Ostentero abounded with life. From its innermost springs, sanctum to spirits between worlds, the waters of Ostentero’s life bubbled up onto the cool damp soil to produce fertility. Sunlight gleamed off of the snowy mountaintops and dwellings of their folk; the northern wind grazed, with barely a whisper, the tall lush reeds of the fields. The dawn of an age was here and none heard its thundering herald horn.
Signs passed unnoticed, as those who had practiced such arts had been for centuries considered quiet people with a devotion to mysterious ways, forgotten ways, and so were ignored, given their plot of earth far into the valleys of Glamridis, left to their ancient art and silence and seclusion. It is to these and those like them that Ostentero would turn. It is these that kings and emperors would bow to in the end, for a gloom was coming, and it would consume them. But not now, not in this golden, glowing age of prosperity, not in this time of contentment, could any disturbance break the calm sea that was peace.
Silently, with fingers long and eyes unseen, a pall crept up from the realm of spirits, turning the bubbling, nourishing water to slick ebony mass that choked the plains, raping the land of all that was its beauty. As villages perished from starvation, masses swarmed the metropolises of the age, while some fled to the mountains, some to the northlands, and others to the quiet places. None could quell the toxic waters; only those few massive gardens used to support the cities, and that which was frozen survived untouched.
After some years of life despite the poison swamps, the air grew thick, and dark, and still. No wind blew; the sun gave only half-light; the stars were consumed every night by an inky shade. To the people of Ostentero, this weather anomaly was confounding, and like the swamps, unexplainable by any means they then possessed. Yet, they clung to their cities and their dwellings.
Years passed, and the emergence of malevolence in the land had emerged rampantly throughout the land. From the wombs of many species of animal were born monsters, hideous perversions of reality that sought only survival and the destruction of all around them. Nefarious tribes that were forced long ago into dormancy suddenly grew in number enough to challenge and even demolish several civilizations, scattering their remaining people into exile like the dusts of deserts, now frigid as the northlands. Kingdoms and provinces mad war upon each other, and now only a handful of prosperous city-states and kingdoms were not ruled by chaos and , or strewn beyond its borders, or overrun with floods or invasion.
Now the people of Ostentero believed their world was dieing; now, when their mighty principalities and golden age lay ruined beneath the swamps of noxious waters, the people cried out in their misery, against their gods, against their misfortunes, against each other. Such was the faithlessness and heresy of Ostentero, that some turned to once-restricted sources of power, arcane, and malicious. Thus rose amidst the turmoil of the new age of misery its lords who would seek only survival, and , and thusly the destruction of all around them.
(work in progress- will edit later with the rest of it- reviews good or bad are welcome- i'll post a character creation thread after i finish all this exposition-
thanks for reading!)
Signs passed unnoticed, as those who had practiced such arts had been for centuries considered quiet people with a devotion to mysterious ways, forgotten ways, and so were ignored, given their plot of earth far into the valleys of Glamridis, left to their ancient art and silence and seclusion. It is to these and those like them that Ostentero would turn. It is these that kings and emperors would bow to in the end, for a gloom was coming, and it would consume them. But not now, not in this golden, glowing age of prosperity, not in this time of contentment, could any disturbance break the calm sea that was peace.
Silently, with fingers long and eyes unseen, a pall crept up from the realm of spirits, turning the bubbling, nourishing water to slick ebony mass that choked the plains, raping the land of all that was its beauty. As villages perished from starvation, masses swarmed the metropolises of the age, while some fled to the mountains, some to the northlands, and others to the quiet places. None could quell the toxic waters; only those few massive gardens used to support the cities, and that which was frozen survived untouched.
After some years of life despite the poison swamps, the air grew thick, and dark, and still. No wind blew; the sun gave only half-light; the stars were consumed every night by an inky shade. To the people of Ostentero, this weather anomaly was confounding, and like the swamps, unexplainable by any means they then possessed. Yet, they clung to their cities and their dwellings.
Years passed, and the emergence of malevolence in the land had emerged rampantly throughout the land. From the wombs of many species of animal were born monsters, hideous perversions of reality that sought only survival and the destruction of all around them. Nefarious tribes that were forced long ago into dormancy suddenly grew in number enough to challenge and even demolish several civilizations, scattering their remaining people into exile like the dusts of deserts, now frigid as the northlands. Kingdoms and provinces mad war upon each other, and now only a handful of prosperous city-states and kingdoms were not ruled by chaos and , or strewn beyond its borders, or overrun with floods or invasion.
Now the people of Ostentero believed their world was dieing; now, when their mighty principalities and golden age lay ruined beneath the swamps of noxious waters, the people cried out in their misery, against their gods, against their misfortunes, against each other. Such was the faithlessness and heresy of Ostentero, that some turned to once-restricted sources of power, arcane, and malicious. Thus rose amidst the turmoil of the new age of misery its lords who would seek only survival, and , and thusly the destruction of all around them.
(work in progress- will edit later with the rest of it- reviews good or bad are welcome- i'll post a character creation thread after i finish all this exposition-