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Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 7:01 am
Below is both a recap and a conclusion that shows how I imagined the RP would have gone if we had kept it running (indefinitely, lulz). None of the characters are mentioned by name because there were a lot of them and this is a summary.
And of course you are all invited to my new RP, Chaos Theory, in the subforum of the same name whee
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Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 6:19 pm
Recap
A new magic had come to Feretris, upsetting the traditional balance of power that placed men as slaves and women as their owners. The magic of the dragon bond had both a long history and a dangerous potential; the culmination exploded as maturing bonded began to discover their powers and combine with other forces to change the future of Feretris. The first appearance of dragons in the skies of Feretris prompted the dispatch of military units to the southern border, leaving the western border particularly porous, and the northern border a bit wanting.
One factor in the destiny of the bonded was the discovery of a way to bring the dragons back into the human world, where they had co-existed centuries ago before their population had begun to dwindle. The bond had been designed to increase their population, and their retreat into another world designed to decrease the aging difference between bonded, the other world being of a different time flow. The status quo had since been kept by strict rules that protected both sides from exceptional interference. However, the bonded in Feretris never got the training that Tok offered, and so the status quo was doomed from the first birth of a bonded in Feretris. Some bonded ended up in Tok, whether by kidnapping or by switching with their dragon, and would eventually drag both the dragons and Tok countrymen into conflict with Feretris. Matters in Tok were complicated by a group of young dragons escaping off over the mountains out of curiosity, hope, or revenge.
The nomadic lands to the south had always offered fierce resistance to ruthless Feretris kidnappings and border expansions, and despite internal conflicts between the tribes, became a force to be reckoned with when they allied themselves with elements from Tok. Although Tok was separated from Feretris by tall mountain peaks, the dragon-bonded were their kin and there were some who would do any thing to avenge that. Thus came the raid on Eldic Estates, a joint effort by Tok citizens and plains people. The raid was not entirely successful, burning a building and freeing some prisoners for a high casualty rate. The raid set off an unpredictable chain reaction amongst the underground in Feretris, who had been taken completely by surprise. In the span of fourty-eight hours, the majority of the Feretris underground in the south was captured and, upon escaping, turned into fugitives on the nomadic plains. In the north, the remaining underground dissolved and many were unable to escape Feretris because trade had been restricted to accommodate the new troop arrangements.
Around the time of the expulsion of the Feretris underground, Feretris and Tok bonded discovered a way to bring over even the largest of the dragons. As contact with the human world grew, many dragons were enraged by what they learned of human societies, especially the slavery of their own bonded in Feretris. At least two dragons had been killed in Feretris; one adult during the raid, and a young dragon for flying around within arrow reach. Many dragons who were too young began trying to contact their bonded, raising awareness and knowledge on both sides. It was time that the humans realized that dragons were going to interfere however they saw fit, and the humans could no longer ignore the problem of Feretris as a hostile country unless they wanted to see all-out war.
The Tok government ordered a rescue party for the refugees, and at the same time sent a delegation to Feretris with demands. What they could not know was that the raid and the careless appearance of dragons in Feretris skies had alerted an old oppositional force. A group of unicorns, expert in pushing the boundaries of good and evil, had nurtured a population of half-sized humans, Kokiri, to resent the dragons. The unicorns had always thought the dragons careless because they easily overlooked the Kokiri and other small creatures, and they had been glad when the dragons had been forced to retire to another world. Their hope that the dragons would remain forever in their new world was shattered the day they spotted them in the sky. To add insult to injury, young dragons interfered with a slave rebellion in their own territory. The unicorns resolved to send some of the Kokiri and some of their own kind out into the world to gather information and to play their own hand in the quickly changing politics.
The Kokiri spies, for their part, traveled around the southern foot of the mountain and reached the valley where all the young dragons had been kept. At the same time, backup teams arrived for the rescue mission, expecting to have to accommodate refugees soon. The man who ran the valley had run off in search of his lunatic wife and the runaway dragons who were still on the eastern side of the mountains. Because of all the confusion of people coming and going-- even refugees from the plains!-- the Kokiri were easily able to set up a communications device to pass on information to the unicorns.
While the Kokiri were traveling, the unicorns found some one to be the last puzzle in their plot to meddle with Feretris. A young, escaped slave had run into the woods that made up their territory in hopes of finding cover. What he found instead were unicorns who were willing to outright lie to get him to do whatever they wanted, and what they wanted was for him to take the humans that they had rescued from the uprising into the capital. Unbeknownst to him, the oldest girl was a unicorn in changed form, ready to whisper into the ear of the Feretris government and cause trouble for Tok and the bonded.
The rescue party, then about halfway back to the valley of the dragons, decided to split up to pursue a mysterious dragon-call.
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Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 6:56 pm
The What If
Some of the young dragons were found by the man looking for them. It was his call that the rescue mission heard, and it was him still looking for his wife that they found. During their meet up and search, they also ran into a unicorn living high up among the peaks. Despite the decay of their knowledge of the human world, the dragons at least remembered that the unicorns were never very fond of them, and that they usually hung out in woodsy places, not frozen peaks. The unicorn took pity on them and gave them information about the hostile group living at lower heights. In exchange, they let her ride in her human form to Tok, where she promptly disappeared into the western isles that provided most of Tok's foreign trade.
The wife, however, was never found, and so the husband became a principle figure in promoting the dragon's hatred against Feretris, whom he believed had killed his wife. It was only the negotiations of Tok that stayed the dragon's hands-- er, claws-- for a while. They were able to convey the information about the unicorns to the bonded trying to strike up negotiations with Feretris. Unfortunately, at that time they had no reason to believe that any unicorns were in the Feretris capital just as they were, and in any case the news came too late. The Tok envoy had reached the capital, but it was the misguided escaped slave and his survivors that reached the ear of the government first.
The news was quite timely for the rescue mission, who otherwise would have been attacked in the woods by friendly-seeming Kokiri and their "White One." It also helped that they still had a good number of dragons with them. This incident allowed the mission to recognize Kokiri as an enemy force, so that when they reached the valley of dragons, they captured some of the Kokiri there and chased off the rest. The refugee's medical needs were served first before they were forcibly taken to see the King. Some of the more radical underground members were convinced to give the king information about Feretris, its customs, and the state of the underground as last they had known. The group was then kept in a small enclave near the Tower of Kay (the seat of government there) and, though treated well, their actions were restricted. They were prisoners, for they were an unpredictable force who could now claim no home to go to.
The delay of the rescue mission caused it to come into contact with plains tribesmen before reaching the valley of the dragon. At first all four of the tribes members joined them, but after reaching the valley, they teamed up with the other adult tribeswoman already there, and set up a camp skirting the southern border of Tok. Their self-appointed mission was to bring all the new information they had learned to the surrounding tribes people, who were mostly Anjts. Once the information filtered over to the Demere tribe, the paramilitary mindset that they had always brought to the conflict was rejoined, and the tribe boundaries were blurred as tribes people paired off into those who wanted to live a normal life and those who realized that war was on its way. At the time Tok could not afford the time or the resources to officially aid the tribes people, for they were also preparing for war, but the valley of the dragons provided an unofficial meeting point where groups could exchange information.
Negotiations did not go well with Tok. The unicorns had offered assistance to Feretris in order to keep it a sovereign free of the dragon's influence, and they had accepted, realizing the danger that Tok represented. Tok was then put at a disadvantage because they had not planned to tell Feretris about their royalty's bond with dragons right away. Feretris resented this, and though they never threatened war themselves, they refused to compromise any of their laws or practices to appease Tok. Not for the promise of trade, not for any thing. Feretris' position was made more difficult by the structural vacuum left by their exiles, the increasing bravery and hostility from the southern plains, and the weakening of the northern and western border against such things as magic animal attacks. Each estate was already some what isolated from the rest of the nation, and only habit and soldiers kept them together as one governing body.
Waiting had given the dragons time to recruit and to organize. They contacted the plains people officially, since Tok would not, and planned a surprise attack on Feretris-- a surprise, because they secretly flew to the northern border. It was not a large percentage of the dragon population by any means, but they were able to put a dent in the Feretris defenses due to the surprise. The unicorns did not arrive in time to help with the initial battle, and when they got there, the enemy camp was hunkered down right outside the northern-most compound. The dragon and human army had stopped at the soldiers, and now that the unicorns were there to help thwart them, they were set in their stalemate.
Tok delegates pulled out of Feretris as soon as they heard about the new army, not wanting to help Feretris and not wanting to get involved in an attack that no one had asked them about. Back home, the royal family lost some of their power as they and their kin began to be seen as unpredictable and inhuman. The interaction of young bonded added to this, as some of them did indeed become more dragon and less human (or vice versa) than their non-bonded counterparts. The old rules protecting the bond were taught to all who could be reached and all who would listen, passing out of secret lore and into the knowledge of the educated, yet there were those who still could not be reached.
What happened next typified the radical changes that later swept Feretris. The stalemate was broken when the compound gave up a good number of their slaves, the ones who wanted to leave. Rumor had it that the decision was influenced by the story of an escaped slave which showed the unicorns to be liars. The unicorns, in the mean time, had finally crossed that tenuous line and were beginning to turn black. The decision was probably a lot more complicated than that and involved a desire not to live in fear between two camped armies that brought foreign conflicts to their doorsteps.
The concession by the compound prompted the dragons to back up their camp to a distance where they were no longer an immediate threat to Feretris, but freed slaves and curious women could travel there without too much trouble from the northern border. As pressure from the compounds forced the government to redesign itself, and the compounds became true nation-states, the army led by the dragons turned into a trade town which opened up possibilities further north that had been as yet unexplored by Feretris or the traders from the western isles.
Tok and the new Feretris were not on the friendliest of terms, but citizens from either country were eventually able to cross through the southern plains to travel to either country. Because Feretris became smaller, the tribes were able to contend with the less-organized trouble-making bandits that filled the gap between the old Feretris border and the new. The designations of Anjts and Demere no longer made any sense, in part because of the migration of some of their people far to the north and in part because of an influx of Tok volunteer soldiers and support staff, so the people broke up into numerous new family-clans that met every couple of years to maintain some semblance of coexistence.
The black unicorns, soon finding themselves abandoned by both their Kokiri army and their Feretris army, moved off to the north east where they were able to harass the budding trade-town, making it unsafe for any, especially bonded humans, to wander out that way.
The Kokiri found themselves unable to remain completely isolated, and had to relearn some of the false realities that the unicorns had fed them. As such, they were not a particularly helpful people during any part of the conflict, but they did spread out into the plains to meet the newly emerging realities head-on.
Some of the dragons decided to stay in their alternate world and stay out of human affairs, concerned only for their own personal bonded. Many others would visit the human world in decades to come by switching with their bonded, involved but still living in separate worlds. The rest had to find their own places in the new world, with the northern trade-town being the closest they had to a draconian nation.
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