the other side of the wall
| Dominator | Aspect | Attribute | Populace |
| yama dharma | death | death’s looking glass | khannish |
the end of the mortal coil
the dry land is where you go when you die. the wathan, or immortal spirit travels
to this place that is no place to forget enough to permit reincarnation as a new
entity.
the dry land would appear to mortal eyes as a starlit plain with no artifical light.
newly dead arrivals to the dry land pass the time in cities with buildings, and
perform meaningless tasks resembling their life work until they forget such things.
mortal eyes would see the major death servants assigned to protect the wathans of
the dead, but the dead do not see.
one end of the dry land is bordered by a low stone wall of forgetfullness. the other
end of the dry land rises as mountains to reach the stars.
- -- Samhain 1991
1.reprinted with permission from the author
In this dry land
the crickets fear to chirp
for waste of sacred moisture,
droplets, like innocents,
where rattlers lay
stolen by a dessicant wind,
bleaching their bones
in the listless summer scald.
2.
I don't want to say too muchfor fear of being misconstrued
or maybe
for fear of being understood all too clearly
so here’s your warning --flowers
sometimes bloom quite literally,
unfurling in the dewfall to kiss
mother sky good morrow.
And sometimes wolves change their sheep
clothes for pinstripes.
Thenthese truths we hold to be self-evident
fade to black,
seven ancient words
lost in the splash and white noise --
bites, topspin, code.
Make no mistake:style has triumphed over substance;and a thousand points of light
our shamans hire out as consultants;
God is coming to pay-per-view;
are less than nothing
in a million miles of darkness.
Surely some gentle beast,
its hour come round at last,
stirs,casts its drowsy eyes
across the land.
Surely it wonders --
what is this terrible myth
My Word has become?
3.
If there are gods of rain,
of sky and storm season,
if there are gods...
I face the Samhain
moonrise,
walk this circle three times
and burn a prayer into the wind.
Rain on us
as though it never rained
teach our desolation of drenching,
our deserts the wonder of floodplains.-- SRS
shatterer of worlds, the dead night tiger
yama’s avatars appear as dark-haired men, of no particular height and muscular
build. his avatars are equipped exclusively in the colors of blood and iron. his
most-known avatar wears a red turban and crimson cloak.
when his avatars fight, they use double bladed axes of iron or throwing knives of bone.
yama has been known to display the spellcasting of an archmage, the emptyhand combat
of the master of autumn, the woodland stealth of a ranger lord, the righteousness
of a paladin lord, and the weaponplay of a three-sword samurai. yama’s supernatural
weapons include returning-throwing knives of elephant ivory, and a huge redsteel
great axe. his red emerald reflects psionic attacks away frm his mind, and his
cloak controls spell- and technological-energies directed towards him.
yama is an artificer of some skill, known as one of the great smiths of worlorn.
yama recognizes the archtype and can create or repair Attributes for any Aspect
if he is able to study the Aspect without interference. he is familiar with
'technology' magic of the black rabbit, gorm, as well as the supernatural magic
of traditional mythologies. yama’s background and instinct for tools allows him
to understand the function of any weapon on sight. with a single minute of study
and the proper amount of time with the proper tools, yama can make a duplicate of
any man-made, dwarf-made, or elf-made artifact.
legends claim yama dharma is the reincarnation of roger bacon and knock. it is known
yama has ridden the dragon of compass mountain in knock, for yama and vlad drakulya
divided the 1001 dragon bones through out worlorn.
yama has the power to be aware of, and may choose to accompany at an instant, any
entities which are dreaming or dancing. yama is said not to exist in any place
if ever time passes while no dreamers or dancers are active.
yama dharma strikes dead any life which meets his angry glance. he sees as with
true seeing, and knows the good and evil in beings visible to him.the universal, the leveller of mankind
minor death servants collect the souls of the dearly departed and guide them over
the wall into the dry land. once over the wall of forgetfullness and within the
dry land, the spirit of the dead being loses all memory of its previous lives over
a period of time. all memory is lost before a being is permitted to depart and
become re-incarnated.
because of their timid nature, deceased kimdissi are guided to the dry land by
one of twelve special minor death servants provided by the deity Besgar Knightshade.
these special minor death servants do not appear as “scary” to the
recently deceased Wathan. upon death, any kimdissi, including hobbits, halflings,
and voler, is guided to the Dry Land by a female kimdissi warrior, called
a Valkyrie. much of what you think you know of the Valkyrie is true.
to return the spirit to a deceased body, a priest/ess must cast a different
spell depending on whether the wathan has reached the Dry Land or is in transit.
a priest/ess must invoke the miracle to raise dead in the first month after
death in order to successfully summon the wathan of the recent dead back to the
flesh of life; this is because a minor death requires a month to guide a wathan
over the wall of forgetfullness. only the miracle of ressurrection
pennetrates into the dry land to steal a wathan before it forgets its previous
life. many a priest/ess has been disappointed with failure casting the
miracle of ressurrection before the wathan reaches the dry land, or casting
a raise dead after the wathan has crossed the wall. timing is a critical
factor. no priest/ess may raise or ressurrect a reincarnated wathan.golden attribute focus
death’s looking glass is a mirror of mental prowess or scrying mirror
with divination ability. on command the looking glass displays the optical viewpoint
of any being, living or dead. the undead have no viewpoint discernable by
death’s looking glass. the wielder may command the mental viewpoint
of a creature once per day or once per Red Light, whichever
is more frequent to the observed creature’s timeline.
the device may not be transported or utilized by the intention of a Blood-law
creature, including Silver Class billykins personalities. only a pure Dust
affiliate may wield or move this device without dying instantly. upon contact
of Blood-affiliated spell or flesh or device, the instigator of the activity
finds itself without incarnation, wathan trapped in the glass of the mirror.
the high one on death’s looking glass:
the death’s looking glass provides, supports, and controls nine-tenths
of all manifestations of death in worlorn, including but not limited to
physical, spiritual, and mental mortality.
undead entities, such as those without life but with incarnation, are explicitly
outside of the domain of death’s looking glass, regardless of the
muse they serve, or servcice to Blood or Dust.
the blessed people
the khannish people are silent humans with a tendency towards obsession. they make
excellent soldiers and excell as mages. when at war the khannish do not surrender,
although they have the wisdom to retreat when circumstances make such demands.
khannish markets are quiet places, and they do not discuss weighty matters at the
dinner table. jewelry is not worn for decoration or beauty, but the protection of
magical talismans is advantageous to a khannish socialite. weapons may be worn in
any place of a khannish society but for the temple or the bedroom. khannish priests
may draw blood outside of ritual sacrifice. the khannish are extremely succeptable
to the effects of alcoholic beverages; many elfar wines are poisonous or fatal to
the khannish constition.
the manchurian province of lartroxia is the main home of the khannish people in
the troad.
khannish women fight as fiercely as their men.no neighbors, only gateways
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