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The South

The south was in a dangerous place before the plague struck. There was an invading force bringing with it all the wrath of an eigth of a world, and it was ill-prepared to defend itself against them. There were fewer powerful states, little hope of defense from the realm, and it was against this backdrop that the Autocthonians moved.

Exaltation in the South

The Autocthonians are charging through the south of creation and the greater gods and exalts are dead. It seemed that there is little to stand in their way, and prevent them from capturing all of the south before moving on. Just hours after the last great exalts died, there was a flurry of exaltation in the south. Hundreds of shards erupted into bodies nearly simultaneously. Master of Reaped Grains, God of Agriculture in The Lap, decided that it would take far to long for the great gods to return and bring with them essence shards - he went to Yu-Shan, and without any Celestial Lions or other powerful guards about easily accessed Lytek's cabinet. He seized every shard and returned to the south, where he began to cast them about at anybody who appeared even remotely appropriate. His desperate attempt to keep the south safe had several flaws. Master of Reaped Grains had little knowledge of the mechanics of exaltation, and was not aware that essence shards are trimmed to remove past memories. He did not realize his error until shortly after he finished releasing hundreds upon hundreds of Solar , Sidereal and Lunar exaltations. The first sign of a problem was a town cobbler bellowing as he transformed into a rat-man that he was Raksi, Queen of Blades, and that all would bow before him. Hundreds of exalts were placed into the world, and many turned out to be mad, wracked by the memories of their deaths and the past lives gone to them. The few remaining exalts in the south and the few of the new who were not broken by the experience had essentially a full time job dealing with rampaging mad demi-gods now walking among men. Master also had not realized how little control he would have over the shards, and though most ended in the south, they did not arrive together by any means. He also did not realize that Sidereal shards find their hosts at birth, and these have all scattered into the world. As they were scattered in contrivance of fate, astrology will have a great deal of difficulty locating them until they exalt in many years.

Almost immediately, the few remaining young Sidereals in the south noticed the problem through their fog of panic and started deputizing some of the remaining gods to lead strike forces to destroy particularly egregious examples of flawed exaltations before they became too powerful to easily deal with. One such strike force, consisting of three War Aurochs, Dozima Wokish, and Blue Pure One, has achieved great success. They have destroyed the exalt who appeared with the shard of Filial Wisdom, as well as those of Ten Stripes who exalted howling at the death of her mate and of Raksi. Mechanically, any exaltation occuring during the month of plague will occur with the throwback flaw at at least 3; the shards of great beings of essence six or greater like Ma-Ha-Suchi or Chejop Kejak will invariably exalt with throwback at five. These throwback flaws will give bonus points, as the shard carries the memories of abilities and charms as well as earthshaking truths and unspeakable horrors. While many of the most dangerous of the exalts passed have had their shards found, there are still many out in unknown places. Moray Darktide's shard is somewhere in the wilderness, for example; perhaps he and many others have lost their memories in the passage of lives, or perhaps they are biding their time.

The Font of Mourning

The swamp where the Autocthonians struck their way into the world has become a massive, sky burning factory assemblage. With the deaths of the gods of the swamp, it has taken far more readily to the essence manipulations of the Autocthonian savants; they are working the land feverishly, well aware that they need a firm foothold in this new world. The swamp is adapting itself, in the absence of a god to correct it, into a far more Autocthonian place just from the sheer amount of essence being used in the area. This is a slow process, but by the end of the month after the plague struck, the area for many miles surrounding the Patropolis of Ot has become distinctly akin to Autocthon; tree roots are changing slowly to resemble rigid piping, oil shimmers on the surface of pools of water, and lightning crackles between the hairs of animals. The process is only sped up when the gods return - as the local elemental gods grew back, their patterns were tainted by the enormous Autocthonian essence flows that pulsed through their bodies and domains.

Ten Stripes' Domain

The death of Ten Stripes' pack cleared one threat away from the Autocthonians, but it proved to be of little importance, ultimately. The lunars were powerful and could have severely damaged the invasion, but they did not possess tactically important land. Their beastman tribes and lesser lunars in the area, however, are still a threat to the Autocthonians. Their deaths and the creation of a Lunar aspected demense at on that site has made them mutate to become more twisted and powerful; many are gaining silver claws and, in a faint echo of the dead lunars, many will soon be mutating to become more valourous. They are attempting to hold the domain against the Autocthonians, and may have some success.

Gem

It has been said in the past that Gem is a place of ill luck. Some have speculated that fate doesn't really want it to exist. It is certainly the case that it was one of the worst and earliest casualties of plague. The gemlord that lay beneath the city died violently, writhing about in his wrath, and cracking the foundations of the city. Nearly instantly, the entire city plunged into a massive crevasse that formed, swallowing it whole, and the rest of the nearby mountain collapsed on it. The rubble of the city is now buried in a deep chasm that lies almost five hundred metres beneath the surface, sealed in stone. Everyone in the city was killed nearly instantly, and there were no survivors to tell the tale.

This was just the start of the story of Gem. The plague was delivered from outside of fate, and in most cases it affected beings whose fate was already mutable. In the case of Gem, the entire city perished before the loom of fate had even started to recalibrate to the existence of the plague. The threads that bore Gem refused to change to the new pattern. Although Gem is now no more than rubble deep under more stoney rubble, nobody realizes this. Anyone still bound by the loom is unable to recognize that the city is not there. Caravans become convinced that they are lost, not that the city is gone; other nations suspect that Gem is under Autocthonian control as its trade has stopped. The surviving spirits and sidereals are panicking - there is nobody capable and experienced enough to fix a snarl in fate this large, and the pattern spiders are basically ignoring the problem until they have more instructions. Several young sidereals attempted to correct the problem by spreading tales of Gem's destruction, but it didn't take, and nobody would believe them. All of Yu-Shan is worried about the repercussions for the future, especially after Malfeas and his inhabitants return.

Paragon

Paragon is full of supernatural power, but little of it needs the use of an essence wielder - the Perfect is alive and well, his weak solars are alive, and he is planning on coming out swinging. The Perfect is a militant man, and has decided to attack. He is marshalling his forces to attack and seize control of Gem. Due to the damage to fate, his troops will never arrive. Paragon itself will find that it is one of the few nations that is not suffering from rampant starvation; with the loss of thousands of men to the army, the fields' meager production is enough to maintain the population. Scarlet Whisper's propaganda has let other nations know that Paragon has plenty of food and peace, and there is an influx of refugees. The Perfect accepts mainly those that show exceeding merit; there are many refugee camps building up outside of their borders. The city-state is rapidly building its supply of the intelligensia and skilled workers, and quickly grows in the number of exalts that it controls. The last is notable - with the massive increase in the numbers of exalts in the south, Paragon is proving incredibly attractive to many. By the end of the first month, Paragon may control over a dozen solars, and perhaps several lunars. Paragon is left, at the end of the first month after the plague, with power balance shifted strongly in their direction, although with a vastly reduced army.

Neither of the Perfect's solars are skilled tacticians or warriors, and he feels that he needs them at his side; Scarlet Whisper, in any case, he will not allow to go into a war zone. His armies are therefore led by extremely talented mortals and godbloods. As they are inside of fate, they prove unable to see through the snag in the loom that is Gem. The army continues to roll southwards, and unable to find Gem, soon run out of supplies. Their expectations of refilling on food and water on the way were damaged by the famines that swept the world in the chaos of the gods dying. They walk directly past Gem, unable to recognize the rubble, and keep going until they are mostly dead from walking too far into the deep south without water.

The Army of Paragon

This massive force moving south is a pivotal event of the plague period. The army, unable to find Gem, continues to move southerly, and is soon desperately lost in the desert, out of supplies and slowly baking. In the incredible heat and the peril of the south, many soldiers struggled to survive with incredible tenacity. Given the number of shards floating about, it was nearly inevitable that many would exalt as lunars. And given the madness of many and the perceived anathema nature of all of these, many soldiers were brave in fighting the newfound enemies, exalting as solars. This army provided a massive supply of heroic and appropriate hosts for essence shards, of both solars and lunars. In total, 11 lunars and 16 solars survived exaltation in the army alone; a further four lunars and two solars were killed. Jak the outrider, hearing rumors of the army lost in the desert, found them; and although the mortal soldiers were still bound by their oath to the perfect of paragon, the exalts were not. Pointing the army in the right direction, he led the exalts back to Kether Rock. This massive influx of exalts has shifted the entire balance of power in the south. Of course, before long the exalts of the Cult of the Illuminated training camp will almost certainly have to devote most of their efforts to stopping the demons and autocthonians swarming through the south. The six dead exalts were the most visibly mad of the lot of them; this group included the shard of Bear Fist and that of Samea, who exalted in swarms of obsidian butterflies that carved through the army.

New Landmarks of the South

Faithful Glorious Monument
Demense: 00
The Site of Ten Stripes' death north of the Font of Mourning, this demense is an area around the bones of five high essence lunars. As they felt the essence pooling in their bodies and realized that they would never reach their foes, they sat in a circle and took each others hands, their weapons in the ground between them. As their essence burst out of them, their skeletons were transformed to moonsilver and fused together. What seems to be a statue of five people, one with a tail, one with a fox's muzzle, all with linked hands, surround a small obelisk of stone and metal intertwined. This site is on a path in the middle of a forest where the leaves of trees have silvered veins, and the bark of which trees heals itself fairly quickly. Humans in the area will slowly mutate to have silverish claws, heal more quickly, and become more valourous.

Comments

This has always been my favourite Gem theory. - TheHoverpope