Arkturus, Part 2

Arkturus, in all his business dealings, would bring whatever face to the table he thought his employer would wish to see. Most often he would be polite and direct, ensuring that nothing he said would be used against him. Sometimes borderline insulting for some less reputable clients. Most often, however, and especially with his crew he was snarky, quick-witted, and sarcastic, always having the comment that would give him a few laughs or a punch to the face. Even pushed to the brink of panic he would keep his cool and hide his true feelings.

All of this, naturally, concealed an almost broken mind. Ark was a genius by definition, his capacity for rational thought and mental processing were far above average, but unfortunately this also worked against him. Every comment would mask a feeling of hopelessness for his life ever becoming more meaningful than delivering cargo A to point B or shooting bastard C in the head.

It wasn’t until Silvikk discovered his affinity for empathy (emotion-based magic, completely separate from essentia) that he began to find a purpose in life. While Silvikk used the magic, it was almost uniformly abilities beneficial to others, like transferring pain from another person to herself, or improving someone’s mood by influencing their emotions. Arkturus, on the other hand, found that his own unstable emotional state provided alternative uses for the magic. He could crush enemies’ morale and even cause an emotional dissonance that could occasionally have actual physical effects.

As he and Silvikk got closer, his empathic abilities noticeably shifted, reflecting his own shift in character. Silvikk provided a positive influence, both empathically and without the need of the magic at times. By the time they married, Ark was a completely new man, happy with his life and more confident in his search for Paradeisos.

Arkturus Highwind

Arkturus Highwind

Arkturus Highwind is the far descendant of Eathanu, tracing the line back directly to the god nearly eighty generations back. He was born in 3022 on Nexus in the Fuu’u'll system and was twenty-five when Eathanu issued the dream-visits about Paradeisos. Eathanu, believing Arkturus might be the one to find it, told him it was his divine destiny to locate the planet (it wasn’t) and at first Ark was enthusiastic about it. He bought a cheap freighter and started transporting goods for people, looking out for clues on Paradeisos’ location.

For twenty-two years he kept his ears open and heard nothing that sounded like a reasonable theory to follow. In this time he became well-versed in essentian magic and discovered an affinity for empathy at as well. He also got a lot of practise with small firearms, mostly pistols, and developed a preference for energy-based weapons that draw on the user’s own essentia supply. Shortly after turning forty-seven, Ark sold his freighter and bought a new ship from a station orbiting Azureus. The ship, it turned out, was a completely unique model, resembling a common Lonnigan Shipyards Sparrow class, but the interior led to a pocket dimension. This gave the interior of the otherwise small ship spacious crew’s quarters and a cargo hold with enough space to comfortably fit three one-man shuttles (or fighters) inside.

The technology for that type of ship was advanced, but that prototype was the only one of its kind to be produced. The magical requirements were immense and the safety of several pocket dimensions flying around the galaxy was called to question after the first was built. The technology was scrapped and the ship became priceless. Ark got it for about six million gal of old family money (the entire Highwind family was loaded at that point, though that burnt through most of what Ark had). He named the ship the Excelsior after the airship Eathanu rode after attaining godhood, while he still lead the Dragoons.

After purchasing the ship Ark gathered a rather unorthodox crew through a series of events better left to book form, if I ever get published/write it at all.

Ahem. AFTER his various adventures with his crew he settled down with the beautiful monk Silvikk, whom he met on Sanctuary early in his adventures. The two had already married on Nexus before they settled down, forever wandering the galaxy aboard the Excelsior. They had two children together: first a girl, Sisay, who became a doctor, and second a boy, Coral, who became a specialist wizard in the element of fire and basically experimented with fire magics for a living.

Arkturus went through the then-uncommon experience of actually dying of natural causes at the age of 205, as did Silvikk five years later at the same age.

Paradeisos

In D3047, the god Eathanu visited an estimated 85% of all living sentient beings in their sleep and told them of a paradise world, a world that could support any sentient in known space because, though divine magics the world had every climate existing in the explored worlds somewhere on the surface. There were differing accounts on the subject, because Eathanu told four different descriptions of the planet.

Some were told that the journey to Paradeisos was a one-way trip. Others were told that it could not be reached by ship. Some were told that anyone travelling far out enough into the Reaches would find it. Finally, some people were told not to believe the story, that Paradeisos didn’t exist at all.

Eathanu’s plan worked, and a lot of people began to look for this paradise, hoping to find true peace, permanent escape from the Necros, the credit for being the first to find it, and many other reasons. There was a sharp rise in the number of independent adventurers searching through space, boosting the economies and giving Emarions a new goal (immortality became easy at some point).

Anyone who might have found the planet never told the story or was never seen again, and during this initial rush many people vanished, presumably dead or exploring the dark void for something they did not know existed. Eventually some people gave up, but there was always someone looking, stories of exploration in the Reaches finding not Paradeisos but other wonders.

Eathanu Highwind

Eathanu Highwind

Eathanu is a name uttered by every adventurer following the Dragonian War at one time or another. Shortly after the war Eathanu became the first and only mortal to ascend to greater godhood. Even before the war he was quite a celebrity, a well-decorated military man praised for his efforts in leading the Dragoon corps to rival even the Paladins, who were at the time led by Anselm Skyerun.

Eathanu was younger than Anselm (only 47 at the end of the Dragonian war) and saw himself sort of as Anselm’s protégé, but he also led a part of the Emarion army, so they were equally as much rivals. Eathanu was always a little cocky, and always beaten by Anselm in competitions between the two, but he gladly accepted that image of himself, and even made it a running joke among the Dragoons and Paladins.

He joined the army young, at the age of 28, mostly because his father served in the Royal Guard, though he instead took to the Dragoons, preferring a front-line force over a personal bodyguard job. He met Anselm and the two became fast friends, with Eathanu often joining Anselm in his campaigns with the Paladins. On one adventure he and Anselm battled a fierce black dragon somewhere in the Abyss, and after countless hours they walked out weak, bloodied, and several priceless relics richer, including the spear Eathanu used during the War, Gae Bolg.

In ten years he was leading the Dragoons and in eighteen he was making history with them. During the war Eathanu fought alongside Anselm and later aided him in the negotiations with the Bangar and Aerai. For more details just read the Dragonian War article. No sense repeating the information.

After the war, he was not seen by anyone for several months. Most wrote him off as dead from some mysterious cause, and Gae Bolg was taken to his wife Amy, whom he’d married during the war. To make matters worse, she was visibly pregnant soon after his disappearance, and it became clear that Eathanu would have an heir, but that it would not have a father.

Eventually, Eathanu quietly returned to Azureus to his wife in their home in Port Avalon. She gave birth to their son Azreal and Eathanu reappeared to the world as their new god. Azreal grew up in a highly prosperous time and decided to join the military as well, effectively making it a family tradition. He joined the Dark Knights and over time actually made it a popular thing (badass knights in dark armour, basically). He easily ignored the corrupt influences of the dark sword and had his own adventures out in the world, getting a bit of help here and there by Eathanu, and a lot of help from Anselm, until he retired.

Eventually Azreal sort of dropped off the radar but evidently had several children with someone, branching the Highwind family line out and making it easy to avoid unwanted attention for the family from then on.

Monkeys Love Monkey Chow

So. First thing of note: I may need professional help. This will become clear in a moment.

See, I decided to do a bit of fan art for this guy about his comic, specifically this one. Specifically the little notes thing that you get if you click Show Notes at the bottom. See that thing about monkey chow? Oh, I was all the fuck over that:

Monkey Chow brand monkey chow

That was done as a replacement texture for the flour bags in Oblivion. Granted, this idea came during that day I went without sleep, so maybe the reason it was so funny at the time is clearer.

This is what I do with my free time. Oh, and since I couldn’t find a damn e-mail address to send it to, Chris hasn’t actually seen it, so I basically have to hope he investigates the trackback I sent.

Wouldn’t hurt if you all click the link a half dozen times each, either.

Update: I took a shot of it in-game with lighting and bump maps and stuff added. Thar be one:

More Chow

Update 2: Snnkkk… Download it here
To install just extract it into your Oblivion folder. It’ll overwrite the flour bags in game, so to get those back, just delete ingredflour.dds in the textures/clutter folder and it’ll automatically revert (I like bsa’s, don’t you?)
Obviously if you just want it for laughs and have downloaded anything that replaces your flour bags already, you’ll want to back that ingredflour.dds up first. Again, apologies for the uploading site, but it’s at least more permanent than Rapidshare.

Dragonian War (Part 2)

With Shota’s death followed a hellish cacophony, as if a portal to the underworld itself had opened. Every account of the following hour was different, and the details were only sorted out much later. Eathanu vanished, as did Shota. The fighting below turned instantly into the Dragonians’ surrender. Anselm descended the tower carrying Gae Bolg, the only remnant of either combatant.

Now, where to start…

The war started because of a new type of being, the Necros, had emerged from the deepest crevaces of the planet and possessed the Dragonians like spirits. The Necros themselves, it was later discovered, were the raised corpses of necromancers. The way necromancy worked was that a non-magic-user would return as a normal skeleton in corporeal form, or something worse in some cases. A normal wizard or mage is much harder to raise, but they will take the form of a lich, if the ritual is done right. A necromancer, however, is infinitely hard to raise from the dead, even as a powerless skeleton.

Eventually, someone found out how. The creator was likely killed immediately by his creation, which managed to raise the corpse of another dead necromancer, one that would have been used if the raising of the first had failed. Through this process, the Necros multiplied and in a few days, or weeks, there were enough that they both learned how to retain their necromatic powers indefinitely and were able to incorporeally possess the entire Dragonian race.

Magics this powerful nevertheless required some sort of focus for the essentia involved, and that focus was placed, perhaps foolishly, within the heart of Shota. Gae Bolg, when it entered the emperor, shattered the focus and broke the binds holding the Necros not only to their hosts, but to the mortal plane, (re)killing most of the Necros in existence. What little remnant there was fled back to the crack from which it was spawned, only to show its face in smaller scale conflicts. The destruction of the focus also broke the ties to their magical ability to possess living things, removing that ability from all remaining and future necros.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the line between the material and etherial plane, Eathanu was greeted by the gods Histan and Leviah. For destroying a threat of such dark magnitude that even divinity was no match for it, Eathanu was granted the greatest gift ever given to a mortal man; he became the ninth Greater God. He became the embodiment of courage, and the representative of all mankind in the divine circle.

The Dragonian War (Part 1)

The Dragonian War is considered by most to be the most important factor in shaping the world’s politics after its initial creation. The war involved all the people of Viridia except the Lyndor human faction, who at the time was maintaining strict neutrality. On one side stood the Alliance, the Emarion army with soldiers from Bangarash and Aeria covering more specialized roles. On the other stood the Dragonians, who though alone in their efforts had both numbers and training above that of the Allies.

The war started when the Dragonians suddenly attacked and slaughtered most of the population of Fort Dragonia, an Emarion-owned fort and town that marked the border between the two nations. The current King, Odessa, sent two diplomats to investigate why Dragonia did such a thing, but they were assassinated before they even had a chance to see Dragonia’s Emperor Shota. When Odessa confirmed the death of his men, he was noticeably outraged and had several scryes patrol the borders directly from Alexandria Castle.

It quickly became apparent that Dragonia wanted war, and soon troops were marching across the border, wiping out what was left of Fort Dragonia and marching southwest to Antioch. Odessa mobilized every branch of Emaria’s army from the Paladins to the Dragoons (led by Anselm Skyerun and Eathanu Highwind, respectively). They arrived at Antioch before Dragonia got there and set up defences on the town.

When the Dragonians arrived, it was clear they would be fighting a losing battle. Quickly after the fighting began both Anselm and Eathanu were pulled from the front lines and sent by Odessa to Bangarash, where they met with representatives of both Bangarash itself and Aeria. They pleaded for help from the other nations, who after a series of lengthy talks agreed to join the fighting on the Emarions’ side. This negotiation was also the first time diplomacy was issued between the Aerai and Bangarash, and due to this treaty a strong alliance was forged between the two nations that lasted well over three thousand years, even after their close ties to Emaria were reduced.

Anselm and Eathanu marched with the Bangar and Aerai armies to find the Emarions pushed back almost to Alexandria itself, their army decimated and a trail of burning villages behind them. This quickly changed with the sight of their two most beloved heroes carrying the banners of their neighbouring countries, a mass of shining winged knights and reptilian warriors in tow. Their morale replenished and their numbers almost doubled, the Emarions hacked and slashed their way back to the Dragonian border and beyond, all the way to Hyjahl.

Legends dictate that the night before the Alliance sieged Hyjahl, Eathanu travelled, alone, down to Kaipo, stood at the water’s edge, and prayed. He was answered in person by Histan and Leviah, who told him that Emaria would win, but the casualties would be extraordinary. Nobody but Eathanu knew of what else happened at the oasis that night, and the following morning Eathanu marched with Anselm up Hyjahl mountain, crushing the Dragonian defenders, and finally fighting all the way up to Hyjahl citadel.

Armed with his spear, Gae Bolg, Eathanu ascended the citadel in a single leap (not impossible for a Dragoon) and confronted Shota himself. He dispatched the human guards, and by the time Shota was alone and defenceless Anselm has followed him up the tower on foot. Even to the end Shota resisted, using powerful magics previously unknown to be even possible for humans to use, but eventually Eathanu drove his spear through Shota’s back.

The Dragonian War is entirely too big and important for one entry. Expect the second tomorrow (or between now and next week).

Today’s Update

This is actually edited from a chatlog saved earlier today from Ragnarok Online.

[ To Cheapo ] : No update today.
[ To Cheapo ] : Last night I was going to set up a cop-out update that would link to an article on 20 sided.
[ To Cheapo ] : Had like a fake joke that was something like “what do you get when you combine _____ and _____” with a completely logical answer.
[ To Cheapo ] : One of those things where the joke isn’t funny at all, but the irony of it is
[ To Cheapo ] : and I couldn’t freaking remember it
[ To Cheapo ] : So in the time it would take to write a well-thought article on a person, race, or event on the subject the site is supposedly about
[ To Cheapo ] : I wound up sitting there staring at my computer screen trying to remember a joke that wasn’t funny for an update that had nothing to do with my site
[ Friend Cheapo ] : cute
[ To Cheapo ] : That, um. Might be put up tonight

So yes. That’s why there’s no update today.

Map of Viridia

DOWNLOAD

Here it is: a colourful labelled map of the continent Viridia in all its glory. Sorry about the crappy upload site, I didn’t want to use something that’d get deleted in thirty days or anything like Rapidshare and Megaupload.

I’ll just point out again to be on the safe site that I didn’t actually make the map itself, just put on the text and town markers (and the shadows that fall behind it all). What I did design was the layout of the map. That is, when I found the map for the first time I already knew what Viridia was to look like and while my Campaign Cartographer 2 attempts were ugly and uninspired, this was, excepting the giant lake in the middle of it all, exactly as I had imagined it.

The lake, as a by-product of this, has become completely canon because it does make border disputes almost obsolete, which believe it or not was a real problem when I had the layout in my mind (wait, Emaria would be fighting over this forest in the middle and so would Lyndor).

The file is a .rar, which most people can handle. If not, you can download Winrar here, which has a trial that never seems to end. Enjoy!

Something Completely Different, Vol. 1

I’m going to talk to you about a problem that has been plaguing humanity since the times of the ancient Greeks and beyond:

GIANT WHIRLING VORTEXES OF DOOMING DOOM!

Also, about how terrified I am of these without reason.

I realize since I have been on a boat maybe three times, ever, the chances of me being sucked into a maelstrom powerful enough to drag an entire ship under is pretty rare. I also realize the chances of a black hole tearing through our solar system and eating everything inside is pretty slim. The difference between realizing these facts and still being afraid of them is the fact that my skin crawls whenever I think about it or look at one.

Understandably, this is a tough article to write.

It’s really just a random phobia of mine, unlike my discomfort around crowds, which actually has real-life repercussions. The worst it does is make me mildly uncomfortable in the middle of huge bodies of water which, again, has not ever happened. Only time I was so much as on the ocean in a boat was going between the coast and an offshore island, and a maelstrom like that would probably be hard-pressed to form in the space between.

Above: Why you're going to die

This leaves black holes, really. That isn’t even the picture that gets me. I refuse to steal then reduce the size of the one that gets me. It’s on the Wikipedia page on black holes if you really want to see it, next to some of the scariest shit you can read on the Internet.

That is to say, to the left of the picture of a black hole eating a big yellow star (sound familiar?) it says, and I plagiarize, “The formation of black hole analogs on Earth in particle accelerators has been reported. These black hole analogs are not the same as gravitational black holes, but they are vital testing grounds for quantum theories of gravity.” If you’re bad at science, that means particle accelerators, those things they test monthly at places like MIT, HAVE MADE BLACK HOLES OF DOOM WE’RE ALL DOOMED! Actually, they’ve made, as it says, black hole analogs, which to me is just saying they dodged the serious bullet of creating a micro black hole that would eat us all and our mothers within a period of.. probably a long time, but still. Also, as I was saying before:

“Stellar-mass black holes travel through the Milky Way just like stars. Consequently, they may collide with the Solar System or another planetary system in the galaxy, although the probability of this happening is very small.”

Fuuuuuuuu-

“Significant gravitational interactions between the Sun and any other star in the Milky Way (including a black hole) are expected to occur approximately once every 10^19 years.”

How old is the universe? Are we due!?

“For comparison, the Sun has an age of only 5 × 10^9 years, and is expected to become a red giant about 5 × 10^9 years from now, incinerating the surface of the Earth.”

That’s.. That’s really reassuring. “We’re FAIRLY certain that the sun will turn red and kill us all LONG before a black hole can tear through our solar system and end it on a whim!”

-ccckkkkkkkkk.