This is a simple story...
A Simple Little Get Together - Why do things never go smooth? A little fun, a little drink, and then a lot of dancing should not be too much to ask. But when a guest is murdered in the bathroom and the Fey Courts take an interest, Valda Simmons has to look for a little help
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Ancient Secrets - An old house holds strange secrets, sealed away for the better part of a century. Sadly, secrets aren't the only things sealed away...
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A Once and Present King - A mysterious letter warns of disaster and discovery should a new King of Fever not be crowned.
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The Strange Tale of the Blackwing - The HMS Blackwing, a test platform for the latest in Royal Navy technology, vanished five years ago. Now she's been found. In another dimension.
And she's nuclear.
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And she's nuclear.
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Background
Welcome to the town of Fever, a town of some 150,000 souls. Most know Fever as a former mining town, named after a crippling illness spent several seasons rampaging through the population. But gold, coal and iron were plentiful and even with the rocky start, and no matter how many died the lure of wealth was enough for two more to take there place.
What is less known, to the world in general, is the more...unusual side. Maybe it's the fact that over a hundred thousand souls have been placed in the middle of a large forest. Maybe it's the towns place in the mystical lines woven into reality. Maybe there's a hideously powerful item from Heaven or Hell hidden with the limits, or perhaps something dark and eldritch lurking in a mine that humans have not tread for a hundred years.
Maybe it's all the above.
Regardless, the supernatural has an unusually strong presence in the town. Elves shop in the boutiques, Half-Orcs eat an awful lot of fast food and Goblins have taken over much of the sewer system.
And other, less friendly things? Well, Fever has an unusually high missing persons rate...
Religion
Some creatures from beyond claim there is a heaven and hell, while others say it is a lie. Other creatures claim to be from an afterlife, celestial and infernal forces. Others claim to be from other mythologies. Tales abound of people encountering ancients Gods and the creatures of there Pantheon.
Are these creatures what they seem, or something else identifying themselves by human legends? Or maybe they are the creatures that inspired the myths.
Two things are known. One, Faith is rewarded. Any Faith. A true believer in a cause, a deity or a philosophy can gain power related to that belief. Secondly, no mortal has ever travelled to a realm that could be an afterlife, or has discovered any single creator being.
It is therefore impossible to say what exists beyond, except for one thing - something more is out there.
Other Planes
While it is true no mortal has ever visited the afterlife, that doesn't mean that other realms haven't been visited.
The Twilight Realm
'Between the dark and the light it sits, on shadow's sharpened edge. Between the dawn and dust it exists the lawless Twilight pledge.'
The Twilight Realm is a broken, shattered dimension, a lifeless facsimile of the human realm. Travel through the Twilight Realm is far faster than normal, making it an excellent way to travel, albeit it disturbing to see a twisted parody of the world you know. Or at least it would be, if it was remotely safe...
Fey Courts
'Unseelie Sits in winter's grasp, a brutal frozen heart. Seelie sits in summer's rays, from which life will depart.'
The Court of the Fey is a chaotic and foreign realm to humanity, full of bright and vibrant life and constant danger. Control of the realm switches between the Seelie and Unseelie courts, and the realm shifts with them. However, three laws should be kept in mind when dealing with the Fey - never accept food or drink, never break an oath freely given and that the Fey do not lie, but they aren't honest either.
Broken Roads
'Broken hearts and broken souls, broken cities full of holes. Pray what happened here is done, that this and no further it goes.'
The many worlds theory postulates that anything that can happen will happen. It is therefore generally looked upon that the Broken Roads are a dire warning of what can be. Like the Twilight Realm it is a mirror of our Earth, but something horrific happened here. The dead cover the streets, the cities still burn. Reports of people claim they have even heard screams in the distance, although no one native to the Broken Roads has ever been found alive.
...disturbingly, however, in the 500 years since humanity has gained access to this place, it is different every time. Each time it is visited it seems to...update itself, mirroring the world as it is now, not how it was. Are the Broken Roads, therefore, a series of disasters in other realms, each that has just happened when visited? Or something even more disturbing?
...disturbingly, however, in the 500 years since humanity has gained access to this place, it is different every time. Each time it is visited it seems to...update itself, mirroring the world as it is now, not how it was. Are the Broken Roads, therefore, a series of disasters in other realms, each that has just happened when visited? Or something even more disturbing?
Shadow Lands
'While it is said that all shadows are connected, some may soothe and protect while others drain and destroy...'
The Shadow Lands are a muted and regularly shifting greyscale world under a shaded, cracked, dim sky. Due to changing lands and that Shadow places do not correspond to Earth places well, those who try to travel both have found that distance travelled in one do not relate to the other. These travellers also find that their senses change between planes, with the Shadow Lands seeming to calm or dull depending on who you ask in comparison to the brighter, louder Earth. Going between the Shadow Lands and the Fey Courts tends to be an even more jarring sensory experience.
Most agree that kayal people descend from Earth humans who went to the Shadow Lands millennia ago that, most of this migration by force. There are many groups native to the Shadow Lands as well. The Mycobiota and Sentients of the shadows who are umbralsythesists - they subsist on the darkness and many are able to mould the darkness to their will with enough magic and skill. These umbral cultures having a hierarchy based on bonds, whether by genuine loyalty or coercion, rather than wealth. The umbral henge with the most supporters tend to hold the most control.
'While it is said that all shadows are connected, some may soothe and protect while others drain and destroy...'
The Shadow Lands are a muted and regularly shifting greyscale world under a shaded, cracked, dim sky. Due to changing lands and that Shadow places do not correspond to Earth places well, those who try to travel both have found that distance travelled in one do not relate to the other. These travellers also find that their senses change between planes, with the Shadow Lands seeming to calm or dull depending on who you ask in comparison to the brighter, louder Earth. Going between the Shadow Lands and the Fey Courts tends to be an even more jarring sensory experience.
Most agree that kayal people descend from Earth humans who went to the Shadow Lands millennia ago that, most of this migration by force. There are many groups native to the Shadow Lands as well. The Mycobiota and Sentients of the shadows who are umbralsythesists - they subsist on the darkness and many are able to mould the darkness to their will with enough magic and skill. These umbral cultures having a hierarchy based on bonds, whether by genuine loyalty or coercion, rather than wealth. The umbral henge with the most supporters tend to hold the most control.