Quote:The God Sethran is a being who will help all who ask, and he will shelter the young and innocent without question. From this church great good is born, and like all shadows born from the light darkness grows here as well. Due to this we must be on guard and accept the darkness we hold, lest we fall to it. -Book of Sethran chapter 6.3.2The High Church of Sethran was a tall, gothic building the stood in the center of the city of Rethys- or rather, this church was also the city of Rethys. The High Church was a tall building that acted similar to a town hall and was where the Holy Knights and High Priests resided, this was the holy capital for all who worshiped Sethran, the god who protected the innocent. The surrounding town was made into three layers, the Inner most layer being where the church was. The middle layer was where a majority of the residents and shops were, and the outermost layer of the city was where the farms resided. Rethys was the holy capital, and as such nobody besides aspiring priests were allowed past the middle layer as the High Church was something only the few chosen priests could ever step into. The town was built in a victorian era fashion, with stone buildings and iron gates to close the streets in case of war- not only was the city a place holy worship, it was a fortress that was almost impenetrable to outside forces. Furthermore the walls that protected the each layer were carved with holy runes to prevent evil spirits from entering the city, everything was built as a part of the High Church in this unique city, and the layers worked as a maze to protect the High Church in the center of the city. In the Inner circle there was an orphanage that was where all who were saved from various demons and cults were sent to reside- this orphanage was closest to the heart of the city, and many of those inside would grow into knights and priests themselves- it wouldn¡¯t be too far fetched to say that this place was the home of many legends to be. It was also in this place that a baby was sent ten years ago, this baby had gone through various tests to see if it was safe and unaffected by demonic taint, and after being found that there was nothing to worry about it was sent to the orphanage to live in until it would have grown to be someone capable of protecting themselves and deciding their own future. In this orphanage there was a large courtyard where a large group of children were able to be seen. There were a little over a hundred children at most, and they were divided into 3 groups, each holding various ages inside of them. The youngest group was of ages ranging from 5-9, the middle group was full of ages ranging from 10-14, and the oldest group was full of young adults between 15-18 years old. All these children stood in front of three people, three men to accurate. Each of the men held a weapon of some type and in turn would order the children to do various exercises. In the middle group of children there was a boy who stood resolute as he waited for his groups instructor to speak, he was only ten years of age and he had pitch black hair, his stormy grey eyes shone with a tinge of red in them as he looked around, his simple white tunic and pants fluttered in the wind and sweat rested on his brow. The instructors nodded to each other and then went to their respective groups having finished the warm ups, and one of the men walked to the group where this boy resided. The Instructor was a tall burly man who¡¯s arms were covered in thick scars, he wore a tight fitting shirt and baggy pants as he looked at the crowd of children in front of him as they stood at attention. With a grin he spoke loudly to his group, ¡°ALRIGHT! Today I want you guys to do 200 push ups and jog 3 laps around the inner circle of the High Church. I¡¯m sure that isn¡¯t something too bad for all of you~¡± With a coy smile he listened to the groans of the children and watched as they started their exercises with despair filled eyes. After a two hours there was only one boy left doing push ups, he was the 10 year old who had black hair and grey eyes. He worked as hard as he could, but in truth he was pathetically weak- not that he didn¡¯t try to change that. This boy would always complete whatever unreasonable task that was assigned due to him being slower then the others to complete his exercises, and even though he did grow stronger, he grew so slowly that one couldn¡¯t tell he had changed at all. Currently this boy was on his 100th push up, he was wearing a drenched white tunic and long white pants as the dress code of the High Church demanded for the orphans in its care. However instead of any will to give up, this boy had a fire in his eyes, he was determined to become stronger, he wanted to be strong enough that nobody would be able to look down on him. However the odds were stacked against him, this boy was not a pure-blood human, and his non-human blood was something of a mystery to the instructors. However they did notice that he was incredibly weak in the sun, and with the fact that he was most likely a first generation between a non-human and human, he was someone who inherited a majority of the weaknesses. The instructors had no idea as to what non-human race the boy inherited as any traits to reveal this were matched with conflicting traits to the races that they originated from, they noticed that he was painfully weak and Holy magic caused him pain despite the fact that it would heal him like the magic should. This itself was something confusing to them, as there was no knowledge of a race that was negatively influenced by Holy magic, but was still healed by it- many were hurt by the magic, but none experienced this phenomena. However as time passed the instructors pushed these questions away, and eventually forgot about them. In the beginning of training the boy was so weak that he couldn¡¯t even keep up with the weakest of his peers, and he would be out of breath after a few steps into the daylight. While now the boy could move and run outside like any other person, he had no real strength in his body during the day- and that weakness was what the second instructor was trying to fix. To be honest only the higher ups of the church knew about the boys heritage, and as such it was kept a highly guarded secret. Even the instructors didn¡¯t know about it at first as they were not that high on the ladder of the church¡¯s hierarchy- they were only on the low end of the High-Tier. The strongest magic chanters and knights would only take an apprentice after they reached the age when they were in the third group, and even then not all the children were offered to be taken as apprentices, and when the instructors tried to look into the boy¡¯s background as to find out why he was so weak, and what race he was from, they received a warning saying, ¡°Each of the Orphans within the Inner Circle is a refugee from some sort of catastrophe that had destroyed their homes, or made them unable to live outside without the church¡¯s assistance. This boy is no different, and as such you have no need to look into where he came from or what he is.¡± When the boy had first started training he was picked on by not only the instructors, but also the other orphans. He was someone who was quiet and would often be found reading when he had the chance, and as such people saw him as a bookworm and would pick on him. It wasn¡¯t until the third week of training him that the instructors found out that something was wrong with his physique. It wasn¡¯t just that he was weak in comparison to the people around him, it was that he was too weak. Back then when the instructors noticed this they wondered how someone could be so weak as to barely be capable of walking and survive, and how they never noticed. It wasn¡¯t until the Youth instructor finally had enough of the situation and asked the priests to look at the boy as he thought the child had an illness of some sort, that they were warned once more by the higher ups of the church, however this time they were told about why the child was so weak without being told what the boy was. What the instructors were told was, ¡°Because of his blood this child will need to work 5 times as hard to to something a normal human could do during the day until he gains the resistance to stand in the sun like another person.¡± When the instructors learned about this they stopped picking on what they had seen as a lazy, sickly child, and instead started working to help the boy be able to catch up to his peers with extra exercises. That was about 5 years ago, now the boy was working his hardest to close the gap between him and the other children who trained during the morning hours. And it was slowly closing, as he trained he was slowly becoming stronger and more resistant to the light of day, now instead of being 5 times as weak as the people around him he was only half as strong as them, in other words he would only need twice as long to do what they could do. To the instructors this was a huge success as they adopted training the boy as a pet project of their own. The goal of a teacher is to teach others, to make others stronger in their chosen subjects, and as such training the weak boy in front of them to have the same power and potential of his peers was a challenge that they had seen as worth taking. By now four hours had passed and the boy had rolled over panting as he sighed, ¡°200.¡± Looking at the sky for a moment before slowly getting up. It was just then that the first of the other orphans stated to arrive as they finished their jogging. Looking at the sweat drenched boy in front of him the instructor couldn¡¯t help but feel a tinge of pride, he had worked hard to figure out how to help this kid become stronger, and never once did the boy complain. Smiling on the inside the instructor spoke with a deadpan look, ¡°Get off your arse Rune, you still have 3 laps to do. If your last you get punishment¡ again.¡± Yelping the black haired boy, Rune, stood up and started sprinting into the distance. Looking at the now returning children the instructor sighed. He still had a ways to go before Rune would catch up to the others- but by the end of that boys time under his training he would be able to walk outside and have no weakness in the sunlight, but that was something years away at the moment and right now there were other things to work on. As the children sat down, already knowing what to do after the years practicing with the Youth instructor, they started meditating and cultivating their inner power and magic. Rune did this as well, however he had to do it on his own time and would often lose hours of sleep at night as he meditated to supplement what training was lost during the day.
| The world is a large place that we are constantly expanding. All the while we wage wars and fight other beings that we discover or have discovered. In the process of this cycle that has continued for all of history I have decided to write about the more rare and some of the unknown races in order to correct misconceptions. First I will start with my organization of such sentient races, There are Humanoid, Monstrous, and Other. Humanoids are anything that is bipedal, Monstrous are races that resemble more real creatures, but are still capable of sentient thought, and finally there are Other. Other is a category for anything that isn¡¯t in the previous two stated or for races that change between the two (for example: centaurs (page 480)). In the world of Humanoid races we have several subgroups, Humans (pages 250-299), Demi-humans (page 300-350), and Human-like (pages 351-410). Humans are a bipedal race that is the most widespread of all of the races, except possibly Demi-humans as the two races have similar populations. Demi-humans are humans with animalistic characteristics, for example a person with wings or a person with animal ears would be an example. Lastly there is Human-like races, these are the more confusing races to talk about as they tend to be merged inappropriately with the Demi-human race. Human-like beings contain non-human characteristics, and in some cases are the closest to Monstrous races. For example, Vampires, Werewolves, Ogres, Trolls, Demons, Angels, and the like will fall into this category. There are many more examples in this category, and they will be located on page 351-410, however I will go in depth about two of the most well known and well mistaken races as examples, further references can be found within the appendix at the back of the book. Vampires are a race that has no resistance to the sun, or intensive heat for that matter, and have a thirst for blood. However, while this race does desire blood they tend to view it as something similar to a strong wine. As children of the age of 6-9 they exhibit bloodlust and will hunger for blood, often times animals are used for this as they are the most easily accessible sources of blood available for the race. Vampires are often cleric to garlic, however it is not fatal nor is it warding, its just that the strong sent tends to irritate them as they have strong senses. There is no warding affect of waterfalls or bridges of the sort and that is a superstitious rumor. There have been recorded cases of vampires living at the bridge-city of Terth, and they are perfectly healthy citizens of the city. However Vampires do have reactions to silver and iron as they have a blood relation to the Fae (page 375). Holy magic will hurt this race as they are technically considered undead, however there are rare cases of half-breeds that have existed. However these cases are so rare that I am unable to write about them as they are so few and hard to find. Vampires also have innate control over blood magic, and in the more powerful cases they can manipulate blood without being in direct contact with it. These vampires are normally referred to as Elder Vampires due to them often being thousands of years old. Vampire society differs from place to place in drastic turns. Most are rather moderate society that accept all who wish to live among them, and view blood drinking as an intimate action (like how drinking wine with a loved one would feel). however there are vampires who go mad with their abilities and become ¡°blood fiends¡±. Blood fiends are like the normal vampire, however they will flock to the strongest presence in the area and build city around it as underlings. They are indistinguishable from normal vampires save the fact that they often are incredibly prideful and thirst for power and blood in turn. The other common yet often mistaken race is that of Werewolves. This race is originally from a group of beings, I do not know if they were wolves that became human or the other way around, however they eventually evolved into what many stories call as mindless killing machines. However this is wrong, Werewolves tend to be thoughtful creatures and family oriented in societies. They tend to take the role of city guards to protect the young, or will work in hospitals to help heal others. They have a better sense of smell then dogs do, and eagle like vision that can be used at will should they need it. This race is weak to silver and it¡¯s strength will grow with the phases of the moon. While normally rational there have been cases of bloodlust causing a Werewolf to start a rampage, however this is dealt with quickly either by the end of the night, or by it being killed. Most of the time one is unable to tell if another is a Werewolf as a Werewolf living in human society tends to be someone who is social and well liked by others regardless of their race. Due to this few bother thinking about such people being of a Human-like race and instead think them as rather outgoing, extroverted people... |