Post by Joliette Thorne on Feb 28, 2010 12:27:39 GMT -5
If you're Cabal (and even if you're not) sooner or later you'll come across the clan's long-term, ongoing back story concerning The Obsidian Pool. Here's a synopsis of its history and such, for those who want to know. For those who might have TL;DR syndrome, scroll down to the last few sections.
How It All Began
Long, long ago there lived a band of seven mages who worshipped Cire and delved into the very heart of Chaos-magic in order to gain worldly power for themselves and their god.
However, their tamperings with such dire magics warped their minds and bodies, and led to the most powerful of them, one of the earliest vampires, losing his mind to utter religious mania.
This mage had come to believe that the chaos of primal Void, the dark nothingness that existed before all Creation, was the perfect and true state of being, and that Creation therefore was a blasphemy, to be undone, destroyed, so "pure Chaos" may reign again.
So insane was he that he declared even Cire was a blasphemy, as were all other gods, since they existed at all.
This did not make Cire happy.
To make matters worse, these mages had shed much of their physical matter and become half-wraiths, capable of influencing minds and the time/space continuum they called the "threads of fate" as well as occupying bodies. They soon had cults all over the place, bent on one purpose-- the destruction of all things, starting with living beings.
However, Cire was royally pissed and banished the seven mages, who called themselves Chaos Lords, to an outer dimension altogether, which wasn't difficult considering they weren't wholly of the physical realm any more anyway.
Eons went by, and locked in their Outer prison, the Lords schemed and plotted, and eventually found ways to seep back into the physical world.
The vampire Lord, Eldritch, who'd been a Necromancer, was the first to break through and revive his cults, who in turn worked to open the way for Eldritch and the rest to come through again.
Tenebrae
In this process, a young girl from Vailkrin was chosen to be the focal point for a scheme Eldritch cooked up, which would "unravel" much of Creation. Dubbed the "Unmaker", this child was born a sineater, and was made a necromancer and a vampire by Eldritch and his cult. The triple-whammy of power was what was needed for Eldritch to create the gate through which he and his cohorts would return, bringing the Void with them and "un-making" the world.
As a sin-eater, the girl was meant to be a holy woman, a great blessing to the dead and living alike. But her Fate was so twisted by Eldritch's dark interference that she would instead became "Tenebrae", a cruel vampiress who utilised Darkness.
Tenebrae rebelled against her role, though, and escaped Eldritch and his cult more than once, only to be dragged back after two centuries and tortured into submission. But she didn't submit, and made her escape once more-- or so she thought--killing all the cult members before fleeing to Kelay and putting a huge spanner in the works of the chaotic plan.
In Kelay, Tenebrae wound up the lover of a godling, whom was notorious for his betrayals. Of course, he betrayed her in due course, and she took her revenge by summoning beings of power (by Eldritch's trickery, the very power she'd run from) to smash his favourite haunt (and hopefully him, in it). The cost of this was great, for Tenebrae, but in the end a terrible night came where the godling's place was smashed quite literally to smithereens and all his loyal people with it (sadly, he was not in it), by a rain of vast stone blocks that then arranged themselves like a puzzle box into a colossal building that resembled a dark, gloomy fortress but was so much more...
The Obsidian Pool
Within this oddly-changing and semi-sentient fortress was a trap set for Tenebrae and anyone unfortunate enough to wander into it.
At its heart was a wide, well-like pool set in the floor. The "waters" were black, inky, and had a strange way of reaching out to grab people, dragging them into a chaotic dimension.
The Pool was, in fact, one of the Chaos Lords, who'd been sacrificed and magically mutilated until he was reduced to a kind of sentient goo, a puppet for Eldritch to use in his plan and a means of trapping Tenebrae into service without her even knowing it.
(There are several other such "gates", each a former Chaos Lord murdered by Eldritch. The Labyrinth is one of these.)
The Pool Rules
1: You do not pwn the Pool. The Pool pwns you.
The Obsidian Pool has one property that allows it to draw people in:
it "gives you what you want, and takes what you need". Being Chaotic in nature, this can bode very well or very badly for those who enter it.
Often what people truly want, or need, is not something they're entirely conscious of, so a lot of unexpected stuff happens (like the existence of Jolie and Leo's son Lucien, stolen from her body and raised in the Pool, which has been the reason for her being attached to the place all this time).
Also, the Chaotic influence often means that what may seems a great gift is really a curse, and the "needed" thing removed actually proves a blessing in disguise--- IRONY is a key word, in all Pool RP.
Also, having been a powerful Illusionist in life, the Pool remains one now, and draws people into very realistic illusions that often have ongoing repercussions in the "real" world, once they get out.
These are rarely permanent-- staying away from the Pool and Chaos in general for a while will have most wear off. It has been known to leave permanent effects, but these are NOT and SHOULD NOT be things that offer a character uber-powers and advantages over others.
Cause that'd be lame.
.
How It All Began
Long, long ago there lived a band of seven mages who worshipped Cire and delved into the very heart of Chaos-magic in order to gain worldly power for themselves and their god.
However, their tamperings with such dire magics warped their minds and bodies, and led to the most powerful of them, one of the earliest vampires, losing his mind to utter religious mania.
This mage had come to believe that the chaos of primal Void, the dark nothingness that existed before all Creation, was the perfect and true state of being, and that Creation therefore was a blasphemy, to be undone, destroyed, so "pure Chaos" may reign again.
So insane was he that he declared even Cire was a blasphemy, as were all other gods, since they existed at all.
This did not make Cire happy.
To make matters worse, these mages had shed much of their physical matter and become half-wraiths, capable of influencing minds and the time/space continuum they called the "threads of fate" as well as occupying bodies. They soon had cults all over the place, bent on one purpose-- the destruction of all things, starting with living beings.
However, Cire was royally pissed and banished the seven mages, who called themselves Chaos Lords, to an outer dimension altogether, which wasn't difficult considering they weren't wholly of the physical realm any more anyway.
Eons went by, and locked in their Outer prison, the Lords schemed and plotted, and eventually found ways to seep back into the physical world.
The vampire Lord, Eldritch, who'd been a Necromancer, was the first to break through and revive his cults, who in turn worked to open the way for Eldritch and the rest to come through again.
Tenebrae
In this process, a young girl from Vailkrin was chosen to be the focal point for a scheme Eldritch cooked up, which would "unravel" much of Creation. Dubbed the "Unmaker", this child was born a sineater, and was made a necromancer and a vampire by Eldritch and his cult. The triple-whammy of power was what was needed for Eldritch to create the gate through which he and his cohorts would return, bringing the Void with them and "un-making" the world.
As a sin-eater, the girl was meant to be a holy woman, a great blessing to the dead and living alike. But her Fate was so twisted by Eldritch's dark interference that she would instead became "Tenebrae", a cruel vampiress who utilised Darkness.
Tenebrae rebelled against her role, though, and escaped Eldritch and his cult more than once, only to be dragged back after two centuries and tortured into submission. But she didn't submit, and made her escape once more-- or so she thought--killing all the cult members before fleeing to Kelay and putting a huge spanner in the works of the chaotic plan.
In Kelay, Tenebrae wound up the lover of a godling, whom was notorious for his betrayals. Of course, he betrayed her in due course, and she took her revenge by summoning beings of power (by Eldritch's trickery, the very power she'd run from) to smash his favourite haunt (and hopefully him, in it). The cost of this was great, for Tenebrae, but in the end a terrible night came where the godling's place was smashed quite literally to smithereens and all his loyal people with it (sadly, he was not in it), by a rain of vast stone blocks that then arranged themselves like a puzzle box into a colossal building that resembled a dark, gloomy fortress but was so much more...
The Obsidian Pool
Within this oddly-changing and semi-sentient fortress was a trap set for Tenebrae and anyone unfortunate enough to wander into it.
At its heart was a wide, well-like pool set in the floor. The "waters" were black, inky, and had a strange way of reaching out to grab people, dragging them into a chaotic dimension.
The Pool was, in fact, one of the Chaos Lords, who'd been sacrificed and magically mutilated until he was reduced to a kind of sentient goo, a puppet for Eldritch to use in his plan and a means of trapping Tenebrae into service without her even knowing it.
(There are several other such "gates", each a former Chaos Lord murdered by Eldritch. The Labyrinth is one of these.)
The Pool Rules
1: You do not pwn the Pool. The Pool pwns you.
The Obsidian Pool has one property that allows it to draw people in:
it "gives you what you want, and takes what you need". Being Chaotic in nature, this can bode very well or very badly for those who enter it.
Often what people truly want, or need, is not something they're entirely conscious of, so a lot of unexpected stuff happens (like the existence of Jolie and Leo's son Lucien, stolen from her body and raised in the Pool, which has been the reason for her being attached to the place all this time).
Also, the Chaotic influence often means that what may seems a great gift is really a curse, and the "needed" thing removed actually proves a blessing in disguise--- IRONY is a key word, in all Pool RP.
Also, having been a powerful Illusionist in life, the Pool remains one now, and draws people into very realistic illusions that often have ongoing repercussions in the "real" world, once they get out.
These are rarely permanent-- staying away from the Pool and Chaos in general for a while will have most wear off. It has been known to leave permanent effects, but these are NOT and SHOULD NOT be things that offer a character uber-powers and advantages over others.
Cause that'd be lame.
.