Hounds under the Midday Sun

[SA]

[ooc]Welcome to Hounds under the Midday Sun, my new setting for the Iron Heroes ruleset, where everyoneâ,¬,,¢s out to put a knife in everybody else, even the damsels, and drug cartels go hand in hand with insane cultists while mighty kings kowtow to seedy bourgeoisie.  Old Yawd quarrels with the other Gods for dominion over our souls, but people have more pressing concerns than blind adherance to dogma (chief among them propagation and bloodshed) If that wasn't enough, the ones to save the day all wanna get payed for their efforts!  Oh, whatâ,¬,,¢s that?  You wish to know more?  Iâ,¬,,¢m flattered.  Read on, but remember to post comments in the Discussion Thread, or your life is forfeit.[/ooc]
[ic=Apogee]Tread with featherâ,¬,,¢d foot, for you walk the road of Gods, but also of heretics, and the way betwixt is wary.

-Chronicles of Yawm, Seimm 1:1

I remember when my daughter was born, and my wife, done with all her laboured howling, clasped the babe in her arms and cried joyous tears, and I cried too.  My brother came, with his wife and their sons, and mother, and the others.  And all the kin rejoiced for Yawdâ,¬,,¢s glorious blessing.  But for all that, we new the coming chill of Windt would all of likely take her soon away.  We prayed for the mercy of Fryst, but unabated came the White, and so I went to Yerod, humble as a pohlit should, beseeching of his kingliness a little warmth to stay the whisper of the Windtfil.  Such kindness, alas, seemed not a convent of his, and for my trouble I was taken before the people and flayed such that my flesh was scattered â,¬Ëbout the square.  Would that were the end of trouble, but nay, for then by kingly cree I was opened at mid, my ins drawn out and shown before the crowd.  Strange, that it did not kill me.

Stranger still, that she survived the frost.

-Selsmit, a deadman

â,¬Â¦Bellow of beast and clarionâ,¬,,¢s call
Clept twain the dulcet melodie of noone
And the horde marched forth
Grues and ghasts in feral clamour
Wendigs flitting in ethereal hawnt
Oâ,¬,,¢er stones runed and hallowes markâ,¬,,¢d
Trommid and fylg armoured all of black
Came steadie at the side

â,¬ËTil descending out of clowde
There came in glimmerâ,¬,,¢d â,¬Ëbaster garb
A knightlie figure in pinionâ,¬,,¢d helm
Aegis grav'd and pauldron â,¬Ëbossed
The signe of Aesarâ,¬,,¢s exaltation
Markâ,¬,,¢d upon his browe
The gleam of bloody battel
In his eyes

And with blade of temperâ,¬,,¢d cobalt
He came uponst the horrid horde
Three strikes and twelve was all it took
And all the fiends in ichorâ,¬,,¢d font
Fell bloodied to the ground.

Excerpt from the Epic of Hyordill

You have damâ,¬,,¢d us all!  Whores, hounds, thieves, charlatans, bastards, blackguards, gamblers and gentiles.  All fallâ,¬,,¢n before the grace of Immortal Yawd.  Your stink fills the gutters and clots the skies, pollutes the very air.  No word can be spoken from your mouthes that does not reek of a thousand corruptions palpable; no babe can be brought forth but to quaff your taint.  Loddoss and Brasch, Belmarrag and Gwem, these lords and masters of your iniquity, all will be purged, as will you, niggardly chattel!  Repentance is long past.  There is only bloode!

Bulsassir, militant anti-Loddist

Get the fuck off my street, you prophesy-peddling loon.

Ludritt, professional anarchist

[/ic]

[SA]

[ic=Blood Money]â,¬Â¦As dayâ,¬,,¢s flame strikes the apogee, forward go the Dogs of War, to battel and to glory.

Final stanza of Ermillerâ,¬,,¢s[/i] Sellsword

[/ic]

[SA]

[ic=Ruminations]Perhaps Grigori was the last.

Perhaps these hounds with swords aloft are but his bitter shadows.[/ic]

Hounds under the Midday Sun
(In a World after Valourâ,¬,,¢s Fall)

[ic]How best to describe itâ,¬Â¦

I suppose itâ,¬,,¢s what happens when courage triumphs.  When the heroes go galloping to victory and with great sacrifice comes the felling of the blight.  You see, there are always heroes â,¬' rather, there are always men with swords and the wherewithal to use them.  Problem is, there arenâ,¬,,¢t always villains.  We proved that when the Grey Empire fell, when prince Grigori came upon the Dread Lord with his blade of eldritch wonder.  The villain died then, sure, and did not come back.  Were we to take stock in fairy tales (as we, in our naiveté, did) we would have expected nothing but joy in his passing.

But a hero needs a foe â,¬' one of evident evil, whose darkness brings out the light in his counterpart.  Without that, without tyranny, theyâ,¬,,¢re just men with swords.  Powerful men, yes; men who can with but a flourish turn the tide of any battle; but men all the same, with no more morals than any other â,¬' indeed, often less.

Grigori, for his valour, was made king, but the politics which conspired to his crowning were the very politics that conspired to his impotence.  Pretentious lords, under the pretence of securing the wellbeing of the nation, stripped him of all authority, rendering him figurehead, and nothing more.  Ã¢,¬Å"In fear of regalityâ,¬,,¢s greed,â,¬Â they said, â,¬Å"do we deny the right of kings.â,¬Â  And thus, for all his sacrifice, he was debased, and oligarchy reigned.

But as I have said, the â,¬Å"heroesâ,¬Â remained, and without a villain there was no lack of bloodshed.  Rather, these dogs of war turned to the scoundrels in their manors and their dens, seizing this time the malcontent of the ambitious and the vain to fuel their battle-lust.  With hand outstretched they took coin over accolades, killing without righteous conceit any whose blood was sought through gold.  They marched again, mercenaries all.[/ic]

[SA]

[ooc]

Core Ethos

When chivalry is dead, what guides the blade?

There were magical things, once.  Witches, demons, dragons, propheciesâ,¬Â¦ but weâ,¬,,¢ve killed them all â,¬' maybe even our own gods â,¬' and asserted ourselves as the final masters of the earth.  So why is everything still so goddamned wrong?

Maybe we have too much time on our handsâ,¬Â¦

Themes
"Righteousness is not self-contained."
Virtue does not stand alone.  A man cannot call himself good until he has witnessed evil, and the people of Simnarrin have been blinded to the evils of their own masters for over century.  Mercenaries masquerading as saviours make constant war at the behest of their â,¬Å"nobleâ,¬Â employers, while the wealthy subvert the proletariat through endless amusements, all the while manipulating their sellsword armies against their own charges and their kin.  Itâ,¬,,¢s a time of ignorance, and a place full of the insular, neurotic and self-righteous.

In the absence of a worthy cause, the nation rots itself away from the inside.

"Donâ,¬,,¢t forget where you came from."
In a way, the Dread Emperor Lereaus symbolised the horrific, arcane wonder that defined the â,¬Å"ancient worldâ,¬Â.  With his death, the last great evil was purged from the land; thus so too died that wonder.  A mere century later, and the gruesome and glorious memories of that past are little more than fairy tales, mystified parodies of an era that was once all too real.

Perhaps the most biting testament to that discarded era is King Grigori, whose legend has attained more life than the man himself, though the king yet lives.  A bitter shell sealed away from the public for longer than any natural man might live, his victory over the Emperor has earned him no success, and he is powerless to shepherd the people he liberated, while they are blindly duped by their new plutocratic rulers.  Indeed, it is rumoured that his contempt for his fate is what keeps him sustained at 132 years of age; a half-dead wretch fuelled by hate.  Few wish to reconcile the valiant prince of legend with the haunted king that lives today, and this is but one of the many ways in which they are deluded.[/ooc]
[ic=Ludritt]"Oh, morality spiels and philosophical meandering are all well and good, but you know what Iâ,¬,,¢m bloody well here for!  Now get out your fucking purse and pay me what Iâ,¬,,¢m due.  Those rooks were no picnic, and I have half a mind to gut you right here and now for the trouble!

Fucking cobblesuckerâ,¬Â¦"[/ic]
[ooc]â,¬Å"Get Yours.â,¬Â
Letâ,¬,,¢s face it.  The whole place is pretty much going to pot.  Gotta get what you can, when you can, and sometimes that means killing a whole lot of people.

Oh, and donâ,¬,,¢t ever apologise.  Itâ,¬,,¢s unprofessional.

Whatâ,¬,,¢s a Hound?
The name is a reference to the last stanza of the fictional poem â,¬Å"Sellswordâ,¬Â by acclaimed poet Ermiller Cruz, in which mercenaries are called â,¬Å"dogs of warâ,¬Â.  Wishing to avoid the stigma of the term â,¬Å"mercenaryâ,¬Â (even thought thatâ,¬,,¢s what they are), and disliking the colloquialism â,¬Å"dogâ,¬Â, the profession has been paraphrased into Hound.

Tone
Hounds is tongue-in-cheek sword and sorcery (a lot of swords, decidedly less sorcery), dealing in a surprisingly straight-faced manner with the idea of a kingdom that has lived past chivalry and found itself rather at a loss for things to do.  It dispenses with the pretence that the PCs are heroes; in all likelihood, theyâ,¬,,¢re unashamedly mercenary, and probably cutthroat to boot.  Sure, theyâ,¬,,¢ll still fight for the liberties of villagers subjugated by their lords, or delve the darkness of the Forbidden Cave to save innocent children from the clutches of crazed cultists striving to reawaken Maliz, the demonic vassal of Devil-King Surt, but if the payâ,¬,,¢s right, they might just be the ones who sold them off in the first place.[/ooc]
[ic=Hard Bargain]All of a sudden Theodore turned, wrenching the dagger free of the ombudsmanâ,¬,,¢s throat with a spurt as he fixed his gaze upon me.  The frenzy in his eyes had died, now subsumed by a sense of mounting irritation.  Ã¢,¬Å"What?  We paid that fucker days ago.  Whatâ,¬,,¢s he want us for?â,¬Â

â,¬Å"No no,â,¬Â I replied, rubbing a bruised knuckle before spitting contemptuously on the clerkâ,¬,,¢s shuddering corpse.  His skull was pretty tough for a lowlander.  Ã¢,¬Å"Apparently his wifeâ,¬,,¢s been taken.  By some zulli thugs, or so he thinks.â,¬Â  I winked.  Ã¢,¬Å"He â,¬Ëappreciated the expedience of our recompenseâ,¬,,¢, and wants to do business.â,¬Â

Theo laughed, letting the body slump to the floor.  Ã¢,¬Å"Thought he might come around.  But firstâ,¬Â¦Ã¢,¬Â he inspected his tunic with an exaggerated frown.  Ã¢,¬Å"I need to get cleaned up.  I appear to have red on me.â,¬Â[/ic]
[ooc]Adventures
Characters in Hounds can perform all the deeds youâ,¬,,¢d expect in any fantasy, theyâ,¬,,¢re merely frank in their motivations.  Pay them well, and theyâ,¬,,¢ll lead your armies, kill your rivals, quell the rebels or rescue the damsel â,¬' maybe all of the above.  Theyâ,¬,,¢re mercenaries, assassins, hired guards and occasionally even their own special brand of politician.

Of course, one might just as readily play a nobleman or a pleb, unfit or unwilling to live the bloody life of a hired sword.  There is plenty of intrigue to be had, in the social sphere or otherwise, and if that doesnâ,¬,,¢t suit you thereâ,¬,,¢s always religionâ,¬Â¦

Or heaven forbid, actual heroism!

Races
Technically, most of the â,¬Å"racesâ,¬Â in Hounds are human; however, they generally have differing opinions concerning the degree of humanity they share.  Indeed, there was once a time when the Ruik  were not considered humans, but they are now simply considered â,¬Å"darker menâ,¬Â, while the soqi and breog â,¬' by virtue of their starkly unusual appearances â,¬' are still considered inhuman (in truth, little distinguishes soqi from men other than their pointed ears).

Monsters
There arenâ,¬,,¢t many monsters left.  Most have been chased away or slaughtered, and those that remain are largely domesticated or enslaved.  Thus, where once goblins were a â,¬Å"baneâ,¬Â in rural areas (they have been labelled the old enemies of men, but itâ,¬,,¢s hard to believe they were anything other than chattel), they are now born into brutal service of the local lord.  Other fiends linger, like the grues, wendigs, trommigs and fylgs, but in civilised lands they have lost much of their former reputation as terrors to the lands of men.

Legends still tell of dragonnes and lythes, ancient and monstrous spawn of the malicious Old Gods, but it is doubtful if their existence holds any more credibility than that of the Gods themselves.

Magic
Magic in Hounds is a secret thing.  A sorcerer wields great power, but hardly enough to subjugate a vast people, and the magics known to most are detailed in old legends, where they are wielded by despots and madmen (given the chance, thatâ,¬,,¢s what most sorcerers become, but they nevertheless dislike the stereotype).  Thus, they generally avoid publicising their abilities.  The strongest magics are those which summon diabolic powers, but these are all forgotten or held in secret by those who fear their power.

For the most part, Hounds avoid magic; itâ,¬,,¢s too hard to control, too difficult to find, and thereâ,¬,,¢s far too much stigma attached to its use.  Of course, never put it past a nobleman to seize the opportunity to strike his foes down with malefic arcane power, and among his many employments a Hound might find himself searching for ancient artefacts and foci with which to weave dark sorcery.

Divinity
The nature of the Gods is ambiguous.  Prayers are not answered in any strictly identifiable way, and if you ask any demon (a stupid idea at best) theyâ,¬,,¢ll tell you the Gods are false.  Besides that, there are a few overtly conflicting religions in Simnarrin, and though the church of Yawd is most prolific, none of the others are willing to give up ground.  Which faith is true â,¬' if any â,¬' is moot.

Most Hounds are irreligious, anyway.  Religion means scruples, and we canâ,¬,,¢t afford scruples on our salary.[/ooc]