Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
Meta - Forums About Forums
Archive-threads
Winter Ceramic DM™: THE WINNER!
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="alsih2o" data-source="post: 1316760" data-attributes="member: 4790"><p>me vs. piratecat, round 2</p><p></p><p> Cast the First Stone</p><p></p><p></p><p> When the first attacks came I was unable to fight. I had reached the appropriate age but found my self lying in the boat, head in my mothers lap, screaming with the voice of a child. </p><p></p><p> I had no idea at that time that the world in my head would come into play but I think my mother did.</p><p></p><p> “Why do you hold your side?” she would ask, “Why do you toss in your sleep and rock the boat?”</p><p></p><p> I told her about the pains. How they grew in my belly and side. But I didn’t dare mention the dreams. How do you break to your mother that you dream of dry land as far as the eye can see? Not just dry land but vast swaths of stone and sand, glass and steel. And the monster.</p><p></p><p> “The monster.” it feels odd to call Farro that now. Odd not just because of the echo in this room, but odd because he has served me so well for so long.</p><p></p><p> But back to the attacks- both from within and without. </p><p></p><p> My father was the Centerman. Every night it was his duty to light the Gathering Lamp and call the boats together. I used to love to sit on the bow and watch him lay flame to the wick within the Lamp(lamplighter). He treated the small flame with the reverence all Boatmen approach flames with. Always whispering low to keep it distracted, lest it get hungry. </p><p></p><p> With The Lamp lit he would begin his low, plaintive cry. Calling all the families to moor their boats one to another for the night. In this way he always has a count and knows if any family has wandered astray.</p><p></p><p> On the night the pains grew their worst one family did not return. This is not the most unusual of circumstances, any times we lose a family and find them when the morning fog lifts. They will be tied to one of the small islands jutting form the water or possibly adrift on the horizon but we always find them after a good night of worry. Many people saw my first cries as an omen, and these same people were none too happy when we were missing a boat come dark.</p><p></p><p> As the murmurs grew of noises heard far out in the dark my screams grew. I passed out eventually. I am not embarrassed by that, the pain was great. While I was out I saw the rock again. It was layered in earthen tones as before, and as before the red receded even more, leaving only the slightest pink traces. (layers) the stone flushed quickly form before my eyes. Then I awakened. I was lying under the cover at the rear of our boat covered in sweat and resting in my own urine. The pain had passed, I knew it would. I knew from the dream.</p><p></p><p> What I did not know from the dream was that the stone was not part of the masses of land I dreamed of, but part of me! It passed form me when I lost control if myself in sleep and came to sit in my pants. This stone I passed fascinated me. I quickly forgot the pain it has caused as I turned it in the low light of my father lamp, awed by the smooth layers of color and none to disturbed by the small, red bits of myself that still clung to its surface.</p><p></p><p> Weeks passed, maybe months. The dreams stayed,- the monster, the great expanses of glass and steel, the dry, dry earth. The missing boat was never found, nor the family who rode it. Each night we came together, one massive flotilla of rafts, junks, skiffs and longboats. Eventually talk of the missing family ceased, but the grumble over the loss of a boat remained.</p><p></p><p> I carried my stone, never telling anyone of it, sure that it meant something. It is bad luck to bring a stone aboard a boat, that is what they used to say.</p><p></p><p> We finally found the missing boat. It was the oddest thing at the time, my father and the others seemed most distracted that everything was intact. Just the family was gone.</p><p></p><p> We didn’t know at the time, but the attacks had started. </p><p></p><p> That first boat was re-assigned by drawing lots and life continued until the pains grew great again and another family went missing.</p><p></p><p> As it neared dark that night we saw Jurbens boat floating towards ours with no-one at the helm. My father lit his lamp, called his song and the boats came together slowly. I can still remember what they sounded like, the water pushing up between their hulls, how quiet they were.</p><p></p><p> Odd. The sound I miss most is the quiet.</p><p></p><p> The boat was searched and found empty again. I wouldn’t know of it though, I was below, crying and gnashing my teeth. The world went black, and when I awoke I had a new stone. I wiped the blood and urine form it and looked at it closely.</p><p></p><p> That was the first time I ever felt powerful. </p><p></p><p> When the pains came to me again there was talk about Casting my entire family. Casting, what a terrible curse. A whole family set adrift without rights to return to the Gathering. Most families just linger on the edges of the fleet, feeling safe within sight, but they all disappear eventually. Some say they are eaten, drowned or blown off lost till they starve. Some say they go off eventually to a better place beyond the sea. I never believed that of course. Beyond the sea- I didn’t think there was such a place.</p><p></p><p> The entire mood of the fleet changed with the attacks though. First it was just one man who claimed to have seen the attackers. He claimed aloud that their boat stood out of the water 6 times the height of the highest sail in the fleet, and that it was made of white steel.</p><p></p><p> We all laughed.</p><p></p><p> We laughed until the families he claimed were attacked did not return. Laughed until we found the splinters riding the great stream running through the sea.</p><p></p><p> That is when I began to suspect the monster. That is when I started to realize I was important.</p><p></p><p> One boat this night, two boats that night, the tales of the great white boat and the terrible men who drive it kept coming. And then the came.</p><p></p><p> One night, in a soft rain that drove the fog to other waters we first saw the great boat together. The Boatmen all ran deck to deck, gripping harpoons tight and calling for the separation. The men jumped to the fastest boats, unlashing them and crying for battle. When heads were counted as the rowing started it was noticed that I was missing. My father turned and called my name as I lay on our deck, weeping and holding my side.</p><p></p><p> The slaughter was terrible. </p><p></p><p> My fathers harpoon was sharp. I had seen it slice through whale flesh to the deep, red lungs hidden beneath. My father was brave, I have seen him take to the water to gather a fallen child and throw grown men to the hard decks of our boat if they paid no caution to the flame.</p><p></p><p> He hurled his harpoon bravely. I was close enough to hear the terrible noise it made on impact with that boat.</p><p></p><p> This boat.</p><p></p><p> He fought bravely, but them men on the great craft felled every boatman who rowed near with ease. They were true evil.</p><p></p><p> And this was only the beginning.</p><p></p><p> We scattered to the winds. 500 boats in 500 directions. How could we fight? How can a person fight an enemy that asks no questions and wants no goods?</p><p></p><p> It is one thing to kill a man to take what is his. It is another to kill a man who wishes to take what is yours. But to kill for no other reason than to kill? That is true evil.</p><p></p><p> We saw other boats in the months that came. They always came with stragglers tales of small flotillas decimated by the great, white boat. Tales of many men dying while fighting to protect nothing but their right to be.</p><p></p><p> By this time I had passed some 30 stones, and my anger was growing.</p><p></p><p> We were eventually set upon by the white boat. We may have been the last on the sea for them to strike. I may never know. Our boat and seven other sailed on a strong wind into seas we had never seen, for three days and nights we sailed always pursued by the great hulking mass of the white boat.</p><p></p><p> By this time I knew what we were up against-in a way. The tales had come of the impenetrable steel of the hull and the great panes of glass on its sides. What I didn’t know was anything of the men who sailed this vessel.</p><p></p><p> And I know longer cared. I wanted to destroy them, I wanted to face them myself and smite them from the surface of the water. And in the back of my mind I was beginning to think I could.</p><p></p><p> We sailed with all we had, but the boat that pursued us was as much machine as boat, and it had no arms to tire of pulling ropes. It had no wind to fail its sails. As we began to lose hope my mother turned away, gasped aloud and collapsed.</p><p></p><p> I turned to care for her but found myself completely unable to move- mesmerized. Strung out before the bow of our boat, strung out for leagues in each direction was land. Not the tiny scraps of land we have always known and used for birthing and slaughtering but a massive pile of earth breaking the ocean in a way that islands can not.</p><p></p><p> We made for the land with great haste, and thought ourselves safe. We swam for shore, struggling to gain our land legs and began to feel a sense of safety form the trees before us. </p><p></p><p> “Cover!” I called “Take to the cover!” </p><p></p><p> We ran for the tress and as I looked back I saw all my hopes shatter. Small boats, hundreds of them. Small, fast boats emerging from the fore of the great white boat. They moved with a terrible speed, launching themselves right up onto the beach where the terrible men would jump ashore, slaughtering any who came in easy reach. Slaughtering those who ran with great sticks of fire and thunder.</p><p></p><p> And then the pain hit. My thigh exploded in a flash and I twisted down to the ground, sand filling my eyes. I thought it was the end. </p><p></p><p> That was when I saw Farro, my monster. (trucking) He was skittering up the beach, dodging between the bursts of sand caused by the fire form the terrible men.</p><p></p><p> Mad with pain and desperate I called out “Help me! In the name of all the winds someone help me!”</p><p></p><p> And Farro did. He moved in close and pressed the hard plates of his body near me. The terrible fire sticks were unable to penetrate his shell and in a strange moment of clarity I stopped worrying completely about my death and wondered at his scales. </p><p></p><p> The were hard, and shone like polished wood. And they were layered. Layered in the colors of earth, like the stones form my manhood.</p><p></p><p> I reached to my neck and grabbed the small pouch hanging there, withdrawing a stone.</p><p></p><p> As I laid there, studying that stone, one of the men approached and spoke, spoke in a language with a tone of age to it. Familiar, yet formal. “No offense bumpkin, only so much to go around.”</p><p></p><p> “What?” I asked “What? What do you mean? So much of what?”</p><p></p><p> “Resources bumpkin, resources” he pointed his terrible stick at me and grinned a malicious grin “only so much to go around. Somebody’s got to go.”</p><p></p><p> “YOU!” I screamed “YOU SHOLD DIE!”</p><p></p><p> And he did.</p><p></p><p> Now this may come as a shock, it did to me. The stone evaporated in my hand and the mans head practically exploded.</p><p></p><p> I looked into Farros eye, his previously cold, dark eye. Everything seemed right.</p><p></p><p> Spilling my stones into my hand I rose to my feet- burning, searing pain shooting through my thigh as it took my weight.</p><p></p><p> And I did terrible things.</p><p></p><p> Evil things.</p><p></p><p> I found myself able to toss these men and their machines through the air. Able to squash them with a thought. Able to rend them, at only the cost of a stone. </p><p></p><p> More importantly, I found myself able to kill a man who had nothing I wanted. Soon I would move to killing those who had not attacked me.</p><p></p><p> My mother was last seen bounding for the tree line, my little sister in her arms. I suppose I may go and find them again when I am done.</p><p></p><p> For now, I sit here, stringing the stones I cast out into series (craft), storing them for what is coming. What is coming now. </p><p></p><p> Farro is at my side, long removed from the once peaceful beach he lived on. I could have no more left him than he could have left me. We sit, looking out at the city of glass and steel from the starboard glass of the great, white ship. (gateway) </p><p></p><p> These people, the ones who sent put their terrible machine and its terrible men will taste the power of my stones. I will kill them, and not take any thing from them. I will kill them all, whether they attack or defend. I have 7 great bowls of my stones, for the sail has been long.</p><p></p><p> On my fathers boat I cried out in pain with the voice of a child. Now my voice grows strong again, here in this cavernous room. Strong with the rage to be shared.</p><p></p><p> And I have many to share it with.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="alsih2o, post: 1316760, member: 4790"] me vs. piratecat, round 2 Cast the First Stone When the first attacks came I was unable to fight. I had reached the appropriate age but found my self lying in the boat, head in my mothers lap, screaming with the voice of a child. I had no idea at that time that the world in my head would come into play but I think my mother did. “Why do you hold your side?” she would ask, “Why do you toss in your sleep and rock the boat?” I told her about the pains. How they grew in my belly and side. But I didn’t dare mention the dreams. How do you break to your mother that you dream of dry land as far as the eye can see? Not just dry land but vast swaths of stone and sand, glass and steel. And the monster. “The monster.” it feels odd to call Farro that now. Odd not just because of the echo in this room, but odd because he has served me so well for so long. But back to the attacks- both from within and without. My father was the Centerman. Every night it was his duty to light the Gathering Lamp and call the boats together. I used to love to sit on the bow and watch him lay flame to the wick within the Lamp(lamplighter). He treated the small flame with the reverence all Boatmen approach flames with. Always whispering low to keep it distracted, lest it get hungry. With The Lamp lit he would begin his low, plaintive cry. Calling all the families to moor their boats one to another for the night. In this way he always has a count and knows if any family has wandered astray. On the night the pains grew their worst one family did not return. This is not the most unusual of circumstances, any times we lose a family and find them when the morning fog lifts. They will be tied to one of the small islands jutting form the water or possibly adrift on the horizon but we always find them after a good night of worry. Many people saw my first cries as an omen, and these same people were none too happy when we were missing a boat come dark. As the murmurs grew of noises heard far out in the dark my screams grew. I passed out eventually. I am not embarrassed by that, the pain was great. While I was out I saw the rock again. It was layered in earthen tones as before, and as before the red receded even more, leaving only the slightest pink traces. (layers) the stone flushed quickly form before my eyes. Then I awakened. I was lying under the cover at the rear of our boat covered in sweat and resting in my own urine. The pain had passed, I knew it would. I knew from the dream. What I did not know from the dream was that the stone was not part of the masses of land I dreamed of, but part of me! It passed form me when I lost control if myself in sleep and came to sit in my pants. This stone I passed fascinated me. I quickly forgot the pain it has caused as I turned it in the low light of my father lamp, awed by the smooth layers of color and none to disturbed by the small, red bits of myself that still clung to its surface. Weeks passed, maybe months. The dreams stayed,- the monster, the great expanses of glass and steel, the dry, dry earth. The missing boat was never found, nor the family who rode it. Each night we came together, one massive flotilla of rafts, junks, skiffs and longboats. Eventually talk of the missing family ceased, but the grumble over the loss of a boat remained. I carried my stone, never telling anyone of it, sure that it meant something. It is bad luck to bring a stone aboard a boat, that is what they used to say. We finally found the missing boat. It was the oddest thing at the time, my father and the others seemed most distracted that everything was intact. Just the family was gone. We didn’t know at the time, but the attacks had started. That first boat was re-assigned by drawing lots and life continued until the pains grew great again and another family went missing. As it neared dark that night we saw Jurbens boat floating towards ours with no-one at the helm. My father lit his lamp, called his song and the boats came together slowly. I can still remember what they sounded like, the water pushing up between their hulls, how quiet they were. Odd. The sound I miss most is the quiet. The boat was searched and found empty again. I wouldn’t know of it though, I was below, crying and gnashing my teeth. The world went black, and when I awoke I had a new stone. I wiped the blood and urine form it and looked at it closely. That was the first time I ever felt powerful. When the pains came to me again there was talk about Casting my entire family. Casting, what a terrible curse. A whole family set adrift without rights to return to the Gathering. Most families just linger on the edges of the fleet, feeling safe within sight, but they all disappear eventually. Some say they are eaten, drowned or blown off lost till they starve. Some say they go off eventually to a better place beyond the sea. I never believed that of course. Beyond the sea- I didn’t think there was such a place. The entire mood of the fleet changed with the attacks though. First it was just one man who claimed to have seen the attackers. He claimed aloud that their boat stood out of the water 6 times the height of the highest sail in the fleet, and that it was made of white steel. We all laughed. We laughed until the families he claimed were attacked did not return. Laughed until we found the splinters riding the great stream running through the sea. That is when I began to suspect the monster. That is when I started to realize I was important. One boat this night, two boats that night, the tales of the great white boat and the terrible men who drive it kept coming. And then the came. One night, in a soft rain that drove the fog to other waters we first saw the great boat together. The Boatmen all ran deck to deck, gripping harpoons tight and calling for the separation. The men jumped to the fastest boats, unlashing them and crying for battle. When heads were counted as the rowing started it was noticed that I was missing. My father turned and called my name as I lay on our deck, weeping and holding my side. The slaughter was terrible. My fathers harpoon was sharp. I had seen it slice through whale flesh to the deep, red lungs hidden beneath. My father was brave, I have seen him take to the water to gather a fallen child and throw grown men to the hard decks of our boat if they paid no caution to the flame. He hurled his harpoon bravely. I was close enough to hear the terrible noise it made on impact with that boat. This boat. He fought bravely, but them men on the great craft felled every boatman who rowed near with ease. They were true evil. And this was only the beginning. We scattered to the winds. 500 boats in 500 directions. How could we fight? How can a person fight an enemy that asks no questions and wants no goods? It is one thing to kill a man to take what is his. It is another to kill a man who wishes to take what is yours. But to kill for no other reason than to kill? That is true evil. We saw other boats in the months that came. They always came with stragglers tales of small flotillas decimated by the great, white boat. Tales of many men dying while fighting to protect nothing but their right to be. By this time I had passed some 30 stones, and my anger was growing. We were eventually set upon by the white boat. We may have been the last on the sea for them to strike. I may never know. Our boat and seven other sailed on a strong wind into seas we had never seen, for three days and nights we sailed always pursued by the great hulking mass of the white boat. By this time I knew what we were up against-in a way. The tales had come of the impenetrable steel of the hull and the great panes of glass on its sides. What I didn’t know was anything of the men who sailed this vessel. And I know longer cared. I wanted to destroy them, I wanted to face them myself and smite them from the surface of the water. And in the back of my mind I was beginning to think I could. We sailed with all we had, but the boat that pursued us was as much machine as boat, and it had no arms to tire of pulling ropes. It had no wind to fail its sails. As we began to lose hope my mother turned away, gasped aloud and collapsed. I turned to care for her but found myself completely unable to move- mesmerized. Strung out before the bow of our boat, strung out for leagues in each direction was land. Not the tiny scraps of land we have always known and used for birthing and slaughtering but a massive pile of earth breaking the ocean in a way that islands can not. We made for the land with great haste, and thought ourselves safe. We swam for shore, struggling to gain our land legs and began to feel a sense of safety form the trees before us. “Cover!” I called “Take to the cover!” We ran for the tress and as I looked back I saw all my hopes shatter. Small boats, hundreds of them. Small, fast boats emerging from the fore of the great white boat. They moved with a terrible speed, launching themselves right up onto the beach where the terrible men would jump ashore, slaughtering any who came in easy reach. Slaughtering those who ran with great sticks of fire and thunder. And then the pain hit. My thigh exploded in a flash and I twisted down to the ground, sand filling my eyes. I thought it was the end. That was when I saw Farro, my monster. (trucking) He was skittering up the beach, dodging between the bursts of sand caused by the fire form the terrible men. Mad with pain and desperate I called out “Help me! In the name of all the winds someone help me!” And Farro did. He moved in close and pressed the hard plates of his body near me. The terrible fire sticks were unable to penetrate his shell and in a strange moment of clarity I stopped worrying completely about my death and wondered at his scales. The were hard, and shone like polished wood. And they were layered. Layered in the colors of earth, like the stones form my manhood. I reached to my neck and grabbed the small pouch hanging there, withdrawing a stone. As I laid there, studying that stone, one of the men approached and spoke, spoke in a language with a tone of age to it. Familiar, yet formal. “No offense bumpkin, only so much to go around.” “What?” I asked “What? What do you mean? So much of what?” “Resources bumpkin, resources” he pointed his terrible stick at me and grinned a malicious grin “only so much to go around. Somebody’s got to go.” “YOU!” I screamed “YOU SHOLD DIE!” And he did. Now this may come as a shock, it did to me. The stone evaporated in my hand and the mans head practically exploded. I looked into Farros eye, his previously cold, dark eye. Everything seemed right. Spilling my stones into my hand I rose to my feet- burning, searing pain shooting through my thigh as it took my weight. And I did terrible things. Evil things. I found myself able to toss these men and their machines through the air. Able to squash them with a thought. Able to rend them, at only the cost of a stone. More importantly, I found myself able to kill a man who had nothing I wanted. Soon I would move to killing those who had not attacked me. My mother was last seen bounding for the tree line, my little sister in her arms. I suppose I may go and find them again when I am done. For now, I sit here, stringing the stones I cast out into series (craft), storing them for what is coming. What is coming now. Farro is at my side, long removed from the once peaceful beach he lived on. I could have no more left him than he could have left me. We sit, looking out at the city of glass and steel from the starboard glass of the great, white ship. (gateway) These people, the ones who sent put their terrible machine and its terrible men will taste the power of my stones. I will kill them, and not take any thing from them. I will kill them all, whether they attack or defend. I have 7 great bowls of my stones, for the sail has been long. On my fathers boat I cried out in pain with the voice of a child. Now my voice grows strong again, here in this cavernous room. Strong with the rage to be shared. And I have many to share it with. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Meta - Forums About Forums
Archive-threads
Winter Ceramic DM™: THE WINNER!
Top