteragi could not be found.  For days they searched the length and breadth of Gatton-Yun, but could not find her.  At last they gave up their search and ascended once more to the heavens.

Many years later Yitteragi returned to Gatton-Yun, where the First sister slept amid the lilies which had faded for want of the third sister's glow.  She shone with lights the First had never seen, and her eyes were filled with strange wisdom.  The First Sister was terrified and, not recognising her sibling, cut Yitteragi down, so that all the new lights broke apart and danced across the world.

Only then did she see what she had done, and in her horror she fled the field of red lilies, out over the bridge of sleeping stars.  Soon after the Second sister came upon the lightless body of Yitteragi, and saw her sister's bloody knife on the grass beside her.

The Second Sun thinks the First a murderer, and hunts her furiously across the heavens.
[/ic][ooc][/ooc]

[ic=I]'Mattau find you.  Mattau thank you.'  The little man taunts Supur from the rocks.  The sun has baked him red and washed the colour from his rags.  He does a clumsy dance and sings in his foreign tongue, while in the valley beneath him the soldier selects a rock to strike him with.

'Keep singing, you old bastard.  I'll dash your brains out.'

'No you won't,' says Karub, and adjusts his hat.  'Do that and we're damned for sure.'

'We already are.  Look at that bloody wizard.  He knows we're done.'  Patu drags on his reed pipe.  'We should do him good and fast before he spins one over us.'

'Don't encourage him.'  Laus unfastens the rope from his belt and hands it to Supur.  'Get up there and tie him up.  We'll stuff a rag in him.'

While Supur climbs the rocks Laus looks up at the mountains on the horizon, where the First Sun reclines in the depression between two peaks.  A parade of pale, tree-spotted mesas fills the expanse before him, and their slanting faces are like the crests of waves cast out by the burning disc's immersion in a sea of stone.

He is sure his quarry came this way.  She is somewhere amid the Falling Hills now, sleeping in the shade of the mesas.  Waiting.

I will kill you.

He'll have to.  Too much depends on this, and it is no longer enough to take back what she stole from him.

'Sir,' calls Supur.  He has tied the wizard to a tree and stuffed his mouth full of leaves.

'That's no good.  We can't take the tree with us.'
In Karub's nightmare the bird has grown large and obscene.  Its feathers crawl with ants and its white eyes bulge like mushrooms.  No, no, he keeps saying and it wriggles its beak when he speaks as though damning him through pantomime.  He reaches for his spear, but his hands are a child's and cannot lift it.  The bird blunders forward through the undergrowth, unseeing but sure in its advance, and its silence consumes him.
When he wakes, the wizard is staring at him, and his faded eyes are much like the bird's.  He is grinning.

'What in the hells are you smiling at, segan?'  The old man starts muttering gibberish again.  Someone has removed his gag.

Karub picks up his spear and moves towards him, then pauses when he realises he has slept through his watch.

'Your '" your words won't work on me.  You're a dead man as soon as we find that bitch.  We'll kill you both, you hear me?  Kill you both and scatter your meat for the wyve to feed.'

The wizard turns his head and stares at him from one eye like a crow.  'No, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, I didn't want to hurt you but they made me.'  His voice is disgustingly familiar.  'I didn't mean it.  I didn't mean it.  I didn't mean it.'

Karub steps back and holds the spear before him in warding.  'You're a dead man.  Soon.'
The heat is intolerable.  The three soldiers stand in the shade while Patu works at the bowl-tree with his pick.  'Can you work any slower?' says Supur.

'Yes I bloody can!  Shall I?' Patu's glare is sharper than the sun.

'Just do the job.'  Laus is cooling himself with his fan.  It is decorated with waterfalls, a sight he sorely misses.  There was a time when this place was drowned with water, or so the songs say, but he can hardly fathom this dry vastness as anything but hot and empty.

Patu strikes the tree a few more times, then Supur helps him pull away a section of its flesh.  It is filled with dark jelly, which tastes like sweat but fills the belly with a welcome cool.  Some of it spills out onto the dusty ground, and the birds gathered on the cliffs above go mad at the sight and smell of it.

The men eat well, and lounge happily in the shade through the worst of the afternoon.
The wizard is laughing like a man whose sense has fled.  He is laughing because Karub is about to die, though Karub does not know it.  Supur jerks the wizard this way and that by the cord that is tied around his waist.

'Why don't we gag him again?'

'We can't gag him.  You've seen it.  It will simply fall out.'

'Then let's cut out his tongue,' says Karub.  He reaches for his knife as he speaks.

'We need his tongue.  Don't worry; he can't work sorcery without his scrolls.'

The laughter ends abruptly and the old man stares at them, defiant.  'Can I not?  I kill you easy.'  He closes his eyes as if relishing a private fantasy.  'Or... make you kill each other.'

Supur kicks the wizard to the ground, and he cries out.  Moments later, another cry echoes from behind the hill.  It is hollow and quavering, no human thing.  The wizard does not move.

'What is that, Patu?' says Laus.

'I've never heard it before.'  There is dread in his voice.

The cry comes again and the birds scream and fly from their nests in their thousands, denying all other sound.  The men shout muted phrases at each other and run for the shelter of nearby outcrops as the tremulous horde of flapping creatures swarms, collides and begins to peck itself apart, disgorging its murdered numbers on the desert floor.

They watch as the flock destroys itself.  White feathers stained red and sometimes black fill the valley, concealing all trace of bare stone.  At last there is silence.

'Where...' Laus begins.  It is difficult, recalling speech.  The sight has sucked the memory of words from him.  'Where is the old man?'

'I see him,' says Patu.  'He's where he fell.'

'Supur?'

'Present, sir.  What the hell just happened?'

Laus ignores him.  'Karub?'

Patu frowns.  An absurd, ugly thought has seized him.  'Well... there's his hat.'
'They ate him?'  Supur is incredulous.  He cannot comprehend it well enough to be enraged.  'Just pecked him apart, like the Chaduhhangi?'

'No.'  Patu squints through the noon brightness at the wizard who is once again tied to a tree.  He is not speaking, which is no surprise as his mouth is utterly dry.  They are contemplating whether or not to leave him here to die.  'At least, I don't think so.  I saw something else there, though I'm not sure what...'

'Something?  A man?  An animal?'

'I said I don't know.  But I am sure it was there.'  With difficulty he swallows another mouthful of jelly, which has grown thick and gross in the heat.

Supur does not believe him at all.  The wizard has of course profaned his mind.  Supur will have to kill him before he cuts their throats while they sleep.
Laus has gone to watch the First Sun set from a nearby hilltop.  The afternoon is dull and stupefyingly hot, and the sun's ruddy glow paints the rolling mesas as low, creeping silhouettes.  He is sure he can feel her questing mind, the strained whisper of her contempt made manifest on the wind.

Where are you?

I will not tell you.

Damn you.  Give it back and I'll leave you be.

You will kill me.

'You deserve to die,' he says aloud.  'I should be the one who kills you.'

I will not die.

He searches for another thought.  A final gesture, if not of his affection then of his hatred.

I have your friend.  I will kill him if not you.

You would not.  You are a good man.

Laus laughs, a strange sound in this emptiness.  'I will tear out his tongue and you can watch him drown in his own blood.'

There is a long and terrible silence.

You are a coward, Laus-us-Anum.  I will give you nothing.
'Shut up, old man, shut-up-shut-up-shut-up.'  Supur is standing over the wizard, grasping his soiled lapel with peeling fists.  His chest rises and falls without rhythm, and his chin is flecked with spittle.  Patu is off relieving himself behind a rock, and curses himself for his awful timing.

'Clever crime and you hide well.  Mattau pleased.  You his favourite kind of monster.  And when you get back.  You know what you find?  Mattau clean up your mess.  Your shame dies on the pyre.'  The old man is half blind.  His ruined throat can hardly shape the words, and they come out as a blood-flecked dribble.

'That's a damned lie-'

'Supur, stow it.' Laus comes down the hillside, more weary than before.  'He's locqui.  You can't best him with words.'

His sword gleams a dark and foretelling red in the light of the setting suns.  Its point rests against the old man's throat.

'As for you, wordsmith.  My sister sends her dearest regards.'
[/ic]