Robertarius

A robed figure sat in an endless hallway, passing the time by sifting through a brochure. The artwork that accompanied each paragraph was nicely drawn, but the story being told as a whole was suspicious to him. Important events were either nothing more than just footnotes or oversimplified to the point of parody. The entire thing read less like a genuine introduction to the world itself and more like a cheap ploy to draw in tourists and the morbidly curious. Unlike the other two groups mentioned, his reason for visiting was purely business—and not the pleasant, mutually-beneficial kind. He hoped that with some luck, he could get it over with quickly and return to his work as a research assistant, but his cynicism reminded him that the chance for that was slim to none. Perhaps once there, he could go through it again sentence by sentence and see just how much of it was true. That is, if he had the time - he was on a tight enough schedule as is. Last week, news broke of a lich that

Long ago, when the Gods were kind and the fortunes plentiful, the cradle of humanity was covered from pole to pole in lush, dense forest, rolling hills and glistening rivers. Under the watchful eye and divine patronage of the Goddess of Nature, its first inhabitants built simple dwellings and crude shrines in her name. Though few in numbers, they prospered. Every generation, a handful deemed worthy by the Goddess would be gifted with a tiny fraction of her power. These individuals - quickly given the name shamans - had power over nature and could bend it to their will as they saw fit. However, given the kind of people they were, they only used their powers sparingly and only after much deliberation, always making sure to give back to nature. If a tree was cut, three more saplings needed to be planted to replace it. So long as this unwritten rule was adhered to, the sapling would sprout into an adult tree in only a few days' time. However, life wouldn't stay that simple. Villages