RuneScape Forum Archive | Tales of Engelain

D F Angel

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The Holy Force
by cardinal Tyjove

Almighty Tyrrus gives His gifts in parts; so that each is according to their order and therein chaos is shunned. To Man He gave culture, wisdom, agriculture, architecture and warfare. To mortals He gave language and emotions. To the beasts on the ground and birds in the skies He gave life, and to the rocks and the waters not even that. Through this allocation of gifts, order is preserved and divine peace is obtained.

Therefore one would find themselves unsurprised to learn that to His most favoured children, that is to say, those fortunate enough to count themselves amongst the clergy of His most Holy Order, were bequeathed with a greater burden still- that which the slaves and common folk call magic. It is logical in this way, that the mystic arts be entrusted in His most loyal servants, those who sacrifice their life and give up their family name in service of the Higher Power. Pope Miriam IV once said; "In magic we find the stitches of reality," and it is just so. The forces of nature can bend only to the whim of God, it only follows that these abilities be handled by those closest to His divine presence.

Attempts by those outside of the Church to harness this Power have been irreconcilable disasters. This is the true nature of magic- only the pure and holy may engage with the Holy Force and remain **********. Those which flout this basic necessity in magic's handling brings about the wrath of Holy Tyrrus. Vampirism, starvation, drought, leprosy, these are the fruits of the ill-intentioned and blasphemous misusers of magic. One needs only look at the squalor of the Seven States, or the eternal warring of the self-proclaimed 'Free Kingdoms' to see modern incarnations of man's greatest folly. Hags be hagglin', gods be god damn crazy, it's all happening ogre at Into The Fire

25-Jan-2016 14:22:18 - Last edited on 25-Jan-2016 20:36:41 by D F Angel

D F Angel

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Not only is it the Church's privilege to be beholden to these subtle powers- it is also their right. When eight centuries ago Emperor Tylord II, forever to be known as Tylord the Last- both as a signalling of the end of that great dynasty and of the fact that such a name has been tarnished forever more by his actions- outlawed all magic across the empire, calling it the nectar of heathens and heretics- not openly announcing his secret fears that the papacy might keep his megalomania in check. On the very moment that the law was passed to force those of the Church to relinquish their gifts, the imperial senate was struck aflame by Holy Lightning. All of Tylord II's senators, governors and generals were consumed by the fires, as were his unholy self and all of his family and descendants.

This, of course, marked the near one hundred and fifty year period where the Pope ruled directly over the Empire, served by Underkings whose loyalty was sworn first to the Holy See, then to Holy Tyrrus, and last of all to their mortal realm. The line of the Emperors was continued in the illegitimate descendants of Randolin the Lusty, and when Tybright the Returned was crowned as Emperor it was under the understanding that the Church's magical authority would go unquestioned.

In this day and age, usage of the mystical arts is not widespread outside of the clergy. The pretender that named himself High King and caused the secession of what we now know as the Thirteen Kingdoms was a great proprietor of magic, and for that miscalculation Western Engelain bled. Within a generation of his passing the freed colonies collapsed into multiple wars known as the Seven-Decades-Slaughter, the only ceasefire coming as a necessity to repel Tyrannian advancement. Hags be hagglin', gods be god damn crazy, it's all happening ogre at Into The Fire

25-Jan-2016 14:23:45

D F Angel

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As such, Selathon is the only one of the 'Free Kingdoms' (though why being apart from Tyrrus's unconditional love, of being free to wear the shackles of Soahc, is in any way praise worthy is beyond my scholastic prowess,) to allow the open usage of magic.

In the east, a similar situation presents itself. Despite their liberation from the Empire by Arran, none of the Seven States have managed to develop past the perpetual poverty and illiteracy which defines those sunken settlements. They know not to practice magic frivolously, keeping that knowledge instead in the hands of shamans who can use a goat's bladder to cure your new born of ugliness, but cannot hold back plague, famine, droughts, earthquakes and all other retributive acts of nature which are so typical of the region.

Only in the Empire can these problems be faced. Only by the meticulous tinkering of the ministers, by the intense researching of the bishops, by the inexorable calculations of the cardinals and the divine oversight of the gracious Pope can we as a people achieve all that we have set out to achieve. The petty nations shall fall as all heretical kingdoms must, and in their place shall fly the golden flags of the Empire, emboldened, empowered, ever-reaching and eternal.

All Glory be to Tyrrus Hags be hagglin', gods be god damn crazy, it's all happening ogre at Into The Fire

25-Jan-2016 14:24:39

D F Angel

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Excerpt of a child's literacy book in Ricklanding

If you are from Ricklanding you are a Ricklander.

If you are from **gelain you are a Engelite

If you are from ~~Sethalon~~ Selathon you are a Selathite.

If you are from Gaules you are a Gaulean.

If you are from Trigonia you are a Trigonian.

If you are from Y'tunn you are a Y'tunnese.

If you are from Tywrought you are a Tywroughti

If you are from the Empire you are a Tyrannian. Hags be hagglin', gods be god damn crazy, it's all happening ogre at Into The Fire

25-Jan-2016 14:27:04 - Last edited on 25-Jan-2016 20:35:30 by D F Angel

D F Angel

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Why Janus is Lameus
An academically unsupported, linguistically unsophisticated and inarticulate conflagration by Te*his 'gnometrotter' Parker, 39 (if you've got a gnome at home, I've got a foot to trot on it!)

The unlawful weight-loss of the Empire (we Free Kingdoms folk are not a fan of curves!) and the founding of new churches to go with our new kings, new land and same-old problem of taxes has led to a bit of a kafuffle, as King Whothemuffcares of whatever place once never said. The issue being, at its root, who is the daddy of who? Did Tyrrus make Janus and sentence him to a cosmic time-out, or did Janus make Tyrrus to give all the hard work to do whilst he mooches off to watch foot-the-ball and take the credit?

Well I, Te*his of Taint Row, with the same religious authority as one of the Pope's holy snot rockets, have the answer for you. Y'see, when Dwail had a falling out with the Emperor and thought he'd give self ruling a bash, he decided to get rid of a few things. One was the ban on magic, which lead to the splendidly named seven-decade-slaughter, (which came second to the 10,000 years of waiting in line at the public restroom in a poll of the worst time periods to live in.) and pretty much everyone decided to forget about that one ever since, (except Selathon, which is why we say Selathites, Soahc's delight.) However, for whatever reason, we all thought that the guy who brought us a century of untold death was best picked to start a new religion too.

The Church of Engelain is the official religion of all the Free Kingdoms, (except maybe Y'tun*, but who knows what's going on with those loonies?) and you'd be fooled to believe that it's any different from the Tyrannian Church, (as a side point, as the Empire covered near the entire continent, wouldn't that give them more of a right to have a 'Church of Engelain'?) The main tenant of the Church of Engelain is that Janus is more powerful than Tyrrus in every way. Hags be hagglin', gods be god damn crazy, it's all happening ogre at Into The Fire

25-Jan-2016 14:28:37

D F Angel

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So what does this mean? Well, knights are still sworn in Tyrrus's name, Tyrrus is still the god that gave us culture, still the god that protects us from Soahc and for the majority, still the only god we pray to because the Church of Engelain teaches us that Janus doesn't really care about humans much (his opinion on gnomes is unknown but I like to think he shares my bashful contempt for them!)

In the end, we're told that Janus controls our fate in a house that is connected to every door in existence, yet he will never pay us a visit. Isn't it a little insecure that a fledgling nation, breaking off from a greater power, would replace the greater god for one barely worth a mention? Was High King Dwail simply writing a parody of the situation and managed to fool us all into going along with it? That's what I like to believe anyway, and one day I hope to ascend to High King myself and to wreck the sort of havoc my predecessor is, unfortunately, not actually remembered for. Hags be hagglin', gods be god damn crazy, it's all happening ogre at Into The Fire

25-Jan-2016 14:29:11

D F Angel

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Order of execution

Order of execution
Tethis Parker, aged 54
of Taints Row.

For treason against the crown, malicious slandering of the Church of Engelain, public defecation in the name of 'art', absconding one's family duties to inspire mermaid insurgencies and the reckless endangerment of gnomish lives.

Sentence: Death by Hanging.

On the order of Julius Taab, in the name of King Damian I of Selathon. Hags be hagglin', gods be god damn crazy, it's all happening ogre at Into The Fire

25-Jan-2016 14:30:03 - Last edited on 25-Jan-2016 20:32:28 by D F Angel

D F Angel

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The Greater Beast
Author unknown

The Greater Beast

Once in the farmlands,
There hailed a special boy.
Raised to be a killer,
This man was not a toy.

He hunted all the foxes
And slayed men in the field.
Wrestled a troll bare-handed,
Nought a weapon he wouldn't wield.

Then he came across a hound,
This was no ord'nary wolf.
He sought the poor boy's lover,
Her soul he would engulf.

The girl was his castle,
The fields, flowers and trees.
The streams, rivers and mountains,
Birds, hounds and bees.

And so he placed upon his head,
A helm of mighty steel.
And dealt such deadly blows
That no mage could ever heal.

But when the fighting was over,
And the battle was done.
The fields were lakes of blood,
Not a single person won.

The wolf left without its prey,
But the boy had ruined the plains.
The girl that he had once called home
In the fighting he had slain

And though he won the battle,
He lost his special girl.
He proved himself the Greater Beast,
But to him he'd lost the world.

Yes he proved himself a Greater Beast,
And alas! He lost the world. Hags be hagglin', gods be god damn crazy, it's all happening ogre at Into The Fire

25-Jan-2016 20:31:39

D F Angel

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An Evaluation of the Cosmos
by Grand Supreme Lithior of the Unified Church

What does an ant see when it comes across a human? Surely its eyes are far too small to perceive the entirety of the man- the ant might not even be able to comprehend little more than the man's foot. To an ant, the foot is massive, world-encompassing, an exertion of an otherworldly force that will change the landscape forever. And above that foot is a leg, stretching into infinity, into the heavens itself, hinting that something far grander exists beyond, something with a plan for this foot in which we must trust.

We are ants when faced with God. We cannot perceive him, though his presence is felt everywhere we go, shaping our world, determining our fates. We cannot see what rules over our world just as much as the ant cannot see who the foot belongs to, but the existence of the foot itself is proof enough that there is a God.

Now, let us imagine that the man whose path the ant has crossed is bare footed. Each toe is a mountain to the ant, a goliath of incomprehensible size. Perhaps the ant cannot see that the toes are connected by the foot, and assumes that there is not one but five independent beings enacting their individual will on the earth. It would be an easy assumption for the ant to make, but not the right one. It would take a particularly perceptive ant to see through the ruse of the five-toed foot.

God is completely and utterly beyond our comprehension, but His acts can be seen and felt all around us. It is easier for us to imagine God not as one being, but as the many faces of a diamond that together makes something splendid. There are many gods in the world, but they are all facets of the One Above All, and only together, with the gods working in harmony, can the true purpose of God be seen and felt. Hags be hagglin', gods be god damn crazy, it's all happening ogre at Into The Fire

25-Jan-2016 20:40:50

D F Angel

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Our problem then becomes recognising what is truly an aspect of the One Above All, and what is simply fabricated by mortals over the centuries. There are many simple tells: if your pantheon contains a god of Death or War, it is most likely a falsehood. For what is death to an immortal? Why would a god concern themselves with war, which is so fleeting and inconsequential? It is utterly mortal to concern oneself with these things, and not the will of the divine.

Most pagan gods are also too ludicrous to be given credit- what ever-loving God would send an arachnid-shark to lead His chosen people? The One Above All may be multi-faceted, but the dwarves would have us worship every rock and pebble from here to the Last Shore. The elven gods are nothing but a pompous obsession with their own belated ancestors. As for the so called 'Dung' god, never would a deity become such a ludicrous being!

It is clear then that the only true gods are those which are worshipped in Engelain. Of Soahc's existence we have little doubt; he is the most direct vassal of The One Above All's divine will. Though suggestions that the man Arran is a god is utterly heretical- he is a mere mortal risen above his station, and his worship is strictly forbidden within our order. Tyrrus and Janus are gods of indisputable fact, for Justice and Time are perceived within the world as clearly as a foot is perceived by our ever-inquisitive ant.

The gods of the sky must also be true, for what else could cause stars to move- which is all planets are, when one thinks long enough on it. Ciera and Fiara, the goddesses of moon and sun, along with their younger sisters who are nameless to us; the ladies of Tanmarus, Amsayir, Nefoyat and Janus. And as we have yet to find any indication otherwise, we must presume for the moment that the primitive gods of the centaurs and satyrs and other lesser beings are also truly existent. Hags be hagglin', gods be god damn crazy, it's all happening ogre at Into The Fire

25-Jan-2016 20:42:25

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