Culture

It is said there are dwarves in the north. High in the Jotun peaks where the Åsklanders roam. Their holds are hidden by ancient runes and sealed in their mountain strongholds. Closed off from the rest of the world, they amass wealth and craft fantastic artifacts. One of the most interesting stories I heard was of a lost hold. A group of enterprising dwarves set out from their mountain home in search of a trade route between the Jotun Mountains and Avras. The trip took many years, and when (…)

Dwarven Saying "You don’t play the battlepipes, the pipes play you."

In the time of great suffering The lands boiled The skies darkened. Water turned to acid, food warped and spoiled And every kind of unnatural, despicable creature Poured forth across the lands As a horde of malice. The tide swept all before it, They weren’t few, but countless, The hearts of those who saw them stopped. The Myahet were driven before them Scattered to the four winds. Among the daemons were The Shapeshifter and The Decaying, Terrifying brutes and powerful sorcerers, Armed with (…)

Beat us, burn us, brand us: you only make the Herd stronger.

Lorentum, 933
Battalion of waiting saurians showed synchronised excitability at the same instant. No clear provocation. Prelate Abbinger theorises long-distance shared emotional connection.
Northern Equitaine, 936
Two dozen smaller saurians brought stones bearing intricate, highly structured non-repeating patterns. Departed after depositing stones at crossroads.
Nedarac, 947
Saurians presented poor renderings of Arandad writing in apparent attempt to share philosophical ideas with (…)

Day 32
My presence remains undetected, and the new vantage point has proven most fruitful. I believe I have finally confirmed von Möltburg’s conjecture that the microcephalic quadrupedal specimens he dissected after the Renzigen Expedition are in fact the males of the species. Four to twenty inches in length, they are barely sentient, capable of little
more than fertilising eggs almost as large as they are.
Day 33
Well, it seems we can conclusively discard old Gahlengeld’s theory that (…)

Orcs and Goblins
Orcs, on the other hand, should never be trusted, and make deals with Goblins at your peril. These green-skinned maniacs live to fight. Even their resting state is a small squabble. Orcs resolve every dispute with fists or blades, and if Goblins are less interested in a fair fight, they are truly resourceful in matters of murder. As varied as they are obscene, they blight civilisation everywhere.
It is said that in the mists of time, before even the Golden Age, the (…)

How can they not see? The Gods, mere Man, the struggles of the petty Nations! Nought but children squabbling in the face of the tide that rushes to drown them all! How could they be so blind? Blind to the war that rages all around them, blind to the Eternal Crusade waged since the dawn of time when ragged mortality first tore itself bloodied from the womb and, defiant, screamed at the heedless cosmos! Can they not perceive it in the lowliest germs that sprout their crops, in the swarms of (…)

It is interesting that you say the vermin were daemonic followers of the Dark Gods. Perhaps you do not realise your deviation from orthodoxy on this point. With the notable exception of the rat King slain by Sunna, vermin are mortal beings. Likewise as the scriptures state in Genesis 3: In the final years of the Avrasi the vermin came forth, born of a triple treachery. Gaius Dexion, the proud soldier, betrayed the Senate; and the high priest Quintus Augustus betrayed mankind. As Dexion and (…)

The Dwarves of Vetia shun the nether powers, unlike their eastern brethren. But if a hold-dwarf were to learn magic somehow, what would happen to him? Would he be shunned, exiled, imprisoned, executed? If executed, could he find refuge with his eastern kin? I can’t say I have spoken with any dwarves at length on this topic, they seem to be rather closemouthed whenever matters of the arcane are raised. From my own studies, I have found the dwarven relationship with magic to be one of (…)