An Encyclopedia of Notable Persons

Contents:

1. Roleplayer Listing

2. Alphabetical Listing

3. Chronological Listing

The Magic of Andlosheim
A Complete Encyclopedia on the Magic of the Vast Realms of the World


: Bibliography :
The Fundamentals of Magic - Archmage Sigismunt Alantund


[Work In Progress]

Darnathir, A Culture Apart
A compendium on Sidgard's sister kingdom across the seas
As written and arranged by Holmgeir Bjarkisson



Foreword


As one may notice when one attempts to learn of different cultures outside our own, very few works in Sidgard focus on the lands beyond the seas. Whether this is due to the vast expanses and natural features separating our known human-dominated lands from the rest of the world making dissemination of information difficult between our culture and others, or just an narcissistic introversion inherent to the Sidgardian mentality, the idea that we are the dominating pinnacle of culture and enlightenment, one can only speculate; it does make it difficult for chroniclers, travelers, scholars, traders, and anyone who may otherwise make use of such information to attain their objectives, however, when one has difficulty finding any information on the subject at hand.

Darnathir was one such topic. One of the few known human realms beyond the seas, little is written of it within Sidgardian literature - despite consistent trade and contact - beyond that history which is intrinsically tied to Sidgardian history and events; given how closely tied the two realms are compared to many other places separated by such great distance, I found this to be a tragic state of affairs, and thus spent the last eight years of my life (and the vast funding of my investors, to whom I am eternally grateful) cataloging what information I could and traveling throughout the myriad quasi-city-states of Darnathir for local sources for when Sidgardian accounts failed, all in the interest of completing this compendium, all for the benefit of present and future generations with an interest in one of the most vibrant and successful foreign realms Sidgardian influence has spawned.

While I did my best to be as thorough as possible in my collection of data, none of the information contained within is flawlessly complete or all-encompassing, I must admit, but it is a good starting point for future, thorough research, academic or otherwise, into our brothers and sisters across the seas. I fully expect future generations will expand upon the information contained within, creating a more complete account for others to reference. While I did my best to gather as many different reference sources as possible and maintain the integrity of the information contained within, do understand that it is not always possible to find completely flawless sources for certain information; I tried to cut out rumor and conjecture as much as possible, or clearly delineate and such myths as separate from facts when such things were critical to the understanding of something else. Please keep this in mind while reading.

I do hope you find this compendium useful in your endeavors, whatever they may be, and thank you for taking an interest in one of my life's greatest works.

~Holmgeir Bjarkisson



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The Werewolf Myth
A Treatise on Lycanthropic Myth and History
By
Daloghulir av Välsignadvagga

Written circa SY 3215, as chronicled & interred in the library of the College of Mages, Sidgard.




Many times have I been asked by the wayfarer on the roads, having known of my travels and exploits, "Daloghulir, masterful chronicler and dauntless adventurer, in all your days wandering the lands and cataloging their boundless inhabitants, what is the most astonishing thing you have discovered?" Here I shall tell you as I tell these wayfaring souls, dear reader, that the most astonishing thing I have unearthed in all my many decades of traversing the boundless limits of Andlosheim is no place or thing, as many expect, but a vast display of knowledge from lands beyond and known to very few within the Storslagen, if at all, and among all these facts and records stands none more controversial nor more fascinating than the truths I have uncovered about the Myths of the Werewolves.


A Summation Of Myths

Before I begin, I shall detail the common myth and its history, as known within my home, and the vast majority of places where humanity has settled and made the lands theirs, so that even one who has not heard these facts and myths may know.

As the Myth goes, long in the past when still many of the Ayohim were still young, Veohr, God of Pestilence, still had many agents that roamed the lands and served secretly in his name, for secrecy was required as it was their job to serve as the vessels for Veohr's touch to bring the culling influences of disease to the lands, and for one's identity as an agent of Voehr to be discovered would surely forfeit that person's life to those less than happy about plague appearing in their homes. At the time, the lands were not partitioned into the kingdoms of today but were a patchwork of many small chiefdoms, petty self-stylized "kings" lording over a few small hamlets at most.

One such chief, a man from north and west who styled himself as King Falulf, held lands on a large spit, which celebrated several long years of good harvest and fortune, but several settlements nearby recently began to suffer from plague. With news of the disease's slow encroachment, King Falulf grew worried and paranoid of the good fortunes of his lands being disrupted and appealed to his trusted sage for advice, which was given; while so ever long as the foreign disease might threaten his lands, the sage would appeal to the gods to protect the good fortunes of his lord. However, he also cautioned that such wide-reaching pestilence could only be acts of Veohr; with the Gods banished from the planes of Man, only Man himself could call the Gods to exercise their will in this world, and warned his King to be wary of any man whom even the rats feared to approach.

Wary King Falulf was, too, as in his paranoia he immediately called a manhunt to find any such person and have them brought before him to be "questioned," which in this unenlightened period of time no doubt meant "tortured until confession." The endeavor found one man; various regional differences in legend-telling vary wildly at this point, giving all kinds of different names to the man, and describing a myriad of different methods by which King Falulf ordered the hapless man suffer until he confess the "truth" that he was an agent of the God of Pestilence, though the most common telling has the man tied to a stake and his back repeatedly branded with fire between rounds of lashings. Certainly not a pleasant experience. By the second day of this treatment, the poor man's body slumped against the stake on the verge of giving out, when the King asked one more time if he was sent to ruin his land's fortunes, and once more the man denied this, stating that the King's fortunes were safe, but that the King was another matter, who would meet a curse fitting of his name for assaulting Veohr so...and then he died.

Four months later on a hunt, King Falulf was assaulted by a rabid-looking wolf far larger than were known to be in the area. His men drove off the beast, and the King escaped with his life, but the bites and scratches left their mark; the King became sickly, before transforming into a wolf-like beast and attacking his own family in his home. No one died from the attack before King Falulf's own men-at-arms dispatched him, and life went back to normal, until the next full moon, when those wounded by this first "werewolf" became werewolves in kind.

And the pestilence continued until modern day.

That is, of course, the legend known through human lands, with some variation. Many other lands have their own versions of the werewolf myth, but regardless of the specifics of their creation, all werewolf tales share similar traits: shapechanging, an inhuman bloodlust, incredible strength and resilience, and a terrible accursed ability to create more of their own kin through their bites and scratches.


The Myth As History

The job of a chronicler is to write the histories by distinguishing the fact from the fantastical and recording the truth of events, so what truth, if any, is there to the myriad werewolf myths? Quite a fair amount, as it so happens.

First is the ancient God of Pestilence, Veohr, references to whom are lysted in the Grexucron and other listings of the Old Gods, but little is known about him beyond his domain, and this god has long since gone dormant, disappearing from pantheons with the last known mention of him appearing some forty-one hundred years ago. In those days, pestilence and disease were seen less as the deadly machinations of evil entities as they are now, but instead a more purifying, if merciless, force that removed the weak and incapable so that the survivors might be stronger and survive, and the deities of such domains commanded a devout and sizable, if not overly large, following. However, as living conditions improved across much of the known civilized cultures of Andlosheim and resources became more plentiful or easier to obtain, the usefulness in and viewpoint of disease as a momentary hardship necessary to ensure the continued survival of the group, weak as it was even then, fell even further out of fashion. Nowadays, while Gods with similar domains do exist and are worshiped, most - like Veohr - have been dropped from the common pantheons, and their idolation is limited to insignificant fringe cults.

Second, there does exist a written record of a "King Falulf" from the northwest coast of what is now Sidgard, a short account of a battle between he and a local rival, who is widely regarded as the same Falulf from the myths. This Falulf also had three sons known as the Wulfssons in local idioms, which would be a rather convenient coincidence; what happened to them isn't known or recorded, but given that subsequent rulers in the area were not of King Falulf's family and no record of conquest exists, it's likely the family was run out of power for some reason...likely for being "werewolves."


The Myth As Legend

There, however, is where nearly all of the similarities between werewolf myth and reality ends, for werewolves do not exist. At least, werewolves do not exist as most people believe they do, as shape-changing killers of the night, bound to the moon and spreading their terrible disease through assaults on local populations, terrorizing villages and razing livestock.

Consider this: were werewolves so, were they to exist as they do in myth, why has civilization not been toppled by such a disease as Lycanthropy? The countryside would be overrun with packs of roaming werewolves, as any outlying villages, with their lack of defenses, would be easily ransacked and destroyed, their inhabitants murdered as anyone not immediately killed in the assault would slowly become one more of the pack. With no protection and no cure, anyone sent to deal with them would become one of them, go back to their own barracks, town, or city, and the cycle would start again with the new werewolves. This has obviously not happened, villages are not being overrun and destroyed daily by roving bands of werewolves.

Consider again, along this line of thought, that there are no werewolves in captivity. Surely if werewolves were a real phenomenon, someone, somewhere, would have been able to capture and contain one for study; even maybe an afflicted soul might turn himself in for the hope of being studies and a cure found for his affliction. Oh yes, there are those who are similar to werewolves, such as the clans of shapeshifters from the East Weald and beyond, and the myriad different beastmen (especially beyond our shores); none have been found to be anywhere similar to the unexplainable phenomenon of the werewolf, which is neither a magical discipline nor a race, but always a savage diseased affliction. Why are sightings always so vague, surrounded by phantasmal stories? Why are their effects found, but never the beasts? In all my travels these questions persist, the circumstances always the same, with no substantial answers.

None of this is to say that, at some point in the past, werewolves as they are popularly known and described did not exist. It is entirely possible that, in the far past before the age of man, when the Old Gods still freely roamed the lands creating, destroying, shaping, molding the fabric of what we now think of as "reality," that some lycanthropic disease did exist. Perhaps it was created by Voehr, perhaps some other god, but their absence from the world would cause any impressively disruptive supernatural disease like Lycanthropy to wither and die in its own course. Any such declaration would simply be conjecture, though, as we lack any clear evidence.

With an absence of evidence for the case of Lycanthropy, and my own personal findings as presented, I can truly say that the most astonishing thing I have uncovered in all my travels is that which I failed to find: any undeniable trace of the existence of werewolves.

Lexicorum Heretica
A Catalog by Dr. Brynmor Selwyn, emeritus professor of the Darnathis Academic University


Foreword on "Heresy"

The word "Heresy" has vastly different meanings and connotations from civilization to civilization and religion to religion; for instance, in human realms, where religion is rigidly defined and plays a very significant role in daily life, "heresy" is any belief that does not follow (or is at least justifiably analogous to) the human pantheon and anything other is rigorously persecuted by the Order, while elven society generally doesn't have a concept of "heresy" and usually accepts views even wildly different from their pantheon. Of course, let us not forget, that different pantheons themselves generally consider each other to be heretics, making any academic discussion on heresies devolve into an argument of "who has the authority to define a heresy?"

For the purpose of simplicity therefore, "Heresy" in the context of this publication is assumed to mean "any belief or theory that varies from the established pantheons."

Differences in how established pantheons and their belief systems are interpreted by certain followers are not considered heresy for the purpose of this catalog, unless those interpretations result in real demonstrable variations in the definition of a pantheon; after all, the purpose of this publication is to be an objective catalog of known heretical sects, not to serve as yet another uselessly argumentative theological opinion piece.


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Cult of the Nine Winds
Disciples of Ceomus Hemamus

The midday sun beamed upon the crowds, the uncomfortable burning heat on peoples' necks and shoulders and backs causing a musky miasma to blanket the small seaside market square; not even the incoming sea breezes could part the odoriferous sea of human stench, its salty taste pushing with it the fishy aromas of the nearby weirs, swirling the hazy brew amongst the vat of bodies to be boiled by the fires above into a vile concoction the likes to which the locals had long grown accustomed. Shop owners shouted to passersby to partake of their time, for "harmless" conversation, for stepping out and swindling those who gave more than a passing stare. Peddlers moved amongst the crowds with wares in hand seeking out those of means or those who did not appear local... and preferably both, with whom they could pass along their perfectly legitimately gained goods where the only stealing they partake in are those low prices, lowest!

A man to the left shouting about his being the freshest produce in the streets as it visibly began to turn in the heat; a woman on the right championing the unparalleled craftsmanship of her baskets, woven underwater from the freshest of reeds to preserve their strength and quality. The noise and the miasma and the choking dust in which so many bodies moved created an orderly mess of chaos in which one could quite easily mask oneself from those one wished to avoid.

Perfect for our protagonists.

The nature of the place itself gave rise to the atmosphere which generated within it. Inversheil was one of those seaside hamlets to which one only entered for three reasons: to quickly divest oneself of goods better left divested, to cheaply vest oneself of goods better left divested, or to divest oneself of problems better left in other lands with as few questions asked as possible.

Of course, such problems sometimes had a habit of following oneself, even to places like Inversheil...

Simply, which song(s) are you listening to presently?

A link to a youtube video of the song is appreciated as well, so we can all enjoy

Firstly, there is no convenient tool for migrating from Zetaboards to myBB. MyBB has tools for migrating for migrating from other open-source forum software, but Zetaboards is a closed system. It doesn't give admins direct access to the database or any of that junk. There may be another way to take that data and plug it in, but it wouldn't be simple and instead involve *shudder* communication and coding and IDEK. Even if we did, though, we'd end up with 10,000 broken posts, 'cause myBB and Zetaboard BBCodes differ.

That said, you guys do have threads you probably wanna copy over, both RP and otherwise. And this thread is a thread where the Directorate provides threads on how to take your old threads and make them new. Theadly. Lezz break it down, yo:

Active Role play Threads
The easiest way to continue your active role play threads is to just...continue them. Either the last poster or the next poster can just start the thread here and include a link to the old thread in the first post. The old forums are not going down, nor will they be hidden away.

Alternatively, if one of you is a masochist or otherwise simply must have the entire text of the thread here, you could copy+paste said text and post it all in the first post. Or you guys could tag-team that bit--wonderful and respected lady and take turns re-posting your respective posts. But...that's really not necessary. Continuing your thread with a link to the old one works fine. Or am I the only one to think so? Maybe I'm weird.

One-liner advice: pick up where you left and link the old thread.

Sports/Competitions/Service Threads
I apologize, but you will have to repost these and review the coding as you do. Or rather, the coding of your templates. Specifically your tables. You can finish up the current tournaments on the old forums (I haven't actually turned off posting--I was just fear-mongering, sorry) and prepare your templates for the next, on the new boards here. You can link to the old stuff at your leisure.

One-liner advice: finish your active tournaments on the old forums and start the new ones here, with updated templates.

Database and Factbook Threads
Considering that databases and factbooks are BB-code (specifically, tables) heavy, you are advised to take it post-by-post. This might be time consuming and awful, but think of it as an opportunity to update your stuffu. Bear in mind the new directions regarding Factbook threads. Databases have been phased out, though you lot have that Factbooks forum all to yourselves. Or make use of the Wiki.

One-liner advice: Review and update your threads as you repost it one piece at a time.

If you guys need help with something related to transfering threads, just post in this thread and we can sort it out. A list of differences between Zetaboard and myBB BBCode is available here. Please make an effort to resolve any differences yourself (you'll have to learn it eventually anyway) before querying for assistance.

Vote for the host of the 1580 Cycling World Championship.

You can only choose one option. The poll will be open for two weeks.

Quote:Name of city: MacCarmaig
Country: Strathae
Type of road race stage: hilly (with a mountain)
Info about cycling, both professional and amateur, in your country: Cycling has took off with 80% of the population cycling at least once a week. Especially since the string of victories by United Strathae. It is now the most watched sport in the country with tough domestic competitions.

Quote:Name of city: Brummagem
Country: Goldecia
Type of road race stage: hilly
Info about cycling, both professional and amateur, in your country: Cycling has took off with Royal Abbotts success becoming a mainstream sport. The sport is now broadcast on sports channels on the GBC in Goldecia.

Quote:Name of city: Lauren
Country: Valland
Type of road race stage: flat
Info about cycling, both professional and amateur, in your country: Nowhere is cycling lived with such passion as in Valland, where the most important and oldest Grand Tour, the Tour of Valland, is celebrated every year. Valland is the country which has hosted the World Championship more times, eight, being the last time only a few years ago, in 1572 in the city of Arseille. Valland's capital, Lauren, also hosted the World Championship once, in 1525, as well. However, the Valland Federation and the hosting city believe that is enough time, and that no city in the world is as prepared to host the World Championship as their capital city.