Graduates!!
Today we commend you to the service of the Fatherland, free citizens and true. Your time in the academy is complete, and you leave as Legionnaire or Auxiliary - a proud soldier of the Republic, bringing great honour to your family. Bonds you have made in these bloodied courtyards will last a lifetime, and what you do with that life is your own inalienable right to decide. Some of you will return to your farms, upstanding citizens supporting your family. Some will enter the (...)
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Citizens of Dathen, I Salute You!
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Commentary from “Road Rage” at The Games
"The final lap now...the last of three. Three live grotlings crawled out of the bag after the ritual beating ceremony before the race and so three laps it was decreed, and what a race! The chariot of the Seven Peaks tribe with its iron orc four-time winner Blzgut is out in front by a length. It’s still dragging the goblin from the starting log ceremony, that gobbo’s gonna have a headache in the morning! Look at him flailing about, or is he waving? Hard to say...might be the best day of the (...)
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Comparisons between Knights
Q: Esteemed sage, Throughout the realms of man, it is said that the knights of Equitaine are the greatest warriors and truest knights in the world. Surely this rustles the feathers of the proud men from the ranks of the empire’s knightly orders. Do they furiously dispute this claim or are they under no illusions as to their standing? And what do the Equitaine knights make of their empire counterparts? Pretenders? A disgrace to the name "knight"? Worthy opponents?
A: Dear sir, first, I must (...) -
Consuming Dark Shards
Q: What happens if a Magister/Patriarch eats too many Dark Shards?
A: Good gracious! Do you think they eat that stuff? I’ve never observed it myself, but I have it from almost reliable sources that Dark Shards, those oddly empowered scraps of rock, are the source of much of the Swarm’s wilder technologies and practices. Somehow able to store energy, Darkstone is a fascinating invention. Consuming such a substance raw might be considered akin to swallowing a burning coal, or perhaps just an (...) -
Darkstone and its Properties
Today I was most grateful to one Herr Himmelblau, a magnate of the League of Cogs, who sent me a device discovered in an abandoned space beneath one of his warehouses. The opportunity to examine such a find is a rare luxury, for I am in no doubt that the icy black crystals within the contraption are darkstone. Only the vermin swarms have mastered the substance - despite the claims of Eichtal’s alchemy professors (who swear their stricken colleagues are nothing to do with their experiments) (...)
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Dating of the Sunna Cycle
Q: When was the Sunna Cycle put together?
A: Well, it’s not easy to be precise. Such works are rarely the work of a single individual, nor even a single lifetime. Collected from the verbal records passed down in story and myth, the Cycle unites the histories of those tribes which came together to form what is now Sonnstahl. The earliest versions were likely collated centuries after Sunna’s day, and your guess as to their accuracy is likely as good as mine. Those versions which are shared now (...) -
Dealings with Vermin
It is with some frustration that I must admit to never having seen a rat, despite all I write here. I have in a number of cities searched out the gloomy wharfs and taverns which those black marketeers are said to frequent, to no avail. Perhaps it is the final fading competence of the vermin that their illicit operations are so rarely detected. The vermin were ever fraudsters, unable to create anything new but forced to ape the great nation of Avras. They surely lack the ability to create (...)
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Do Elves have beards?
• Do male elves have beards?
It seems the barber community has finally taken an interest in my work - perhaps in a hope to earn my custom. Unfortunately the unkempt beard is something of a status symbol for a Sage.
I have never observed an elf with a beard. Nor with other obvious bodily hair, apart from that upon their head. Unless clean shaven is a common style choice, this would lead me to believe that elves are not afflicted by the same grooming requirements as we (...) -
Doom of the Nightingales
As the silhouettes of the departing ships dwindled against the setting sun, Morag surveyed the smouldering remains of what was once the greatest war camp of the Daeb. What now seemed a lifetime ago the beach below had welcomed a thousand ships launched by the Republic to reclaim what was rightfully theirs. Rightfully theirs. Or was it? The stench of blood and death brought her back from her melancholic reverie. Her time was running out and there was one more thing she wanted to do before (...)
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Dread Elves and Magic
Dread Elves The Dread Elves possess the elven affinity for magic almost as strongly as their noble kin. Yet where the Highborn have a focus on the world around them, the true power of magic for the elves of Silexia lies within the mind. Even without magic, they are masters of manipulating emotions, fear most of all. Augmented with the power of the Immortal Realm, they are able to strike terror into the hearts of a most resolute foe. Their powers also lend weight to their reputation of (...)