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History of the Summoned
Sep. 5th, 2023 02:07 pm
The History of the Summoned
Arrival
July
August
September
October
December
February
April
June
August
September
October
November
December
January
February
March
April
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
This is the history of the current Summoned in Abraxas, gathered by Istredd with the help of various other people. [ooc: all of this information is taken from the game history with some added commentary]
The first Summoned are brought to Thorne. Some of them are said to have been unintentionally Summoned and they are thrown right into the dungeons. They are later used to mine crystals.
The Summoned are thrown into the Singularity's crater and enter the Horizon for the first time. Their memories are wiped but they eventually come out. A Summoned attempts to kill High Mage Ambrose and is sentenced to death. At some point, while captured, a Summoned is experimented on by Thorne to see if they can steal their connection to the Singularity. It does not work.
At the execution, two unknown mages called Oliver and Elizabeth appear and freeze the Thorne mages. This is impressive power but we don't know anything else about them. They open portals and give the Summoned the opportunity to flee to the Free Cities or Solvunn.
The Free Cities and Solvunn begin to Summon too after allowing the escaped Summoned to live there.
The "network" begins thanks to the joined bond with the Singularity. Ghosts and spirits rise from the dead and cause some havoc.
During the Dimming, when the Singularity is at its weakest and capable of being near, the factions pit the Summoned against each other. Thorne sends caskets to the Singularity to gather energy, and the other two factions send Summoned to steal them. In the end, it appears that an equal amount of energized caskets end up in each place.
After the Dimming disaster, the three factions decide to throw a Peace Summit and find common ground. This is the last known time (or only time?) it was easy to change factions, as they gave permission for people to move somewhere else here. While it seemed to have gone well, at the very end a confrontation happened that nearly set off violence.
An eclipse the month before reappears for the Summoned. They start accidentally viewing each other's memories.
The Summoned experience terrible nightmares, shared and unshared, and an "Entity" appears to follow them around first in the Horizon and then in the real world. It seems as if the Entity wishes to come to this sphere, but the Summoned do rituals (?) that push it out. No one's heard from it since.
The Summoned are invited to Nocwich for the first time and learn about Ikorr and Luna. Trusted Summoned (Yennefer of Thorne, Jaskier of the Free Cities, Himeka of Solvunn) are invited to meet with Nocwich officials separately. The rest of the Summoned are warned there may be violence awaiting their friends and asked to fulfill tasks to protect them. It goes awry and the Queen of Thorne's lover is killed, although the Summoned survive with minor injuries. She believes the Free Cities are responsible, and she uses a magic spell to firebomb Libertas, causing terrible destruction.
The Free Cities launch a retaliation from the attack on Libertas and burn Thorne farms, grain supplies, and harvest. Starvation is of serious concern for the smaller or less attended to areas. Solvunn offers to provide supplies to both but otherwise stays neutral.
Three of the Old Gods awaken and cause devastation across the land. The gods are: Koth of Festering Lands (causing death and rot), Adlewyrd of Poisoned Tongues (poisons the the heart, mind, and mouth), and Sannleikr of Many Faces (makes faces look distorted and people be unrecognizable).
The Summoned are influenced by a specific god that makes them act differently. There are also blights that happen for each faction such as the dead rising again, poisoning water and food, and general confusing and chaos. The Horizon is also corrupted and Summoned could get trapped into strange places (a labyrinth, a building with a sticky substance at the bottom slowly creeping up, trapped on a blizzard mountain high up that flips, nothingness but giant electronic screens). Each of those places had its own arcana. We don't know why the gods stopped messing with us, they simply disappeared.
Nocwich is open full-time on the first weekend of every month. Thank everything for that. This neutral ground is the only place where you can regularly see people from another faction in person.
The three factions agree to meet for a peace conversation, Luna offers to be the go-between. The Summoned get to go on a ship and visit Luna. The factions come to an agreement, for now.
A ritual is done in Solvunn that leads to giant sea creatures being beached. A giant turtle arrives in Thorne and must be saved. This becomes important later.
About half of the Summoned are captured by a Solvunn cult. We were trapped within a pit (always nicknamed "the Pit" now) with little food and supplies. There were monsters and many ways to die within it. Natives had been taken over the previous months and experimented on before us, to no avail. The acolytes had keyhole eyes and would take people to be experimented on. There were heavy illusions placed inside that no one could see through until they went through experimentation.
It should be noted that everyone in the Pit had their powers mostly nixed due to the same kind of magic, only High Magic, that is in the Thorne dungeons. We were unable to focus easily to send out messages or go into the Horizon through the ground shifting or noises or any kinds of distractions, plus some general interference (I believe). The heavy illusions both in and out of the pit are said to have been helped by the god Nikodaemus.
The experimentation forced the consumption of a potion that caused them to be delirious and drugged, sometimes violent behavior and having physical growths come out of their skin. There was a way to "cure" their sick mind with someone who hadn't gone through the experiment, but it caused that person to be afflicted. Those that were drugged eventually had a vision that was similar to the locations from the heralds' attack in October, along with a strange figure that no one has recognized.
Josselyn Creed, the leader of the cult, later explains that the intention was to take the connection the Summoned have to the Singularity, and what they believed was to the gods, for themselves. They were seeing if they could force the vision to commune with the gods, and then find a way to implant it to their own minds. A former acolyte and her brother begin to help the captured people. During this time, they start to find shrines within the pit that pre-dates this cult and a creature within that whispers to people in voices they know.
On the outside, the Summoned work together to try and investigate all the disappearances. They follow up on where we were captured and where the natives were captured long before. They find strange desiccated land and speculate that the cult used High Magic for portals to move us to the island. Summoned intentionally are taken by the cult with trackers on them and on the outside, they try to track the location of where we were held. (Open to adding notes here!)
It should be noted that everyone in the Pit had their powers mostly nixed due to the same kind of magic, only High Magic, that is in the Thorne dungeons. We were unable to focus easily to send out messages or go into the Horizon through the ground shifting or noises or any kinds of distractions, plus some general interference (I believe). The heavy illusions both in and out of the pit are said to have been helped by the god Nikodaemus.
The experimentation forced the consumption of a potion that caused them to be delirious and drugged, sometimes violent behavior and having physical growths come out of their skin. There was a way to "cure" their sick mind with someone who hadn't gone through the experiment, but it caused that person to be afflicted. Those that were drugged eventually had a vision that was similar to the locations from the heralds' attack in October, along with a strange figure that no one has recognized.
Josselyn Creed, the leader of the cult, later explains that the intention was to take the connection the Summoned have to the Singularity, and what they believed was to the gods, for themselves. They were seeing if they could force the vision to commune with the gods, and then find a way to implant it to their own minds. A former acolyte and her brother begin to help the captured people. During this time, they start to find shrines within the pit that pre-dates this cult and a creature within that whispers to people in voices they know.
On the outside, the Summoned work together to try and investigate all the disappearances. They follow up on where we were captured and where the natives were captured long before. They find strange desiccated land and speculate that the cult used High Magic for portals to move us to the island. Summoned intentionally are taken by the cult with trackers on them and on the outside, they try to track the location of where we were held. (Open to adding notes here!)
The shrine creature is released and it breaks apart the cavern/pit, leading to a good time for an escape to be attempted. Some Summoned manage to get out through an opening that required holding it open by others, and another group swim through an open tunnel. A group stayed behind. The two escape groups end up in different locations on the outside after going through what was likely a portal from the island to the cold mountains in Thorne. Some of the Summoned on the outside make contact with the escapees and rush to find them.
The Summoned still trapped inside the altar room manage to speak to acolytes and convince a few to them to help them escape. Two of those Summoned make it to the outside and can alert the rescue team where exactly on the island they are. The rescue team breaks into two: one to negotiate with some acolytes as a distraction, the other to try to infiltrate the building. Unfortunately, the cavern/pit was already mostly destroyed and starting to flood. During the rescue, the entire thing flooded and strangely, we were saved by the giant turtle from January. The surviving acolytes are all taken into custody and the rescued Summoned are brought to Nocwich to heal. Josselyn Creed is caught.
The Summoned still trapped inside the altar room manage to speak to acolytes and convince a few to them to help them escape. Two of those Summoned make it to the outside and can alert the rescue team where exactly on the island they are. The rescue team breaks into two: one to negotiate with some acolytes as a distraction, the other to try to infiltrate the building. Unfortunately, the cavern/pit was already mostly destroyed and starting to flood. During the rescue, the entire thing flooded and strangely, we were saved by the giant turtle from January. The surviving acolytes are all taken into custody and the rescued Summoned are brought to Nocwich to heal. Josselyn Creed is caught.
The Summoned Conclave is constructed so the Summoned can get their own representatives to ask for things from their factions. The first vote is about the fate of the cult acolytes who did not help us escape. Thorne voted for execution, and the Free Cities and Solvunn voted for imprisonment, so they are now imprisoned for life. Josselyn Creed is executed by the vulture god Cadaevos and eaten. The factions also throw parties for their Summoned, which is very strange if you think about it.
The Summoned are invited to visit the Feywilds, the first people to be allowed in there for millennia. They get to know the Fey culture and speak with two of their leaders. The Fey have a barter system rather than money and liked to challenge the Summoned with skill proof or pieces of their body (hair, saliva, this was a bad idea). They had a giant masquerade ball at the end where everyone was encouraged to hide themselves. The Summoned are sent home and they said they'd be in touch.
Rifts start appearing and animals from Summoned spheres start to appear. At this point, they are harmless.
Monsters appear from the rifts in specific locations throughout the factions. They are identified as from Summoned worlds and have arcanas of their own. People with those arcanas act like the beast in question when too close. Most of them were killed and the rifts were closed outside of one plant creature in the Free Cities and three dog creatures in Solvunn.
Representatives from the Nether reached out requesting assistance from the Summoned. The rifts caused their dragon population to suffer and they are concerned the last of the dragons will die, leaving them extinct in this world. The Conclave is requested to take a vote on whether or not they will negotiate on behalf of their factions with the Nether. Afterward, the Summoned are invited to visit the Nether to negotiate and meet the people. They work together to come up with a cure using ingredients from other parts of the Nether. Somehow the Summoned have the type of connection that 'healed' places that had died to get said ingredients. In the end, they saved the dragons and the Nether was grateful.
In Free Cities, a man named Cauldor Wain is executed for being behind the attack in Nocwich last year. People are skeptical he actually was, but we still have no other explanation. Isar Hart is nominated to the Solvunn council in Josselyn's place. Rudolph Sidwell is promoted to Admiral in Thorne and they throw the Maritime Fair.
The holidays are celebratead in each faction and within Nocwich. The Summoned are allowed to return to the island where everyone was kidnapped to purify it. They were able to learn more about the shrine monster, which is truly a sea giant, and brought the woman out of the altar. All corpses that they could retrieve were taken to be identified and returned to their families. It was decided to raze the island rather than restore it.
January was a relatively quiet month as people got past the holidays and the island visit. Many Summoned went on quests to return bodies to their loved ones or to remove bodies to safe locations if they're contiaminated.
The Summoned were invited to Ikorr for the first time. We attended in the midst of one of their special events, a carnivale dedicated to the Tower sign. While celebrating, a theft happened in the middle of the night. Someone stole a secret artifact from Ikorr and the Summoned assisted in investigating who did it. Afterward, Luna arrived and declared that the artifact should be given over to them to destroy. The Summoned decided to agree with Ikorr, leading Luna to be furious with us. Nocwich was then closed for the foreseeable future. After leaving the party, the Summoned were visited by a god of some kind who seemed to be a 'trickster.' He looks like a clown. He said "You are awaited" and then left.
Shortly after our experience in Ikorr, the presence of the god Umbvagher causes the Singularity to react poorly. He plants sparklers in the Summoned domains and apparently poses with them. The Singularity does not like this and we saw lightning begin to spread out from it. The winds picked up and damage started to happen to all territories. There was no knowing how to stop.
Due to the rising deaths and destruction in the territories, they decided they needed the Summoned's help to stop the Singularity. In their desperation, they forced every one of us into the crater, sending us into a deep comatose state. For three weeks, we were unconscious in the crater, as we experienced a mass hallucination (or vision?) of a timeline where 800 years later we were the new class of gods. I have been speculating with others for a long time that the Cardinal/"New" gods were originally the Summoned from a thousand years ago. This experience seems to have confirmed that was the case.
The storms halted after we were placed in the crater. I suppose that means they were right to do it, big picture wise. We returned to our territories trying to make sense of what happened to us. Sidwell moved into Castle Thorne and started to make changes. We should have known then what was coming.
Sidwell threw a coup, murdering the royal couple, and taking over the Thorne government. At the same time, he enacted an attack on the Free Cities by sending an illness called Heartwood that infected many of their soldiers. In Thorne, we were trapped within a safe house for a week. The Free Cities had their people in quarantine about the same. When we were released, Sidwell's coronation took place.
Sidwell assassinated the commerce leaders in the Free Cities, leading them into a disarray. The Free Cities then retaliated by attacking the castle directly using a former of technology we don't know. The war officially began.
The Free Cities and Thorne start warring over the Badlands aggressively. Solvunn had apparently summoned a god to protect them from Thorne, thus leading to Thorne being badly damaged and their ships destroyed. This led Solvunn to get land in the Badlands, after Thorne was chased off. The heralds of war appeared once more to tell us that they were causing a disarray on purpose, thinking that heightened conflict would eventually lead to peace.
Hauntings and whispers of some kind start to travel around. Some children seem possessed by dolls. Otherwise not much to report.
For an unknown reason, people started to experience moments from their past again as a dangerously lucid dream. It was anywhere we physically went, including all parts of the sphere and the Horizon. It could become a shared hallucination with someone else, and arcana signs seemed to be the way to achieve escape from it. We do not know who was responsible for this, but it caused no real damage to speak of.
The Singularity caused tremors through the land that caused mild destruction. However, I decided to test a theory and stepped into the area that was damaged by the tremor. I was placed immediately into the Horizon, leading my fears to be true, that the Singularity appears to be 'taking' ground and lengthening the crater. We informed the territories. Cid and Dion also reported that the Singularity does not appear to be Dimming, its energy is stronger than ever. This is deeply concerning but for now we don't know what to expect.
