Ritt K. said: Max said: As the days turn into weeks, you bring back one precious bit of information after another, piecing them together with the guidance of the air kami and the technical wisdom of Heian. Your letter of credit from the Waterwend city council is as good as gold, and provides you with all the special sacrifices and incenses you need, as well as paying your passage into the numerous libraries of Treefall . At the Temple of Corellon Larethian , you read Songs of the Sea and Sky (in Elven) and Wisdom of the Lord of All Magics . At the Church of Labelas Enoreth (where you run into Leoavor and Ering conducting their own research), you search the pages of Fasting and Spiritual Growth , Made and Unmade , and Sea-Cults of Coroastar . At the Temple of Sehanine Moonbow , you pore over A Text of Thaumaturgy , Advanced Magical Arts , The Seasons of Oerik: Autumn , Innovative Theurgy for Magi , and The Kaiu Wall and the Abyss (in Hànyǔ). Numerous other books are recommended by the librarians as well, but in languages you lack the fluency to understand. "There's a lot of books that could help, but how would I surpass this language barrier..." Xankoris looks at books he can't read, then his teammates whom he ran into by chance. "They know many languages, it reminded me when Hiskel had helped Kraggan researching spell." He looks at books and then his teammates, back and forth. "That's right." He felt like tindertwig in his mind had gone lit, "I can just ask for help." He draws the letter of credit and walks to the nearest cleric/librarian, "I'd to hire people to translate books, is there anybody who comes to your mind?." 'Man, how could I forgot this letter?' He thought. "I know a few myself," Xanaphia admits, "but I'm afraid I don't have time to help with that much translation. Let me see, I might know someone who could help though..." she considers, thinking for a long moment... Ritt K. said: Dawi said: Ering points to the necklace with his pipe. "Are you sure it is a good thing that the necklace is all green? If you have the Taint, and the jade is not absorbing it, it means that it's going somewhere else... What happens when you combine a death elemental and Taint? Could it become strong enough to overpower you?" "That's ridiculous, Ering." Xankoris puts his necklace back. "Taint grows by staying in Shadowlands , consuming tainted food, summoning tainted elementals - usually by chance- , or practicing Maho, it's like your Necromancy but with Taint involved. As far as I know, kansen or tainted kami are exclusive to Shadowlands. Outside that place, they were virtually non-existant, and their presence was usually the result of a novice attempting a maho ritual or spell." While saying the last part, Xankoris' body trembling. "I guess I better, drink some warm tea and take a rest more, see you later," and he walks away. Dawi said: Sense Motive: 3 Knowledge (history): 36 (+7 bonus included) Knowledge (the planes): 29 (+7 bonus included) Knowledge (the planes): 23 (+7 bonus included) On the first day of your research, you read a good deal about the campaigns of Archos the Bloodwing and the history of the Red Kings, though of course much of this was already known to you personally as both are the subject of countless tales and songs in Terolus... in brief, the Bloodwing was a terrible red dragon who led his hordes, styled as the Archos Empire , to invade and ravage much of southeastern Oerik in the first centuries of the Common Era. His conquests eventually brought him to Terolus, where he captured the ancient capital city, Destreth or Destroth (accounts vary), in the center of the country. This invasion was the site of a famous duel between Archos and the Red King, a warlord who had grown to prominence in recent years, famed for his charisma, willpower, magical black blade (Stormbringer, an evil artifact of tremendous power) and wondrous red cloak (the Curtain of Dawn, which rendered him fireproof). The Red King was said to have fought Archos to a standstill, according to the bard Nerolian who watched them clash at the city gates from a nearby tower. But for reasons lost to history, the Red King abandoned the field, and the city fell. 45 years into the reign of the Archos Empire , who had taken up residence there, Destreth was destroyed by the Cataclysm, and the destructive energies of the supernatural disaster swept across all Terolus. Perhaps the most devastating event in the history of Oerth, the Cataclysm is still not well-understood... accounts passed down by survivors speak of a blight blackening the land, killing plants and beasts, and twisting those that survived into horrible abominations. Great storms of elemental energy swirled ceaselessly across the region as well, spewing out violent elementals and leveling anything caught in their path. Only three cities survived: Karn , the greatest trade hub of the era, to the south of Destreth, was protected by the constant magical efforts of a great tabaxi archmage named Angelis Greymane. Reluin was founded in the frozen northeast, sealed within a dome of unmelting blue ice where the Cataclysm's reach was lessened, by the White Queen Lauren and the elves and half-elves who followed her from the Great Forest (now the Great Marsh ), who rules it to this day. And in the northeast, the Lich-King Tellaj raised his dark tower to build a realm of undeath, fueled by the evil energies of the Cataclysm rather than hiding from them. About 50 years later, 500-ish years ago today, Terolus was cleansed by a miraculous event known as the Renewal, equally shrouded in mystery. The blight withdrew, the storms quieted, and the land slowly grew fertile again. Many stories have been proposed to explain it, but none as accepted as fact by a majority of scholars... however, most agree that a party of adventurers called the Reclaimers by history had some connection to it, based on vague tales of them from the people of Reluin . Some of these claim they came from Karn when it was destroyed by Tellaj, and many say that they defeated Tellaj as well. While most scholars also agree Destreth was likely ground zero of the Cataclysm, no clues remain to be found there... after the Renewal, those who returned to look for them found only a steaming, molten ruin of lava and jagged rock, known today as The Wastes . In the centuries since, there have been many more claiming the title of the Red King, bearing his sword and cloak as proof--all of them fierce, ambitious, and destructive. You also read a bit about a war in the eastern coastal deserts of Suel , culminating in the Battle of Red Dunes in 620 CY. It was concluded the night that the legendary archmage Elrina Thrice-born summoned a fiendish red dragon to bathe the armies of her foe, the paladin Armis the Sandshroud, in hellfire. And finally, you learn more about the Emperium of Salazar , an ancient Empire that once took and held much of Southeastern Oerik, but is now reduced to a tiny nation of swamps and ruins. There were many causes of the Emperium 's decline, including stretching resources too far, infighting among the royal family and the several child rulers that resulted, but the most famous influence was the Titanwar, when several hundred titans waged their own war across the Emperium 's lands, devastating many of its major cities with the fallout of their massive clashes. The first ratmen, now a prominent race in Salazar , were born of ordinary rats that fed on the titans' corpses, and transformed by the abundance of magic. Some of them still worship the dead titans, but most others turned to the god Raxivort, who accepts all rat-kin. On the second day, your research is less fruitful... while the library has a good deal of information about the summoning, nature, and behavior of elementals, there is precious little about their permanent binding to creatures of the Material Plane, especially not in the way Xankoris and Siwan seem to share a body. But quite helpfully, Xanaphia calls in a favor to borrow a book for you from the library at the Temple of Sehanine Moonbow , titled Rise of the Deathwalkers . It's a relatively recent tome, detailing the formation and growth of the heroic Deathwalkers adventurers guild in Strongtown , widely considered a lesser power of the Catacombs, and in particular it mentions how their first noteworthy archievement was to root out the secret evil wizards guild there. The guildmistress, a woman named Orianna, was kidnapping townsfolk and using them for humanoid experiments, developing a way to permanently fuse together elementals with people. She died in a desperate, last-ditch effort to fuse herself with a fire elemental, and about a year later, one of the Deathwalkers apparently used her research to fuse himself with an earth elemental, though he was later slain in battle with the dragon turtle Larshak. There are rumors that another Deathwalker, a druid named Xanaphia, was captured by the lesser power Wintermute and has since been in his service, occasionally displaying abilities that suggest she may have also been fused with a mist elemental; the Deathwalkers declined comment on it when interviewed for the book, though. Knowledge (nobility & royalty) applies. But on the third day, you're able to piece together a solid understanding of the Taint from these varied sources, though none of them cover it in specific detail by themselves. It seems to be a kind of supernatural disease or curse relatively unique to Rokugan and people of Rokugani descent (such as the large immigrant settlement in the northeastern region of the Kingdom of Provincia , where Xankoris, Silk, and the Zhongshans are from), caused and exacerbated by exposure to elemental evil. In Rokugan , this is mostly an issue near the Shadowlands , a large region infested by a rift to the evil outer planes and quarantined within the Kaiu Wall by the tireless efforts of the Emerald Empire , especially their Crab Clan. However, there are anecdotal tales of Rokugani becoming Attainted by wandering demons or even evil spells beyond the reach of the Shadowlands . The Taint afflicts the body and mind, slowly decaying both the more one is affected. If one is Attainted enough, they are said to turn completely evil; and if it grows even worse, they can die of it and will then rise as an undead creature. The Taint can be held partly at bay with natural jade, which seems to interact somehow with the spiritual nature of Rokugani people to act as a sort of buffer, absorbing new Taint and rotting in their stead in a way that sort of brings to mind the false life spell. Magic such as remove disease , remove curse , and heal can reduce the amount of Taint in a person, but not cure it completely... the books vaguely reference some secret method to cleanse it, but aren't clear on what that is. This somewhat accounts for the great importance Rokugani seem to place on spiritual and physical purity. It also gives more context to Xankoris's comments about his jade necklace... its intact state means that he hasn't been exposed to any more Taint since he got it.
