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| Thread: ICTC VII: The Purgatory | |
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LizardWarrior
Honorable
Legendary Hero
the reckoning is at hand
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posted February 02, 2013 08:35 PM |
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ICTC VII: The Purgatory
Aka: The lost souls, the forgotten spirits
Associated colours:Black and Red
Worship: None
Country / kingdom:Umbrae, the land of Oblivion
Capital city:None
Motto:" Hope, faith, redemption, they are all meaningless, damned to eternal sorrow we fear nor pain or suffering, nor death or sickness, this is our curse and we will wear it till the end of days"
Key symbols:The Symbol of Infinity
Terrain: Cursed Ground
General Description
Legends and rumors about a strange place haunts the land, a place of sorrow where restless spirits go, no one knows where it is or if it exists. This place is called the Purgatory or Umbrae, the land of shadow. Umbrae is inhabited by souls who don't
join the Spiritual Plane( heaven or hell/underworld/ whatever), be it because they were forgotten, either they are bound to the mortal plane by a tragic event or they refuse to. They lost their emotions, their happiness, their pride, only the sorrow and a shade of their lost humanity remains. Souls spent their eternity wandering aimlessly through the cursed land of Umbrae. The spirits gain powers that mortals can't access, they can fly, pass through objects, gain spectral energies and can manipulate unknown forces, however the price is high: their humanity and it's taken by force, either if they want or not. The lost souls are capable of escaping from Purgatory to the mortal plane, as unlike the spiritual plane, the purgatory's barrier is weak and can be broken by spirits. On mortal plane, the spirits return to their death place, or they haunt the one responsible for their death.
Umbrae-The Land of Oblivion
No one knows where Umbrae is exactly located, as it is somewhere between the mortal and the spiritual plane. It's a deformed reality with a grim landscape. A eternal fog embraces the land , the soil is always scorched and unfertile, no green plant grows there, forests of dead trees covers the land, thorny dead vegetation covers the ruins and the dry ground. Black Cliffs rise from nowhere and stand prideful penetrating the whitish fog. The realm is infested with lost souls damned to eternal wander and sorrow, but they feel pain nor suffering, only sadness and anger towards the living. The spirits tried to rise structures like they did in their previous life, but the cursed ground of the Umbrae doesn't let them to do this and their buildings collapse in ruin. Derelict walls and ruined palaces covers the land of oblivion reminding the souls that only sorrow awaits them, but from time to time ruptures to mortals plane appear in Umbrae letting the spirits to torment the living. Mortals can't come in Umbrae unless they're dead, the barrier lets the spirits to come in, but it won't let them come out, excepting the coming using the ruptures between the purgatory and the mortal plane. No one knows exactly what causes these ruptures, they are temporary with a lifespan of 1 second to a couple of weeks, they are usually small and only a few spirits can manage to escape in the mortals plane using them, but Avengers and Gravecallers can use mystic forces to expand ruptures' lifespan and size letting more spirits and souls to cross into the mortal plane and come back in the purgatory. Souls are somehow linked with Umbrae and they can stay long in the mortal plane or they will simply fade away and lose any power there and they'll need to go back in purgatory to recover their lost energies.
Society
There's no such thing as a well-defined society in the realm of oblivion, but groups of lost souls built cities to keep alive the memories from the mortal worlds, however they aren't as grand and luxurious as the ones were they lived once. A city of ruins, where only the silent wind and the lifeless shadows wander aimlessly, dead trees and thorny vegetation grow over the stone structures as the fog embraces them. Not all the spirits live in peace with each other and they often have conflicts, as sadness and anger are the only emotions that the souls still experience. The souls take different forms and sizes depending on more factors, how they died, what they were in life and what sins they have made in life. The highest ranked in the Purgatory are the Reapers, everyone obeys them, they have the power to go anytime on the mortal realm and gather the souls of the dying. An interesting fact is that souls still keep some of their old habits from the time they were alive, craftsmen souls tend to work on materials they find in purgatory, even if they are far less inferior to these in their life, the state of spirit and purgatory energies affect them and they build strange structures, monoliths with weird symbols and figures of malformed creatures, while warriors tend to be more aggressive and often go in packs on the mortal plane and start haunting the places of their death and their enemies which killed them.
The souls take shapes and forms that have connections with their previous life, how they died and what sins they had committed in life, for example the souls of the decapitated take shape of a floating ghostly face who screams in terror like in the moment before the executioner's axe beheaded them. The following castes of souls can be found in purgatory:
Maledixit Deterior-the lowest caste of the Purgatory, the tainted ones. Many of these deserve to be tortured in hell for their sins but they manifested a strong willpower and refused the eternal torment. Controlled by terror they did everything that a soul could do to avoid the terrible punishment in the underworld. They searched a refugee from the hellish punishers and eventually found it in the Purgatory. However as hell neither forgets nor forgive the hellish forces touched them and tainted their souls to take horrid forms and suffer terrible pains wherever they will run. Being tainted by the forces of hell, the souls take tainted forms of demonic animals, with pale and rotten skin, long claws, eyes that always bleed, endless hunger and terrible pains. Members of this caste are a kind of forced union between the soul of a mortal and a demon. The soul doesn't have total control over the semi-translucent body and the instincts and the demonic will are more powerful. These poor sinners are damned to wander aimlessly in the purgatory and be tortured by hell even if they aren't here. Even the other souls from purgatory look with disgust at these cursed atrocities.
Erraticas Spiritum-the most numerous caste of the purgatory, consisting of shades, faceless and translucent souls that always look to wear a hooded cloak. The cloak symbolizes the loss of their previous life and the loss of their importance, social status and all from their mortal life, on the mortal plane they had a face, they were someone, a person, now they are nothing, just wandering souls that will never know anymore what's happiness. Only a shade of sorrow, that abandoned their everything but the sorrow when they left their lifeless bodies. They often tend to stay in groups, as a habit of their old life, but they never talk to each-other, they lost their ability to communicate with others.
Trucidati Phasma-death is not always natural or accidental, this caste is formed from the souls of the murdered ones that want to avenge their death, they take various forms depending of the way they were killed, a beheaded man will take the form of a floating skull searching for his body and so on. Souls of this caste are ones of the few spirits that can break the barrier between purgatory and the mortal plane as their power is drawn from their own anger and thirst for revenge. They will seek for revenge and their killer, but being blinded by anger they will spare no mortal from their horrible haunt. Attracted by the spiritual energies released at their death place, the avenging spirits will return there, the purification rituals made on the mortal plane have as objective to clean the death place from these energies so the soul will never find it anymore. Even tought they are linked to their death place, murdered souls will not always return to their death place and will be attracted to any murderer scene.
Nobilis Spectralem-a few souls succeed to transfer their skills in the purgatory, but these are the most powerful. Avengers and Gravecallers are part of this caste. Being able to keep their skills and knowledge even after the decomposing of the mortal body, places members of this caste on the top of the Purgatory Society. It's necessary a immense willpower and knowledge in dark arts to can accomplish such a difficult task, but it's worth. Some mortals commit a suicidal ritual to get rid of their mortal body and gain immense power in purgatory, however not much succeed because of the ritual's complexity. A tragic and quick death may result in transferring abilities from the body directly into the soul and resulting into a powerful spirit.
Signa Mortis-the highest and most mysterious caste of Purgatory. While other residents of the purgatory are souls of the dead people, the ones from this caste aren't. The strange fact about them is that they were never alive, they were dead since the begging, they symbolize death and only it. Mortals fear them, necromancers praise them and souls obey them. Who are they? What is their propose? Do they really exist? Can they be explained? What they really want? From where do they come? Pure avatars of death, entities made from death itself. Purgatory has its own secrets that shall be never revealed...
Architecture
The cursed ground of the Umbrae makes any construction to collapse quickly into ruin, all of the buildings made by the spirits are already half-destroyed once they are finished. Even if there are spirits from all over the world the architecture is similar to all souls, the sorrow and anger guides the souls to build in a grim Gothic style with lot of arches, columns and sharp edges. The spirits build from the materials they find here, black granite, onyx, dried/ rotten wood. The ruined cities from the middle of the purgatory aren't the only structures built by the souls, strange totems and monoliths rise all over the land, they are encrypted with strange symbols and their propose is too canalize the spectral energies of purgatory used to create portals to human plane and enchanting the power of the spirits. The most impressive structures and monuments in Umbrae are:
Collumnas of Eternity-also named the spectral pillars, the onyx watchers or the silent obelisks. An impressive number of these pillars are found all over the land of Umbrae. They are a sort of obelisks made of cold onyx or obsidian and covered in strange symbols that can be only read by the Gravecallers. Their base is a rectangular shaped block of onyx which is engraved with the symbol of infinity on every side. Upon the base is placed a four-sided, narrow tapering structure which ends in a pyramid-like shape. At the top stays a glowing sphere of energy that is constantly orbiting around the pyramid-like end.
Cost: 2500 gold, 15 ore, 5 mercury
Effect: Increase the efficiency of Soul-Linking by 15%
Shrine of Desperation-the legend says that the first souls which arrived in purgatory were shocked by the idea that they were dead forever and damned to wander for eternity in this cursed land. Because they didn't want to accept the reality, the souls searched a way to go once again in the mortal plane to find their mortal bodies, they successfully broke the barrier between the worlds, but they found their bodies decomposed and only the bones remained from them. The souls collected their bones and brought in Purgatory to build a grim shrine from them. It's not known why the spirits build the shrine, it remains one of the numerous mysteries of Umbrae.
Cost: 5000 gold, 2 sulfur, 2 crystals, 2 mercury
Effect: Lowers enemies' morale by 3
Lead Monolith-the gigantic structure of heavy metal watches silently over the Umbrae, build from unknown reasons by various souls that inhabit the grim purgatory. Maybe it was build by greedy spirits that searched precious metals such as gold,silver and platinum but instead they found only lead in the depths of the dark caverns of the purgatory and this is a monument of their sadness. Or is a mysterious monument made by Gravecallers to manipulate new sources of power? The structure is covered by a shroud of mystery as any other monument in Umbrae.
Cost: 2500 gold, 10 ore
Effect: transforms a random quantity of gold into ore at the end of each week, also earth school spells of any allied gravecaller or avenger costs 2 mana less
Heroes
Might-Avenger
Even if a soul lose its body after death, some qualities such as tactic skills, military mastery and leadership remain after the decomposing of the material body. Avengers are the spirits of the great commanders and generals who died tragically on the battlefield, now they seek to avenge their deaths and haunt the ones which killed them. But as their conception has been changed by the Purgatory they'll haunt anyone. Their tough personality and military skills demands respect even in purgatory, they are capable of uniting specters under their banner and command them in battle against the mortals. Avengers' personality is very volcanic, unlike other souls not their sorrow is accentuated, but their fury, a bloodthirsty warrior is still bloodthirsty in purgatory.
Offensive Version-Cryptic Revenger
Supportive Version-Purgatory Guardian
Magic-Gravecaller
The mages and sorcerers which played with death magic became Gravecallers after death in purgatory. As other souls they'll keep their memories and knowledge after their bodies are decomposed, but they develop a hunger of knowledge, this remind them of their life as mortals and now they'll spent their immortality searching and discovering new ways of energy manipulation. Usually, the gravecallers don't like to share their knowledge with anyone and often gravecallers spy each-other to steal ideas. Gravecallers use black magic and spectral manipulation to earn their place in Purgatory and control the other spirits. They can possess the body of mortals, open portals to the mortal plane and manipulate other spirits from the Purgatory.
Offensive Version-Deathcaller
Supportive Version-Shadowcaller
{UNFINISHED}
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Vindicator
Supreme Hero
Right Back Extraordinaire
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posted February 02, 2013 08:54 PM |
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Looks quite nice so far, most curious as to how you will make this work. I can't imagine too many warriors in a purgatory; very intriguing.
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LizardWarrior
Honorable
Legendary Hero
the reckoning is at hand
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posted February 02, 2013 09:03 PM |
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It's not exactly the Catholic type of purgatory, it's inhabited by spirits that don't want to cross the borders to the spiritual world. In the line-up will be present ghosts, ravens(since they are considered death messengers) flying skulls who scream and more spectral creatures.
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Vindicator
Supreme Hero
Right Back Extraordinaire
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posted February 02, 2013 09:14 PM |
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Ah, gotcha. So, in other words, a classic Lizardwarrior faction. 
Me gusta. 
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gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
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posted February 02, 2013 09:55 PM |
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Hmmmm... an interesting take on the undead. I can't wait to see how this turns out, LW. 
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blizzardboy
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Nerf Herder
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posted February 13, 2013 08:54 AM |
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Another cheerful faction by Lizardwarrior. Looking forward to more The descriptions were interesting to read so far.
edit: btw your image modding skills are much more hardcore than mine, but you clearly need a fashion consultant. Trust me: you should add a thin black line (3 pixels is my preference) along the borders of your images and also around both the inside border of your pictures that have the stonewall background behind them and another line around the perimeter of the stonewall background itself. It will give it a cleaner, more finished look. Like this:
as opposed to this:
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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LizardWarrior
Honorable
Legendary Hero
the reckoning is at hand
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posted March 12, 2013 02:20 PM |
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Thanks for the advice Blizz, I previously used the blur tool to make the edges blend with the stone wall, but it's better your way. 
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Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
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posted March 12, 2013 04:00 PM |
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Pretty cool so far doctor Lizz.
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Horses don't die on a dog's wish.
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