Aegis |
"An underwater empire suddenly thrust from the ocean's depths"
Pala, an archipelago of taboo, desire and immeasurable wealth frowned upon for its unusual sexual practices, open use of recreational narcotics and cult-like activities. To save his people from colonists, the high prophet called upon an ancient force to sink the island, sending it to the oceans depths but protecting it by a powerful shield - which the Palans call Aegis - that preserved the lives of Palans and allowed them to live their lives safely under the waves. This was just a legend, however.
Centuries following the initial circulation of the legend, two juxtaposing provinces are facing civil war. A neutral order takes it upon themselves to recruit a pirate and monstrous tyrant by pardoning him from prison and utilizing his knowledge of the ocean. They allow him to reassemble his crew and order him to - in return for freeing him from prison - travel to Pala and convince its leader to use their political prowess to thwart the war. At first the pirate is skeptic having only heard legends, but becomes astounded to discovered that Pala is not only real, but it is governed by a messiah that has prophesied the dark and approaching end of the current era.
Empire of the Sun |
original medieval high fantasy
Gossamer, a continent sired by the sun god Garuda, ilk to warmth and swelter; the Empire of the Sun.
Hidden among a labyrinth of islands and archipelagos, Gossamer has somehow managed to blossom into an empire that even the gods envied; a tropical paradise honeycombed in magic and mystery, bestowed with skies as blue as its sea. The indigenous lived in harmony once upon a time, trading among themselves and worshiping Garuda from sunrise to sunset. This earned the jealousy of the drowned god, Tasu’um, a god whose devoted abandoned him when Garuda emancipated Pala from his tyranny. With the aid of a hero from one of Gossamer’s many kingdoms, Garuda cast Tasu’um into the sea as punishment for his avarice. The resulting tidal rendered Gossamer broken. The innermost continent split into three masses while the rest was swept southward, never to be heard from again and with it, the hero who lent his aid to the sun god.
To prevent Tasu’um from returning, Garuda used the last of his godly essence to seal Tasu’um under what is known today as the Maelstrom, a gargantuan whirlpool in the middle of the southern sea.
This was centuries ago, when Gossamer was a tranquil state.
Today, Gossamer is segregated. Its people no longer stand unified and wage war against their neighbors. Among the chaos and calamity a man has risen from exile and seeks to resurrect Tasu’um and manipulate his godly gifts to cast Gossamer back into darkness for wronging him. The people of Gossamer must make a decision as to which is more important: oppressing their brothers or preventing their world from being swallowed by perpetual darkness, never again to see the sun that their empire is renowned for.
Human Desire | inspired by
Human Desire - Gypsy & the Cat,
medieval high fantasy
*
takes place in the same realm as the story Empire of the Sun
A century prior, Mandala was a pious monarchy. It shunned magic and its practice and gave patronage to their one god, Echelon. The sun god, Garuda, was summoned by the pleas of the religiously oppressed. He drowned Echelon in the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean and sentenced him to an eternity of exile. Garuda cajoled Echelon's people into embracing magic and its practice, but with the warning that magic and its ilk, while powerful, required equal sacrifice to maintain balance.
His sermon fell upon deaf ears. For one hundred years magic ran rampant - it usurped empires and ran its tyranny on them, condemned entire kingdoms to slavery, but also built monuments and gave life to peoples once oppressed. Regardless, Echelon's zealots wanted to put an end to Garuda's reign, so after decades of war, the two parties - the zealots and Garuda's most faithful - met in an isolated place to obliterate each other. In the thick of battle, the skies suddenly opened up and cast horrible, disfigured shapes onto the battlefield.
The realm of Mandala, itself, recoiled. Garuda warned the price of magic was expensive and if not paid in full, the realm would retort. Without balance, magic weighed heaviest, casting the ley lines out of balance and the very physicality of the world began to wear. As a defense mechanism, the realm itself reached into the Expanse, a void where other words existed, reaching for a crutch that would sustain its being. The world that responded was a dark place filled with demons and gluttonous spirits that craved flesh and bone. It adhered itself to Mandala, giving its new brother life, but infected the realm with a diseased that would end it.
Alive | inspired
Alive - Empire of the Sun,
elementals
- Empire of the Sun
Humans have been dead for thousands of years. In that time, the earth has been reborn - spoiled water has since been purified and replenished; trees have sired new, more exotic plant life and terrains have usurped old human cities. Elemental deities, too, have descended from the heavens to retake their resources and maintain order to the ruling animal clans inhabiting the planet.
Deities Mountain and Ice, two brothers, have taken notice of disorder among the clans as of late - Mountain's subjects, the bear clans and Ice's, the serpent clans, have been systematically slaughtering each other over land and resources and have been frightened by some manner of anomaly. Sun, Mountain and Ice's father, discovers that the deity Ember has gone insane after accidentally murdering his mate. With his sanity completely lost to him his flames have become uncontrollable, setting fire to forests and valleys, ultimately destroying resources and land that the clans have claimed their own.
