By Peloquin (ka.vanadis@karlskrona.mail.telia.com)
The young Verbena mage-in-training looked at his master, the tall woman standing next to him all dressed in red and greens. "Yes. Watch him closely."
The boy (whose name was Robert) looked again upon the target of their curiosity. "I don't see anything special about him. Apart from that ridiculous hat he's wearing. Is he a hedge-magi?"
The elder mage frowned at her pupil. "No. You are not watching properly. Use the other sight. The same sight you use when you attempt to divine someones aura, or manner of being. You'll see he's a lot more interesting than a lowly hedge magician."
Again he viewed the old man in the pointy hat. But this time he used his second sight, gripping tight the ceremonial knife in his pocket, mumbling in Latin. And all of a sudden he saw the man's Avatar, a huge shining being, almost human in appearance, with a wide billowing cloak in some strange, impossible color, and a great white beard. It turned to look at him. And the man followed its example.
"Oh. Oh wow. He's an Awakened! But...I ain't never seen an Avatar like that! What..."
His master motioned him to be silent, and then shouted to the man below. "Ho there, master Gridlome!"
The man grinned at the sound of her voice and began speaking in some strange language, as he did, strange runic words began appearing in mid-air, and all of a sudden he began floating upwards toward them, without any visible means of support. He landed smoothly in front of them, bowed to the master and nodded towards the boy. "Greetings, Esmerelda you old witch. Sliced your arm lately?"
The boy moved to his master's defense, and began to say something scalding, but the elder mage just smiled and replied with a "No more than usual, you fat little twit, and you? Meddled with things mankind ought not to know about?"
The old man (who did indeed have a small gut) laughed and slapped his friend in the back (causing her to stumble forwards a step) and then sat down on a large travelling trunk that...well, it hadn't been there when they arrived. "Naah. I had a visit from some minor demon the other night, but it sure regrets messing with me now...so, I see you have a new apprentice?"
She poked him in the ribs. "Yeah. He's a bit daft, but he'll do."
"Aye. I had an apprentice a few years ago; he still visits me now and then. You know what he did once? He actually managed to set a whole building on fire just because he wanted to light a cigarette. I gave him a thumping he didn't forget, and then I put him on doing chores a whole year..." The old man chortled, and then he turned to the young mage next to them. "Well, me lad, have ye managed to light a candle yet?"
"Um, well, no, I'm not into that, um, well..."
"Hah, he acts just like me when I was his age! Of course, I was a whole lot more spotty then...and I stuttered..." The old man looked at his watch. "Oh, bugger, I gotta go, well, I'll see you some other time, or some other life, well, so long, and remember, reality is never what you think it is...come on, Luggage, let's go." The trunk suddenly extended hundreds of small, pink human legs, turned about and followed the old man out of the church ruins. They could hear him still, telling off the little trunk in harsh words. "Look, I need my grimoire, and if you keep this up I'll have to chop you into firewood, now give me the bloody book! Give it here! Don't you stick your tongue out at me, you mutated travel accessory! Give it to me...."
She shook her head at him as he faded away in the distance. "Ah, well, that's that..."
"Who was that?"
"Hmmm? Oh, that was one of my old teachers."
"But...was he Verbena? I mean, he couldn't be, not with all that vulgar magick?"
"No, he wasn't Verbena, lad, he was an Octarine mage."
"A what?"
"Octarine. They're an order of Awakened far older than most of the Traditions. They might even be older than ours."
"What's an Octarine?"
"Octarine is a color. That color you saw with your othersight? It's the eight color of the spectrum, only Awakened can see it. Basically it's the color of Quintessence."
"Wow."
"I guess you could say that. Come on, the moon's up soon, we'd better get ready for our ritual..."
The IBOL is one of the oldest (and one of the weirdest) orders of True Mages in existance. They suffer the great misfortune of being forced to use more actual Quintessence than other mages, and the problem of not being able to perform magicks without their Foci.
But.
They have no problems with Paradox Spirits. They can perform lesser vulgar magicks in full view. And they have knowledge about the Far Umbral Realms that the Traditional Magi would kill to obtain.
The first encounters with these Magi came when a young Dreamspeaker named Thomas Rijnswand happened upon a Realm he had never before heard of.
It was, basically, a gigantic turtle, swimming through the Deep Umbra with four colossal elephants on its back, which in turn carried a ten thousand miles wide flat world.
The Discworld.
In this world, which he first believed empty, he found to his amazement, not only humans, but all manners of mythical creatures, and most amazing of all, twisted versions of Awakened beings. And True Magi.
The Magi greeted Thomas, invited him in for tea and scones, and then proceeded to tell him some of the Realm he had come upon. According to them, they were the ancestors of True Magi and humans who had left the Tellurian long ago, for reasons they did not remember any longer. In fact, most of them were trying to return to our world, not an easy task when one does not remember how one came to the Realm to begin with. But Thomas showed them how he had done it, and they eagerly learned from him, and in turn teaching him several rotes and spells of magic of that Realm.
And when he went back, some of them went with him, to revisit the Tellurian they left behind so many millennia ago.
Some of them stayed.
UU has a motto: "Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides." ("Now you see it, now you don't.)
Exactly.
Ewwww.
The Things basically only have these powers, Airt Sense, Possess, and an incredible ability to absorb all magick used against them. No effects work. The thing is, that massive use of Magick and Quintessence attracts these Things like flies to a sugar bowl, and if you're not careful, they take over your body, leave your soul in the Dungeon Dimensions and wreak havoc on the world.
And if you're extremely careless, they can enter our world, with the images foremost in the minds within a 20-mile radius. (What would happen if they appeared in a movie theatre showing the Alien-movies? Exactly. "The horror, the horror!") Basically, when they start appearing in the Deep Umbra close to where you are in the Tellurian or Umbra, (Paradox 5 and above is needed) the ST may tell you that you hear a chittering, metallic noise, like huge insects whispering and chuckling. If you keep away from using Magick for the next two or three rounds, you lose both all your Paradox and the Things.
Also, the wizards must use their staffs or Languages as their foci. No exceptions; to go beyond it you need Arete 7 or over.
Akashic Brotherhood: The sound of one hand clapping is "whiff."
"I have met these particular Awakened, and they have no discipline."
Celestial Chorus: The One? Heh, I know a number of gods, and they love it when people worship them as blindly as these do.
"They have no respect for the One."
Cult of Ecstasy: Alcohol? Why not!
"Coool, man, like, they're like fat Gandalfs...
" Dreamspeakers: Good day, mate, throw another shrimp on the barby?
"Fools."
Euthanatos: Really, that attitude is so outdated...
"I still have found no use for these."
Hollow Ones: I never could stomach that gothic look...
"Someone give these old codgers a history book, man..."
Order of Hermes:"They're just jealous that we don't get Paradox."
"@£$#%!!!"
Sons of Ether: I never could stomach alchemists.
"I never could stomach wizards."
Verbena: I have absolutely nothing against witches, honestly.
"Bloody wizards, always meddling in things they shouldn't be doing."
Virtual Adepts: What's a 'computer'?
"Booooring..."
'What does that mean?'
'It means I'm buggered if I know.'"
A vampire stalks a lonely nightwanderer. But as he is about to bite the poor soul, he feels a hand on his shoulder, and an authoritative voice saying: "What's all this then, practicin' vampirism on an open street, right, it's off to the slammer with you, matey!"
No, he hasn't been caught by Hunters. The vampire lives in a city called Ankh-Morpork, and the authoritative voice comes from Captain Carrot of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. (Their motto is "Fabricati diem, pvnc!"...recognize it? Translate it into English.) The world is called the Discworld, and it is one of the most odd worlds in the multiverse, being, well, flat, standing on top of four giant elephants, (named Berilia, T'Phon, Jerakeen and Tubul) who in turn stand on top of a gigantic starturtle named Great A'Tuin. Don't ask me what the turtle stands on. All this just proves that even the Creator eventually would grow tired of all these rotational axles, magnetic fields, poles and evolution crap and go crazy a little once in a while.
In any case, the Discworld is flat. And round. Like a big pizza. (In fact, according to several Discworldian cults the Creator based the design on a pizza, and they also have the pizza in question miraculously preserved at a museum in the lost city of Ee, the pizza made by the Klatchian mystic Ronron "Revelation Joe" Shuwadhi, who claimed to have been given the recipe in a dream by the Creator himself. The pizza itself is a sad little thing with pepperoni and a few black olives.) There are four general directions, like on Earth, but with Hubwards as North, Rimwards as South, Turnwise as West and Counterturnwise as East. There are also eight seasons and 800 days in a Discworld year, at least that's what the philosophers and mathematicians have calculated, so when all the ordinary people still use a calendar of four seasons a year and 400 days a year, they're not really doing that, because it shouldn't be like that. They think.
Okay, as some may have noticed there is a recurring theme here. Eight. Eight is a powerful number on the Discworld; wizards never use the word, instead preferring to call it "the number after seven" or "7a". Eight is the number of colours of the Discworld, the ordinary seven of the rainbow, and then there is the eighth colour, Octarine, which can only be seen by those of the supernatural kind. It's a sort of disappointing fluorescent greenish-yellow-purple. Eight is also the number of sons you have to be the eighth son of to be a wizard, this is just the way it is. By the way, wizards are celibate. Because if a wizard has an eighth son, he becomes a sorcerer, and that's something noone wants. Last time there was a sourcerer in the Discworld, the Apocralypse almost occurred. No, not the Apocalypse, but the Apocryphical Apocalypse, i.e, the Apocralypse. Get it? Ah, well, it's not a very good joke anyway...
The Discworld is, as said before, flat. There, now we've come to terms with that, no, they don't drop into space due to lack of gravity, nor does there live people on the underside of the Disc. It is 10, 000 miles across, and 30 000 miles around. The fish and all the little plankton are kept from falling over the edge by a little (or rather, BIG) something known as the Circumfence, and the water itself falls over the edge of the world in what is called the Rimfall, why the water doesn't dry up, well, don't ask me, it just doesn't. There are four great continents on the Discworld: the Hub continent, the continent of Klatch, the Counterweight continent and the continent of Xxxx, where the people all wear big hats with corks hanging from the sides and eats prawns and calls each other "mate" all the time. The Hub Continent is the center continent, a slightly irregular such, which goes from the Circle Sea in the Rimwards to the Hublands in the Hubwards. The Circle sea is sort of their version of the Mediterranean, where citystates lie sprawling (like fat toads) all around it. In the middle of this continent, and of the Discworld, is the Hublands, and in the center of these are the Ramtops, crowned by the ten miles high mountainspire of Cori Celesti, home of the gods, where the great celestial city of Dunmanifestin squats on top. Klatch is the desert and jungle continent, where the tiny kingdom of Djelibeybi are still paying off the pyramids, where the Klatchian Foreign Legion is resided, (noone knows exactly where, because since everyone goes there to forget, noone can remember where it is) and the Ephebians wage eternal war against the Tsorteans. (Exchange Ephebe for Greece and Tsort for Troja) The Counterweight continent is...well, people there have invented gunpowder, they use silk, they got waterbuffaloes, rice, samurai's, rice, ninja, mad emperors, rice, lots and lots of gold, rice, and they all believe in ghosts. You take a guess what continent it's based on. Thw continent of Xxxx is barely explored yet, but they do have these huge brownish-red rats that bounce around, and the (ab)original natives smile a lot, especially when the explorers try to shoo away the big rats with a stick that later turns out to be a very poisonous snake...
The Discworld was created late on a Sunday afternoon by one of the Creators of the Multiverse, who did it by contract of the gods, and life later appeared as the result of a carelessly thrown away egg-and-cress sandwich. A few million years later the humans had evolved quite a lot since last, and the then numerous Sorcerers started arguing about who was the most powerful one. And, as it always happen if Sorcerers argue, the rest of the world got in the way. Thus, the Mage Wars. A few hundred years of fear and not knowing what shape one would wake up in in the morning later, the last Sorcerer left the Discworld and magick was reduced to wizard magic, giving everyone reason to let out a collective sigh of relief.
But still there are many areas of the Discworld where High Magick is infused in the air, water and ground, sort of like test areas for nuclear bombs, and where you would do best if you ran through as quickly as possible, while you still possess legs to run with... Another few millennia passed, and the states of Omnia, Sto Helit, Sto Lat, Quirm, Ephebe, Tsort and Ankh-Morpork arose, sort of like warts on an otherwise spotless face.
The biggest and most powerful state is Ankh-Morpork, a city that can be described as a sort of merging of Renaissance Venice, 16th-18th century London and the ancient Rome. The city has survived many disasters, earthquakes, great fires and invasions, sort of like that really annoying song you can't get out of your head for days...they even have a sign by the open gates that says:"Welcomme toe Ankh-Morporke, thank you for notte invading our citie."
Omnia is a sort of version of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Israel and 15th century Spain, ("Nobody expects the Omnian Inquisiton!") at least up until the last Omnian Church Cenobiarch (Pope), Brutha the Chosen One, who managed to render the more violent ways of the church harmless, and these days they are sort of like a whole country of Jehovah's Witnesses....(Even worse than Inquisition!)
Sto Helit and Sto Lat are the Discworld equivalents of medieval citystates in general, always trying hard not to get noticed by anyone with an army and some time over...
Quirm is a version of Paris, although with the nightlife of a Welsh sheepfarm on a rainy September Tuesday...practically none. They make good cheese, though.
All in all, the city of Ankh-Morpork is the most interesting of these, with the most...civilized demeanor...you know, muggings, slum, assassins, organized crime, drugdealers, all those niceties of modern society...
The Counterweight Continent is basically a merging of Dynastean China and feudal Japan, although the emperor is currently a Hublandish barbarian named Cohen...who took over the country with five other barbarians, all of them, him included, past their eighties. One of them even sat in a wheelchair all the time, with his sword under the blanket.
The Klatchian continent is back to back with the Hubwards continent, sort of like the entire African continent, with all the stuff from our Africa, pharaohs, desert nomads in big sheets, camels, oil, jungles, elephants, even a few lost kingdoms and lost dinosaurlands, with a few amazon-countries tossed in for spice. This is where Howondaland Smith, great adventurer and graverobber with a whip and hat, usually has all his adventures.
Xxxx is Australia, if you hadn't guessed that already. (Duh!)
This city is a...horrible city, actually. The river Ankh is so polluted that if the local organized crime wants to drown someone, they have to stomp on him to get him to sink. The local universities don't have rowingteams, they have running teams, who run over the river in extra solid boots, which melts into sludge after a few steps. Th city is ruled by the One Man, One Vote system, that is, the Patrician is the man, he has the vote. The current Patrician is a Lord Havelock Vetinari, a man once described to look like a carnivorous flamingo. He wears black. Not handsome, silk black, no, he wears the kind of plain cotton black of those who don't want to be bothered with what to wear each day. He has never lost his nerve, and in fact, is probably the best ruler the city has had for centuries. He almost never does any unnecessary executions or torturings, apart from his quite odd dislike of mimes and street performers, whom he hangs upsidedown in a dungeon with a sign, turned so the miscreant can see what it says, saying:"LEARN THE WORDS!"
The City maintenance is divided into lots and lots of Guilds, the basic Thieves and Beggars Guild, who, are so organized that they work with the City Watch from time to time, the Musicians Guild, the Alchemists Guild, the Gamblers Guild, the Clown Guild and the Assassins Guild. There are quite a lot of other guilds, but they just keep disappearing and reappearing so fast that it isn't worth the effort to try to catalogue them.
Law-enforcement is divided equally between the Thieves Guild and the City Watch, and the Assassins Guild keeps the noble court at a reasonable level...
Also in Ankh-Morpork is Unseen University, home of all wizardry on the Disc.
Vampires are more accepted, as they hardly ever drink human blood, but instead tend to work at kosher butchers, slaughterhouses and such. Werewolves are commonly known, and since there is no Wyrm to battle on the Disc, they can spend more time raiding chicken coops, sheep-herds and other proprietors of meat...
Trolls, Dwarves, Goblins, most of the Fae can be translated into the Disc, but they need no human sides, and there is no such things as Banality. And there are no Sidhe. They were trapped in stonecircles millennia ago, mostly due to their way of stealing children, burning down houses with the inhabitants still in it, and in general being cruel. So the faerie can in general get on with their lives. But they still have an aversion to cold iron. Except for the Dwarves. And the Trolls are not the noble blue horned dudes of our world, but instead tend to be huge lumps of walking rock, more like the Nunnehi Rockgiants. They are also dumber than a Pauly Shore movie. They can barely count to four, ("Errr, one...two....many...lots!") and in fact one of them is famous among them for his ability to count to more than several thousand. Even if it's just in the way of:"One-er, two-ooo, three, four-er, five, six, seven, eights, niner, ten..."
Mages, yes, there are mages, although on the Disc they are known as witches and wizards. They don't have to worry about Paradox, as the Discworld is one big Paradox itself, but instead, if they use too much magic at once, they might attract attention from the Things in the Dungeon Dimensions, who always look for a way into our dimension...