Surrounded on all but its western coast by lava flows, the great Sea of Madness is a stormy, fog-shrouded, and bubbling body of salt water as vast as the Great Chasm and filled with a greater ecological variety than one might expect given the ambient temperatures — though the waters’ temperature is cooler than one might expect as well.
The storms kick up white caps and create weather throughout The Deeps.
Inland, the Sea is calm and as cool as much of the surrounding Chasm; however, the further east one sails, the higher those temperatures rise. Along the eastern wall, lava flows near the Sea heat the water well-past boiling and drive warm mists westward across the Sea to form the majority of the weather patterns throughout The Deeps. This causes heavy storm clouds to precipitate over the Sea which are then carried across the Great Chasm as well as the Fordings.
Beneath the sea, hydrothermal vents are common, spewing forth superheated jets of water, minerals, and sulfurous gases which occasionally cause the waters at the surface to bubble and even belch in order to release them. In the southernmost portion of the Sea, where these vents are most common, and where lava flows surround the shoreline, the Sea’s waters can reach temperatures as hot as 100F even at the surface! A cluster of islands has formed in this area, the largest of which is occupied by a wayward bunch of Dhogem pirates, minds addled by overexposure to heat and hydrothermal fumes, that often raid the vulnerable communities at the edges of the Chasm and the Fordings before vanishing back into the Sea’s sheltering mists. They call themselves Mob Nightsmoke.
The waters themselves are home to a beautiful array of colorful coral reefs, schools of tiny, sightless fish, octopi, squids, and jellyfish of varying shapes and sizes, shrimp and horsefish, as well as many different crabs that prefer the warm, pressurized environment at the Sea floor. While some of the squid can grow to monstrous size and have been known at times to capsize vessels sailing the Sea, there is yet another, rarer predator that even the maddened Nightsmoke pirates know to fear. The massive and deadly Tyregrastk enjoys life in the Sea at the top of the food chain, resembling a fearsome chimera of six-limbed bear, savagely clawed and mandibled insect, and wispy jellyfish.
A huge, underground river flows just east of the barren tunnels at the edge of the Serpent’s Vaults, and a mighty keep rules this river, serving as massive dam, castle, and center of irrigation all at once. The Dhogem that live in this region are an odd juxtaposition — both simple-minded and cosmopolitan at once. They are not typically great warriors or skilled hunters, and enjoy much in the way of material comforts from their close proximity to the wealth of the Vaults, and the legendary skill of the Chasm hunters. Due to their relatively safe and sheltered position in life, many are contented to grow fat off the land and wax philosophically for the rest of their lives.
The lands around the Great Ford, often called the Fordings, are exceptionally fertile, both from volcanic sediments carried to them by storm and current from the simmering Sea of Madness to the east, but also from the ingenious irrigation systems put in place by master craftsmen of the distant past. Many of Dhghemon’s most prolific and respected writers and speakers live in the quiet farmlands of the Ford and the place has become a favored dwelling for elderly Dhogem to spend their twilight years in peace and relaxation.
Though the Great Ford lacks much in the way of a standing army, their political and economic power is vast and constantly growing. They not only supply food and water to communities throughout The Deeps, they comfortably horde these resources and control the price on a number of specialty goods such as wine, ale, tea, and other tinctures, products dependent on the water and crops produced in the Great Ford.
The rest of The Deeps is dependent on them to varying degrees and Moxzo Tsolidon, Kobold of the Great Ford knows it. Once a decorated knight in service to The Serpent, Tsolidon was tasked with taking the Ford for his liege lord so he could add it to his vast treasure trove. Tsolidon took it, but once he saw what he could do with this new land’s resources, he saw an opportunity to rival the Serpent’s great wealth. He requested more men and prepared himself for a siege he could weather for years. He kept the Great Ford and he has ruled it miserly ever since.
Beneath the dense granite mountains that rise out of the white sands of Ticonderos’ western shores hide an abundance of labyrinthine tunnels filled with gemstones and valuable ores. The Dhogem who dwell in these vaults are the most “human-like” in their culture, using their abundant material wealth for technological advancement, for trade, and for carving out organized and well-protected, well-established cities and towns. The Dhogem of the Vault enjoy well-lit tunnels, patrolled by guards, and smelt iron and copper ores into bronze and steel to be used for everything from tools, weapons, armor, and kitchen utensils.
One of the Serpent Lord’s many riches-filled tunnels
These Dhogem have almost wholly driven out the unnatural beasts generated by the dark, corrupting force buried far, far below, but in so doing that have shut themselves off from the rest of their kind. They consider themselves to be the most civilized, refined, and intelligent of all Dhghemon.
Despite the brutal history established when the Dragonlord drove their kind back underground, the Dhogem of the Vault trade extensively with the humans above, and like those humans, the Dhogem maintain order through a hierarchy of lords, knights, and serfs, ruled ultimately by a kingly sort of Kobold (Dhogem chief or elder) called The Serpent Lord.
The Serpent Lord is a cunning and efficient warrior, tactician, and tradesman, who keeps his people well-fed and happy by any means necessary. The Serpent Lord has been called honorless by many enemies, but he often portrays himself as merely more intelligent that these petty foes who work too hard to achieve too little. To the Serpent Lord an action cannot be evil if it secures the safety and comfort of his people, and his people seem to agree. He will do whatever is the easiest, most direct thing to secure his Vaults and the cities within, and if his actions also serve to increase his power and the iron hold he has upon it, well, who could blame him?
The Dhogem, an intelligent, humanoid race thought to have evolved over time from moles, live almost exclusively underground congregating into one of a few major ecological systems. For the most part, they are a merit-based, egalitarian people who tend to exalt those most qualified into positions of leadership and power; though there are some exceptions. The lands of The Deeps are divided into the following major areas: the Great Chasm, the Serpent’s Vaults, the Great Ford, the Sea of Madness, the Fungal Consortium, and the Flameblossom Grotto. Other minor areas include Shadowhold, the Frozen Ruins, and the Eternal Hegemony of Resplendent Order, and other intelligent creatures dwell within The Deeps as well.
There’ll be concept art of the Dhogem themselves before long, but this will do for now
The Great Chasm
Beneath the harrowing mountain peaks of central Ticonderos lies a staggering chasm stretching for miles, an underground veldt, in a manner of speaking, filled with clean air, trickling underwater streams, and sparse deposits of metals and valuable stones. The Great Chasm was once home to the Great Rock Wyrm that was captured by the Dragonlord and is now deceased. Now, the Great Chasm has become an even more dangerous wilderness than ever before, brimming with countless ravaging beasts each vying to be the next King of the Chasm in the Great Wyrm’s absence.
The Dhogem who dwell in this region are by and large a hardy, salt of the earth people, skilled hunters and knowledgeable gatherers as well as capable survivalists of the wilderness. There is a strong sense of self-reliance running through the culture of the Great Chasm and their people are descended from the most celebrated, powerful, cunning, and legendary ranks of monster hunters known to all Dhghemon.
Now, while many Dhogem of the Great Chasm are still skilled hunters, they have carved out secure towns around the borders of the wilderness that most monsters keep a safe distance from — if only to seek easier prey elsewhere. Cevra og S’Ehtel, the City of the Wheel, is the capital city of the Great Chasm and lies along the northern border beneath a magnificent waterfall. The waterfall drives a powerful water wheel whose rotations stoke flame vents throughout the city providing light for the lamps that line the streets and warmth to homes. Those that dwell in the towns, and especially within the capital city, enjoy a less rugged, more artistic lifestyle, afforded to them by the efforts of monster hunters present and past and the support of a burgeoning tourist economy as Dhogem from every corner of The Deeps come to experience the hazardous beauty of the chasm.
The artisans of the City of the Wheel specialize in the most classical of Dhogem expressions – wyrdings, in the Dhogem nomenclature – arts and crafts created exclusively from the wildlife of The Deeps. Everything from knives to furniture, paintings, and even wyrding cuisine are a prided commodity in the Chasm and fetch a high price with every passing tourist season.
I realized last night that, before I begin to delve too deeply into the socio-political landscape of both the over and under worlds of Ticonderos, I had better get a more concrete grasp of what magic exists in the setting and how each of them works. Being a “classic fantasy” setting with some twists, and being one of the major campaign settings for an accompanying tabletop RPG, of course there’s going to be magic, and in fact there’s going to be several different kinds of magic. Ticonderos is saturated with magic deep down into the roots of the continent, magic trickles through ancient glacial streams, springs up as ferns and flowers from the ground, and flows through the marrows in the bones of fantastic beasts and fearsome monsters. The people of Ticonderos cook with magic, for gods sakes. Oh, there’s magic, alright. Let’s talk about it.
There’s so much more to magic than what’s written down in books.
Forget what you think you know about wizards and priests. Magic isn’t (just) written down in books to be studied and condensed into specific, single-use spells waiting to be unleashed upon the world. Magic lives. Perhaps, the Dhogem of The Deeps understand this best of all. They’ve been hunting and eating magical creatures for centuries and using the bones and organs to build and craft objects and structures with innate magical powers. This kind of magic can be preserved and perpetuated through the creation of new forms. It’s grisly to talk about, but so long as the body part has not rotted or dried out, the magic contained within can be harnessed for new purposes. Dhogem use fire beetles instead of hot coals for cooking and smithing, create powerful magic weapons and armor that form a symbiotic relationship with their wielder and even build new “creatures” so to speak, splicing together parts from numerous magical creatures to form living tools, structures and vessels such as the Vesac Barges that float above the City of the Wheel in the north of the Great Chasm, guarding the skies of the Dhogem capital from monstrous flying predators.
But just as magic lives within the blood and bones of creatures, it also flows through the earth itself. Magic can be eaten and drank and used as a tool, but it is also something that can drawn upon and allowed to flow through one’s self. This requires a quality called Attunement which represents a person’s awareness of, connection to, and ability to interact with “extranormal” forces – in the case of Ticonderos, “extranormal” explicitly means magic and includes things such as divine blessings and miracles. On other Shards, perhaps the symbiotic relationships forged between self and eldritch eidolons of immense power constitutes the “extranormal,” or even the interface with high technology and post-human cybernetic enhancement. On Ticonderos, those with enough Attunement can call on the magical forces within the Shard itself to flow through them in order to achieve some desired effect. They are channelers of powers gifted to them by the mana flowing through their world or by cosmic or otherworldly powers like gods and demons. These individuals do not waste their time composing spells, outlining formulas, or studying dry tomes. They have no need to follow rules or learn how to coax magic into specific shapes, because they are directly “plugged-in” so to speak. Ticonderos has ancient orders of druids possessed of powerful Attunement as well as pious priesthoods devoted to several gods and goddesses (and even other things as well) able to weave potent magical effects on a whim. Their magics aren’t spells as such, they need not, and generally do only rarely, produce the same effects with their magic twice.
Wizardry – The Science of Magic
The science of magic is something that has been studied for a few hundred years and has begun to crop up in some of the larger, more secular settlements, human settlements in particular, as a sort of “neo-magicalism” movement involving what you might typically be familiar with as Wizard Schools. Wizards in Ticonderos typically have only the barest amount of Attunement required to sense magic and interact with it at a basic level and use years of accumulated knowledge about magic as well as their own high intellects to study magical effects, their origins, what causes them, if any, how to reproduce them, if possible, how to alter and/or enhance them, etc, ad nauseum. As such Wizards codify magic and create and reproduce spells but they do not truly channel magical power in the same way a Druid might. Wizards must study, memorize, and catalyze magic using inherently magical components alongside spell focuses such as staffs, wands, or other totems. Because potentially anyone with the brains for it can learn a spell here or there, and because humans trend toward lower Attunement than the Dhogem or the Oreiads, these Wizard Schools are seen by many as ways to elevate and modernize human society. Not only can the common folk someday better their lives with a minor spell here and there, structured magic spells can be preserved and built upon over time so that cities can employ them over a grander scale.
Let’s peel back some of the obtusness of my project and get into some of the details of what I’m planning, what I’m doing, and how things feel, man.
Ya, know what really grinds my gears?
The Waybetween is my “space opera,” you might say, it’s a universe filled with what used to be whole worlds in various stages of development, reduced now to Shards. These Shards are pieces worlds, worlds left behind, abandoned, forgotten, and fading into the Void. As parts of what were once worlds, each Shard has its own cultures, genres, themes, and histories, and each Shard will have its own “rules” so to speak. To put it into tabletop gaming speak for a moment, each Shard is its own independent campaign setting filled with magic and/or technological wonders, various cultures and perhaps races, fantastic or alien creatures, etc. I plan to launch the Waybetween with three, maybe four, fully fleshed out, living, breathing Shard Worlds for players to play around in as well as full details on The Spider, on Ziegander the Abysswalker, and on the Heralds of the Silver Strand that weave their ways through the Void to tether new discoveries and lost souls to The Waybetween, also called The Spider’s Web. It’s a big project, and it’s going to take me some time to roll out, but I think it’s a worthy effort.
Right now I’ve got three Shards in various stages of development and operating under codenames. You’ve seen some of “Ticonderos,” my launch fantasy setting. It is by far the largest of the three Shards I plan to launch The Waybetween with. It’s not exactly the Forgotten Realms insofar as a kind of “white bread” fantasy environment, it’s got elements of Dark Fantasy and even some Lovecraftian stuff, but it’s not so far from that sort of classic sword & sorcery to be uncomfortable or foreign to most people, I don’t think anyway. It’s mainly that typical European-ish fantasy with some twists and turns along the way. A major goal for me with Ticonderos is to establish multiple, diverse cultures within the humans and the mole-people that live underground, as well as (but to a lesser extent) the Oreiads that live upon the mountaintops. This is something I think a lot of “classic fantasy” doesn’t do particularly well, and while I don’t expect to completely nail it, I think it the very least deserves an earnest attempt. Not all humans are the same, not all dwarves should be the same either. Ticonderos is a place with some very entrenched issues as far as racism and bigotry go, and I don’t intend to shy away from these topics in showing the often contrasting ways in which the common folk perceive differences of skin color, customs, religion, sexual practices, to name just a few, and how the rich and powerful do. I want to have representation of real world issues in more than just a token way, but I also want to create a system that feels real and lived in, and unfortunately, to me anyway, that doesn’t mean Ticonderos is a harmonious utopia where everyone understands and respects one another. Ticonderos is a messy place filled with good and bad and a crazy amount of social and political upheaval happening all at once. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
But as well as Ticonderos, I’ve two others planned as well, Cratertown, a sci-fi moon base sort of thing, inspired by Firefly, and what I’m calling, and may continue to call, Slumberland, ripped wholesale from Little Nemo. Little Nemo is public domain and I’ve loved and been inspired by the comics, the movie, and, yes, even the NES video game, for my entire life. Neither of these shards are all that well-developed at the moment, but in terms of content you can expect, Cratertown is the smallest of the three launch Shards, it is just a small trading/mining town with a bit of space tech and an old west feel to it. It will plug into some sort of Star Trek “federation” kind of thing in the sense that I plan to have at least one, if not a sort of decimated but still operating faction of, spacecraft exploring the Void, taking note of the state of the universe and the Shards, operating at least somewhat independently of Asibikaashi, Ziegander, and the Dreamcatchers. Slumberland will be this sort of psychedelic, Victorian-ish-era “light” fantasy Shard, roughly the size of a single kingdom and its surrounding areas. Slumberland will much more directly plug into the Deep Lore ™ of The Waybetween being the training grounds for the Dreamcatchers as well as the source of the “Nightmares” that scour the Void and reduce worlds to Shards and Shards into nothingness. Expect a bit of The Neverending Story vibes here and some high-concept Big Bang vs Heat Death of the universe to come into philosophical play here. “The Nightmare King” is definitely something that’s going to come into play as a sort of big picture antagonist for The Waybetween, but perhaps there is more to it than at first meets the eye. If you haven’t seen Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, do yourself a favor – go watch it.
And that’s what I’m working on. It’s a lot to process, believe me, I’m writing it. If I do a fourth Shard at launch, then Ticonderos, Cratertown, and Slumberland will be joined by something… modern, perhaps modern horror, or perhaps modern… “pokemon…” I’m undecided at the moment. The next time you hear from me I will likely post something else up continuing to build Ticonderos. Being the largest of the launch Shards, I want to finish it first. I have lots of notes about specific cultures, and I’ll post them eventually, but the next thing I think I need to do is work out Magic in Ticonderos, the various kinds, the cultural significance of magics, and what “rules” the different magics of the Shard follow. See you then, and thanks for reading!
“Ticonderos” is the codename I’m working with, until I come up with the actual name, for the “classic fantasy setting” I plan to launch The Waybetween tabletop RPG and website roleplay community with. The idea is to launch three, perhaps four, shards of different genres, size, and depth for players to dive into and create stories in so they can pick the one that suits them best while also connecting them in the overarching spiderweb that is The Waybetween.
Ticonderos, in a pitch line, is a continent set adrift in the Void where the political turmoil of Game of Thrones is layered over a creeping darkness inspired by Diablo and Ancient Domains of Mystery. It is very much more than that, but there’s your one-sentence summary.
Maps of Ticonderos. Don’t know what Ancient Domains of Mystery is? Check it out!
Ticonderos is a shard world, a continent that was once part of a larger world now set adrift in the void of the Waybetween, and it plays host to a wide variety of cultures both old and new. Some very long time in the distant past, an ancient, alien power, dangerously hostile and corrupting to mortal lives, was sealed deep within the heart of Ticonderos and its energies have spent millennia seeping and bubbling up to the surface having the effect of birthing all sorts of “magic” and “monsters.”
A race of humanoids seemingly evolved from moles who call themselves Dhogem (both singular and plural) dwell underground and have battled such monsters below the surface as long as their recorded history. Much of their culture, goods, crafts, artwork, even cuisine is based around the harvest and consumption of these dangerous creatures. The dhogem also traded with and even taught their trades freely with those human settlements that dwelled in valleys and hillsides nearest to caves and mines where they might naturally encounter the molepeople.
While the dhogem were a hardy people, strongly resistant to the corrupting effects that infused the monsters’ bodies they so liberally worked with, over time, those human communities that had spent generations mingling their traditions with the dhogem became afflicted with unpredictable mutations that could cripple an entire village’s livelihood or grant wild, supernatural powers.
One such “gifted” human came to be known as the Dragonlord and by sheer dumb luck (or perhaps inscrutable, alien design?) developed inhuman strength the match of ten men, bones of iron, and fireproof skin. He was cruel and ambitious and with his gifts he managed to subdue the great Fire Wyrm that roosted in the volcano near the western shore of Ticonderos and, through torture and brute force, bent it to his will. With that dragon’s might, the Dragonlord led a bloody campaign across the surface of the land, warring for decades against man and even the elusive Oreiads dwelling high upon the mountaintops, claiming five more dragons in his conquest and all of the kingdoms of men as well.
The Dragonlord would eventually reject the ways of the dhogem who had by happenstance granted him the very strength he’d needed to subjugate mankind, and he drove them back underground, both fearful of what gifts future generations might obtain from their practices, but also “saving” the citizenry from the plague of mutations these “filthy” creatures threatened them with. Now in possession of the six most powerful dragons on the continent, the Dragonlord also rooted out and killed all remaining dragons on Ticonderos, an insult and sin the Oreiad will not soon forgive.
The Dragonlord enjoyed a magically endowed long life notable for its immodest opulence, immeasurable wealth, and ruthless decimation of all who opposed him. But eventually, as all things in time must, he fell, as one by one his dragons died, more from mistreatment than age, and war erupted across the surface of Ticonderos once again. When the dust settled, six separate kingdoms emerged from the ashes of the Dragonlord’s once conquered territories, and after the sack and ruin of the Dragonlord’s seat of power was complete, a sort of neutral territory was installed there with Lordships given to a handful of advisors tasked with helping to maintain an uneasy peace between the six kingdoms and facilitating negotiations amongst them.
The dhogem, though driven underground by the Dragonlord decades ago, and loathe to deal with humans again, find themselves facing disaster. A surge of malevolence seems to have taken place somewhere in the bowels of the earth and horrors like they’ve never seen ravage their lands. In the Great Chasm where the powerful Rock Wyrm once reigned, new apex predators clash constantly for supremacy. Perhaps worse, a quickly growing number of the dhogem themselves have become corrupted, changed into servants to an unseen power that seeks freedom from its prison, vengeance on its captors, and domination over everything else. And so, dhogem pour to the surface by the thousands seeking refuge from this fresh hell.
For their part, the Oreiad mostly stayed out of the affairs of the lower folk, but when the haughty Dragonlord thought he would debase the majestic Wyrms that lived high in the mountains, the Oreiads would punish him for his arrogance. Other than the Fire Wyrm already under his thrall, and the Rock Wyrm that lived underground, the other four Great Wyrms had dwelt undisturbed within Oreiad lands for thousands of years. Though the Oreiad armies were better trained, better disciplined, better armed, and in far greater number than the Dragonlord’s forces, he commanded a dragon, and the Oreiads only defended them. He did not have to fight their superior armies head on, all he needed was to subvert one other dragon and he could seal his victory. That first war lasted years and the Dragonlord suffered heavy losses, but eventually he got what he came for, and though the Oreiads could have routed his troops, they knew there was no standing against two dragons in battle. Some especially zealous armies continued to fight against the Dragonlord as he continued to take the other Great Wyrms and kill the remaining dragons, but, in an official capacity the Oreiad Empire retreated once again into their mountaintop cities, exiling those that would defy the orders of their Empress, and took no further part in the affairs of men.
The Oreiad Empire is an ancient, matriarchal society governed by covens of powerful witches, the most powerful among them holding the vast empire together through a line of Empresses. Only those witches able to control their magical powers are given roles in government, and roles in government are only given to witches and their families. During the war with the Dragonlord, a famous Oreiad warrior who had loved an outcast witch who was unable to control her magic was slain in battle as he led forces trying their best to stop the Dragonlord from claiming the Dragon of the Moon. The outcast Oreiad witch had loved the knight as well, he’d served her faithfully as though she was the Empress herself, and in desperation, she attempted to return him to life, but instead she gave “life” to rotten flesh, severed sinews, and broken bones filled with rage, hatred, and a need for vengeance. The witch and her undead knight fled far into the north, where the true Oreiad Empress rules from a palace of ice, where they were never seen again. However, the council at Kingspeace has heard reports of dead men walking out of the river flowing from the northern tundras, and there are whispers going around the northern settlements of men that the Empress has been killed.
What they do, it’s not so much terraforming as it is pumping atmo into and around the rock. Results in a heavy increase in seismic activity, the emergence of trapped liquids and gases, and it’s not exactly energy efficient, but it makes a place livable in less than a thousand years. You can pump a moon the size of Lunefreya with atmo enough to sustain a little plant life, which in turn helps sustain a small human population, in just under a decade. They can do it on large enough asteroids in under a year, depending on the size. So when galactic money bags want to set up a mine or a little housing development for their drillers or something, this is how they do it, and thus Cratertown was born.
Welcome to Cratertown
An aged, dust-blasted wooden sign announces your arrival to the small, back-galaxy watering hole in the Trappist-1 System. On the western hemisphere of Lunefreya, the smallest of Tritoch’s three moons, Cratertown, is an aptly-named, run-of-the-mill back-galaxy outpost of roughly two hundred basically good, more-or-less clean folk. Law is maintained by a makeshift militia run by a sheriff, cowboy hats and leather jackets are in fashion, and despite the proliferation of solar sailors you see in the big cities, the folks here still get around via fossil fuels and automotive horsepower. For fun you might go shoot your guns, or play a game of slag hole, maybe even try sifting for bits of scandium if you’re feeling lucky.
Every night, Ol’ Stumbleweed, the local tavern, is full of hard old men nursing one last drink alone at a dark table, and young men and women dancing with no rhythm or riding the mechanical borgon. Tourism keeps the bar running well and even if the alien-watchers bother the locals they do keep the money flowing through. Tonight is no different. The music is clear and loud, but not obnoxiously so like so many neon plastered Trappist-1 city dives, and the drinks, and the money, are both flowing steady, out of bottles and out of wallets.
Out the back you’ll find the latest tourist attraction, the Whispering Well, so-called on account of the mysterious gurgling and wheezing sounds it’s started to make about half a year back. It’s probably nothing but underground gases or fluids, but Elliott, the barkeep, likes to promote it as space ghosts trapped between dimensions trying to communicate with those on the edge of life and death. It brings in what you might call a “particular crowd.” One such patron ambles back to the bar just now, an awestruck, vaguely frightened expression on his face.
“I heard… they spoke to me…” the wide-eyed city boy strains over the music.
The regulars roll their eyes, stand from their stools, and move away while the nearby out-of-towners turn to the man with a mix of shock, curiosity, and disgust.
Elliott stands behind the bar, rubbing at the inside of a clear glass with an old rag. “Oh, you did, did you?” he doesn’t look up, his tone patronizing.
“I heard them!” the boy shouts, thrusting his arms over the counter to grab Elliott by the shirt collar. He wrenches the barkeep’s face an inch away from his own, eyes bloodshot, screaming, “They SPOKE TO ME!!”
Elliott gives the fool a gentle, disappointed look in the eyes before saying, sincerely, “Now you have fucked up, son.” His movement is fluid and powerful, throwing his body into an open-handed right hook, slamming his right palm into the boy’s nose, breaking it with an audible crack as he presses the panic button below the counter with his left.
“Bertham, we got another one!” Elliott shouts and less than two seconds later, his bouncer, the large fellow named Bertham had crossed from the door to the bar to put the bleeding tourist in a full-nelson.
“Jeffery!” Elliott cranes his head toward the ceiling. About fifteen feet across the room was a flight of stairs that led to a small dance hall above the bar where a young local named Jeffery was reclaiming empty glasses and wiping tables.
“What do you want, Elliott?”
“Get on down here and watch the door, Bertham’s gotta escort another moron to our fine sheriff.”
Jeffery rolls his eyes and thumps a full tray of glasses down the stairs, his steps heavy with the load.
Elliott looks back at Bertham, “I’ve already sent out the wire, he’ll meet you in the road as usual.”
The souls of this dark, lifeless world have long since passed.
CLANK!
The world itself warped and broken.
CLANK!
It has been taken by the Abyss.
Clink! Clink!
All save the dilapidated castle that floats through the nihilistic morass of time decayed.
Clink!
It is nothing more than a Shard now.
But deep within this hollow bastion, a long-slumbering ember has been kindled anew. Spared somehow by some blessed spark, the individual here and the purpose that drives him would not go quietly into the night as the rest of the world had.
There is a man of medium height and build, hard at work upon his anvil. His forge is an open room, tucked away beneath one of the castle’s ramparts, the carpet on the floor has long rotted away, the statue of some warrior-god ravaged and sundered and shifted into a corner, and rubble of granite and marble litters the dusty floor. Adorned in dark, heavy plates of steel, decorated by red and gold filigree, and a tattered crimson cape depicting the crest of a warrior of the sun pitting a lance against a writhing dragon, he toils at his forge, as he has done for ages. Teased by memories of another life, he does not recognize the young man in his mind, but he feels what that man felt.
CLANK!
Images flash through the armored smith’s mind.
Clink! Clink!
He feels fear when the lithe young man’s stomach lurches as an undead horror with a great machete knocks his round iron shield from his grip to send it plunging into a deep ravine and out of sight.
CLANK!
The same young man plunges his dagger into the heart of a tall, powerful knightess, and the smith feels the young man’s shame and anger and fear even as he recognizes similar emotions in the face of the woman.
CLANK!
Again, the blacksmith sees the young man, this time he is battling against an accursed, rotted tree, but he is joined by several other men and women, warriors and wizards and champions, and he feels a sense of bravado and kinship.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
But… who was that young man? Why is it this blacksmith should remember the life of another…?
He holds up his work, to behold it from behind his thick-visored full-helm. A pauldron of fine, dark steel, well-hammered, reinforced with an ore mined long ago in an ancient time of gods and lords. There is a bucket of water only a few steps away, and a table standing over it, itself strewn with various pieces of armor, and behind it, along the wall, rungs provide places to hang swords, axes, spears, and other weapons. The smith quenches the pauldron in the water as he considers these memories. Suddenly, it occurs to him… what memories of his own does he actually recall? Smithing… hammering… stoking flame… but he no longer recalls any life beyond these crumbling castle walls. What had he done before he came here? Why was he crafting these arms and armor in the first place? Incredulous, the smith realizes… he cannot even recall his own name. He clenches his jaw from within his concealing helmet and begins to unbuckle the pauldron that armors his left shoulder. He begins, almost, to panic. Could that even be possible? To forget one’s own name? How long had he been here, toiling away at this forge? There were others there… fighting that strange, wooden monster… how long had it been since he’d spoken to another soul? He snatches up a hard orange crystal laying on the table and begins adding detailing around the edges of his new pauldron, etching grooves and filigree into the steel, all the while, trying to remember anything about his life before the forge. In his frustration, he accidentally shatters the end of the crystal and sets it down, wringing his gauntleted fist. It’s no use. He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember anything.
Reaching across the workbench, the man snatches up a filthy white cloth before he proceeds to work at the latches and leather straps that hold his helmet on. After a moment’s work, he pulls his sweat-soaked head free of the metal thing, revealing an oily mop of dirty, blond hair, held out of his eyes by a tattered strip of red cloth, so filthy it’s almost black, tired light-brown eyes, and a shaggy brown beard. He wipes his face with the cleanest bit of cloth he can find, and then blows the flecks of metal from the piece of armor, fastening it to his breastplate.
“I think it’s long past time I left this place,” he says aloud before replacing his helmet, the sound of his own voice surprising him. He takes up the largest hammer in his forge, a powerful sledge with a two-and-a-half foot handle, and crosses over to the furnace. He reaches his offhand in, grasping a burning, white-orange coal, and then crushes it. The flames of a very old magic take light over his hand and lick in between his mailed fingers but they do not burn him. Coal… he thinks… Coal’s as good a name as any. Though he may be unable to remember the last time he’d spoken with anyone, it seemed to him he ought to have a name before he tried…
Yeah, yeah , hello. My name’s Ziegander. So, you’ve been tangled in her webs too, have you? Well, where are you headed, then? You like swords and magic? Or is it fear that drives you? Barren moons and ray guns, maybe? Or… perhaps you’ve come to walk the Dark… I could show you how, you could link the Shards, maybe reconnect with things you thought you’d lost…
This street corner is, well, I call it the Switchboard, but it’s a nexus of sorts. A hub. It also happens to be my home. My prison. It’s very likely one day to be my tomb. You all pass through here at one point or another. Perhaps you never see me again. Perhaps you forget you ever saw me at all, but this is the gateway to every place else, and I am the gatekeeper.
What is the Waybetween?
Once upon a time there was perfection, an unfathomable, shining wonder of boundless potential this universe will never know again. Maybe it never really could. In a childish tantrum this perfect thing, this One World, the World That Was, was decimated, and the explosion was so big it scattered imperfect Shards eons apart across the immeasurable Void. And that space twixt the Void, from one Shard to the next, that’s it, that’s the Waybetween. You can get damn near everywhere by way of the Waybetween, if you’ve got the threads for it. The spider weaves ’em, she’s always tuggin’ at ’em, trying to pull it all back together. Me, I just pluck out a chord here or there, send folks like you where they want to go.
So what’ll it be?
Do you dream of dancing the Spider’s webs, traversing the great, wide Dark as a Herald of the Silver Threads? Or would you rather get back to sleep and await what dreams may come in blissful ignorance of the greater schemes we weave in these rarified airs of the Void?
The Waybetween 