Rudipatooty
Member
In the days before the sun was set in its throne and the moon in its banishment, there was nought. No above, no below. The cosmos was endless and empty, devoid of light and life. The nothingness was eternal, extending into the past and future, wrapping all in its timelessness.
And from the void struck lightning, a spark that set the universe aflame. A roaring inferno of a millenium burned and blazed. The spark birthed Perun, the first god, the Alpha, who controlled lightning and flame.
When there was but ash and the flames receded into Perun, the mother goddess Mokosh, the omega, was birthed from the fertile new soil. Perun mounted Mokosh, and their union birthed the stars and constellations.
The fertilized Mokosh gave birth to twins who weren’t, siblings who were one. Pya, moon son, the darkness to shadow his father. Bielbog, daughter sun, the light of life within her. The dual nature of the beta to balance the world.
Among their many siblings of the universe was Opona, a rock bereft of life. Smiling down upon the wastes of Opona, life began to bloom. Grass and trees raised their limbs skyward, to soak in the glory of Bielbog.
From the soil and trees came the peoples that called it home, from wanderers to wall builders to the first cities. Kingdoms rose and fell, empires washed away like the tide. The cycles of man are as endless as the cosmos, and as full with as much meaning.
There arose three peoples, divided along the Narew river and its delta.
The land of the west was ruled by the lords of Ingerhold, the house of Bayern. From the mountains they descended to the poor soils below, building a nation of stone and rock hearted people. Relics deep from the core of the earth they enshrined in their temples to hold sacred.
From the east rode the wild and impetuous Vorutans under the house of Mindaugas, carrying forth idols of horses and the sky. The rich lands to the east they made a home, carving the rich black soil deep with their plows and sprouting forth Mokosh’s bounty of golden wheat and rye. For centuries they lived in this way, each people slowly growing and cultivating to the river’s edge, until they met.
In their meeting a third people came from the north and south, sailing from the silver sea and down the Narew. Two separate peoples of the boat met and became one, the Wioslarze, a buffer between the stone and impetuous for centuries. Deep bonds of friendship grew between all, and marriages made between the ruling houses.
Then the king of the Wioslarze died without issue, and war came to the land. For twenty years it raged, the land of the delta burnt and laid to waste by armies marching to their doom, and then the victors marching to their’s. No gains made, only loss. A stalemate had settled across the land.
Their homes, farms, cities, destroyed, the Wioslarze who did not succumb to famine or to the rapine of armies fled to either side of the Narew, settling down in camps in either of the kingdoms. Unrest flourished in these camps. But with that unrest came an opportunity.
For though there was no official issue to the last king of the Wioslarze, there was a rumor of a daughter, born of a sorceress out of wedlock. Before the marriage could be made the king fell and the sorceress disappeared. If they prove true, the child born would prove a vital key to uniting the Wioslarze behind the banner of who could claim the child, enough to tip the scales of war.
Alinea is something of a legend, the daughter of the last king of the Wioslarze and the High Sorceress of the Northern Reach, though she knows it not. In the wake of her father’s death and the chaos that emerged, her mother swept her away, wiping all trace of her existence from the minds of the world. Or so had been her aim. Her magic was fading and failing with her own soul with her other half having departed her. With the last remnants of her magic, she used it to create a home for her daughter to live within, surrounded by a raging storm that would never cease, her anguish of having lost her love and departing her only daughter to this world. As not only the king’s sole heir, an omega-born, and a vessel to amplify the abilities of those with whom she bonded she knew her precious daughter would be sought out by the world tirelessly. So she did all she could with her last breaths to make sure she’d be kept safe or at least that the one who managed to navigate through the treacherous terrain to her would be worthy of her treasure. Hidden behind wards, wrapped in a vicious storm, up a sheer cliff face and guarded by warriors of metal and spirit that could feel no pain and tired not until the waning of the moon’s face of her twenty-second year. At that point, the wards would weaken and enchanted armor would begin to rust just slightly. Till then though, Alinea lives in peace comfortably in her tower with the enchanted furniture as her company, unknowing of the world outside that was searching for her, even as the time ticked down till someone came to find her.
A member of the Vorutan gentry, Ramunas’ early years were the ideal of the Vorutan nobility, spent riding and training in the martial tradition of the former steppe riders. That was until the war began and his father and brothers were called in the levy. They did not survive the first battle and left him the heir of the family’s estates.He spent the rest of his youth trying to stride in his father’s footsteps, and found his way to leading a lance unit on a new campaign at 21.
Much like the other campaigns that marked the War of Wioslarze Succession, it ended in a stalemate on a muddy field that may have once grew a rich crop, but now was planted with the bodies of men and horses. Bolts from ballistae arched from the lines, cries of “Have a care!” as cannon exchanged the final argument of kings.
Squares of Bayern infantry, dressed in garish colors, bristling like a porcupine, they began their slow waddle across the field. Behind them, riding back and forth along the long line, the Ingerhold chivalry. Slow, inexorable in its movement, professional soldiery at its finest.
The crimson and burgundy of the Vorutan banners swayed ahead, dancing as the final dispositions were placed. The center filled of the greatest of the classes, the noble lancer and knight, the flanks filled with lighter harrying horsemen to dart and dash and break open holes that the heavy knight can ride into and break open the damnable Ingerhold squares. The lesser infantry behind, to form a last barrier if the impossible happened.
The cry of the horn, the charge!
The day was long. Time slowed and quickened at its own whims, slowed at the approaching round bullet and crossbow bolt, quickened as adrenaline realized that he was unharmed. But the squares kept moving, kept pushing, horses screamed as they met the end of pikes and halberds and greatswords. Obscured with clouds of smoke and and flying mud, the banners of Bayern kept its march.
Tired, blooded, exhausted, the Vorutans seemed fated to be routed from the field after bashing their nobles and retainers on the pike squares of Bayern. The hound smelled the blooded hare, and the chivalry of Bayern was let slip to take the rabbit in its maw. But they overextended in their charge, the destriers they rode growing tired as they struggled through the mud, their line grew ragged as they rippled around the piles of dead men and horses.
Seizing the standard of Voruta Ramunas gathered enough of the bravest of the ranks and hit them in the flank, rolling them up and adding the noble banner of Bayern to his entourage as the chivalry of Bayern quit the field. A Bayern knight swung his sword, and half of Ramunas’ world grew dark.
The squares held until nightfall, the resuming cry of Vorutan cannon carving bloody furrows into their ranks. But they swallowed the holes and kept to their positions until darkness let them withdraw. The battle won, but the casualties were too great to harry the enemy.
In exchange for an eye he won glory in the eyes of the king, and was granted a Marshal’s Baton. He led wings of cavalry throughout the Disputed lands, held castles battered to rubble by Bayern cannon. In the final years of the war he settled to lay siege to what was once a great town, but was little more than ruins that was handed back and forth that each party held for a few years.
In the 22nd year of the war, he was hand chosen by the King to secure the possibility of a final victory. Choosing a small and trusted group of compatriots he set forth to hunt rumors and phantoms of hints. The party dwindled in the harsh disputed lands, until he found himself alone, being pelted by rain at the foot of a tower.
And from the void struck lightning, a spark that set the universe aflame. A roaring inferno of a millenium burned and blazed. The spark birthed Perun, the first god, the Alpha, who controlled lightning and flame.
When there was but ash and the flames receded into Perun, the mother goddess Mokosh, the omega, was birthed from the fertile new soil. Perun mounted Mokosh, and their union birthed the stars and constellations.
The fertilized Mokosh gave birth to twins who weren’t, siblings who were one. Pya, moon son, the darkness to shadow his father. Bielbog, daughter sun, the light of life within her. The dual nature of the beta to balance the world.
Among their many siblings of the universe was Opona, a rock bereft of life. Smiling down upon the wastes of Opona, life began to bloom. Grass and trees raised their limbs skyward, to soak in the glory of Bielbog.
From the soil and trees came the peoples that called it home, from wanderers to wall builders to the first cities. Kingdoms rose and fell, empires washed away like the tide. The cycles of man are as endless as the cosmos, and as full with as much meaning.
There arose three peoples, divided along the Narew river and its delta.
The land of the west was ruled by the lords of Ingerhold, the house of Bayern. From the mountains they descended to the poor soils below, building a nation of stone and rock hearted people. Relics deep from the core of the earth they enshrined in their temples to hold sacred.
From the east rode the wild and impetuous Vorutans under the house of Mindaugas, carrying forth idols of horses and the sky. The rich lands to the east they made a home, carving the rich black soil deep with their plows and sprouting forth Mokosh’s bounty of golden wheat and rye. For centuries they lived in this way, each people slowly growing and cultivating to the river’s edge, until they met.
In their meeting a third people came from the north and south, sailing from the silver sea and down the Narew. Two separate peoples of the boat met and became one, the Wioslarze, a buffer between the stone and impetuous for centuries. Deep bonds of friendship grew between all, and marriages made between the ruling houses.
Then the king of the Wioslarze died without issue, and war came to the land. For twenty years it raged, the land of the delta burnt and laid to waste by armies marching to their doom, and then the victors marching to their’s. No gains made, only loss. A stalemate had settled across the land.
Their homes, farms, cities, destroyed, the Wioslarze who did not succumb to famine or to the rapine of armies fled to either side of the Narew, settling down in camps in either of the kingdoms. Unrest flourished in these camps. But with that unrest came an opportunity.
For though there was no official issue to the last king of the Wioslarze, there was a rumor of a daughter, born of a sorceress out of wedlock. Before the marriage could be made the king fell and the sorceress disappeared. If they prove true, the child born would prove a vital key to uniting the Wioslarze behind the banner of who could claim the child, enough to tip the scales of war.
_______________________________________________________________
Alinea is something of a legend, the daughter of the last king of the Wioslarze and the High Sorceress of the Northern Reach, though she knows it not. In the wake of her father’s death and the chaos that emerged, her mother swept her away, wiping all trace of her existence from the minds of the world. Or so had been her aim. Her magic was fading and failing with her own soul with her other half having departed her. With the last remnants of her magic, she used it to create a home for her daughter to live within, surrounded by a raging storm that would never cease, her anguish of having lost her love and departing her only daughter to this world. As not only the king’s sole heir, an omega-born, and a vessel to amplify the abilities of those with whom she bonded she knew her precious daughter would be sought out by the world tirelessly. So she did all she could with her last breaths to make sure she’d be kept safe or at least that the one who managed to navigate through the treacherous terrain to her would be worthy of her treasure. Hidden behind wards, wrapped in a vicious storm, up a sheer cliff face and guarded by warriors of metal and spirit that could feel no pain and tired not until the waning of the moon’s face of her twenty-second year. At that point, the wards would weaken and enchanted armor would begin to rust just slightly. Till then though, Alinea lives in peace comfortably in her tower with the enchanted furniture as her company, unknowing of the world outside that was searching for her, even as the time ticked down till someone came to find her.
_______________________________________________________________
A member of the Vorutan gentry, Ramunas’ early years were the ideal of the Vorutan nobility, spent riding and training in the martial tradition of the former steppe riders. That was until the war began and his father and brothers were called in the levy. They did not survive the first battle and left him the heir of the family’s estates.He spent the rest of his youth trying to stride in his father’s footsteps, and found his way to leading a lance unit on a new campaign at 21.
Much like the other campaigns that marked the War of Wioslarze Succession, it ended in a stalemate on a muddy field that may have once grew a rich crop, but now was planted with the bodies of men and horses. Bolts from ballistae arched from the lines, cries of “Have a care!” as cannon exchanged the final argument of kings.
Squares of Bayern infantry, dressed in garish colors, bristling like a porcupine, they began their slow waddle across the field. Behind them, riding back and forth along the long line, the Ingerhold chivalry. Slow, inexorable in its movement, professional soldiery at its finest.
The crimson and burgundy of the Vorutan banners swayed ahead, dancing as the final dispositions were placed. The center filled of the greatest of the classes, the noble lancer and knight, the flanks filled with lighter harrying horsemen to dart and dash and break open holes that the heavy knight can ride into and break open the damnable Ingerhold squares. The lesser infantry behind, to form a last barrier if the impossible happened.
The cry of the horn, the charge!
The day was long. Time slowed and quickened at its own whims, slowed at the approaching round bullet and crossbow bolt, quickened as adrenaline realized that he was unharmed. But the squares kept moving, kept pushing, horses screamed as they met the end of pikes and halberds and greatswords. Obscured with clouds of smoke and and flying mud, the banners of Bayern kept its march.
Tired, blooded, exhausted, the Vorutans seemed fated to be routed from the field after bashing their nobles and retainers on the pike squares of Bayern. The hound smelled the blooded hare, and the chivalry of Bayern was let slip to take the rabbit in its maw. But they overextended in their charge, the destriers they rode growing tired as they struggled through the mud, their line grew ragged as they rippled around the piles of dead men and horses.
Seizing the standard of Voruta Ramunas gathered enough of the bravest of the ranks and hit them in the flank, rolling them up and adding the noble banner of Bayern to his entourage as the chivalry of Bayern quit the field. A Bayern knight swung his sword, and half of Ramunas’ world grew dark.
The squares held until nightfall, the resuming cry of Vorutan cannon carving bloody furrows into their ranks. But they swallowed the holes and kept to their positions until darkness let them withdraw. The battle won, but the casualties were too great to harry the enemy.
In exchange for an eye he won glory in the eyes of the king, and was granted a Marshal’s Baton. He led wings of cavalry throughout the Disputed lands, held castles battered to rubble by Bayern cannon. In the final years of the war he settled to lay siege to what was once a great town, but was little more than ruins that was handed back and forth that each party held for a few years.
In the 22nd year of the war, he was hand chosen by the King to secure the possibility of a final victory. Choosing a small and trusted group of compatriots he set forth to hunt rumors and phantoms of hints. The party dwindled in the harsh disputed lands, until he found himself alone, being pelted by rain at the foot of a tower.
