Octavian's Letter

Storyteller's note: The following article was published in Tertium YE 1022 in the Committee of Correspondence's printsheet 'The Correspondent', as well as in 'The Tradesmaster's Dispatch'.

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Fellow Man,

I am Octavian Terrafundus Augustus Arbalestus bani Flambeu bani Hermes Trismagistos, Master of the High Order of Hermes, Follower of the First Cabal, Marshal of the Southern Shore, Keeper of the Flame of Lūn, Servant of the Obsidian Tower, Guardian of the Seven Truths.

I have been sent to the realms of Eria to speak to those who will listen, to counsel those who seek understanding, to advice those who will heed, and to learn from those who will teach. I have been named ambassador to the arcane congress of Eria, and I speak on behalf of the Obsidian Tower in all matters of concern.

The Order of Hermes does not seek to supplant or control the Hegemony of Man, for such is not the way of the Order. Nor does it seek to rule through subversion, intrigues or threats, for this will only breed dissent and weakness.

The Order understands that Man has been divided by pride and disagreements for far too long, and it now hopes that the deeply rooted mistrusts that have divided the Brotherhood of Man for so many generations can be cast aside.

While serving with the Host of Man on the Dark Continent I saw for myself the frightful might of the Ancient Enemy. It wishes nothing but the undoing of all of Creation. Here I saw my own shortcomings, pride, avarice, and arrogance. Here I was also shown the strength of our race, for when all seemed lost I was saved by my fellow man; not for honour or glory, but for hope and love.

In these dark days the Ancient Enemy, the Exarch, the Lord of the Locust, is upon us. As our noble ancestors before us, also we must find our common strength, lest we perish alone, and with us the Light of Man.

It is with this hope I come to you, as a brother.

With wishes of enlightened prosperity,

~Octavian~

~o~

[source: Ars Magica Wiki]

Yolander's Third Letter

Storyteller's note: The following was published in the Committee of Correspondents' printsheet, 'The Correspondent' in Dodecium YE1021.

This is written by Yolander van Zaar's player and submitted to the Book of Worlds.


Third letter – personal chronology:



Esteemed Correspondents, Enlightened and Practitioners of Gifts most Arcane


The Host of Man are victorious on the fronts of the colonies. The Old Enemy has risen from the deep – the gargantuan Kraken ended Cora. The red eye of the night skies is evident. The fomori are legion, and walk amongst us. Corrupted ships of old reign the seas. The great plague Naglfar was hindered with great sacrifice.


And STILL the Unity of man is wanting.


The pogrom of the enlightened has gone on for too long. We must ally ourselves with those of man that understand the wonder of the exalted.


Rulers of nations Pendrell, Aragon and Corinth; Powers of ideologies Cabal of Pure Thought and Temple of Man Supreme have been corrupted and are ENEMIES of ASCENSION!

Join us in our most desperate hour, or ALL will perish.

I, Yolander van Zaar, adeptus temporis, having seen the future, call for radical measures – I summon a grand convocation of the awakened!


Truth until Paradox!


YvZ

The Lost Regiment,

and the Third Great War of Argos.


Storyteller's note: The following article was published in the Committee of Correspondence's printsheet 'The Correspondent', in Octavum YE 1021.

Correspondents,

I have studied one of the greatest mysteries of our time, that of the Lost Regiment. Following, I will display the facts as I see them.

During the Corillian War, the Parlamental Army of Pendrell destroyed the Narbonnian supported Macharite uprising. The Pendrellians also crossed the border into Narbonne and conquered a number of contested provinces. Though pourly equipped and incompetently led by their king, Mad Phillyp, Narbonne managed to drag out the war for almost two years of fighting -- mostly by draining the coffers by employing a large numbers of mercenaries.

In the first year of the war, in the Enlightened Scythian Empire, in the Dutchy of Manbach, the first son of baron von Roeder, Friedric, sets out to assemble a regiment of rifled firelocks and take to war. War is considered a step in an Alamanian gentlemans education, and since this was a quiet year in the Empire, the regiment was rented to the Narbonnian Crown.

When the rifles marched out of Roederburg late that year, Oberst Friedric von Roeder was 21 years of age, had a sub-magisterium from the University of Marburg in statesmanship, and had served two years in the Emperor's Dragoons. He had also read the finest tacticians, classical and modern. His second was Otto von Swartmark, the oldest son of the first of the baron's bannermen. The two men had been inseparable since they were boys.

The Regiment, though unblooded, was a fine formation; armed with rifles forged by-, and a gun battery crewed by, the prestigious Masonic Guild of Marburg. The men, 1/3 recruits, 1/3 veterans, and 1/3 convicts had been drilling since late summer.

The mercenaries reached the Narbonnian city of Lielle a week before Nightfall and reported to the Duke of Crèvesse, commander of the army being assembled there for a spring campaign.

When Lord Samuel led ten Parliamental Regiments accross the River Erenbaé two days before Nightfall, Crèvesse's forces were caught in a disarray. Only von Roeder's Regiment managed to slow the Pendrellians down. Marching as soon as the reports came in, and going through the night, the regiment took up possition early the following morning astride the only usable road, two leagues North-West of Lielle. The whole day the Alamanian riflemen held back an enemy that only grew stronger by the hour, until they withdrew from the battlefield in honour under cover of darkness on the eve of Nightfall.

The Regiment was never seen again.

That summer, two gentlemen claiming to be Friedric von Roeder and Otto von Swarmark, purchased passage on a Waymar-trader returning from Freeport to Ipwyth. From there they travelled overland to Crondor where they contacted the Imperial Ambassador to Pendrell. Here they both forswore their blood and birth, shamed by the loss of their entire command.

Not three years later, the Royal Houses of Eria answer a summon by Friedric Roeder to the Altar of the Covenant on Corregidor in the Waymar Archipelago. He had the backing of the Seven Onkels of Wezell, as well as that of the Draccian Wolf Lords. The former in the shape of coins and ships, the latter with a pledge of knights and infantry. Here he was named Marshal of the Assembled Host of Man, and today the Reconquest of the Colonies is close upon us.

This is as far as facts will take us, fellow correspondents. From here we must rely on myth and rumor.

I have heard from one who have spoken with Swartmark. He told of the Lost Regiment passing an old mill after having withdrawn. Here the Oberst and himself met a tall and gaunt gentleman and refused his offer. After they left the mill, the entire column got lost in the darkness and a heavy fog.

When light broke the following day, the regiment found itself in a strange land where Death was revered as a god [Stygia]. Again the tall and gaunt gntleman approached the Oberst and his second. Again he was rejected. That night he came again, and he was turned down.

When the sun rose the following morning, only von Roeder and von Swartmark were left in their camp. Every single one of the soldiers had disappeared.

Swartmark then told of encountering a vast army of Black Bloods when the pair attempted to cross the Dark Continent on foot. He also spoke briefly about men with machines advising the Orc. According again to my report of Swartmark's words, the two gentlemen negotiated a passage with these men, from the deep of the Dark Continent to Freeport, in a flying ship. From this point we again have facts.

The elements of the Legend of the Lost Regiment are hard to believe, example: the transportation of a thousand men from Narbonne to Stygia without any trace. Yet the facts we know support the unbelievable, example: Friedric Roeder has been named Marshal by the Erian kings.

We share the time we have been given with great powers and legacies of ages past; I have presented you with the facts as I see them. The facts say that the Third Age is ending, and that the Great War is soon upon us.


Yours in honesty,


Correspondent CIV

Swordgaunts

Another article from The Correspondent, this one from YE 1017.

~ And Dark Knights fell upon the Heirs ~

~ Correspondent XXIV ~

The origin of the seven Swordgaunts are lost in myth, but the three most reliable sources are Kalshan and bar Mahhout, both scolars of the First Century of Enlightenment, and the Xantuul-fragments of the early Second Age.

Kalshan writes:
"The Swordgaunt is a tall, gaunt figure clad in black full plate mail with a long cape made out of darkness and shadows. His face is pale, with a wax-like shine. His lifeless hair flows like strings of coagulated tar, and his eyes glow like the cold winter sun. On his head he wears a crown wrought of a dozen sharp blades. He wields the sword Kawnshuagh and a Nightmare serves as his steed."

Here Kalshan is believed to speak of the witch-king Hanamog who held the city of Mulwar thrall around 450 BC.  According to Kalshan, this feind were slain by the hero Abbanzar when he freed the city. It is this correspondent's believef that Kalshan mistakenly thought that the witch-king and the Swordgaunts were of the same ilk. This conclusion builds on an Orcish legend discovered in my journeys on the Dark Continent in the last days of the Old Colonies. The witch-king is also mentioned in the Bolianor, see below.

Bar Mahout writes:
"The Swordgaunts, seven, once great heroes. Their armours, empty shells; their faces, forgotten memories. The seven, once heroes, now hollow men. Not blood but empty darkness in their veins. Not love but cold hunger in their hearts."


Both these sources clearly points towards a nature of soullessness, and as such unnatural to this world.

The oldest source that mentions the Seven is the Xantuul-fragments, pieces of three Second Age tablets, bearing the eulogy of King Humarrahim of the Illai.

The Illai was a great tribe in the First Age, and Humarrahim was their captain in the Great War. The fragments tell of seven great warriors who set out to destroy the Dark Queen of Gerem Faït, said to be a master of the elven art of naming. (Note that the Dark Queen is believed to be the same entity the Orc now worship as Mother) They were never seen again alive, but over the following Generation (here: Generation of the Exalted -- a period of time roughly four hundred years long) seven armoured warriors hunted the royal line of the Illai. Humarrahim was the last of his house, but the parts of the Xantuul-tablets that speaks of his fate are long lost (the fragments we have were lost earlier this year in an unexplained explosion that destroyed the Abbey of Nerwalt).

Various lesser sources claim that as many as five of the Swordgaunts may have been slain over the ages, but this cannot be held for certain. Keep in mind that the Erian Republic-era epic poem, the Bolianor, has Irendar slay the witch-king of Gerenfall already as early as in the sixth or seventh century BC.

The Swordgaunts appear here and there in tales and legends, but they seem to be bound primarily to the Dark Continent, with only brief and allegorical mentions of them in Erian culture. I write of these now so that if they too should reappear in this Dark Age, they be known to those they fall upon. Remember that in every myth there is a shard of truth, and that whatever has happened before shall happen again.

The Gift of Industry

Storyteller's note: The following article was published in the Committee of Correspondence's printsheet 'The Correspondent', in Octavum YE 1021

The Committee of Correspondence is a secret network of scholars and free thinkers that spans most of Eria. There are cells in many cities and universities. They communicate through a complex and clandestine network of couriers, and a printsheet that is published four times a year. Both the Temple and the Cabal have declared the Committee subversive and dangerous.


The topics discussed in The Correspondent cover a wide field, from philosophy, through metaphysics, to magical theory. In the past there has been articles on the nature of Ascencion, on the origin of magic, on the Cult of Shaitani, and on the rise of the Younger Gods.

There will most likely be posts of other articles from The Correspondent in the future.

~o~

Esteemed fellow correspondents,


As per Your request I have looked into the Rise of the Orc on the Dark Continent.


One of the greatest betrayals of Man in the Third Age was the Gift of Industry to the Orc. In the following I will attempt to shed some light on this dark deed.


Little is known about the man who did this horrible thing, but he is reliably believed to have been an Outsider. Two names are known for him, both are monikers, Futurist and Rogue Navigator. I have, however, recently discovered what might be a name closer to the core: Major Rigby.


We know that sometime after the Great Storm that hit Cora on 21st Dodecium in YE 999, Franko da Cola met this Outsider. Where he came from, and for what errand, is not known.


At this time, da Cola served the Orc Ghurandakh as his vizier, and aided in the unification of the tribes. However, even a unified Orc could not have accomplished what came to pass without aid, for the race is a primitive one, and the weapons of Man would have defeated the horde.


How the Gift was given is not known, but what is known is that for three years before the Occupation, the Orc built factories. From what I have been able to ascertain, these factories where primitive compared to even the most decrepit Erian mill-works. Still, it enabled the Orc to produce firearms on a scale big enough to field large numbers of muskets, and a considerable amount of heavier ordnance.


Hereunder I must add that the Orc was also supplied with a large number of rifles of good quality from an unknown source. Yet again what little evidence there is points towards da Cola.


Less know than industry is the second gift. It is not often spoken of, but I am certain that the Outsider, who served as the Chief of Staff to the Kahn of the Black Blood during the years leading up to the Occupation, also gave the Orc advanced strategy. When the Dark Horde crossed the desert, it was as an organized army. The warriors were deployed in regiments, and its weapons were used with intent and design.


One point needs clarification: the nature of gifts such as these. It is vital to understand the metaphysical mechanisms at work here. The following factors apply. First, Magic has awakened. Second, the Orc is a creature with a singular ability, namely that of forming a horde (each individual will become nothing but a part of the greater unit, akin to a hive or a flock of birds). Lastly, the Gifts were more than knowledge; they were doctrines, and they were the secret of understanding how to apply the doctrines. Understand that the society of the Orc is no more advanced today than it was a hundred years ago.


From what I have learned through my research, I have come to two conclusions.


We, Man, are guilty of a mistake of epic proportions in not exterminating the Black Blood after the First World War. The scourge of the Orc is truly the sins of the fathers come to be visited upon us, their children. This time we have no choice but Genocide.


The second conclusion is that we must be cautious in our dealings with the Outsiders. They are agents of their own agendas, and we cannot allow ourselves to become dependent upon them. Argos and the fate of Man depends upon it.


Your humble servant,


Correspondent XIII