Bog's World

Altogether elsewhere

A year in Immorean. But earlier... - Thranduil

Thranduil found himself amongst the Nyss, initially a worrying situation; also known as the winter elves. The Nyss are a very small offshoot of the most common elf, numbering approximately 10,000, almost all of whom live isolated deep in the northern mountains of Khador. The Nyss believed themselves secluded from the strife of the Iron Kingdoms, nestled away in the deep frozen far north. And indeed, from Thanduil’s understanding, for many thousands of years, they had been. His first contact with the Nyss was at least as dangerous as his first contact with Ios.

He finds himself amongst Shard Ailan of the Raefyll tribe. He is eventually invited to join the Shard’s hunters and is teamed with Cylena, one of their foremost. Cylena proves to be a consummate ranger in the icy wastes. Her entire focus is on security and provisioning of the Shard. Thranduil learns some lore form her as they stalked game amongst the mountains and forested valleys of their territory. Thranduil spends more time trying to convince her that she should broaden her own horizons. Despite Shard Raefyll’s trade links, she has never met and Iosian or human. He also teaches her a little ilin lore, of collective responsibility and the mutually supportive aspects of enlightened self-interest. They begin to enjoy each other’s company, and spend weeks, sometimes months, away from the Shard.

When they are there, Thranduil spends a lot of time with Tillion, a “Shard Protector”, who appears to be some kind of zen-influenced monastic warrior with a vaguely defined responsibility to train and educate the younger members of the Shard. The Nyss do not speak Shyr, but instead use a much simpler language called Aeric. Literacy is not common among the Nyss, being a largely nomadic people. Tillion teaches Thranduil Aeric in the classes in which he teaches Shyr to the children. Some young hunters snigger at his joining in with the juveniles but the Shard elders smiled knowingly at his wisdom.

All the Shards of the Nyss practice a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. In the far north, the hunters venture onto the pack ice to hunt seal and whale amongst the white bears and orca. Further south (including where the Raefyll Shards are) they predominantly hunt in the summer, preying on the summer Ulk and Reindeer migrations. A Shard itself is most often split into half a dozen or more extended families, each of which is completely independent from the others except for their blood ties. Relations with other Shards are maintained for mutual defence against larger monsters and also for marriages. Each of the extended families (like the Ailan) lives in a modest Agadir like fortress. None of these exceed eighty members, although Thranduil gets the impression that they were once a much more populous people.

When it comes, disruption is sudden and catastrophic.

There are some evils possessed of infinite patience and guile. Dragons are such a force. They are not alive in the same fashion as other beasts, nor do they die. A dragon’s flesh is a transitory shell for carrying its malignant consciousness. Even when obliterated down to its core essence, the athanc, a dragon endures. From this unholy stone, a new dragon can be reborn with the mind of the old, quickly regenerating to full strength. No lore or craft of mortals has been able to destroy these dragon stones.

The dragon Everblight was thought defeated by the Iosans centuries ago, but one does not so easily stop the immortal scions of the Dragonfather. Everblight has returned from his prison in the Top of the World and unleashes his newly massed legion of blighted beasts upon the world. Everblight’s undiminished mind conceived an ingenious plan. It would gain its freedom and more without reforming its flesh and blood. Without a body it could avoid its sibling rivals such as Halfaug and Scaefang. It would initiate a new strategy to preserve its immortality, stay hidden from its dragon kin, and carve out its own domain before returning to flesh.

When an ogrun wanderer heard alluring and irresistible whispers on the wind and answered the call, he unleashed a new terror on the world: the Legion of Everblight. The annals of history will remember Thagrosh Hellborne as the ogrun who unleashed the Legion of Everblight onto the world. Everblight is his patron, constant advisor, and god. The blight he spreads extends down from the icy north while he strides at its vanguard as death made flesh. He is a terror unequalled on Caen, able to wield the greatest blighted magic, leaving the choking ash of blighted annihilation in his wake.

Having experienced it at first hand, Thranduil would say that the Legion of Everblight uses speed and the threat of first strike as its primary tactics. Flanking and threatening charges by multiple targets, this army surrounds an enemy like the jaws of a dragon. A single false move on the opponent’s side will open them up for the killing blow, as the allegorical dragon’s maw closes with surprising swiftness.

In too many cases, by the time that the Shards heard a cold and distant whispering voice infecting their very soul, then Everblight already had them. Blighted or destroyed, victory was Everblight’s.

The twisted warlock, Hellyth Voassyr, was a born huntress. After she became one of the legion she returned to the lands of the Nyss with a taste for blood. After bleeding her prey with a volley of arrows, Hellyth can sent in her pack of ferocious Dragonspawn Shredders. Hellyth also commands the massive Carnivean Dragonspawn in her warpack. It went very hard on those who, for a time, tried to withstand the blighted assault.

Thranduil and Cylena nearly slew her on two occasions. But despite her wounds, Hellyth’s death was a goal that continued to elude them. Each time they got close, they were cut off by a Seraph. Peerless in their graceful movements and blighted beauty, the Seraphim are Everblight’s messengers of death. Its long tail ends in a wickedly barbed poison barb capable of piercing armour and flesh with equal ease. The Seraph rarely engages in melee, preferring to breathe its incendiary ash that licks out to annihilate adversaries at great distance, strafing past a group of foes to obliterate entire formations.

Everblight’s taint has spread with little resistance among the Nyss elves, shaping and refining their anatomies to bring forth a twisted reflection of inner darkness. Blighted Hunters brought a hail of deadly arrows, withering the enemy front lines before other forces charge to sweep through the demoralised defenders. They delight in slaughter and enjoy nothing more than ending lives with deadly archery.

They return from a hunting trip to find their Shard in a state of crisis, a much more widespread state of affairs than the disruption of one Iosian Hallyntyr by a single undead scion. The rise of an all-consuming blighted horror proved the Nyss wrong in their belief that isolation in their winter wonderland would keep them and their sleeping god safe. Attacked by unholy terrors, betrayed from within by members of their own people, Nyss culture is in dire peril of extinction. Many hundreds were slain in initial attempts to defend their Shards. Worse, at least as many were overtaken by the corruption, seduced to join the growing legion of the Blighted. In the year during which he is with them, at least half of the Shards he knew of were obliterated.

Many Shards realised immediately that the fight was lost, that the only way to avoid assimilation is to flee. Thousands have scattered past the menhir chain that once marked the inviolate southern boundaries of their lands. Gathered to protect their frozen God from the clutches of Everblight, Nyss priests and warriors have no time to hatch plans of defence or retribution.

The imminent demise of Shard Raefyll changes Cylena. The near obliteration of her people causes her to take on some of Thanduil’s teachings in the way most useful to her. Believing that all is indeed lost, as Nyssor remains entombed in ice and unable to flee with his people, Cylena makes an internal^[1] journey from provider and defender to self sacrificial instrument of revenge. She takes the remaining hunters of her Shard and sets out to avenge the Nyss against the Blighted Legion.

After a year together, hunting, learning, loving and then defending; Cylena’s parting with Thranduil is poignant beyond tears. She impeaches him to head south to find his friends, whilst she leads her pitiful force of hunters against those who would annihilate her people.

With his knowledge of geography, he found himself advising refugees on routes and penning swift letters of introduction to the great and the good of Cygnar, hoping that those who carried such letters would not try to use them until well south of Lleal. Eventually he too, had to depart.

Travelling south, Thranduil found himself in the Borokhun range and falls in with Holer Ironarm, an enormously tall, one eyed, part time blacksmith with a prosthetic iron left arm. Holer’s weapon of choice is the Caspian Battleblade, a huge slashing weapon and a red rag to a bull this close to Khador. Holer was on way to meet his friend Pjotr Vladovich Nestov at the city of Skirov in eastern Khador.

Thranduil recognised them both from the Quad in Corvis, but thought nothing of it when the two part time traders failed to recognise him. Pjotr ‘always’ travelled south at this time of year with several wagon loads of furs, stopping at all the major cities for a few days at a time and selling his wares. By the time he reached Corvis (as far south as he’d ever been), he normally had only one wagon load left. Holer had spent the summer monster hunting in the mountains of Rhul.

The Rhul folk were always driving more railways across their mountainous lands and those mountains were full of monsters. So there was good money to be had being a railwarden. It just paid to quit whilst you were ahead. And Holer had his pay as a ‘draught’ to be honoured by Rhulic bankers within Cygnar. Thranduil was about to comment that similar arrangements could be made where he was from but managed to stop himself in time.

Rustic Khador is a sharp contrast to the more modern kingdoms of Cygnar and Llael. It is a large and harsh land with scattered resources, many of its expanses sparsely populated by a tough and grim people. On the surface its people are simple folk, but they are intelligent, honourable and fiercely independent. Their ruler, Queen Ayn Vanar XI comes from a long line of steppe warriors, and can trace her lineage back to the first landed nobles that fought against the Orgoth invasion centuries ago. Not surprisingly, the Khador have a strong military tradition. Despite a reputation for clinging to old ways, Khador has recently undertaken measures to modernise and strengthen itself. Wizardry is still uncommon among the Khadorans, but their arcane power has been growing in recent decades as they have implemented their own order of wizardry and also encouraged engineers to thrive in the capital.

In years gone by, Khador has had an aggressive, expansionist agenda. Centuries past have seen skirmishes with its neighbours, and Queen Vanar's ancestors have even annexed resource-rich land from Llael and Ord, under the pretence that the territory was rightfully theirs by the agreements of the Corvis Treaties. Both neighbouring kingdoms have long secretly feared that Khador intends to conquer them entirely, should conditions arise where it could be done swiftly and without reprisal.

Khador has a long standing rivalry with Cygnar as the two most dominant kingdoms of Western Immorean. There are periodic bloody skirmishes between these two nations, particularly along their shared border. Intermediaries such as hired mercenaries usually fight these almost secret battles, although both governments usually deny responsibility for these hostile actions

Khador was mobilising for war. That was clear. Holer put on a furry hat and huge Khadorian coat. Holer’s Khadorian was good enough to ensure that he wasn’t questioned too closely. Thranduil was left alone, evidently no-one thought that the odd Nyss hunter passing through was a threat to their security. He later discovered that it was because the Nyss had a reputation of staying out of other people’s quarrels in the Iron Kingdoms.

All that winter, as he laid himself down to rest, his mind would drift back to Cylena (who he called ‘Lennie’ when no-one else was around and ‘Lena’ whilst they were inflagrante delicto). He wasn’t sure if it was Theramin or not. He really couldn’t tell. But all the time he was actually with her, he thought that it was. Now, months after leaving her, his dreams always began with Cylena. Quite often his fantasies would return to tenderly making love with her. However, somewhat unsettlingly, they would finish having energetic and some times violent sex with Hellyth Voassyr. The worst part, to Thranduil’s sensibilities, was that he was enjoying having her as much as she was enjoying being had. He took to taking plunges into iced over rivers. It didn’t stop the dreams, but it made him feel better.

No-one said no to Queen Ayn’s generals. When two spies were hidden amongst the furs Pjotr didn’t even raise an eyebrow. They crossed the border into Lleal and continued East. Leallese solders manned the checkpoints. Patriots were arming themselves. He met, he was sure people whom Torendra had told him she’s seen killed (Keri the [future] partisan). Nowhere did he see the destruction allegedly caused by Khadorian shelling and warjacks.

The government of Lleal was busy issuing proclamations like they were going out of fashion. They all had the date on. Thinking laterally, previously, only a week before the invasion of Lleal, he had only recently arrived in Ios. It was a little confusing. He went to Pjotr and made his case. They really should avoid travelling to Lleal right now. Something in his manner obviously struck a cord in the fur trader. They turned around and crossed back into Khador as the first snows of winter fell. The day after they’d arrived in Suvi Bunar, a small town in the Kovosk Hills they heard that Lleal was now being annexed, by order of Queen Ayn Vanar XI. The winter guard, with their attendant artillery and warjacks, marched into Lleal undercover of winter, just as Thranduil had foretold.

The Korskovny region was buffeted by winter. The people here, despite cosmopolitan Lleal to the east and the railway to the south led very traditional pastoral lives. It reminded Thranduil very much of Alvorn. He was almost comfortable here although his winter was troubled by thoughts of Cylena. News filtered back about the progress of the war between Khador and Lleal. Khadorians thought it justified. They had been cheated by the Corvis Treaties of 202 and played for fools by Cygnar and it’s lackey states ever since. There was no news of the Nyss, no news of the Legion of Everblight. Doubtless all movement to the north-east had been halted by the weather. He now supposed that the more disturbing dreams he’d suffered were Hellyth’s sendings and that he was now out of range. He watched the snow falling and it occurred to him - this was the death of 604. The closing months of the old year. The year that the Khadorians invaded Lleal.

A kingdom with little natural resources, magical or technical skill, Llael manages to eke out an existence by exploiting its proximity to the Black River trade route, serving as an intermediary between Rhul and Cygnar. The realm has but one true blessing – ample deposits of coal, without which its economy would be truly crippled. The largest coal town in the realm is Leryn, scarcely a league from where the Black River crosses over into Rhul. Due to the importance of trade with the dwarves, Cygnar has officially allied with Llael and prevented this small kingdom from being gobbled up in border wars with Khador.

Despite being overshadowed by its neighbours, Llael is a proud kingdom with a rich history, including its crucial role in the rebellion against the Orgoth. Wizards and alchemists of Llael worked together with those of Cygnar to invent the first firearms and blasting powder. Pistols and rifles remain very popular in Llael today, many of which are treasured heirlooms passed from father to son and lovingly maintained. Duelling with pistols is a popular means to resolve disputes in Llael, and rumoured to be a leading cause of death among the nobles. That is, until Queen Ayn’s army arrived.

Thranduil realised that he’d actually spent most of 604 hunting Pelyth Rysllyr and that the dawn of 605 was when Alexia Ciannor seized the Witchfire from Corvis.

Eventually Pjotr left Khador and went south, following military convoys and skirting Merywyn. They ended up lost amongst a steady flow of Llealese refugees fleeing south to escape the occupation. Pjotr and Holer had legitimate business in Corvis, which was fortunate for Thranduil as he didn’t have any coin at all to pay the level of bribe required to allow the casual traveller to enter the city at such a time. Being surrounded by marsh and wetland, the refugees could not stay without the city walls and the less upstanding members of the watch grew fat at their expense.

They arrived in Corvis in time for Thranduil to witness himself and his companions embarking upon their quest. Thranduil helped his two benefactors set up their stalls once more in the Quad. He made sure that he was out of the way when the Longest Night arrived. Seeing the flash of the dimensional gate close around himself and his companions, he went to see his horse. Very soon, a boy found him and handed him a package. It was a vellum sheet, fastened by an ivory toggle. On it, in Flanne were instructions to find a sacred grove to the south of the city.

[1] Mental and spiritual. Using the philosophical points of what ilin lore and H&MP that Thranduil has managed to pass on.