Journal of Alvar De Silva
In the days when first the Powers emerged from the darkness with the ill intent towards mankind, seeking to twist them and pervert the Song, mankind sorted itself into groups by their nature. Some fled seeking to hide on distant shores. Some bent knee, embracing a fallen state. Still others sought the aid of another, petitioning a silent Creator. Then there were those who would not flee and could not bend knee. The Five Kingdoms of the Mani. Fell warriors all.
The Solamani with their brace chargers, always attacking the merest hint of the perverted on their ranges. Each one worth at least ten of the changed, but there were thousands and the Solamani were no more.
The Roccamani in their vast fortresses of stone. The hordes falling before their walls like rain. Still one by one the fortresses stilled, until the hills were dark and silent.
The Coramani behind their walls in silence lay. In dark, they stalked the hunters, causing the creatures to fear the dark themselves. Then though no one knows why, in a single night, their many halls fell silent.
The Cacciomani weeing the inevitable, withdrew from battle, building great ships to find western lands and their build greater fortresses still.
But we were the Andremani and though we remain alone, we will not bend nor leave this land we’ve bled for so long. Fell warriors we, but never to be enough we sought to turn the perverted on themselves. Deep forests and lonely crags we searched and sought, all forms of monsters captured and tricked their secrets from their bodies. Then we found the Golgoth.
Understand, you who read these words, out own doom has come upon us. We see this and know it, but still perhaps mankind will not vanish completely from these lands. Behind the guardians, I leave these notes, for those who persevered thru be they not changed might benefit from our secrets.
Every spring, with the thaws the eastern passes open and foul orcs in their legions make war on us. Every spring, the Andremani with their Janissaries hold them back. In recent years this has became easier with the new ones bent to our purposes. Their clever hands make better arms and armor. The orcish hordes perishing to the last warrior. We saw enough success to send round the northern peninsula to seek new lands to hold, hoping one day to push the into the Orcish homelands and end this threat once and for all. Then something changed. The hordes themselves arrive armed as from the Powers themselves. They threw us back. They are without wit or skill with hammer and forge, but fierce. So armed, our casualties mounted, but still we held.
This spring, the colony fell silent. There was concern, but we gathered in the passes as the thaws began. A new weapon appeared. From a high point, one of their foul shaman laid out his regalia. Disciples round him with their own circles of power fed him and he wielding a rod of silvery metal engraved in the most intricate manner, called down lighting from a clear sky. Wind and hail crushed those the lightning had spared. All the while, more of the guard fell and the hordes poured thru the passes. So ends the Andremani. A handful of champions scaled the walls to reach the shaman. There they slew all and retrieved the staff, but it was a broken few to returned. Our strongholds remain, but with the passes broken, it is a matter of time.
The Golgoths are a creature which only our bitter circumstances would have us not eliminate. The Andremani have seen all who walk the lands slain, keeping only those few for our needs. They are aberrations, their adults bear eggs as long as food remains plentiful, each hatching in its time to a juvenile form, deadly but animalistic. No mate seems necessady, each adult sufficient of itself. When the juveniles kill and consume that which is intelligent, they enter a cocoon as does a caterpillar. What emerges is an adult as intelligent as its prey, with malevolent will and many young in its future.
The shells are valuable as they are of an alloy most rare, lighter than steel it is both stronger and less vulnerable to the red rot. The Golgoths biggest gift is their saliva, which bends the will of others to them. Two or three exposures and the victim will happily cut their own throat for the creature. The most important of the secrets, in midst of their adolescents, they are vulnerable. At this point if they are removed from the cocoon and their hearts blood taken, those who consume this will hold sway over the victims of their bites as if they were a Queen themselves. And so the Andremani Janissaries began. We would never have enough to face the hordes when they gather all together, but any taken could be used to fill our own ranks. It is not a tactic to be taken lightly, it stinks of the very perversion itself, but there were five kingdoms and now we are standing alone.
If this be mankind’s last days, I would not have these creatures released upon the land. I will kill the last of them here, if the fates be kind, but there may be some few elsewhere, or egg left forgotten, so I leave these notes.
If nothing else, the day our treasury is revealed, they will understand what it means to be Andremani.
The Roccamani in their vast fortresses of stone. The hordes falling before their walls like rain. Still one by one the fortresses stilled, until the hills were dark and silent.
The Coramani behind their walls in silence lay. In dark, they stalked the hunters, causing the creatures to fear the dark themselves. Then though no one knows why, in a single night, their many halls fell silent.
The Cacciomani weeing the inevitable, withdrew from battle, building great ships to find western lands and their build greater fortresses still.
But we were the Andremani and though we remain alone, we will not bend nor leave this land we’ve bled for so long. Fell warriors we, but never to be enough we sought to turn the perverted on themselves. Deep forests and lonely crags we searched and sought, all forms of monsters captured and tricked their secrets from their bodies. Then we found the Golgoth.
Understand, you who read these words, out own doom has come upon us. We see this and know it, but still perhaps mankind will not vanish completely from these lands. Behind the guardians, I leave these notes, for those who persevered thru be they not changed might benefit from our secrets.
Every spring, with the thaws the eastern passes open and foul orcs in their legions make war on us. Every spring, the Andremani with their Janissaries hold them back. In recent years this has became easier with the new ones bent to our purposes. Their clever hands make better arms and armor. The orcish hordes perishing to the last warrior. We saw enough success to send round the northern peninsula to seek new lands to hold, hoping one day to push the into the Orcish homelands and end this threat once and for all. Then something changed. The hordes themselves arrive armed as from the Powers themselves. They threw us back. They are without wit or skill with hammer and forge, but fierce. So armed, our casualties mounted, but still we held.
This spring, the colony fell silent. There was concern, but we gathered in the passes as the thaws began. A new weapon appeared. From a high point, one of their foul shaman laid out his regalia. Disciples round him with their own circles of power fed him and he wielding a rod of silvery metal engraved in the most intricate manner, called down lighting from a clear sky. Wind and hail crushed those the lightning had spared. All the while, more of the guard fell and the hordes poured thru the passes. So ends the Andremani. A handful of champions scaled the walls to reach the shaman. There they slew all and retrieved the staff, but it was a broken few to returned. Our strongholds remain, but with the passes broken, it is a matter of time.
The Golgoths are a creature which only our bitter circumstances would have us not eliminate. The Andremani have seen all who walk the lands slain, keeping only those few for our needs. They are aberrations, their adults bear eggs as long as food remains plentiful, each hatching in its time to a juvenile form, deadly but animalistic. No mate seems necessady, each adult sufficient of itself. When the juveniles kill and consume that which is intelligent, they enter a cocoon as does a caterpillar. What emerges is an adult as intelligent as its prey, with malevolent will and many young in its future.
The shells are valuable as they are of an alloy most rare, lighter than steel it is both stronger and less vulnerable to the red rot. The Golgoths biggest gift is their saliva, which bends the will of others to them. Two or three exposures and the victim will happily cut their own throat for the creature. The most important of the secrets, in midst of their adolescents, they are vulnerable. At this point if they are removed from the cocoon and their hearts blood taken, those who consume this will hold sway over the victims of their bites as if they were a Queen themselves. And so the Andremani Janissaries began. We would never have enough to face the hordes when they gather all together, but any taken could be used to fill our own ranks. It is not a tactic to be taken lightly, it stinks of the very perversion itself, but there were five kingdoms and now we are standing alone.
If this be mankind’s last days, I would not have these creatures released upon the land. I will kill the last of them here, if the fates be kind, but there may be some few elsewhere, or egg left forgotten, so I leave these notes.
If nothing else, the day our treasury is revealed, they will understand what it means to be Andremani.
Type
Journal, Personal
