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Angkar: Wet season. Precipitation is common during the late afternoon and evening hours. Vegetation grows significantly during the summer, but flooding is a danger due to the monsoons that ravage the country. The rainforest sees evenly distributed rainfall throughout the season.

Ashoka: Desert: Extremely hot and dry. Violent, heavy downpours following long dryspells. Jungle: Hot and humid with frequent, violent rainstorms.

Morrim: Relatively hot and dry, but with a chance of thunderstorms from time to time. The heat may cause forest fires.

Soto: Hot and humid, tree cover is dense while ground growth is restricted. Thunderstorms see the most amount of rainfall during the season, and it can be very windy. On occasion, there are flash floods that can destroy homes and farms built on flood plains.

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March 30th, 2018 As you might have noticed, Elenlond has changed hands and is now under new management! If you have any questions, please direct them to DaringRaven! As for the rest of the announcements, including a season change, you can find them over here at the following link!

January 16, 2018 As you might have noticed, Elenlond has a new skin, all thanks to Mel! Don't forget to check out the new OTMs as well!

December 2, 2017 Winter has settled on Elenlond, bringing sleep for some and new life for others.

September 26, 2017 With the belated arrival of autumn come some interesting developments: new OTMs, a Town Crier and the release of the Elly Awards winners!

July 14, 2017 After a bit of forum clean-up, Elly Awards season has arrived! Head on over to make your nominations!

May 31, 2017 Summer has arrived and so has activity check! That's not all though – we also have some new OTMs for you and some staff changes!


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Elenlond is an original free-form medieval fantasy RPG set on the continent of Soare and the Scattered Isles, which are located to the south in the Sea of Diverging Waters. The four chief nations of the western side of the world—Ashoka in northern Soare, Soto in western Soare, Morrim in eastern Soare, and Angkar, the largest of the Scattered Isles—continue to experience growth and prosperity since the fall of the Mianorite gods, although power struggles within the countries—or outside of them—continue to ensue.


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    Wyld Hunt: Gingko Leaves in a Steel Breeze; + Closed +
    Topic Started: Mar 13 2017, 05:17 PM (125 Views)
    Sabellius
    Member Avatar
    Fléctere si néqueo súperos, Acheronta movebo.

    [TW: VIOLENCE]
    [tldr; FITE]

    His feet beat a hollow rhythm, cold and empty as the rooms he passed through. If you could call them that. They'd once held fine furniture, polished tables of various woods, inlaid with precious metal and stone, or lighter, softer woods, pleasing to the eye with the intricate patterns and shine. What hadn't been plundered by the greedy drow had been smashed and shattered to little more than matchsticks by its current occupants.

    Destructive little bastards.

    Crimson eyes flicked over a couple of them, arguing over some pithy trinket they'd looted, scuttling out of the way with disgruntled warbling cackles. Nobody wanted to get under his feet, not least because they were liable to get kicked the length of the corridor. Reputation could be so damning...but he was rather enjoying it all. Not all of them found him quite so terrifying, some of them moved with grudging, reluctant scowls, whispering and grumbling along. Everywhere he stepped he could smell it on them, hear it vibrating through their minds.

    Dissent.

    The pair guarding the council room didn't bother to stop him, gnarled hands fingering the shafts of their spears, waiting for the second one of them would jab forward and try for him. But no, nothing. The expected agony of three feet of steel punching through his ribcage didn't come. It was almost...disappointing. Perhaps he was just champing at the bit, or perhaps it was the abundance of loathing, suppressed violence and mistrust flitting back and forth that was infecting him like a parasite with a fresh host.

    The doors did not roll smoothly inward, nor did they burst in on their hinges. This was because there was only one and it was propped open. Taller than a man, the other was being casually hefted around on the arm of the Goblin King himself as if it weighed less than a sheaf of paper.

    A faint thrill of consternation rippled through him at the sight. He wasn't afraid of the stout, hulking mass that was Ginko. No, he'd expected them to be armed in here, every last one of them. They always were, and what was war but another excuse to turn oneself into a walking weapon rack? The main chamber had been stripped bare, the table gone and smashed to flinders, given over to the hungry fires of the assorted camps left here defending while the main bulk of the army focused on Reine. The Goddess would not have been happy to have anyone hacking down her children, after all...

    The King was a mass of mismatched steel plates, welded together as poorly as a blind, fingerless seamstress might have made a patch quilt. Chainmail links glistened in the lurching torchlight of those loitering behind the central ring of columns, where seating for the people had once been. He barely paid them a glance, his eyes crawling the length of metal and fur, the powerful legs and bulging metal-clad guts of Gingko, the formidable helm, the yawning tusked mouth and recessed nostrils...right to the darkened visor, and the gleaming gimlets behind.

    "Well if it ishn't Méadaigh'sh puppy! Come to bark and shnap at our heelsh again?"
    Sabe tipped his head at the chorus of catcalls and gurgling giggles so typical of a bully and his cohorts. His face remained impassive, unimpressed.
    "Go on then, shing for your shupper."
    Gingko lurched his great bulk around, hands dangling loose, flexing slowly into fists and back again. He tasted of violence, an ill contained anger, bright and hot as a spark.

    "Move the main body of your troops to support the seige at Reine. Leave enough here to defend Madrid."

    One great hand rubbed thoughtfully at the bristly chin, playing it out. The Cambion waited, his impatience beginning to niggle at him enough that he shifted his weight, one foot to the other.

    "It will be taken into conshideration-"
    "It is not for consideration. It is an order from the Goddess herself. Move your fat ass...or I'll do it for you."

    A silence, strangled and quick spread through the lurking goblins, leaving only one shrill cackling before it too, was abruptly stifled. Gingko snorted, took half a step forward and growled. Sabe moved to mimic, chin tucked as he stared him down, cold to hot.
    "Weeee have shpent more than a year on thish campaign! And what do we have to show for it? We grow tired, and hungry! Where ish our reward?!"
    "You're sitting in it."
    "Thish?! Thish is nothing!"
    "You blew your cut, you looted, and you wrecked, and whose damned fault is that? You'll do as you're ordered, and then you'll get another cut as befits your participation. Sitting on your asses isn't going to win you much..." He ran his tongue slowly over his teeth, eyes boring into the unrelenting Gingko. Playing messenger was hardly a job dripping in glory but when they were as willful as the goblins had been, balking at every turn until someone mentioned riches and plunder, someone had to do it...in all fairness, he'd have probably just put them in front and let them get cut to ribbons. They were more trouble than they were worth, constantly fighting among themselves, lacking any real discipline except that to follow basic orders, often killing each other or deliberately attacking the druids...

    Really, someone should commend his half-sister for her efforts in uniting these...lesser beings.

    "Not good enough."
    Sabe inclined his head ever so slightly.
    "You agree? You agree with ush lieutenant? You shee the messh she'sh made of thish?! We are getting nowhere while they dig their heelsh in!"
    There was a shrieking, rattling cry of support as the listening goblins clattered their weapons against shields and columns, and he turned his head to look, eyes sliding back to the Goblin King as he stooped and wrapped thick fingers around a broken decorative column, the uncertainty and malice heavy in his mind, thick as a skin of oil on water.
    "We were promished a land of our own! No more hiding in the treesh and mountainsh! No more hiding in the ground! No more shall our villagesh be destroyed and our peoplesh shlaughtered! All of ush!"
    He hefted the column and waved it, as a child might a toy. It was a sobering reminder he thought, not to play with fire.

    But where exactly was the fun in that?

    "If you desert now, those trees you're so fond of hiding in will no longer be a sanctuary to you...not the trees, not the rocks, not the people...where will you go, Gingko?"
    "We will carve a place for ourshelvesh!"
    "Isn't that what you're doing now?"
    "Not. Good. Enough."

    For the longest moment, they stood and assessed one another, the chamber growing quiet but for the frightful gibbering of an excited goblin, the whisking burning torches, and the huffing breath of their King. The Cambion smiled and shrugged, unarmed as he was.
    "Guess I'll just have to tell her you're not coming to the party then."
    "But you agree with ush!"
    He shrugged again, refusing to commit one way or the other. Up to now Méadaigh had been the one mind he'd been unable to read, as though she held a storm in her head, too much information whirling around and crashing into one another. Chaos had her in it's grip, and something else, something worse than madness. Something Old.
    He wasn't about to let information of his potential desertion fly back to her though. No, not him, the ever obedient hound. Besides...she had his name. Like the goblins, where could he go that he could hide from that? That irritating, clanging bell in the back of his head that wouldn't stop, every time she said it, made his skin prickle and tighten like it wasn't his own...

    No, there was nowhere. She'd either win, or she'd die trying, and he'd go down with her. Unless someone killed her first. He rather hoped they did, he was getting as tired as Gingko, though Sabe would never have been sorry to be in the thick of the bloodshed....and she sure brought him that.

    "You...mangy mutt!"
    "You can do better than that, surely?"
    "Half-breed bashtard! You're fit for nothing but to obey!"
    "This is going to look so bad on my report."
    "She'll ruin ush all!"
    "Maybe. But we're all in this together now...you made the pact, same as everyone else. Now tell your men to-"
    Thick fingers grabbed him by the front of his coat and hoisted him four feet off the ground, easy as a babe in arms, cutting him short. A flicker of annoyance whisked across his features, crooked nose wrinkling.
    "Do you know, it really is very rude when you just interru-"

    Gingko threw him some twelve feet before he'd recovered from the shock of the momentum, hands lashing out and sliding on smooth, ashy marble, then pushed, flipping himself over and into a crouch, tail curled low for balance. For all his size, Gingko really was alarmingly fast. The Cambion found himself slightly, and irritatingly impressed. it didn't change the fact the brute was now howling with rage and charging at him, swinging the broken column like a mace.

    Sabe chuckled and darted away, felt chips of stone whizz past as the ground cracked and buckled under the sheer force of the impact.
    "SHTAND SHTILL AND LET ME SHQUASH YOU!"
    "I can't hear you over your lisping. Try a little louder!"
    The Goblin King bellowed and lashed out, air moving over his head heavily as the Cambion ducked smartly, heard the colossal groan of stone as another decorative column caught the brunt of the swing, the sound ear splitting. He skidded away as it fell, shattering in a cascade of marble dust and fragments that crunched underfoot and coated him with a fine film of grey.
    "What are you waiting for? KILL HIM!"

    An arrow skittered clumsily across the floor, sent far too wide. He watched it for a second, before his mind flicked back to the present, and the now tumbling, screaming pack of goblins that were clambering up onto the dais, brandishing their weapons. A whoosh of air and he barely leaped aside as the column careened past and tore another ugly hole in the floor. A twisted garbling face filled his vision, and he sank his fist into it, feeling bones snap under the full force of his strength, knuckles protesting as the impact shuddered the length of his arm. It fell away and he tripped another with his tail, third hand grasping the skinny leg with savage claws, stole his rusted and nocked cutlass and hacked another down, blade cleaving into the side of its chest with a dull wet crackle.

    His chest. Not it. Him.

    He felt him die, a sudden quick disconnect, and empty hole as all the thought and emotion that had been there was just gone. Took a little of himself with it, left him numb, left him trying to fill the void with something, anything.

    The weapon was torn from his hand as the goblin fell, reality smashing him across the back as one of the shrieking crowd struck him across the shoulders with a large rock. He caught the arm flashing metal down at him, broke it and stole the cleaver, wrapped his own arm tight around the creature's neck and dragged it back with him. Its companions didn't care, the whine and buzz of arrows hit it at least four times as he backtracked to put distance between himself and the Goblin King, dropping his charge halfway there.

    A face howled at him, the rock-bearer now poking and stabbing with a spear, two more at his back, and all the while Gingko leering and cheering them on. Always was the case when it came to bloody goblins...the whole reason they called them a swarm...you never found just one. He took his chance, stamped down on the spear and pinned it beneath his foot to a shriek of dismay, moved in closer than the little bastard could handle and tore the cleaver through his face, threw it and buried in the other's skull with a satisfying whunk.

    One left, but more were approaching, incited with rage and howling for blood. The Guards had abandoned their post and were scurrying in their direction now as well. A bolt took the remaining goblin between the shoulders, toppled him onto the floor still squirming. Sabe slid behind a column, trying to catch his breath as he began forming the Logrus in his mind. Calm...calm...he knew what he was looking for...

    I really gotta quit smoking...

    "Don't let him leave! I want hish head on a shpike!"

    On a scale of one to ten of how great his day was going, well...he'd certainly had better right now.

    "What'sh the matter, lieutenant? Losht your edge?"
    Sabe smiled faintly as the air distorted, and his grip grew heavy.
    "On the contrary..."

    He stepped around the pillar, a smooth motion more suited to a dance, and with all the predatory grace made manifest now his hands were full of cold, bright adamantine. There was a chorus of chimes as the hail of projectiles deflected, the faintest of blue auras hanging in the air about his form, fallen and discarded weapons beginning to slide away from him. An entire goblin corpse clad in half plate began to sluggishly slither backwards across the marble, repelled by his polarity.
    "What?"
    The Cambion chuckled, and Gingko snarled, lumbering forward, and swung. The devil ran to meet him, eyes burning with madness.

    "You woke the wrong dog!"
    Edited by Sabellius, Mar 13 2017, 05:25 PM.
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    Sabellius
    Member Avatar
    Fléctere si néqueo súperos, Acheronta movebo.

    Dust filled his mouth, shards of stone flew past his face, felt them parting his skin, tight little stings that left distracting tickles on his exposed skin, separated the cloth of his clothing in a thousand nicks and cuts. Then his feet were on stone again, running up, up the length of the column even as the King twisted his body to intercept the hum of Gul, arcing silver-blue and hacking a wedge out of the once-fine heavy duty door now fixed to his muscular arm.

    The impact jarred him, felt it through his bones, made his elbows go numb with shock.

    Gingko grunted and slammed him with the thick oaken barrier, hurling him like a child's rag doll to tumble and flop across the floor. Howling, gibbering squeaks as his...men came on, bounding through the doors and heaving themselves up onto the edges of the platform, cussing and spitting at one another. None wanted to get too close, for fear of being crushed or cleaved to pieces. They jostled and shoved, instead waiting for the moment, or the order.

    He didn't much care which at this point, their constant babble, mouths and minds, it was a distraction, trying to get him killed, almost as bad as Madrid. So much hate, so much anger...it was pushing, and pushing, made him want to froth and the mouth and snap at anything that moved. Turned him into little more than a conduit for their fear and loathing.

    The Cambion pushed himself up fast enough, reversed his polarity briefly to draw his lost talwar back to his hand, fallen when his fingers had dashed so carelessly against the stone. He ached all over, as though someone had just hit him with...well, an oak door. He shifted and winced, hurriedly dancing back as a rabid goblin threw itself across the space towards him...and managed little more than getting itself pulverized as Gingko unleashed a flurry of heavy swipes in his direction, forcing him closer to the wall of sharp edges. He took the opportunity to flip his magnetic field again, blasting those nearest right off the edge again to tumble in an uncoordinated heap, and giving him a little more leeway.

    The anger was dragging him down, making him far more frustrated than he should have been. It was difficult to find an opening when those wide swings kept him at bay, and with such a reach, he had little choice but to try and get close and find the openings in that shoddy mess of armor. Probably why he'd lived this long...goblin's didn't get to be that big without being good at surviving. It was, as with most things, a matter of timing. It would be a real shame if he got crushed here and now.

    Sabe stepped forward directly into Gingko's path, panting through gritted teeth as he fought the urge to let loose and allow the fury to pour out of him, riding an angry sea in a thimble of a boat. Just one opening...that was all he needed...

    If you can't find one, then make one dumbass.

    The lucidity of the thought caught him offguard, himself but not himself. Himself as he might have been a year ago. Not all so quiet then...just...waiting...he shook his head. No, he couldn't afford to think of himself in a divided sense right now. It would get him killed. As if two-weapon fighting wasn't dangerous enough.

    He knew what he had to give. He hoped she'd be thankful. He knew she wouldn't.

    The column went up, ragged from its repeated beating on stone and flesh. He laughed and threw himself forward, closer, closer...could feel it building, a terribly tightness of the chest, pushing his ribs apart and choking him from the inside out, set his limbs to quaking like he had a seizure, felt tainted with it, the energy suffusing and leaking out through cracked lips.
    His lungs felt full to bursting as he inhaled, and shrieked the Word.

    The effect was immediate, a storm of incomprehensible sound exploding around him and hurling the Goblin King from his sturdy feet. The column in his fist burst and fragmented, everything seemed to slow for a moment, a perfect picture of undoing. Gingko mid-flight, his armor rusting right off his body, splinters of rotting wood as the shield began weakening on his arm. The slow screams of madness as the goblins began clawing at themselves, or those nearest, or froze and huddled on themselves, fleeing in terror or vomiting, bashing their heads against the floor and gibbering.

    Sabe leered, his face twisting in wretched glee, all gone too soon as he bent double and retched, a thin string of drool inching from his mouth, thickened as he hawked blood and mucus. No breath to scream as fire tore through his guts, his lungs. He recoiled, fingers gone piss-weak and shaking. His eyes appeared bruised, haggard as he made himself stagger forward, feet steadying as the pain passed. Turned his head, jaw working, spat a loose molar, rotten through.

    Gul and Beben were singing, still vibrating with that discordant note, only the sacred blade melted down into their bodies holding his girls together.

    Closer, he staggered, weak legs growing strong and steady as he drew nearer, began to run as the King was heaving himself to his feet. Sabe threw himself at him, Gul piercing the length of rotten wood as Gingko lifted it to defend himself. He used it to drag himself up, stood on the uneven surface of the decaying shield and began hacking recklessly at Ginko's head, his helm ringing out comically each time he flinched under the blows. One hand swung to grab at the half-breed and was swiftly snatched back amid a scream, short one of his huge fingers. The Cambion only laughed and braced himself as he was shaken about, trying to throw him from the shield. He released his grip on Gul and dug his claws deep into the wood, clinging tightly.

    + You think you're irreplaceable? +

    He saw the eyes widen behind the visor, then narrow, not unlike the mindless rage of a boar. He could feel it, beating on him, the mania. Gingko knew it well enough. In that, they were brothers. All too abruptly the Goblin King dropped his shield, grabbed the nearest soldier he could and hurled it at Sabe.
    He caught it full in the chest, stumbling backwards with a whooping cackle, delighted with the sudden chaotic turn of events. When he'd thrown it off and gotten to his feet, Gingko was already running at him, only to run into a wall of force as his own armor held him back, repelled from the devilish half-breed. Still he staggered on, as if moving through a strong wind, weakened panels slowly peeling off, flapping with the strain and rattling until the straps finally gave in and let them free. Here and there, small patches of padding and skin began to show. He shrieked as his gorget rattled free, tore it off and hurled it only for it to immediately change direction and bounce off his arm.

    Sabe scowled, increasing his efforts to repel the giant, and merely succeeded in making him slide back a couple of inches and pause before he began lowing onwards again. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he shoved with all his strength and found that it was still not quite a match for his foe. Fingers closed around his torso, drawing him in close as a lover, close enough to see the beautiful chinks in the steel wall he'd built for himself. Sabe hacked at the arm that held him, cutting deep, til the other great hand snatched it from him. Might as well have been a needle. Great, panting breaths, stink like carrion in his face, made him gag, legs kicking, ribs aching with pressure.

    "Gonna...shquash you...shend y'back...like a pancake..."
    He grunted, barely able to get that much out, chest creaking.
    "Last..wordsh...dog?"
    Sabe wheezed, a gurgling, squawking sound that might've been a laugh, and reversed polarity. Gingko staggered, howled as the fallen weapons of the catatonic soldiers battered his hide, some finding more sensitive spots than others. There was a splintering sound as Gul tore loose from the discarded shield, and returned to her master.

    Gingko's eyes bulged as four feet of adamantine sprouted from the left of his neck, a needle punching through a piece of meat.
    Sabe smiled, red teeth and red eyes. Eyes like coals. Dying suns, over the desert. Felt like he'd done this before, somehow. History, repeating.
    "Woof."

    +++

    L'alurl gol zhah elghinyrr gol.*

    When he left, it was with the knowledge that Gingko's second, Grovel, would be running toward Reine with all haste. Sleet was falling heavy, stinging and bitter. Almost made him miss the warmth of the Guild hall, but considering the goblins were celebrating their new leadership with a prime barbeque, it was better that he just left. The army wasn't going to deliver itself.

    He paused as he passed one of the drow camps, scenting the air momentarily.

    Something...there. A thought, lightning quick, malicious and familiar. His fingers brushed the outside of his coat, where the silken braid of hair was fixed to the inside, a humiliating trophy for a pretty drow.
    Really, he should do something about him...

    ...But he was tired. So very tired. Did he expect Méadaigh to pat him on the head and ask who was a good boy? He felt the attention of the assassin on him now, a seething hate for what he'd done...and the indecision of potentially ruining the task at hand in order to fulfill a personal vendetta.
    Sabe turned and stared at the exact point he stood, felt that hatred sharpen to a lethal point. He relaxed, and smiled easily at what might have been a man cloaked in invisibility in the snow...but who could say? Certainly not him.

    The Cambion turned away, and headed back, back south, towards the war, and family.

    Let whatever happened, happen. They were all just passengers at this point.



    *The best goblin is a dead goblin.
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