Catastrophe-10 points
Order comes with frightening rapidity to the realms of Man under the Basileus's leadership. Saul moves to bring the various factions of his race under one unified, clear and concise rule. His long lifetime, common in Men, contributes to his grip on power as he is steadily able to stock the bureaucracy with loyalists. Prime on his list of potential threats are the mages and the Temple of Order, which maintains a more disconnected chain of command with Adamis and thus the Basileus. It is a state of affairs that engenders much mistrust, one which drives Saul to increasing levels of suspicion.
Many are Saul's schemes, and his tendrils reach everywhere. Seeing potential, he at several points attempts to negotiate a treaty with Foxkind, proclaiming they have common enemies, and that the combination of magical astuteness and mechanical ingeninuty that the two races have could compliment each other powerfully. His entreaties always flounder, however, as beneath the veneer of his smiles his proposals seem to recognize Foxkind as a junior partner, leaving much of the proposed decision making in the hands of the Basileus. Saul is incensed and bitter at the unsurprising rejection, and personally insults the Emperor almost leading to war on the spot.
He is frustrated by the bulwark of forces that the Fox-Foxes raise to resist Man's raiding against them, and is altogether clenching his fists at outsiders who present such ripe targets that he cannot attack yet. He needs to consolidate, even as his actions make it increasingly clear to all Man's neighbors that malicious intent brews in Adamis...
It is intent that is also increasingly frustrated by power struggles. The mages, the Temple of Order, even the Order of Flame are proving to be restless opponants to his rule and his policies of centralization. Escalation follows, with closing of mage schools followed by two seperate assassination attempts on the Basileus, one in his own citadel.
More measures follow, as Saul becomes increasingly paranoid of his opponents, and of the mages in particular. He becomes terrified at the prospect of moving against them directly, mostly because of the veiled threats and their “proven” ability to sneak past his defenses in his palace. In reality the bulk of the mages are presenting a strong public front, trying to bluff Saul into not attacking them, but in secret they are terrified of him, prone to craven beliefs that soon the Basileus will come for them.
Both sides believe that the other is ruthless and out to end them, but Saul is the one with more serious ambition. He is faced with an impasse that could blow up in his face at any time, and there is only so much power he can aquire quickly over the mages.
This leads him to adopt more desperate measures to cement his power.
The City of Shadows is not unknown to Man. Reports start filtering in, but the Basileus personally prevents those reports from spreading any further than his ear. He has interest in the power of the Shades. They are clearly not demons, so what wrong is being committed by investigating them? This begins a slow but steady descent, as Saul sends out feelers into the city, even though every often his hand is bitten in the process; the power of the Shades is too great to ignore.
Frustrated, he turns to the experiments of Ulric and Specimen 35. It is during this time that the plague of 35 becomes known, a plague that can infect and bring even Men down with demonic infection, wasting them like a cancer just as it does to any other race. It is said in legends that Men had never wept before as it did when the truth of this came out, though it paled in comparison to what was to come.
These developments only further excacerbate Saul's paranoia, as his jealousy of the power around him ripens in his heart, an outright lust for control of the world sprouting within him, making him seethe with quiet rage at the world.
Jije is not blind to these changes, as he consols the leader of Men to watch his own heart. The Basileus attempts to sooth his creator's concerns with platitudes and deception, assuring him all is well and that any ill feelings witnessed are merely “stress.” Undaunted by the dragon's suspicions, Saul dives into the magics whos powers elude him, as he comes to a profound conclusion.
The mages, Foxkind, the other meddling races, the Shades: all of them stand at his gates, taunting him. But they are all small powers, insects practically. That which Man was originally created to fight, the demons, are a threat several magnitudes greater than any other. They seem so base in comparison because of their lack of coordinated intelligence and organization. But their potential is so much more...
Specimen 35 is what opens Saul's eyes. He sees the demonic strands in the creature's being, what feeds it with power, beyond its other components. If he could tap into that.
Thus sets into motion cataclysmic events, which will scar Humanity forever. The Basileus takes residence in the halls the mages once practiced their abominable research in, and seeks to continue it. He does not walk with caution as even they did, however. He is interested in one thing and one thing alone: the power of the demons, and how to tap into it. Specimen 35's plague is the key; it allows Man's blood to be touched by demonic essence. Normally this is just degenerate corruption, like a cancer spreading through the body. But if it instead can be integrated...
Experiments proceed rapidly, though it seems there is considerable resistant getting the demonic strands to integrate properly with human flesh. Soon cadavers are not enough; the Basileus begins pulling people off the street to be subjected to demonic taints. A breakthrough is reached when it is realized elemental light magic can be used to “weld” the two components together, creating a unified structure. These effects are not subtle, and they barely get beyond the basest experiments before Jije discovers what has been transpiring.
Enraged he flies to Adamis, demanding that Saul turn himself over at once to face judgement for his crimes, for the dragon can feel through his own powers what fiendish abominations the Basileus has been conspiring. His demands are met with stony silence, as indecision grips the city. The Temple of Order wants to side with Jije, but are cowed by the Basileus' guards and are divided if they could be successful. The mages shirk from the prospect of being between Saul and Jije, and opt to flee the city en masse before they can be persecuted by either. The Order of Flame sends out token forces, but by and large they hold back their forces that are located in the capital. As much as all Men respect and fear their creator Jije, they tremble and quake at the wrath of their Basileus.
Furious at his plans so close to being in his grasp yet being threatened with having them ripped away at the last moment, Saul summons as many forces as he can to stall Jije, fighting him if they have to, while he works with the experiements below, trying to accelerate weeks, months, perhaps years of delicate work in frantic hours.
Jije is saddened by the betrayal of his children, but he steadily becomes enraged as he not only fights those who actively oppose him, but also has to deal with the apathy of those that don't. No one in the entire city, a metropolis representative of Humanity, is listening to his calls to join him by his side. He hammers the Men defending Saul, driving them back to the main Citadel. He furiously denounces the others who stand behind him, not joining the fight; their fear of Saul's fiery retribution has caused them to no longer respect the wishes of their original master. Even if they do not follow him, they are under his thumb, turned away from their intended path.
Below in the arcane laboratories, Saul desperately works, and manages to extract a spell, a spell of unspeakable power. He is now crossing the line; a man powered by demonic magics. He rushes to the top of his fortress, summoning more magical energy than any single Man or group of Men has ever summoned in their existence. He denounces his creator and tells him his time is over before casting a searing maelstrom of Human and Demonic magics alloyed together by intense light magic.
To the shock of all, Jije catches the magic. Holding the swirling chaotic mass in his talons he denounces his creation, cursing them all before hurling the spell back in rage.
The entire city of Adamis shakes, crumbling as the magics sustaining its floatation whittle to nothing, sending it crashing below. Magical shockwaves send its inhabitants flying, casting them to the surface for thousands of miles, but miraculously leaving them alive from the fall. For Jije does not intend to kill his children. He means to punish them.
The magical spell explodes like a supernova, enveloping the lands of Man and encompassing the whole earth, leaving no man untouched, corrupting them with demonic energies.
To the mages who ran and hid, and to all the cowards of Humanity, they are debased, their forms shrunken and turned to small beasts, hideous combinations of locusts and rats. They are spread throughout the earth, to be looked down upon and despised.
To many others, including the Order of Flame, he banishes them to the ocean, stripping their lungs from them and casting them into the depths, where their flame magics must struggle to maintain themselves against an endlessly hostile ocean. Their legs are lost to them, their faces distorted until they are little more than dolphins with arms, small ones at that, given the gift of fire magic that they can maintain but they are forced to endlessly struggle to do so.
To those aligned with the Temple of Order, who could have fought and wanted to, Jije is filled with perhaps the deepest dissapointment. Of all Men they were the closest to him, mirroring his own philosophies closest. He curses them into the fire lands, molding them beasts of the dark, who find themselves harbingers of the very forces of darkness they once despised. They are shaped like dragons, just as Jije is, to remind them of their origins and who created them, but as twisted, perverted creatures of the dark that shirk from the glorious sunlight they once bathed in.
To Saul and his followers, Jije lets them have exactly what they want. Their power now is too much for him to combat direclty, so he lets them eat it full force. They are twisted and scarred, no longer men either, blasted by searing light and demonic energies into maelstromes of blazing light energy. They are the Sons of Annihilation, out of all Man's degenerate forms the most fully corrupted by demonic essense. Saul himself is transformed into a powerful but depraved entity, rent by madness and ambition, seething with rage at the entire world and his lost empire.
The Basileus is gone, replaced by a literal demon, who vows vengence against the world. Henceforth the entity known simply as Saul will strike terror into the hearts of all.
The city of Adamis falls to the earth, errupting in an explosion of magic that destroys the mountains in that region, from F6 to F8. Permanent storms of plasma blast the landscape, turning the region into a light filled hell.
4 Subraces now exist; the Sons of Annihilation, the Scroungers, the Ocean Cast, and the Cursed Wyrms
The Sons of Annihilation are a corrupted race
The Scourngers retain their earlier corruption of Man, becoming self centered scavengers
The Ocean Cast retain their earlier corruption of Man, becoming inward focused and bitter
The Cursed Wyrms take their curse to heart, and weep over the crimes over their people. They attempt to attone for their sins, and rise to become a +1 purified race
Advance Civiliztion-5 points
Saul, struck with immortal rage as he is, wastes little time. He and his tormented demons of light learn to focus their magics, learning the power of Plasma searing from the plasma storms of their former homeland. This allows them to strike with blazing energy with impunity in any direction.
Command Avatar-1 point
Saul then commands the creation of a city within the hellish plamsa storms of F6, naming it Solaris
Command Avatar-1 point
Jije knows that his temper is volatile and that he cannot trust his own judgement around the cast down cursed children of Man any time soon. He leaves, heading north, seeking to focus his mind on other things. Finding the land of the Fox-Foxes, he is confused by their manner, their society, their whole existence, but he finds them a curious, interesting people. Seeing as they border an outpost of Man, divided and bickering already in the city of Trabzand, he organizes among the Fox-Foxes an order, one that teaches them to utilize their telekinetic talents in ways to let them wield extreme heavy objects, like claymores and great hammers. The Heavy Hitters are thus created, adding a component of heavy troops to the Fox-Foxes arsenal.
Zero points remaining
