The Dead Wastes: The Necrotek
Empires and civilizations have waxed and waned like the tides on the world of The Dead Wastes. Most recently, if a millennium ago can be called recent, there was the Nadori Empire. An unknown catastrophic event ended the technologically advanced civilization. The remnants of their cities, roads, and monuments can still be seen lying dormant under a thousand years of growth and exposure to the elements.
Many devices that have survived the ravages of time are still in use today, often revered as artifacts bestowed by some god. These devices usually perform some sort of utility such as pumping water to a desert village or bringing gaslight to city streets at night. However, there are also more devious and destructive technologies that have been left behind by the Nadori.
The Necrotek were a cult of Tenebrous, the God of Shadows and Death. As a secret society of an empire shrouded in mystery, very little is known about these dark technomagi by Nadori historians other than they practiced the art of fusing mechanica and necromancy. The Necrotek often warped and mutilated their bodies with the unholy fusion to further their studies and to impress their god.
Some academics believe that the Necrotek may be responsible for the demise of the Nadori Empire. Perhaps their vile experimentations and research unleashed some ghastly fate upon the people. They all agree that the world is better off without them, but unfortunately the vestiges of the cult still remain to haunt the present.
Bloodhulks
Today, a handful of Necrotek temples have survived, but now lay buried in remote, undiscovered box canyons of the northern mountains or half-buried in the sands of the east. The city of Stragus, formerly known as Sidarius prior to the vampiric invasion of the Long Night, was built upon a subterranean Necrotek temple. It has been revived by the Cardinal Jandalor, the vampire High Priest of Tenebrous.
With the secrets they uncovered beneath the city, the vampire clergy has been able to revive a small number of hybrid steam hulks that are composed of mummified flesh, bone, and iron. The true horror lies in the fact that these twisted contraptions have been baptized in the blood of infants and are powered by the blood of the enemies they slay in combat. The vampires are hoping to recover more of these Bloodhulks for the impending war against man.
Last of the Necrotek
Of the few scholars even aware of the long dead cult, most believe that all of its members were stricken from the face of the Valtuus along with the rest of the Nadori. However, there is at least one sage who has made a connection between a legend of the fringers who live along the edge of the Dead Wastes and what few descriptions recovered from Nadori ruins of Necrotek members.
The legend of the Iron Wraith is told to the children of fringers to elicit acceptable behavior, but much truth lies in the tales of the monstrous wraith. It is said a man who has rusted iron armor fused to his flesh with exposed bone and shriveled entrails stalks the Dead Wastes, collecting the bodies of zombies and worse for some dreadful and unspeakable experiments. From a distance the man appears shaded by clouds that are not existent, but upon closer inspection the gruesome visage is actually pure shadow. Of course, no one who sees the Iron Wraith ever escapes to tale these terrifying tales either.
Listening to: Quiet Riot - Winners Take All – Metal Health
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The Dead Wastes: Arcana
Buried under the ruins of the world of The Dead Wastes are secrets to the manipulation of magic. Many of these are dark secrets better left undiscovered. To the uninitiated, all methods of manipulating arcane energies are commonly referred to as sorcery, but there are many paths of working magic; sorcery is but one method.
The people of Lyrdonia have a deep mistrust, fear, and sometimes hatred of the arcane. After all, magic caused the collapse of at least one civilization and magic caused the death and destruction that still persists to this day in the Dead Wastes. Most people feel that no good can come from performing magic and anything touched by magic is corrupt and brings evil upon those involved or even near the event.
The mistrust is well warranted as during the dark period between the fall of the Nadori and the rise of Aurincia, many sinister entities utilized magic to enslave villages and used the innocent to fuel their malicious rituals. Many of these entities were sorcerers, calling upon the arcane energies of their nefarious heritage to give them power. Corrupted power.
Paths of Magic
Below is a selection of known and rumored methods of manipulating magic. There are most certainly older, forgotten sources of arcane power and no doubt new methods will be discovered in the future.
- Alchemical – The science of extracting the phenomenal properties of elements
- Divine – The miracle of channeling the will of the gods
- Eldritch – The power of places gained usually from events that has taken place there
- Psionics – The ability to effect the environment through will alone
- Resonance – Strange effects created through voice, chord, and rhythm
- Ritual – Rites of intricate and involved procedure that often take hours if not days
- Sorcery – Spellcraft gained through blood or pact
- True Name – Undeniable control over things by the knowledge of true names
- Wizardry – An almost mathematical invocation of magic using complex words and symbols
- Witchcraft – Magic gained through the consort of spirits
- Wylder – The power to manipulate the power of nature
Arcane Corruption
Performing magic is not without consequences. Channeling arcane energies can leave lasting marks upon the user. Some practitioners of magic assuage this corruption by passing it on to other things, such as the surrounding plantlife or even other people (the virgin sacrifice is a well known legend for a reason). However, these defilers usually end up attracting worse things than arcane corruption.
Arcane corruption takes many forms, some spellcrafters end up acquiring strange physical features: scales, goat irises, claws, vestigial wings and tails, or even tentacles. Not all spells cause such disfigurements, but the more potent a spell is coupled with how quickly the spellcaster wants to manifest the power increases the likelyood to accrue arcane corruption.
Listening to: Carcass – Swansong – Black Star
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The Dead Wastes: History II
The Long Night
The nearest planets to Valtuus, Kulpator and Asceros, had began a month long process of converging in an extended solar eclipse, and the twin moons of Valtuus had begun to appear during the day, and their lunar cycles were affected by strange gravitation anomalies caused by the conjunction of planets. Doomsayers had taken to the streets of Sidarius en masse, preaching about the end-times and souls doomed to the burning conflagrations of the Infernal Dominions.
The doomsayers were not far off; the Long Night had begun and once all the planets and the moons were in conjunction, the sun was blotted out of the day sky and an unnatural night fell across the land. But instead of fire and brimstone, the people of Sidarius were to be drowned in Darkness and Blood. When the Darkness came, a twisting vortex of sickly green energy formed in the black skies above Sidarius, poised above the Sunstar Cathedral, as if it were going to descend to swallow the steeple whole. And so, all the might of Aurincia that could be assembled in the hours that passed shortly after the appearance of the vortex, arrayed themselves for battle around the exterior of the cathedral. But instead of descending to engulf the cathedral, the gaping green maw belched forth a flood of dark crimson. The vile ichor had the copper-tinged smell of blood, yet burned flesh like acid.
Unfortunately, the Shining Host of Sidarius, as their army was called, was unprepared for such an event, expecting a horde of demons to fight in battle. So it was that much of the Shining Host was destroyed in the tidal wave of acidic blood, as were many of the remaining clergy and even more citizens. It was only after the corrosive rivers of blood subsided that the enemy horde the Shining Host had expected to fly through the ghastly vortex materialized. But it was not an army of demons, it was something worse.
Dead, rotting corpses began pouring forth from vortex. A few became impaled upon the steeple of the Sunstar Cathedral while the others began to cascade down the roof and pile up upon the ground. Their body tossed and bounced like rag dolls.
This continued for some time, nearly burying the Sunstar Cathedral with rotting flesh. Then they came. The Vampiric Legion marched slowly down the hill of corpses, weapons drawn and at the ready, with the Blood Tyrant at the lead. Everyone that survived that day would have his name burned into their memory. Karthisis. Karthisis was the lord of the vampires, their Blood Tyrant.
He marched his legion into the main boulevard of the city, and then called his men up short. The ranks of the vampire host was slavering and biting at their bits to sink their teeth into the Shining. With a blood curdling scream and a wave of his arm, his Black Calvary came in full charge through the vortex, streaking through the darkened sky upon bat winged steeds.
Then the real terror began as a pulse of eldritch energy reverberated through the city, bringing the mountain of corpses to lurching life. And so the Shining Host nearly fled in terror, but instead gave their lives so the remaining Priests of Sidar could work their final miracle.
Just as Shambling Horde formed with deathly purpose within Sidarius, the Last Bishop of the Sunstar Cathedral gathered his priests to him to begin closing the gate that had spelled their doom, for what had crossed over was merely the vanguard of a much larger army, and they could be seen and heard marching towards the vortex.
The bishop called forth a powerful prayer with his final breath, supplementing its strength with his life, and one by one his priests dropped as they too contributed their life to the spell, and when the last fell, the bishop fell to his knees and the vortex collapsed.
The Shining Host was quickly routed with their commander now dead. Many made their final stand in the streets, allowing some of the populace to escape.
The siege lasted for three days, as the Vampiric Legion squashed the remnants resistance, captured and executed political and religious leaders, and made their dominion over the city known. However, the planetary convergence was beginning to end, and the vampires were running out of night.
And so Karthisis found the corrupt officials who had been promised immortal power. The dark god, Tenebrous, had delivered on his promise, but they were eternally bound to serve the ruler of Sidarius. He found them, deep below the city, in the Necrotek Temple they would forever call home with their new stations as the Undying Magisters.
The Blood Tyrant put the Magisters’ newfound arcane might to use. Karthisis sent his best necromancers and sorcerers to help the Magisters work a spell that would protect the vampires in their new home.
The sorcerers conjured a monolithic obsidian obelisk in the shadow of the ruined Sunstar Cathedral, and etched dark runes upon its surface with their claws. When the Magisters finally unleashed their spell, the obelisk bulged and crackled with black magic, and then let forth a stream of dark energy into the sky. The energy reached its zenith about a mile above the city and began pouring down, forming a giant dome.
When the dark energy reach the ground, a shockwave of epic proportions radiating out from the city, killing every living creature in a two hundred and fifty mile radius. Many of the slain rose as zombies or worse, and joined the discarded zombie army of the vampires in the Shambling Horde.
And so the Dead Wastes were created, and the Barrier Dome was erected, hiding the vampires from the baleful glare of the sun, yet imprisoning them within its embrace. Sidarius was re-dedicated in blood as Stragus, the City of Eternal Night. This was not what the Blood Tyrant had in mind when he wanted arcane protection from the sun. And he was not happy.
Present Day
The Long Night was two hundred and twenty-five years ago. Since that day, the exiled Sidarans founded the Sidaran Theocracy in the south, and have grown stronger than they were before the Long Night. They wait for the sign to march to war against Stragus.
The rest of Lyrdonia waits and bides their time, waiting for the tension to break into open war. They are debating the best course of action, remain neutral and hope the war passes them by or join the Sidaran Theocracy and make a stand. Not a few people have considered an allegiance with Stragus.
Listening to: Stabbing Westward – Darkest Days – Haunting Me
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The Dead Wastes: History I
Fall of the Nadori Empire
Not much is known about the Nadori Empire, other than it once covered all of the continent of Lyrdonia as well as the island of Pratonan. What is known about the Nadori is they suddenly disappeared from the face of Valtuus over a thousand years ago, leaving behind two massive ruins of cities, one of which Sidarius was eventually built upon. The other ruined city lies overgrown in the jungles of Pratonan, near the city-state of Arcanicum.
Other Nadori ruins dot the landscape and many villages spring up around these remnants because they once provided ready made shelter or because some the technology still functioned, and proved useful. The coastal kingdom of Stahlhelm’s city of the same name maintains a small electricity grid that powers ancient Nadori lamps in the royal palace that was built upon Nadori ruins. Moknar, the last town before the great Sea of Silt maintains a system of running water that has allowed the town to thrive in an otherwise hot and arid environment.
The most legendary technology of the Nadori that is rumored to exist are steam powered juggernauts that were used to perform hard or dangerous labor for the Nadori. These massive contraptions of walking metal are known as steamhulks. While most reports of these automatons are never confirmed, the stories of their brute power are of mythic proportions.
On thing is for sure, given the technology of the Nadori, if whatever visited their doom upon them were to return, the current nations of Lyrdonia would be powerless to stop them.
Age of Darkness
After the shining beacon of knowledge that was the Nadori Empire blinked out, the realm of Lyrdonia fell into an age of darkness, both intellectually and spiritually. Survivors of the fall of the Nadori clustered in small pockets of humanity that were separated from each other by leagues of dangerous territory filled wild beasts that went unchecked, bandits, and worse.
In this time, cults of the dark god, Tenebrous, and other minor deific figures sprung up across the land. These cults invited demons, devils, and malevolent spirits into the world of Valtuus. Once these creatures obtained a foothold in this world, they would beckon others of their kind, and soon a plague of evil blanketed the land. These creatures would often find a small village and dominate its inhabitants through fear and guile.
Then the glorious god, Sidar, woke from the slumber of ages and took notice of the people of Valtuus plight. He bolstered his clergy and gave them the knowledge they needed to defeat the darkness. Or at least that is how what the Church of Sidar claims. Regardless, the Church of Sidar grew in power and they marched forth across Lyrdonia, exercising and censoring much of the evil from the land.
Their biggest trial was trying to send demon lord back to the diabolic depths of the Infernal Dominions. He proved too powerful, but the Church managed, with great sacrifice, to seal him and his minions deep inside what is now known as Demondusk Valley.
Rise of Aurincia
With the rise of the Church of Sidar, the people of Lyrdonia slowly clawed its way out of the Age of Darkness and into the Golden Age of Aurincia. The Church of Sidar founded a theocracy in the name of the priestess that sacrificed her life sealing the demon lord in Demondusk Valley. This theocracy, Aurincia, was centered on the city of Sidarius whose first stone was built upon the site of the last major confrontation between the Church and the Cult of Tenebrous.
Aurincia spread its influence throughout the north, stopping at the goblinoid steppes in the northeast and the physical limitations of the northern mountains. It reached east and stopped at the Feyhome Forest and made the budding Kingdom of Stahlhelm in the southwest a protectorate.
The Golden Age of Aurincia lasted for about a hundred years, and the lands were at peace and trade developed between the nations of humans. The sciences began to advance again, as did arcane and divine studies. Libraries were built and universities founded.
Aurincia developed an oligarchy where political power was shared between elected officials and selected members of the Church of Sidar. This may have proved Aurincia’s undoing as it was these elected officials that eventually became corrupt and began worshiping the dark god, Tenebrous.
For the evil that still lurked beneath the city, in a ruined Necrotek Temple, began to take notice of the desires and ambitions of the elected officials. It would sneak into their dreams and poison their thoughts, promising unlimited power. And so the dark god, Tenebrous corrupted these officials and they began to change the political landscape.
They removed the Church’s power in matters of state, and the generals of the army of Sidarius backed these officials after being placated with gifts and wealth. The officials bargained for more power and Tenebrous gave it, for the price of one thousand souls, they would become immortal and laden with eldritch might. So in their greed, they signed a contract in blood.
The Church became alarmed at the spreading corruption. Within fifty years, Sidarius had become a city stained by corruption and wild debauchery. There was a mass Church mandated exodus of the clergy of Sidar from the city they had founded. Only a few remained behind, the corrupt and the vigilent. For the vigilent knew that in time, they would be needed.
Then the people of Lyrdonia began to take notice of the strange behavior of night sky. The heavenly bodies all began to fall into alignment as the Sisters, as Valtuus’ moons are known, began to blot out the sun.
Listening to: Prong – Rude Awakening – Rude Awakening
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The Dead Wastes: Cosmology II
Astronomy
It should be noted that most of Valtuus believe in a Valtuus-centric view of the heavens, and while the Nadori knew the reality of it, that knowledge did not survive the Age of Darkness. Astronomy is not widely accepted, except maybe in Stahlhelm, as it conflicts with many of the people’s religious beliefs. The Church of Sidar has condemned more than its share of astronomer to exile or worse.
A Binary System
Unbeknownst to the people of Valtuus, their sun is actually two suns that just happen to revolve around the center of the solar system at the same speed of revolution as Valtuus, giving the appearance of only one sun. The discovery of two suns would be a momentous event upon Valtuus, causing the Church of Sidar to rethink many of its beliefs.
Valtuus
Valtuus is the second planet from the binary suns and is home to the Dead Wastes. It is one planet of three known to exist, and actually one of seven, a fact still unknown to its inhabitants. Valtuus is primarily composed of water with three major land masses that the continent Lyrdonia is only one of.
Kulpator
The planet closest to the binary suns is Kulpator. From what astronomers can see, it is smaller planet with constant, world covering magma flows, which causes it to appear like the red marble with orange-yellow vanes that is mined from the a quarry near Stahlhelm named Kulpator.
Asceros
Asceros is the third planet from the suns, and is half again the size of Valtuus. It is usually covered in a dense layer of white atmosphere, but the occasional green and blue can be seen, leading astronomers to believe that its composition is much like Valtuus’. Not much thought has been put into whether or not there is intelligent life there since it not accepted to say such things around a Priest of Sidar.
Other Planets
There are at least four more planets in Valtuus’ system; however, they cannot be seen with current technology, so they have not been recorded yet in the annals of history. Every now and again, an astronomer will see a star blink out of existence for a night, only to return the next. This is probably one of the unknown planets.
Moons of Valtuus
The moons of Valtuus are often called the “Sisters.” Lucretia, the farther one, is a red planetoid, with a white swirling atmosphere; it is often associated with war, rage, lust, and iron. Luna, the closer, is scarred and broken from an impact with what many astronomers conclude was a comet. While many stories revolve around the circumstances of the event, the truth is beyond human memory. The event left a trail of debris floating behind her that are called Luna’s Tears. Luna is a grey orb often associated with magic, madness, fertility and silver.
The truth behind the Tears of Luna is that the debris was actually part of Valtuus herself. On the far side of the known world, there exists a massive crater created by an ancient and unknown entropic entity. Large fragments of Valtuus have broken off, but remain anchored in place by some gravitational (or arcane) anomoly. Luna actually impacted some of this debris during its orbit, and its mass has gathered some smaller fragments of Valtuss.
Dominitus
Dominitus is the name given by astronomers to a large, irregular shaped heavenly body. This entity seems to be approaching the world of Valtuus despite it course around the sun. Since many of the hypotheses proposed by astronomers are considered heresy against Sidar, no one has approached the Church with this information.
What the people of Valtuus will not know before it is too late is that Dominitus is really a living organism enslaved by an alien race that is on its way to Valtuus to reap its resources, which include sentient beings.
Other Dimensions
Beyond the five dimensions covered in the previous cosmology article, some scholars also think that when people dream, their conscious crosses into the Dimension of Dreams, and if the conscious drifts too far, it enters the Nightmare Realms.
Listening To: Marilyn Mansion – Portrait of an American Family – Get Your GunngamingD&Dd20rpgroleplayingdungeons and dragonsworld of darkness
