The witch doctor was oftentimes reluctant to leave the breathing, buzzing closeness of the swamp. Certainly there was nothing that she, the chosen of Vespera, could hope to learn from the queer folk that clambered about like ants in the stone tower to the west, and they seemed reluctant at best to set foot in the shadowed holiness of Tinea.
Good.
It belonged to the Ilati. The Ilati would keep it.
Now, though, the air was thick with scheming whispers that fluttered like birds from all corners of Novus, and the sun rose before a blood-red sky each morning, heralding war. She had read the portents as plainly as Turhan. However fervently they isolated themselves, the meddling of outsiders would one day reach them. She did not lust after getting involved, but she would sacrifice every outsider to the appeasement of Vespera before she let their petty politics destroy her people.
The outsiders had gathered in the open fields. She hobbled toward them, head low, vertebrae bristling in her coarse mane like the hackles of an otherworldly dog, and her skull-shrouded head swayed side to side, the ensemble clacking against itself in the clear evening air. Between the bloody paint, the rattling of her bones, and the subtle rasping of each breath, she seemed more predator than prey, an old throwback to times when hunters did not bother to skulk in shadows. Back then, their supremacy was utterly assured.
She singled out a stranger that seemed particularly gaudy with his bright scales and broad antlers, perusing a book by firelight. The orange glow cast her strange silhouette in even deeper shadow, painting a demon into the contours of her toothy visage.
"Dis night red moon risin', swewll," the witch doctor growled, a greeting as dark and portentous as the whispers heard 'round the fen.
The Witch Doctor
The first records of our young world were those of tears and blood;
its last records will be those of tears and blood also.
Good.
It belonged to the Ilati. The Ilati would keep it.
Now, though, the air was thick with scheming whispers that fluttered like birds from all corners of Novus, and the sun rose before a blood-red sky each morning, heralding war. She had read the portents as plainly as Turhan. However fervently they isolated themselves, the meddling of outsiders would one day reach them. She did not lust after getting involved, but she would sacrifice every outsider to the appeasement of Vespera before she let their petty politics destroy her people.
The outsiders had gathered in the open fields. She hobbled toward them, head low, vertebrae bristling in her coarse mane like the hackles of an otherworldly dog, and her skull-shrouded head swayed side to side, the ensemble clacking against itself in the clear evening air. Between the bloody paint, the rattling of her bones, and the subtle rasping of each breath, she seemed more predator than prey, an old throwback to times when hunters did not bother to skulk in shadows. Back then, their supremacy was utterly assured.
She singled out a stranger that seemed particularly gaudy with his bright scales and broad antlers, perusing a book by firelight. The orange glow cast her strange silhouette in even deeper shadow, painting a demon into the contours of her toothy visage.
"Dis night red moon risin', swewll," the witch doctor growled, a greeting as dark and portentous as the whispers heard 'round the fen.
The Witch Doctor
The first records of our young world were those of tears and blood;
its last records will be those of tears and blood also.
@Relic
swewll - secwepemc word for 'fish', so used for Relic's scaly skin.
