The Crows and the Destroyer (inv only)

Posts : 286 Join date : 2013-07-19

The Crows and the Destroyer

“Being against evil doesn't make you good. Tonight I was against it and then I was evil myself. I could feel it coming just like a tide... I just want to destroy them. But when you start taking pleasure in it you are awfully close to the thing you're fighting.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“All right I think we've been down here in the dark long enough. There's a whole other world upstairs. Take my hand Constant Reader and I'll be happy to lead you back into the sunshine. I'm happy to go there because I believe most people are essentially good. I know that I am. It's you I'm not entirely sure of.”
― Stephen King, Full Dark, No Stars

Crossing the line from good to evil can often be as easy as crossing the street. Then again, sometimes it is like crossing a broken bridge over a river of fire, but that is usually on the way back. In the story that you have the dubitable fortune to be a part of, you will come to learn that road and that river intimately. You will play in the road, and occasionally bath in the river. One will be pleasant and destructive, the other will be painful and constructive.

Orqia, the Riverworld, is located at the exact center of creation. If, in our ever expanding universe, you could find your way back to where we started, you would find Orqia. The Riverworld took its title for the River of existence which circles the entire globe, running around the equator and flowing east to west. The width of the river changes depending on the geographical location, but it is always within fifteen miles of (greater or less than) sixty miles wide. The flow is slow, steady, and only inherently dangerous around the waterfalls. The water is so crystal clear that, if the river were to ever stop moving, it would appear to be an empty river bed. There are no fish or other creatures of any kind, except the Weavers.

The Weavers are the manual laborers of the spiritual world. When something is called into creation, it is the Weavers that are responsible for its construction. Every living thing that has ever walked the face of any planet, in any universe, first swam in the River of existence, save two. The creator, who filled the river to begin with, was not created. Another, The Destroyer, was born of evil and swam first in the underground Lake of the End. Being born of evil, he inherently struggled with evil more than any before him. The Creator, being good, would not allow The Destroyer to begin and end his life with evil and no choice. The Creator gave him a simple gold medallion that, when worn, allowed him to swim in the River of Existence and temporarily cleanse himself of the anti-creation that spawned him. The process is raw, searing pain, but it gives him centuries of blessed euphoria after each bath. The Weavers, and the Destroyer are the only two things allowed to return to river after leaving it. Even the Creator has never swam in the river, and he will not until the end, when all things will return to the river.

Orqia is a massive world with mountains that leave the atmosphere and oceans that could not be fully mapped should a man have a hundred fleets of the fastest ships and a hundred lifetimes to explore. In short, everything on Orqia is bigger than it is anywhere else.

Frontier, the largest city on Orqia and an independant nation all its own is large enough that even the most active and curious citizens rarely visit even a fourth of its major landmarks in their lifetime. It is the center of most trade and considered the unofficial capital of Orquia.

In the northeast corner of the Pluto district of Frontier, there is a small, unassuming house. On the surface, it appears to be the home of a simple merchant and his wife. Beneath the surface, however, one will find a network of catacombs that, if one knows the way, will lead to the base of operations for the oldest society in Orqia. This is the home of the Crows. The Crows are a secret of thieves and assassins. They have been working in the dark corners of Orqia for hundreds of years, and many believe that they are the last surviving branch of the Wolves den, a powerful society that built a veritable empire on Orqia before being destroyed during the rise of Frontier.

The Crows have always made their living by having a hand in thousands of deals and schemes small enough to escape any serious attention. Large scale crime was never their focus. Now, however, they have been presented with a plan to steal the Destroyer’s medallion. Believing the Destroyer himself to be myth, but knowing the medallion to be real, the greed of the five heads of the Crows has gotten the best of them.

They have requested the services of three of the most reputable people in the field. They are expected to assemble and meet in the catacombs on the last night of summer.

Obviously, we are the three thieves. I have a lot of story thought out about the Destroyer and the medallion that would come later and make the whole thing a lot more than a simple job of thievery.

You can be a thief or an assassin, or anything very similar like a rogue (not sure what the difference is).

It is medieval tech, though if you want to make some light steampunk or something like that, you can.

Magic and mythical creatures come in nearly unlimited varieties on Orqia.

This will have a lot to do with the thieves struggling between whatever morality they have, and their jobs.

Space Cowboy Posts : 667 Join date : 2013-06-09 Age : 32

I have to do a lot of editing but here is my old bio from when you first had this idea.

Spoiler:

Posts : 286 Join date : 2013-07-19

Umbra wrote:: Anouk Aimèè

Appearance:

Anouk permeates toughness. From her icy blue eyes, to her scarred-up skin, she exudes a warrior presence. She is about five feet, five inches tall. She weighs a little more than she appears to at first sight. This is not only because of her extremely dense muscles, but also due to the magic that is infused into her soft tissue and bones.

Her hair is black with silvery overtones, and hands a little past shoulder length. She keeps it in a simple style that does not require much attention, yet still serves to hide her scarred right eye.

Having been raised in the Détruire barbarian tribe, she has almost no sense of modesty. Her armor is thick and heavy, but somewhat revealing. When she removes her armor, there is quite a bit less to cover her body and she would never even think to add more. Her body is sensual and attractive in appearance, except that it is riddled with scars from countless battles.

Abilities:

As a demigoddess, born from a lesser goddess of death, Anouk is blessed with a physically enhanced body in almost every way.

She is about as strong as three large men. She can run at speeds up to 30 mph. She can jump three times the distance of a normal human.

Her skin and bones are instilled with magic. This magic makes them very dense and difficult to injure.

Her cognitive thought is highly advanced, particularly in combat. She is able to anticipate and react so quickly that some believe her to be able to see the future. She has no psychic ability at all, she is simply needs less time to think when fighting.

She is highly skilled with various melee weapons, particularly swords.

Anouk carries two swords that were designed after the weapons once held by the chief of the Détruire. The originals were designed and enchanted to greatly enhance the wielder's power. The swords she now carries are not the originals and have no enchantments, though they are still of very high quality.

History:

The Détruire tribe were known for thousands of years as the most bloodthirsty people in all of Orqia. Their territory once spanned from the icy waters of the Friod-eau sea, to the northern wilds. Over the years, mostly due to their refusal to change with the times, the tribe began to lose more and more land. By the time Anouk was born, they were down to only the land in which they had originally settled. This land, called Détruire la Vie, was sacred to the Détruire and they fought for it with such savage fury that they held it against impossible odds for nearly two hundred years. This was thanks in no small part to Anouk’s leadership.

Anouk was the daughter of the chief and, while they were loath to submit to a woman, his rightful heir. Even if they were not willing to accept her based on her father, she had been born from the La Mort Arbre, which had only happened nine times in their history. This meant that she was a demigoddess and chosen by their gods to rule. She would become the first female chief in their long history, and she would become known as the greatest among them. Even with her powerful leadership and their desperate fury, the Détruire were not able to hold their lands against the multiple eastern armies that came against them. The final battle took place at the foot of the La Mort Arbre. This tree, with its black bark and hollow trunk, had stood as the Détruire’s most sacred landmark since they settled in the land.

Six hundred Détruire surrounded the tree in that day and stood again forty thousand. They held them off for sixteen hours, and by the time the attacking army set fire to the tree, only Anouk was left alive. She was severely injured, but alive and conscious. The general of the attacker had her bound and gagged. Then he made her watch as he burned the tree to ash. She screamed so furiously through the gag that her voice was permanently damaged. From then on, her voice was little more than a husky whisper.

She was taken as a slave to the kings of the east. She was passed around for two decades and used as a source of entertainment. She was forced to wear a belt that constantly poisoned her body and made her weak and disoriented. She suffered under terrible brutality and was shown not a moment of mercy.

By the time the Crows, longtime allies of her father’s, found and rescued her, she was no longer the glorious leader she had once been. She had all but given up on glory and power, which were once the things that drove her. She had almost accepted the darkness fully. As half the woman she used to be, she joined the Crows as muscle for their thieves and assassins when they needed it.

((If you would like to know how she was born from a tree, I have an explanation. It just did not fit into the story.))

Regular Cowboy Posts : 365 Join date : 2012-11-18 Age : 26

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