The sky rings with the crack of cannonfire. The earth shudders beneath marching feet. The stench of ink, blood - sugar and gold. Many peoples struggle for life in the shadow of pike and musket - you are one of them.>Pick a race. Any civ-race you can think of.
>>6088041>Centaurs
>>6088041Goblins infected with Lycanthropy.
>>6088041Halflings
>>6088041Elf
>>6088045Centaurs it is!The Khaza-sarai steppe has never been tamed - the vast expanse of grassland, desert, squat mountains and ragged hill is beyond the reckoning of city-people's maps - beyond the falcon's eye, as old men say. The khalna-or, riding-men, cross the steppe on the backs of all manner of steeds - camel, inix-serpent and wyvern - but never on horseback. Not since your great ancestor Keghür awoke under the sky, firstborn of the open sky, and liberated the sacred steeds from the whip. In the ages since you have often chastised the khalna-or for their arrogance, for the presumption of mastery over the Khaza-sarai. No steed of men can outpace one of your own, no bow of theirs can match yours, no lance - beneath Hür, the open sky, you are unbroken.Great hosts of your people have followed that prowess beyond the sarai - mercenaries, pieces in the games of other lands. Dwelling amid the hundred-hundred clans that remain loose upon the sea of endless grass, scrounging for scarce game and scratching for tubers, trying not to perish in clan-strife before leaving offspring, it is not hard to see why. The children of great Keghür are rich only in liberty.Your clan dwells somewhere in the grasslands of a hunded thousand leagues, but where?>Far in the north, beyond the edge of the map. You circle the ruined holdfasts of frozen ancients, and live on reindeer - almost as much a sacrelige to your southern cousins as your ritual cannibalism. Still - you trade in furs, raid for reindeer and treat with the Alaig, the hidden men in the hills.>The south, in the shadow of heaven's wall, the vast mountains of Gurakh-khai. Haunted by sand-devils and slave-raiders out of dread Asturg, your people are resolute in faith, and bear the full fury of the liberator when they burn the mountain villages.>You are a people caught up in one of the few river valleys amidst the sarai - dwelling at the fringes and dominating the settled folk to survive.
>>6088065>The south, in the shadow of heaven's wall, the vast mountains of Gurakh-khai. Haunted by sand-devils and slave-raiders out of dread Asturg, your people are resolute in faith, and bear the full fury of the liberator when they burn the mountain villages.
>>6088090The long dry season is ending at last. The vast desert-steppe that shadows the Gurakh-khai fills with snowmelt and expanses of choking dust turn, briefly, into a chaotic swamp of life. Hundreds of dried up riverbeds by which your people travel in the dry months swell with clear water, and the time is come to feed and fatten your herds, to trade, to battle for honour, wives and wealth. Your young-folk hunt goats and water buffalo for rich meat, while the foals dig up mole-crickets and giant cicadas for their mothers to boil, and make camp-drums of the hollow shells. Your people live simply, surviving on the milk and meat of their goats, wearing clothes of woven hair and singing songs of the great ancestors. As you look up at the vast, iron-white mountains to the south, though, you must be every wary. Ever vigilant. Richer and stronger clans are known to drag their poorer cousins off to market in Jhangar over the mountains - winning foreign fire-lances for their effort. The pass up onto the plateau is known in the nightmares of your foals - those lost to the bronze-scaled folk of the mountains are never seen again. At the desert verges, too, you must remember fear - devils of dust and hunger dance at the edges, and the winds carry the songs of vile sycophant-cultists like the scent of a rotting carcass left to the sky.>What will you do?>Strengthen yourselves. Train those of fighting age and arrange yourselves to patrol the land.>Commune with the ancestors - you must make peace among your people, name a leader favoured by heaven, avoid the deadly fate of kin-strife.>Less Talking. More Raiding.
>>6088112>Commune with the ancestors - you must make peace among your people, name a leader favoured by heaven, avoid the deadly fate of kin-strife.
>>6088112>>Commune with the ancestors - you must make peace among your people, name a leader favoured by heaven, avoid the deadly fate of kin-strife.Inner peace begets outer peace
>>6088112>Commune with the ancestors - you must make peace among your people, name a leader favoured by heaven, avoid the deadly fate of kin-strife.Bring forth a son of heaven to please our ancestors!
>>6088169>>6088381>>6088581The ancestors watch you always. Their hoofbeats upon the heavens make pathways through the clouds, their shades upon the earth dance in the summer heat - they who see and watch all, who rode in the train of the liberator, who did every great deed - they will guide you.Finding fuel for a sacred pyre is harder in the wet season, but much dry grass and dead wood is piled up and set aflame. The clan start slowly - cantering at a gentle pace in a tight circle around the fire. First only the black-bone shamans, their scarred faces pock-marked from years of closeness to the flame, but slowly bringing in the rest of the tribe, growing faster and more ecstatic until all run in a great ring, sweeping air into the fire, driving it higher until the smoke rises up to heaven.The noise of thundering hooves alone is like a summer storm. All gallop as one, losing themselves in the chanting of the names of shared ancestors until each centaur can hardly tell themself from any other.Then, one breaks from the herd, and the sky cracks with a shearing bolt of lightning. The bonfire shatters apart under the blow, scattering ash and sparks.>Who?>A shaman, a world-speaker, knower of earth, fire and sky.>A warrior, burying a lance into the ash.>A foal - only a few summers old. Pure, calm - eyes clouded white, head towards the stars, and a voice not his own.
>>6088599>>A foal - only a few summers old. Pure, calm - eyes clouded white, head towards the stars, and a voice not his own.
>>6088599>A shaman, a world-speaker, knower of earth, fire and sky.
>>6088829>>6088676He is only a child, but when he speaks all are silent. He knows things he shouldn't - names, tales, songs. Rumours have swirled since he first spoke that there was something odd about him. Perhaps a demon speaks in his head - perhaps he was born mad, or his mother lay with a witch-man. The shamans, looking on the boy-foal now as he stands silhouetted in the thunderous downpour, swathed in black smoke and white steam, know he is more than this. He is a khitar - an incarnation. The soul of a great ancestor is given flesh again in him - some saint or demi-god reborn to the world to guide. To bring glory and calamity.Still - he is only a boy. His instincts are great, and in time his skill in arts seen and unseen could shake the stars from their perches, but for now he has much to learn. You do not even know who he is - which ancestor. His presence alone is enough to animate the clan with great purpose - an incarnate khitar is a terrible wonder, and there is much to be done. The monks of the mountains know one path - among them there are other khitar, ancient sages moving from body to body like raindrops along a bowstring. You might seek their aid - it has been done before, though the journey into the mountains is a hard one. The wild ice-tribes of the far north, who feast on the flesh of men, know more than any of your own centaurish lore - they might teach a khitar his name, and encourage all the world-breaking fury of his nature. The dancing wind-snakes of the sand offer, as always, a third course...>To the mountains - the monks know the way of these things, and there is always plunder among their monasteries for those who do not fear heights.>To the icy northern deserts and forests - the wild folk may free the khitar's soul, and with it you might lay the world of slavers and spineless men to waste.>The desert sands sing upon ashen wind - make your own destiny, here - a sand devil is a great power in the world, but the incarnate may match one, and make a bargain.You could, of course, not pursue any of these paths. >Let none taint him - he will grow and change as nature bids him, and you will hold fast to your home.
>>6089562>Let none taint him - he will grow and change as nature bids him, and you will hold fast to your home.
>>6089562>>Let none taint him - he will grow and change as nature bids him, and you will hold fast to your home.
>>6089645>>6089656Your shamans know the land - the land holds the bones of your ancestors - you need no other wise-men to speak poison words to you, and no civilised land to sap your strength and let your hooves grow long and brittle. The boy is not lifted on a litter, as the monks might have had him, nor starved in the dark to grow feral and furious, as the northerners might. He will grow as boys grow, and become a man as men do, even while his wisdom is called on to settle disputes. The shamans and warriors who respect his claim to incarnation will act as his hands until his own have the strength of manhood.News of the khitar, who has come to be known as Al-Hüraeg, "the eye of heaven", spreads quickly. Outriders herding sheep, isolated clansfolk foraging, men and women trading kin for marriage - the neighbouring clans come to hear of the incarnation. Most are doubtful, but some come looking. Exiles, poor huntsmen and widows come to behold him - the first decision of the shamans and warriors in council about Al-Hüraeg is what to do with the flow of pilgrims.>Welcome them in. Through the eye of heaven pours light- your clan will grow stronger with more bodies.>Deny them. The ancestor came to you. You are chosen - not them.
>>6089702>Welcome them in
>>6089702>Welcome them in. Through the eye of heaven pours light- your clan will grow stronger with more bodies.
>>6089702>>Welcome them in. Through the eye of heaven pours light- your clan will grow stronger with more bodies.
