While few if any Ferellans believe that there is such thing as a god, some in the remote human village of Askile have come to believe in them after witnessing miracles and inexplicable phenomena. One such phenomenon is he appearance of a lightning formation they dubbed the “antlers of the gods.” The lighning appears in the shape of one of two antlers, arcing up towards the sky.
Every time the lightning appears in this formation, one item from the town will go missing. Sometimes, a intricately carved pot disappears from a craftsman’s basement. Other times, a statue or monument will disappear from a prominent location. Many believe a god is coming and taking the most precious items humanity can make. his is consistent will the town of Askile’s reputation as some of the most skilled craftspeople in the world, regardless of the medium.
This drawing was found against an upper portion of a wall during excavation of the upper floor of a house in the archaeological site designated Settlement Alpha. It is believed to be artwork depicting a form of transportation. Archaeologists speculate that the transportation style was reserved for the wealthy or for performers and scientists, as the method appears to be an unstable travel method, but was deemed worthy of display.
Artifact Details: Site: ALPHA-10363-01 Item: Framed Drawing 001 Date: Mittelsommer 06, 10363 Location: EB 02 E90 S12 D118 Description: Framed Drawing of an orb with a basket underneath (30cm wide, 20cm tall) JM, FL
It is said that the moontouched can transform into their komorebi, whether that’s water for one and fire for another. Many do not believe such rumors, but the moontouched all know it to be true. They treat these abilities with the greatest reverence and borderline terror.
There is a ghost story amongst the moontouched. It tells of a girl named Maia Running-Candle who came to a school for moontouched to learn how to use her light komorebi. She was one of the most skilled students who had ever come to the school, mastering high-level techniques during her first year and quickly advancing beyond what her peers could do.
Maia’s master was content to let her learn each new ability as she mastered the previous one, but the dean began to worry that she was learning too fast. Many moontouched skills can have dangerous and long-lasting consequences.
Two years into Maia’s studies, her master came before the dean and told him Maia was ready to learn the most advanced and dangerous technique a moontouched could learn. This would be the capstone lesson to make Maia a true master; transforming into her element. While Maia’s studies showed that she had mastered every other ability, the school had strict ethical guidelines. The dean determined that she could not learn the new ability until she had been at the school long enough to understand the dangers and implications of the ability. She would have to complete twelve full years with the college.
The dean generously offered her employment as a teaching assistant, believing that this would give her the chance to see and experience all levels of komorebi and understand why it could be dangerous, but instead, it gave her the chance to gain sympathy among her peers. Less than a year later, her master finally agreed to teach her the capstone ability without the dean’s consent.
Soon after, the pair snuck into the training grounds together. The lesson began with a demonstration in which the light master flawlessly shifted, her form disappearing into a beam of light that zipped around the room. Excited, the apprentice began to mimic her instructor’s movements.
Realizing what her pupil intended to do, the master began to shift back, her form coalescing and becoming more solid as a warning left her lips, “wait-!”
The student’s form dissolved, bright light filling the room as she streaked around it, bouncing haphazardly against the walls. The beam of light struck her master’s incomplete form, causing a bright explosion. The form flickered and dimmed, finally settling into a single humanoid shape made of light.
Now, that humanoid shape travels the world, roaming at the speed of light. At any point, you may look over your shoulder and see her. She will have something to tell you, but she will be unable to speak.
Nobody is certain whether the event killed the apprentice and left the master stuck in a half-light, half-human form, or whether it merged the two into a single being made of light. To this day, the story is told as a cautionary tale to impatient moontouched and to each new student who prepares to learn this potentially deadly ability.
In the Helsinki Forest, also known as the Winter-Runner Forest, contains a rare breed of magical snake. Some believe they have a connection to the famous snake-bonded people who fought in the Second Demonic War. Unlike those snakes, their venom is a powerful healing agent.
Many Ferellan natives are known to have control of lightning and electricity, but few have mastered it. Some of these rare individuals, called lightning moontouched, are selected to be trained at a school for moontouched, while others are found by a traveling lightning komorebi master.
One such student was Jaina Scholar-Field, an unusually powerful elven woman. Jaine was born during times when schools were rare, but Carin Elf-Song discovered her abilities when passing through the tiny village she lived in.
During the master’s visit, a lightning storm came through the town, marked by a lack of rain or warning clouds. The lightning flashed a brilliant purple color, marking the beginning of the storm. Clouds began to coalesce, pulling in around it until the lightning could barely be seen as a purple tinge to the clouds. The lightning steadied and no longer came in flashes, instead forming a steady stream just above the cloud ceiling before striking the ground in one massive blow that shook the village.
Carin elected to stay in the village to investigate the strange event, and soon discovered that the event heralded the birth of a powerful infant, Jaina Scholar-Field. As she grew up, her talents became too challenging for her family to handle, and at the age of nine, she was given fully into Carin’s custody.
By adulthood, Jaina had mastered every technique her master taught her, but was known for out-of-control outbursts. Stories were shared about the time she lost control of her magic during an argument and destroyed an entire village in a lightning storm.
Another village considered her a heroine as she liberated them from a tyrannical mayor. The mayor was abusing a servant, and the tales say that Jaina looked up from her drink and stared the mayor down as he berated the young man. Suddenly, the mayor’s eyes rolled back in his head and he began to shake uncontrollably, falling to the floor. They claim that purple lightning flashed overhead for the days he lay sick, seizing uncontrollably until his death three days later.
Some time after her twentieth birthday, Jaina set out with a group of adventurers and never returned. Some believed she perished fighting a great threat while others claim that her own abilities became too strong and destroyed her.
Some people believe that the world was not always the way it is. Instead, it has been reborn many times out of the ashes like a Phoenix. People who share this belief report dreams of an ancient city of elves. In these dreams, the people of the city attempted a powerful spell that would allow them to survive beyond the End of Days. The spell transported them into a pocket plant adjacent to the Material Plane and those few who survived the spell were trapped there in a state of almost-living. While they continued to live their lives, they did so in slow motion. In the time it took one to brew a cup of tea, eons could have passed.
Some people believe these vivid dreams are the result of alien experiments performed on the people, while others believe that the city existed and was covered up by a government conspiracy. Several attempts have been made to break into Nyamh Rosejoy’s research facility in Miketown by people who believe the facility was built around the ancient city.
Dwarves are rarely druids since they feel a stronger connection to the earth and the mind, but there in exception in what the bandeargen call the Eresse Mountains. These dwarves communed with the magic spiders in the woods to learn venom magic.
When the elves found the dwarves, they believed they were a threat and drove them out of the woods.The dwarves were forced to flee to the lakes below. Now they practice venom magic with the jellyfish in the lakes while elves protect the forests.
Some people believe that at the end of days, a bridge will appear that only the worthy can cross to reach the world that comes after the end of days. Others believe that the bridge is always present, but can only be found near the end of days.
One adventurerer, Eli Munse, believed that he found the bridge, and took a company of humans, bandearg, and a single dwarf across. Non of them came back, but a local woman began hearing voices that night and claimed they were the voices of the people that crossed over. She said that there were just two of them, but they wouldn’t stop bickering, and soon after began to drink heavily until her death eleven years later.
Ferellan World 