Savelius
New Member
Welcome one, welcome all to my palace of dark dreams and illusory landscapes. Here within you will see the strands of dark and timeless threads pulling together to weave a grand tapestry of tragic fate spun in the depths of an impossibly vast web. Within the depths of this web you will see a gateway open to a life that you could never even possibly imagine inside the depths of your own fractured consciousness.
About Me & Expectations:
- I am over 30 myself and am looking for a writing partner who is around the mid-to-late twenties and upwards for comfort.
- I am happy and comfortable writing as either a female or male character. I am open to doing both FxF and MxF pairings.
- The plots below are a blank slate as it comes down to the role of your own character. That is deliberate as I don’t want to enforce on you a particular role in the story, I’d much prefer you to create the character you want to play within the framework of the plot provided.
- That all said the most important thing in this for me is that this should be a shared collaboration. Although I’ve given you below the bare bones of a plot, I’d like for you to help me build the world and the direction of the story. If you are invested in the unfolding story then this has a better chance of reaching a satisfactory conclusion.
- I consider myself to be advanced lit, although I’m happy to match your word count I’d like at the very least a good few paragraphs to work off. I can do medium to long posts, but I would like someone willing to put thought and effort into their postings.
- I enjoy (and actively encourage) a good romantic subplot in the story, but it won’t be the sole focus. It’s like the delicious dessert to go with the main course
.
- If you’re not feeling the roleplay, let me know. I’d rather that than ghosting, it could be we can fix whatever is broken or at the very least it’s better than leaving things hanging. I feel good communication is imperative to a successful rp.
- I enjoy chatting OOC with a prospective writing partner. IC posting will either be on the forums here or via site DM’s. OOC chat can also be DM’s or discord if suitable. Hard no to discord for IC posting I’m afraid, I just don’t like using discord to post like that.
- If you’re interested in anything here, or have an idea of your own, please reach out to me via DM here in the first instance and we can take it from there.
- I’ll add more ideas in the future, however this is a good starting point I think.
Seven times the son of suns doth rise,
To send the knave to an eternity of cries.
To send the knave to an eternity of cries.
The burning sands of Har'Akir are not a welcoming place for newcomers. The stinging sands of the seemingly never-ending desert are a deathtrap for those foolish enough to try and walk them, to say nothing of the creatures that lie in wait for the unwary, both above and beneath the sand dunes. There is little here in the way of respite from the burning sun that turns the land into a barren and scorched wasteland. Scattered across the surface of this wasteland are countless monuments, tombs and pyramids of a golden age long past. These ruins reach out to the foolish, yet no less intrepid for it explorers who follow the siren's call to their inevitable grisly demise.
Indeed, Har'Akir is a land of vast deserts and deadly storms, where water is so scarce as to be considered more precious than the rarest and most valuable of gems in the eyes of the domain's embattled residents.
Yet even given all that, the harsh and life-threatening conditions of the land of Har'Akir are not the most dangerous thing in this domain. The land itself is controlled by the God-King, the Pharoah Anhktepot who rules from his pyramid, the Pharoah's Rest, located within the City of the Dead. As the Child of the Sun and the intermediary between mortals and the gods themselves, Anhktepot's rule is untouchable, irrespective of the countless tales of his cruelty and the rumours that his touch itself causes death. His subjects live in fear....fear that the gaze of the Child of the Sun will fall upon them. There is no escape from this land of vultures and burning death as the land is sealed by an impenetrable wall of flame that turns all those who enter it into ash.
Deep within the City of the Dead, the Pharoah Anhktepot sits and he broods. He seeks something precious to him -- his Ka, the missing piece of his soul. With it, the fractured God King will become whole once more. Shadowed whispers and rumours have reached his ears. The missing piece of his soul have surfaced amidst the sands of the desert, and he will stop at nothing to retrieve it.
However, the Pharoah is not the only being searching for this item, and possibly not even the most dangerous of them.
Change itself is coming to Har'Akir, but the land itself may not be ready for it.
***
A quirk of fate brings both your character and my own to the troubled land of Har'Akir. Indeed, both characters find themselves in the burning wastelands of the desert -- where nothing is as it seems. The first worry is survival in this harsh and dangerous lands, yet even though the desert is a powerful foe, soon it will be the least of your worries. In a shadowed tomb lost deep within the land the Son of Suns begins to awaken.
As a dark figure watches you from across the sand dunes, and withered hands begin to cast off ancient shrouds, how will you look to survive their touch of death?
You have all heard legends of it.
An island that is said to lie at the very edges of the known world. An island that is as cloaked in mystery as it is steeped in dread. Once, many hundreds of thousands of years ago, a powerful civilisation was said to live on this island. A place that was rumoured to not only be technologically advanced, but magically beyond anything the world has ever seen before.....and seen since. Flying steam-powered airships were said to be common place in this world, and factories dedicated to long forgotten gods of technology and innovation created all sorts of mechanical items and creations that have long been lost, along with the knowledge of how to create them.
One day, the island was destroyed under a magical cataclysm that devastated all those who lived on the surface and sank it under the waves, its mysteries and wonders lost with it. The Island of Tamoachan, as it was once called, was wiped off the surface of the world and its name eventually forgotten save for rare fragments of lore that remain.
An island that is said to lie at the very edges of the known world. An island that is as cloaked in mystery as it is steeped in dread. Once, many hundreds of thousands of years ago, a powerful civilisation was said to live on this island. A place that was rumoured to not only be technologically advanced, but magically beyond anything the world has ever seen before.....and seen since. Flying steam-powered airships were said to be common place in this world, and factories dedicated to long forgotten gods of technology and innovation created all sorts of mechanical items and creations that have long been lost, along with the knowledge of how to create them.
One day, the island was destroyed under a magical cataclysm that devastated all those who lived on the surface and sank it under the waves, its mysteries and wonders lost with it. The Island of Tamoachan, as it was once called, was wiped off the surface of the world and its name eventually forgotten save for rare fragments of lore that remain.
An age has passed since the Island of Tamoachan was last seen, however rumours persist of a deserted island at the very edge of the world. An island that houses on it the ruins and skeleton of a civilisation and the technology it had once created.
Yet getting there will not be an easy task.
All ocean voyages are fraught with peril, yet a voyage to the end of the world might seem to some to be a deliberate goading of the god of the sea. Those rare individuals who have attempted the voyage before and returned often choose not to speak of the trials they experienced on the dangerous route, yet those whose lips can be loosened by a draught of grog whisper amazing stories......tales of pirates, sea monsters, terrifying storms, and perhaps most harrowing of all, of a strange and sinister land without land, a floating graveyard of dead ships mired in a sargasso the size of an island. A place that has many names, yet its most well-known may be its most apt -- Journey's End.
However, not one of these intrepid sailors has ever found this mysterious island spoken of only in the legends of distant past.
~~
A Modest Proposal
A Modest Proposal
You all have experience of the sea. You may have sailed as part of the same crew, you may not have -- it is immaterial. What is indisputable though is the simple fact that you have spent far far too long locked on-shore in the port city of Baldur's Gate, for one reason or another. You yearn for the sea and the sea, she calls for you in turn.
However, during your time on-shore, you have not been idle. Each of you has performed one heroic and notable act during your time in the city, and word of your exploits have reached the ears of one of the noble families of the port city. A rising noble within the city, has heard of you and your acts, and it so happens that she needs a crew.
A crew that will man her ship, the Sea Wyvern, on a very special journey -- one that will take you further than you have ever been before to a land that is, at best, uncharted and, at worst, deadly.
High adventure awaits on uncharted and unexplored seas and the lands that lie beyond human exploration.
In the beginning, the Soburi had no concept of a world beyond their own. Since time began, the continent of Soburin always began and ended with the Great Divide. An impassable, never-ending chasm that stretched far far off into the distance and spelled certain doom for anyone foolhardy enough to attempt the crossing.
And so, isolated from the wider world, the Soburi lived their lives, free from any foreign influences and embracing magic amidst their own feudalistic existence. Science was unheard of back in those days as each of the imperial prefectures of Soburin were free to pursue their own ideologies even as they were ruled by the Masuto Imperial Dynasty. Those times were different, and the most that the governers of the individual prefectures had to worry about apart from the well-being and prosperity of their own lands were the posturing and political machinations of others.
Then, one dark day, airships powered by lightning came across the Great Divide from the world beyond, and the continent of Soburin was plunged into conflict and bloodshed. The Ceramians, with their technologically advanced weapons of gunpowder along with their deadly warships subjugated the Soburi people. The wing of the Ceramian military known as the Kengen wrested control of Soburi from the Masuto Dynasty.
They became unwilling participants in the War of Kaiyo, as the Ceramians sought to use their magic against their mortal enemies, the mighty empire of Ropaea that dwelt on the other side of the world. Intending to deploy the wizards of Soburi on the battlefield against their enemies, the nation of Ceramia intended them to be the catalyst that would turn the War of Kaiyo in their favour,
Inasmuch as the Soburi despised their new overlords and what had happened to them, there was no denying the indelible mark the Ceramians would leave on their civilisation, and the advancements in culture and technology they would bring with their education, knowledge and, most crucially, the use of steam-powered augmetics.
A century later, the War of Kaiyo ended with the Ceramian and Ropaeo empires destroying each other, and the remaining Kengen military were cut off from the world beyond the Great Divide, unable to make contact with their superiors. Although weakened, the Kengen military attempted to hold onto the reins of power until they were ultimately deposed by a rebellion spearheaded by descendants of the original Masuto dynasty.
Having taken their lands back and thrown down the remnants of the Ceramian empire and the Kengen military, one would think that the Soburi people were overdue a time of peace and enlightenment. And indeed, there was that hope, for a short while.
Yet, not even two years passed before that peace was shattered.
It began as strange, murky tendrils of mist that rolled in from the Great Divide. These grasping fingers of dark corruption reached out, and they began to enfold the land and the prefectures beneath its twitching, treacherous grasp. Yet this was no ordinary mist. It was suffused with the sickly aura of rot and decay. Inside these mists were hideous, twisted monstrosities the like of which nobody had seen before. Yet the creatures and demonspawn hidden inside the mists were not the worst of what they did. Anyone unfortunate enough to be caught up inside the mists were tainted and corrupted, in the worst cases being twisted themselves into hideous and unrecognisable monsters who would feast on the blood of kith and kin.
The strangest thing of all of this phenomena that came to be known as the Mists of Akuma was that there was no warning of where it would come from before it would strike. It would fade in from nothingness even as it would suddenly recede into nowhere. Thus it became impossible to even predict where the mists would strike from, let alone mount any sort of sustained defence against its attacks.
Today, the continent of Soburin lies teetering on the precipice of oblivion. Unstoppable, the Mists of Akuma strike without warning, twisting and corrupting all they touch. Darkness has fallen over the land, and anyone who would possess the ability to hold the mists at bay have fallen to infighting. Any victory scored over this creeping mass of decay is fleeting and pyrrhic at best.
Survival in the Mists of Akuma is not a goal to aspire to, but a benchmark to measure against.
Those times are gone now, and of all the lands of Soburi, it was the Sukochi that suffered the most change. Forced to retreat into the wilderness that they championed, the kitsune have become both reclusive and mistrusting. The land itself, once a beautiful yet welcoming place, has begun to show the marks of the blight and decay that has taken hold in its heart. The kitsune have all but disappeared, and troubled by the signs of creeping corruption and doom, Emperor Hitoshi has tasked his bengoshi to ascertain the source of the regions troubles.
In turn, they have put out a call for brave and intrepid adventurers to travel to the lands of the Sukochi and ascertain for themselves the scale of the rot and decay that has begun to crawl outwards from its blighted heart.
It was a call that you answered, and in doing so unwittingly set into motion a chain of events that would not just test you to your very core, but define you as a person.
Gripping your travel papers in your hand, it was with barely a moment's hesitation that you passed through the torii gates that marked the border to the troubled region into the world beyond.
And so, isolated from the wider world, the Soburi lived their lives, free from any foreign influences and embracing magic amidst their own feudalistic existence. Science was unheard of back in those days as each of the imperial prefectures of Soburin were free to pursue their own ideologies even as they were ruled by the Masuto Imperial Dynasty. Those times were different, and the most that the governers of the individual prefectures had to worry about apart from the well-being and prosperity of their own lands were the posturing and political machinations of others.
Then, one dark day, airships powered by lightning came across the Great Divide from the world beyond, and the continent of Soburin was plunged into conflict and bloodshed. The Ceramians, with their technologically advanced weapons of gunpowder along with their deadly warships subjugated the Soburi people. The wing of the Ceramian military known as the Kengen wrested control of Soburi from the Masuto Dynasty.
They became unwilling participants in the War of Kaiyo, as the Ceramians sought to use their magic against their mortal enemies, the mighty empire of Ropaea that dwelt on the other side of the world. Intending to deploy the wizards of Soburi on the battlefield against their enemies, the nation of Ceramia intended them to be the catalyst that would turn the War of Kaiyo in their favour,
Inasmuch as the Soburi despised their new overlords and what had happened to them, there was no denying the indelible mark the Ceramians would leave on their civilisation, and the advancements in culture and technology they would bring with their education, knowledge and, most crucially, the use of steam-powered augmetics.
A century later, the War of Kaiyo ended with the Ceramian and Ropaeo empires destroying each other, and the remaining Kengen military were cut off from the world beyond the Great Divide, unable to make contact with their superiors. Although weakened, the Kengen military attempted to hold onto the reins of power until they were ultimately deposed by a rebellion spearheaded by descendants of the original Masuto dynasty.
Having taken their lands back and thrown down the remnants of the Ceramian empire and the Kengen military, one would think that the Soburi people were overdue a time of peace and enlightenment. And indeed, there was that hope, for a short while.
Yet, not even two years passed before that peace was shattered.
***
It began as strange, murky tendrils of mist that rolled in from the Great Divide. These grasping fingers of dark corruption reached out, and they began to enfold the land and the prefectures beneath its twitching, treacherous grasp. Yet this was no ordinary mist. It was suffused with the sickly aura of rot and decay. Inside these mists were hideous, twisted monstrosities the like of which nobody had seen before. Yet the creatures and demonspawn hidden inside the mists were not the worst of what they did. Anyone unfortunate enough to be caught up inside the mists were tainted and corrupted, in the worst cases being twisted themselves into hideous and unrecognisable monsters who would feast on the blood of kith and kin.
The strangest thing of all of this phenomena that came to be known as the Mists of Akuma was that there was no warning of where it would come from before it would strike. It would fade in from nothingness even as it would suddenly recede into nowhere. Thus it became impossible to even predict where the mists would strike from, let alone mount any sort of sustained defence against its attacks.
Today, the continent of Soburin lies teetering on the precipice of oblivion. Unstoppable, the Mists of Akuma strike without warning, twisting and corrupting all they touch. Darkness has fallen over the land, and anyone who would possess the ability to hold the mists at bay have fallen to infighting. Any victory scored over this creeping mass of decay is fleeting and pyrrhic at best.
Survival in the Mists of Akuma is not a goal to aspire to, but a benchmark to measure against.
***
It was a time long past, a better time some would say, before the coming of the Ceramians and the corrupting Mists of Akuma that the Sukochi Prefecture was renowned as the heart of nature. Home to nature-wielding kitsune, the Sukochians were well-known for their efforts when it came to tending the lands, and not just their own dominion, but the lands of those around them too. They were dedicated to the preservation of nature in all its forms, and it was their efforts that seeked to thwart the technological assault of the Ceramians, and the encroaching corrupting mists.
Those times are gone now, and of all the lands of Soburi, it was the Sukochi that suffered the most change. Forced to retreat into the wilderness that they championed, the kitsune have become both reclusive and mistrusting. The land itself, once a beautiful yet welcoming place, has begun to show the marks of the blight and decay that has taken hold in its heart. The kitsune have all but disappeared, and troubled by the signs of creeping corruption and doom, Emperor Hitoshi has tasked his bengoshi to ascertain the source of the regions troubles.
In turn, they have put out a call for brave and intrepid adventurers to travel to the lands of the Sukochi and ascertain for themselves the scale of the rot and decay that has begun to crawl outwards from its blighted heart.
It was a call that you answered, and in doing so unwittingly set into motion a chain of events that would not just test you to your very core, but define you as a person.
Gripping your travel papers in your hand, it was with barely a moment's hesitation that you passed through the torii gates that marked the border to the troubled region into the world beyond.
Into the valleys
The shadow of death
Griefs silently across the darkened sea
This is it
We stand alone
We can see it all from here
The starless night across the mountain side
No one left to talk to
There's nothing left to say
You and me
We stand alone
We can see it all from here
Stretched far and wide
The barren skies
Fighting a silence
From deep inside
Into the valleys
The shadow of death
Griefs silently it's in you and me
It's in you and me
“Madness. That's what awaits those who venture into the Nightmare Lands. Do you value your sanity? Then you must avoid that mad place. And you must never sleep again!”
As I write this, night has fallen over the land, covering the land in a somber blanket of darkness and stars. I used to love the night, with its quiet and solitude. Now I fear its approach, fervently hoping that the day will never end. The irony is that the night is only a symptom. The real disease accompanies sleep, that embrace that is so much like death, sneaking in as slumber claims the weary of the world.
I am Dr. Gregorian Illhausen, chief physician of the Clinic for the Mentally Distressed in Egertus, Nova Vaasa. For those who walk the ever-widening shores of madness (and Nova Vaasa has more than its share of such individuals), my clinic is often the last bastion of hope and sanity. Over the years I have made a specific study of dreams, for the majority of my patients suffer from one malady or another that seems tied not to the problems of the waking world, but to the fevered images of troubled sleep.
That brings me to the subject of this journal, and the reason that the night terrifies me so. Through my own studies and the experiences of my patients, I have come to believe that there is another reality beyond the veil of sleep. In most cases it is a serene reality, one that we visit each and every night without ill effect.
There are things that dwell in this reality, however, dark things that corrupt dreams and thrive in nightmares. If you want to know more then keep on reading.
But keep the lights on, and try not to fall asleep....
Once there was a stretch of lifeless badlands that separated Nova Vaasa from the enshrouding mists at the edge of the known worlds. These badlands were swallowed by the mists and lost from the surface memories of the people who inhabit this realm.
Yet, the truth is that this place still exists. It is called the Nightmare Lands, and only the barest handful of people who have ventured into its dark depths have returned to tell the tale, and of those, the vast majority of them have lost their minds and are nothing now but broken husks inhabiting an empty shell of a body.
But some still exist who have a tale to tell.
If a land could be called "alive", then it is the Nightmare Lands. It was not just alive though. It was truly mad. The terrain twisted and changed from moment to moment, but never while the poor few stranded in this domain of madness watched. These changes happened at the limits of their vision, sculpting the lands into weirder and weirder vistas that seemed only possible within the delusions of a troubled mind.
The truth behind it was even more horrific. The Nightmare Lands were not confined in these hidden badlands. They were loose inside the dementia and nightmares that tormented the mentally insane and thousands of others like them in all corners of the world.
You enter this realm at the bidding of the night, drawn from your dreaming bodies and captured by an enigmatic figure known only as the Nightmare Man. Trapped in this region of psychological fear, you will face your worst nightmares in strange, surrealistic terrain. Even if you escape the treacherous clutches of dark slumber, you will only be safe until the next time sleep overtakes you...
The shadow of death
Griefs silently across the darkened sea
This is it
We stand alone
We can see it all from here
The starless night across the mountain side
No one left to talk to
There's nothing left to say
You and me
We stand alone
We can see it all from here
Stretched far and wide
The barren skies
Fighting a silence
From deep inside
Into the valleys
The shadow of death
Griefs silently it's in you and me
It's in you and me
“Madness. That's what awaits those who venture into the Nightmare Lands. Do you value your sanity? Then you must avoid that mad place. And you must never sleep again!”
As I write this, night has fallen over the land, covering the land in a somber blanket of darkness and stars. I used to love the night, with its quiet and solitude. Now I fear its approach, fervently hoping that the day will never end. The irony is that the night is only a symptom. The real disease accompanies sleep, that embrace that is so much like death, sneaking in as slumber claims the weary of the world.
I am Dr. Gregorian Illhausen, chief physician of the Clinic for the Mentally Distressed in Egertus, Nova Vaasa. For those who walk the ever-widening shores of madness (and Nova Vaasa has more than its share of such individuals), my clinic is often the last bastion of hope and sanity. Over the years I have made a specific study of dreams, for the majority of my patients suffer from one malady or another that seems tied not to the problems of the waking world, but to the fevered images of troubled sleep.
That brings me to the subject of this journal, and the reason that the night terrifies me so. Through my own studies and the experiences of my patients, I have come to believe that there is another reality beyond the veil of sleep. In most cases it is a serene reality, one that we visit each and every night without ill effect.
There are things that dwell in this reality, however, dark things that corrupt dreams and thrive in nightmares. If you want to know more then keep on reading.
But keep the lights on, and try not to fall asleep....
Once there was a stretch of lifeless badlands that separated Nova Vaasa from the enshrouding mists at the edge of the known worlds. These badlands were swallowed by the mists and lost from the surface memories of the people who inhabit this realm.
Yet, the truth is that this place still exists. It is called the Nightmare Lands, and only the barest handful of people who have ventured into its dark depths have returned to tell the tale, and of those, the vast majority of them have lost their minds and are nothing now but broken husks inhabiting an empty shell of a body.
But some still exist who have a tale to tell.
If a land could be called "alive", then it is the Nightmare Lands. It was not just alive though. It was truly mad. The terrain twisted and changed from moment to moment, but never while the poor few stranded in this domain of madness watched. These changes happened at the limits of their vision, sculpting the lands into weirder and weirder vistas that seemed only possible within the delusions of a troubled mind.
The truth behind it was even more horrific. The Nightmare Lands were not confined in these hidden badlands. They were loose inside the dementia and nightmares that tormented the mentally insane and thousands of others like them in all corners of the world.
You enter this realm at the bidding of the night, drawn from your dreaming bodies and captured by an enigmatic figure known only as the Nightmare Man. Trapped in this region of psychological fear, you will face your worst nightmares in strange, surrealistic terrain. Even if you escape the treacherous clutches of dark slumber, you will only be safe until the next time sleep overtakes you...
