Fiction and Foolishness

  Seven months ago. Two weeks following the Fields of Slaughter. Elsewhere.   Aranasius, last god of the Firebrand Pantheon, had lost his beard.  This wasn’t to say it got burned or sheared or simply yanked away - Aranasius’ beard, like all of his hair, was a living creature, and it has gone missing. It was a sorry situation to be sure- what was the god of hair and beards worth if he didn’t even have a beard! He was a minor god in any case, but without half of his Mantel, he might as well be a glorified demigod! He was staring at himself in a mirror framed with liquid mercury, horrified at seeing his chin for the first time in a thousand years. Surely it didn’t use to be this weak, right? Oh, there was no end to his troubles! Take for example the fact that his entire family, brothers and sisters, mother and father, were all dead. But that was a secondary concern all things considered.  “Nasi? Nasi, Nelor has called for a general assembly! Would you get out of th...

Odilion Redon   From the journal of Fabius Verr, 3rd of Bittertide, 1249 As I cower beneath the rickety bed in my rickety room in my rickety hostel while frozen clouds smashed into Vlexwood, I can’t help but to wonder how the course of my life could go so wrong. With the lovely sound of splintering wood and my own panicked breaths as a backdrop, I’m coming to the conclusion that, as with most things, it was all my fault.  I should’ve been a grocer.  My father was a grocer, as was his father, and his father before him. Before that my great-great grandfather was the Duke of Decester’s court jester, but my father never liked to talk about him much, despite clowning being a respectable and profitable profession in my native city. A grocer might not seem like a very glamorous profession… and it isn’t, but to my father’s credit, he was by far the finest grocer that Decester has ever seen. Perhaps the finest on the entire Umarian Peninsula, though it’s hard to compete with the t...

From the journal of Fabius Verr, the 15th of Ashfall, 1249 GB It has been six months since the end of the Icon's War, and the gods, or those few of them who still remain at least, dare not leave the Ascended Peak. Their angels, their brilliant coronas once a common sight in the night sky, have vanished with their masters, leaving the wounded remnants of their flocks to fend for themselves. I can't say I don't sympathize. For the high and mighty, so convinced in their own righteousness and utter invincibility, such a stark reminder must have been unbearable. If I were them, I’d hide as well. Alas, that is a luxury I was not afforded.  When the Icon showed Their true face and turned on the gods, Corinth Silverbrow was devoured in the Fields of Slaughter and I was left a priest without a god. As a minor clergyman, I was amidst the common soldiers as the sky fell (metaphorically) and the last of the gods fled. It was my good fortune to have been stationed with the 12th Grenadie...