08-02-2013, 08:39 PM
The Pale Moors
If you dare take either of the gates from the Nexus or Camelot, you will soon find yourself in the town of Darkshire, so named for the perpetual clouds blotting out the sun’s gaze. Once the centerpiece of the Kingdom's colonial interests, it is now a place where everybody locks their doors and windows at night. As the frontline in the war against Diablo, Darkshire suffered terribly before the fighting concluded. In the aftermath, it failed to recover when the Kingdom gradually withdrew from the verse, and the arrival of a foreboding castle on the horizon has only complicated matters.
Ever since Diablo, all manner of undead creatures have begun to wander the land, making day-to-day tasks like farming perilous. Attacks on Darkshire have become common. Even so, citizens often disappear from their beds or their guard posts. Now only those very brave, foolhardy, or with no choice remain.
Outside of Darkshire, the landscape is one of rolling fields dotted with forests, wetlands, and varied bodies of water. Travelers leaving Darkshire are advised not to eat or drink anything they find in the wildness and avoid any dense fog they may encounter, particularly around the abandoned city of Silent Hill in the mountains.
Status
Darkshire has recently undergone a shift in government, although the situation has long-since stabilized, resulting in relative success for the town in recent months.
Outside of Darkshire, the rest of the Moors has seen an increase in activity as new primes flock to Dracula. The interior of the Moors hasn't been this dangerous since the peak of the Blight.
What appears to have been a dormant volcano erupted in the interior of the Moors, near the site of the Primordial Scar, many months ago. Reports are still murky.
Sub-Zones
[anchor=Darkshire]Darkshire[/anchor]
Darkshire was once a thriving colonial outpost of the Kingdom. It was renowned for its beautiful architecture of brick, dark woods, and stone. Once the jewel of the Kingdom, Darkshire was a beautiful walled city, populated by the rich and successful who sought escape from the rigors of life in Camelot (think of Bowerstone in the earlier Fable series). While times have changed, this legacy can still be found throughout a city that came so very close to the precipice of destruction so many years ago. Although most blatant indicators of former Kingdom affiliation, including the earlier government, have been washed away, many buildings still match designs you might see in Minas Tirith's well-to-do neighborhoods, although quite a few of those one illustrious hotels and boarding homes have become little more than glorified tenements.
At its height, Darkshire was home to nearly ten thousand souls. The Terror War and the subsequent withdrawal of the Kingdom caused those numbers to plunge to what was almost a breaking point a few years back. The arrival of hardened primes and weary souls has helped Darkshire to recover, although it will be a long time and a lot of spilled blood deep in the Moors before the city regains any semblance of what it once had. Even so, Darkshire's people are a hardy, resolute bunch that do not waver in the face of adversity. Those that might have long-since left the Pale Moors, leaving behind a population of citizens with little more than laconic wit in lieu of the outside world.
With the souring of the Moors, Darkshire's existence has come under perpetual threat from all walks of horrors that stalk the rolling hills and scattered forests. In recent months, Darkshire became embroiled in political bickering as its economic slumped and safety became even worse. Reports surfaced that many in the town were consorting with drow, including the former mayor. This led to a palace coup by Dobson Skendor (whose father had been murdered), Shang Tsung, Atelos, and a few other influential citizens. A political-military council was created to govern the town, with Dobson as a ceremonial first-among-equals.
With the increased threats from the mindless beasts that roam the wilderness and those monsters organized under Count Dracula, Darkshire is not an overly happy place. With the loss of the neighboring town of Silent Hill and the conflict between the Kingdom and the Empire, Darkshire must rely upon itself. Visitors to this town will find a hardened, brooding people adapted to the gloom of the Moors.
The following non-player characters are centered in Darkshire: Dobson Skender , Atelos
[anchor=DraculasCastle]Dracula's Castle[/anchor]
No one is quite certain exactly when the castle appeared on the Pale Moors, only that it occurred sometime after the closure of the Underverse. They only know that it's appearance is what started the Pale Moors gradual decline into a gray, hellish landscape populated by more beasts and monsters than humans. Because no one has made it to the castle and lived to tell the tale, details of its interior are a mystery. The most common parcel of knowledge is that it is run by Count Dracula, whose destruction seems to be the eventual aim of the doctor/hunter Abraham van Helsing
The following non-player characters are centered at Dracula's Castle: Count Dracula
[anchor=SilentHill]Silent Hill[/anchor]
Silent Hill was started in the early days of the Omniverse, when the Pale Moors were known more for their beautiful scenary and wildlife, rather than the omnipresence of doom and disease. Primes like Henry Mason, Billy Coen, and Oswell E Spencer helped grow the place from a collection of lake-side huts to a full-fledged town. For years, its location--nestled between the beautiful Lake Teluca, the Arkelay Mountains, and Raccon Forest---made it a hotbed for all likes of Primes and secondaries. The town was not without its conspiracies--tales of experiments in the Spencer mansion and of a cult that worship the demonic lord of the Underverse. Even so, the community thrived even as the Pale Moors as a whole went into decline.
No one knows exactly what happened to the town, but roughly six months ago, a fog rolled in off the lake one morning. Fog was common due to the geography, but this fog never receded. Communication to and from the town became virtually impossible. Reports of grotesque, shambling creatures and the living dead began to flourish. Although these reports were common in the rest of the Moors, Silent Hill had long been a bastion. Anyone inside the town was soon considered to be dead or worse, and the few that entered the fog-soaked town after this incident rarely returned.
Those that did--a prime that committed suicide to escape--reported that the town was a realm of nightmares. Fog and rain shrouded horrifying creatures and crazed survivors. People still left in the town would often seem oblivious to the hellscape around them. The Prime also spoke of how the town would, from time to time, transform into a hellish, rusted reflection of itself. The change was heralded by an air-raid siren, and it always marked an increase in the presence of beasts and mental anguish. The Prime reported been tormented by dead friends and stalked by a man wearing a large, triangular helmet and dragging a massive cleaver.
Even still, Primes and secondaries still find reasons to try and brave the fog. Rarely do they return, and when they do, they are usually never the same mentally or physically. The only Prime who seems to have endured in Silent Hill is the Viper, who many will state was never quite whole of mind to begin with. The ‘woman’ can been seen roaming the towns and the fog-soaked countryside. Some say she searches for the cause of the town’s hellish state, while others claim she is nothing more than one more twisted, tormented soul wandering Silent Hill until the Omniverse’s end.
The following non-player characters are centered in Silent Hill: The Viper
Menzoberranzan
Although no one has yet found the underground city of the drow and lived to tell of it, a few capture drow have leaked details of the place. Located in the more rugged and hilly areas in the outer reaches of the Pale Moors, the underground city is home to the growing drow city-state. Its warriors and clerics, under the leadership of their Matron Mother Triel Baenre, have gradually started to become a greater nuisance and threat for Darkshire and the various farms and settlements that try to exist out in the wilds of the Pale Moors.
The following non-player characters are centered in Menzoberranzan: Triel Baenre
Poenari Castle
If one travels far into the Moors, they will eventually run across the Poe River, which rushes down from the Carpathian Mountains that serve as one of the frontiers of the Moors. Nestled near the widest point of this river is a dilapidated fortress. At one point, years ago, Poenari Castle was the front line in the defense of the Pale Moors. Built over the course of a few weeks by some of the best mages of Camelot, the castle served for a long time as a bottleneck against the evil spilling out into the Moors. King Aragorn, Victor von Magnus, and Dumbledore spent several months at Poenari Castle when the nefarious attacks in the Moors were only intermittent assaults and guerrilla conflicts.
When the armies of Diablo started to spew forth from the Black Gate, Poenari Castle, despite its thick walls and natural defenses, became impossible to hold onto. The defenders, led by the three aforementioned Kingdom primes, held out for several weeks before it became clear that the situation was impossible. They were forced to retreat before escape could be cut off, and after another month of sieges, the castle fell to the armies of Diablo. By that point, Poenari had been so thoroughly ravaged that it was left to rot away--a giant mausoleum that is now mostly forgotten to the ravages of time and the reality of the Moors. The only one to visit the place in recent history is Argento Camarinos, who spent a few weeks at the place as part of a bigger journey to the Black Gate. The paladin reported that the place, despite clearly losing the battle against time, remains an impressive sight, even if he also mentioned that he heard moans and lamentations in the dead of night.
Poenari Castle has recently, more or less, fallen under the control of Illidan, who seeks to turn its host of monsters and fel creatures against the Light.
The Primordial Scar
If you travel a few days from Darkshire into the interior of the Pale Moors, you may stumble across the site of a recent battle. It is here that the Tarrasque was fought and defeated by a coalition of 7 primes. What had once been the site of a somewhat prosperous farming village is now a massive ruin. Explosions detonated by the primes caused the tunnels beneath the area to collapse, leading to the creation of widely uneven terrain and numerous sinkholes. Along with the holes and fissures, the area is dotted with strange rock formations caused by the cooling of magma, said to have been the Tarrasque's blood.
At the epicenter of the area is an enormous sinkhole wide enough to have consumed a city block. If the primes are to be believed, the spot is where the Tarrasque collapsed into the ground upon its demise. While everyone has celebrated the end of the creature's rampage, there are those who doubt the validity of its death and cite the old stories they've shared since the early days of the Pale Moors.
The Black Gate
A few weeks from Darkshire is the Black Gate, the massive gate which once served as the entrance into the Underverse. It was from this demonic structure that Diablo's armies flooded out into the rest of the Omniverse, and it was here that the armies of Camelot finally defeated the monster and ended his threat. What remains is a rolling field of uneven terrain that houses hundred of dead warriors and demonic creatures. The gate itself still stands--two black stone pillars with an arch on top.
The gate draws little to no visitors, as it is a long march through hostile territory. Most people fear they will run across the ghosts of the dead or something far worse. The paladin Argento visited this landmark months before he disappeared in Silent Hill, and a group led by Proto Man came here to banish the source of the Blight.
Hogwarts
Known by many of the Fallen and other monsters of the Moors as the Towers that Eclipse Darkshire, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry rose in a matter of minutes upon a high hill overlooking an equally deep lake. This location in particular places it three or four hours from Darkshire, making it an ideal fall back position should the worst happen and the village is invaded.
To all who see it, even at distance and to those lacking any particularly crafted sense, it practically thrums with an inviting magical energy. For those who accept that invitation, they will find themselves passing under a single high walled entrance and through a slowly populating village before reaching Hogwarts’ hallowed exterior. Bear it no ill will and you find yourself in a place will to teach you all the subtle intricacies of the arcane and occult.
Roaming NPCs
Abraham van Helsing - Professor Abraham van Helsing can be found wandering throughout the Pale Moors. He makes stops at the small villages that exist in the decrepit wastes, offering his services as a doctor and a hunter before moving on. His goals are unknown, although the stories go that he seeks the destruction of Dracula with the hopes that doing so will allow the Moors to heal.
If you dare take either of the gates from the Nexus or Camelot, you will soon find yourself in the town of Darkshire, so named for the perpetual clouds blotting out the sun’s gaze. Once the centerpiece of the Kingdom's colonial interests, it is now a place where everybody locks their doors and windows at night. As the frontline in the war against Diablo, Darkshire suffered terribly before the fighting concluded. In the aftermath, it failed to recover when the Kingdom gradually withdrew from the verse, and the arrival of a foreboding castle on the horizon has only complicated matters.
Ever since Diablo, all manner of undead creatures have begun to wander the land, making day-to-day tasks like farming perilous. Attacks on Darkshire have become common. Even so, citizens often disappear from their beds or their guard posts. Now only those very brave, foolhardy, or with no choice remain.
Outside of Darkshire, the landscape is one of rolling fields dotted with forests, wetlands, and varied bodies of water. Travelers leaving Darkshire are advised not to eat or drink anything they find in the wildness and avoid any dense fog they may encounter, particularly around the abandoned city of Silent Hill in the mountains.
Status
Darkshire has recently undergone a shift in government, although the situation has long-since stabilized, resulting in relative success for the town in recent months.
Outside of Darkshire, the rest of the Moors has seen an increase in activity as new primes flock to Dracula. The interior of the Moors hasn't been this dangerous since the peak of the Blight.
What appears to have been a dormant volcano erupted in the interior of the Moors, near the site of the Primordial Scar, many months ago. Reports are still murky.
Sub-Zones
[anchor=Darkshire]Darkshire[/anchor]
Darkshire was once a thriving colonial outpost of the Kingdom. It was renowned for its beautiful architecture of brick, dark woods, and stone. Once the jewel of the Kingdom, Darkshire was a beautiful walled city, populated by the rich and successful who sought escape from the rigors of life in Camelot (think of Bowerstone in the earlier Fable series). While times have changed, this legacy can still be found throughout a city that came so very close to the precipice of destruction so many years ago. Although most blatant indicators of former Kingdom affiliation, including the earlier government, have been washed away, many buildings still match designs you might see in Minas Tirith's well-to-do neighborhoods, although quite a few of those one illustrious hotels and boarding homes have become little more than glorified tenements.
At its height, Darkshire was home to nearly ten thousand souls. The Terror War and the subsequent withdrawal of the Kingdom caused those numbers to plunge to what was almost a breaking point a few years back. The arrival of hardened primes and weary souls has helped Darkshire to recover, although it will be a long time and a lot of spilled blood deep in the Moors before the city regains any semblance of what it once had. Even so, Darkshire's people are a hardy, resolute bunch that do not waver in the face of adversity. Those that might have long-since left the Pale Moors, leaving behind a population of citizens with little more than laconic wit in lieu of the outside world.
With the souring of the Moors, Darkshire's existence has come under perpetual threat from all walks of horrors that stalk the rolling hills and scattered forests. In recent months, Darkshire became embroiled in political bickering as its economic slumped and safety became even worse. Reports surfaced that many in the town were consorting with drow, including the former mayor. This led to a palace coup by Dobson Skendor (whose father had been murdered), Shang Tsung, Atelos, and a few other influential citizens. A political-military council was created to govern the town, with Dobson as a ceremonial first-among-equals.
With the increased threats from the mindless beasts that roam the wilderness and those monsters organized under Count Dracula, Darkshire is not an overly happy place. With the loss of the neighboring town of Silent Hill and the conflict between the Kingdom and the Empire, Darkshire must rely upon itself. Visitors to this town will find a hardened, brooding people adapted to the gloom of the Moors.
The following non-player characters are centered in Darkshire: Dobson Skender , Atelos
[anchor=DraculasCastle]Dracula's Castle[/anchor]
No one is quite certain exactly when the castle appeared on the Pale Moors, only that it occurred sometime after the closure of the Underverse. They only know that it's appearance is what started the Pale Moors gradual decline into a gray, hellish landscape populated by more beasts and monsters than humans. Because no one has made it to the castle and lived to tell the tale, details of its interior are a mystery. The most common parcel of knowledge is that it is run by Count Dracula, whose destruction seems to be the eventual aim of the doctor/hunter Abraham van Helsing
The following non-player characters are centered at Dracula's Castle: Count Dracula
[anchor=SilentHill]Silent Hill[/anchor]
Silent Hill was started in the early days of the Omniverse, when the Pale Moors were known more for their beautiful scenary and wildlife, rather than the omnipresence of doom and disease. Primes like Henry Mason, Billy Coen, and Oswell E Spencer helped grow the place from a collection of lake-side huts to a full-fledged town. For years, its location--nestled between the beautiful Lake Teluca, the Arkelay Mountains, and Raccon Forest---made it a hotbed for all likes of Primes and secondaries. The town was not without its conspiracies--tales of experiments in the Spencer mansion and of a cult that worship the demonic lord of the Underverse. Even so, the community thrived even as the Pale Moors as a whole went into decline.
No one knows exactly what happened to the town, but roughly six months ago, a fog rolled in off the lake one morning. Fog was common due to the geography, but this fog never receded. Communication to and from the town became virtually impossible. Reports of grotesque, shambling creatures and the living dead began to flourish. Although these reports were common in the rest of the Moors, Silent Hill had long been a bastion. Anyone inside the town was soon considered to be dead or worse, and the few that entered the fog-soaked town after this incident rarely returned.
Those that did--a prime that committed suicide to escape--reported that the town was a realm of nightmares. Fog and rain shrouded horrifying creatures and crazed survivors. People still left in the town would often seem oblivious to the hellscape around them. The Prime also spoke of how the town would, from time to time, transform into a hellish, rusted reflection of itself. The change was heralded by an air-raid siren, and it always marked an increase in the presence of beasts and mental anguish. The Prime reported been tormented by dead friends and stalked by a man wearing a large, triangular helmet and dragging a massive cleaver.
Even still, Primes and secondaries still find reasons to try and brave the fog. Rarely do they return, and when they do, they are usually never the same mentally or physically. The only Prime who seems to have endured in Silent Hill is the Viper, who many will state was never quite whole of mind to begin with. The ‘woman’ can been seen roaming the towns and the fog-soaked countryside. Some say she searches for the cause of the town’s hellish state, while others claim she is nothing more than one more twisted, tormented soul wandering Silent Hill until the Omniverse’s end.
The following non-player characters are centered in Silent Hill: The Viper
Menzoberranzan
Although no one has yet found the underground city of the drow and lived to tell of it, a few capture drow have leaked details of the place. Located in the more rugged and hilly areas in the outer reaches of the Pale Moors, the underground city is home to the growing drow city-state. Its warriors and clerics, under the leadership of their Matron Mother Triel Baenre, have gradually started to become a greater nuisance and threat for Darkshire and the various farms and settlements that try to exist out in the wilds of the Pale Moors.
The following non-player characters are centered in Menzoberranzan: Triel Baenre
Poenari Castle
If one travels far into the Moors, they will eventually run across the Poe River, which rushes down from the Carpathian Mountains that serve as one of the frontiers of the Moors. Nestled near the widest point of this river is a dilapidated fortress. At one point, years ago, Poenari Castle was the front line in the defense of the Pale Moors. Built over the course of a few weeks by some of the best mages of Camelot, the castle served for a long time as a bottleneck against the evil spilling out into the Moors. King Aragorn, Victor von Magnus, and Dumbledore spent several months at Poenari Castle when the nefarious attacks in the Moors were only intermittent assaults and guerrilla conflicts.
When the armies of Diablo started to spew forth from the Black Gate, Poenari Castle, despite its thick walls and natural defenses, became impossible to hold onto. The defenders, led by the three aforementioned Kingdom primes, held out for several weeks before it became clear that the situation was impossible. They were forced to retreat before escape could be cut off, and after another month of sieges, the castle fell to the armies of Diablo. By that point, Poenari had been so thoroughly ravaged that it was left to rot away--a giant mausoleum that is now mostly forgotten to the ravages of time and the reality of the Moors. The only one to visit the place in recent history is Argento Camarinos, who spent a few weeks at the place as part of a bigger journey to the Black Gate. The paladin reported that the place, despite clearly losing the battle against time, remains an impressive sight, even if he also mentioned that he heard moans and lamentations in the dead of night.
Poenari Castle has recently, more or less, fallen under the control of Illidan, who seeks to turn its host of monsters and fel creatures against the Light.
The Primordial Scar
If you travel a few days from Darkshire into the interior of the Pale Moors, you may stumble across the site of a recent battle. It is here that the Tarrasque was fought and defeated by a coalition of 7 primes. What had once been the site of a somewhat prosperous farming village is now a massive ruin. Explosions detonated by the primes caused the tunnels beneath the area to collapse, leading to the creation of widely uneven terrain and numerous sinkholes. Along with the holes and fissures, the area is dotted with strange rock formations caused by the cooling of magma, said to have been the Tarrasque's blood.
At the epicenter of the area is an enormous sinkhole wide enough to have consumed a city block. If the primes are to be believed, the spot is where the Tarrasque collapsed into the ground upon its demise. While everyone has celebrated the end of the creature's rampage, there are those who doubt the validity of its death and cite the old stories they've shared since the early days of the Pale Moors.
The Black Gate
A few weeks from Darkshire is the Black Gate, the massive gate which once served as the entrance into the Underverse. It was from this demonic structure that Diablo's armies flooded out into the rest of the Omniverse, and it was here that the armies of Camelot finally defeated the monster and ended his threat. What remains is a rolling field of uneven terrain that houses hundred of dead warriors and demonic creatures. The gate itself still stands--two black stone pillars with an arch on top.
The gate draws little to no visitors, as it is a long march through hostile territory. Most people fear they will run across the ghosts of the dead or something far worse. The paladin Argento visited this landmark months before he disappeared in Silent Hill, and a group led by Proto Man came here to banish the source of the Blight.
Hogwarts
Known by many of the Fallen and other monsters of the Moors as the Towers that Eclipse Darkshire, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry rose in a matter of minutes upon a high hill overlooking an equally deep lake. This location in particular places it three or four hours from Darkshire, making it an ideal fall back position should the worst happen and the village is invaded.
To all who see it, even at distance and to those lacking any particularly crafted sense, it practically thrums with an inviting magical energy. For those who accept that invitation, they will find themselves passing under a single high walled entrance and through a slowly populating village before reaching Hogwarts’ hallowed exterior. Bear it no ill will and you find yourself in a place will to teach you all the subtle intricacies of the arcane and occult.
Roaming NPCs
Abraham van Helsing - Professor Abraham van Helsing can be found wandering throughout the Pale Moors. He makes stops at the small villages that exist in the decrepit wastes, offering his services as a doctor and a hunter before moving on. His goals are unknown, although the stories go that he seeks the destruction of Dracula with the hopes that doing so will allow the Moors to heal.
Curious about me and the characters I play? See the 'Staff' page! See also the rosters for my characters Samus Aran or Enel if you'd like to see examples of well-formatted rosters. Hope you enjoy the Omniverse!
