The Pale Lady

"First, I must get you to comprehend the celestial realms--something that you will never be able to see due to the damn cloud cover, and will have to take on faith. Then, I will have to explain to you the religious texts that say what we saw when we could see the Moon is not how it has always been, and I will have to give you a way to argue said point. That is why I am drunk before you today, and why you will be drunk by the end of my class."
--Doctor Josiah Lao, Professor of Celestial Energies, from his infamous opening class speech.

The Moon at the time of Impact was written as a pale bluish-white sphere in the skies, known for being mysterious and beautiful, but obviously a strange place that was (most likely) without life.

However, that is not as it always was...

According to legends, the pre-fall Moon was actually a wonder in the night sky--a sister world with green forests and rich blue seas apparent. However, when the Fall came, the Archangel of the Moon Artemaia, was ripped from her throne, and became instead the Pale Lady. Watching her world shrivel and die drove her mad, and perhaps more than any other of the Fallen, It hates humanity.


Out of all the Sycraphim, she was perhaps the easiest to find, pre-Impact. All it took was a clearing untouched by man, and a heart filled with the desire for revenge. She would appear then, her skin alabaster, her eyes gaping black maws, her teeth rippling, twitching razors of silver and hate. She would offer a human the power they needed to strike back at those who wronged them, and all it would cost was your mortal soul...an offer many took throughout the centuries. She would bestow her "blessing" upon anyone who had decided that their own pain, their own hatreds, were worth more than the rest of the world. The resultant demon-form, a horrible creature of part-man, part beast, was known as a Bharghest or werewolf, and the horror they would cause was known throughout the world.

One must forget most of the folklore and legend surrounding the Barghests--their transformation is not limited by the time of day or phase of the moon--though painful, a Barghest can transform at any time. Silver or other rare metals are not a weakness to them. They are not raving monsters but instead patient and deadly hunters, when possible using pack techniques to strike.

Perhaps the most horrifying thing about them is that they were once humans. Unlike the Dragon's minions, the armies of the Pale Lady come from our world, legions of once-men and women that gave themselves to the Sycorafax for the ability to strike back at those that (at least in their mind) wronged them. However, these creatures are men no longer--the blessings of the Pale Lady allow them the live unnaturally long and survive wounds that would be mortal to any other creature.

The fear, of course, is that cults of Pale Lady worshippers now stalk the Tower. Their ability to appear human until they become their war-form means they can infiltrate and operate among us, learning the secrets and striking from the shadows. Even now, they say, that many of the clubs and secret societies might not have a man in their ranks, but instead nothing but monsters. After all, in the tight hallways and structured societies in the Santcum, how many would take the power to simply take what they wanted with red claws and silver eyes burning with rage?

I caught a Unicorn

So, this is kind of a rambling muddle, but it was definitely related to the game and just...good.

I got into RPG's in the 5th grade. I found West End Game's first ed. Star Wars in a game shop in our mall in Casper, WY. I ended up sorta-kinda running that first mission for about twelve kids--not really rolling dice or anything, but just having fun. From there it became White Wolf in high school in all it's terrible glory. Like all gamers, my friends and I started toying around with a homebrew game, a post-apocalyptic vampire cyberpunk mash-up that was not in any way good, but it was fun.

I remember as I was getting ready to go to college, looking at my row of gaming books, and thinking "well, I'll wait until I get there. If anybody else plays, I'll bring them after Christmas Break."

...when I got there, I ran into Cornell Chess and Games. eighty-odd gamers of all stripes. Somehow I became president of that little band for three and a half years, and it brought me connections to some absolutely amazing people, some of my best friends, and some great stories. Seriously, it was one of the best moments of my life.

While there, my inner cabal of friends and regular players started toying around with the idea of making our own game (again). This one was based off of some old fantasy notes my friend had, and we spent about four years building the world of Dael'yth. For me, the big thing I really got into though was the mechanics--I remember moments of brilliant clarity on hows and whys and why this rule would impact this. I put years of time and energy into it, and we played it enough to understand that it worked well enough for me to say "I made a game system that works."

Then I lost it.

Partly because real life and love started getting in the way of my ability to game, partially because people moved away and apart like you do, but a big part was because my laptop died. I got some of the notes back, but not enough. There were just bits and pieces of all that work.

 I had lost my baby.

So I keep going, find gamers online, have a good time, and start thinking of this...really weird idea we're working on now. I'm pondering mechanics even though it's not my focus, and while I'm using what I learned from Dael'yth, it's never really clicking right...

Cue Wednesday. I've been sick--like, really sick. Bad enough for me to go to the doctor, which is a once-in-a-decade thing for me. I'm at home, feeling miserable. I look up a few emails to get a few laughs from old times...

What's that??

It's an email from 2005 marked simply "Hello you!". It's from me, and it's got a star by it, which is odd because I don't star crap in my email folder.

...click.

There it is. All of it. The races, the world history, the background notes, and most importantly THE RULES. All the mechanics, the combat section, the magic system--it's all right there.

I devour it up. It's the warm golden nostalgia for me you can pour over pancakes. But even better--it's a working game engine. Yeah, there's things that won't work for this--this is much more super-heroics than that old game's gritty action movie--and yes some of the writing is terrible (did...did I really need a side bar saying "cheating isn't really needed"?? Did I???), but there's a solid foundation there. One I can play with. One I can grow.

I can't really describe it. It's been a big lift to me, and it's made me feel more confident. I'm cleaning up the mechanics now for this and other things. I'm just enjoying that I found it, and that it came to me at a time that I really needed it.

So yeah, it was a good week. I caught a Unicorn.

The Dragon

Today we start looking at the monstrous forces you'll be facing--the Sycoraphim. We start with the biggest and scariest of them, The Dragon...

They say the creature known now as the Dragon was once the most powerful Archangel to be given to the world. Its fall was one of the deepest into the unreal realms, and yet somehow the Dragon survived and learned how to build its own simulacrum of reality in the Qlippoth. Without the Dragon's cunning and wit, the other Sycroaphim would never have succeeded. If there is a single master of these evils, it would be the Dragon.

The Dragon, like all arch-demons, has many names. In the Book of Lost Tales It is the Bronze Prince, in the scrolls of Aithanki the Bringer of Flame, the Poet Lisan the Mad called It the Wayward Storm or the First Nightmare. The descriptions are varied and diverse, but each agrees on two points: The Dragon's presence is hot enough to melt iron, and It is very, very hungry. Like all of the Angels, they speak to us (by accident or design) in dreams by design or merely by their activities, and the imagery of it normally comes as a great lizard-like monstrosity with wings like a bat, eyes and mouth burning with the heat of a forge and covered in scales of heavy black iron.

(Image found HERE, at the talented Garnabiuth's Deviant Art Gallery.)

The Dragon is, like all Angels, inscrutable, but from it's minions we can perhaps learn something of it's mind and goals. The classical title of Its'  is Sparti, or 'sown-men', being made from the bronze fangs of the dragon after being placed in the ground. These horrible artifacts are well documented in history, for the worshipers of the dragon normally carry them to sow dissent and chaos (and, if needed, stall authorities for a hasty retreat). When they come from the earth, these dragon-men are terrible to behold; over a head and a half taller than the tallest man, with skin of bronze or iron scales and eyes of burning fire, and a crown of horns on their head.  Their mouths are filled with massive fangs, and claws make their hands into deadly weapons.

Perhaps most terrible of all, these creatures are built for only one thing--empire. Masters of war and bloodshed, true, but it is their ability to deduce tactics and organize that makes them spectacularly dangerous. Each Sparti is a master of multiple weapons, but each is also raised up with an intrinsic knowledge of its rank and purpose in the grand scheme of the Dragon's plan. There is no squabbling for rank, no training needed--each Sparti comes out of the earth knowing its destiny and it's role.

This goes for all the nightmare creatures of the Dragon's wrath--from the flying Wyverns to the monsterous Gigants, the Dragons are not a wave of monsters, but instead a legion of troopers.

Unlike other Sycroaphim, the Dragon's Gauntlets are more structured and orderly. Instead of a chaotic labyrinth of twists and turns, the Dragon favors long hallways, simple defensive fortifications, and fortress-like buffers to protect it's Gates. The Dragons are well-prepared, and have a well-organized responses against attacks--from full-on ranged blitzes to Demians throwing the masonry about, Dragons always seem to have some way to at least balance out their attacks.

If anything, their weakness is that the Dragons' armies are perhaps simply too prepared and too cunning. Dragon's are terrifying in their adaptability and unity, but they are far from the strongest or fastest Fallen. Their desire to plan for any attack means they tend to be a bit slower in terms of response, and there have been a few instances historically where a group can go with a unexpected tactic like "Let' just walk up to the front door" that has actually caused some confusion among the Dragon-men's ranks (yes, they planned for it, but they didn't expect it)...