Sybarith

Nashdu is a Merfolk Observer, looking a lot like the iconic Skywatcher Adept merfolk. Full Background: Found by an expedition in search of artifacts when he was just a baby, abandoned near the Enatu Temple ruins before the first Enatu Golems awakened, Nashdu was taken into custody by a Merfolk Wayfinder known as Raya, who raised him in multiple places. Most of the time in Portage, with the help of the person closest to her, Piqua, one of the leaders of the Tazeem Expeditionary House. Then at times also in her underwater community near Magosi, the Waterveil , or on the go, while participating in expeditions. "You want to go to Ruins of Yste

Only the eerie rhythmical swing of the blades of a prehistoric air-duct fan, and a distant humming sound filled the extremely dry air of that deep place. Nowhere near the buzzing surface or the terrible spires kilometres above, "The Grove" as it was called, wasn't even technically a part of Commorragh. It was more of an extension of the webway in a direction that could have been defined "south" only metaphorically-speaking, given the non-euclidean geometry of the webway. If the portion of the web that included vast Comorragh had something like deep serpentine viscera, "The Grove" would be close to the ending sphincter. Few kilometers farthe

A sudden blinding light wakes him up. The sun was already quite high when it could reach inside the crevice he was using as a refuge. All is white. Very long moments pass in which he really can't see anything but white. The sound of the near waves and the pebbles rolling over each other on the shore are everything his senses can discern. After some time he starts to feel some wind too, an irregular breeze. He stays there immobile, not a thought in his head. He's probably still too tired and battered even to think, an after-battle state he knows quite well. Another moment of sleepiness caught him even if the light could not be blocked by his c

He was now staring at the bottom, with its nearly hypnotic patterns made up by broken hedrons, gigantic coral formations and brightly colored algae and sponges. There was surely some venomous thing every other two square feet, or so he thought. All of this was invisible to even most of the sea creatures that lived there, because the night hosted only a very thin crescent and many voluminous clouds, with the stars coming out at intervals. The warrior could see this well only because he was not human, not anymore at least. His shadow-infused eyes were perhaps even more at ease in the darkness than in the light. He was estimating that some thre

The lush off-shore forest was of a type he hardly knew. He had noticed before that Halimar's coasts were more often than not home to this strange type of forest-reefs, but he had not been inside one yet. His camouflaging skills did not depend very much on terrain as long as it was open and covering, so he wasn't having many problems with that. The challenge was movement through the typical calcite beehive-like structure intertwined with the vegetation. The structure protruded from the vegetation in random and seldom visible spots, and to land a feet next to one of those thin spines meant a bad ankle-cut on the next step taken. The flowers hi

The small company of sell-swords, and academy-banned battlemages was preparing for the ship to drop the anchor at that beautiful nameless island ahead. The coast was visible on half the horizon, and distant floating hedrons dotted the sky, so it was a particularly clear and sunny day in that rather centric region of the Halimar, the inner sea. Vurokslaw, or Vurokk as everyone there knew his name to be, had been even more quiet than usual during this last portion of the trip. The only merfolk of that trader's guard was staring directly at him, as he often did, looking entranced, all curled up in a corner with his big young eyes "blinking side

The union of two different worlds led to my presence in this earth, a blessed union that led to a cursed divide inside my soul. I still can't tell which bloodline in my lineage led me to condemn my life to the bleak condition it now struggles through. The passionate dedication with which I consecrated my life to knight-ship was probably human, the deity I chose to be a paladin of was definitely elven. The love for magic was then both born of my elven blood and of direct inspiration from my faith. But the love for power which led me to approach the arcane arts from such an easy way as I came to, such a wrong way... It was definitely human.

Chill! The chill... Why is it following me? Chill doesn't follow... Chill doesn't move at all! And I feel watched, I can't run like this, I'm always falling, and... What is this?? This wobbling thing is all over here, I've seen it in the city, it was... It was all over the palace of my... Oh no!! All this is coming to get me, what should I do, where should I go?? Was it really all... ALL THE REALM?? But... Why..? WHY MY MOTHER AND FATHER, WHY!!? I can't... I must... Reach my sister... She was here with me, she ran farther... "SIIISS!!" Why did she go far alone... Please Corellon help us... I don't know what to- Oh no! Again I feel- I can't &#

The Beast was coming towards him. The two could see everything, every bit of horror, from any angle; the darkness they emanated was not an obstacle for any of them. The slightly different hauntings of the wild merged, and the two originators quickly found themselves immersed in that atmosphere of dual madness, circling around each other, the trees twisting in pain, animals crying and running away in every direction, while the two sources of blackness pierced the damp air with their eldritch gazes. My shivers were beyond any conceivable control, like if they were the first dictated by true dread; or the ones before the first, the progenitors

There he was. Or maybe there. Here. But always in many places at once. Body, soul, mind, animus... All scattered in different proportions in various places, objects... living things. Now he was slowly crawling out of this incredible state of being. Shadows moved unnaturally towards a clear spot in the dense undergrowth. The branches, twisted by his presence inside them, flickered through various movements along with the shadows. Drops appeared on what it seemed an old, dead tree trunk covered by fungi, there in the clear spot, as if the dew of the early morning had formed all in a very short time, and all there.   A thick, at times col