Degnas Islas / Alchemical Apotheosis / 3

GRATHIR: conceiving is fun with classical physics with magic enhancements. When he or a skilled golemer is present, a single mass may take on many forms. Class and type of myrmidon. Myrmidon = golem - Animated mass in any shape that behaves under the control of the conjurer of “Grip” or creator of golem. As autonomous, semi-autonomous, or strictly servant. They do not have souls attached to them; they do not have thoughts of their own. Though Grathir tries for this by using the nervous system from plants, etc. But still no persona, no soul, self-awareness, sense of being. Endlessly experimenting for the perfect creature.

Grathir took a liking to the thinking of insects and so insects themselves, sharing the earth, and stealing nature”s secrets from them, and any animal he sees, to better make a better warrior, or defender, or striker, or pillager, or behemoth. Learning the strength of ants, then making sixteen foot long ants, and larger if needed. Large-scale golems can be summoned from the sides of cliffs, especially mud pools, and minerals magma fields, and mountains. From sand there is glass, and forest there are tree vines and ground.

Class is form. Type is material.

Crystal may be used as amplifier of signal, from stronger golemer “grip” Amulets or transparent crystals usually denote energy, and or magic, enrichment.

Metal “trim” and pattern ornamentation are usually spells spelled out in geometric loops, shapes, and intricate design. Type of “trim” pending enchantment,

Ex. Kettle bellies, which are common, are mortars thrown through upper left shoulder barrel, size variable troop, usually bipedal.

Ant forms vary from large to small, slender to heavy, ridden to warhorse.

Bees and dragon flies vary in size, much like ants.

Elephants and massive scorpions, Snakes a snake out of a sandstorm. Small goblin like humanoid troops. Giant golems, from 10 to 100 foot tall. And higher.

Theoretically, Grathir, in his mastery can animate a mountain to quake to pieces and run down itself while forming into the shape of his choosing sending mountains of myrmidon in minutes to his enemies.

*Sometimes just a jumble of boulders, or a massive ball rolled over hills.

**TACTICS USUALLY USED AGAINST EACH OTHER:

SRATHIR VS. Each can overwhelm him, so he finds ways for them to occupy each other. Vs. Dathir: is killed by Srathir later in story (around time Master Fa”deia is slain). Though the armies of death frequently siphon life from his alchemical landscapes they rarely overtake them, and hunt his followers whenever they leave their magic chemistry bastions with their chimerical beasts.

Vs. Grathir: his golem armies against his living landscapes, *some of the golems adapt to their environment as they fight, ex. taking on poison attributes of a jungle vine. Some environments absolve the golems and consume their minerals and magic, ex alchemical geysers, “gardens” or acidified swamplands.

GRATHIR VS. To overwhelm the undead, and absorb the greatly enchanted lands of Srathir. Vs. Dathir: myrmidons primarily occupied by the seas of undead to his east, are themselves an endless swarm. Vs. Srathir: overwhelming and snatching alchemical pools and lands, when he could divert resources from the swarms of undead forever marching into his lands.

DATHIR VS. He soars the skies wreaking havoc as a life ravaging raiding king, of packs of darkened wyverns and dread lands Vs. Srathir: personally destroys anything he comes into combat with, along with his undead drake riding dozen dragoons commanding legions of corpses. Only the realization that he can be overwhelmed and captured stops, which has happened in the past, keeps him from running across to slay the other two.

Vs. Grathir: his armies are most at war with the endless supply of myrmidon flowing from the earth and mountains.

GENERAL TERRAIN of DEGNAS Island.

. Red sand desert, with bees, beetle, and giant land worms diving in and out of them, peoples live in the caves and caverns bore by them. Has patches of oasis, some that are actual reveries.

. Open labyrinth valley, of glass like semi-opaque walls and spires, and small islands rising out ponds and pools of a haze that the walls are made of, they coalesce with temperature/pressure/wind, to varying thicknesses, densities and expanses.

. Lights reflection geodes, these are adjoined to the open labyrinth valley that collects and becomes to be at the center of a massive waning and waxing invisible citadel devoted to the creator deity. It is here that emanates immense amounts of diffracting light, and gravity wave volumes.

. Necrotic arcs, these range from wisps to whirlwinds, to massive long arc that stretch across the sky, they are the siphoning of exorbitant sums of energy being absorbed by the lands of Dathir replenishing themselves. Many beings of all sort from man, to beast collect around the crash points and engorge themselves like elephants around a watering hole. The land becomes negatively regenerated.

. Necrotic sinkholes, black holes to all energies, these are like soul and spiritual quicksand pits. Magical event horizons leaving spectral images and beings stripped, also used in many rituals for this reason. All landscapes are by Dathir”s dominion. These can be anywhere and sometimes appear after a necrotic arc depletes and the beast and man feast on each other.

. Jungle thick and top canopy, excessively dense jungle of varying degrees of tribal control. There are streams and rivers which these peoples collect around.

. Alchemical burnouts, craters and otherwise violent blemishes remaining after resembling varied types akin to nuclear fallout or chemical explosions. Often charred and truly lifeless or home to mutated peoples and beings using their alchemy to sustain their lives. Often heavily robed peoples. More resembling chemical or haz-mat workers then the others.

. Alchemical gardens overtaken, these are the alchemical and enlivened landscapes that have been taken, destroyed or repurposed by one of the other two, Grathir particularly seeks these, and benefits. Usually burnouts in process, sometimes aiding but usually complex and destructive Dathir attempts to utilize them.

. Ruins of golemer kingdom, a fallen golemer empire, and was the largest above ground kingdom, he relished it and its people. The fall of this land lead him to despise man as weaker than his golems, seeking to make them as strong, he pits them against the other to see which is stronger "flesh or stone" which is the moniker of his land.

. Ruins of alchemical kingdom in Grathirs wasteland, in Grathirs northern reaches is the destroyed alchemical kingdom which fell, and organization was lost, Srathir then seeing that men are lesser than the craft they practice, and their impurities of passion are what corrupt their potions. The two ruins were made a decade apart from the other. When Grathir”s kingdom of he, golemer and people fell, Grathir sought Srathirs life. After a decade straight of ceaseless waves, moving mountains and birthing the expanse of sands dominating much of Grathirs northern territory.

. Auexelain's altar-throne, this is a throne that sits nearly atop the alchemical cliffs, in a throne that is a massive rectangular seeming both tomb and temple to the six-armed seraphim centaur made of stone at its center.

. Scattered Meteor impact scar valleys, these are stretched through each of their territories supposedly from a series of meteor that struck, birthing the three Jinnn, but this is legend, and they are largely forgotten. Sought by Srathir, for reasons not explained or to explore. But for exotic resources, and as a symbolisms of forever never understanding owns own inception.

ALCHEMICAL land examples.

. Living Kraken rain forest, an enlivened alchemical garden with a small witch and an altar near its center. The whole is built and grown from and on a massive Kraken, whose tentacles have many types of symbiotic spores, mosses, trees and other venomous foliages. A prototype to the vale, is meant to be a forest no one ever passes through. Poisonous spores fill the air to a fog, resembling pollution speckling neon colors in sun rise and sunset.

. Gestation geysers, fields of geysers, colorful minerals of all sorts, beautiful sulfurs, malachites, irons, copper, amythest, very many and a prize that Grathir has sought since his knowing of it, conceiving it as the holy grail of, it is a natural, evolution enhanced landscape that a thin veneer of magically acidic waters a foot high at their highest, and mud plains, the ground usually 'digests' the on-comer. Millions of golems lost to all types of strategy to capture and hold this territory. This blends into the mangrove as a geyser or plume forest.

. Living mangrove, chemical plumes these are still ruled by alchemical peoples, though part of a pirates, and bastards section, home to many of the bandits and gypsies of Grathir, once was a chemical plume factory, burning and boiling as a single acting experiment, of thousands of 'experiments' are the trees of the mangrove. This was overtaken and is partially used by Grathir to enrich his own units. There are 'resistance of alchemists present and spread as peoples of Everglades.

. Acidified marshlands, acidified is an understatement, this was once a series of prominent mixing pools for Srathir”s purposes, producing potent potions and greatly enchanted elixiers. So beautiful and so great in their strength, the armies of both his brothers in confluence destroyed it, creating a curse by their combined might, plagued wet plains with pools waste of waste so virulent their vapors alone devour flesh faster than piranha. There are extreme forms of bacteria, of chimeric mutation, and living land that are quite.potent.

. Alchemical falls, waterfalls that flow off the cliffs supposedly from the bodies of large alchemical lakes with several fields of chimeric fauna surrounding them.

. Alchemical cliffs, northern range of varying altitude, mostly composed of a particularly durable light gray spectral granite.

. Alchemical cliff citadels, primary base Srathir and bastion to many of his art's followers. These are actually massive mechanisms pipes and tubes and chambers that are created perform the seven stages of alchemic transformation of a substance.

. Stilts of Srathir himself = the tapering off of one of his cliff ranges into shafts and stilts, each actually different ecosystems at different heights and temperatures, all like biomes, terrariums. GOLEM LANDS:

. Grottos, these like all his territory are for golem creation and perfecting properties, these are usually his form of mixing pools, often with diverted streams of magma running just beneath their surfaces. Most of the golemer”s structures look as though built by men made of stone, or even the most impermeable matter made as malleable as clay or fluid thrown about and dried to shape.

. Enriched Mudlands, a still surfaced extremely mineral rich flatland that reflect the sky above, of similar luster as wet paint, a great spawning point for Grathir”s operations. There are swathes of these spread through his land, with a great one cradling his main cavern system

. Tar fields, tars specially mixed, for different properties, many acting in ways enchantments would, this is because he imbued much of the dense fluids to produce specialty mass and skins.

. Specified Deserts, these are mixed in with his other grounds, and made from territory captured, he usually razzed the civilization captures and makes their bones part of the parching plains until they are inseparably one substance. These are his primary quarries of creation, capable of easily assuming golems from sand. Also sandcastles and glass structures are not rare, often intricate and beautiful.

. Crystal and gemstone caverns, these are vast and spread out no one location but what has been found throughout his lands and the lands of others, which he covets for their beauty to him, as a golemer he believes the other two can't possibly share. A source of gemstones, magical some being palatial, some honey holes and small as cubbies.

. Volcanic pools and underground veins these he cultivates and spreads to create metamorphic reactions, accelerating growth and greatly strengthening his metals, and forging capabilities. Many golems are born from this liquid flame and metal. Producers of much of the heat for forging the intricate loops of the Golemer enchanted or individualized golems, which the holder of the 'grip' usually creates to personalize the golem to their strengths and abilities.

. Mineral caverns, most of his lands have some sort of cavern system throughout, like massive ants his golems dig tunnels endlessly, though every ton they dig out becomes another golem digging. These ant colony like subterranean mega system make up the vast majority of his capital area and the societies under his dominion. Outdoor wells and towns are called 'tips' as in tips of the iceberg.

. Worm apple Salt Mines, these are highly prized by Srathir, and so Grathir relishes his possession of them, he experiments with their uses enriching his people”s population and his golems alike. It is the prime currency of his and Srathirs lands. These are of various color and property usually granting a greater 'intelligence' specialized ability or superior aptitude of the golem type used.

. Soot rivers, originally from massive underground fresh water wells, there are many disparate streams that come from one source appearing like strings loomed from a rope. Not all are soot but some are black as a sunless night, these are the rivers which carry much of his stones and peoples through his lands acting like a highway.

. Velatut valley, home to his greatest earthly cauldron, where he spends most of his days, a celestially aligned with the stars of constellations above, with plumes and grays seeming like a spread orchestra around the large cauldron center with miles of radius. This is a natural temple structure, he also made to his will, and is mimed as holy places and places of patronage of the goleming art.

DEATHLANDS

. Death River Nile, a massive slow moving river resembling the Amazon though similar to the Ganges to all the people of his land. Most parts are of various stages of the physical and spiritual death, one end being the start, the delta seen as the unraveling and releasing of the spirit. The death cults of the start of the falls are much older than those of the delta are much younger. Simultaneously represents to them the river of life and the river Styx.

. Necrocer sands, back and tonal looking sands that consume the energies of all who pass through them, with a hearty sect of nomads most attuned to the death sorcery of their master Dathir. The sands are clamshell silvers and iridescent sheens that is the floor atmosphere of siphoned life force.

. Wasted lands, lands wasted due to over pestilence in inter dwell knights ceaseless warring amongst themselves, home to much of their continued war. Of blighted fields, scorched by and colored by blood and gore stains stretch like massive inkblots of decay rot and death blotting even the most fleeting dream of hope from any with beating breast.

. Temples of the blessed damned, the temples of ritual sacrifice, and giving if to the death god. They worship and study the flows of energy and necrocers ways. The look and type of temple is defined by the type of dark arts ex voodoo, pagan dances, sacrifice for return.

. Lord death”s second throne, this is an altar and keep granted to the most powerful of dragoons and his, presently and for some time under the lineage of Aldir, whose sect like all persist t be the apex predator of the death lands. Of metal spikes and spires with wicked looking crystal base.

. Weslinder ridges, most wyvern nests, these are dark and often metallic looking. There”s are bunches of nests with the wyverns hunting men and beasts of all sorts, and are frequently breaking boulders of the cliffs in their aerial fighting to the death. The peoples who love below are treated as food and fodder, no matter how strong they may be. They take great honor in slaying a wyvern and the breeders take great honor in having their wyverns well fed on the fodder, and unbeaten by their greatest heroes.

. Blighted lands, common term for the whole o his land, and the damned kingdom. These range from normal- seeming landscapes with aspects of energy transfer and convergence. Usually fields open plains and deathly trees and wildlife.

. Tundra lands, devoid of any sorts of life but the most extreme, the most aggressive of the dwell knights, a breeding ground for their hunters and berserkers and death giants, which held sway before their numbers dwindle as they destroyed mountains of myrmidons they fell to an alchemical onslaught long ago. There is so little life it appears to have permafrost, like everything is petrified and frozen over.

. Sahara, the northern lands alchemically scorched by Srathir and loyalists to slow him and empower Grathir to make golems of the land, this made this land a hotbed for war between the two, while also guarding the northern land vital to Srathir. There are many skeletal remains that the death legions have taken to use to stem the golemers leading to a century-long standstill with great entrenchment.

DEGNAS CHARACTERS LIST:

VERAL- protagonist, sorcerer”s apprentice, alchemist, lost or wayward learner. ELTREA- secondary protagonist, golemer bandit. Puppeteer of matter, rambunctious gypsy. RIHILJARADEN- secondary protagonist, dwell knight becomes snide enchantment enslaved servant to Veral.

Three Jinnns

SRATHIR- Jinnn of ALCHEMY, magic bio-chemical molecular manipulation of natural processes, gene splicing, modify malleable matter, enchant substances.

DATHIR- Jinnn of NECROMANCY, energies flowing, life and death.

GRATHIR- Jinnn of GOLEMING, manifesting living form from inanimate life.

AUEXELIAN- a large six-winged, six armed stone seraphim centaur that has sat atop a cliff face for as long as they know. Sits in a temple, in the northeast mountain ranged overlooking the whole of the island.

MASTER FA”DEIA- the leader of an anarchistic Romanticists alchemical Zen clan under the patronage of Srathir and guarding a highly prized grotto terraced valley of alchemical pools resembling rice patties. Very power captured, by, unknown alive until later, undead, represents atonement with the father for Veral. He is the sorcerer master swept away leaving Veral seeking and superstitiously seeing synchronicity as the eternal wellsprings” symbolic supposition of his circumstance as his new master.

SPECIAL GROUPS:

The many alchemical creations of SRATHIR, and his loyalists. Often as massive living landscapes, per Srathir and those lesser made by those loyal, and learned in his form of bio-alchemy. These include the land Kraken, living cliffs, and recently cognizant forests and swamps, rice paddies, geysers living as stomachs etc, the land is his lab, with his a bit of his touch. A masterful tactician he wishes to only be left to his insatiable intellectual appetite fed by an illimitable imagination for magical chemistry he makes all matter malleable. Primarily stationary and defensive against GRATHIR and DATHIR at different intervals, with bio- alchemical living landscapes as main defense, and beastly chimeras of various forms fall before the fewer though fearless humans beside them.

The twelve knights of deaths master DATHIR, they fly mostly on small to midsized dragons, the greatest knights he has defeated, establishing what he conquers into a battle of the fittest killing machines, all of which practice more necromancy and dark forms of thought then the light they also possess. That is a limit he places on them. Also armies of undead knights each of the twelve is head of an order. When they die, the whole order must survive a day against all others. The main aggressor and always at all out war with GRATHIR fields of warriors shaped from shattered mountains, he also assaults the alchemical territories to keep them on their toes.

Being the Primary means for GRATHIR, there are mountains worth of Golems of various sizes sorts functions and forays into creating subservient creatures of his own from any substance he sees, feels. Most for

war, as with cannon and mortar pot belly, or spider-legged, or wild elephants, or flying, many made by this marvelous sculptor of all the worlds substances. Always at haunted by the blades and blackened blemishes of Dathir”s undead droves. He prizes Srathir”s alchemical landscapes for their physical qualities they could grant to his own creations. He is strengthened when he captures any sort of them.

Human-ish groups:

ALCHEMICAL KINGDOMS,(Srathir),(some of which are Veral's tribe) including disparate and warring jungle tribes, structures societies with intellectual academies, wayward wonderers, wizards of sorts. Areas generally more civilized do to less long-term incursions due to their master”s ingenuity, which they imitate with some success. Living in their adapted environments by baths and beaker, reflections and magic-induced scientific theory. Northwest Territories, with tribe and smaller smeared, across the biomes of the Islas. They are usually very potent compared to their adversaries, though fewer, range from advanced to inept though powerful. They would literally rather read a book, deciphering moss, boiling something and hanging the composition of matter, but can easily be casually devastating in combat.

KEEPERS OF THE CORPSE FORTRESSES,(Dathir) a dark horrid land where many don”t know each flesh but the life force of others to persist, other would as happily cease and exist then as specters still present. Survival of the fittest slayer of others, with knightly order occult sects and undead dragons breeding in pestilence and plague. Lead by he and twelve undead dragoons, each king or queen of death before being granted everlasting life at his side. Southeast is the dark dominion he dominates with the grip of death that”s forever reaching further inland. There are small and large sections of island engorged by dark energies as thousand foot arching vortexes pouring energies into his damnation of undead loyalty.

MYRMIDON MASTERS OF MARSHES AND MOUNTAIN,(Grathir)the humans under his control, or allegiance, are either beaten into it long ago or taken to it as a defense, he used to care very little about the kingdoms, and people who do learn, and pledge themselves to him. But he has come to see them as useful admirers aiding him in his own Goleming endeavors. Their societies are bolstered by golems, as workers, warriors, though none are aware. All are puppets, created various earthly to ethereal materials. They all aid Grathir in trying to make a flame golem that is an eternally cognizant individual from an inanimate object. The central to south-west is where the peoples usually ride, manipulate and form the world as willed into their own machinations.

CHARACTER DYNAMICS of the main three.

Interactions: VERAL: center, LEADER, the naive though idealistic glue that binds them, the two often are bouncing off him, and explaining to him as a form of exposition. He is empathetic to both, though for different reason, Rijil, he wishes to be a good master, thinking he will attain ability to free him, or take on good journey. She out of responsibility for her being left behind by her caravan and joining him on his own adventure.

ELTREA: Likes Veral sense of wonder and naive optimism, she is a pessimist, always bickering with RIJIL, for his attitude toward them both. Little more worldly west, though bandit, lows. Streetwise and crafty. Seems to dislike Rijil, but actually comes to have empathy for his shackled lot in life. She is pessimistic seeming, but even so often bubbly and strident against adversaries.

RIJIL: often bickers with Eltrea, snide and condescending to VERAL, who he is in reluctant servitude to. Obviously the most skilled in combat of them. Often angered, wrathful, on edge. Battle-hardened, battle wise