Tainted's Siege

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Hydrolisk
Keeper of the Keys
Posts: 408
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2008 2:25 am
Location: Canada

Tainted's Siege

Post by Hydrolisk » Sun Jan 04, 2009 4:24 am

(Feel free to comment here.)

(Also posted at "thewritingblock.com." Any other websites that host this are hosting WITHOUT PERMISSION. I should be contacted IMMEDIATELY.)

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It was time.
. Hundreds of machines burst from the ground, all of them towering over the petite Victorian houses below them. The grey concrete was broken and pulverized into dust.
. The machines were bare of armour plating. They all looked like the insides of a spring-mechanism clock but in the shape of demonic creatures and men. Great gears grinder away, and everything operated like clockwork. Steam hissed as pressure levels changed constantly, carefully monitored by Develnisk acolytes who were completely garbed in black, with strange goggles that had many telescoping barrels. They were scarfed to hide the hideousness of their mouths, which had suffered from numerous operations to force it to filter the always-dirty air around the acolytes of the machines.
. The machines of the cult were armed with strange weapons; machine guns, giant knives, and even chainsaw scythes stuck together with rockets. Even more terrifying though was how they were constructed not only from steel, but dead flesh made alive by Develnisk's unholy prowess. Everything about them spoke of immeasurable evil and insurmountable capacity for inflicting death and destruction.
. When the machines broke loose, tens of thousands of soldiers, men and women, poured out from the paths created by the wake of the steel behemoths. They were all garbed in black with their cult's yellow insignia sewn proudly into the cultists' cloaks and shirts, both over the heart and encompassing the backs of them. They were all armed with crude weapons and makeshift firearms, from axe-flinging shoulder-mounted launchers to rifles outfitted to fire metal dining utensils. They had scythes, sickles, hammers, axes, power tools, office supplies, knives, swords, clubs, anything that looked remotely dangerous. Yet they did not mind, in their faith-bound fury. Like an epidemic they spread, breaking into houses and slaughtering law-abiding citizens; dangerous and indecent in the eyes of those faithful to Develnisk.
. The machines joined this stampede by lashing out with massive claws and battering rams, and some fired homebrew missiles.
. However, this siege upon the unimpoverished and free did not last uninterrupted past half of the hour. At 6:30 PM, the Christaofir's paladins had rallied, and had set up a blockade holding in the cultist forces, keeping them in the sewers below Old Citadel.
. The Immortals of Christaofir were unshakable men and women who had sworn to uphold their church's values. They dressed in white embroidered with blue, and their religion's emblem was set on top of a grey gear to declare the paladin's Immortal status. Normal paladins and initiates did not possess gears, though the paladins had their emblems set upon hammers.
. The Immortals were elite soldiers, privileged with being authorized to pilot Wulfgardes, humanoid mechanical constructs of steel that were lifeless on their own; unlike the mechanical Contraptions of Develnisk. They were heavily armoured and were armed with giant Gatling guns that replaced the right arms of the Wulfgardes. Their left arms were used to hold large sledgehammers in mêlée combat; the hammers were belted to the Wulfgardes like swords to swordsmen.

Thus, the paladins had set up their blockade in an attempt to control the outbreak. As of an hour past the beginning of the siege, the interior of the roughly circle-shaped barricade was decimated. Some of the innocents had escaped, some did not. Some were evacuated, some were not. Some lived and were hiding, some did not. Many had died, and still people died.
. At this point, commanders of Christaofir's forces had named this day the first day of the Tainted's Siege, well-knowing that this attack had started a war that would last an unprecedented length of time.
. One of the newly promoted bishops, Bishop Nennigeb prophesied that this war would last so long that a new calender must be created to chronicle the events that would occur. As of then, a small team of scribes began to record the events, though they all had thought the war would end within the year and the theocratic government did not change to the new calender until some time later.
. Indeed, the calender was not publicly followed until 10 years later. The calendar was named after the siege. Day one was the day the Tainted's Siege began. Thus, the past ten years became the first decade of "TS."
. TSy1 was the year of which this war had started. TSy10 was the year of which the calendar was adopted. TSy50 was the year of which this war ended.

Here lies a chronicle of what happened between TSy1 to TSy50, in no particular order.
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Hydrolisk
Keeper of the Keys
Posts: 408
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2008 2:25 am
Location: Canada

Worldbuilding: Tainted's Siege

Post by Hydrolisk » Sun Mar 22, 2009 1:31 am

Here's something that I've been working on for the past while.

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Tainted's Siege: The Fifty Year War (c) 2009 [New-/Hydrolisk].

On the planet of Aimulate, in the year 1845, a war broke out between the cults of the dark Develnisk and the Church of the divine Christaofir. This war was quickly given the name of "Tainted's Siege" by the commanders of Christaofir. Bishop Nennigeb, a newly promoted follower of Christaofir, prophesied that the war would last so long that it would require its own calendar. From that point onwards, small teams of scribes on both sides of the war began to chronicle the war. A year later, those teams grew tenfold in order to record as much of the war as possible. Both sides changed their calendars to the Tainted's Siege; or TS, calendar although it took the largely theocratic government of Christaofir until ten years after the start of the war to switch to the TS calendar.

The TS calendar was largely the same as all the peoples of Aimulate's previous lunar calendar, except that it began on the 9th setting (of the sun) of the 4th moon of the year 1845. This day would be written as TSy1m1dd1, or: Tainted's Siege (calendar prefix), year 1, moon 1, dawn/dusk 1.

The Tainted's Siege would end 50 years later, on TSy50m7dd13 with victory going to the Church of Christaofir, although the victory itself was hard-estned and narrow. If the forces of Christaofir's attack had failed, it could have meant another 10 years of war.

After the war, the ATS; After Tainted's Siege, calendar was put into use, and began its service 5 dawns after the end of the Tainted's Siege. Note that the 5 dawns of pause were given to the TS calendar. The ATS calendar was the exact same as the TS calendar, except that it only referred to a new era with a different prefix.

The inhabitants of Aimulate are of a wide variety. There are some animals that are very much like Earth's and some that are completely alien. Many of the plants are alike in regards to appearance, while few are actually internally alike. The only high-intelligence sentient lifeforms are humans.

As for the planet itself, the makeup of the dirt, earth, and soil are all largely the same, with minor descrepancies such as more moisture across the globe in general. However, the soil is considerably more acidic on much of the planet due to the constant manufacturing of steel and because the process of refining and fuel burning is not particularly ecological or efficient.

In regards to the land-water distribution, there is a rough ratio of 1:4. The land masses are highly separated in terms of above sea level, although there are still 10 recognized continents. The continents are, from largest to smallest: Urnbeight, Iamlorche, Gredyne, Seullin, Heikhu, Cerix, Verlon, Frawquer, Yulben, and Johaeyas. Much of the continents are underwater and only around 1789 was it discovered that the many large islands of each continent were connected, albeit underneath the surface of the seas. Most islands are mountainous; the ratio for non-mountainous to mountainous is approximately 2:7. There are about 256 large islands, with a square of that number in terms of smaller islands. The combination of many different sized and usually mountainous islands interconnected underwater presents a very interesting topography for the planet of Aimulate.

Looking at the climate of Aimulate, it is much warmer and moist throughout the entire planet. Because there are no truly large land masses that are above the surface of the seas, most land that exists follow a very tropical and/or martime climate. Temperature ranges stay relatively the same throughout the year, although the range itself would shift in accordance with the seasons, albeit shifting rather slightly. On some continents, the effects of the mountain regions can be drastic, causing some areas to be especially humid and subject to precipitation, whereas other areas will be the exact opposite. Besides the effect of relief from the mountains, elevation is also prevalent in mountainous regions. As a side effect, humans and animals alike that spend their lives in the mountains often have greater lung capacities.
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