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Sept 2, 2010, 9:25pm

Totally Raids, Inc. :: General :: Roleplay :: Consumables

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Topic: Consumables (Read 155 times)

Tarquin
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Consumables
« Thread Started on Jan 12, 2008, 1:37pm »

In the far antiquities of Azeroth, before the Light of reason and worship came to the benighted humans of the Arathor Empire, the pagan tribes bowed their heads before the altars of a hundred nameless gods. Even after the fall of the North, some few identities remain with us – Iron-Toothed Wolf, Lady Fickle, the Stormfather, Flowering Queen, the Burning Hammer. Historians theorize that at least some of these old gods were corruptions of the Titans of ancient dwarven worship, while traditionalists insist that they were unique entitites, and the more fervent priests of the Light denounce them as ancient heresy. The gods, of course, keep their own counsel.

It was traditional among the painted warriors and bronze-armored champions of the Old North to perform certain rituals of dedication to their chosen gods before battle. Followers of the Iron-Toothed Wolf would go on a hunt in the week before a battle, returning with the corpse of their deity’s totem animal bound on a pole before them. Until the eve of battle, they would eat nothing but wolf flesh, and drink a brew of heady spirits, strange herbs, and the animal’s blood; by the time war arrived, they would be in a glassy-eyed, murderous trance, undeterred by mercy or compassion.

Perhaps the strangest - and certainly one of the maddest - of pagan rituals was practiced by the devotees of the god known as the Flamesinger. The Lord of Summer, as he was otherwise known, survived the Quel’dorei Tutelage and Enlightenment better than many of his fellows; as the patron of what few civilized arts that brutal age allowed, he and his followers were less roundly castigated than the more violent and authoritarian members of the heretic pantheon. Many of the surviving myths feature the Flamesinger in a prominent (though not always sympathetic or heroic) role, as is only appropriate for a deity whose most prevalent following was among bards, poets, and artisans.

Warriors dedicated to a god of singers and tale-tellers were rare enough, but they existed, and due to their patron’s unwarlike history, seemed to have felt under a certain pressure to prove their courage and ferocity even before blades were drawn. The night before a battle, champions of the Flamesinger would gather around the roaring fire that was their god’s totem, pipe and harp and horn and drum playing. Each warrior would approach the fire, and as his fellows sang loudly of carnage and victory, he would proclaim his devotion to his patron, anoint himself with sacred oil, and thrust his face into the fire. Turning his face to the sky, he would stand silent, face ablaze, until the pain was too much to bear, at which point he would scream out his agony, the fire would be doused, and the tribe’s waiting shamans would attend to his burns with what primitive magics they possessed.

According to what little history there is, while the Flamesinger’s followers were generally healed of their injuries before they could settle, it was not uncommon to see the odd tattooed clansman in the forefront of his fellows, his face twisted as an apple-doll or seared to the bone, in contrast to his red-haired, handsome deity. Perhaps these reckless, half-mad champions were the first object of the old Gilnean saying, “If you would see a man at his best, then think of him your worst.”

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The giant was monumental, easily head and shoulders above his lesser kin, his rutted, whiskered face almost lost in the gloom of the cavern. His hammering fists were folded before him, resting on the incongruous ship’s wheel affixed to his belt, some totem whose significance was lost on the pygmies lurking in the shadows of his domain. He might have been asleep.

“Nice beard on him, that,” observed a willowy, short-haired elf perched on a crumbling piece of long-defunct machinery. She pushed her glasses down her long, aquiline nose and peered into the shadowy heights that masked the Tidewalker’s face. “Must be true what they say, that Titans made giants and dwarves both. Don’t see how else ya’d end up with that much beard that far apart.” The elf winked down at the red-haired, armored dwarf below her, who chortled and stroked his own bushy beard.

“Okay, guys!” The gnome’s voice was never made for whispering, or in fact, most anything resembling quiet and discreet. It was obviously a strain for her. “We’re ready, right? Totally ready?” She rocked back and forth on her heels, a petite, grinning face peering out from the depths of her enveloping hood. A muffled chorus of agreement and the odd grumble sounded as they began congealing from the nooks and crannies and shadows, concealed by fallen pillars and the sheer outrageous size of the cave – two dozen armed and (at least somewhat) armored men and women of five races, treasure hunters and mercenaries and explorers, likely not half the sheer mass combined of the thing they meant to kill.

An auburn-bearded man in white robes, rather more muscular than the garments of his calling might suggest, stepped forward. “We’re all prepared, Mistress Whistlescrew.” He gestured at the giant with a sheaf of ragged papers. “The Farseer has charts if you’d care to look at them.”

The gnomish woman’s smile looked just a bit strained for a moment. “No, no! That’s okay. I’m sure you’ve got it, I trust you.” She peered around. “Belphy? Are you here?”

Slow-tapping boots answered her, and the barely audible jingle of Kaldorei mail as a tall, white-haired elf ambled out of the darkness to the north. Scuttling in his steps was a scorpion roughly the size of a small pony, tail relaxed behind it. “Clear up there,” he said laconically. “I set traps. If the naga ever show up again, we’ll know they’re near in plenty of time to save our hides.” He looked around. “So where the hell’s the boss?”

A slight, dark-haired young man, almost cadaverous beneath his leather armor, coughed and jerked his thumb back towards the terrain. “He’s over there. Um. Eating.” Forty-six eyes following his thumb, to where a dark, indistinct shape was huddled beneath his cloak against a broken pillar. “Boss?” the thin boy called cautiously. A muffled sound came in response. With a glance more curious than anything else, he strode over that way, followed by the bespectacled elf, smoothing down her robes.

The dark greatcloak made it difficult to see, but as they got closer, they could see the lanky man seated against the pillar, straw-blond hair falling past his collar and obscuring his face. There was something in his right hand. “Say, Tarq?” the elf asked cautiously. “I bet yer hungry an’ all, but we probably oughta do somethin’ about the big giant ‘fore he notices we ain’t murlocs.”

The blond man looked up, and both elf and human blinked. Tears were running down his face, dripping off his chin – a face that was as red as the stylized flames on his surcoat. Yet for all that, his face looked almost blessed, a man who had fallen under the spell of some thunderous proclamation from holy lips. “Er – Tarquin?” ventured the younger rogue. “Are you okay?”

Tarquin ap Danwyrith raised his right hand. There was a bone in it, from some grazing animal, with a few shreds of meat still clinging to it – and clinging to those strands of meat, red flakes that both pairs of eyes recognized as the product of a truly vicious breed of pepper found mostly in exceptionally inhospitable lands. “It’s so good,” he said and smiled beatifically. “It’s so fuckin’ delicious.”

Ilarra and Tirith just stared at him.

Tarquin flung away the bone and rose to his feet. He dipped his greasy hands in one of a thousand puddles of water that littered the floor, wiped them on his cloak, and pulled on leather gloves. Duerma had drifted over, by then, the curious, concerned look on her face replaced by an enormous grin. “You like the talbuk, Tarqy?”

“I think I jus’ found religion, Dee.” The northman coughed. “An’ it burns summat fierce.” He ticked a two-fingered salute off his brow and wiped his face, ambling back to the group. After a moment, Tirith and Ilarra shrugged and followed.

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Tirith
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Re: Consumables
« Reply #1 on Jan 12, 2008, 4:54pm »

(( That is glorious ))

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