Everything exists.
Lint is a world in a state of perpetual paradox and contradicting truths. It is the world where the cat is simultaneously dead and alive. People manage to survive in it anyway. Nothing is constant, everything exists and doesn’t. And people conveniently ignore it when it comes up.
Elves don’t exist. They also walked down from the stars a few thousand years ago and built their cities from meteorites. Then, everything evolved from elves being corrupted by dragonic magic. Nobody has heard of an elf, but the forest is full of them. They only live in their meteor-cities.
Humans were the first race to walk the earth, where they ran with the dogs and the horses. But the Ikuna have been around for longer, back when humans were still grubbing in the dirt. Dragons are experiments by elf wizards, but elves sometimes don’t exist, so dragons are also the primal manifestations of magic from when the world was created.
Nothing is constant. Continents shift, kingdoms aren’t where you remember them. A race of bird men suddenly own all the cities near the mountains, and always have. The next day, they’ve never existed.
There are knights, the Order of the One True Land, who remember the old worlds. They’ve sewn their mouths shut to stop themselves from screaming out in madness, and inscribe their findings on enormous books for people to read. Sometimes, those books disappear, and then the knights know they are off to the places of Lint that don’t exist right now. This is how they recruit new members. Anyone who can read through the entire, rambling tomb learns to see through worlds.
Goblins can always see through worlds, when they exist. That’s why they’re all mad. Dragons hide their hordes in hopes that they won’t be stolen when the dragon disappears for a while. Elves just mysteriously answer ‘we were in the fey lands.’ Really, they have no idea what happened, besides faint memories of a world much like this one.
There is only one god, but he is a myth, and he is all the gods, and he exists alongside the other gods. He sometimes lets people come back from the dead, but resurrection is impossible, and it’s also quite easy.
The Embraced think all this business is silly and stupid. In some worlds, they hide underground, waiting in hibernation for the paradox storms to bring them back to their queen.
Everything exists. Anything can happen. Anyone can be.
Monday, 29 January 2018
Tuesday, 9 January 2018
The Ikuna Part I | They Who Conquered Death
A thousand years ago, they conquered death.
An army of Ikuna, three million strong, marched to the gates of the Last Fortress, to war with the world beyond the world. Zira, She In Pain, trembled at their approach, and Lady Dogrunner pulled the race of men from their path.
The souls of the dead fought back, their desperation and anger crashing against the Ikuna like an ocean against a mountain. The dead were cut down, and trampled under the Ikuna’s ironclad feet.
The Last Fortress was taken. Many Ikuna died. Broken bodies littered the doorsteps of the Last Fortress, smashed, aged, and destroyed. But the Ikuna had won. Death was theirs.
Ninety thousand Ikuna survived the assault on the Last Fortress. Ninety thousand creatures who had conquered death.
An Ikuna is tall. Taller than any man, and stronger too. Smarter as well. And better-looking. Pale, graceful, and inhumanly strong. Inhumanly quick. Inhuman in everything but basic shape.
Ikuna are perfect. They spent hundreds of years in the pursuit of perfection. Then a hundred more in the wallows of debauchery. Many have brought themselves back to perfection once again.
Their swords are heavy enough to be used as a bludgeon. Their armor is too thick to be dented by anything less than a dragon. Their magic shatters minds and bodies alike, leaving twisted amalgamations of flesh in their wake.
None of this matters.
Ikuna do not use swords. Ikuna do not wear armor. Ikuna do not use magic. They don’t have to. They don’t want to. They spent lifetimes fighting as the best the world… any world, had to offer.
Ikuna will not fight you. They will speak. Or they may stay silent. They may try to kill you, but it will be halfhearted. A joke they have not heard, or an impressive display of skill will stop them in their tracks.
Death was the greatest challenge any Ikuna could face. In the end, even it fell before them. They do not die.
Some say death is frightened of them. Frightened to go near them. The greatest of the Ikuna cannot even kill: death will not enter their presence, no matter how much it should.
An Ikuna isn’t a challenge to kill. Not the first time. Maybe not even in the second. Fighting them is almost… easy. You stab them, and they go down quietly, without even so much as a sigh. But they’ll be back.
They won’t fight as skillfully as you.
They won’t scheme as cunningly as you.
They won’t try as hard as you.
Because in the end?
They only have to win once.
An army of Ikuna, three million strong, marched to the gates of the Last Fortress, to war with the world beyond the world. Zira, She In Pain, trembled at their approach, and Lady Dogrunner pulled the race of men from their path.
The souls of the dead fought back, their desperation and anger crashing against the Ikuna like an ocean against a mountain. The dead were cut down, and trampled under the Ikuna’s ironclad feet.
The Last Fortress was taken. Many Ikuna died. Broken bodies littered the doorsteps of the Last Fortress, smashed, aged, and destroyed. But the Ikuna had won. Death was theirs.
Ninety thousand Ikuna survived the assault on the Last Fortress. Ninety thousand creatures who had conquered death.
An Ikuna is tall. Taller than any man, and stronger too. Smarter as well. And better-looking. Pale, graceful, and inhumanly strong. Inhumanly quick. Inhuman in everything but basic shape.
Ikuna are perfect. They spent hundreds of years in the pursuit of perfection. Then a hundred more in the wallows of debauchery. Many have brought themselves back to perfection once again.
Their swords are heavy enough to be used as a bludgeon. Their armor is too thick to be dented by anything less than a dragon. Their magic shatters minds and bodies alike, leaving twisted amalgamations of flesh in their wake.
None of this matters.
Ikuna do not use swords. Ikuna do not wear armor. Ikuna do not use magic. They don’t have to. They don’t want to. They spent lifetimes fighting as the best the world… any world, had to offer.
Ikuna will not fight you. They will speak. Or they may stay silent. They may try to kill you, but it will be halfhearted. A joke they have not heard, or an impressive display of skill will stop them in their tracks.
Death was the greatest challenge any Ikuna could face. In the end, even it fell before them. They do not die.
Some say death is frightened of them. Frightened to go near them. The greatest of the Ikuna cannot even kill: death will not enter their presence, no matter how much it should.
An Ikuna isn’t a challenge to kill. Not the first time. Maybe not even in the second. Fighting them is almost… easy. You stab them, and they go down quietly, without even so much as a sigh. But they’ll be back.
They won’t fight as skillfully as you.
They won’t scheme as cunningly as you.
They won’t try as hard as you.
Because in the end?
They only have to win once.
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