Creating a prophecy

[red_eagle123]

For an upcoming game, I'm working on a prophecy that will be presented to one of the PC's. However I'm having a hard time coming up with decent wording for such a thing. I don't know why, I'm just not happy with the wording.

 

I thought for fun I'd post my thought processes on the boards as I work through the prophecy, see what others think.

 

For one, I really dislike the name of the artifact I'm using, it seems far too cheesy for me. I'd like something with a bit more pizzazz. The problem is, I can't find any words to snazz up what is essentially a skull & spine fused together.

 

The background of the prophecy (as will be presented to the PC), is that it was made over 700 years ago, by a member of the Fae (Hence references to mortals and using old names for kingdoms). In the prophecy, it foretells the coming of an artifact that will instigate or otherwise be responsible for five events. One War, One Plague, One Famine, Creation of Death and the combination of the four into the Horsemen.

 

The War is the 30 years War. I wanted to pick a war that most people would have at least heard of, but didn't take place in the 20th century (Since this artifact was found by an archealogist, I wanted it to have been buried for awhile).

 

The Famine is the Irish Potato Famine. This one was fairly straight forward, and definately the most easily recognizable famine pre-20th century.

 

The Plague was another easy one, the Black Plague, aka the Bubonic Plague of the 14th century.

 

The creation of Death ties into Takofanes partially ressurecting Professor Muerte. Muerte tries to return fully to life and is stopped. He attempted to use the artifact to kill the two members of Eurostar who betrayed him. With that unsuccessful, he's going ot use the artifact as part of his scythe, and has taken to calling himself simply 'El Muerte'. Hence, Creation of Death, the artifact itself becoming a Weapon of Death.

 

The last event has yet to happen. El Muerte is going to gather three others and form the horsemen of the apocalypse (Or Four Horsemen, or something else equally dramatic, I haven't decided on the exact terminology to be used). The PC's have already met War and Famine, they have yet to meet plague.

 

My intention is to print out the prophecy, and have a friend do some calligraphy work to make it look like an old scroll, then another friend start scribbling notes on the parchement as if trying to figure out the prophecy through the years (So use different ink colors/styles, fade some of the text out, etc). The hope is that since the first four events have already taken place, this gives the player the sense of foreboding and impending doom that the fifth one is upon them.

[red_eagle123]

Re: Creating a prophecy

 

The first stanza or whatever is the one I'm most happy about, for various reasons.

 

During the War of the Hundred, when the lands of Gaul and Albion do war,

the Bringer of Death shall sweep out of the west, inflicting upon mortals a Plague most Black that shall spare neither king nor commoner

 

 

First the reference to the war itself. My use of the words 'War of the Hundred', I hoped to make a phrase that looking at it prior to the Hundred Years war (When the Black Plague hit), nobody would know what that meant. Hundred nations? Hundred Killed? Hundred participants?

 

I specifically left the reference to mortals in because it shows the prophecy was created by someone other than humans, in this case the Fae.

 

The phrase 'Plague most Black' is another descriptive phrase I enjoy. Again it's a phrase that when looked back on is quite obvious what it refers to (Black Plague), but if someone were to try and predict what it meant, they'd be hard-pressed to do so.

 

The reference to Gaul and Albion I left in there because I wanted to obscure when the War of the Hundred took place. In this case I'm referring to France (Gaul) and Britain (Albion) warring. Since the Fae are so danged old, I felt they'd be more likely to use names for countries they're more familiar with.

 

Again, I'm not happy with the artifact name. Guess I'll have to work on that some.

[red_eagle123]

Re: Creating a prophecy

 

For the second Stanza I reference the 30 year war. As I'd previously mentioned I had to pick a war that happened pre-20th century that people would likely know about.

 

Also, due to timing, I had to find one that took place somewhere between the 1500's and the 1700's. I finally settled on the 30 year war, though I'm not totally sold on it.

 

Doing a little research for the 30 year war, Wikipedia shows that the war started when Bohemians started revolting, and it turned into a war between religions.

 

So using those bits of information I cobbled together my first draft of the War Prophecy:

 

When the revolt of Bohemians occur, a mortal the Deathbringer shall find anew,

A war of thirty shall be waged, religion the blame given, Deathbringer the cause.

 

Now this is only the first draft, and what I notice is that it's not as wordy as the first stanza. So I need to work on that to get it to match the feel of the first one. I'll have to get back to that, I still have five more stanzas to pound out. (Luckily the game isn't scheduled to take place until July 23, lots of scheduling conflicts this summer).

[red_eagle123]

Re: Creating a prophecy

 

Now for the Famine prophecy. I'm a little happier with this one than the previous War Stanza.

 

Again I had to do a bit of research. I found out that in Ireland, the Irish Potato Famine was called 'An Gorta Mór '. So I've definately got to use that.

 

And since I know Ireland didn't always rely on potatoes as their food crop, that should probably be mentioned too.

 

And lastly, thanks to my many years playing Dark Age of Camelot MMORPG, I know that the ancient name for Ireland is Hibernia. So now I have a baseline to start working on.

In the land of Hibernia, a new stock the Celts rely, into this the Deathbringer returns,

An Gorta Mór will follow, the land of Hibernia the Celts shall flee

 

Technically it was the Celtic Gauls that lived in Ireland way back when, but since I used the word Gaul in the first stanza, I didn't want to confuse the issue.

 

Once again I will have to go back and retouch this stanza, make it a bit wordier if I can.

 

I chose to use the word 'stock' instead of another word because stock is such a generic word. Is it a food, a marketable item, an export of some sort? Again the idea is to keep things vague until someone looks back on the event, curse that 20/20 hindsight.

[red_eagle123]

Re: Creating a prophecy

 

The last two stanzas are the hardest. Because they'll both will take place (or have taken place) in the context of the game, it's harder to use historical reference points.

 

Also since the In-Game time is roughly 2001, I can't use the most modern reference points. In my game, I'm also not referencing 9/11, for personal reasons. My players haven't asked about it, and I've never mentioned it, even in background material.

 

So let's look at the first part, the creation of Death.

 

In the New World, the scion of Rosmerta shall be gifted,

The Deathbringer will return, a weapon of Death it shall become

 

Rosmerta is the ancient ancestor of the PC in question. In this case the PC got her powers after coming into contact with some ancient jewelry Rosmerta used to wear. She thinks it's the jewelry giving her the powers, but the powers are actually innate.

 

I refer to the artifact becoming a weapon of Death because it literally becomes El Muerte's scythe. From the mouth of the skull, a red energy scythe appears. El Muerte then stuck the spine on the end of a staff, making a huge honking scythe weapon.

 

I got the inspiration for this from one of the Reaper Miniatures, specifically their avatar of Death mini.

 

See Reaper Fig here

 

What I need to do to make this wordier is reference how the PC's managed to disrupt El Muerte's plot to return fully to life, which required him to sacrifice those that betrayed him. Perhaps something like:

 

In the New World, the scion of Rosmerta shall be gifted,

The Deathbringer will return, When the blood of the betrayers is not yet spilled,

a weapon of Death shall it become

 

Not bad, could use a little bit of work. But not as much work as this last part. El Muerte will gather together the other three to form the Four Horsemen.

 

Death shall summon the three before,

And the three shall become as unto one

 

The two the PC's have already met are Belatu Cadros, the Celtic God of War and Destruction. Two of his items (an axe and shield) will transform a mortal host into Belatu Cadros himself, who after so many years is quite mad. Plus he has a personal mad-on for the PC's for other reasons.

 

The other is Tawiskaron, a Mohawk diety that was quite evil. He had a bow that, like Belatu Cadros above, takes over a mortal host. The Axe, the Shield, the Bow and the Skull/Spine artifact were all found by the archealogist PC at roughly the same time. So they're already tied together some how.

 

I have yet to work out the specifics for Plague, in terms of how his powers manifest. But I have worked out what exactly his powers are.

 

The Axe, Shield and Bow are currently in PRIMUS hands, after the PC's defeated Belatu Cadros and Tawiskaron they handed the weapons over. El Muerte was recently defeated as well and the artifact handed over to PRIMUS. So right now all the items could be in the same location.

 

I have a new PC that will be joining the game, and I've decided to break from my current storyline a bit by having the New PC come to the other PC's for help because Muerte, War and Famine have all broken out, possibly through some fault of the new PC. That'll create a instant bond (Knowing my players) that should get the new PC/Player into the game and group quickly.

 

So I better finish up this prophecy... maybe I can reference the new PC in the last stanza.

[freakboy6117]

Re: Creating a prophecy

 

just as a thought the plague artifact could be a chalice of corroded silver black and seemingly constantly filled with what looks like wine.

 

the artifact could be found in the remains of a burnt out church or monastery with rumours of a dark past alternatively found in a previously unknown [part of the Parisian catacombs

[wcw43921]

Re: Creating a prophecy

 

For one, I really dislike the name of the artifact I'm using, it seems far too cheesy for me. I'd like something with a bit more pizzazz. The problem is, I can't find any words to snazz up what is essentially a skull & spine fused together.

 

Mmmm--how about--Sceptre Of The Deathbringer?

 

That work for you?

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: Creating a prophecy

 

My personal favorite thing? Call it something gibberish (ie, using an ancient/fictional language) that translates into "Nameless" or "that which is unnamed". Not because of anything particularly nasty about it, but because no one actually thought to name it before they had to start talking about it. Kind of like an ancient code word for a beta product before it gets released, only the marketing department couldn't think of anything better...

 

Kevin "Vista sounds fine, don't you think?" Schultz

[Captain Photon]

Re: Creating a prophecy

 

s.

 

During the War of the Hundred, when the lands of Gaul and Albion do war,

 

 

The reference to Gaul and Albion I left in there because I wanted to obscure when the War of the Hundred took place. In this case I'm referring to France (Gaul) and Britain (Albion) warring. Since the Fae are so danged old, I felt they'd be more likely to use names for countries they're more familiar with.

.

 

 

The name Albion is a romantised name for Britain, 700 years ago it was just plain old England. 1306 is sorta Braveheart time in northern england/scotland, to put it in perspective.

 

Gaul as far as I know was the Roman name for wetern Europe, back in old 1306 it was just plain old France, albeit with ducal provinces - Noramndy, Brittany, Picardy etc.

 

Sorry to be picky and all.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Creating a prophecy

 

The name Albion is a romantised name for Britain, 700 years ago it was just plain old England. 1306 is sorta Braveheart time in northern england/scotland, to put it in perspective.

 

Gaul as far as I know was the Roman name for wetern Europe, back in old 1306 it was just plain old France, albeit with ducal provinces - Noramndy, Brittany, Picardy etc.

 

Sorry to be picky and all.

That's the kind of stuff Nostradamus used though. If anything, Albion and Gaul are less vague than a lot of Nostradamus' references...

[red_eagle123]

Re: Creating a prophecy

 

just as a thought the plague artifact could be a chalice of corroded silver black and seemingly constantly filled with what looks like wine.

 

the artifact could be found in the remains of a burnt out church or monastery with rumours of a dark past alternatively found in a previously unknown [part of the Parisian catacombs

 

Since the prophecy deals with only one artifact, and as described the artifact is a skull and spine item, a chalice really doesn’t apply. But that’s not a bad idea for an artifact to be found. I may still be able to use that (As I have yet to introduce Pestilence)

 

Mmmm--how about--Sceptre Of The Deathbringer?

 

That work for you?

 

Me Likee. But I’m gonna modify it slightly, see below.

 

My personal favorite thing? Call it something gibberish (ie, using an ancient/fictional language) that translates into "Nameless" or "that which is unnamed". Not because of anything particularly nasty about it, but because no one actually thought to name it before they had to start talking about it. Kind of like an ancient code word for a beta product before it gets released, only the marketing department couldn't think of anything better...

 

Kevin "Vista sounds fine, don't you think?" Schultz

 

That is a good idea, I may even combine that with the Chalice artifact for Pestilence. But I decided to go with a name for the artifact of Death.

 

The name Albion is a romantised name for Britain, 700 years ago it was just plain old England. 1306 is sorta Braveheart time in northern england/scotland, to put it in perspective.

 

Gaul as far as I know was the Roman name for wetern Europe, back in old 1306 it was just plain old France, albeit with ducal provinces - Noramndy, Brittany, Picardy etc.

 

Sorry to be picky and all.

 

Well, every reference I’ve ever seen hasn’t referred to it as England until very recently (recently in a historical context of course). As for Gaul, Gaul was the name of the people occupying France and the British Isles before Rome appeared. Celtic Gaul are normally associated with the Irish. The more generic Gaul term is generally associated with the France region, so I chose to go with that.

 

Lastly, these are Elves making this prediction, they will use whatever term they darn well please, those silly Fae never abide by Mortal rules.

 

That's the kind of stuff Nostradamus used though. If anything' date=' Albion and Gaul are less vague than a lot of Nostradamus' references...[/quote']

 

There’s that too.

[red_eagle123]

Re: Creating a prophecy

 

Okay, so I went back and started looking at the rest of the prophecy, with the help of a friend and co-worker spurring me on with ideas for verbiage.

 

For the first stanza, it was pointed out that the word 'War' was used too often, so we changed it to read 'When the lands of Albion and Gaul do burn', fires of war and all that.

 

I also changed the reference from the generic name I'd thrown in (Death Bringer) to it's more proper title (thanks for the suggestion again wcw43921) of Sceptre of Death.

 

For the second stanza, we changed the reference for the Bohemians to show that they were rebelling for religious reasons, primarily against a new King who was the son of an emperor forcing Catholicism down their throats. So now it reads that they rebel against The Son. It was suggested to make it 'The Son of God', but I wanted it more vague, and besides the later sentence clearly shows that religion was involved.

 

Since we're now calling it a Sceptre, a new king should have a Sceptre when they take power right? Voila, new sentence about how the artifact is involved. That was, IMHO, the weakest part of the first version anyhow.

 

Now to muddy the waters a bit, I found out Thirtig is old englishe for 'Thirty'. Well, let's use that. So now it reads as a War of Thirtig. Modify the last part a bit to place the blame on the Sceptre (which now seems redundant) and we have our second Stanza.

 

When the Bohemians rise against the Son,

a new King the throne Ascends, Sceptre of Death in hand.

A war of Thritig shall rage, the Blame given to God.

 

All in All, much better in my opinion. And gives me a lot more notes to scribble on the finished prophecy (to simulate people through the years trying to decipher the meaning).

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Creating a prophecy

 

All in All' date=' much better in my opinion. And gives me a lot more notes to scribble on the finished prophecy (to simulate people through the years trying to decipher the meaning).[/quote']

Nice touch. Nothing gives a mysterious tome a sense of antiquity like mistranslations and wild interpretations.

[red_eagle123]

Re: Creating a prophecy

 

For the third Stanza, there was quite a bit more editing involved. I got rid of the Irish definition for 'Great Famine', since it seemed to stick out a bit too much.

 

I also modified the reference to just what it was the Celts of Hibernia (IE: Irish) were growing, making it a bit more vague and yet more specific at the same time. Since a Potato is a root, and food grown is sometimes called Fruit of the Earth, what is more Fruit of the Earth than a potato?

 

And I also modified the reference to the Celts leaving Ireland as a result of the famine. Since they went to multiple countries, I couldn't reference any of them directly. However the one thing the majority of them have in common (Canada, Australia, USA) is that they are far away across the ocean. So a quick re-write and we have:

 

In the land of Hibernia, upon a new fruit the Celts do rely,

till Death withers the roots of the Earth,

and hunger drives the Hibernians beyond the ends of the ocean

 

Now it matches the previous two stanzas a bit better, both in vagueness and in overall wordiness.

[red_eagle123]

Re: Creating a prophecy

 

The last Stanza worked on for today was the one dealing with modern events. For thos that don't remember (or didn't read the earlier posts closely enough), the PC is a decendent of the Celtic goddess Rosmerta, and is an archealogist in her secret ID. She was handed the Sceptre of Death to try and identify by her boss, as it was recently dug up and nobody knew what it was.

 

During a museum heist game (Where GRAB tried to steal it, Anubis showed up for it, and Occulon, Bulldozer and Blowtorch showed up, yes, I steal Game Ideas, no I won't be apologetic), the artifact disappeared.

 

It was later found in the hands of the partially ressurected Professor Muerte (now calling himself El Muerte) who was using it as a weapon to try and kill Scorpia and Fuermacher.

 

So, with that background, my friends and I went back to the drawing board. The PC's are based out of New Jersey, the Garden State. So, the first line starts there (In the Land of the Garden).

 

Now to talk about how the PC got the artifact unknowingly (Given to the Scion of Rosmerta by the unwitting).

 

Next to cover the events of how Muerte winds up with it (Muerte is spanish for death y'all, just in case you didn't know), and how he turns it into a weapon. Since Rosmerta is a goddess of Fertility, some could say a Goddess of Life, let's play on the Life/Death themes a bit.... Muerte (Death) stole the artifact (Sceptre of Death) from Rosmerta's Scion (Life), and turned the Sceptre (Death) into a weapon.

 

With all that put together, we get:

 

The Sceptre returns to the Garden, given by the unwitting to the Scion of Rosmerta.

Before the blood of war and the depths of hunger have been plumbed,

Death shall steal Death from Life and Death itself shall become a weapon

 

A bit clunky, but who said that all prophecies have to be smooth? And again, it works as something that makes no sense prior to the event, but makes perfect sense after. Death stealing Death from Life could lead some to think someone gained immortality.... which of course is also somewhat true (Muerte's not dead, granted he's not alive yet but..)

[red_eagle123]

Re: Creating a prophecy

 

Nice touch. Nothing gives a mysterious tome a sense of antiquity like mistranslations and wild interpretations.

 

 

Exactly, I want to give the sense that this is a very old artifact. Even though looking back on the events the prophecy makes sense, at the time the prophecy WOULD have been created, it would sound all mysterious and spooky. So how best to capture that was a problem.

 

Then a friend suggested having notes, pieces of translations through the years. I hope it works, we'll see when it's finished (That's phase 2, after completing the prophecy)

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Creating a prophecy

 

Now for the Famine prophecy. I'm a little happier with this one than the previous War Stanza.

 

Again I had to do a bit of research. I found out that in Ireland, the Irish Potato Famine was called 'An Gorta Mór '. So I've definately got to use that.

 

And since I know Ireland didn't always rely on potatoes as their food crop, that should probably be mentioned too.

 

And lastly, thanks to my many years playing Dark Age of Camelot MMORPG, I know that the ancient name for Ireland is Hibernia. So now I have a baseline to start working on.

In the land of Hibernia, a new stock the Celts rely, into this the Deathbringer returns,

An Gorta Mór will follow, the land of Hibernia the Celts shall flee

 

Technically it was the Celtic Gauls that lived in Ireland way back when, but since I used the word Gaul in the first stanza, I didn't want to confuse the issue.

 

Once again I will have to go back and retouch this stanza, make it a bit wordier if I can.

 

I chose to use the word 'stock' instead of another word because stock is such a generic word. Is it a food, a marketable item, an export of some sort? Again the idea is to keep things vague until someone looks back on the event, curse that 20/20 hindsight.

 

I might be able to help with this bit...

As a more obscure reference, you could use Milesian in the place of Celt, as it's the proper name for the tribe of Iberian Celts who conquered bronze age Ireland from the Tuatha De Dannan and the "already conquered" Fir Bolg. This happened way back in BC days, so theres not really any need to refer to whom they supplanted... especially if you decide that the Fae who wrote the prophecy is in some way related to the De Dannans. When the Milesians beat the De Dannans, they promised to name the land after the departing De Dannan queens...of the three Eire is the one that is remembered today in Erinn (Land of Eire, aka Ireland). Scotia gets her name carried over to Scotland, possibly indirectly. Poor Banbha doesn't get remembered much (poor Bon Bon).

 

Hibernia is the latin/romantic term for Ireland, so could be appropriate, depending. If you are using Albion for England, then Hibernia works for Ireland

[red_eagle123]

Re: Creating a prophecy

 

And now for the final stanza. My primary point with this one is to basically tell the players that Muerte is going to track down and join forces with Belatu-Cadros and Tawiskaron (War & Famine), and indicate the possibility of a fourth member (Pestilence) joining.

 

Since they haven't met Pestilence, I decided to try and shift the last line a bit. Swollen usually implies a negative connotation, but it's also a synonym for 'adding something onto'. It's my hope the PC's go looking for Pestilence hoping for a method to stop the other three... of course Pestilence will wind up joining the other three...

 

I also went back and changed the wording a bit, got rid of one of the references to 'Garden', and put in another nickname for New Jersey instead. I put it in one of the older already completed stanzas, so I can add notes so it makes sense what the nickname is (Since even a native New Jersian hadn't heard of the name).

 

Some final tweaking of capitalizations to emphasis things, and shifting things around and boom. All Done.

 

With all that said, here is the final prophecy:

 

During the War of the Hundred, when the lands of Gaul and Albion do burn,

a Sceptre of Death shall sweep out of the west,

inflicting upon mortals a Plague most Black that shall spare neither king nor commoner

 

When the Bohemians rise against the Son,

a new King the throne Ascends, Sceptre of Death in hand.

A War of Thritig shall rage, the blame given to God.

 

In the land of Hibernia, upon a new fruit the Celts do rely,

till Death withers the roots of the earth,

and hunger drives the Hibernians beyond the ends of the ocean

 

The Sceptre delivered to the Crossroads of Revolution,

given by the unwitting to the Scion of Rosmerta.

Before the blood of war and the depths of hunger have been plumbed,

Death shall steal Death from Life and Death itself shall become a weapon

 

To defeat the defenders in the Garden,

the Wielder of Death shall join with the Bloodletter and the Esurient.

A force untold, swollen by Blight