donkeyjon

Re: [sigil Campaign] The Ranger's Tale I have read, understood, and enjoyed this post. I especially like that mentions of Darkchant are infrequent and vague. I support that policy wholeheartedly.

Re: [sigil Campaign] Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics And then, as the fear rushed through Darkchant, he looked into Captain Hazleth's eyes. In the past, the Captain was unreadable and unapproachable. Darkchant merely did as he was told, and never could determine any motivations or reasoning behind the gigantic demon. Hazleth simply was malevolent rage that pushed Darkchant forward, nothing more. Now, however, Darkchant could read it on the Captain's face like a sign. Hazleth absolutely couldn't conceive of a master more powerful than himself. He assumed that, like always, Darkchant was lying. What's more, he was uncertain as to why Darkchant had returned to his clutches, and his uncertainty immediately translated into rage. Darkchant could feel it seeping out of all of the lesser demons he used to serve with. They wanted to see him punished, but mainly because they were afraid of what he had learned. They couldn't understand why anyone would ever return willingly to their Captain after finally gaining their freedom. They were wary, and none of them would come within 10 feet of Darkchant. They honestly believed that he had a plan. What's more, they wanted him to have one. At this very moment, if he were to bring Hazleth down, they would cheer for him. He could read it on them without even looking. You seem to be a man who's traveled, cutter. Have you ever learned a foreign tongue? Ever experienced that point where you began to think in another language? That moment where you realize that you no longer are a stranger, but instead became native. Darkchant had just realized that he understood motivations, secrets, and lies as well as he understood his own tongue. The deception was under his skin, and he couldn't seperate himself from the Lie if he tried now. And then the world exploded. You've spent some time near the Foundry, cutter, and you've felt the BANG as the hammer meets anvil in that building? Remember how it feels like the sound is going to burn through your very brain? How the sound bounces around in your insides, interrupts your thoughts, and shakes you to your core? I once asked Darkchant if the Joining was anything like that. He laughed long and hard. "Imagine, if you will, putting your head on the anvil, and letting the hammer strike your ear canal. Imagine, just as the ringing begins, you try to hold your lungs full of water while you recite, in your brain, every street name in Sigil in alphabetical order from memory." Darkchant frowned when he saw that I didn't understand. "When the Lie enters your body, there's simply no room for you anymore. You're pouring gallon after gallon of water into a single mug, and expecting the mug to hold it all. My mouth becomes the very mandibles of the Deciver, my eyes see the hundredfold vision without knowing how to collate it all, my mind knows what the Lie has spent countless milennia learning, but it's in languages I can only see when I look at it sidelong. I'm stretched to the limit, and I know that any pinprick will destroy me utterly. "And that's not the worst. To the Lie, we are transparent and without challenge. We exist to be Its playthings, and nothing we do is ever a surprise. It sees us as we would the ants beneath our feet. Beneath even Its contempt, we only serve. Imagine, if you will, that you are a puppet of a being that cares not whether you live or die. What's more, the being feels nothing, and has no reason to be careful with its host. And then, when it's over, all of the power, the horrible, ghastly intelligence is gone. I tell you, tout, no matter how excruciating every moment is that I spend Joined with the Lie, I hate feeling empty the most. I know how the puppet feels when the puppeteer is gone." At the very moment of his epiphany, when he finally realized that he had learned the lessons that the Lie taught, Darkchant opened the channel to the Lie. Without realizing it, he had given the Great Deceiver a way to Join with him. The Lie chose to enter into his mind, and it nearly killed him. Darkchant had no idea what happened during the next hour. He occasionally has flashes of memory from the time of the Joining, but they all seem dreamlike, when seen through the cold, unfeeling gaze of the Lie. He knows that the Lie devoured the souls of the Captain and his legion. He knows that the Lie channeled that energy into the weaving of flesh and bone, and that finally it severed him from his form. The pain was great, and Darkchant admits to losing consciousness as he felt his mind tear loose. He was certain that the Lie had devoured him as well. When the Deceiver left him, Darkchant awoke and felt as if he had been tightened. His skin, his bones, his features were all unfamiliar to him. When he opened his mouth to scream, the voice was weak and high-pitched, a human voice. His flesh was weak and pale, human flesh. He felt his face, his hair, his genitals, all human. The Lie had built him a human body.

Re: [sigil Campaign] Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics I must tell you that I have spent many hours speaking with Darkchant, using all of my skill to bring forth his story, but he will never give me any details of the 75 years that he served the Lie on the planes of the Abyss. He will hint at tortures both brutal and complete, of fear so total that he would lie comotose for hours afterward. He will talk of lessons, lessons that bore a price that nearly broke him. Mostly, he will speak of power, and how he learned its cost, and its proper application. For whatever reason, he felt compelled instead to tell me about the day he was "raised up" to be the Avatar of Deceit. Over time, his duties began to include the procurement of food for the Lie. He would spend hours rounding up hapless victims and baiting them with tales of power or wealth, always leading them back to the grotto where the Lie would consume them. On these trips, Darkchant never felt compelled to run away, despite the horrible tortures he received. In his mind, this was an education too valuable to pass up. One morning, the Lie woke him and said, "Today, Servant of the Lie, you will bring me a Captain." "To do so will be a challenge, are you certain that a lowly worm such as myself could manage such a feat, Master?" Darkchant had learned to couch his concerns in such a manner, for insubordination was dealt with harshly. "I am certain that you will find a way to do as I wish. And I will reward you greatly for this task, Servant of the Lie. Now, go find Captain Hazleth, whose forces are recouperating nearby. You will bring him and his men to me." Darkchant could not help himself. "Captain Hazleth?!? But, he'll remember me! He will surely kill me for deserting him all those years ago!" The cave became suddenly dark, and the all-seeing eyes of the Lie glowed with a sickly green light as it closed its mandibles on Darkchant's neck, holding him firmly. He could smell the rotting stench of the flesh of the hundreds of demons who came before him, and he knew that he would join them if he did not do as he was asked. "I will serve, Master," he sputtered through clenched teeth, "I will do whatever you ask of me!" The walk to the encampment was short, but each step weighed heavily on Darkchant's mind. The foul sulphurous dust of the Abyss on his boots seemed to accumulate in tons as he dragged himself toward what surely would be his doom. As he came in sight of the scouts he heard their low, growling chuckle as they realized that today was not going to be boring. He trudged between them and worked his way to the pit at the center of the encampment where Hazleth rested. The Captain was a perfect physical specimen, with massive arms accustomed to holding the sword and the whip. His hooves stuck the ground like thunder, and his roar of battle shook the very foundations of the plane. Hazleth had spent the last 2 centuries at war, and he enjoyed every minute of it. He sat apart from his Lieutenants, smiling at some private joke, or possibly reliving the last time he cut the limbs from a foe. Turning his head at the new commotion, his smile widened even further at the sight of Darkchant. "The Weakling! I was certain you'd been eaten! It appears that our victory in battle was not the only high point for this week!" Darkchant steeled himself for the performance and began the weave. Entwining words, pulling a thread of thought here, weaving a perception across it, making a tapestry of lies so firm that no mind could find it false. He had done this many times, but never with an audience so hostile. This time, his lie would need elements of truth. "I serve a new master now, Captain Hazleth. One greater than you!" Hazleth's smile widened even further as his arm snapped out, grabbing Darkchant's shoulder in a vicelike grip. Pulling the smaller demon forward until their faces nearly met, he growled, "Then your new master will be short a servant soon, Weakling."

Re: [sigil Campaign] Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics On one of his solo journeys, Darkchant found his redemption. There exist things in the Abyssal Planes that are beyond the mere petty squabbles of the Demons and Devils. Beings that began their lives as mere demons, but have since gained in power and influence until they no longer fear the other denizens of their home Plane. Some, like the great Princes of Hell, choose to subjugate others and build great armies in their name. But they are not the only ones. Darkchant, in one of his many hikes into the unexplored regions of his Plane, stumbled into the lair of a being that he neither knew of nor expected to find. Darkchant sought shelter from a passing patrol in a grotto filled with the twisted, bleeding thorn trees that pepper the landscape of the Abyss. Inside the densely-packed, painful branches, he discovered a cave. Now, I know that he has a bit of a rough bearing about him, but I swear to you that when Darkchant spoke of this place, even years later, he trembled in fear. As he debated returning to the capture and beating that the patrol would offer, a soothing, deep voice spoke to him from inside the shadows of the cave. "I know what you are, little one, and I know what you have done. You have been weaving your little lies, your tiny deceptions. The strands of half-truth being entwined with the bulky cords of deceit. It is fortunate that you have managed to find me before your bumbling lie became a rope long enough to throttle yourself. Now, tell me, are you afraid?" Darkchant flushed, his initial fear and shock turning to anger. "I fear those that can harm me or chain me, but I fear no shadowy figures or things that go bump in the night, stranger. To me, you are merely an annoyance." "A lie. But a serviceable one. You understand the importance of bluster and the power of words. Surely you have seen Captain Hazleth watching you with a newfound sense of wonder. You have noticed that your peers no longer involve you in their constant games of one-upmanship. You have somehow placed yourself out of the tiresome pecking order. How? With deception. With murder. With the very fabric of lies that you have laid at their feet. Oh, as a weaver you have much to learn, but for them even burlap is preferred to the cold, hard ground. And as such you have survived...But not advanced. You sense it as well as I do, little one. You are merely making time here. Nothing you manage to do will make you into a Captain. No action you can take or word you can speak will free you from your burden as a lowly Tana'ri. You were born in chains, and those chains weigh you down still." "Ahh...and you, who are also still bound here, will show me the way?" Darkchant sneered. "I can give you the loom and the spinner. I can show you how to weave the warp and the weft of deceit. What's more, I can help you use the tools I know, use them to escape. I can make you free, if you choose to learn the weave and create the thread. If you are willing to become the lie, then you can transcend this life." "All such learning has a cost, oh great dark and mysterious one," Darkchant spat, "You certainly want something of me, or one of us would already be dead." "Yes, I could kill you with a wave of my hand. But I have need of you. You see, at the beginning of all things, there was the Lie. Not some petty deceit or misunderstanding, but the very run in the fabric of life itself. And all weavers know that once a fabric is marred, it can never be made whole again. Some out there actually believe the Lie to be something that can be fixed. But I remain. And with every strand I pull, every thread I place, I warp more of the grand canvas. I cannot act alone. Certainly, I am loved by countless beings, but they cannot call my name. My very nature makes me unknown. I am everywhere, yet none worship me, none follow me or call my name. Until now. You will serve me, little one. You will provide for me as you provide for yourself. You will worship me and accept my gifts with reverence, because you will know that it would take but a flick of my wrist to cut your thread from the tapestry of life and leave you to die. Most importantly, you will serve me because I can reward you beyond your wildest dreams. I can show you the strands, and teach you where to pull, where to cut, and where to wind. I can show you how the Lie can make you strong, stronger than any of the Captains or their Lords. I can make you my avatar, and you can become deception. Or, if you prefer, I can end your pain now." At that, the shadows themselves peeled from the cave, pushing against the walls and leaving a passage through which passed eight long spindles of the darkest black. The light around them seemed to drain into their edges, and the entire grotto became the color of dusk. The spindles kept coming, and Darkchant knew that he should run, should get away from the creature before it devoured him. But nothing he could do would allow him to move, frozen as he was with terror. And from the cave came the rest of the carapace. Gleaming black and armored with chitin, the spider demon moved with silent grace, placing its legs on the ground and bringing the full sight of all of its hundred eyes to bear on its prey. The creature stood twice the height of Darkchant, and its mandibles clicked as they tasted the air in front of him, waiting for the perfect moment to begin their feast. The eyes shined in the field of blackness, beckoning Darkchant closer. His fear faded, and became despair. He was cerain that nothing could save him now. And with a voice that seemed to rush like blood in his ears, the creature chuckled, "Is it better to serve than to die, if you serve one worthy of you? Is it better to learn the weaving of the Lie, and join it with your talents, if such learning bears a horrible price? What do you say, little one, are you a servant, or are you the meal?" Weeping, his will draining from him in rivers, Darkchant whispered the words as they burned into his brain, "I serve you, Lord of Lies, King of Deceit, Master of the Weave. I serve you and forsake all others. My tongue shall not speak lest it be a lie. My hands shall not move lest they form the weave. Nothing shall I do lest it be for your good. All this, I give to you." As he lost consciousness, Darkchant felt the creature's voice in his mind. "Then sleep, Servant of the Lie, for there is much to be done."

Darkchant the Fiend Character History "The moment a man talks to his fellows he begins to lie." Hilaire Belloc The lie. That most wonderful deceit, caped with authenticity, but in itself false. Lies make men. Lies destroy nations. Lies create love. In the beginning, as the very first of us came in contact with one another, we lied. And through those lies, we built ourselves. Some will tell you that lies are evil, that they are, by their very manufacture, a work of the sinister. Some will go so far as to claim that the lie itself is immoral. But they, too, are liars. They deceive even themselves. Behind every church on the Planes, there are lies thicker than suet. Behind all powerful forces, there are hundreds and thousands of them. Lies are the very basis of our civilization. Without the comfort and security of our lies, we become nothing. We fall, and the world falls with us. But you know this. You come to ask of Darkchant the Fiend, and if you know of him, then you know the nature of deceit. Darkchant is a moniker that he earned, mind you, and one that serves him well. All who hear it know by the very face of his name that the man is a liar. But the services of an accomplished liar are valuable indeed. After all, how would such a creature still live if it were not so? And if you are asking for the origins and history of a known liar, how could you trust it? I, for one, prefer to think of his story as lies that lead to a truth within. I have listened long to him on the subject of his life, and I can say that he is quite willing to embellish. But at the root of all great lies, there is truth. Darkchant is not his real name, of course, but then who of us in Sigil feel a need to be so forward? I can tell you that Brandon the Tout was certainly not the name I was given as a boy, nor the one I think of as my own. But when arriving in Sigil, it became necessary for me to craft a new name. A name that shielded me from any who might know where I came from. Fitting, that in this story I first reveal to you my own necessary lie. Darkchant began as a speck of nothing in the teeming mass of demons on the Abyssal planes. He was as weak, spiteful, greedy, and malicious as all of his kind. And like them, he fought for survival, and for ownership of what scraps the greater demons would give them. Being small and lacking in physical prowess, Darkchant learned early that his true calling was not to die fighting in the endless fields of the Blood War. Certainly, he would be wasted on such a useless venture. So he began his first step toward freedom. He began to tell his first Big Lie. Darkchant spent more and more of his time away from his brothers, wandering the wastelands. He returned with stories of glorious riches and delectable beings that could be torn and eaten by even a lowly worm as himself. He told tales of adventurers, lost on the planes and nearly begging for the torture that his kind could unleash. At first, of course, he was rebuked and beaten. But he remained undaunted, continuing to defy his betters in an attempt to find yet more hapless fools to feast on. At this point in the story, I remember him smiling at me, with that childlike face of his, and chuckling. The low, rumbling rasp of one who has feasted on many in his time, and who enjoyed it. I remember him saying that it was on one of these little jaunts that he finally tasted the flesh of other demons for the first time. "Oh yes, tout. My brothers and sisters had too much greed to pass up my offers forever. They would come, alone, and ask questions, and I knew they were mine for the taking. And we would venture out, two predators seeking our prey, but always only one of us returned." With his feasting, Darkchant became stronger, and with each passing journey his tales became more solid, seemed more true. He began to see even the larger demons listening in on his tales from a distance. And while they continued to beat him, now they asked passing questions about what he had seen and found. The torture sessions often became interrogations. On one of his solo journeys, Darkchant found his redemption. (Note: Continued as a response to break things up a bit. It may take some time, so I'd rather keep what I have and break it into pieces than lose it.)