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Your head hurts and your trigger finger itches. It is dark-thirty in the morning and you wake up with a gun in your face. Your gun, in your hand, one in the chamber, and the barrel at your cheek. Jesus fucking Christ. You point the thing away from your cranium and put it back between your synthcotton mattress and the faux bamboo headboard where it belongs.

Last you remember, you had been drinking at the Meteoric Cafe with your brothers when - yeah when that saffron-robed Canary came in and put a Firebolt through some necroslag's dome with the soft thoom of displaced - what was it called? Fuck if you knew, but it was like air only magic and it went thoom when someone made fire believe it was a bullet for long enough to flash-fry a zombie. It was distinctive.

You must have blacked out after that, but now that your own gun was no longer an issue, you had bigger problems. You didn't know your own name. You had two sets of memories. One was normal - born premature, racking up medical debt while an autodoc kept you alive, sifting through trash down in the Deadzone until you struck it big - a corpse with a living-metal implant. Enough to buy citizenship, which meant you qualified for your very own pod in the Racks. At least, it was your very own pod from 1 am to 9 am.

Your other set of memories are different. Good air, sunlight, and people who liked you. A school system, even access to annual checkups with a medical professional. Hell, you even voted in an election. You also remembered dying, tripping over a pothole in the crosswalk, and getting hit by the truck. Your legs snapping, being thrown over the hood, tumbling off, your skull cracking as it bounced off the pavement . . .

Then, here. In a pod, in Rack AH-84, with thirty minutes to pack out your shit before your 'podmate' took over. Then another 14-hour shift crushing pearls into the same powder that Canary had used to Firebolt that deadhead. You pointed your index finger at the darkened window of the pod, imagining you were an old-world mage throwing fireballs with your mind.

The last thing you heard was a deafening thoom.

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Once you were human - then you woke up, disoriented with two sets of memories, in a far-future magitech dystopia ruled by immortal beings with reality-altering power that traded human souls like penny stocks with actual fucking demons.

Those beings were called Gods. You remembered another life, now, one that explained where you were and exactly why you absolutely hated the Gods, their hand-picked mortals, their demon 'contractors', their experiments, their 'crusades' against each other that disposed of excess population and boosted the manufacturing bottom line.

Once upon a time, you would have been reborn as a God yourself, but this world yearns for death and does not grant you a Realm, nor a Domain. You are given only two things: Virtue, and hands that will never shake.

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THE VIRTUOUS

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What is a God without supernatural power and a world to rule? A being with the capacity to see things as they truly are.

This is what you are - a mortal with the soul of a God. A Godling, to some; others will call you a Saint or Buddha. You possess Virtue, also known as Metacognition, which allows you to sense the emotions of others, detect magic, and split your consciousness. You can "inspire" mortals, laying your memories over theirs, acquiring their knowledge and skills, and adding them to your own for so long as they live.

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Humanity is a broad concept - any being that has less than four souls, and more than two souls, is broadly described as 'human'.

Adult humans have three full souls - the father, mother, and child souls. In children, only the child soul smolders, then gradually builds into a blaze. The blazing child-soul awakens the mother-soul at the age of 7, and the father-soul gradually awakens at the age of 14. At the age of 15, a human can begin to call upon magic.

In the hellscape of Technochitlan, many children never know what it means to feel their child-soul blazing, to stand victorious in the face of fear, and have the sole of your foot on the throat of your despair. These children become men and women grown with two souls sleeping and one burning low to conserve the pittance of importance it is afforded as fuel. To these sleepwalkers, selling their mother-soul feels like selling nothing at all. It is only then that they hear what can only be described as the 'silence of truth', as their dreams become loose sand and their little prayers go unheard, rather than merely ignored.

As a Virtuous, you have a fourth soul - the sibling-soul - which is bound up with the child- soul like pitch on cloth. A stray spark is all it takes to set your twinsouls blazing.

To Gods and any others who can see souls, you are a pillar of fire, a beacon on the mountaintop. Only Gods possess a fourth soul in Technochitlan, and their fourth soul is the land-soul bound up in their Realm. Were you not tragically limited to a flesh-and-blood body, you could tear the still-beating hearts from mighty Gods and feast upon their lifeblood with impunity. Instead, you are the ripest fruit in all the orchard, and you will be hunted.

Luckily, you can close the eye of your lantern-head and pass as an ordinary mortal. While your Virtue is hidden, you cannot access your strongest abilities, but neither can you be easily hunted.

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GODHUNTERS: THE NAUII

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The Gods, unrelenting mystical powerhouses and horrific oligarchs that they are, have many mortal detractors. Foremost among them are the Nauii, mortal survivors borne from the outer worlds ruled absolutely by the Great Dead Gods. These inhuman mortals use modern medical science to guise themselves as humans, the better to get closer to unsuspecting Divines.

The difference between the Virtuous and the Nauii is simple: The Virtuous do not merely take a human form, they truly are terrestrial in origin. Whether your character is a Virtuous or one of the Nauii is up to your personal preference.

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This message was last edited by the GM at 01:11, Sat 28 Jan 2023.

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At the highest and truest level of reality, there is no separation between the observer and the observed. All is one, part of the great mind that dreams only of itself. Between and below our experienced reality and this highest reality is the Gnarled Abyss, an inaccessible conceptual dreamscape where beings defined only by their interrelationships exist. The very least of these beings are the Vakud, and the very least of the Vakud is Erika Horvath, also known as The Echo, a pathetic being that may as well not exist at all. Yet so weak are they that they are able to slightly impinge on our dimension, where they are impotent but omniscient - but can only communicate through recordings.

Below this conceptual reality is the Sea of Lanterns, also known as the Void, an infinite expanse of lights that flicker in a sea of colors. These colors reflect the influence of vast and incomprehensible beings - the Primordials - that through their will alone create the Paragons, perfect evocations of concepts that ultimately originate from the abyss.

When these Paragons interact with the mixed influences of the Primordials, they degenerate - becoming physical Gods within our own material reality, with only the legacy of their Domains to demonstrate their rarified origin.

Further below our physical reality is a nameless place of fading things that once and never were, a place where things are remembered, imagined, and half-known. Monsters claw their way up from this place, pulling themselves into our reality clad only in a skin-deep sheen of natural law. This is where the dead goes to be devoured or enslaved by the ruling Daemons.

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As far as you know, the City of the Gods is the first and greatest city of mankind. Legend has it that it was once a human city on Old Earth, but now Melbourne is a megametropolis called Technochitlan with a population in the billions that only stops where the Sea of Lanterns begins. At the heart of Melbourne is Igdrazl, an immense space elevator that carries newborn gods to be sacrificed to the Ometecuhtlites - the ruling divine faction. They seek to gain access to the Gnarled Abyss, where they could transcend the Dharma of Eleven Doors and grasp the roots of the world.

Igdrazl supplies Yorgumand, the ring-world that embraces Old Earth, and simulates the portions that failed to ascend from the shadow world when the Sixth Sun emerged from the ashes of its predecessor.

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Age denotes frailty and irrelevance, not power and prestige. The young, virile Ometechulites could crush the likes Tor with his little hammer or adulterous Zos with ease, but the hearts of the elderly have no appeal to the power-thirsty rulers of Technochitlan. No, they feast only on the newborn.

These Elder Gods still have their 'cults' - fetishistic street gangs - and have enough umph to serve as enduring figureheads for human criminal networks. The Immortals of the Furthest East challenge territory held by the Osiric League for the right to push Phantamagoria and cocaine to those that desperately hope they have someone's hidden talent or other relevance to society at large, while the Olympians run protection rackets on pod Racks and other habitation facilities - pressing men and women into fraternities and sororities with arcane designations in dead languages.

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THE LESSER DEAD

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The wiser of the Elder Gods conserved their strength by accepting death, choosing to rule below rather than struggle above. In the half-light of alleyways and beneath abandoned tenements, in graves that stir beneath the parking lots paved over them, these Lesser Dead Gods form pacts with the suicidal and the desperate for shreds of real power that can be found in human souls. Humans who take on these pacts have many names - Shademen, Deadheads, Necropunks - but are defined by continuing to function without their souls. Notably, without a soul, they are able to endure cybernetic enhancement without the need for lifelong dependence on drugs to combat rejection and cannot be tracked by magical means.

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THE METACOGNITIVE INSTITUTE OF LOST VEGAS

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The Greater Dead Gods - also known as the Outer Gods - rule the vanished places of Old Earth, including her various colonies, sister planets, and their satellites that lie outside the reach of Technochitlan. Unique among these is Nayeli, daughter of Ixel, who serves as Mother Superior of Earth's premier mystical research institution. Immediately outside of the Institute is a figure-eight pool of viscous, gray-black water continuously flowing around - but not entering - a pit leading to an undocumented cavern. This 'pool' is the only known example of a 'mind elemental', and the Institute was established to study it.

Not much is known of the Institute, except that no God has dared challenge Nayeli for control of it.

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This message was last edited by the GM at 01:12, Sat 28 Jan 2023.

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All modern magic is derived from the personal sigils of the primordials that dwell within the Gnarled Abyss. The interconnected will of these rarified beings has created everything that exists. While there are sixteen common sigils, these sigils are derived from four mother-sigils, which are themselves derived from the father-sigil.

Uey Teotal - Master Divine. The father sigil. While the Master Divine's power is too great to be used by mortals, its mere presence repudiates lesser sigils. Many bear this sigil and no other, increasing their resistance to magic. In complex magical engineering, microscopic Father sigils are used to define logic paths by denying alternatives.

Kalchiuani - the Creator. The first of the mother sigils. The Creator makes magic visible and grants its physical properties that can be manipulated by nonmagical means. This sigil is often carved into the pupils of false eyes to grant mystic sight.

Istaktlilsiuatl - the Gray Lady. Second of the mother sigils. Gray Lady grounds magic sympathetically, joining power to discrete concept. A fire sigil grounded within a Gray Lady sigil can be guided to generate warmth, light, or destruction rather just fire itself.

Tlahtoani - the Hierophant. Third of the mother sigils. The Hierophant connects other sigils in proximity to it, resolving conflict and allowing for complex sigil chains.

Akuayololistli - the Fool. Last of the mother sigils. The Fool ignites other sigils, supplying raw, chaotic power when touched by mortal hands as the user's dreamscape is temporarily interlinked with reality at the point of contact.

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SIXTEEN SIGILS - SIXTEEN PARAGONS

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Each of the five Primordial sigils can be conjoined with one another, forming degenerate children known as Paragons. These Paragons are:

✦ The Great Rivers - Children of the Creator, Kalchiuani.

✦ The Deep Mysteries - Children of the Gray Lady, Istaktlilsiuatl.

✦ The Totemic Beasts - Children of the Hierophant, Tlahtoani.

✦ The Elementals - Children of the Fool, Akuayololistli.

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THE GREAT RIVERS

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The Great Rivers - also known as the four winds - are a group of Paragons that correspond to opposing cosmic forces. Nemilistli and Mikistli govern the cycle of rebirth, and Nauatili and Amotlaxtlauas govern stories. As a group, their sigils are used to designate the cardinal directions, to describe neutron, proton, and electron distribution in atomic magic via the four fundamental interactions of physics, and to describe the six flavors of quarks in subatomic magic (by referring to them individually and as their paired identities).

In more mystic terms, they are described as governing Life, Death, Order, and Chaos.

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THE DEEP MYSTERIES

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Little is known of the Deeplings, who dwell very near to the Gnarled Abyss. Their sigils guide unreal things - the vagaries of chance, the mechanics of the mind as distinct from the operation of the brain, realities that exist only within perception but not in truth, and - supposedly - time itself.

Onkisalistli's sigil is used in good-luck charms, and Teixnematli has her role when it comes to preventing 'cyberpsychosis'. Kochistli is useful for creating augmented reality displays and simulations for training purposes. Kauitl, the Paragon that supposedly is responsible for 'time', has so far been found to have no purpose that cannot be more easily performed by a regular alarm clock.

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THE REGULAR CLOCK

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Kauitl's spawn are the Kauitlisti - Angelcized as Callisti - beings of perfect, supreme rationality who are the basis of the Grand Array - Uey Matlatl - and regulate the very flow of time itself and ensure that 1 + 1 continues to equal 2 and that causes continue to precede their consequences. Uey Matlatl is a distributed consciousness that commands the way-paths connecting far-flung civilizations to the hub-of-the-hundred-wheels, Yrgumand, that encircles Old Earth.  The Kauitlisti can impress unbreakable oaths upon any being that freely consents to be bound, an essential function that has literally kept intergalactic society from collapsing.

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THE TOMIC BEASTS

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Koskakuautl preys upon the dead, taking their voices to call the living to early graves. Those who embrace the Vulture as their totem dredge forgotten things from the shadowy place below, or compel the soulless to return from whence they came. This sigil is used to act upon memories, voices, and the mortal coil.

Koyotl is sly and friendly, turning spirits in knots to play tricks and make paths where there were none before. Those who wear the Coyote's skin are often fixers and information brokers. The sigil, a simple 'X', can be used in to associate spirits with objects, and denote ownership.

Kimichin is known as the 'little pest', an underwhelming name for the mother of all demons. Rats ruin harvests, spread disease, and delight in human suffering. Kimichin's sigil wards and binds demonic and corruptive forces, but also overwhelmingy attracts the attention of those same forces. Kimchin's sigil is a baleful thing, an upside down T with the arms unevenly broken, and to bear it as a tattoo is the pariah's mark.

Kosamalokoatl is the very opposite of Kimichin, a beneficient guardian that safeguards children and all beautiful things. It is sad that where three or more gather with food and drink between them, he is there in their midst, sharing in their joy. The Serpent servants use his sigil to define other sigils as part of a group, and in conjunction with Uey Teotal, it is possible to isolate shared concepts (much like a Venn diagam). It is incredibly common to see bracelets made in Kosamalokoatl's image worn as protective talismans and good luck charms.

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THE ELEMENTALS

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Akuayololistli x Kalchiuani - Tletal, the destructive element. The Fool and the Creator are notorious for being the only Primoridals that directly oppose one another, resulting in their conjoining being hateful, wild, and extreme.

Akuayololistli x Tlahtoani - Atl, the balancing element. The Fool's bombastic demeanor is transformed by the Hierophant's conciliatory nature into a stable, powerful flow that is essential for life.

Akuayololistli x Uey Teotal - Ehekatl, the omnipresent element. The Master Divine negates lesser magic, but the Fool's undirected nature provides approbation without challenge. The result is a dynamic emptiness - ambient magical energy in the form of breath.

Akuayololistli x Istaktlilsiuatl - Tlalli, the bracing element. Undifferentiated chaos of the Fool is given concrete form by the influence of the Gray Lady, creating the intentness matter that makes up reality.

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This message was last edited by the GM at 01:42, Sat 28 Jan 2023.

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Life is cheap, ammunition is expensive, and the enforcers of law and order are too few. While corporate LPOs (Loss Prevention Officers) execute private property rights with extreme prejudice, and judicial proceedings between corporations can involve decades-long rounds of litigation, rapid emergency response is a social good taken up by five paramilitary organizations with extreme ideologies who primarily resolve conflict with high-mobility close combat, referred to as "raptors" - (Recon / Assault ParaTrooper - Organic Response)

In a world with smart guns firing smart bullets, any form of conflict where dumb fire weapons are practical is essentially knife fighting in a phone booth. Raptors completely disregard smart technology (earning their 'organic response' descriptor) in favor of old-world weaponry and magic, using handcrafted arcane tools to fly, pass through or climb walls, go invisible, and in extreme cases teleport and stop time. Given that arcane talent requires perfect execution under pressure and an inordinate mundane mental processing speed, these elite warriors recognize no government and dish out their own brand of vigilante justice as they fit - a distinct 'warrior caste' even corporations avoid cracking down on given they are ultimately good for the bottom line.

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The most common raptors are 'bluebirds', paramilitary police associated with the Grandy Array who enforce intergalactic law, even on Earth. Possession of alien technology, association with noncanonical paragons or their representatives (such as being a Virtuous), conspiracy to undermine consensus reality, exceeding or evading temporal speed limits, eating meat, obtaining ontological self-improvement without a chandlurgist's supervision, squatting in private pocket dimensions,  experiencing 'love', creating public thaumagraffiti, smuggling artifacts from alternate dimensions, psychic trespassing with regards to spirits with a purjopierre classification or higher, unlicensed necrotrafficking, civilian consumption of Phantasmagoria, discrimination on the basis of destiny, and other crimes are all grounds for immediate revocation of citizenship and summary execution by a bluebird if discovered.

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The second most common is the doves - adherents of the remnants of old-world monotheistic religions who practice 'cleverwork' that is poorly understood. They heal the sick, visit the imprisoned, feed the hungry, educate the poor, and exhibit extreme tribalism. What sets Doves apart is their 'dovecotes', places protected by sacred power that enjoy official recognition as embassies. These places are sanctuaries from persecution, even for the dregs of society.

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The Canaries are considered an offshoot of the Doves by some, given their origin in the Eastern traditions of Buddhism and Taoism. However, the monastic Canaries see the world through the lens of the 'Dharma of Eleven Doors', referring Oey Teotal as 'Emperor-in-Yellow' and donning saffron robes in his honor, their shaved heads bearing his sigil. They seek entrance into the "Kung Fu City", a floating palace-world hidden deep within the Sea of Lanterns. They carry blades of 'steel-and-sight' called Arcs, that in practice are phenomonally dangerous, blindingly bright plasma swords - designed to kill things they never name, along with standard-issue magic revolvers known for their distinctive 'thoom'.

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Last are the Pyrrhuloxi, the elite of the elite, true masters of magic who manipulate space and time. The only time one was publicly recorded in action involved the attack of a True Dragon that destroyed 16% of Technochitlan's infrastructure before a Pyrrhuloxi teleported on site, stopped local time, beheaded the dragon, and left. The Ometechulites immediately performed a grand ritual that directly appealed to the Primoridals to fundamentally forbid this ability from being used again on the grounds that it compromised the balance of the cosmos. Famously, they actually received a response from Tlahtoani the Hierophant: "No."

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Special Inspector Chichiltitelpochtli - Chichi to his friends - crouched barefoot at the edge of the skyscraper's roof, his dexterous toes gripping the edge as he balanced on his heels. Miles below, the ayositlallin made a ponderous approach through the streets. The ancient hard-shelled reptilian was untouchable and unstoppable, protected by the personal attention of the Kosamalokoatl - whom some called Kos. Nobody fucked with the giant sacred turtles.

This particular ayositlallin was the foundation of the Metoric Cafe, a notorious moving speakeasy where criminals, mystics and unionizes could mingle in safety under the Serpent's aegis. There was one law under that roof: No bloodshed.

Chichi let himself fall from the skyscraper, the folds of his saffron robe transforming into a wingsuit as he passed a finger over the embroidered charms along them, his voice singing the names of the Paragons. With great skill, his dive slowed until he gently floated aboard the turtle's back. In his hand was a wooden revolver, which he causally loaded with silver rods.

Entering the cafe, he saw his mark, took aim, and blasted a lance of naualotletl - magic fire - directed into the back of a souless husk that was occupying a seat. The serpent-servant behind the counter was a nude man covered in elaborate black-and-purple tattoos of flowers. "Hello, Inspector." said the tattooed man in response to the distinctive thoom. "I will be adding mortuary services to your tab."

The walking dead did not enjoy the same privileges afforded to the living.

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This message was last edited by the GM at 01:42, Sat 28 Jan 2023.

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Technochitlan

Imagine a wheel. The hub of the wheel is Technochitlan - it's the capital of the universe and the only megametropolis that survived the awakening of the Sixth Sun.

All road runs there. It's a city that started by taking over the Australian continent, then spread over the oceans, colonized the deep seas, and built a really fucking rugged space elevator. The elevator still feeds up supplies to Yrgumand, which is a ring-world surrounding (and producing) a simulation of the rest of Old Earth - only the Australian continental plate is real. The rest is simulated by magitech.

Magitech

The default, readily accessible world is Cyberpunk 2077-level tech. Magitech is built on top of it, it doesn't directly replace it. Magitech makes faster-than-light travel possible, but unlike regular tech, it actively degrades when not attended to - it needs ritual attention to make it work, and often needs to be personalized for you, so economies of scale are not in favor of magitech. It can directly alter reality on the atomic and sub-atomic level, but you need a gift for abstract thinking and very precise tools to lay down runes measured in planck lengths - getting your mind to really comprehend the emptiness of reality without winking yourself out of existence ain't easy.

Magitech is used for small charms and spells, permanent custom modifications for rich assholes, and immense public works projects. Shadowrunesque.

Ometechulites

Members of the ruling pantheon. Devourer of young deities. Some don't come down, some rarely go up, and overall they directly compete with one another - only one can become the new Sun. Your targets and your hunters.

Elder Gods

Elder Gods are still alive or have heirs that have taken up their mantle. Think of them as demigods with pretensions who can pull on humanity through classical religious means. Their resemblances are often worshiped on other Earths, such as Tor and Zos. Street gang "cults" still worship these pantheons as figureheads. The primary players are the Immortals of the Furthest East, the Osiric League, and the Olympians.

Lesser Dead Gods

Lesser Dead Gods are merchants and devils, essentially. They work through the undead (those who have sold their souls) to affect the living and gain strength from eating souls. They give crumbs back to the zombies in exchange, and the undead can in turn gain strength from killing people or convincing them to give them souls that they then pass on to the Lesser Dead God that made them, multilevel marketing style.

Greater Dead Gods

Greater Dead Gods / Outer Gods are beings that Ometchulites haven't been able to fuck with yet - but they all got knocked out when the Fifth Sun died. They are dead in the sense they are not up and around, but they will come back eventually in new forms as the Sixth Sun ascends. It's not well known, but the strongest of them were reborn as lesser members of the Ometechulites. As a player, you can choose to be one of these guys reborn into the mind of a hapless human - that's what being a Nauii is about. Roughly. It's not very clear-cut, and what exactly happened out there is chaotic.

Nayeli, specifically, is the heir of the moon goddess Ixchel, who is now remembered as Ixel - she's a Virtuous like the players.

The Primordials

You can think of the Primordials as . . . well, if the Judeo-Christian concept of deity had friends that were around his level but not quite. They are the old Suns that ruled previous universes, with Oey Teotal being the one who originated from nothing.

The Hierophant and the Fool are primordials that are known to interact with the world (The Hierophant officiates the ascension of divines who seek the apex, the Fool occasionally appears in dreams).

The Paragons

Below the Primordials are 16 Paragons, born from each respective mother sigil. Essentially named archangels with specific duties that were borne from the intermingling of two other Primordials. There are the Great Rivers, the Deep Mysteries, the Tomic Beasts, and the Elementals.

The Totemic Beasts actively interact with people. Most people will directly witness an interaction with them at some point. They can be in as many places at once as they want so long as one of their namesake animals is around. For example, Koyotl can speak through street dogs, Kimichin through rats, and most middle-class places of business keep a snake around just for the potential presence of Kosamalokoatl.

The Vakud

Below the Paragons are the Vakud, which are the closest thing the lore has to angels. They are extremely poorly understood. Nobody knows what they do if they have anything to do with the Paragons - pretty much all you can find out is that they exist. Except for Erika Horvath, who was a human from Old Earth who was reborn as one. Yeah. She isn't having a great time, but she tries to help other Virtuous as best she can, even though her 'existence' is pretty tenuous.

Kauitlisti/Callisti

The children of the Deep Mysteries Paragon, Kauitl. Beings of perfect, supreme rationality who enforce the laws of time and space. The hivemind, known collectively as Uey Matlatl, connect interstellar civilizations to Yrgumand, which encircles Old Earth.

Space Travel

There is available space travel but access to Yrgumand in orbit is needed. Taking off from earth is a shitshow. There is so much old anti-air AI that will instantly lock on and try to obliterate you if you don't have appropriate clearance codes. If you need to get somewhere off-planet, finding a magical path is easier, but not safer (traveling the rivers of the underworld, for example).

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Xicholo's remaining eye burned along with his body. The world was painted in red, yellow, and blue, streaks of motion surrounding blurred 'people'. They were just shadows, empty shells. As he passed them, he called upon his Blade, and a halo of light blinked into existence around him for a fraction of a second, bisecting the shadows through their waists. He flew at a wall, impacted, and pushed away to hurtle down the next street. Ahead, yellow - a Canary - not a shadow, a shining gem of many facets. He called upon his Spear, and a line of light shot forward for a moment - the gem shattered, struck through the heart. He could feel the heartbeat of the Mute, the throbbing silence that was the voice of the great sea beneath the waves that reality was only the frothing degenerate foam at the crest of. It took his voice.

Ahead, bluebirds arrayed for battle. He paused in air and time, and called up his Firearm - an arc of dots flew forward, and the bluebirds fell too. The colors - blue, bluebird, yellow, canary, red, the shadows - there was so much paint to spill. He was grasping at the Second Door. The world was a rainy windshield, the pulsing of the great sea the wipers, clearing his sight with every pulse of sweet silence before the cries of the dying clouded his vision again.

Ahead, there was another shining gem - no above - no, below. They shone brightly, arrayed in many colors, with crowns at their brow. Seekers? No. Godhunters, Virtuous. Door-Enterers, like him.

He called on his Blade, but a witch with many arms spoke the Witchhunter's word, and it was peace bound. He called to his Spear, and a soft ribbon consecrated it, woven from the breath of a lover. Useless. He drew his firearm and painted a crescent of death - finally, one of the Virtuous fell, headless.

But the head still Spoke, and the last thing Xicholo heard was a distinctive thoom.

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This message was last edited by the GM at 05:18, Fri 03 Feb 2023.