BotD

BLIGHT of the DARK

First a basic thubnail sketch of the history of the world. It his hoped that with this one can better appreciate the characters.

Of Shehaps�
Of all the intelligent races and beings of this world, none are older or more powerful than the Shehaps. Shee lore encompasses most known science and magic, and it was to them that Orn the Mighty first entrusted the stewardship of the Earth. He admonished the shehaps to watch for the awakening of the mortal races, and nurture them in His ways.
Shehaps are beings of pure energy and magic, and they are not limited to a single physical form. They are not only immortal, but also deathless�if a shehap is �slain,� its energies merely explode violently and slowly recollect over a period ranging from fifty to a hundred years (this process can be speeded along in a number of ways, but energy will never recollect in any period less than a year). The only way to permanently kill a shehap is to slay (disperse) them while their physical forms touch the magical waters of Lake Vortex, where the shehaps were first created. If this is done, the shehap�s essence will be dispersed both inside and outside of the Void, thus ensuring that they will never again reform.
The first shehaps � the �children of the morning,� were five: Casek, Sorcer, Miranca, Sorona, and Kryton. These were the most powerful beings on earth, the unalloyed might of Orn wrought into independent souls. Of these, Casek and Kryton figure most prominently in history.
Kryton rebelled against Orn and set up his own system in opposition to his. Because of his opposition to Orn, he and his followers no longer shine brightly with an inner light, as the Shehaps of light. Rather, they �shine shadows,� dispersing darkness and chasing away light, as a bright torch would do the opposite. Kryton has many children and followers, both of pure Shee blood, and of mixed mortal and Shee heritage.
Of the War of Garl�
There have been many wars between the shehaps, but the one that most closely affects the current situation is the War of Garl. It was Casek and his son Britack, disguised as eagles, that discovered that the ruler of the kingdom of Garl � an enigmatic despot who called himself Nardek � was in truth Kryton himself in disguise. Casek and Britack rallied the Shehaps of light and the mortal people of the earth and gave war to the Kingdom of Garl and its allies. But Kryton had long prepared for this war, and the fighting was long and bitter.
Eventually, Garl was defeated and Kryton�s seat of power was thrown down. In terms of the current situation, the War of Garl had three major results:
First, at the behest of Kala and Sorona, Casek agreed not to disperse his brother Kryton. Instead, portions of Kryton�s power and essence were contained within special stones created for this purpose, called siphants. There were seven siphants, and each was given as an heirloom to prominent women of the seven free races that aided in the downfall of Garl � humans, elves, dwarves, grishnaks, lenders, Bletors, and treefolk.
Second, three of Kryton�s sons � Malissant, Rath, and Datsu � were disembodied in the fighting. They were worse than slain, for their spirits were maimed such that they cannot achieve physical form unaided. These three live today by taking avatars � living hosts of mortal flesh that they control like puppets. The avatar must freely agree to act as host, but the spirit of a half-dead shehap can be very persuasive, and once the host agrees - even subconsciously - the shehap wields complete control.
Third, and most importantly, the mortal allies of the Shehaps of light grew bitter at being involved in conflict that they saw as essentially unconnected with them. They commanded Casek and the shehaps of light to leave them alone and guide them no longer. Mourning for the rejection of Orn�s principles, the shehaps of light agreed to let the mortals govern their own affairs, and to never again reveal themselves until the mortal people of the Earth would call for their aid. Thousands of years have since passed, and now the shehaps are believed to be nothing more than legend.
Of the Prophecy�
When the Shehaps were rejected, Orn sent new stewards into the world � mortal men and women endowed with visions of the future � to guide his people. Several of these prophesied of a new day when the Dark Shehaps would rise again, and there would be no Shehaps of Light to oppose them, and dark and dire were these predictions. But one, a certain seer named Kalabar, prophesied of one who would be prepared by Orn to save them all: the Baenkryt, or the Blight of the Dark. But his prophecies were vague, and few could make sense of them�
From the Eyrie of the Wounded Eagle, a light shall spring from the shadows,
Both elf and human, pure and defiled, reckless and careful, free and enslaved
From the Setting Sun he will cross woods and deserts for the love of a parent
And lo, the tide of the Dark shall break before him as the sea upon the seashore
And even the Eldest Shadow shall kneel helpless before his feet
And he shall spill his own blood into the Lake of the Void,
And drag the Dark Star into oblivion forever.

OK, with that knowledge here are the characters.

Datsu (Ravanark) � A Dark Shehap, son of Kryton and an elven mother. Datsu was caught in the crossfire during the war of Garl and was disembodied along with his two oldest brothers. Since Garl, he has become rather disaffected with the cause of his father, and is only dragged back into serving him against his will.
Datsu has discovered that being disembodied isn�t all that bad. He inhabited a courtier in the kingdom of Woorly, and eventually worked himself up into being king of that realm, changing the name to Dulba and taking upon himself the name �Ravanark.� He prefers to answer to that name, having put Datsu � the younger and unwanted son of a defeated father � aside. Of course, the other Dark Shehaps generally call him by his real name.
Ravanark ruled Dulba for centuries until he was approached by his nephew Slink and commanded in the name of Kryton to help recover the human siphant. In the process, Datsu lost his kingdom.
In battle, Datsu generally uses cold and ice magic, and is almost always clad in black plate armor. His personal bodyguards the �barbons� wear this armor and are slavishly loyal to Ravanark � willingly begging for his spirit to inhabit them whenever he is slain.

Gasponac � A Dark Shehap, son of Kryton and a human mother. His name means �By Burning,� indicating his manner of birth. He is Kryton�s fourth child, the first with mixed heritage. He is prone to fits of anger and temper tantrums, always obsessed receiving the respect due to him. He favors the form of a towering giant of flame, and usually uses fire as a weapon and an instrument of torture. He is petty and selfish, prone to inflict pain for the sheer joy of it. He also tends to act without counting the cost.

Gradion � The last of the Grishnaks. Gradion�s people were destroyed when Levia Ravenhair, discovered the hiding place of the Grishnak siphant. Gradion spent some five hundred years alone, brooding on the destruction of his people. Now he is old and bitter, desperate for any chance to strike back at an enemy.
The word �Grishnak� comes from an old Jovidian expression for �Master of War.� Grishnaks are seven feet tall with large bat-like wings and ears. They treasure the arts of war, and excel at them greatly. Gradion himself wields a spiked mace and chain called the �Star of Stonack,� and heirloom of the lost Grishnak kings.

Korps � A grisly but efficient Dark Shehap, Korps rarely makes mistakes. He is Kryton�s sixth son, half-human, but not nearly as bothered by his mixed heritage as Gasponac. He usually takes the form of a shadowy man in a black cloak with skin stretched so tightly over his face that it appears to be a skull. Korps� cloak is actually an enchanted armor and is impenetrable to any non-magic attack. He wields a long black sword, and has become somewhat of an expert in hand-to-hand battles � very unusual for a shehap. Of course, he also can wield significant magic. Korps has a son, named Zomb who is an eccentric genius tinkering in the science of extending mortal life. While Korps does not really favor the use of these �zombies,� he is trained in the art of creating them.

Malissant � Probably the most evil of the Dark Shehaps besides Kryton himself. Malissant is a full-blooded shehap, the first son of Kryton and his shehap spouse Sorona before Sorona fled from him. He has been called the �Eldest Shadow.� Kryton has raised him in evil all of his long life. Malissant remembers when the first humans awoke, and the first elves, dwarves, and grishnaks. He serves his father with passionate fealty.
After the war of Garl, Malissant was disembodied, and is forced to take mortal avatars. He hates this. Mortal bodies are weak and brittle and unchangeable. He seeks the seven siphants in order to restore his father to his full power, so he can give Malissant back his full form.
In battle, Malissant disdains weapons, preferring to strike out with pure Malice. His hatred and anger at all that breathes is the source of all his power. And his hatred appears to have no limits.
Malissant has learned from the mistakes of Garl. He reads and studies the prophecies of Orn�s stewards, to find ways to protect himself and his father from any prophesied destruction. The prophecy of the Baenkryt troubles him greatly. He has concluded that Venture Plamnor is the Baenkryt, and he will do whatever is necessary to destroy him.

Ravanark � See Datsu

Rog Arlanx � Rog is a fierce warrior from the Southern provinces of Harchon. He has fought on many campaigns with dwarves and humans. He has proven himself as a powerful warrior and a decent strategist. His knowledge of strategy is, however, mostly practical. Rog cannot read very well, and has never read anything as long as a book on military theory. He can wield a dozen weapons with a certain level of expertise, although he favors a battle-axe. He has a penchant for heavy drinking, wenching, and laughing loudly at bawdy jokes. Although he doesn�t realize it, Rog is a natural leader. Those who follow him do so because of his brusque honesty and ability to focus on a single task until it has been completed to his satisfaction.

Rygara Monpue-Plamnor - For centuries, there had always been a Monpue among the knights of Forgon. This proud heritage of warriors was passed from father to son for countless generations until Sir Arman Monpue, who was given two daughters but no sons. Ashamed to break his family�s tradition, Arman took his eldest daughter, Rygara, and raised her as a son, teaching her the art of war. He was not kind, and Rygara still has waking nightmares of his critical voice forever judging her every action and deeming it unworthy of a Monpue.
Despite her family�s legacy and Rygara�s evident skills as a warrior, Rygara was refused admittance to the order of the Forgonish knights because of her sex. Arman had hoped that an exception would be made, if it could be shown that his daughter was the equal of any man, but she was never given the chance to prove herself. Arman never forgave his daughter for breaking the family tradition, and, though she knew it was unjust, Rygara still feels like she somehow failed her father.
Rygara went to the kingdom of Harchon and became a soldier of the king�s guard. Her skill and discipline was rewarded with honor and promotion, but when her commander was ordered to burn a holy shrine of Tyrst, Rygara with several others refused and were branded traitors to the realm. Rygara joined with the rogue thane Sidney Von Dixon, and most of her old cohort followed her. Sidney assigned her to Venture Plamnor�s command, and she quickly gained a respect and admiration for the elf.
During the events surrounding the invasion of the Notzarian underground and the war of Sidney�s rebellion, Rygara came to realize that she had fallen in love with Venture. At first, she resisted these feelings, since her father had trained her to disdain anything associated with the womanly life, and she was afraid to become a typical wife and mother, as her mother and sisters had become. Eventually, she accepted her love for Venture, and agreed to become his wife.
Although Rygara is trained in many weapons, she favors the sword, and especially the sword she inherited from her father, Labyrinth. In the rumble, she has also been known to use a gem-encrusted shield that she acquired in Vinia - the refraction effect of the gems has proven effective against lightsabers. Rygara is controlled and disciplined in her fighting style - although she is also very quick and powerful. She may be the best pure fighter from this world to have entered the rumble so far.

Slink � Slink is actually only � shehap. His mother, Mardra, is Kryton�s daughter via a human lover. Whoever his father was, Mardra killed him - possibly during the act of love. Despite his overwhelmingly human heritage, Slink is still powerful and subtle Dark Shehap. He is worshipped by thieves and assassins and anyone else who works in the shadows of secrecy. He is known as �Lord Slink the Coward,� a title that he avows is a compliment, for �only a fool is brave.� He is not actually fearful, but rather self-assured and certain of his eventual victory. He simply doesn�t face his enemies directly, preferring to fade into the shadows, sneak around behind them, and cut their throats before they are aware that he is there. Though he shares his mother�s sadistic streak, Slink is too wise to take pleasure in torture, preferring to inflict a killing blow and watch his enemy writhe in painful death.

Spelldor � A Nashad wizard, Spelldor is obviously not his real name. Spelldor chose this name � his Nashad � upon the completion of his training. Spelldor doesn�t look much like a wizard: he is young with brown hair and no beard. He wears a simple brown cloak with several pockets and usually a belt with several more. Inside these pockets, Spelldor carries components for his spells. Nashad wizardry depends upon spell components for its potency, even though the actual power is within the wizard�s will. For example, the wizard might take a spider and concentrate on the spinnerets and will the web within the spider to be made manifest through his magic. The result would be a web spell. There are many variations on this concept, limited only by the will and imagination of the wizard.
Spelldor has an extremely strong will, although perhaps less of an imagination than he ought to have. He is very concerned with propriety and �rightness,� and is very annoyed with how Venture and Astak Plamnor would flout the rules that they had been given for no good reason. Spelldor is a very wise man, and one of the most powerful wizards in his world, once he reaches his full strength.

Venture Plamnor - Venture Plamnor has no idea what his real name is or how old he is. He was rescued from King Rethod�s soldiers by Astak Plamnor when he was a child. Of course, as an elf, he may have already seen fifty or sixty years. When Astak asked the young elfling his name, he answered with an elvish word that Astak interpreted as �Venture.� Astak raised the young elf as his own son, and gave him his name.
Elves do not age with the passage of years, but rather grow physically older as they mature emotionally and intellectually. In other words, an elf only grows older when he feels ready to. Hence, since Venture was raised among humans, he aged like a human, and reached his full growth inside of twenty years. In that time, Astak taught him human customs, values, and passions. Venture thinks like a human, acts like a human, and essentially considers himself to be �not exactly an elf.� Since King Rethod had persecuted all the elves in his kingdom into extinction, Venture has been forced to hide his pointed ears and slightly greenish skin.
It was only natural that Venture would join Sidney Von Dixon�s rebellion to attempt to oust Rethod from power. Venture found that he had an extraordinary ability for leading, rabble-rousing, and generally convincing people to see things his way. He calls this his �magic,� and indeed it is the only kind of magic that he has ever developed. However, this is not really magic, but an extremely powerful gift for persuasion and shared empathy that convinces his listener that whatever course Venture is espousing is true, noble, virtuous, and ultimately in the best interest of the listener.
When Sidney commanded Venture to lead a party into the Notzarian wastes to seek allies for the coming war, Venture used the excuse to mount an expedition to find Astak, who had disappeared into the waste a few years before. After many adventures, Venture and his party found Astak deep in the Notzarian underground, only to discover that Astak didn�t want to be rescued at all. Astak was seeking a glorious death in battle by trying lead an uprising against the Dark Shehap Korps. Astak risked the lives of his men wantonly, and ended up getting killed by Korps for no good reason. Venture realized that his adopted father was not the great and noble man that he had always believed.
Venture led an uprising against Malissant and his brothers, Korps and Gasponac, which was ultimately successful. With the help of the reborn Yonder Stonbar, Venture slew Malissant and successfully refused the temptation to become an avatar. Following this episode, Venture led his new forces to Sidney�s aid in his rebellion, hence putting Sidney on the throne of Harchon. Along the way, Venture also realized his love for Rygara Monpue, and the two were married shortly after Sidney was crowned as king.
Venture�s skills are not primarily in battle, but rather in leadership and in convincing others to support him. However, he is a decent shot with a long bow, and has some training fighting with sword and dagger. He also seems to be possessed with better than the normal allotment of luck � things tend to wind up in his favor. This may be because he is the long prophesied �Blight of the Dark.�

Yonder Stonbar � The dwarves of Warbett are more advanced in technology than any other species in the world. Dwarven �magic� extends as far as the creation of rudimentary firearms and even the combustion engine. The dwarves credit their philosophy about life to account for their advancement: a dwarf doesn�t believe in anything that cannot be verified with the senses. Or, at least, their not supposed to�
Yonder has been breaking this rule ever since he met Venture Plamnor. His reason told him not to get involved, but somehow his gut told him to follow this strange �elf-not-an-elf� into the Notzarian waste. On that adventure, Yonder met a priest of Mian who changed his life forever. The priest forced Yonder to acknowledge that there were many things that he knew implicitly without being able to verify them by his senses. Ever since that encounter, Yonder began to be plagued with dreams and premonitions that seemed to be sent from Mian, the Shining One, the Lady of the Crossroads. Yonder tried to resist this call � after all, what was a dwarf who didn�t think like a dwarf? But eventually he realized that he had been called to be Mian�s arm upon the earth, and that if he trusted her guidance, he would be supported in his task.
It took Yonder dying before he could fully accept this call. He was killed in battle with Korps� soldiers in the underground caverns below Notzaria. He met Mian at a Crossroads, and she sent him back. He awoke beside a newly dug grave with his name on it. He didn�t have the courage to open the grave and look.
After tracking down his companions, he saved Venture from succumbing to Malissant, and later accompanied Rog on his quests. Since his rebirth, Yonder�s quest has been to understand what it means to be a paladin, to figure out how his powers are supposed to work, and to try to balance his dwarvish skepticism with his faith in Mian.
Yonder can use most any weapon � he used to sell dwarvish weapons before his call. But he favors a long spear � rather longer than one of his stature would generally use. This spear is both weapon and talisman � it was beside him when he awoke from death.

As you may guess by the descriptions above, there are several other characters who may or may not yet enter the worlds of "Fantastic Rumble!"