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Discussion The Constellation

I like this idea that the jungles of the realms is where all seraphon go for "retirement" if their slann dies. It keeps the lost aspect that made lizardmen so appealing to me in the first place. If you don't mind my bending of your story line, and adding to it a bit...

Brothers moving into place, around their blind flanks. Skinks flocked through the jungle brush fluidly and without sound. We had no intention of firing upon the newcomers, but we also don't drop our guard. Crests flared open and shut quickly, and we all came to a stop. The newcomers were unmistakably familiar to us, however they were not familiar to their surroundings. We followed them a while longer, until they became more sporadic and comfortable with this jungle. We backed off and didn't engage in any way. We would lure them to us.

We made it safely back to camp and reported our findings, as well as our opinions of them. The prospect of bolstering our numbers was cause enough for celebration, and the Chieftain agreed to lure them in with song and fire. First we would wait until every patrol was back, and the light of day was gone.

The tribes most showy Priest stood in front of a bonfire, leading a chant. Drums were beating continuously, as if to carry every voice on a wave further into the dense brush. The drums and singing worked together perfectly; nothing short of a full ceremony, albeit improvised by every single one of us. This wasn't part of our training... for our last battle. The idea worked. The Priest walked with arms wide open slowly toward the outer rim of the clearing and began chanting in our tongue, "Come forth, Friend. Come forth, Friend". Could our cry be heard? Will they understand us? Please understand.

The chant broke down a bit with chirps of joy when some foreign Skinks poked their timid crests into the light of the fire. The newcomers chirped in response and took jolts forward which were stopped by instinctual caution. The opposing sides continued these awkward mock charges over the wide clearing and met somewhere near the roaring fire. With a quick crest flare (which was most likely an anxious mistake), the scene changed. The Skinks began darting in the same direction around the fire. The circling mass drew the remaining Skinks out of jungle and seamlessly joined the fray. The Priest stood motionless in the flurry of crests and tails whizzing by; there were other eyes remaining in the jungle that were meant to be seen up close.

A newcomer Priest stepped into the fray and safely passed untouched until the two Priests were within arms reach. The two shook each others hands. The Host Priest bowed and turned to extend an arm, and the pair walked off to the tents beyond the fires light.

"Being lost is the greatest darkness our kind can feel, as terrible as the loss is, the Great Plan wills that you are here. We shall find out why, together."

This was the first and certainly most sacred ceremony ever recorded.
 
Tlac'Natai the Observer said:
I like this idea that the jungles of the realms is where all seraphon go for "retirement" if their slann dies. It keeps the lost aspect that made lizardmen so appealing to me in the first place. If you don't mind my bending of your story line, and adding to it a bit...

Brothers moving into place, around their blind flanks. Skinks flocked through the jungle brush fluidly and without sound. We had no intention of firing upon the newcomers, but we also don't drop our guard. Crests flared open and shut quickly, and we all came to a stop. The newcomers were unmistakably familiar to us, however they were not familiar to their surroundings. We followed them a while longer, until they became more sporadic and comfortable with this jungle. We backed off and didn't engage in any way. We would lure them to us.

We made it safely back to camp and reported our findings, as well as our opinions of them. The prospect of bolstering our numbers was cause enough for celebration, and the Chieftain agreed to lure them in with song and fire. First we would wait until every patrol was back, and the light of day was gone.

The tribes most showy Priest stood in front of a bonfire, leading a chant. Drums were beating continuously, as if to carry every voice on a wave further into the dense brush. The drums and singing worked together perfectly; nothing short of a full ceremony, albeit improvised by every single one of us. This wasn't part of our training... for our last battle. The idea worked. The Priest walked with arms wide open slowly toward the outer rim of the clearing and began chanting in our tongue, "Come forth, Friend. Come forth, Friend". Could our cry be heard? Will they understand us? Please understand.

The chant broke down a bit with chirps of joy when some foreign Skinks poked their timid crests into the light of the fire. The newcomers chirped in response and took jolts forward which were stopped by instinctual caution. The opposing sides continued these awkward mock charges over the wide clearing and met somewhere near the roaring fire. With a quick crest flare (which was most likely an anxious mistake), the scene changed. The Skinks began darting in the same direction around the fire. The circling mass drew the remaining Skinks out of jungle and seamlessly joined the fray. The Priest stood motionless in the flurry of crests and tails whizzing by; there were other eyes remaining in the jungle that were meant to be seen up close.

A newcomer Priest stepped into the fray and safely passed untouched until the two Priests were within arms reach. The two shook each others hands. The Host Priest bowed and turned to extend an arm, and the pair walked off to the tents beyond the fires light.

"Being lost is the greatest darkness our kind can feel, as terrible as the loss is, the Great Plan wills that you are here. We shall find out why, together."

This was the first and certainly most sacred ceremony ever recorded.
Click to expand...
This was amazing! I do enjoy a good collaboration! Glad I deleted the last paragraph where a new battle was beginning! Haha! But the story was an exercise to try to find common ground between old fluff and AOS. And this end is better than my unplanned ending, that I am sure of! Thank you @Tlac'Natai the Observer for seeing what I was missing!
 
I have no smart-alec words, and I was wrong about knowing where this was going next.

But correct me if I am wrong now -

A slannless constellation remembering itself into a more glorious existence, free to write its own chapter in the history of the Great Plan?



Edit - Tlac's response came before my reply was finished. I'll need another bout of mental recalibration to get around it.

In more recent news, I am planning to launch a thread starting with "It was a dark and stormy night..." let Tlac finish it, and then I will take all the credit. :)
 
spawning of Bob said:
A slannless constellation remembering itself into a more glorious existence, free to write its own chapter in the history of the Great Plan?
Click to expand...
See this is a brilliant alternative! Also better than the ending I was writing toward! The possibilities are endless, but with the different paths it can branch into, a heaven type place, as described above, or a freedom/Ronin lifestyle as suggested by @spawning of Bob

If I leave it here it becomes a choose your own adventure with this constellation. Open to endless possibilities. Haha! Decisions, decisions!
 
Make it yours whatever it is.

What I thought was going to happen was that, after finding the $5, your character would climb onto the palanquin and say, "hi, I'm Tettoecko. There are going too be a few changes around here. For a start, you three units can vanguard during the next battle etc etc."
 
Yeah, $5 is a lot of power! Can't say I wouldn't do that! Haha! You three vanguard, route them to where my slow moving comet is going to drop. Maybe. Okay next turn. No don't let them move. Will these bloody dice just cooperate? I have $5 and a big chair!
 
Note: @Tlac'Natai the Observer and @spawning of Bob have added brilliant possibilities above. Which if that helps you to write AOS fluff then go and put it to use!

I could sense a mighty Starmaster in the distance. Visions of another constellation flashed in my mind. Smaller than ours but fierce and with purpose. A hope crept into my soul that our two constellations would merge and we would once again have a great master. The wise old Slann flooded our minds with images of the forthcoming battle. It showed us rat creatures, contaminating this gorgeous landscape. The rot from various diseases and plaques distorted and mutilated their skin and fur. And as they swiftly traversed the jungle, they spread their pestilence. Plants withered and died. Animals, once fierce predators were choking on the vomit and blood that was spewing forth from them. Travelling in great numbers these rat beasts greatly outnumbered this smaller constellation. We would reinforce them.

Our guard and our engine of the gods, lead by our newly reborn Eternity Warden, struck out to find the Mage priest of the old world. Our Sunblood roared and our saurus and skink warriors marched in the direction shown to them by ancient one. The Carnosaurs and Stegadon taking the lead, the bastiladons bringing up the rear. Our Ripperdactyls soared up above the clouds. The chameleons disappeared into the jungle. I followed closely behind the Eternity Warden.

We followed the vision that the Slann had provided for us. As we traversed the jungles the only visions in my mind were the awful, foul rat deviants. Clouded by only visions of their rotting sickly forms defiling the living jungle. I could not see our warriors that we had separated from. I could not see the other constellation. Just hideous, chaotic abominations.

We drew close to our destination. We could not see the Slann or his entourage, assuming he had one. He was well hidden. What we did see was a vision of vile rat creatures coming closer. Our guard took a formation ready to fight to the last to protect the unseen master. I could not see the stars, only the hateful, evil beasts. I chose instead to to shield the guard. As the tattered robes shuffled closer our muscles tensed, eager to prove ourselves. These little monstrosities held a rusty, warped blade in each of their filth encrusted paws. The guard held their ground, they had their voiceless orders, reinforced by the mighty Warden's quick and subtle body language. I could not gain a vision.

As the horrible little creatures were nearly upon us mighty polearms were poised in anticipation. The excitement was all around. An electrical energy was building up in these great, magnificent guide. I could feel it. I could feel it but I could not change the outcome. My vision skewed. Once again I had failed.

To the surprise of myself, the great warden, and the foul rat things, our guard started to swell. A great light filled them. Their anguished cries echoing out before exploding. The azyr that composed their bodies splattering forward onto the pestilent filled atrocities. They screached and howled as the rot and disease in their bodies suddenly vanished. The blessings from their dark psychotic god vanishing with each blight and pox. Another group of guard painfully bust into an azyr mist all over the enemy. Then the familiar sound of blow darts. Unseen, their presence unfelt, even by me. As the rats started falling over, poison causing blue veins in their skin to swell, skin drying at a rapid pace, their life came out of them through great force, out of their orifices. The irony of them spending a life time poisoning themselves with disease only to be cured and poisoned, was not lost on me. Though everything else about the situation was.

I suddenly got my vision back. I felt the pain of my entire constellation as they exploded in the same fashion as the guard. Each scream, each feeling of betrayal, each and every painful loss of corporeal form. "Your purpose has been served." The mighty voice boomed in my mind. And with that, I once again felt the pain of my brothers as my own form filled with light and pain.

Once again nothing surrounded us. Our empty landscape. "The pawn constellation" crept through my mind. "Sacrificial Offering" also came to mind. Was our purpose no longer to fight, but to be sacrificed as an offering at the hands of a great Starmaster? Was this to be our shameful role in the plan against chaos? Our eternal punishment for failure?
 
Discussion time:
Coming up with the settings for battle was a bit of an issue, until I tried to research the mortal realms. With little to no information, I was given a blank slate. The realm of fire, still a mortal realm. So had to be able to sustain life. The realm of beasts or the realm of life can almost certainly be the old world reborn. Arguably without the sentient races the old world would have been just a realm of beasts. Given that there has been several thousand years between end times and AOS there has been enough time for the different races to settle and build large cities and countries. So given the blank slate and a different magical element for each realm you can create sprawling worlds, where you are basically a portal away from an alternate universe. Dwarfs taking a dominant role in a world ruled by metal magics, elves and humans being the minority races. Orks with a more sophisticated society in the light realm, and a simpler more savage one in the realm of beasts. A character could grow up in a vast world of say shadows, surviving several battles and then be thrust into a portal and sees a society that looks like his, but has different customs and beliefs. Could be a comedic fish out of water story or a complex adventure of discovery and trying to get home. The realm of death, while serving as an afterlife, also has mortals living there. Now go back to the October short story comp. "The ghosts we have" could be a human settlement in the realm of death.

"Fear" could be in the realm of chaos where things don't work the way they are supposed to. Instead of turning to azyr, Seraphon bleed. And can suffer a permanent death.

"Midnight chase" could be the realm of life. Maybe war is not as prevalent there, which is why these things are both shocking and only the thing of legend. Or it could be the heavens, how the daemons got in is up to you.

There was a thread on here somewhere that had authors wanting to claim certain cities to flesh out and call their own: http://www.lustria-online.com/threa...resource-for-readers-and-writers-alike.15884/ We now not only have unlimited cities, we have 8 different worlds to play in. Which means that given my army and the 8 worlds I definitely should have won the guess the caption thing!
http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/seraphon-battletome-fluff-an-illustrated-review.17053/page-3

Annyway back to the discussion at hand!
Thoughts or ideas?
 
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Upon further thoughts on the subject and vainly rereading this thread, @Tlac'Natai the Observer and @spawning of Bob have brought up some brilliant world building of their own. T'lac gives them a new world after they lose the slann to explore and build with other slannless constellations. Lost in the jungle and rebuilding it. Bob then takes it a step furthers this new found free will. What if they decide to enact their own plan against chaos. No slann to guide them so they become a rogue squadron. Beaming in to fight as they see fit.
 
AoS really does give a lot of story line freedom, and every realm should be treated as being able to support life, which opens the door to a lot of ideas. Even if you want to do a generic realm setting for most of the story, you're right, there's always a portal to a new realm for a mission or two.

By the way, I like how you capture the emotion and mind set of these starlight beings. They have pure intentions. Are they afraid of death to some degree because they don't remember having died thousands of times, in many battles? is it a reset every time and they are just reborn, ready to fight? (very much like spawning pools) That's how I was going to treat it; with each individual having so many innate capabilities, even down to their personality in order to fit certain types of roles. Life experiences don't form their personality, it's just built in by the slanns memory of them. Priests could have flash backs to past or future lives, and they would just think it's part of this life. The implications of this in a story are beyond me at the moment though, but there's something there.
 
Tlac'Natai the Observer said:
AoS really does give a lot of story line freedom, and every realm should be treated as being able to support life, which opens the door to a lot of ideas. Even if you want to do a generic realm setting for most of the story, you're right, there's always a portal to a new realm for a mission or two.

By the way, I like how you capture the emotion and mind set of these starlight beings. They have pure intentions. Are they afraid of death to some degree because they don't remember having died thousands of times, in many battles? is it a reset every time and they are just reborn, ready to fight? (very much like spawning pools) That's how I was going to treat it; with each individual having so many innate capabilities, even down to their personality in order to fit certain types of roles. Life experiences don't form their personality, it's just built in by the slanns memory of them. Priests could have flash backs to past or future lives, and they would just think it's part of this life. The implications of this in a story are beyond me at the moment though, but there's something there.
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This is an interesting thought. I was going to keep the memory going, but the idea of a reset with each death brings about a lot of story possibilities. Instead of building on their own experiences they rely on the memory of the slann to know how to fight an opponent. Which could be greatly skewed and could make for both funny and heartbreaking moments!
 
The direction you have now taken makes me associate your constellation with regret. In their quest for redemption, they will charge towards anything that looks like hope.

Up to a point they will be perfect weapons. Nothing to lose, everything to gain.

Yank their chain too long and hope will be replaced by an expectation of failure. They will numbly cling to duty because there is nothing else for them. They will be the constellation of despair. They will start to fail and be a liability rather than an expendable asset. There are at least two story leads in that.

In happy news, you are not @Scalenex and when everything is black, just a little light can make a difference. I could imagine a Heroic return to glory, but I'm rooting for some gentle realisation which leads to an inner peace.

That is a long story arc, with a solid ending. The constellation gets boring after that, but they can still cameo in other tales as required. Once I have a handle on their capability and mechanics, I could use them (or an un-copyrighted analogue) in Seraphon fiction of my own.

As for my bleeding guardian, I will Continue toapply my rule of "stick with canon unless it interferes with a good story / joke / image" rather than come up with elaborate justifications. Yours is a good one though :)
 
And here I was going to parallel Watership Down! I think I have one last chapter in mind, two if I start to ramble on!
 
Watership Down:

The prelude - everyone dies
The second act - everyone dies
The finale - everyone dies (except General Woundwort's body is never found, so there is still hope)

Who wrote it, again?


You know me, Bowser. I will speculate about possible endings, but in the long run, I am more interested in being surprised by your ideas than bored by my own. Long or short, constellation has been a big influence on how I see Seraphon. Thanks.
 
As these thoughts and doubts crossed my mind, I could hardly muster the courage to lift my head to look at the others. I couldn't bear to see their disappointment match my own. Defeat swelled inside of me. Weighing me down. Helpless and hopeless.

I turned around and slowly lifted my head to face the crowd. I saw saurus puffing out their chests, strutting proudly around. Skinks with their crests fully open and on display. It was only I who had let doubt creep into my mind. The entire constellation had found purpose. Our lifeblood had cured the diseases of a putrid so called god. We had not only protected a Slann starmaster, but an entire other constellation. Heroes. Saviours. The pride beaming from my fellows quickly quelled the anger and disappointment in me. I too held my head high.

The nothing surrounding us was no longer static, it was vibrant and filled with purpose and a silent celebration. Silent until the Sunblood turned to me and said, "you should have seen the look on your face when you exploded onto that rat!" The big, dumb looking grin on his face put one on mine.
A skink piped up, "you should have seen the look on that rat's face!"

How we must have gleamed in the night sky. Laughter and sparring, showing off our skills to each other. The chatter of the skinks boasting about how many rats they their body's explosion had cured. Then it appeared. Great power. Followed by a great silence.

The avatar of the Star bending master appeared. In awe we looked at this betrayer turned salvation. His great wisdom far beyond the reach of my understanding. A warm feeling washed over us as the avatar of this mysterious lord looked over the constellation. The knowledge that he gave us fuelled our hopes.

Slann Starmasters without constellations were beginning to wake in the great hidden cities of High Azyr. Their own plans for terminating chaos rousing them from their contemplations. Their burning desire for order would shift and shape the universe. Hope was enough. Even if these newly awakened star lords did not choose us, we had hope. We had that same burning desire for order. We would be the impenetrable bastiladon shell. We would be the unstoppable jaws of the carnosaur. We would be whatever was needed by any who would call on us. Master or no, we had purpose, we would stop at nothing to destroy chaos.
 
The end. Mostly. @Scalenex had a criticism about rat poison:
Scalenex said:
I would have liked the protagonist to be developed a bit more. He didn’t have a name. He didn’t have a descriptive title like “the fiery Skink.” On a related note, I would have liked to know a little bit more about the protagonist’s backstory beyond “he was a great warrior.”
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While I did add a bit more to help identify with the characters in this one, I chose to keep the few described as vague as possible. Not to spite Scalenex, though that is a good strategy to gain more likes from @spawning of Bob ! But as I see it, it makes it easier for the reader to insert their own army into it. As this was meant to be a jumping point and discussion on the possibilities of fluff in the AOS universe. Although next story should have more developed characters, cheeky as it may be.
 
This is a good piece, and an interesting line of thought on the setting - nice!

I like the idea that there are constellations without Slann, too - something that jarred a bit in the Battletome fluff was the implication that any Slann could summon any given Seraphon cohort, but at the same time it details constellations which "wait for the call of their master who-jim-a-bob"...

Your take gives us a really nice way of reconciling the two, letting us have cohorts bound to a specific Slann or not - it also neatly closes that problem in my own setting ideas, so thanks for that - I can stop worrying about it now ;)

I'm also really intrigued by the idea that they view their own deaths as just one more weapon in their arsenal, to be used as needed... Probably not usually in such a spectacular fashion though!

In summary, nice work :)
 
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