The Land

PLAYER WRITEUP

The song-cycles from the Primal Past tell how the Gods danced upon the world they had rolled out over the Fire, and how where their feet touched the ground there sprung the Land from the world. The Land heard their tune and laughter, and danced with them, squirming and writhing under their steps.

The Land, which gave birth to so many beasts and plants, has long been associated with fertility. And the Land, which bore the weight of the Gods themselves, is associated firmly with strength and toughness. And the Land, which followed the rough and ruddy beat of the dance of the Gods, is associated with all that is primal, wild and untamed.

Worship of the Land is tempting for several reasons. In farming communities, anything that'll make your potatoes grow better is going to be popular. Amongst those maddened by city life, the opportunity to dance naked around the woods is always going to be attractive to the impressionable sort. And anyone with their brains in their knuckles is going to like the sound of being even harder to push over.

These people miss the point. Sure, the Land wants your potatoes to grow and be fertile. It's not so keen on you picking them and making them in a nice stew. Eating them raw with some bugs and moss is more its style. And that's if you can tear them out of the weeds that the Land also wants to be fertile. Anyone dancing naked in a real wood is going to be ripped to shreds by thorns, briars and bears in that order. And as any tree will tell you, being hard to push over just makes it all the more painful when you do go down.

Rumours

There are always, always, always rumours about the latest sports hero having some sort of illegal Land magic backing him up. [AND THEY'RE ALMOST ALWAYS FALSE.]

There's a huge village of Land-shamen who live on top of the Ornotha Peak in Lasinia. [NO. LOTS OF LAND-SHAMEN DO VISIT ORNOTHA PEAK, BUT THAT'S BECAUSE IT'S A DAIMON OF THE LAND.]

The Land fought alongside the Four Nations in the Last War. The Empire was the biggest force for civilisation that the world had seen, and the Land wanted it knocked down. I wouldn't be surprised if it were still trying to cause another war. [THE FORESTS WERE UNUSUALLY HOSTILE TOWARDS IMPERIAL TROOPS PASSING THROUGH THEM, BUT THE LAND ISN'T ACTIVE ENOUGH TO MASTERMIND A WAR IN THE WAY DESCRIBED HERE]

I got into a fight with a Land-Shaman once. At least, I guess that's what he was. Tried to stab him in the guts, but my knife just shattered like his skin was rock. [IT'S CERTAINLY POSSIBLE FOR A LAND-SHAMAN TO DO THIS, BUT ANYONE WITH AN OVEN DOOR UNDER THEIR SHIRT COULD ACHIEVE THE SAME THING]

The Land's not evil or bloodthirsty at all, just misunderstood. It's just acting the way animals do. If it weren't for cities and smog, we'd all live in peace and harmony, in tune with Nature, and there'd be no wars. [NO CHANCE, MATEY. THE LAND'S IDEA OF 'PEACE AND HARMONY' IS LIVING UNDER A DAMP ROCK EATING WORMS.]

SHAMAN WRITEUP (Only Land-shamans and people who have brought some sort of Arcane Lore: Land skill get this)

The Land is old. The Land is primal. The Land is wild. The Land is in all of nature, from the oak to the mountain to the wolf. Red in tooth and claw, the Land has been, the Land is, and the Land will be.

First and foremost, the Land consists of the ground, the earth and the rock. There are slight exceptions. The tops of high mountains fall under the control of the Sky. The sea-bed belongs to the Ocean.

Second, the Land is worshipped by (or consists of - at this level the line between the two becomes a little blurred) the things which live on the rock, the plants which grow from the earth, and especially the creatures that crawl beneath it.

Mostly, the Land is now content to leave mankind be. It isn't fond of the strange and unnatural cities they're building, and it definitely doesn't care much for those who cut down trees, build fires and breed its worshippers in pens to be eaten. But these are minor irritations; for the most part the Land is content to sleep and bat occasionally at a disturbance. It is quite secure in the knowledge that sooner or later, humanity will have died out and it will be able to roam free again.

The daimons of the Land are another matter entirely. They're not all big, solemn, slow-moving things. The ones which used to be human can, like any other daimon, be quite active. The animal daimons are still animals at heart.

LAND-WALKERS are the most human-looking of the Land's daimons. They appear as crazy old hermits and wild-men. (Since many Land-shamen end up looking like this anyway, it's a bit hard to tell the difference between a high-level shaman and a full-on daimon.) Very definitely, though, Land-walkers are not human. They can withstand freezing cold, baking heat and pouring rain. They can cover vast tracts of land in a day at a walking pace. They can blend in with the forest as if they were never there.

BEAST-KINGS are the greatest, mightiest and wiliest of the beasts of the field and the forest. When we say great we mean it: wolves the size of carthorses, bears with claws like knives, that sort of thing. Usually taking the form of bears, stags and wolves but occasionally snakes and spiders, they suffer a slight mis-nomer, since they don't exactly rule over their species. However, their superior size and strength do tend to bring them respect: they're not so much kings as bullies. Those shamen who worship the land naively often believe their dealing with such daimons to be a conversation with their 'spirit-guide'. The daimons for the most part aren't aware of this complication, and those who are don't care.

THE MENHIR have a neat trick. When they don't want to be noticed, they look like enormous twenty-foot tall rocks lying around in the middle of nowhere. Frequently such rocks have an oddly human appearance, but surely that's just a trick of the light... right? In their true form, the Menhir look like living, breathing men carved entirely from stone. (From time to time they're confused with golems, which are a different matter entirely: menhir are intelligent, golems do nothing but obey the commands of their master.) They move slowly, they think slowly, and they can smash a village to matchwood if they feel the need.

THE ENTS are walking trees. They drift gently across the ground, tramping along by their roots. Like the Menhir, they don't do this when men are around, since all it takes is a team of woodcutters with strong rope or fire to bring one down. But a group of people unprepared are no match for an Ent. They're tremendously strong, and since they have much more interest in knowledge than the Menhir they can also become tremendously wise. [If we don't want to call them Ents, I would suggest the name Alder instead.]

The very greatest avatars of the Land are the mountains themselves. Very old, very cunning, very solemn, the mountains rarely (if ever) play an active physical role in events. They merely serve as mentors, advisors and commanders to the lesser Land-daimons.

And this is just for the GMs.

Examples

Herman-of-the-Woad is the folk name for the man dressed in only his tattoos and many, many locks of long hair. His skin, so they say, is as tough as leather and his fingernails have been sharpened into wicked claws. In rural communities he's both feared and praised; in many places a toast is offered to "good old Herman" in taverns around harvest-time.

Likewise, there's a popular legend around the snowiest and most hostile of the Vegedebarran plateau of a wolf with silver fur. It's said that its howl can freeze a man's blood in his veins; if a corpse is ever found in the mountains with a particularly horrified look on his face then it's often attributed to the Silver Wolf.

Mahogadon is the Ent who lives in secret at the very heart of the Wood of Sorrows in Irgar. It does not discuss its past, but some say that it was once a denizen of the Treacherous Lands which snuck past before the Wall was fully built. Whatever the case, Mahogadon has discovered a taste for blood. Human blood, in particular. It frequently uses its influence with shamen to get fresh meals sent in.

Ornotha was once a God. It was Ornotha who slept with the Land to give rise to the creatures of Horizon; it was Ornotha who, upon finding the Land to have betrayed him and slept with the Fire, took six great oaks and started beating the Land in anger from on board his barge. The land cried out in agony at the wounds Ornotha inflicted upon it, later to become ravines and crevasses. The Ocean did not hear the Land's pain. The Fire did not care for the Land's pain. The Stars judged the Land, and found it wanting. Only the Sky moved to intervene, hurling Ornotha's sky-barge into the country that would later become Lasinia. As Ornotha lay dying in the wreckage, he wept in repentance for his malice and the Land took pity on its former lover, transforming him into the Ornotha Peak, the highest mountain in Lasinia.

LAND SPELLS

* Note that when we say Land magic works on animals, this isn't quite true. It doesn't work on domesticated animals like cats or dogs (especially the Loyal Order of Hounds...) who bend to the yoke of humans. They are not among the Land's faithful. Nor will it work on a Beast-King. They do not take orders from mere shamen. Finally, it won't work on birds, who follow the Sky, not the Land, or fish, who follow the Oceans. It will, however work on feral animals that just happen to be living in cities. Rats, for example.

Cantrips

Eyes of the Beast
The shaman kisses the back of an animal's neck, just below its head. Then he can see through the eyes of that animal for as long as he wishes. When he's finally fed up with watching a rat burrow through rubbish, he simply breaks the connection and goes back to being himself. He doesn't have any control over the animal - he can just see what it's seeing.

For a Sorcerer to cast this spell, they require the lips of an animal or a shaman, which are preserved during the Taking and then touched against the animal's neck in place of the sorceror's own.

Blessed Grove
The shaman simply spends time tending the soil of an area. It grows with unusual and supernatural fertility. With repeated application, a back garden in an inner city could be a veritable jungle.

Sorcerors need to first wear lambskin gloves, thus hiding their true nature from the ground they touch.

Shelter
When around the Land (in a forest, or otherwise in the wilds), the Shaman can fade away into the folds of the land. He doesn't actually go anywhere, he just seems to be such a natural addition to the landscape that observers overlook him as they would a fieldmouse scurrying along the path.Enchantments Angel of the Animals
The shaman reaches out with his mind to touch all the animals nearby and deposit a thought in their minds. It will have to be something simple that an animal could understand: detailed instructions will not work, but "Rip that man to shreds" will.

Sorcerors are required to craft a skullcap from the bark of seven sapling trees, which is fixed and sealed during the Taking. They must wear this while peforming the ritual, so that their thoughts have the earthy smell of a genuine Shaman. The ritual also requires the caster to find out and speak the name of an Ent.

Skin-changing
The Land blesses the shaman with the shape of one of its worshippers. His body changes shape. His body only: possessions and clothes don't come with him, so when he changes back he'll be naked as the day he was born. This won't give him the shape of an Ent, Menhir or any other daimon: it has to be an animal or a tree. He can change back at will.

For the Taking, a Sorceror will have to prepare the pelt of the beast he wishes to turn into and wear it before changing. During the Taking, he will also need to paint the pelt with the blood of a man close to the Land (anyone with Land affinity over 1 will do.) This has to be done separately for each pelt and it has to be a different man each time.

Blessed Seed
A child conceived by a Land-shaman using this spell will be born ready with an unnatural attunement to the Land. Its Land affinity will be equal to the shaman's Land affinity. If both parents are shamen, then it will be the sum of their Affinities. If this is over 16 then yes, they give birth to a daimon and many different flavours of havoc ensue.

Sorcerors are unable to replicate this spell.

Grand Rituals

Timeless Tomb
The shaman needs to be standing in an area of ground he has worked himself for a year and a day, when he performs this ritual. He simply turns into a tree. He's still alive, he still notices everything that goes on, and he lives for as long as the tree does. He can take with him as many willing followers as he chooses, though they will have had to subsist on food from the ground as well. When he is truly needed by the Land, he will turn back to human form.

A sorceror will need not only to have worked the land for a year and a day, but will need to have fertilised the ground with the corpses of Land shamen and eaten nothing but the food from the land he has worked. This way, he attunes his body to the land he has tilled, fooling it into believing he is one of theirs.

March of the Woods
Trees are not really just lumps of wood that sit there. They don't normally hang around, doing nothing. They're just sleeping right now.

With the right methods, a shaman can awake the trees and send them on a campaign.

The shaman needs to know the correct mixture of herbs whose smell will awake the trees; this information is imparted into him with the ritual. Getting hold of these is a Significant purchase. Next, the shaman needs to sacrifice something precious to the trees' soon-to-be enemy while reciting a list of their crimes against the forest. Finally, the shaman must lead the trees personally into battle.

For sorcerors, the process is somewhat different. They cannot wake the trees peacefully; they must use force. For this they will need a whip made from the wood of six oaks and a mask carved from obsidian mined from the heart of the Ornotha Peak. Since the Peak is a deeply powerful daimon of the Land, this will be a long and arduous undertaking. The sorceror still recites the crimes committed against the trees and makes the sacrifice, but he now needs to be protected from flailing branches, lashing thorns and so forth while he completes the ritual.

AFFINITY SCALE

1-5

The personality elements mentioned in the character generation system take effect here. Once you've reached 5, you're finding having your home in any sort of city deeply stifling and unattractive. Moving to a house in the country is much, much more attractive.

Increasing Affinity at this stage:
- Spend a protracted length of time liviing rough (sleeping in a tent or under the stars, eating only what you catch, that kind of thing)
- Bring nature back to a civilised area (keep on leaving food out for the rats in the basement of your house; walk the streets scattering grass seeds between the cracks in the pavement

Decreasing Affinity at this stage:
- Move out of a wilderness area and intoo a city; work to bring civilisation to an area of countryside (by, say, building a farm there)

6-10

At 6, you are always full of energy, hale and hearty. Your hair grows much thicker and faster (and if male, shaving starts to require much more of your time.) You receive a mild bonus to actions involving working alongside nature.

At 10, animals instinctively come up to you when you see them. When you plant things, they grow quickly and verdantly. You find that you have rather a taste for raw meat. Any paved area or crowd of people is extremely claustrophobic and unsettling.

Increasing affinity at this stage:
- Have lots of children - and look afterr them.
- Spend a protracted length of time liviing in the wild without any part of the civilised world intruding: no tent, no fire, no knives, no clothes.
- Cause a farm (or something of similar size) to become deserted and devoured by the wilds. Decreasing affinity at this stage:
- Be responsible for an extensive prograam of lumberjacking/hunting/road-building.

11-15

At 11, your teeth and nails are becoming noticably more pointed. Your hair has now got to the stage where trying to keep it trimmed is an exercise in futility. Your skin is becoming hard and leathery.

At 15, it's gotten so bad that people are liable to mistake you for Sasquatch.

Increasing affinity at this stage:
- Kill a man and eat his corpse.
- Tear down a town or other obvious signn of civilisation and plant a forest there.

Decreasing affinity at this stage:
- Serious acts of eco-terrorism: burningg down a forest, quarrying a mountain, causing a species to go extinct.

16

It's four legs and howling time.

Increasing affinity to 16:
- Cause an entire civilisation to collappse.