Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 thebrax Aug 29, 2006 21:19:09	This started on another thread, but it seemed to hijack someone else's thread, so I've moved it here. :D [Brax]… It's “free year 300,” under the eternal reign of the sorceror-queen Sadira, tended to by her undead husbands Agis and Rikus. Rikus of course is the high templar, and ... [Kael] ...Agis is Master of the Crystalline Legion, an elite unit of psychic warriors that guards the frontiers in the perpetual war with Urik. The Veiled Alliance, once Sadira's strongest supporters, now are her greatest enemies, ever since she betrayed their trust by... [Lurkingshadow]...instituting the Mandatory Arcane Registration Act, a blatant and ill-contrived attempt to offset the city’s enormous budgetary deficit, caused by the large scale purchase of skin lotion and red hair dye for the personal use of Her Majesty the Queen, through the taxation of arcane spellcasters for the privilege of practicing their art within city walls. Sadira’s popularity as ruler of Tyr has been further damaged by... [Brax] the re-institution of the yearly tribute. One thousand free Tyrians are given each year to satiate the hungry Kreen which have overrun the rest of the Tablelands except for the Utopian Enclave of New Giustenal, administered by the undead avangion Dregoth, whose efforts to become a god had unexpected consequences when ...
#2 zombiegleemax Aug 29, 2006 22:20:18	I guess parody is the best way to trivialize someone's thoughts, but I'll roll with it. "...unbeknownst to the entire universe, a basic fundamental tenet of mundane mathematics, that two negatives multiplied do indeed make a positive, applied also to the goody vs. baddy dynamics, and the evil (-) undead (-) sorcerer-king (-) would-be tyrannical god (-) actually metamorphosed into an adorable, wide-eyed avangion (ding ding ding ding +!). This was certainly a surprise for Athas, which since then..."
#3 dirk00001 Aug 30, 2006 11:39:42	... has suffered from a new form of natural disaster, known as a 'logical absurdity storm,' a localized space-time anomaly involving the mixing of moral/ethical ideas with mathematics and physics with disastrous results. The first such LAS to hit the Tyr region coincidentally affected Sadira with the time-worn faux-mathematical proof that "women = evil," hence resulting in the previously mentioned current state of affairs in Tyr itself. Hundreds of miles to the east, in the area once referred to as the Valley of Dust and Fire, ...
#4 cnahumck Aug 30, 2006 16:32:17	A new menace was growing. survivors of Ur Draxa spent many years learning to survive. With all the rain and lava, the steam produced made an ideal enviroment for making lattes and cappuccinos. The rich soil also made a perfect environment to grow coffee. With the milk that they developed from kanks in the area, they have launched a new merchant house: Solarcoins, and plan to take over the entire economy of the tablelands one street corner at a time. On the bright side, at least they provide good clerical services and wages for their workers... This threat has made many nervous, in fact...
#5 thebrax Aug 31, 2006 13:41:19	... since the coffee-addicted kreen that now dominate the tablelands, now receive their cofee exclusively from halflings that returned on their life-shaped space-ships in Free Year 43, announcing the beginning of the Maroon Age ...
#6 dirk00001 Aug 31, 2006 14:19:35	... which, fortunately, lasted less than a year before progressing on to the Muave Age when the space-faring halflings, finding the lack of vegetation and overall life on Athas disappointing as well as - well, drab and depressing, to be quite frank - re-entered their ships and once again took to the cosmos, seeking out new life and new civilizations that preferrably aren't living in a barren wasteland. In FY 300, the noted halfling coffee-overlords are merely the descendants of one Kahp-Taan Kurrek, a noted commander of the halfling fleet known for his ability to find "viable halfling breeding stock" on, literally, every inhabited planet. ...
#7 thebrax Sep 01, 2006 0:42:53	... in sharp contrast to commander Kahr-Vahz, whose crew's notorious affection for Eldaarish human females resulted in the proliferation of three/quarterlings. Kahp-Taan Kurrek denounced Kahr-Vahz as "a race-traitor who does not understand the meaning of doing lunch," and offered a prize of twenty thousand coffee beans on his head. Unwelcomed in Eldaarich, the three-quarterlings migrated in mass to ...
#8 lastard Sep 01, 2006 7:07:28	...Kurn, but through a strange re-direction ended up near the Last Sea where they have started to challenge the native surfboard sizes. They had no other option than to become surf-board designers themselves, but they got into trouble with.....
#9 cnahumck Sep 01, 2006 8:09:45	...Kurn, but through a strange re-direction ended up near the Last Sea where they have started to challenge the native surfboard sizes. They had no other option than to become surf-board designers themselves, but they got into trouble with..... ... The Dolphins of the Last Sea. Mad at the world for the lack of water and the surfing druids, decide to try to conquer the world and return it to the Blue Age. Unknown to the rest of the world, the Dophins have been practicing a new type of magic, one based on riding the waves and pushing small wooden boards in certain patterns. The three-quarterlings, unknowingly, are stealing this magic without intending to, and are able to develop it faster than the Dolphins, due to the fact that they have thumbs. In the end, the magic only summons rainbows, which angers the Dophins to the point that they...
#10 thebrax Sep 01, 2006 14:29:54	... use an amplified version of the Dream Travel power to transport the entire Lost Sea to dark side of Ral. Horrified to find out that they'd lost the Lost Sea, the Mind Lords ...
#11 jon_oracle_of_athas Sep 01, 2006 14:39:19	... unleash a coordinated psionic attack on the dolphins. This powerful attack wipes out the dolphin population for good, but has the unfortunate sideeffect of attracting the attention of the psurlons. At the same instant, Keltis has a vision of the last lizardman dying in the psionic attack. Rage overcomes him and...
#12 thebrax Sep 01, 2006 21:11:34	... the moment that he reaches Saragar, his rage overcomes King's Ages of discipline. Oronis' cataclysmic defiling destroys Saragar and all its environs, and his attack, epic whacking, pulverizes Mind Lords' orbs and the building that they rest in. Strained from the effort, forever lost to the preserving path, and absolutely bursting with experience points from whacking the Mind Lords and all of their Minions, Oronis sinks into a draconic rage, and hungry for insect larvae, attacks Thayilthor, where ...
#13 jon_oracle_of_athas Sep 02, 2006 4:55:26	... he in an even greater cataclysmic battle defeats the kreen emperor, who turns out to be none other than Troy Denning in disguise - returned to set things right in "his world". Troy´s agenda to overrun Athas with kreen and wipe everything out to start a new blue age is thwarted. Oronis merges with Troy´s kreen costume and becomes The Great One. This event sends mental ripples throughout the collective kreen hive mind previously controlled by Troy, and creates a racial memory so powerful it reaches back into the memories of tens of generations of kreen before this time! Now Oronis...
#14 thebrax Sep 03, 2006 3:31:26	... filled with the newfound righteous desire to cleanse Athas of all elements not in the original Prism Pentad, opens a teleportation circle from the ruins of Thayilthor to New Kurn, and tells his worshipping cadre of Kreen to ...
#15 jon_oracle_of_athas Sep 03, 2006 4:19:48	... wipe out everything north of the Tablelands, starting with the abomination New Kurn. While genocide begins, Oronis must complete his avangion metamorphosis to stand up against the forces that would seek to stop him. He retrieves the Dark Lens from the Valley of Dust and Fire, and journeys to the Pristine Tower....
#16 thebrax Sep 03, 2006 10:29:02	... where, through the combined power of the Pristine Tower, the Dark Lens, and the expertise of the halfshadow-halflings, Oronis creates the chartruse tide, a microscropic organism designed to ...
#17 jon_oracle_of_athas Sep 03, 2006 13:23:56	... make silt burn. Oronis focused the energy of the sun to make the entire sea of silt combust - blowing out a major chunk of the surrounding landmass and annihilating the Tablelands. The only creatures to survive the cataclysm are agony beetles. As a side-effect, the Dark Sun turns purple with orange polka dots. This in turn has the effect of....
#18 thebrax Sep 03, 2006 13:45:23	... attracting all of the psurlons to Athas' surface, from Ral where they had gathered to examine the psionic demise of the dolfins. The Psurlons tell the agony beetles that they come in peace, but the peace dissapears quickly when it becomes clear that there is nothing one to eat. After suffering months of agonizing indigestion, the Psurlons begin the task for which the purple-with-orange-polka-dotted-age has become renown: ...
#19 jon_oracle_of_athas Sep 03, 2006 14:23:37	...mutating the agony beetles into kank-sized vermin that rather than serving as psurlon cattle, rebel against them with newfound intelligence. It is then discovered that another force still exists on Athas - the undead of the Dead Lands. The bugdead take great interest in the newly evolved agony beetles. With the agony beetles on their side, they can overrun the Dead Lands and finally claim victory and rulership of the Obsidian Plains. However, returned to lead the colossal amount of Banshees created when the Sea of Silt imploded, is Rkard. Any hair that may have been on the dwarves was blown away in the explosion, thus resulting in an abrupt drop in demand for lye - had there been any merchant houses left. The dwarven horde joins forces with the Dead Kingdoms to stand up to the bugdead. Everyone forgets about the psurlons, who...
#20 thebrax Sep 03, 2006 15:10:33	... set off to explore the sea of ash which has replaced the burnt-out sea of silt. The sea of ash, comprised of the highly alkali burnt organic dust mixed with the volcanic ash continually released from Athas' volcanoes and open lava vents, is the perfect mixture for a cement-like mortar, and subsequent Tyr-storms have the effect of creating large paths of rock-hard ground through the sea of silt. Meanwhile, what used to be called "Undertyr" has recently been exposed to the sunlight when Oronis blew the covering landmass away. Annoyed at the loss of their shrine's ceiling, the Crimson knights decide that it is time for their feathered serpent god to return, and due to what Ktendeo called the Crimson knights' "extreme faith in their god," ...
#21 throkat Sep 03, 2006 15:27:14	...they raid New Giustenal, which had also been uncovered by the explosion, and steal the defiler metamorphosis spells from Dregoth, who happens to be vacationing at the time. They then use the spells to fully transform a common erdlu into a fully metamorphosed dragon, which they believe will be the avatar of their god. The erdlu-dragon then proceeds to...
#22 dirk00001 Sep 04, 2006 13:24:48	...rampage across the tablelands as the animalistic rage takes hold, destroying all remaining plant and animal life in the Tyr region. Within a year the rage subsides - an erdlu's commonly known lack of long-term memory making it difficult for the creature to remain angry for long - at which point the great creature's unmodified, animal-level intelligence and instrinctual need to breed takes over, resulting in the construction of the largest nest Athas has ever seen. Using the skeletal remains of creatures, materials from destroyed cities, the cement from the Sea of Ash and still-moving undead bodies, the Great Erdlu proceeds to turn the entirety of the Valley of the Cerulean Storm into a huge, singular nesting area. (Sidenote: The Cerulean Storm, relying in part on the meteorological precipitation-evaporation cycle to remain in existence, has at this time turned into little more than a mild sprinkle amidst a slight haze of humidity as most of its liquid assets are soaked up and trapped by the surrounding ash-come-cement and therefor unable to be "liberated" to the storm via normal evaporative methods.) Meanwhile the psurlons, having faced repeated attacks at the hands of undead, use their psionic might to break a large chunk of ash-cement off from the surrounding concrete, creating Athas' first artificial island since the time of the Rhulisiti (albeit an unliving island). From the safety of their newfound homeland, the psurlons...
#23 jon_oracle_of_athas Sep 04, 2006 15:39:13	... start debating whether it is possible to reach Athas with a spelljammer vessel, and whether there is such a thing as a cross-setting product that details such travels and concepts. Then, out of nowhere, ....
#24 thebrax Sep 04, 2006 17:58:47	... the non-existent gods of Athas release the 72'd revision of the core rules, causing ...
#25 jon_oracle_of_athas Sep 05, 2006 1:11:32	... protests from the bugdead who feel cheated they lost 2 points of Charisma in the latest revision - in addition to the inclusion of the Bugdead Killah PrC. The war is halted while the bugdead eagerly await the judgement of the DS fans. Meanwhile, the psurlons discuss the possibility of a kreen dragon and what kind of offspring it would produce. Then, out of nowhere, ...
#26 thebrax Sep 05, 2006 9:28:11	... all of Athas' undead fish (the fishdead), awakened by the burning of the sea of silt, decide that enough is enough, and ...
#27 jon_oracle_of_athas Sep 05, 2006 16:42:14	...can´t really do anything since they are undead fish. The psurlons debate whether paladins can exist on Athas and civil war erupts between those that would summon paladins to Athas - and those who believe this will destroy the world. Meanwhile, an undead thri-kreen is restored to life by an elemental prince. The elemental imbues the thri-kreen in return for its servitude. The kreen proceeds to become the first kreen elemental dragon and challenges Oronis to battle...
#28 cnahumck Sep 05, 2006 17:21:56	Which the undead fish decide to broadcast for a profit. The PayperView of the fight draws in billions of cp, which the fish then use to try to hire an army of elementals from the inner planes. Things go great until...
#29 throkat Sep 05, 2006 17:40:07	...the erdlu-dragon, still looking to breed, shows up. Suffice it to say that the undead fish were forced to pay a heavy fine by the FCC for broadcasting what occured next. Shortly thereafter, the erdlu-dragon laid several eggs, which hatched to reveal...
#30 thebrax Sep 05, 2006 22:36:33	... little erdlu, which is what most surviving sages preducted, since Ablach Re's offspring were all normal mortals as well. Furiously dissapointed (and having lost its bets with the sages), the erdlu-dragon flings its offspring to the fishdead, who decline the morsels, and say (in the lost tongue of ancient green age fish), "no thank you, what we'd really like is some psurlon." Oronis had agreed to the fight with the undead thri-kreen elemental dragon on strict condition that there would be no use of mandibles, but as the fight got down to a wrestle, Oronis recognized a loophole in the agreement and bit off the undead thri-kreen elemental dragon's left antenna. In response, the undead thri-kreen elemental dragon ...
#31 jon_oracle_of_athas Sep 06, 2006 13:02:52	... started running around in circles due to the lost coordination ability gone with the antennae, until it dug itself deep into the bowels of the earth, where it struck oil! The erdlu dragon, in reality a polymorphed double templar, bluffs ownership and sells the rights to the oil field to the undead fish, who...
#32 dirk00001 Sep 06, 2006 13:59:23	... construct an oil rig of epic proportions, rivalling the size of the (long-since destroyed) Ur Draxa. Unfortunately their limited understanding of civil engineering, as well as a complete lack of structural/geological materials testing procedures and equipment, results in this multi-mile wide structure suffering multiple stress fractures that eventually result in its complete collapse. The seismic activity generated by the collapse causes a potent earthquake in the area, leading to the rupturing of a pressurized "vein" of oil, spewing millions of gallons of the liquid into the atmosphere and onto the surrounding terrain. This seismic event also causes a small volcano to form, resulting in a huge "fuel air-burst" explosion that...
#33 cnahumck Sep 06, 2006 15:30:13	Incinerates everything on the planet, leaving it a chard blackened mess. The psurlon, safely watching from the moon, see the explosion and decide...
#34 thebrax Sep 06, 2006 16:21:57	... that the black age has begun. They also note that some of the larger fishdead, who were knocked into the phlogiston from Athas' most recent detonation, would make ideal spelljamming vehicles if only ...
#35 throkat Sep 06, 2006 17:45:03	...there were some kind of plant life left to provide the life energy needed to power an Athasian spelljamming helm. Even worse, the explosion of the fishdead's gigantic oil rig had acted like a giant rocket booster, sending Athas out of its orbit and hurdling towards...
#36 thebrax Sep 07, 2006 0:58:43	... Guthay, which, as sages had long suspected, was not a moon at all, but a gas giant. Athas was in fact a moon of Guthay. The sages had explained, though no one had believed them, and now no one was left for them to gloat to, since ....
#37 dirk00001 Sep 07, 2006 10:30:52	... whenever they tried to "rub it in" the would-be listener would put their fingers in their ears and start repeating the sentence "Blah Blah Blah I can't hear you" repeatedly while walking away as quickly as possible. Although saddening to the sages, it proved beneficial to Athas as-a-whole, as the combined weight of every remaining survivor migrating to the far side of Athas (to escape the gloating) offset Athas' center of gravity enough that, rather than catostrophically colliding with Guthay, it merely brushed the gas giant's outer atmosphere. This had the further effect of causing a "gravity slingshot" acceleration for the former moon, sending Athas flying off on a course that, against all odds, put it into a highly eliptical yet stable orbit around the dark sun - Athas had finally become it's own planet! Once the sages figured this out, news of the "emancipation" of Athas spread like wildfire amongst the surviving creatures - both living and undead - on Athas. Thanks to the high volume of "laughing gas" picked up by Athas as it's atmosphere skimmed that of Guthay's (little known fact: Guthay's atmosphere is composed of 92.3% nitrous oxide), the living creatures of the world were much more overjoyed by this news than they should be (especially since most didn't understand the word "emancipation," let alone the technical jargon that followed), resulting in ...
#38 thebrax Sep 08, 2006 18:09:08	... crowds of people laughing until their sides hurt at bad puns. Athas' new eliptical orbit brought drastic seasons to the planet. Whereas previously most of the planet had three seasons, often known as "the hot season, the very hot season, and the other very hot season," now it had eight seasons known as "the season in which everything burns, the temperate season, the season in which everything freezes, the second temperate season, the season in which everything burns again, the third temperate season, the season in which everything freezes again, and the fourth temperate season." Meanwhile ...
#39 jon_oracle_of_athas Sep 09, 2006 7:20:41	...a mysterious figure appears from the Blue Shrine to be known as The Oracle. He...
#40 thebrax Sep 09, 2006 10:12:35	... laments how Athas seems to have been passed carelessly from one storywriter to another, and prophesies that ...
#41 dirk00001 Sep 09, 2006 14:50:26	..., as written down in The Book of Oracular Statements, Volume the Third: "Lo, hear thine words, oh listeners with the ear or other aural reception device, that thee Ages hath finally come, er, ...eth, full circle! What doeseth that mean, thou sayeth to me? Oh, yes, my mistake - make that 'though asketh of me.' Thanks for the correction, Bob. What? Sorry there, Jim, I mistook you for Bob. Hah, yes that's pretty funny; amazing the sorts of things that can come from something as simple as the wearing of someone else's hat. "Er, where was I? What? No - isn't that what Bob just corrected me on? Right, right...'asketh of me' not 'sayeth to me,' exactly. Hah, I did it again! My apologies, Jim! Think you could give him his hat back? Righty-oh, thanks!" As was further recorded in The Book, The Oracle's....um....oraculation? Prophesizing? Whatever. Anyway...was cut short by a carefully-aimed erdlu dropping, thrown by one Trudy Kankdresser of the Upper Merchant's District, Urik, resulting in...
#42 jon_oracle_of_athas Sep 10, 2006 4:55:42	... a quick dispatch of the disguised wizard using ventriloquism by an oracular flensing bolt, much to the applause of the gathered masses. The Oracle then relates the prophecy of Kael Stormseeker´s aspiration to ruler of all Athas. The former royal defiler of Draj will soon rise to power through...
#43 thebrax Sep 10, 2006 5:05:10	... silt surfing, a trick which he learned from a group of deviant silt runners. Under his promotion, Silt surfing had become so popular that ...
#44 jon_oracle_of_athas Sep 10, 2006 5:12:00	.. Kael, combining magic and surfing, creates a new martial art - Magisurf. All silt runners and other wasteland creatures flock to his following to learn from the Magisurf Master. Kael uses his followers to....
#45 thebrax Sep 10, 2006 11:41:51	... surf quickly onto the scene whenever halfling life-shaped spacecraft land to gather esperweed in the few mudflats that survived the burning of the silt. After a few botched attempts, Kael and his magisurf followers manage to commandeer a halfling life-shaped spacecraft, and are bitterly dissapointed to discover that those sneaky halflings had built the craft small-sized humanoids. Brilliantly adapting his plan to fit these unforseen circumstances, Kael ...
#46 jon_oracle_of_athas Sep 10, 2006 16:36:55	... selects the brightest of his silt runners to navigate the crafts. However, not even the brightest of silt runners is clever enough to land, let alone fly after takeoff. The silt runners crash in the Sea of Silt before reaching the shores. Kael´s plan fails, but something is awoken in the depths of the silt...
#47 thebrax Sep 10, 2006 17:03:51	... the mother of all Kraken, who settled down for a nap 4000 years ago and overslept. Dismayed to find herself surrounded by silt rather than water, she ...
#48 lastard Sep 10, 2006 17:05:07	... the Fael Lord, the Fael version of a khaisharga. Awoken by the smell of burnt erdlu eggs and undead fish deep-fried from the oil in the 'season in which everything burns again', the Fael Lord set out to....
#49 lastard Sep 10, 2006 17:08:16	(oops, brax was quicker, but maybe she...) ... got fried by the Fael Lord as a starter.... through which the Fael Lord was not only outed as a Balician, but...