Caligos Isle/storyline 2018
Return to Caligos...
Sitting at the Rock over the Quay
The Street Painter, the Painting, and the Loresong
Synopsis
Caligos grew in the year between festivals with plenty of families coming to the island to set up shop. Junderthal had promised them wealth and stability. He had promised a sanctuary for all. As a result, the denizens grew and began to call themselves Caligots. However, in the weeks before the festival began, some fell under a gaes and began to witness strange visions. It wasn't long before the guests were, too.
Visions
1. Exploding before your eyes, the image of a tree fills your vision. Within seconds, the tree grows to a towering monstrosity, its limbs bowing with age and the weight of a thousand leaves. Beyond it, the sky transitions rapidly from day to night. Suddenly, mist crawls up the bark and the vision slips away.
2. Your limbs suddenly feel heavy, as though something strong is pulling you down, and your vision blurs with the image of dried out seaweed and large standing stones.
3. Shadows dance across your eyes, and you find your vision has shifted. You no longer stand where once you did, but instead stand in a small fishing village where an older elven woman is drawing water from a well. She shifts her gaze to you, concern etched in her every gesture and expression.
"It will not be enough," she says with a thick accent. "I do not think the wards will keep his gaze from us."
You turn your gaze towards the wards that she is pointing at, but your vision suddenly returns to normal, and you find yourself back in your body.
4a. (Ghezresh Followers Only - Platinum) Indigo mist swirls across your vision, eclipsing all other sights for the briefest of moments. From within the inky substance, the image of a large clergy appears with each of its members carrying torches aloft. As the skeins of ethereal moisture slip away, you feel a sense of accomplishment.
4b. (Non-Ghezresh Followers - Platinum) Heavy and oppressive, a deep-seated sense of doom weights upon you.
4c. (Ghezresh Followers Only - Prime) - Violent in its suddenness, an overwhelming sense of being crushed beneath the waves causes you to gasp and, as you do, you feel water pour into your lungs. Choking, a gravelly voice growls in your ear, "Do you wish it to return? Do you wish to join me in the depths? Fail me, and you will join me for eternity under the waves." As the voice recedes, you find yourself hearty and hale.
4d. (Non-Ghezresh Followers - Prime) - Light and delicate, a warm zephyr drifts past. "You have done so much, helped so many," it whispers into your ear. "There is more to do. One more task for you. Seek the..." Whatever else may have been said is lost in the sound of the crashing tide.
5a. (Ghezresh Followers - Platinum) - Your vision blurs, and your ears fill with the sound of a clanging bell. Almost instinctively, your eyes rise to the temple, and you watch as a great fire drake descends from the peak it was perched upon. As the shape of the beast grows more distinct, you note that it is no mythical beast but a line of people carrying torches as they make their way down the steep incline from the temple. Slowly, the image fades away.
5b. (Non-Ghezresh Followers - Platinum) - Your vision suddenly swims, and you are filled with an overwhelming sensation; it is as if your skin is on fire! You feel your lungs screaming for air but only taste ash in your throat. Your struggle is brief, your vision darkening to a single pinpoint where you see a man walking towards you brandishing a torch. Just as abruptly as the vision descends upon you, the burning feeling evaporates, and you find yourself to be hearty and hale.
5c. (Ghezresh Follower - Prime) - Piercing your hearing, the sound of a sinister voice crashes into you. "You must stop them. You must prevent them from getting a foothold." The voice fades, but you sense anguillid eyes watching you from the surrounding mists.
5d. (Non-Ghezresh Followers - Prime) - Your vision blurs briefly with a greyish light, and when it clears, you see a warden speaking to a Caligos lion-maned eagle. "I can't seem to get the visions out of my head, Zeva." he says in his gruff manner. "But I think I can protect those that turned away from him if I am careful." Slowly, the voice and vision fade away.
6a. (Ghezresh Followers - Platinum) - You feel a familiar, oppressive weight upon your shoulder, and a voice fills your ears, "Soon. Soon we will show all the non-believers what it is to defy me." As swiftly as it came, the feeling disappears.
6b. (Non-Ghezresh Follower - Platinum) - Rising like the tide, a soft breathy voice touches upon your ears, "Your greed has doomed them all... Shame on you."
6c. (Ghezresh Follower - Prime) - Indigo and silver mist swirls across your vision, and you feel suffocating desperation fill you. As your vision clears, you see a dozen or so cages beneath the waves. Eels swim between the bars and nip at the people trapped within them. You swear you see yourself, somehow alive and yet not, struggling within its confines. "Your fate,$Q a voice whispers in your ear, $Qif you fail me." Suddenly, your vision clears and your surroundings return to normal.
6d. (Luukos Follower - Prime) - Indigo and silver mist swirls across your vision, and you feel suffocating desperation fill you. As your vision clears, you see a dozen or so cages beneath the waves. Eels swim between the bars and nip at the people trapped within them. You swear you see yourself, somehow alive and yet not, struggling within its confines. A familiar hiss greets you, "He thinkssss he issss a god and that he can take what isss mine... Teach him thisss is not sssso." As the sibilant whisper fades, so too does the vision.
6e. (Non-Ghezresh/Luukos Followers - Prime) - Azure and grey mist obscures your vision, the light of it strange and distorting. You pause momentarily, allowing your eyes to adjust to the oddity of it. As you focus, you see a path leading down into the jungle, and a sense of righteousness settings upon you. Slowly, the vision fades.
Mid-Storyline & Quest Introduction
Lightning strikes a tree in the northern wilds of Caligos, causing it to fall in the jungle and take out a swath of overgrown vines. Guests, Caligots, and Shaemire surge into the area and hack away at the vines and discover a hidden path. As they make their way through, they are beset by creatures that are agents of Ghezresh, but also several watery ghosts appear. In the end, a pathway is cleared and an ancient village is discovered. Waterlogged like the rest of Caligos, it has strange markers on it that pulse oddly. However, when they do pulse, the mist is dispelled. A small alcove allows visits to pray to Charl.
Loresongs from the Village
The Fire Circle
First Verse
As your inquiry touches upon the circle, a flood of images flashes before your eyes. You see a small island begin to grow, as volcanoes off its shore expand it with their angry eruptions. Time seems to move rapidly in this space, and you watch as hardened grounds soften and begin to sustain life. In the center of the growing world, a single tree begins to rise and bloom, its boughs stretching towards the sky and its roots sinking deep into the soils of the island. Your mind's eye follows the root, and you watch it touch a piece of zorchar, the shock of it hurtling you back to your body.
Second Verse
As if lying in wait, the circle answers your song of inquiry with fervor, the images it shares tumbling over one another as they play through your mind's eye. Now laden with branches and leaves, the arboreal giant towers over its brethren on the rocky slope and sways in the gentle sea breeze. The great orb of the sun slips through the sky on its daily march from east to west, while in the evenings, constellations wink in and out of existence and display the progress of the seasons. Time slows as suddenly a chill touches upon the bark of the tree, and the indigo mist begins to seep into its roots. As the cold begins to fill you, your vision shifts and the song fades.
Third Verse
Your inquiring song touches upon the circle, and a feeling of lassitude settles over you. The sun and moons seem a faint memory that is replaced by indigo and silver mists, and a deep longing for a warm breeze fills your limbs. Moisture has found its way into your roots, and its insistent burrowing has started to rot out the center of you. Emptiness fills you where once warmth and contentment played. Time is no longer your friend, and slowly, your insides become hollow, but one root clings to a tiny bit of ore and keeps you strong enough to resist the threatening necrosis. One day, your lethargy breaks, as strange clouds on the horizon resolve into sails. Dozens of ships have come to your island, and as they crash upon the shores, your vision fades
Fourth Verse
Shadows flicker across your vision as the circle responds to your song of inquiry. From deep within the bowl of the circle, a small fire has blossomed, and elven faces are illuminated by its flickering glow. Their faces are etched with stress lines, concern, and fear evident in their movements and tones. Though their words are incomprehensible, their anxiety is clear. One man raises his hand for silence, his haggard face a mask of serenity, though his eyes tell another story. He curls his fingers around a small driftwood totem at his throat, and you feel the familiar pulse of the ore in response. Sighing, the man leans close to the fire and offers reassurances to those gathered. As the fire turns to embers, your vision fades.
Fifth Verse
Wailing in sorrow, the circle responds to your song of inquiry with an ominous dirge. A fire stirs within its shallow basin, and the faces appear once more. They are older now but still filled with fear and concern. As the familiar face of the haggard man comes into view, a shadow passes by the flames, and a look of relief, almost joy, touches upon the man's face. He holds his hands up to someone, welcoming them, and you listen as relief turns to abject horror and pain. A knife blade protrudes out of the side of the man's neck, and in the chaos of battle, the betrayal in his eyes haunts the air and is echoed in the faces around the fire. One by one, they each suffer the same tragic fate, and the fire sputters out in a tidal wave of sanguine.
Sixth Verse
As your song touches upon the circle, the first thing that you notice is the fetid scent of rot and decay. Slowly, inch by inch, your vision expands from the dark basin of the circle, and you see the shattered, discarded bodies of elves rotting around the circle. Thunderously loud, the crash of lightning and thunder fills your ears, and the earth shudders in its fury. Salty water begins to fill the small enclosure, washing the bodies within out and away. Slowly, ponderously, the ocean claims you, and the world becomes darkness before your vision clears.
Seventh Verse
As the circle responds to your song of inquiry, a deep chill seeps into your bones. Murk and darkness are your constant friend, though a few fish swim in and out of the entry where elves once stood. Time means nothing as the waters slowly cleanse the ground, erasing all memory of the tragedy that took place here. Slowly, the chill and darkness fade away.
Eighth Verse
Blurring your vision, the circle responds to your song and fills your mind's eye with its story. Water slowly slips away, leaving your interior dripping with the salty substance and yourself being somehow lifted, though you know are still rooted in the ground. Faint skeins of sunlight offer the promise of warmth, and gradually you feel yourself drying out. Barnacles that have taken up residence in your interior suddenly find themselves dried out, but they have been your companion for so long that you don't allow them to fall away. Instead, you hold fast to the tiny creatures and keep them safe from the sunlight. As the days advance, verdant growth begins to take up residency around you. Slowly, the indigo mists return, and with their arrival, your vision fades.
Default
As you sing to the circle, a vision plays before you, and you watch as the dark growth that tangles around you is suddenly thinned by blades. Slowly, light fills the interior for the first time in an age, and new faces gaze at your interior. One of them, a bard by all outward appearances, moves to the circle and begins to sing. With a sudden, jarring jolt, your vision returns to normal.
The Well
First Verse
Your vision blurs as an old well responds to your song of inquiry, and slowly the landscape changes. Before you, the well is gone, and thick, verdant grasses form a circle of verdant color before transitioning to a black sand beach. Sunlight slips across the sky to mark the progress of time, and a crack slowly appears in the ground. Freshwater bursts from the aperture, and as it slowly begins to saturate the grass, your vision fades.
Second Verse
As you sing to an old well, your vision shifts, and moonlight greets you. Darkness has settled over the little beach, and the freshwater within its crack continues to trickle slowly into the grass. As dawn is about to crest the horizon, a shudder seems to slip through the island, and seconds later, a dark, invading indigo mist sweeps through the grass that surrounds you. Eels cavort within the shallows by the beach, and a dark form crawls across the sands. Slowly, this darkness eclipses your vision.
Third Verse
Indigo mists swirl before your eyes as you sing to an old well. Slowly, a shape appears from out of the mist, and you realize that it is an elf carrying large stones. "Safe haven," the elf mutters, as he begins to build a circle around the crack within the ground. "They said to find one, and this is the best I can do for now," he says, as he works. The elf disappears and returns several times, each time with a new handful of stones. As your vision fades, you watch the well begin to take shape.
Fourth Verse
As you sing to an old well, your vision blurs before clearing to reveal the beginnings of a small fishing village. Perhaps a dozen homes are in the early stages of construction, while at your feet rough cobblestones encircle the well. Off in the distance, the sound of thunder and panicked screams fill the air. Within seconds, the mist rushes away from you to reveal a massive tidal wave that is illuminated by flashes of lightning rising in the northeast. A cold dread fills you as your vision fades. @ Strange lights flash around you as $P1 sings to the well
Default
Shadows and sunlight slip across your vision as you sing to the well. Water ripples around you, and eel beds now rest within the foundations once built by elves. Indigo and silver light plays upon the ground, and you feel as though it has been ages upon ages since you have known anything but water. A pair of eels fight over a fish carcass and crash through the rocks of the well, knocking them over and sending them tumbling amid the seaweed. Slowly, the vision recedes.
Keilipso's Paintings
Having arrived on Caligos the year before, Keilipso was tricked by Junderthal into believing that as a young artist her fortunes awaited her there. Once she was on the island, she became trapped there unless she could find enough patrons and work to get her a ticket off. The price of the ticket kept changing. As a result, Keilipso ended up trapped there and the mists of Ghezresh slowly ate at her. Her defiance in fighting his call slowly led her down a path of insanity.
This year, she was ravaged and prone to fits of explosion. To prevent her from sharing the truths she had discovered, Ghezresh cursed her to not truly make sense. And so her stories were scattered, her answers incomplete, and her discomfort intense.
However, her own defiance won out and she became to use her beloved chalks to paint portraits of the truth. They would last for a time, but eventually, the mist would scatter them. Each could be sung to.
- As an interesting aside, those NPCs that followed Ghezresh could sometimes destroy the paintings faster than the mist. Also, the slug would always move through them if he was nearby.
It is a fact, though, that the voice heard in the paintings is not Keilipso's. A similar voice has been heard on Caligos, but who she is has yet to be learned.
an eel-filled watery expanse painting
Look: Grey, black, and silver hues blend together to create a chalk painting of a watery expanse. Anguilliad forms linger in the shadows, their dark eyes watching the drifting form at the center of their cyclonic formation. Fair of face and appearing to slumber, a sea nymph drifts in dark waters that are illuminated by ragged cracks of molten lava painted in crimson and burnt umber. Larger than those at the edges, an enormous eel coils about the fairer creature, its touch producing a flush of warmth in her pallid skin.
Loresong: As your voice touches upon the painting, a childlike voice rises to your ears. "Trapped beneath the sea, its death, and torment always at hand, the eel-king saw beauty for the first time and decided to bargain with it. Her wounds grave, his warmth keeping her safe, she had no choice but to believe in him. That was her, and many others, first mistake." Slowly, the song fades.
a bloodied and rocky shore painting
Look: Moonlight paints the rocky shore in silver hues, the delicate strokes of the chalk painting turning jagged and harsh as they darken near the rocky shore. Silhouettes of palm trees and high cliffs cast shadows on the face of a being formed of part man and part eel, its vicious grin a scar of jagged white and crimson. Anguillaid forms churn in the water, their bodies turning the placid waters to a sanguine froth around a delicate fin of iridescent hues.
Loresong:As your voice touches upon the painting, a childlike voice rises to your ears. "And so she drew him from his depth, her heart longing for a promised salvation. Her kindness and pain blinding her to the hunger that filled him. Her promise was fulfilled and so, to some extent, was his. Good deeds do not go unpunished and every one of his promises is laced in deception. Remember, when you go to him and fall into his embrace that it could be you whose blood the water is laced." Slowly, the song fades.
a mist-shrouded seascape painting
Look:Indigo and silver most stretch across the seascape, their twined hues commingling in a wispy shroud of false lights and darkness. At the heart of shadows, several small crafts are illuminated by tiny crimson lanterns that brightening their riggings. The bows are turned towards an opening in the mist, where the promise of land offers salvation. Lightning illuminates the darkness near the shore, the malformed and misshapen shape of a strange eel-like man beckoning from its banks.
Loresong: As your voice touches upon the painting, a childlike voice rises to your ears. "Is it salvation to show someone out of a maze that you have created? It is godly to create the promise of land with no hope to leave it? Where does the line in the sand get drawn? What must you sacrifice to obtain that freedom? Is it even still called freedom?" Slowly, the song fades.
a wind-tossed cliff painting
Look:Dark, severe lines of inky black and deep brown form the edges of a cliff, its top covered in indigo and silver grasses that sway in an unseen breeze. Vapid-eyed individuals move towards the edge, their hands holding relics of their past life away from their bodies as if they were diseased and corrupt. Those closest to the edge direct those that follow, their own hands empty and scared with crimson wounds. At the bottom of the cliff effigies to Charl and Niima lay broken and scattered, eels rolling over them and destroying them further.
Loresong: As your voice touches upon the painting, a childlike voice rises to your ears. "And lo did he bade them cast away their old gods, for he had provided them their salvation and no other. His was the path to ease their burdens and only in their adoration of him would they find shelter and salvation. And so they cast them aside and in this fashion sealed their fates. For what god would help those that have taken him from their hearts?" Slowly, the song fades.
a shadow-filled cavern painting
Look:Tangled roots dangle from the rounded, dark brown cavern ceiling, their edges dripping azure water upon the uneven floor. Weathered with age, elderly elves -- some eight or nine in total -- gather before a fire drawn with crimson embers and very little flame. Crudely carved talismans of a trident and a dolphin decorate the necks of those that are gathered, the images barely hidden by the clothing they wear. In the darkness of the cave, a pair of yellow eyes watches the gathered.
Loresong: As your voice touches upon the painting, a childlike voice rises to your ears. "Some few remember, some few gather in the darkness, their fear like mine and they plot against the false salvation. Their gods, those deemed false by the new god, will only help those that help themselves, and so they plot, but nowhere is safe from the eel-god and his followers for everywhere they watch and listen. Brother would betray brother, sister would give up sister, all will be made right, or wrong, in the eyes of his salvation." Slowly, the song fades.
a bloody cavern painting
Look:Tangled roots dangle from the rounded, dark brown cavern ceiling, their edges dripping azure water upon the uneven floor. Twisted forms, laced with sanguine-hued chalks, lay crumpled in deformed parodies of life, their toes licking at the flames of a small fire that grows as it consumes small talismans that resemble dolphins or tridents. Anguilliad eyes watch from the shadows and a low mist of indigo and silver spreads through the tunnel.
Loresong: As your voice touches upon the painting, a childlike voice rises to your ears. "Do you not see the betrayal that follows in his slithering form? Do you not see what becomes of defying him? Even those that are strong, those that meet in secret are discovered and his wrath is complete in its vengeance. But nothing turns the eye of a good to his people more readily than their sudden and abrupt silence." Slowly, the song fades.
a lightning and storm-struck painting
Look:Charcoal and grey chalk create a whirlwind of storms that are illuminated in sporadic spaces by the insidious flash of bright white and yellow lightning. Cliffs are portrayed as if tumbling into the sea, the larger rocks falling from the heights to land in the ground with frothing splashes. Figures move in the shadows, their bodies only barely illuminated the lightning, and sanguine rivers trail the rocks to darken the sea.
Loresong: As your voice touches upon the painting a child's nursery rhyme suddenly fills your ears.
Eel-god, Eel-good, Filled his children with slander. False gods, old gods, His children said without candor.
Eel-god, Eel-god, Some children were not believers False gods, old gods, Your children met the cleavers.
Eel-god, Eel-god, What did their children's silence attain? False gods, old gods, Gave you a grave in which to reign.
Slowly, the song fades.
a watery grave painting
Look:Indigo and silver chalk war with one another as the paint a watery tomb of lost buildings and broken shrines. Ghostly shapes vie for the light, their shapes leaving behind the broken vessels that were once their bodies. However, just as the shapes rise anguiliad shapes encircle them, drawing them towards the broken half-shadowed form of a half-eel, half-man shape that is bound to a small steam vent embedded in the ocean floor.
Loresong: As your voice touches upon the painting a childlike voice rises to your ears, "Oh, but he is a jealous beast and would not give up his worshippers so easily. He would use them, promise them salvation once more and steal them from their final death. No winter or silence could reach them where he hid them away, no decay could keep their souls from feeding him, and in those intolerable moments, he plotted anew." Slowly, the song fades.
a mist-shrouded island painting
Look:Silver and indigo mist swirls lazily around a small island that bobs in an azure sea, its shores rocky and dappled with the froth of new waves. Plantlife, new and young, rises in the distance, and a rugged mountain dotted with arcane buildings is painted in the shadows of charcoal and silver hues. An opening in the mist shows a small boat making its way towards the desolate place.
Loresong: As your voice touches upon the painting a childlike voice rises to your ears. "Time heals, time steals, time reveals… Feeding off of the souls of his lost, never releasing them to winter, silence, or the hiss, he slowly raised his paltry home from its depths and brought it back into the light. Greed was his friend and so too did it find a friend in Junderthal." Slowly, the song fades.
Quest Tie-in
Once the fishing village opened, talismans began appearing in games, under the sea, and in various other locations. These talismans could be blessed by either the Warden Shaemire, whose sole goal was to return the natural balance to both people and the land under Imaera's power, or to Father Thomebe and/or the Ezreshi Oleinne who wished to spread the grace of Ghezreshi into the hearts of all.
Once these were blessed, you could gift them to a villager and help influence them.
Did you wish to save the villager from the Corruption of Ghezresh? Warding them from his influence? Then hand them a talisman and they would slowly lose his influence until finally venturing off for the safety of the newly founded and sheltered Fishing Village.
Did you wish to teach the villager the Sanctuary and Blessings Ghezresh had to offer? Luring them into his influence? Then hand them a talisman and they would gain his influence until finally venturing off to his temple to pray.
Important Notes - Here Prime and Platinum diverged drastically. Prime, on the whole, sought to save as many souls as they could. Some small contingent worked to further Ghezreshes influence, but in the end, they managed to save thousands of villagers from him. Platinum, on the other hand, saved roughly a handful of villagers and turned the rest over to Ghezreshi.