The Timestrider prophecy
This post starts with a geographical walkthrough of the continent on which the RP takes place. If it didn't the story intro wouldn't make sense.Chironea is a diverse land, albeit it is diverse in patterns. The continent is almost perfectly circular, surrounded by a never ending ocean. The continent looked at from above would seem similar to an archery target, divided into circles within circles, getting smaller and smaller towards the center, with rivers and streams running outwards from the center.
The outer rim is fertile plains, nearly devoid of trees, abundant with large rivers and large herbivores. This outer rim spans the outer 60 kilometers of Chironea.
One step inward one finds the open deciduous forest, where the trees have wide areas between them, and it might be described as merely overgrown steppes. The second circle takes up the next 90 kilometers.
Next is the dense deciduous forest, which is completely similar to the open deciduous except with more trees standing closer. It fills the next 40 kilometers.
Then appears the coniferous flatland. A murky, dark world of tall, similar-looking trunks reaching heights of easily 100 meters. The forest is so dense that one can barely see 5 meters in any direction where the land has not been cleared. It spans the next 110 kilometers.
The coniferous hills are next; it is a winding land, as dense and murky as the flatlands, but harder to traverse due to the many grassy knolls and valleys everywhere. It is otherwise quite similar to its flat counterpart, and occupies a mere 20 kilometers of the circle.
What is known as the Tunnellands are next, but they are more commonly referred to as The Ridge. A giant, 2 kilometer tall sheer cliff appearing out of nowhere 320 kilometers inland. Staircases have been built into the wall, built inside cavernous tunnels, giving the Tunnellands its nickname. Many of the rivers have also carved deep gorges through the area on their way towards the coast. It climbs 2 kilometers over barely 7 meters, and is one of the most striking features of the continent.
Inside that comes the Plateau, a windy, barren flatland with difficult farming conditions and bad weather. It is a land of little colour, and span a further 30 kilometers inland.
The lower mountains are next. The innermost circle to host permanent residence to humanoids, the mountains reach a height of approximately 4.000 meters over sea level, and is the origin of all but 15 of the continent's rivers. The lower mountains are 200 kilometers across, with only the outermost 70 providing refuge for a few audacious people.
After the lower mountains comes the High Peaks of the innermost of Chironea. No one has ventured further in than 20 kilometers, but they are known to take up the center of Chironea, and the innermost 45 kilometers of the land. The mountains get taller and taller the further in you get, and in the center, the mythological mountains “The Seven Sages” stand tall over all of Chironea, the tallest of them peaking at 13.000 meters.
With the geography of Chironea settled, the plot can be explained:
Chironea was home to two sentient races, the humans and the hexfolk. The hexfolk, being the only of the two races to have been gifted with magic at the dawn of time, lived in the harsher parts of the country, namely from the coniferous forest to the lower parts of the outer ring of mountains, while the humans, more reliant on easy access to resources, lived by the sea and in the deciduous forests of outer Chironea. The two species co-existed for millennia, both keeping mostly to themselves, and only mingling when it was necessary.
The hexfolk were a people of magic, and had many famous seers that achieved fame for their truthful prophecies throughout the ages. The most famous of these was called Danoch the Fair, and lived 2000 years before today. He is revered for his exceptional ability to predict events further out into the future than anyone else. He lived in a shining tower in the Plateau for most of his life, thousands of disciples, humans and hexfolken alike, inhabiting in the area around it. Whenever he had a prophecy, he would shout it out to the crowds below, letting them hear it. Except his last. Known only by the quizzical name “The Timestrider Prophecy”, this one prophecy has never been told to anyone. 2032 years ago, Danoch the Fair, now 84 years of age, collapsed in his study, only accompanied by his assistant and scribe, who recorded his prophecies for posterity. Using his last breath, the greatest hexfolken prophet ever to walk Chironea whispered his last prophecy to his scribe before he passed.
The scribe never told anyone the prophecy. He wrote it down in 12 different pieces, and left them with trusted friends, historians and archives, telling them never to tell anybody about it, or even that they were in possession of it. He is said to have taken the final part of his coveted artifact with him to the grave.
For over a millennia, the “Timestrider Prophecy”, which was the name the scribe always referred to it as, was the greatest mystery in all of Chironea. No one knew where it was hidden, or indeed if it ever even existed. But then, 850 years ago, a young human explorer named Edar discovered an unmarked hexfolken grave deep in the coniferous forests. When he ventured inside, he discovered something that would change him forever. The first verse of the Timestrider Prophecy, still readable after all those years, clenched in the hands of a hexfolken skeleton. And what he read shocked him. He ventured out into the human lands, and began inciting towards war with the hexfolk, being known as a firebrand. He generally was seen as little more than a young madman, waving what he claimed to be part of the prophecy. Then, one day, he was gone, leaving his ragtag followers with little more than an extensive instruction of what they were to do.
Meanwhile, Edar traveled inland, past the hexfolk settlements and towns, over the outer mountains, and further in than anyone had gone before. His goal: The mythical Mt. Elder, in the center of the continent, said to house time itself.
He never returned. But soon, time began slowing. Edar’s followers formed a group known as the Blackcoats, and immediately set forth blaming the hexfolk, preaching that they were planning to use their magic in order to invade and enslave the humans. They garnered little attention until rumours of the wording of the prophecy fragment Edar had found began circulating. Then, more and more people began listening to the Blackcoats, who slowly, but surely began to take over control with all humans.
815 years ago, time stopped. So did the hexfolk. Their magic meant they were tied to time itself, and when time stopped, so did their aging. So did their ability to reproduce. They got stuck in limbo. That was when the Blackcoats struck.
Isolated rumours of attacks on smaller villages began arriving at the hexfolken cities. Rumours about massacres, where everyone who didn’t run was cut down, even the youngest children. The hexfolk kings and mayors didn’t believe it. Even with time stopped, they still held all their magic powers, and they simply couldn’t believe that they could be defeated by mere humans. Hubris, someone say. Because slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, the hexfolk cities stopped sending messages to each other. It was as if they simply stopped existing.
When the human messengers arrived, it was too late for many of the hexfolk to escape. All the major cities of the lower mountains, as well as most of those in the forests, got a letter reciting the first lines of Edar’s prophecy fragment, finally making it clear to the wizard-people what was happening:
The end of the world will be brought here,
by a child of the forests so deep.
For the earthly to escape this rigid fear,
this child must get eternal sleep.
After studies of other of Danoch the Fair’s prophecies, the horrifying truth was revealed: The blackcoats were committing a full-scale genocide, trying to kill all hexfolk because of the prophecy fragment. It basically told that one of the hexfolk would bring about the doom of the world, and to prevent it, this hexfolk would have to die before he had the chance to unleash it. Thus, it was made apparent that Edar, or Edar the Black, as he would by time become known as, had reached the conclusion that the only way to assure that the world wouldn’t end was to kill all of the hexfolk.
Why time stopped, it was never discovered. The wise argued that it must have something to do with the “Timestrider” of the prophecy. But in the end, nothing helped them. Slowly, but surely, over the next centuries, one by one, villages, towns and cities stopped communicating with other hexfolk-inhabited places. If refugees arrived, they had an army of humans and blackcoats hot on their tail, and thus no city got wind of what was happening until it was too late.
This was 800 years ago. There stands now only one hexfolken town, the ancient redoubt of Miastiban, in the inner reaches of the coniferous flatland. Since time grinded to a complete halt at night, no one has seen the sun for eight centuries. The stress of not knowing is getting to the rulers. The end is closing in…
Gameplay:
You will play as a hexfylking (hexfolk in singular) living in Miastiban. One of the last to ever be born in the town for over 800 years. This is NOT a free-form RP. There will be a story, and it risks being very long, so if you want to join, be prepared that it might be long, and you need to be active in it. You will be progressing through the story, hopefully setting things right in the end.
Standard RP rules follows:
1. Use proper grammar, punctuation, spelling etc.
2. Listen to the DM.
3. No god-modding. You only control your own character.
4. One character pr. person.
5. If one wants to join after the commencing of the RP, one must get a special permission from the DM.
6. You must get your character accepted before joining.
7. Have fun.
How to create a character:
Races:
Humans:
Basic humans. Shows a wide aspect of looks, from tall and blonde to short and dark. Lives for usually up 70 years.
Hexfolk:
The hexfolk are the wizard-people of the wilderness of the middle circles of Chironea. They are a short people growing to a maximum height of 1 meter 55 centimeter when reaching adulthood. Their hair varies from white to Black, with dark blue being the only thing apart from different tones of grey in their spectrum of hair colours. They turn bright blonde with age. Only other physical distinction from humans are the fact that their ears have a 20 centimeter tip in the end, and that their eyes have the off-chance of being burgundy and bordeaux coloured. They normally grow to be about 90, but haven’t aged in 800 years.
Hexfolk males always dress in a pair of wide-legged pants, and a short poncho reaching only reaching their navels and elbows, wearing nothing underneath. The poncho is singular-coloured with a different coloured stripe along the edges.
Female hexfolk wears a pair of two coloured, striped leggings, along with a shirt and a black jacket held together by only a single large button (usually and ornate gem of some kind) just below their chest, making the jacket open in the bottom and top. The jacket’s sleeves only reach the elbows. The shirt usually have a clour similar to one of those on the leggings, but not always.
Both genders wear a 30 centimeter tall, crooked, black or dark gray hat (reminiscent of a witch’s hat) with a broad shade (like 10 centimeters), with small holes in them to allow their ear antennae to fit through, and a pair of knee-high leather boots. Jewelry is optional.
Guidelines for character creation:
You MUST be a hexfylking (Hexfolk in singular).
You have to be between 14 and 18 years old.
You must wear the clothes specified, and you may choose the colours yourself if none is directly specified. Hexfolk usually wear bright colours when they can.
Though the hexfolk are a wizard-people, their longevity means you are relatively untrained in magic yet. That, and the stop of time has rendered the hexfolk a bit apathetic.
Miastiban-hexfolk specialize in velocity-enhancing magic (and related types), and all of you therefore know a basic speed spell and a weak magic bolt, capable of some light damage.
NOTE: On hexfolken naming conventions:
Hexfolken have a few pre- in- and suffixes they use for first and last names. Here’s a few. Alternate spelling is allowed, but if you can, please use these. It’s as much about the culture, and a hexfylking just isn’t named “John”.
First names:
Prefixes (All unisex):
Akh-, Ar-, Aner-, Bit-, Brn-, Cas-, Cars-, Calt-, Cor-, Cul-, De-, Ette-, Equ-, Far-, Ferr-, Gri-, Gura-, Hón-, Hîc-, Im-, Ira-, Itet-, Jil-, Jors-, Jot-, Kal-, Kar-, Kat-, Ker-, Kir-, Kul-, Lar-, Leni-, Lom-, Lon-, Luz-, Me-, Mih-, Mihai-, Mir-, Noll-, Nurt-, Ovi-, Ora-, Onta-, Pilar-, Pint-, Por-, Qas-, Ri-, Roi-, Runta-, Ser-, Sil-, Solan-, Trai-, Tukh-, Ur-, Usi-, Uze-, Uzt-, Vy-, Vyrn-, Wal-, Xan-, Xar-, Xas-, Xerri-, Xint-, Xorh-, Xurn-, Yris-, Yss-, Zuil-, Ztsun-.
Infixes (All unisex, not common): en-, et-, eu-, ri-, tioi-, ura-, urrin-, utzas-, xinis-, ztamp-, a-, e-, i-, o-, u-, s-.
Suffixes (Male): -ssis, -gonid, -din, -imir, -mir, -koros, -seppin, -as, -iel, -riel, -gel, -mikats, -aton, -hotep,
-rukh, -tein, -ling, -bandos, -der, -mian, -on, -ent, -i, -angeo, -diu.
Suffixes (Female): -nella, -mezea, -xinell, -toria, -riga, -arpena, -min, -java, -ka, -ác, -tetea, -yodda, -ikillin,
-remia, -ioa, -aia, -eyuna, -ope, -lope, -rope, -tosta, -ija.
Suffixes (Unisex): -nea, -cea, -ruscco, -ved.
Surnames :
Prefixes : Rux-, Giaylle-, Blondd-, Groen-, Orxanx-, Lijlacx-, Bruntt-, Sxert-, Wysst-, Groun-, Golta-, Seilberr-, Ruppein-, Sxmarag-, Thopasch-, Nockel-, Wouilff-, Baren-, Whalken-, Stitz-, Hucke-, Grun-, Bran-, Wasshier-, Hopf-, Ternau-, Bergen-, Thoor-, Ker-, Neuygall-.
Suffixes : -stein, -stitze, -bein, -gust, -becken, -treiau, -pintilie, -hoovfen, -welken, -werkstooin, -bahrer, -hoifvad, -weeltsween,
-ghosthiem, -kercka, -yoll, -maajner, -hesscher, -drauchun, -gryyif, -paajkarszys,
-sxiildt, spiyrdt, -sveerd, -feingr, -baan, -staecker, -wachter, -xinexx, -heelm, -aaugein.
Or, alternately, a male name with the suffix -escu/-esco for males and –esca/-escei for females.
Character sheet:
Name:
Sex:
Height:
Weight (Low weight. Remember, at your age, you’re probably only between 1.20 meters and 1.50 meters. Also, please use Kilos):
Age:
Clothes (Colour only):
Personality:
Looks (Apart from clothing):
I know I'm making a ridiculous amount of demands, but I really feel a lot for making the setting seem authentic as well.
