Episode: But Strong in Will
Posted by Story on 11/28/23
There's been attempts to educate, lately.
The Compact has been slumbering for a great long time, its skepticism wrought by a great force that long concealed any hint of the magical, of the fantastic, of anything outside the mundane. It was a suppression enforced by a singular viciousness, a brutality that vanished anyone who delved too deep, and created a great mask over the populace wrought by a dark god of secrets. The Despite of Fable, concealing all, and then with a rise of a blood moon it was over. Not fully, not quite, but enough of a crack that stories came to life, and skepticism gave way to ardent terror that legends were entirely all too true, and threats that could be dismissed were very real.
But that's not to say that many were prepared to recognize what the threat around Harrow Hall represented.
To the northeast of Arx is an old ruin, a place called Harrow Hall, a place built long before the Compact existed on Arvum. It's at that place that an old enemy of the Compact calling himself the Horned God has determined to finish what he attempted with the Blood Moon. There's been plays and stories, songs and journals in Arx and around attempting to explain his madness to the population, still wrestling to understand this new world. It is claimed that the Horned God wishes to resurrect the dead god Destiny, so that all the stories of everyone that lives can be rewritten as he chooses, and no choice at all will remain for anyone else. A final stroke. An end.
And he's drawing close now. He's created a huge wall of thorns around his fortress, hundreds of feet high and miles thick, to block any access to his fortress as he works his great ritual. He'll end the world if he succeeds, it is said.
And it's not clear there's any way to reach him.
The Compact has been slumbering for a great long time, its skepticism wrought by a great force that long concealed any hint of the magical, of the fantastic, of anything outside the mundane. It was a suppression enforced by a singular viciousness, a brutality that vanished anyone who delved too deep, and created a great mask over the populace wrought by a dark god of secrets. The Despite of Fable, concealing all, and then with a rise of a blood moon it was over. Not fully, not quite, but enough of a crack that stories came to life, and skepticism gave way to ardent terror that legends were entirely all too true, and threats that could be dismissed were very real.
But that's not to say that many were prepared to recognize what the threat around Harrow Hall represented.
To the northeast of Arx is an old ruin, a place called Harrow Hall, a place built long before the Compact existed on Arvum. It's at that place that an old enemy of the Compact calling himself the Horned God has determined to finish what he attempted with the Blood Moon. There's been plays and stories, songs and journals in Arx and around attempting to explain his madness to the population, still wrestling to understand this new world. It is claimed that the Horned God wishes to resurrect the dead god Destiny, so that all the stories of everyone that lives can be rewritten as he chooses, and no choice at all will remain for anyone else. A final stroke. An end.
And he's drawing close now. He's created a huge wall of thorns around his fortress, hundreds of feet high and miles thick, to block any access to his fortress as he works his great ritual. He'll end the world if he succeeds, it is said.
And it's not clear there's any way to reach him.