Post by Lord Greevon on Oct 16, 2013 23:22:22 GMT -5
On a scarred and poisoned ground, steeping swamp mists whorl in the wind, spewing up from the sick mud. The land, corrupted, lives and thrives, infested with life. The bubbling and choking mud pays homage to Sister Moon, displaying her sickly white, the underbelly of a fish.***Elaborate Mud (fishbones, etc.)*** This expanse, the Jab-Weh marshland was once entirely submerged under the great ocean waves that now rage to the north. As the mysterious waters receded, they left behind the brackish bog that now harbors a grotesque amalgamation of ocean life meets land. The marshland, as if some profane temple of ancient forgotten gods, is dotted with the bones of Men and Half-Men lost to evolution, their frames left to rot and be eaten by worms and dwellers of ocean rocks, their robes of saffron and sea-purple tattered away. Any who dare to explore this alien abyss bare witness to such a number of these poor dead creatures to encumber a fleet of galleons, but none can conceive of a likely story as to how they got there. Some surmise that these are the corpses of those who have been wrecked at sea, their bodies left to bloat and then sink to their resting place under the waves and only now that the waters of Mother Ocean have spewed this parcel back to the world of Land and Men, can they see again the Sun that gave them life and nurtured them, spared them for a small time from the wrath of the waters. But this does not explain the twisted forms of the Half-Men who seem to have been made part fish, having elongated skulls with giant sockets for eyes too large to be fit for the light of day.
Others, perhaps more darkly, conjure tales of Men who were at one with the Ocean, living not just near the coast as many do, but on the sands of beaches themselves, living half in the water, half exposed to the air. Through the aeons, they adjusted to this aqueous world and ventured farther and farther each year into the depths until they could breathe the water as a true Man breathes air. They built cities under the waves and traded with the Men who braved the shallows near their strange civilizations. They believe that the Jab-Weh marshlands were not created gradually by the receding waves, but that they were thrust up from underneath, exposing these poor horrid wretches of Man's distant ancestry to the Sun and Air and Land. To the ferment of my people's elders, this extravagant tale is given credence by the bones of whales and other such creatures protruding from the thick white mud, as well as by the oceanic fish that populate the craters of water that dot the vast flat expanse. But this cannot be accepted as truth, as no Man or group of Men would go willingly into the arms of Mother Ocean, She who has threatened our existence from the beginning of our race and who persecutes us, grudgingly sending her great tempests to wreck our peaceful ships. The strange bones of the Jab-Weh marshland are considered taboo to most Men so, while their origin is spoken softly of in taverns and dens, the words are hidden away from the Sun so that He will not look down and be angered or disheartened by such blasphemies.
The Abacian mountains, starting in the East...
Others, perhaps more darkly, conjure tales of Men who were at one with the Ocean, living not just near the coast as many do, but on the sands of beaches themselves, living half in the water, half exposed to the air. Through the aeons, they adjusted to this aqueous world and ventured farther and farther each year into the depths until they could breathe the water as a true Man breathes air. They built cities under the waves and traded with the Men who braved the shallows near their strange civilizations. They believe that the Jab-Weh marshlands were not created gradually by the receding waves, but that they were thrust up from underneath, exposing these poor horrid wretches of Man's distant ancestry to the Sun and Air and Land. To the ferment of my people's elders, this extravagant tale is given credence by the bones of whales and other such creatures protruding from the thick white mud, as well as by the oceanic fish that populate the craters of water that dot the vast flat expanse. But this cannot be accepted as truth, as no Man or group of Men would go willingly into the arms of Mother Ocean, She who has threatened our existence from the beginning of our race and who persecutes us, grudgingly sending her great tempests to wreck our peaceful ships. The strange bones of the Jab-Weh marshland are considered taboo to most Men so, while their origin is spoken softly of in taverns and dens, the words are hidden away from the Sun so that He will not look down and be angered or disheartened by such blasphemies.
The Abacian mountains, starting in the East...