Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Past Few Sessions

Long story short, the players killed Argos, the goblins got a new king, they returned to Specularum, and after hearing that they failed to do all the other tasks that they were given (because they were in prision for far too long), they were "drafted" into the army and went into a few weeks of training. They overall fighting force under Duke Karameikos was split into to three. One army was to push Threshold out, another to push Kelvin out, and the final to trap the two armies at the desired location. When they did this, there was a small bit of fighting, however the Threshold and Kelvin armies folded under the notion of being crushed by the large Karameikos army. The heads of the army meet and talked. They managed to convince them about the setup, and inform them of the dangers of the Frost Giant army coming in from the north. They had just enough time to form ranks when the Frost Giant army attacked. Maleik was sitting in the back somewhere and used his magic to generate a snow storm. The players were part of a squad whose job was to lure out the Frost Giant commanders since they would be looking for them. The players were to find the Frost Giant King and slay him. They eventually fighting (after fighting for 30 game minutes and over 12 hours real time....) and found out that Maleik had place a Destiny Nightmare inside of him. They players won (obviously), and chased Maleik down. Maleik tried to get them to bow before him, but an unknown man came by and told Maleik that all the aces that he had up his sleeves were gone and today Maleik would die. The mystery man left and the players fought and killed Maleik. Maleik thought that he would be able to run from death if he could predict it, however, he never accepted the fight that he must die. Thus, he never saw his own death until it was too late. Gelu gave the players their reward and the players left for Thyatis as they were told that someone who was researching their past lives there. They where about a day or two walk away from Biazzan (after I montaged them there) when they came across Harold Wist again. He tossed them an orb, Detelle caught it, and he got sucked in. In order to save their (friend? ally? acquaintance? comrade?)....elf pet, they dove into the orb to get him out. The world that they were in was a dream world that Selrin had created. It was all just a tactic used to slow them down. Selrin knew that she was being used, but she didn't care. She didn't like life nor death. She only found enjoyment with dreams as she would be able to control the dream. She ran from death in hopes of staying in a permanent dream. She died when the players destroyed her dream and forced her to face the reality of death. Now the players are a few hours walk east of Biazzan, and they plan on traveling around the Empire of Thyatis in search of their past and adventure.

When the next session who starts up, it will be the 18th of Flaurmont.

Monday, September 14, 2009

On Nightmares

You have all already came across a few Nightmares in your journey. The most recent one you came across you guys managed to defeat. I decided to educated you on Nightmares. Lets just say that you "looted" Maleik and found a journal that Maleik had kept towards the subject matter.

Nightmares are not well known to the general populace. People recognize what they are when they see them due to the fact that Nightmares are a reflection of their own fears. Normally, Nightmares can only appear in Mystara when someone summons them by some means, on purpose and on accident. Occasionally a Nightmare can come to the realm of Mystara by force, but that is not likely to happen as it requires a sentinent being that is capable of survivng thoughts that would normally kill sentinent beings. Because of this, it was hard to gather what information that I have of these things.
First of all, the nature of these creatures. Where these creatures come from is not known for certain. One theory is that they came with the birth of setinent beings as they represent the abstract fears that we setinent beings create to explain natural survival instinct that was there before. Even though that is the most likely explaination, the main problem with that notion is that researchers of the creation of the universe suggest that creatures such as these came about as an accident of one becoming two and two becoming four. Another theory, based on what I just said, is that these creatures are a part of the natural laws made when things decided to remove themselves from the Void. The Void feeds on the unknown, and thus we can never prove this theory. Another theory is that is not very likely at all is that something or someone created them. Demons, humans, angels, or whatever. However, this is extremely unlikely as this creatures seem to move on their own goals and not on other's. With all this said, it would appear as though they are immortal. That is not true. Most Nightmares are something called "minions". The minions were created by by the immortal Nightmares themselves. The Nightmares create the minion nightmares mostly out of boredom, accident, and sometimes to give food to the summoners who would call upon the minion nightmares. Minion nightmares do not near match the strength of the Nightmares that create them. Even the strongest minion nightmare is fodder to a real Nightmare. However, their strengths are parallel to the the strengths of the Nightmares that created them. This mean that the weakest Nightmare creates the weakes minion nightmare.
The levels of the Nightmares and nightmare minions are the following:
-Zepth (zero)~a cloudy day
-Eina (one)~the rain clouds are here
-Zwein (two)~the storm comes
-Teir (three)~the wave crashes
-Veir (four)~the waters engulfs
-Holth (five)~the heat disintegrates
-Multh (six)~to fires mark the end
-Cenbien (seven)~life back to earth
-Unbien (eight)~earth back to dust
-Fie (nine)~the dust rips reality
I hear that a Fie is an amazing site to behold. Rumor has it that the Nightmare Fie is capable of ripping the land into two effortlessly. The powers of each varies greatly as you go up and down the line. Lower level Nightmares are all connected in some way to the Nightmares in a higher level. The higher level Nightmares tend to be general fears that affect all of us in some way while lower leveled Nightmares tend to be specific fears. To every one high leveled Nightmare, there is two right below it that are connected to the Nightmare in some fashion. This means that there is one Fie, two Unbiens, four Cenbiens, eight Mulths, sixteen Holths, thirty-two Veirs, sixty-four Teirs, one hundred and twenty-eight Zwein, two hundred and fifty-six Einas, and five hundred and twelve Zepths. That is a total of one thousand and twenty three Nightmares. All of this is all just assumptions, however. No one have evered traveled to the plane of existance of the Nightmares and survived. It is incredibally hard work to catolog all the Nightmares. Here are a few that I knew of. (Just a note, Nightmares are unisexed. I refer to them as "he" just to be simple. Also note that some Nightmares are only seen in nightmares, and never been in reality.)

-Zepths:

+Airnes:: Nightmare of numbers
Apperance: An old man that looks like he imbloded from the stomach. His skin is coal black, and hair greasy yellow. His eyes are a gray haze in his sockets.
Personality: This is one of the smarter Zepths. He is a Nightmare on an abstract concept, and thus he tends to use that to his advantage when trying to advance things. Some of the higher level Nightmares respect him since his missions can help advance their goals. He mocks living things attempts at trying to understand thing, and laughs whenever they worder what time it is. He mainly attempts to attack people verbally. I never seen nor heard of an instance in which he physically attacked someone.
Background: This Nightmare gets his feet in reality a lot. This is not just because he is a Zepth, and thus easy to bring to our world, but because of what type of Nightmare he is. He can convience people futilitness by showing just how useless numbers and other things are. Sometimes he actually helps people by trying to free a favored nation from the bounds of slavery. It appears as though this Nightmare does not like enslavement. Two times I heard of him freeing slaves. One by helping the slave rebel against the rulers. Another by making the ruler go mad, and thus destroying the nation. I came across this Nightmare once. He was attempting to make a mathician go mad for fun.
Power: Not available as he normally attacks by words.
Minions: The minion nightmares of Airnes are rare since Airnes get his feet on reality so often. One ancient account describes them looking like inky looking worm that bends in different directions. These minions are not very powerful, and can normally only get one person in their stomach before being beaten.

+Jarnloo: Nightmare of wood
Apperance: Jarnloo takes the outlook of a naked bald woman. His hands look like clawed fungus.
Personality: He is hateful towards living things since sentinent beings and nature tends to work against each other. Even the elves destroy nature in some way. Some few woodland creatures, such as Dryads, find favor with this Nightmare.
Background: It appears as though this Nightmare, when he can, tries to reverse technological advancement. I only have one account on this, however. It appears as though one who was possed by Jarnloo killed off a bunch of scientiest. Other than that, there is not much else to say about Jarnloo.
Power: Not available as there is no record of Jarnloo being in reality.
Minions: Not available as there is no record of Jarnloo's minions ever being summoned.

+ Kultha : Nightmare of small noises
Apperance: Kultha looks like a horse sized ladybug with the head of an aging, old, ugly, lady. There are warts all over the face that grow and pop, and grow and pop. The dry gray hair drags underneath him and makes a horrible screeching noise.
Personality :Kultha is a stupid Zepth. He tends to take actions without thought. Whenever he gets a chance, he lunges out and trys to eat people's brains.
Background: As Kultha is stupid, he shouldn't have been seen much in reality. However, Kultha gets seen often since his sphere is that of something that can annoy anybody. On certain noises, some people feel like wishing that their head would just explode. Kultha grants the wish and pops out of the dead person's head. He never gets anything done, however, as he just goes on a rampage until someone puts him back where he came from by killing him again.
Power: Kultha tends to run things over as though he was an elephant. He is quite fast, and that makes him hard to target. However, as he is stupid, he is easy to trap in a pit or something of that sort. Then people just do whatever it takes to kill him as he cannot climb walls despite having ladybug leg, nor can he fly.
Minions: It is doubtful that Kultha has the brain capacity to even make minons

+ Pleader : Nighmare of low level begging
Appearance: A nice looking young man dressed in an expensive outfit. The outfit changes each time he is seen.
Personality: He tends to be quite cheerful. He is said to be very charming and conviencing. He appears to be able to talk people out of anything. Since he looks very human, it is hard for people to actually realize that he is not human and should be feared. However, he tends to do no real harm in the world, and it appears as though he comes and goes as he pleases.
Background: Pleader is the lowest form of begging. There are other begging Nightmares, but they have more power than Pleader. It is probably because when most people make a plea, they tend to do so honorably. It appears as though he spends most of his time convincing people out of their money, to do things that they normally wouldn't, and convincing people to do some task that someone needs done. The only real harm he ever does is when he takes people money. Most of the time, he actually is helpful.
Powers: Pleader does not fight. He tends to return to his realm the moment someone appears to come towards him aggressively. It appears as though he does not need someone to summon him into reality.
Minions: There is one rumor that the Farm Sprite seen from time to time helping the growth of crops or minion nightmares of Pleader, however, there is no way of proving this.

-Einas:

+Berimmusthula :Nightmare of feces
Appearance: A skinny, yellow man with a very large nose and very large hands. He tends to be nude and his eyes tends to be hawk like. His fingers are boney and crooked.
Personality: This stupid Nightmare likes to annoy people. He likes to give people an "itchy" feeling. He is rarely seen in reality since he tends to annoy the people who try to summon him. He appears to have the goal of annoying everyone he can.
Background: When he is in reality, he goes invisible and wanders the land annoying everyone and everything in sight. He pinches, he pokes, he tickles, and so on. He can go uncheecked for years like this since most just assume it to be human nature.
Powers: When he is finally found out, he shows he aggressiveness. He does not like people trying to ruin his fun. As long as people can avoid his hands, however, there is no real problems when fighting him. His punches can destroy metal walls effortlessly. It appears as though he can punch through, or bend most everything.
Minions: Berimmusthula's minion nightmares, however, take on a more aggressive stance. They are small worms with sharp teeth. Most are not more than five inches long. They jump out to their victims and try to dig deep into the skin. Their skin is spikey, so they hurt by both mouth and skin.

+ Stinger : Fear of bees, wasps, ect.
Appearance: A silky looking man that has stinging type of bugs flying inside of him. His body features of formless.
Personality: This is a dangerous Eina since some people are allergic to stings. Not to mention, t0o many stings can kill a person. It appears as though he takes pleasure in watching people run or get stung by his "pets".
Background: This Nightmare is seen often as well since people tend to naturally run away from such creatures associated with this Nightmare. When he does walk around in reality, he tends to look around for people to unless his pets upon. He tends to do nothing else but that.
Powers: The number of bugs that he can release seem to go into the thousands. I heard that an entire village was affected by him once. However, as he is made of silk, a mage can simply cast a spell to make him walk safely to the vortex of the insect swarm and light Stinger on fire.
Minions: Stinger's minion nightmares are things that look like a hornet's nest. However, they move. Like Stinger, they can release a large number of insects at a time. However, they never seem to mount more than a hundred a a time.

I regret to say that I do not know of any Zweins or Teirs. It is not easy finding information on Nightmares.

-Veirs

+ Destiny: Nightmare of the future
Appearance: A four armed woman that holds a red flame in his upper left hand, and a blue flame in his upper right hand. He tends to go topless and normally has loin cloth on. He also tends to have blue skin.
Personality: This is a funny Nightmare as he tends to think all actions are futile. He sees into the future and see so much failure. Thus, he is a pessimist with very good reason. It appears as though anything and everything he does he does in order to change what he knows about the future, and thus change the story of the future.
Background: Everytime this Nightmare acts, it has never been for the better. This is because the Nightmare knows that in order to make a very good change of the future, the change needs to be something very bad. For example, I know of a situaiton in which the Nightmare happens to aid a few people into activating a doomsday device. He normally whispers hints into the mind of whoever can hear him, and just let the rest go with the flow.
Power: It is not known for sure what his power is as he does not like comming into reality. However, based on the strength of his minion nightmares, I would wager that he could level town or two before being stopped.
Minions: Destiny minion nightmares are tall three armed creatuers. They have blackened skin, black spikey hair, and twist and bend at weird angles. They are capable of destroying small armies by themselves. One major aspect about them is their ability to detirmine the actions of its enemies. This makes it very hard for people to succeed in their attacks against these creatures.

Of the upper level Nightmares, I only know of Judgement (a Cenbien) and Noin (the Fie). I only seen a minion of Judgement once on another plane many many years ago when I was much younger. The Judgement nightmare was destroying an entire well fortified city without hardly trying. From what little I could see, this being was an winged being that appeared to be blind, but that didn't stop it. It appeared to use a sword or maybe it was a spear. I do not not for certain as my life meant more to me than studying that thing. Noin I only hard a whisper of. There is a rumor on one of the planes I visited, that someone actually summoned Noin once. Without trying, he destroy the world and other worlds on this plane. He finally stopped when he got bored. The person who did this is rumored to be Thanatos looking for a small bit of fun.

I wish I knew more about Nightmares, but unfortunately, I don't. It is well that we all know deep within us about Nightmares, otherwise I wouldn't even know the name of these Nightmares. It appears as though that sentinent beings naturally knows about Nightmares. However, many do not focus on the details of these Nightmares because most do not bother with studying them. I knew that the Judgement nightmare was a minion nightmare of Judgement when I saw it. It struck me, and my comrades, that the name of the creature was a nightmare. It stuck me and one of my comrades that the type of the creature was Judgement since we actually did some research on it. In a later research, I knew that Judgement was a Cenbein. I do not know why this is so. It is probably because fears are what help us evolve in our lives, and thus fears is just nature.

One last note that I might not have stress is that despite being called Nightmares, Nightmares are not good or evil. Unlike demons and angels that have a certain lean towards things, all Nightmares work on their own goals without thinking about morals.

Maleik did not know about the Cut Nightmare either. However, you know that Cut is a Cenbein. It is just in the depths of your minds. There may be more stuff on Nightmares, there may not. You may come across more Nightmares, you may not. I just typed this up to answer a few questions you might of had on these things.