Post by Annasiel on Apr 21, 2022 20:02:50 GMT
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Loch Duwain: A City of Shadows
They say the sun never truly shines in Loch Duwain. That even when the sun hangs high over head, peaks and towers cast their shade upon the valley below. The deeper you travel in the city's depths, the darker it grows, and at the center of it all - The Blackpool, tucked in crescent oasis - one cannot truly tell the difference between day and night. Those who have lived there, though, know a different meaning. True, the city lies in mountain shadow. True, candlelight flickers through the depths of noon. But the truth of why the sun never shines in Loch Duwain is because its families have much to hide.
Mankind is a covetous sort. They long for that which they do not have - the wealth of their neighbors, the power of their rulers, the very forces of nature themselves that govern the machinations of our world - and mankind, of course, will do all in their power to acquire it. This is the principle the Rithe of the city live by. They shy away from this, concealing their misdeeds in secrecy and occult, but the truth lies bare for any with half a mind to see it. Perhaps the pinnacle of all desires is the cold fire that drives them most - eternal life. Even the purest of the Rithe, elvenblood barely tainted by mundane, do not spurn this yearning. Centuries they may have lived, and centuries more to pass, but in time, their bodies will fail, their minds rot, and their souls unshackle from this mortal world.
They could not stand the thought. They detested the thought. And so, instead, they sought answers.
They sought answers in the rumors of a deathless king building a coffin of its own design. They sought answers in the spirits that dwelled in the land, and the whispering stars that some claimed spoke above. They turned to the ancients of distant seas, to the infernal creatures of decay beneath the earth, in faiths of fire and faiths of cold and faiths bathed in the blood of countless victims. Still, they found nothing.
It was, perhaps, by accident they stumbled upon a Truth. Not immortality, as they had sought - but life. Binding a soulless spirit to a lifeless husk, they made them - a foul mockery of nature, cold metal and colder shadows. They were not alive, yet they lived. It was there the briga were born.
Briga. Hollow. Empty. Lie.
They saw promise in this. Vessels that sustained life, but would not age. The first were insufficient - they lived for a day, then began to lose their bodies, then shortly after, their minds. They would dissipate into the mists from which they were born, leaving only puddles of metal in their wake. Shackles of iron were made, not only to control, but to contain. Symbols to keep their forms stable. Names to make them whole. In a cruel irony, the same thing that gave them permanence also made them slaves. To exist is to be at the whims of forces beyond your control, after all, and in the hands of a summoner, names hold power. The briga were bound by the very things that made them, forced into petty servitude at the hand of the resentful Rithe.
It took time - time enough for many generations to come and pass - but Loch Duwain, once darkly magnificent, soon fell to the rot its rulers feared. It was not age, in the end, that proved their poison, but desire. The Rithe fell into squabbles, and they turned their secrets on themselves. Dark sorceries scoured entire bloodlines from the earth. Halls bathed in red, shades like knives whispering through unsuspecting dreamers. Things came to simmer, but the rot remained, and the families remained forever in schism. It was at this time the briga found new purpose. Light, they moved weightlessly across the eaves. Dark, they slipped between the shadows. No soul to trace, no magic to feel, little more than a breath on the wind past unsuspecting windows.
And - if caught - little loss to the Rithe that sent them. They would not betray their masters' secrets, no matter what pain was brought upon them. How could they betray?
The city lived on, if only just, and its people lived on with it. A husk of its former glory, split in realms between the darkened days and the horrors of the nights.
They say the sun never truly shines in Loch Duwain. That even when the sun hangs high over head, peaks and towers cast their shade upon the valley below. The deeper you travel in the city's depths, the darker it grows, and at the center of it all - The Blackpool, tucked in crescent oasis - one cannot truly tell the difference between day and night. Those who have lived there, though, know a different meaning. True, the city lies in mountain shadow. True, candlelight flickers through the depths of noon. But the truth of why the sun never shines in Loch Duwain is because its families have much to hide.
Mankind is a covetous sort. They long for that which they do not have - the wealth of their neighbors, the power of their rulers, the very forces of nature themselves that govern the machinations of our world - and mankind, of course, will do all in their power to acquire it. This is the principle the Rithe of the city live by. They shy away from this, concealing their misdeeds in secrecy and occult, but the truth lies bare for any with half a mind to see it. Perhaps the pinnacle of all desires is the cold fire that drives them most - eternal life. Even the purest of the Rithe, elvenblood barely tainted by mundane, do not spurn this yearning. Centuries they may have lived, and centuries more to pass, but in time, their bodies will fail, their minds rot, and their souls unshackle from this mortal world.
They could not stand the thought. They detested the thought. And so, instead, they sought answers.
They sought answers in the rumors of a deathless king building a coffin of its own design. They sought answers in the spirits that dwelled in the land, and the whispering stars that some claimed spoke above. They turned to the ancients of distant seas, to the infernal creatures of decay beneath the earth, in faiths of fire and faiths of cold and faiths bathed in the blood of countless victims. Still, they found nothing.
It was, perhaps, by accident they stumbled upon a Truth. Not immortality, as they had sought - but life. Binding a soulless spirit to a lifeless husk, they made them - a foul mockery of nature, cold metal and colder shadows. They were not alive, yet they lived. It was there the briga were born.
Briga. Hollow. Empty. Lie.
They saw promise in this. Vessels that sustained life, but would not age. The first were insufficient - they lived for a day, then began to lose their bodies, then shortly after, their minds. They would dissipate into the mists from which they were born, leaving only puddles of metal in their wake. Shackles of iron were made, not only to control, but to contain. Symbols to keep their forms stable. Names to make them whole. In a cruel irony, the same thing that gave them permanence also made them slaves. To exist is to be at the whims of forces beyond your control, after all, and in the hands of a summoner, names hold power. The briga were bound by the very things that made them, forced into petty servitude at the hand of the resentful Rithe.
It took time - time enough for many generations to come and pass - but Loch Duwain, once darkly magnificent, soon fell to the rot its rulers feared. It was not age, in the end, that proved their poison, but desire. The Rithe fell into squabbles, and they turned their secrets on themselves. Dark sorceries scoured entire bloodlines from the earth. Halls bathed in red, shades like knives whispering through unsuspecting dreamers. Things came to simmer, but the rot remained, and the families remained forever in schism. It was at this time the briga found new purpose. Light, they moved weightlessly across the eaves. Dark, they slipped between the shadows. No soul to trace, no magic to feel, little more than a breath on the wind past unsuspecting windows.
And - if caught - little loss to the Rithe that sent them. They would not betray their masters' secrets, no matter what pain was brought upon them. How could they betray?
The city lived on, if only just, and its people lived on with it. A husk of its former glory, split in realms between the darkened days and the horrors of the nights.
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