moghedancarns
09-24-2007, 06:28 PM
Okie, I know you guys are all gung ho about going after Kaezul, and sacking Iksith. Yeah, he is a big, bad dude from Dalaya, and probably headlines most of your most wanted lists. However, doesn't a single one of you possess what is commonly known as "pattern recognition"?
You guys get duped virtually everytime you talk to someone. I mean, don't get me wrong, you guys have done some good, mostly in the area of Feydark, trusting this person or that, but your entire order is based off trusting someone who thought talking to the Betrayer was a good idea. And you listen to him, and trust what he says. You listen to Baladakos, and trust what he says.
Some mysterious "legion" shows up on a pit stop on their way elsewhere, and you are basiclly ready to sacrifice the Erudites and surrender Erudin. These are the VERY people who took you in and saved the collective butts of yourselves, or your parents, a scant 40 years ago, and you barely blinked in your efforts to betray them. Fortunately for the denizens of the storm shrouded isles, they went on their way.
Most recently, a person, whom you KNEW to be from Iksith, a land under total and utter control of your supposed enemy, told you to do something, and you merrily did it. You murdered a fellow Dalayan, for no reason other than "some guy from the bad place told me too". You discovered that you were wrong, and that you were duped, that you had been lied too. So, how do you react? You run back to the guy and... dun dun DUN... DO EXACTLY AS HE TELLS YOU TO DO.
My own ancestorial homelands in Taldor Malath, you destroyed without pause. True, I was not yet hatched, and my ancestors survived the resulting cataclysm, but I have yet to hear a single word of a story that absolves, or even lessens, you guilt in this matter.
Every single time you are threatened, your first instinct is throw someone else; anyone, even an ally, in your enemies' pathes and pray you do not get a broken nail in the scuffle. Only when they make it clear that YOU are the one being threatened, that YOU are the only one they care about, do you look around and EXPECT others to rally to your aide because, gosh darned it, you are so gods blessedly special.
And yay, the legions of Kaezul show up, this top bad guy that you supposedly hate so much, in your own lands, and you barely raise a finger in its defense. You leave whole areas under Iksith control for days or weeks. In fact, the only time you actually seem to care is where they actually get within sight of your precious cities of Newport or oh precious Athica.
So, for those at home, we have covered that you are panicy, slothful, betraying, vain cowards. You are quick of action and slow of thought. I am still unsure which of those traits I am going to try to appeal to today... I suppose I hope that by pointing out your past mistakes, you can open your eyes to the one you make right now.
Once, there were loyal citizens of Dalaya who would wisk you away to another place as their daily toil, for the cost of a very small fee that allowed them to feed and house themselves and their families.
Then, one day, they were gone... found murdered in their beds. In their place were magical vortexs that would wisk you away to another, similar vortex, if you possessed a small sample of earth from the destination... a pebble. And you accepted this without question. These vortexes eventually closed, at least from our side, as even now, the forces of Kaezul use these portals. One could even make the likely conclusion that these portals were a creation of the Iksar all along. ((Although it would stand to reason that the portal you search for is one of these older portals, and that you need only to locate the proper incantation and a bit of Iksith soil, and not murder innocent Dalayans, far be it from me to point that out.))
What I do want to point out, however, is its replacement. The Mansion of Portals is obviously fiendish in Origin. First, have you never wondered how it got there? Where it actually IS? If it resides in a demi plane of existance, where is it's inhabitant? If no one occupies it, how does it remain? Are not the demiplanes bound to existance by the will of the god that created it? Who opened the portals between it and the realm of Dalaya? Why is it filled with insidious evil? Why are our mortal magics impotent inside it?
Who are the portal wizards that maintain the portals on Dalaya? How do they possess a magic not found anywhere else? Why are they loyal only to themselves, and not to their ancestorial races?
The answer is fairly obvious to any loyal son or daughter of Malath. The Mansion resides in the former Lands of Magic, or at least, the magical vacuum that exists in their destruction's wake. The Akhevans were not destoryed. It was they whom have built the Mansion, and decorated with images of themselves. It is they who have fileld the mansion with deadly traps, and yet silenced the greatest wizards among us. It is the akhevans, illusioned to pass as one of us, that hold open the portals in the mortal lands. All they are waiting for is you to lead all of Dalaya to Iksith. Win or lose in Iksith, you will return to find Dalaya in Akhevan hands.
You guys get duped virtually everytime you talk to someone. I mean, don't get me wrong, you guys have done some good, mostly in the area of Feydark, trusting this person or that, but your entire order is based off trusting someone who thought talking to the Betrayer was a good idea. And you listen to him, and trust what he says. You listen to Baladakos, and trust what he says.
Some mysterious "legion" shows up on a pit stop on their way elsewhere, and you are basiclly ready to sacrifice the Erudites and surrender Erudin. These are the VERY people who took you in and saved the collective butts of yourselves, or your parents, a scant 40 years ago, and you barely blinked in your efforts to betray them. Fortunately for the denizens of the storm shrouded isles, they went on their way.
Most recently, a person, whom you KNEW to be from Iksith, a land under total and utter control of your supposed enemy, told you to do something, and you merrily did it. You murdered a fellow Dalayan, for no reason other than "some guy from the bad place told me too". You discovered that you were wrong, and that you were duped, that you had been lied too. So, how do you react? You run back to the guy and... dun dun DUN... DO EXACTLY AS HE TELLS YOU TO DO.
My own ancestorial homelands in Taldor Malath, you destroyed without pause. True, I was not yet hatched, and my ancestors survived the resulting cataclysm, but I have yet to hear a single word of a story that absolves, or even lessens, you guilt in this matter.
Every single time you are threatened, your first instinct is throw someone else; anyone, even an ally, in your enemies' pathes and pray you do not get a broken nail in the scuffle. Only when they make it clear that YOU are the one being threatened, that YOU are the only one they care about, do you look around and EXPECT others to rally to your aide because, gosh darned it, you are so gods blessedly special.
And yay, the legions of Kaezul show up, this top bad guy that you supposedly hate so much, in your own lands, and you barely raise a finger in its defense. You leave whole areas under Iksith control for days or weeks. In fact, the only time you actually seem to care is where they actually get within sight of your precious cities of Newport or oh precious Athica.
So, for those at home, we have covered that you are panicy, slothful, betraying, vain cowards. You are quick of action and slow of thought. I am still unsure which of those traits I am going to try to appeal to today... I suppose I hope that by pointing out your past mistakes, you can open your eyes to the one you make right now.
Once, there were loyal citizens of Dalaya who would wisk you away to another place as their daily toil, for the cost of a very small fee that allowed them to feed and house themselves and their families.
Then, one day, they were gone... found murdered in their beds. In their place were magical vortexs that would wisk you away to another, similar vortex, if you possessed a small sample of earth from the destination... a pebble. And you accepted this without question. These vortexes eventually closed, at least from our side, as even now, the forces of Kaezul use these portals. One could even make the likely conclusion that these portals were a creation of the Iksar all along. ((Although it would stand to reason that the portal you search for is one of these older portals, and that you need only to locate the proper incantation and a bit of Iksith soil, and not murder innocent Dalayans, far be it from me to point that out.))
What I do want to point out, however, is its replacement. The Mansion of Portals is obviously fiendish in Origin. First, have you never wondered how it got there? Where it actually IS? If it resides in a demi plane of existance, where is it's inhabitant? If no one occupies it, how does it remain? Are not the demiplanes bound to existance by the will of the god that created it? Who opened the portals between it and the realm of Dalaya? Why is it filled with insidious evil? Why are our mortal magics impotent inside it?
Who are the portal wizards that maintain the portals on Dalaya? How do they possess a magic not found anywhere else? Why are they loyal only to themselves, and not to their ancestorial races?
The answer is fairly obvious to any loyal son or daughter of Malath. The Mansion resides in the former Lands of Magic, or at least, the magical vacuum that exists in their destruction's wake. The Akhevans were not destoryed. It was they whom have built the Mansion, and decorated with images of themselves. It is they who have fileld the mansion with deadly traps, and yet silenced the greatest wizards among us. It is the akhevans, illusioned to pass as one of us, that hold open the portals in the mortal lands. All they are waiting for is you to lead all of Dalaya to Iksith. Win or lose in Iksith, you will return to find Dalaya in Akhevan hands.