Cthulhu_Wakes
Black Sun in a White World
Chapter One: Obed
Early Summer, RY 768
Relinquished Marshes, Old Crown Lands
The southern portion of the Crown, deep in marshlands sat hard against the Anon River, is typically a quiet transition between the flatlands and the deeply wooded foothills of the Golgi. Their shadows rim forever the Crown Lands in the distance, a craggy bulwark. To the north and west, the endless steppe. The days grow hot. Afternoon travelers take time to recline in shade 'neath the boughs of willows. The Sun begins his yearly recline toward the Pole of Flame to gather the heat of summer for Creation.
But this once peaceful area struggles: plague batters the marshlands. A region that has stood free for a century of the squabbles of the Crown's nations, its people try to pass their quiet lives in peace. No longer. A bloody flux grips villages along the Anon and people die euphoric, agonizing deaths. The outbreak a morbid mystery: the villages where it began are now charnel houses.
A curse, some call it, judgment from spurned ancestral gods. Whose to say? Local gods are as alarmed as the people with field gods mourning dead sowers, terrified glade lords drawing their courts away from plague zones. Marshers are on the move, trying to escape the plague on foot, but something more insidious drives this malady...but what?
@Skrakes
The road south has been pleasant, as things go. The marshes are a different painting in contrast of the northern Crown region: fruitful and a step back to nature. A less ruinous world.
Orthodox Metropolitans rarely come south save en mission to spread City theological borders. What little word you've heard, rumor, really, the Heterodox may still yet have some holdouts sequestered here, possibly in free-city of Antoo. A handful had fled south after the collapse, pursued by Orthodox agents.
An outbreak of plague is eating at the area. In point of fact, a village you passed a two days ago stood eerily quiet. No watchman to cry challenge, no children by the creek, no men harvesting cane. A few day-old fires with fading banners of smoke and a dog eating at something just inside a vacant doorway.
There are, thankfully, souls on the road here at the tiny Immaculate and native hearth shrines lining the road. Locals kneeling in fervent prayer, burning incense. A widow hoarsely weeps nearby. Island willows shelter desolate-looking souls who've left their villages for fear of the plague. Children chew wild sugar cane.
Sullen eyes watch you pass. In the distance, a small township. Stilt houses, roaring cooking fires, drying clothing, children at play. Alive. The first in a week that is more than bones.
@Grey
The locals call it Manua, though the place seems barely large enough for a name. These are marshers, people living in stilt houses to avoid autumn floods, murky shrines of long gone peoples lurk in the mud outside of town amid the remains of some plaza. No one here gives it much thought; their concerns lie with the sick laid out before you.
This plague is a bizarre one, even in the Crown. The initial symptom is a strong thirst, an aversion to strong light, a weakening of limb and mind. This can be treated and kept under control.
No, the issue comes when they progress. The afflicted become...euphoric in the latter, terminal stages of sickness. Most of them are tied down as they try to venture out into the heat on feeble legs. The disease cuts through the sick, wasting away to a sickeningly lithe form, hollow cheeked and with bloodshot eyes until death finally takes them. They have a hunger no food can sate, a thirst water cannot quench.
"I can promise no payment but perhaps a few relics from that sunken plaza behind the village." Tsi Chi, the alderwoman, says, showing you the sick in a hut-cum-pesthouse. "I'm told it's like this across much of the area." They're all wearing torn rags across their faces like haggard bandits.
"No one is certain from whence it came." She continues. "Is there any help you can give? We have heard of you, sensei, even out here." She hesitates. “We...we can pay.”
@Vanman
Sweltering heat. Summer creeps in upon the Hundred Kingdoms once more. The roads coming down off the foothills of the Golgi are pleasantly shaded, fragrant with fresh pine and cedar, the local shrines clean and gleaming. Presently, you're coming down an earthen causeway within the Relinquished Marshes, at least, that’s what someone at the last post station had called them.
It's like strolling into somewhere in the Southeast, seemingly tropical lowlands filled with all manner of vivid plants and strange wildlife. Wild sugarcane and elephant grass tower in dense islands away from the road. The constant chirring of insects lines the very air. A trail of folk are heading in the opposite direction toward those now-distant foothills. Few look at you. They carry what few belongings they have in wraps or on the backs of asses.
A voice calls out. “Hello, friend.” A wizened old man stands on the side of the road, hands folded over top of a gnarled walking cane. The dust of so many traveling feet hasn’t powdered his fine clothing nor does the heat seem to touch him. His eyes are aged jade. “Rare to see folk traveling into the marsh these past weeks. How fares the road?”
@JayTee
The Old Crown Lands. In truth, it takes only a week's journey by horse to reach its borders through the Golgi passes, but it has always been a world apart from the other Hundred Kingdoms. Something talked about in the same breath as Gloam or Sijan or Wu Jian in terms of distance or culture. But they are neighbors, brothers, your father would have said.
But as it stands, you are a stranger in a strange land. The only thing you have remotely in common with these people is a language, and that's debatable at times.
Your uncle knows this all too well. He's a worldly man, despite the horror and cowardice of his betrayal. There has always been more behind his eyes. With some of his masked killers still on your trail, perhaps he'd known to corral you in a corner of the Kingdoms.
The road is an earthen causeway through a vibrant rice paddy that stretches far afield. And yet...something is off.
Roll base Wits + Awareness, difficulty 2, please. No need for Danger Sense specialty.
@Sarky
This is an old part of the Hundred Kingdoms. Ruins stacked upon ruins further north and cultures old as the Realm, if not older, going through the troubled motions of trying to adapt to the modern Age. The Antoo, the Metropolitans of Sechal, the sorcerer-scholars of Timur, a place truly outside of the Age.
"In our own time," people here intone. The issues of Nexus, of Great Forks, or even the Realm speed them not. But not all is alien: people are still people. Gossip over drinks and a good meal is as true here as in any place. The place is an old, low-ceiling post station from the Shogunate era. Dark, greased by the residue of generations of passersby and fragrant with a bouquet hash, sweat, and that godawful rot they pass off as stew.
It's a meeting point for any soul coming in or leaving the region. The mountains are behind you now, along with the old cobbles of the wooded foothills. The peal of voices huddles in close.
"...plague took another village..."
"...whatever it was slaughtered Bowie's yeddim with great haste..."
"....'scheduled?' When did you put on airs..."
"...strange folk coming and going of late..."
"...lots of beasts running wild..."
"...mean like that big fucking sword on the back of that one there..."
"...heard the Martyrs are at it again..."
"...don't be an ass, Jin, whisper!..."
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