Alternate Recent History of the Blacklore Elves
by Sean MeaneyThe following is an alternate probable timeline for events beginning in the final week of AC1009 in which Magic across the Mystaran failed at the Height of the Wrath of the Immortals conflict.
MYSTARAN YEAR AC1009
Kaldmont 22: A Total System Failure?
Location: Valley of the Blacklore Elves
Description: Every machine shuts down and the valley goes dark. By “Sunrise” the populace realize that something is wrong and they are not going to get breakfast in bed. By “Evening” the machines are still off and ten thousand elves are hungry and afraid as they realize there has been a total system failure.
What is going on? The sinking of Alphatia has caused the failure of the Immortal magic that powers the Valley. All the Black-lore Technology has failed. The Machines that produce foods and goods, repair and maintain the valley have shut down, The Valley is naturally heated by volcanic activity deep below the surface so it remains warm but machines directed that heat into homes generating even more heat.
Kaldmont 23: How does this stuff work?
Location: Valley of the Blacklore Elves
Description: The Black-lore Elves wake to light snowfall in the valley. While most go out to play in the snow, some elves begin looking about for answers. They soon realize that no-one knows how to fix the technology. By “nightfall” the snow is still falling in the valley.
What is going on? Only the natural heat of the valley is keeping the Antarctic weather conditions out of the valley. While the snowfall continues, the elves realize they have no food, and no way of restarting the machines. All food was produced in “hydroponic gardens” located beneath the living levels. Crops begin to die.
Kaldmont 24: Expedition to the Hydroponic Gardens
Location: Valley of the Blacklore Elves
Description: Some elves penetrate the lower levels and make their way into the Hydroponic Gardens. They take what food they can and make the climb back to the surface. Once word gets around, the many elves descend into the hydroponic gardens in-search of food.
What is going on? Some elves find food in underground gardens. They also find the machines that grow the food, harvest the food, pack the food, and send the food to their homes.
Kaldmont 25: The Barbarian Club does a Stock-take
Location: Valley of the Blacklore Elves
Description: Some members of an extreme sport club known as the Barbarian Club have spent the last four years sneaking out of the valley to do extreme sports. They have equipment for Mountain climbing, Snowboarding, and Ice-yachting as well as considerable iron rations. The Club of five hundred and sixty members do a stock-take. He has made sure that they all have high quality fabricated equipment and a good reserve of food.
What is going on? The Barbarian Club was founded in AC1006 after an Ice-vale Elf (Cyrydyl Snowchild) found the valley. Cyrydyl Snowchild; as leader of the Barbarian Club, intends to evacuate as many of “his elves” as possible. He knows they are going to die if they stay.
Kaldmont 26: The Barbarian Club Departs
Location: Valley of the Blacklore Elves
Description: On this day most of the five hundred and sixty members of the Barbarian Club begin their journey out of the Valley. They are all well equipped and have a few weeks food each. They climb out of the valley and tow their ultra-light Wind Kayak up the mountains to the north. Amongst their members is Deithryl Steelheart.
What is going on? The Barbarian Club has departed on their three-week long expedition north. The remaining nine and a half thousand elves stay in the valley confused by what to do.
Kaldmont 27: Anarchy
Location: Valley of the Blacklore Elves
Description: The food in the hydroponic gardens is rotting, the snow is still falling, and a few elves have begun to panic. There are a few robberies as some elves begin looting supplies. Others simply hide in their homes waiting for the system to reboot.
What is going on? Social Order is declining amongst the Black-lore Elves. Robberies and some acts of violence occur.
Kaldmont 28: Valley of the Cannibals?
Location: Valley of the Blacklore Elves
Description: The situation in Black-lore Valley declines as the temperature drops to zero degrees. A few wonder why the Barbarian Club has not come home.
What is going on? The Elves of Blacklore Valley are hungry and nervous. The natural heat of the volcanic activity is unlikely to dissipate yet they are now a week with declining food supplies. If the machines don’t start soon, many thousands of Black-lore elves will die of hunger.
Kaldmont 28: Penguins Ho!
Location: Southern edge of White Pass
Description: The Barbarian Club reaches the north coast of the Black-lore elf peninsula and discovers giant penguins huddled on the edge of the ice amongst volcanically heated rocks. With the White Pass unpassable on foot they unpack their Wind Kayak and sail north across the ice.
What is going on? The Elves of the Barbarian Club have begun a two week crossing on their Wind-Kayaks. The Wind Kayak is a kayak with a reinforced bottom and parasail. The Barbarian Club Wind-Kayak is capable of doing 72 miles per day.
MYSTARAN YEAR AC1010
Nuwmont 1: The System Reboots!
Location: Valley of the Blacklore Elves
Description: At just past “midnight” the machines switch on, the lights power up and the Automatons begin cleaning up the mess of the previous week. By morning the elves wake to find breakfast in bed (of a sort). There is only a reserve of dried fruit, nuts and water on the available foods menu.
What is going on? Unfortunately the plants have all died and must now be regrown from seed stocks. The Black-lore elves are served dried fruit and nuts and the machines replant the hydroponic gardens from seed stocks. While many breathe a sigh of relief and go back to their way of life as though nothing happened, a few know that there is no food beyond the fruit and nut reserve; something that cannot last. The machines also clean away the few hundred elves that killed themselves out of despair.
Nuwmont 17: The Barbarians Battle Lupus Penguina Gargantua
Location: Near the northern edge of the White Pass
Description: A few miles from the Hetorath Glacier, the Barbarian Club are attacked by a flock of seven Gargantuan WerePenguins. Fifty Elves are killed in the ambush. The others are unable to risk the rescue. All they can do is continue onward.
What is going on? Unfortunately this was inevitable. Their speed has saved them from numerous hostile wildlife, yet the Gargantuan WerePenguins were simply too large to ignore and were able to descend on the elves as their speed lowered. The Elves are weakened by their journey. They can’t possibly withstand a major attack.
Nuwmont 18: The Hetorath Glacier
Location: Hetorath Glacier
Description: Barbarian Club members led by Ice-vale elf Cyrydyl Snowchild scale the glacier wall and hoist up their kayaks and rest the night before beginning their week long journey across the glacier.
What is going on? The voice in Snowchild’s head has been guiding him to this place. They are a week from the ruins of Hetorath.
Nuwmont 18: A Wakeup Call
Location: Near the northern edge of the White Pass
Description: Deithryl Steelheart wakes to find the Gargantuan Werepenguin slaughtered or departed. A few elves in her group are still alive and they scavenge all the food reserves from the dead. They realize that the rest left them to die and are well gone. The few elves remaining repair their wind-kayaks and pick a direction.
What is going on? Deithryl Steelheart and the few elves to survive the Gargantuan Werepenguin attack don’t know where their fellows went. They head east.
Nuwmont 24: White Dragons Attack
Location: Hetorath Glacier
Description: Barbarian Club members led by Ice-vale elf Cyrydyl Snowchild are attacked by a pair of white dragons on the long journey across the glacier. There are only a hundred elves left as one dragon is killed and the second terribly damaged. After the end of the battle, the elves spot the crystal spires of Hetorath. Yet despite the need for rest Snowchild compels his fellow hundred survivors to push forward just a little further.
What is going on? The voice in Snowchild’s head has overwhelmed him. They are a day from the ruins of Hetorath and the Burrower.
Nuwmont 25: The Horror of it all
Location: Hetorath Citadel
Description: The Elves struggle into the Crystal Citadel of Hetorath. Snowchild sacrifices one of the elves on an altar surrounded by the corpses of a hundred other elves. The elves confused by what is going on, and weakened by their terrible journey can only watch as their expedition leader kills one of their own and finalizes a century long quest. The Citadel changes from white crystal to entropic black as the burrower’s life force is infused into the Citadel of Hetorath. A few elves realize they saw this in a dream a few years back when Snowchild stumbled into their Valley. Snowchild begins slaughtering the surviving elves with his pickaxe for food.
What is going on? Snowchild completes a task on his rise to immortality in the sphere of Entropy. He has just sacrificed one of every Elf clan in the Known and Hollow Worlds creating the Citadel of Night Terrors. From now on, every Cleric who worships Thanatos will be able to access Summon Elemental while in the Hollow World. Wizards in the Hollow World may access the sphere of entropy by Gate Spell only from within the Citadel.
Nuwmont 26: Food on the Horizon
Location: Southern edge of the Ross Tundra
Description: Deithryl Steelheart and her people reach Tundra teaming with herds of Deer and other wildlife. Their food reserves are down to nothing, they are weak, so they begin hunting. For the first time ever, Deithryl Steelheart and her fellow elves eat raw meat and drink warm blood and shelter.
What is going on? The Steelheart party have reached the Ross Tundra at its narrowest point and have found food.
Nuwmont 26: And the food runs out
Location: Valley of the Blacklore Elves
Description: The Fruit and nuts have run out earlier than expected. As of this day food is no longer available anywhere in the Valley of the Blacklore Elves. Hoarders amongst the elves have been preparing for this moment. They have piled vast stores of equipment and food into their Ultra-light Survival Habitats and begin a long journey to safety.
What is going on? A thousand Black-lore elves head south abandoning the eight thousand who have no food other than each other.
Nuwmont 27: Valley of the Cannibals revisited
Location: Valley of the Blacklore Elves
Description: The eight thousand Blacklore elves in the valley turn on each other. The Valley descends into bloody chaos.
What is going on? The Citadel of Night Terrors has begun whispering to the Elves in Blacklore Valley encouraging them to Cannibalism.
Vatermont 16: Sun on their naked backs
Location: Southern edge of Acercia
Description: Deithryl Steelheart and her people reach the forests of Southern Acircya. For the first time since leaving the Valley, they feel warm under the glow of the Red Sun.
What is going on? The Steelheart party have crossed Ice for the last time, having finally reached forests and grassy plains.
Vatermont 16: The Trench of Ka!
Location: Hollow World, Northern Edge of the Trench of Ka
Description: The thousand elves travelling at six miles per day, reach the Trench of Ka. The Elves halt and set up a base-camp while they discuss what to do. Some consider turning back to the valley or even heading north. In the end they decide to cross it.
What is going on? This is the Trench of Ka. This impossibly deep fissure in the Ice and stone is at least six miles wide, one mile deep, and thousands of miles long.
Vatermont 17: What are you doing?
Location: Southern edge of Acercia
Description: One of Deithryl Steelheart’s companions casts a few spells and creates a nice wooden chalet with glass windows overlooking the south coast. She creates a nice hot tub and strips off to have a good soak. The magic use surprises Deithryl and the other
elves who thought magic had failed with the machines of their valley. Sylytrys Deepeyes invites the others to join her.
What is going on? One of the Deithryl Steelheart party is a Spellcaster, the incident reveals that magic works again.
Vatermont 18: Apprenticed to Sylytrys Deepeyes
Location: Southern edge of Acercia, Sylytrys Deepeyes Chalet
Description: Deithryl Steelheart’s companions have just spent the night at Sylytrys Deepeyes magically erected chalet. She invites them to join her as her apprentice Spellcasters.
What is going on? Deithryl Steelheart is one of the only two female elves in a group of seven survivors. Deithryl’s rival for companionship is a wizard of considerable skill. She is being offered the prospect of becoming an Apprentice Wizard to her rival.
Thaumont 19: Aliens in the Trench of Ka?
Location: Trench of Ka
Description: The Blacklore Elves, having survived a descent into the Trench of Ka have discovered a huge structure. The Elves manage to enter the structure when an access portal opens to let them in revealing a glowing warm light. In the light a group of small child sized people wait for them. The first few of their people decide to accept the offer of shelter and they are soon followed by the others. Amongst their numbers is a tall grey adult. They are all wearing silver clothing.
What is going on? A thousand years ago Ka encountered the Starship Ex Ratio. The immortal with the help of Garl Glitterlode, and more recently with the assistance of machinagnomus refugees from that Vulcanian Technarchy, managed to learn how it works and fixed it. With the accidental activation of an Oard cloning Bank in a breeching pod the Immortals (Garl knew the OARD from his memories as last of the Garl race on Arquen) decided to make best use of the situation thus adding another technology loving species to their growing crew. The Arrival of the Blacklore Elves was pure chance.
Thaumont 20: Engines ready for Firing
Location: Starship Ex Ratio, Trench of Ka
Description: MachinaGnomus technicians inform the Oard Commander that The Starship Ex Ratio, after eternity in the Polar Ice, is ready for an engine firing. They simply need warm up the main reactors. Ka and Garl Glitterlode give the nod and the Oard Commander gives the order to activate main reactors.
What is going on? The main reactors are heating up and the engines should be ready for a prelaunch burn in a few decades and perhaps even a launch this millennia.
Kaldmont 8: You’re not apprentice material, I’m sorry
Location: Southern edge of Acercia, Sylytrys Deepeyes Chalet
Description: Deithryl Steelheart’s fails after almost a year of training to achieve the minimum ability of a wizard. The despair of being the only non spellcaster compels Deithryl to seek her own destiny. She departs Sylytrys’s little “pleasure commune” by the Sea with a single gift (an ever-full pouch of fruit and nuts), her Ice-climbing pickaxe, Kayak (converted for water travel) with hand carved wooden paddle, and tent.
What is going on? Deithryl Steelheart doesn’t become a wizard so she leaves.
MYSTARAN YEAR AC1011
Vatermont 3: Is that a road?
Location: Milenian Imperial frontier
Description: Deithryl Steelheart paddles up a river in her kayak to find a stone-paved road. She puts her kayak in a nearby tree and continues on foot.
What is going on? It has been a long journey but Deithryl Steelheart has made it to the Milenian Empire.
Vatermont 5: Civilization
Location: Milenian Empire, Temple of Zirchev
Description: Deithryl Steelheart arrives at the temple of Zirchev on the edge of the Milenian Empire. They tell her about the Milenian Empire and the other “lesser civilizations” off to the west. She explains that her “Valley of Elves” are a years walk to the south.
What is going on? The Priests at the temple take her in for a time (they provide shelter to all the peoples of the forest).
Flaurmont 13: Throwing away the garbage
Location: Valley of the Blacklore Elves
Description: The hundred and twenty spellcasting Elves left in the valley no longer hear the whispering of the Citadel of Night Terrors in their head suggesting cannibalism.
What is going on? Having caused the death of eight thousand Blacklore Elves and the destruction of their society, the forces of evil got what they wanted and thus have abandoned the vermin that remain.
Sviftmont 27: Excuse me, Can I eat you?
Location: Valley of the Blacklore Elves
Description: Free of influence the seventy spellcasting Elves left in the valley establish rules regarding Cannibalism. The Machines have re-established the crops and there is no real need to kill and eat one another. A set of rules by which the two in dispute must duel with magic in the Arena to decide who eats whom seem more convenient.
What is going on? Having killed and eaten eight thousand other non-spellcasting elves, some Spellcasting Cannibal Elves make some rules about appropriate conduct regarding killing and eating each other.
Klarmont 27: Hello? Is anyone there?
Location: Valley of the Blacklore Elves, the Arena
Description: Duels have whittled down the population of Blacklore elves to two. They fight it out in the Arena for the right to eat each other. The victor is Calysantys the Bloody, an elf wizard of 12th level. After gutting the corpse on the Arena floor he instructs the automaton servitor to bring the body back to his apartment for food.
What is going on? Having killed and eaten eight thousand other elves there is only one left in the valley.
MYSTARAN YEAR AC1012
Nuwmont 1: Right, I’m off.
Location: Valley of the Blacklore Elves
Description: Calysantys the Bloody, an elf wizard of 12th level concludes that someone has replaced their technology with technology powered by magic. This was why the technology failed when the magic failed. He intends to find their real homeland and the technology that is there. He also concludes that they were “got at by something or someone”. He is going to make them pay. After the necessary preparations, equipment, food, and replacing his mechanical hand with a tool end allowing various devices including a “hand” crossbow to be attached, departs the valley to investigate the chalets to the west.
What is going on? The Last elf leaves the valley heading west to the Ski-Chalets on the nearby mountain.