The Heroic Origins of John Rokar Marshall [Part I]

The setting sun illuminated the wheat fields in a beautiful amber light.  
Throughout the small village of Lunarch the villagers prepared for the day to end.  
Children ran through the streets and the fields, enjoying the last of the light.
The smells of cooking food danced on the winds.  Shopkeeps began to turn their signs
from open to closed,and the whole village prepared to rest. But what no one noticed
were the three children running from the safety of the fields and the streets into the forest.  

John was afraid.  The woods were always something that terrified him, and the
sounds all around him were not helping.  But John wanted to prove himself to the
boys he was with, and cowardice was not something he was allowed.  John crept
along behind the boys who had brought him here, the light dimming around them.
The forest around Lunarch was pleasant enough during the day, peaceful and full
of interesting wildlife, but that changed during the night.  Shadows extended across
the path, each root and gnarled branch more terrifying than the last. John imagined
that everything was moving, and when he did see moving animals, his heart nearly
stopped.

“Its over here”, came the voice of Randall, the leader of these boys.  Randall was
the son of the Lord, the man who controlled life in Lunarch. John saw that he was
pointing to a small ravine, water trickling slowly past in small rivulets.  As John
approached Randall and the other boy, he spotted a dark opening in the rock,
large enough for something to live in there.

“WH-whats in there?” John stammered, trying to talk away his fears.

Randall smiled, pleased to impress, and said, “Thats where they buried that
necromancer.”  Knowing that the others had absolutely no clue what he was
talking about, he continued. “About 20 years ago, Lunarch was ruled by a
necromancer.  My dad led an attack against him, and the necromancer’s armies
were destroyed. But the necromancer was never found. I heard weird noises
coming from here earlier. I am going to check it out for my dad. You two can stay here
if you’re too chicken.” Randall smiled before turning on his heel and scrambling
down into the small ravine.

John was frozen with fear, but the other boy had decided that a necromancer was
no problem and followed Randall. John’s heart was beating so fast that he couldn’t
hear anything else.  His hands and body sweat profusely, and his mouth grew dry.
His hands shook and everything was blocked out except for the cave, and the
horrors he wa CERTAIN existed inside that cave.  But the boys didn’t notice John’s
panic, they were too concerned with outdoing each other, and what started as
shoving each other forward, began to change a they explored the cave mouth.  
John looked on in horror,watching as the two boys slowly made their way into
the yawning mouth of the cave. Loose soil gave way and John fell into the ravine,
screaming on his way down. The boys leapt back out of fear at the sudden noise,
before they started to laugh at John.  

“WHat happened John??? Did the grass get you? HAHAHA,” the pair laughed,
Randall rolling on the floor and the other boy standing and pointing at John, who
lay in the rocky gravel, blood running from his nose and a cut on his right hand.  
Tears ran down his face as he looked up at the two boys, the thought of the night
time horrors far from his mind.

But everything changed when they heard the scream.  It pierced the night, inhumane
and completely otherworldly.  The scream rang against the walls of the cave, and
chilled the boys to the bone.  In the fading light they couldn’t see deep enough into
the cave to see the source, but they did hear something dragging towards them.

Randall picked up John, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a sheathed
knife.  While unsheathing it he told John and the other boy, “Back up, my dad taught
me what to do about monsters,” his voice confident, but his hands trembling.  
John stood behind him, using Randal’s small body to shield him from the cave
opening, while the other boy ran as fast as he could.

Then they saw it. At first it appeared as nothing more than a shadow amongst the
inky depths, before it began to take form.  A silhouette, small at first, slowly approaching,
growing, becoming better defined. The form of a humanoid shambled forward,
each step dragging its form closer and closer.  They could smell it before they saw
the rotting flesh.

Thin grey skin, pulled across bones and ripped musculature, the creature’s black
eyes rolled in their sockets.  The arms of the creature hung in front of it, suspended
and rigid. Fingers decaying, and those that weren’t decaying were missing.  The figure
lurched forward, and upon closer inspection, one could spot the loose skin in the process
of peeling from the skeletal frame underneath it. A low guttural moan emanated from the
figure, as it lurched ever closer.  

John was transfixed.  Out of everything he had imagined would kill him, he hadn’t
pictured it to be so grotesquely real.  He saw Randall shake in the presence of this
thing, and John took this new information and turned to run.  He scrambled over
the hard rock of the ravine, and began to climb up the loose soil above. Black soil,
cold against his hands refused him purchase, remaining in the ravine with Randall,
and the thing.  

Randall screamed, and John turned on his heel to see a desperate struggle.  The
thing had fallen on Randall, pinning him on the ground. Randall had jammed his
small knife into its head, which was keeping the rotting figure just above him.  The
thing was biting at him, its teeth slamming together in an unbearable noise, glassy
eyes rolling around in their sockets, not focused on anything. Randall was screaming,
and the figure was sliding closer and closer, impaling itself further trying to get to Randall.

John felt a strange warmth, emanating from within himself.  Waves of heat radiated
from his center outwards, bringing with it a renewed vigor.  John was terrified, but
he felt compelled to move. Almost unwillingly he looked at the struggle in front of him
and analyzed it, thinking of things he had never thought of before.  If he stayed where
he was, and didn’t flee, he could kick the creature in the head, pushing it over. If he
got it off of Randall and on the ground, he could better destroy it. The knife wasn’t
working so something bigger and heavier would have to be used. His attention was
drawn to something to his left, a root from one of the nearby trees, poking through the
soil above the ravine.  John was so far removed from his normal worldview that he felt
like a different person. He should be afraid, he should be absolutely petrified from this
living nightmare that he had never wanted to know existed. But instead of reacting with
fear, his legs were moving toward the root, and his hands which had only ever cowered
before, hands and arms built into a strength from his farm responsibilities, were now
ripping a root from the ground.  Bark scratching into his callused hands, John raised the
root above his head and prepared to leap into action, still wondering why he was doing
any of this.

John’s foot made contact with the rotting monster, pushing it off of Randall and flipping
over.  Randall’s knife was stuck in the figure’s head, and would impede the attack he
planned to make. John pushed his knee into the creature’s chest, and ripped the dagger
out of the thing’s head.  Ribs collapsed, and John’s knee was soaked but he kept on,
the knife embedded so deep that he had to wrench it out of his head. Then he stood up,
the thing lurching after him, almost unimpacted from the damage it had sustained.  But
that would change, as John raised the root high above his head, preparing to destroy
the creature. As he swung the weapon down, something happened. The root began
to glow with a golden light, heavier than it had been before, and warm to the touch.  As
it swung downward, John was felt calm, not adrenaline, but warm certainty that this
was the right thing to do, and that this would end well.

The root cracked down onto the thing’s skull, pulverizing it.  If John had been able to
watch the destruction closer, he would have noticed that the light from the root was
turning the things skin into ash. John lifted the root, the ground covered in charred green
remnants of the creature.  John stood, breathing heavily, making sure the body wasn’t
moving in any way before checking on Randall. Poor Randall was sitting against the wall,
his knife clutched in his hands, rocking slowly back and forth, muttering something about
the gods to himself. John stumbled to Randall, kneeling beside him, and putting a hand
on the crying boy’s shoulder.  

Grave's End - New Setting Origin

Grave’s End was the site of the first known resurrection, at least rumor has it. A hero of the land was betrayed here, but a man cloaked in black came with an evil book and raised him from the dead, shattering the hero’s headstone. Today it stands as a beautiful cliffside port town, in New England OR Pacific Northwest OR Lakeside so Great Lakes area. It’s a relatively quiet city, at least the nicer parts of it are. The darker seedier overpopulated downtown district is much darker, and houses some of the worst kinds of people. Some that can’t even be classified as people also live here, without the knowledge of many of the inhabitants. Because unfortunately the legends are true and Grave’s End is the place that the first Vampire ever rose, thanks to the Wizard. That evil being, cursed the hero to live forever and feast on human blood, and unable to leave Grave’s End. This terrible curse had horrible effects on the inhabitants, with an overwhelming portion of the population becoming infected with the curse. A small sect of holy knights intervened, the Order of the Dawn, a now professional organisation dedicated to protecting the uninitiated from the supernatural elements of Grave’s End. The Wizards curses didn’t simply create Vampires alone. The Wizard created a vast amount of dark beings and creatures, until the Order of the Dawn managed to imprison him and steal away his magical book, which is now protected in a vault made of pure blessed silver. The Order of the Dawn have their own magical devices utilized to defend against the dark Wizards magical servants. The power of white witches is held by several bloodlines, and one of them, the Great Oracle has prophesied the power of many unborn children. The Seventh son, of a seventh son being an incredibly powerful blessed warrior. In addition to these blessed heroes, the Great Oracle foresaw many other heroes and magical processes. The Order of the Dawn’s white witches are potent, though some of the newer generations don’t know of their magical lineages.

Dead Skies - New Setting Origins

When I make an origin story, I really like to figure out, what kind of feuds may exist, and why.  I also like to figure out where the cosmic battlelines are drawn.  In many settings, from Middle Earth to Faerun, there are cosmic factions who transcend reason and keep at each other’s throats fro millenia.  In this idea, I am setting the stage for mortal society that looks to the Gods (read Titans) to settle their differences.  These mortals rally behind their Godly leaders, and go on quests to settle blood oaths.  Magic works differently and the people will be able to truly see how the gods have made their mark on the world, and how by leaving it for the mortals to use is a truly new thing that forces mortals to decide for themselves.

The Titans descended upon the planet.  The Demon Lords, The Celestials, The Stargone and the Lost Ones.  The Titans then fought for the planet.  The Demon Lords laid siege to the castles of the Celestials, angelic armies astride pegasi battling bat winged dragon knights.  The Lost Ones retreated from the conflicts, hiding themselves away in dark pits, where their writhing masses replicated and created unique and mind boggling offspring. The Stargone went about filling the world with fantastical beasts of their own imagination, and making the world beautiful like them. 

The Wars of the Titans are long and vast, and can explain the longstanding conflicts of the mortal races today, and in fact how many of the mortal races came into being. 
The first race to be born were the giants, and the dragonborn.  In a duel between Harkor the Dragon, and Ivan the Great, the ground shook.  Ivan’s giant bow launched massive arrows that struck Harkor, causing the massive fiend’s scales to fall to the ground, where they rose as dragonborn, dragons, and kobolds.  Harkor sent seven massive spears of energy to strike Ivan, and his sizzling blood erupted across the ground, where it struck seven places.  Each drop of blood sired a giant, a giant akin to the kind of spear that struck Ivan.  This battle ended in a stalemate, as the two Titans promised a truce to protect their creations. 

Another fatal combat was the battle between the Lost One Goarius, a hundred armed and 50 eyed terror that slunk through the ground like a pit of snakes, before he was hunted by a Celestial, the angelic archer Beiyyord.  The monstrous Goarius was lured by Beiyyord into a massive valley, where Beiyyord then fired at him mercilessly.  Goarius would not be defeated so easily, and ripped Beiyyord’s wings off with his many arms, and split himself into 50 pieces, the terrifying Beholders who shied away from the outside world, all inheriting the paranoia that Goarius so rightly earned in his last moments.  From the angelic archers wounds poured fresh blood, and knowing that he hadn’t long, he made a deal with a passing Stargone, who promised to use his body and blood to create something beautiful.  The Stargone’s name was Jynna, and she crafted the elven race from Beiyyord’s body. 

The Mighty Four armed Demon Lord Farin had just begun to construct himself a fiery castle atop a mountain, when Ivan led a troop of Giants to attack the mighty devil.  The demon would not be put out of his hard earned fort so easily, and he led a troop of batwinged horrors into the fray.  Ivan once again was wounded, this time his arm cracked and was severed thanks to the demon’s mighty greataxe and warhammer.  This arm, and bone fell into a boiling lake of metal, and from it small figures rose, Dwarves who took up arms to aid the devil who had brought them freedom from Ivan’s body.  Farin then left his children his mountain keep, and they became his blacksmiths. 

One of the final combats resulted in the terrible Orcs, and the even more destructive race of Humanity.  This battle was between Zorof the mightiest of the angelic knights and the betrayer of celestials Vinalin.  This battle, between Dark angel and Celestial Knight raged on for months, as the two warriors dueled with weapons of light, shadow and the world was caught in a never ending cycle of rapid and blinding light, and dark unthinkable darkness.  The battle was won by Vinalin, and she forced him to craft from the blood soaked mud around them small figures.  When he had completed the task she slayed him, and his essence waas suffused into the figures, creating mankind.  She then took a small number off these new mortals and fed them on Zorof’s flesh, causing them to grow strong and brutal creating the Orcs.

Now that mortals had been created, the Titans used them for their own gain.  Leading armies of mortals into battle to slay their enemies, they fell by the thousands, and the few that remained, were warriors who could match even the Titans.  These warriors decided that they would not let the Titans rule them, and they worked together, seeing past race to become better than the Titans.  They defended their small communities, until even the Titans could see that their children would surpass them if forced to.  So the Titans bequeathed the world to their children, leaving them the secrets of their power, and left for their own realms.  Some Titans remained, living among the mortals as either enemy or friend.  But the mortals of this realm would have to figure out their future on their own.  For better or for worse.  This is the world of Dead Skies, and the Titans will return one day, so you and your mortal friends better enjoy your lives and your world, before that fateful day.

Mana

The nature of magic is seriously regimented. There are three
sources of magic, and all of them can be influenced by Mana. Warlock's and Clerics use incomprehensible magic, either the
divine energies that occupy different avatars, in the case of clerics,
or the pacts of a warlock. There are 9 distinct energies that
comprise clerics, the divinities that mortals act as conduits of.
They are as follows: Justice, Flesh, Darkness, Light, Sparks, Stone,
Chaos, Tranquility, and The Passage. Each divinity was once
corporeal and used their powers to create the magic that the first class
of spellcasters utilizes. All that remains of these nine divine figures
is the latent powers that each of them bore to their avatars, and is
passed down as each new mortal vessel dies. These vessels are
the clerics of this world, and their powers are far superior to Paladins,
and can be produced without the use of mana, or even holy symbols.
Warlocks have all the power they need granted by their connection
to their patron, a being comprised of arcane and eldritch energies,
that the Warlock taps into. Druids, Rangers, Bards, Paladins, Monks, Barbarians and some
sorcerers use spiritual magic, that which infuses the world, and is given
birth through belief, talent or ancestral ties. These spellcasters are the
most common, and their magic is natural, something earned, or inherited.
The rituals needed to earn these magics are understood, and there are
routine ways of obtaining spells. Bards must play instruments to cast spells,
Paladins must stick to their Oaths, monks live by a codified order, Druids
must protect nature and cannot use metal tools, Rangers train daily to remain
connected to the natural world, and Barbarians and Sorcerers gain their
power through their deep connection to nature or their ancestral ties. Wizards, Arcane Tricksters, Eldritch Knights, and some Sorcerers are of
the third variety, and their magic is dependant on their relationship to mana.
These spellcasters require some form of mana to cast their spells. These
people are almost 50 years old in their crafts, but the discovery of refined
mana is around 15 years old. These applications are developed by wizards
but not all applications have been discovered as of yet. The most limited
spellcasters, without a consistent point of contact with mana, they are unable
to cast even their cantrips.

The Archanical Wonderland

The Archanical Wonderland is such a beautiful place. The landscapes are
so uniquely different, and disparate. Scenic mountain landscapes, are right
next to lightning storm filled deserts. The world has a unique spread, with
three distinct geographical landscapes. To the North, the mountains, forests, and cities where technology, culture and
peace is prosperous. Industry and Civilisation have advanced due to the safe
environment of the North, though some of the wilds still pose threats to the cities
of the North. These cities are massive, and they challenge the skylines with
their height. Education is incredibly important in this society, and the survival
of the fittest mentality of other places, is almost obsolete. To the South the oceans are massive and almost unending. The only thing to
change the monotony are small collections of islands, and some man made
constructions, large flotillas that replicate islands constructed from wood, magic
and metal. The people from the South have become so distinct from their
Northern cousins, that they are almost unrecognizable, in terms of culture,
warfare, and religious beliefs. The most distinct, and dangerous area of the world, is the magical wasteland
known as the Scar. Long ago, when magic first infused the world, mages
caused the world threatening catastrophe that ruined the equator of the planet.
Now, there is a solid belt, of magic tarnished lands, where the planet is ruined
and magical happenings are constant. From massive deserts where devils
and demons are imprisoned, to magical forests, everchanging and labyrinthine.
The Scar is dripping with magical energy, and nothing is ever certain.

Welcome to Tavern and Roll

This is the First Entry in the Tavern and Roll

We are a group of nerds. An artist, an editor, and two writers, who wanted to play DnD and show their parents that we aren't wasting time!