The Trilogy of Gog and Magog

First to be told is the legend of the beings named Gog and Magog.  Brothers of thought and kin to the gods, these two held great power over the Fifth after the Sundering.  They first resided in the shadowed corners of the Celestial Realms taking council from the other powers of the Dark.  At their bidding they hunted Merrith, the sister of Vivoria, and slew her with sword and hammer.  Gog took the goddess' face as a trophy and symbol of their defiance.  The lords of Light were deeply angered and cast them out and barred the Gates to the Celestial Realms to them.

Gog and Magog fled to the Fifth, and there they began to form legions who carry the taint of their violence which infects like a disease.  Their legions of fell creatures ruled over the land, tainting everything under their dominion.  Only the greatest cities survived the legion's advances and many were destroyed.  Atlantis, Ur and the elven city of Celebair became islands of light in a darkening night.

Vet- Auun, angered by such a light punishment for godslaying, sired a christos to a human woman of Ur.  This man grew to become an honoured warrior, for it was obvious to all to saw him that he was possessed by the strength of the gods.  Ikslander they named him, and armies grew under his lead.  Such was his strength of arms and skill with the tactics of war that he slew the Legions and chased them until they were cornered into a deep valley.  Ikslander fought the brothers and took the hammer and sword and broke them.  He then rent Magog's armour from his form and Mirrith's face, which had been fashioned into a three eyed mask, from Gog.  Using the last of his power he shut the mountains, locking Gog and Magog with their Legion until the end of the Earth.

Ikslandir went on to create an Empire and he ruled long.  The spoils of the battle he locked into chests of dwarven metal, and when he passed from the mortal world they were brought with him to burial.  The Altantians brought him to the Sacred Valley, where those touched by the lords of Light are put to rest, and entombed with the chalice spoken of old, his half-elven queen and the Everliving Rose.

At the end of the Earth a human will awaken him, and his treasure will be stolen.  When the Mask and Armour are worn will Gog and Magog awaken and begin to delve a way through the mountains.  Only with these tokens, and the waking of the brothers, can the Four be overthrown and the remnants of the world spared.  If the Four should be banished, for another aeon, the Everliving Rose may be planted and Eden grow anew.

Codex Psychosia - Travelling Through the Endless Night

+++translated from Derekest dialect (Shan, loc. Nightlands)+++

Long has it been, months of night.  An age in the hour past sunset, I walk through the soft places near Ten O'clock.  There is sand here, waves of shifting dunes that flow and ebb into infinity.

It is not cold, not is it warm, for there is no temperature here.  The wind barely touches ones face, smelling of nutmeg, and pulls the coat upon my back.  The pilgrim beside me swears the wind smells of chocolate.

It had been a month before I came to the Kradena, from isles populated by the peoples of Quiddity in all their chaotic splendour.  It has been almost a Earthly year since I returned to the islands.  I had forgotten I had been here, the memory obscured from my mind, until Uriel arrived.

The pilgrim joined my company early on, sensing my need to return to the waking world.  He would lead me along the path and teach me the secrets of passing through.  I would bring him with me, along my memory of Earth, and stand under a sun again.  This was our deal, for good or ill.

I caught a qwtyllc entering the Kradena and wove a cage of Thornalis root.  These I gave to the pilgrim, who would in turn give them to my friends.  By this connection I might forge a path through the barrier of the Dreaming.

The qwtyllc would be bled  upon a stone thirty paces beyond the Gate of the Gods.  I must try to be at the edge of Kradena by then, at a temple made of ivory.  By the direction of the pilgrim I crafted a dowsing rod from the last shrub in the sands which points ever further into the sands.

There are few stars here, and they change positions when the eye isn't focused on them.  Violet clouds drift across the sky, never with the wind.  Once during my travel I saw a herd of massive animals which reminded me of buffalo, but they sensed us on the horizon and fled.

I've aged a year, perhaps more, my hair has grown long, and my hands are callused.  Surprisingly, my staff has changed, it has absorbed some of the essence of Quiddity and there is a whole new scope of power I can channel.

I look forward to returning, and with the pilgrim's scrying stone I can view them from afar, but only briefly, time passes faster in the Dying Dominion.  I look forward to returning with the task set out before us.

Codex Psychosia - Awake

In accord with the prophesy dreamed,

Amid the warring factions and minds,

At Worldstar's point they gather.

They are fewer this time, than last.

Some lost, one fallen, one dreaming.

Relics they bring, from neverplaces.

Angel now fallen and cast out of Iyant,

The Shield of Oceans fused to his arm,

Stands where Ra dies an old man.

The Arbutan Staff begins the helix' bend,

At polar north where dragons hunt,

Where the gate to Noctus is unlocked.

By portent or design, irony or humour,

The cursed Corpus Occuli stands at East,

Borne by nightmare crossed with flesh.

The jewels of life taken from death's shore,

Closes the helix, completing the cycle,

By the hand of faery, may they return.

Doomed to fail, as all things are by fate,

For at the center one who is awake speaks,

And he has died unable to speak the words.

Codex Psychosia - Corpus Occuli

Dead eyes, the Corpus Occuli.

Like many places otherwhere,

Few struggle against many.

At the Worldstar's jagged point,

Where power shatters land.

Unlight stirs He Who Slumbers

Under where reality is torn.

The Awakened, as yet to be,

Venture to man's foul wounding,

And the second seal of John's writ

Shall be broken without thunder.

He Who Slumbers wakes enraged,

Uriel, incomplete and wrathful.

Before the storm of divine fury

One shall fall, and his kin avenge.

Divine form, now lifeless and dead,

Shall be folded inwards, first wings,

Then legs, arms, and lastly his head.

The shard, so sealed, seen as an eye,

Shall complete the means to waken.

Codex Psychosia - Visitation

Late one evening, as I sipped from a warm cup sitting in my evening chair,

A scratch, or knocking.  Like branches and claws upon my back door.

Long crimson drapes guarded the glass, from all observation,

So I listened to the sound, sceptical of its origins and purpose.

The sounds did not abate, but moved outside in my yard.  Circling.

At each window in turn, and louder each time, wild and persistent.

My cup had grown cold, and still I sat and listened.

I imagined what kind of aberrant beast it could be, species of terror.

At the back door, a second time, it stopped and I waited...

Silence hung in the air like a heavy damp cloth, and I waited.

In complete silence I stood, and crossed my sitting room to the door,

The curtain pulled aside ever so slightly, I gazed outside holding my breath.

 The landing outside held no great dragon, but a terrifying chimarae.

A creature of the size of a hound, with a crimson coat of shining fur.

Like a hare, with great ears and rear legs, and shining black eyes,

Great horns, like twisted oak branches, grew from its head.

It regarded me indifferently, devouring a portion of my wicker chair,

Torn pieces of it were scattered across the balcony, the remnants.

As I watched, it took notice of me and slowly got onto all fours.

One large foot rapped the patio once, and the glass door shattered.

I leaped back, falling onto my chair and spilling my table and drink,

The creature entered the room in a flash of red to stand in front of me.

Cold intelligence gleamed in his eyes, as he assessed my startled self.

Then he greeted me, using the dead tongue of the Annukai.

He called me a scribe and lauded me for my previous works of fiction,

Appraising my bookshelves, stacks of manuscript and curiosities.

He bid me to take comfort, and to take up the pen and paper of my trade,

To drink my hot tea and sit back in my chair and listen to his tales.

His manner was that of a nobleman of bygone era, filled with wisdom,

So I did as he bid, and wrote for him, of the things the hare said.

He asked to be called Zoloft, and I gave him my name in return,

And he began his story, with the end of a world greater than mine.

 

He came from Yzederrodex, once the greatest of all cities, home of a god.

The capital of the First, of a scale and grandeur impossible to record.

The One God resided here and it was the centre of the Dominions,

The shining twin of Ra'lygh thought to be immortal and impervious.

But the clock of Armageddon struck noon for the great city,

And a son was to return to the father and bring death and annihilation.

He told of this world, next in turn for that terrible clock, of our end.

He spoke of beauty like the glorious, and hidden, Shield of Oceans,

Origins of terrible fetishes like the Corpus Occulli, the zombie's eye,

Of the shaded paths to Anhkor, and the sunken city of Dagon.

Each of the clock's symbols I wrote into the growing tome, each ending.

Mapped the sacred design of the nexus grid and sites of the ancients,

From Khufu's Tomb to the lost cities, I wrote what the hare told me.

Into the early morning he spoke of myth, artifice and the gods who watch.

 

And as pages were filled, and the story passed from Aramaic to Greek,

Into Sylvan, Draconic, Atalantean, and those I do not have name for,

I felt my self slip away like pages in a breeze and I start to worry.

Each page wrote itself faster, each tale more intriguing than the last.

Less I could remember, my memory slipping into the void faster,

The Codex forms hundreds of pages, each a slice of the scribe who writes,

Each a maddened mystery, the Rapture, the secrets of the apocalypse.

He tells the scribe of the fall of the Great Veil, when magic returns

The scribe shudders as the hare describes the rupture of society.

The scribe wrote of the Great War, and of the long death of Earth.

He soothed his nerves with words of the rebirth of the Fifth, of survival.

But the scribe was not disturbed, nor agitated, by the hare's tales,

Not a single piece of self was left and the dream began to fade to grey.

The Codex Psychosia was upon the scribe's desk, bathed in the light of Ra.

And the scribe sat unable to think, or to do, or to be, clear as glass.

The tome would travel with fate, or it could be consigned to flame,

It is Pandora's shadow, knows of Lilith's Kiss, and steals life.

Read All the Things #6 - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Number six is about a little book called; Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.  An interesting read to say the least (so I will say some more!)

Set in a post-apocalyptic Earth, where many have fled to Mars and other colonies, a bounty hunter sets out on his first hunt.  Bounty hunters are police agents who track illegal androids.  These are near-human, biological and smarter, androids defecting their servitude to humans.  They only lack the ability to breed, live long or have empathy.  There are also 'specials', radiated humans who lack the IQ to emigrate.

The story calls into question some very intriguing, and frightening, concepts.  Since the only way to test a live person is to test their empathy, what if a human fails?  Do the sentient 'andys' have rights or are they less valuable than the nearly extinct animals who are held sacred by the survivors?  Would you pass an empathy test?

This book receives 9 strips of bacon, with feta fondue.

This book fits into the World of Damnation easily.  Simulants who 'go rogue' would be hunted by police funded bounty hunters. It is also an interesting look at life outside the Cities, in the dust-ridden ruins occupied by specials...

Pain and Suffering

An invisible, serrated shard of glass piercing the flesh.  Mind numbing agony which emanates through the body.  That incessant ache which permeates everything and clouds the senses.

I find that pain isn't represented very well, or at all most times.  For instance, if someone were to suffer from a blow from a truck the pain would be debilitating.  Even if said person were to then be magically healed, the pain might continue to linger unless directly addressed.  A victim suffering from damage should be suffering penalties, and the greater the damage...

Pain

For every ten points a victim suffers damage to their wound pool, in a single attack, the victim gains one Pain.  Pain is healed with rest (like pools and other modifiers).  Every point of Pain gives -1 to all rolls (except during lunacy rolls add Pain).  All undead and golems are immune to pain.

Threshold (Sage Lore - Stm)

Add the Threshold modifier to Pain, a victim can never receive a positive modifier this way.  (Eg: A victim with 2 Pain and Threshold +4 would have no negative or positive penalty due to Pain.)

Shock
When a victim's Pain penalty equals their Stm, they go into shock.  When in shock, a victim is limited to one check or move and may not use mana or prayer pool.

Using Power and Pain

Soothing Touch (Water, Healing) - DoS removes Pain from target.

Transference (Telepathy, War, Air, Summoning) - DoS removes Pain from target which the caster receives.  (War could then be used to make a pool to hit, transferring the Pain to the target.)

Skills and Pain

The skill torture should be noted, due to being able to give things pain points (equal to the DoS).  The intended target should be immobilized to use this as a check and no damage is done.  Torture could also be stacked with a damage roll, which would double the amount of Pain received from the attack.

Aid can be used to reduce pain, temporarily.  An aid check will negate Pain at one per DoS, which will go down at one every round.

A non-lethal called shot could also be used to double the Pain from an attack.

Tormentor (Priest Source)

A person might chose to specialize in producing and spreading pain to harness the dark energies it produces.  A tormentor does this by hurting themselves and others and then using it as a weapon against their foes.

Starting Level: +1 Threshold, 1 knowledge point, 3 weapon uses.

Level Advancement: +1 Threshold, 2 weapon uses.

Using Pool:  A tormentor can use an amount of prayer equal to the amount of Pain near them, including themselves, up to five times their Threshold modifier.

-Scathe: Pool to hit, attack DoS equals Pain received by target.

-Transfer: Threshold DoS equals amount of Pain to be transferred from one target to another willing target.

-Override: Caster may ignore one Pain modifier for each 5 prayer used.

-Incite: Pool to hit, attack DoS adds to an immediate lunacy roll.

-Agonize: Target loses an amount of wounds equal to Threshold DoS, to a maximum of their Pain.

Other Sources and Pain

Any source which gives a modifier to MS would instead gain a modifier to Threshold.

Soul Streamer

Soul Streamer (Priest Source)

There is a persistent cycle of life and death, an ebb and flow, an energy that is constant and immense. Soul Streamers have learned to tap in to this energy and use their bodies as a conduit with which to alter the flow. Every person is different, thus every soul streamer will have learned different uses for this power. There is a chorus, created in the stream, by the multitudes of ending and beginning lives; because of this, soul streamers slowly lose their minds... their individuality slowed stripped away.

Starting Level: 3 knowledge points, d10+Chr prayer, +1 Madness.

Level Advancement: +2 knowledge points, +d10 prayer, +1 Madness.

Disciplines: The victim must choose three Disciplines: lunacy, resist, healing, scry, undeath or dominance.

Codex Psychosia - Heretic's Requiem

The sand of old Aegypt smells of spice and gold.

Above, the stars dance the same dance with the moon.

I see a river of people, a city's flood, refugees.

Camels, oxen, tuskers, horses and many others.

Each burdened with all they can carry,

Carving a new path through dust and rock.

To Thebes!  To the Old Gods! They shout.

The Pharaoh is dead, long live the Pharaoh!

With blade, and star, and child they came.

To the house of Aten they brought death,

The judgement of the glorious hand of Horus.

Great AmonRa and dark Shemzu concurred.

The Heretic-King flayed bare with wrath.

But the deluge grasped me like the jaws of Set

And carried me further to the Great City.

Scarabs and locusts made of brass,

Each with insides of spinning brass gears,

The Swarm of Ra, shepherding the throng.

To dust, his soul is devoured by brass claws.

The Heretic's name and spirit obliterated.

Let them hear the names Ta brought here.

Favoured of Ra, Jesyble lost to flame.

Mosa-nalendi, the graceful star,

Banished, cursed, damned, Ickthuas.

Bezis, the lost swan of the Nile,

Grog'Nak D'More Goliathi Kai'Kee.

And Mateuw from the shore of Quiddity.

To Thebes! To the Old Gods! We shout.

Read All The Things #5 - Cowbow Ninja Viking

One can likely tell from the title that this book is fun.  Our protagonist, the cowboy ninja viking, has a very severe case of multiple personalities.  Our 'hero' faces many challenges being a triplet, and the subject of military experimentation to create a better warrior.  He reunites with some other triplets, his ex, some antagonists and some allies.  This graphic novel is packed with crazy...

Cowboy Ninja Viking gets 8 strips of bacon on the scale.

Which brings us to the triplet subrace.  DNA and Interzone would likely experiment in this type of field, likely at the cost of the subject's sanity.

Triplet (Subrace) - World of Damnation

-The victim's warrior, mage and priest sources are not restricted by level type.  A triplet can choose a warrior, mage or priest source instead of the level type.  The victim's cyber source is unaffected.  (The victim may have three warrior sources for example.)

Restricted - Human only.

Madness - +2 madness points.