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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Dallman" data-source="post: 9359596" data-attributes="member: 6999616">This is complicated, even by Avalon standards.46 years ago, game time, in Avalon's year 1998, the person who embodied Evil at the time was killed. The person† who did that had been sent to steal something from her, but went beyond his instructions. Among other problems*, this unbalanced the psychology of everyone in world. People were much nicer to each other, but they didn’t want to do anything which they thought might result in harm to others. This caused a huge drop in productivity and activity, which was threatening to collapse most of the world's societies.That problem was solved, to excess, by some Lunar** priests in the city of Petersport, who were attempting to summon the Crimson Bat** to frighten some people who were causing them trouble. That was dumb, and didn't work. They got something that was huge and glowing red, but it wasn't a bat. It sucked all the life force out of the inhabitants of the city, turning them into undead, and then travelled around, wreaking lesser havoc on the material plane, the elemental planes, and the lower planes. Demons were coming to the material plane to escape it. After a while, things calmed down.Over time, it was realised that the thing was a Berserker***, but attempts to do anything about it got nowhere. Some very strong wards were erected on the nexus point in the city through which it had entered the world. Two years ago, game time, those mysteriously failed†† and the Berserker re-appeared above Petersport and left the world through the same nexus point. That's all background. A few years after the Berserker arrived, a new religion started. This is unique in the history of Avalon: there are a great many religions, but they all seem to have existed forever. It worshipped "The Knowing God", which acted as an information interchange: the worshippers could communicate with the deity via some crystals. They had no clerics at first, only monks in abbeys. Yes, lots of people were suspicious that this was a fake religion who purpose was to tell the Berserker about the world it was in. It was never possible to substantiate that idea, and the people who followed it were always Good and inoffensive. The First Abbott who had founded the religion died, and the large crystal he had shattered. The information connection to the deity was lost.  After a while, the religion began to develop clerics and paladins, although none of them are high enough level to do Commune yet.After the Berserker departed, a different large crystal appeared in Petersport. It proved to contain the life force that had been drained from the city's inhabitants, which has allowed them to be returned to life from being undead. The Church of the Knowing God was very interested in this crystal, hoping that it would let them reconnect to their deity. Naturally, quite a few people were very sceptical of that idea, but the objections have gradually been overcome, and in last night's session, the ceremony was done and worked. The information connection to the god works again!At the moment the ceremony was completed, a large metal creature appeared through the nexus point. It was too large for the building around the nexus, which collapsed. The creature didn't do anything, and seems to be dead. Since advanced technology does not work in Avalon, except in a couple of specific places, the current hypothesis is that it's a machine which is not working.* Lots of other problems.** Gloranthan mythology, from RuneQuest.*** From Fred Saberhagen's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker_(novel_series)" target="_blank">SF novels</a>.† A PC - try to look surprised?†† A different PC did that.</blockquote>

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