Write up for the val’Vasik Special Characters

Overall, me like!

Your blade sends tremors up your arm as it hacks through the Infernal’s armored torso. Ichor sprays from the wound momentarily blinding you; the thick, black fluid burns your face with its impurities. Wiping your eyes clear, a wondrous sight greets you: swarmed over by a host of the King’s champions, the Devil-King Uhxbractit, the Scourge of the Benighted Realms and implacable foe of the Shining Lord, Xabal, has fallen. With the death of their blasphemous lord, the creatures of nightmare that swarmed beyond the God’s Wall quail in fright and flee from the righteous anger of your allies.

Minor grammar/punctuation/style suggestions. Otherwise, no issue!

It is only hours later, later, after the Demonic Horde has been fully routed that the cost of the victory is revealed; Holy Xabal, a being who has been the protector, teacher and leader to the people of Bastion, as well as the All-Father to the val’Vasik family, was destroyed by the Infernal King. Emptiness wells up within you; a despair so deep that it drives out all feeling of hope, turning the sweet taste of victory into bitter ash.

Though in the narrative of this write up, it makes sense, shouldn’t the val’Vasik know (or have a very strong idea) that Xabal fell? He was leeching away their life force to keep standing during the BI. Speaking as a player, I personally would like that piece of fluff in the text. Possibly omit the “. . . hours later. . . ” bit, and replace it with something like “Alas, this victory did not come without its cost. Holy Xabal, a being. . . “?

The rest is all a blur as your mind attempts to comprehend the unthinkable. Lord Xabal was more than just a ruler; for generations he created an island of peace and safety within a sea of chaos and death. So long as he reigned, the people of Bastion were able to survive and thrive. Within your veins flows his blood, granting power greater than mere mortals, but tasking you with the responsibility of protecting your fellow man. About the battlefield are the bodies of your cousins, uncles and aunts who rode south to smash the Horde; their corpses a testament that the val’Vasik rose to the challenge and discharged that obligation to their final breath [, even giving their own essence to fuel Xabal’s fight?].

So few of the family remains whole and hale, that the thought you will ever rebound appears impossible, but XX, the First Among Equals, tries to rally the surviving val’Vasik by reminding you that hundreds more stayed behind in Bastion to defend Holy Xabal’s throne. The hollowness of that promise is revealed when the first riders return from Bastion in the weeks following the battle [I’m not sure if saying “the hollowness of that promise” is the best wording of this. Maybe “This hope, however, turned to ash when the first. . .”]. While the injured were being tended to and the dead buried, scouts were sent back to city for reinforcements and aid, only to return empty handed but for the dire news they carried: Bastion has fallen and its people butchered or scattered to the four winds.

News must have traveled faster than the fastest rider to the remaining rival Infernal leaders that Lord Xabal had fallen. Centuries of pent up hatred and anger at being denied the thousands of human beings ensconced safely behind its walls exploded in an orgy of destruction that left not one stone remaining atop another. The very ground consecrated by the footsteps of the divine valinor were now defiled and corrupted by the depredations of the rampaging devils and fiends.

The news of the massacre was almost too much to take; your family was just coming to terms with the death of the All-Father, when it was discovered that everyone that the val’Vasik had left behind – family, friends, beloveds – were gone! Their homes, history, their very culture was now but a memory; a memory held by a scant handful of men and women – no more than XX in total.

More of a clarity issue, and I’m cool if you do not want to be this definite about it, but if the Bastionites (Bastions? Bastonians?) were scattered to the four winds that suggests that there is a chance that some val’Vasik also were scattered and survived. If you want to make SURE that everyone knows that the val’Vasik were killed, maybe say that the Infernals spared special attention to hunting them all down (as they were the scions of the creature they despised).

The newly crowned king of Milandir was gracious when he heard the news. Having just lost his father in the same battle against the Devil-King, King Gerhardt invited all surviving scions of Holy Xabal to make a new home in his kingdom.

With no home left to return to, many of your family members took the good king up on his offer – others decided that, for the first time in their lives, their fate was their own. Under the stern but loving eyes of the Lord of Bastion, one could do no less than strive for the perfection he wanted each of us to enjoy. Now, we can be anyone and go anywhere. The entirety of our ancestor’s world was bounded by the Sealed Lands; for the first time in the history of the val’Vasik family – the rest of world lies before us.

It is time to discover new peoples and new places; more importantly, it is time to discover who we truly are.

Hmmm, be interesting to see a val’Vasik be made Lord of a new Duchy in the Hinterlands (ie: Duke of Mil Takara ). Imagine how the others (such as the val’Inares) would feel about that

Fair enough.