Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Elves are of course known for their slow metabolisms and rather different rate of aging. Compared to others like humans and orcs, they do indeed age at a slower rate, with puberty occurring at age 24-26, adulthood and full maturity at 36-38, with geriatric elves being 130-140. The oldest elf on record since modern figures were kept lived to 257 years, a full 20 years longer than any since. Tales from less enlightened ages about elves being immortal or living to the age of 1000 years or more are, of course, ridiculous.

The slow rate of growth and slow reproduction (with a gestation period of 18-24 months and a refractory period after birth of 24-36 months preventing a further pregnancy during that time) has had a profound impact on elven culture, which tends to prize safety and stasis and is slow to adapt to sociological and technological change. These same factors have made them highly valued as bureaucrats and administrators in various empires that have arisen and fallen, with elves present in human, orcish, and other empires throughout history. Indeed, Hamur himself specifically set elves apart from his Hamurabash, granting them protection but exempting them from its provisions (though many modern orcs refuse to associate with elves who have not embraced the Hamurabash).

Though history is full of elven usupers and elven dynasties ruling empires largely made up of other peoples, the lower numbers of elves in general means that they have never ruled large empires of their own, nor have they ever formed colonies. Their metabolism generally precludes direct combat, as the exertions from sustained and intense movement exhaust them easily and drain their reserves of energy. This makes them unparallelled siege artists and defenders; Hamur the orc recruited a legion of elves he referred to as his Crocodiles (“their eventual strike being all the more brutal for the long patient inaction which preceeds it”).

Elvish beliefs are quite unique, and are responsible for much friction with other peoples, though as with any group there are many who hold others or none at all. The majority of elves follow precepts that they call the “Eternal Way” which is predicated on the notion that all beings ascend to godhood over lesser creatures given time. Others often misinterpret this as meaning that the elves fancy themselves gods over the other peoples of the world, something which their aloofness and percieved wealth and inaction does little to dispel.

But a better rendering would be that the elves consider themselves gods of lesser creatures, ascended from their number. The elvish philosopher Tsianlwyn put it thus: “We are from and of the lesser creatures, and as their gods owe them mercy and justice. Our ascension to godhood over them is a trust which is binding. Other peoples are, whether they know it or not, bound to the same sphere and must exercise their godly dominion over life with the same trust and restraint.”

It would therefore be more accurate to say that the elves consider all sapient peoples co-gods, and their philosophy doen not concern itself with–but does not discount–the existence of “gods above the gods.” Still, this has led to grievous misunderstandings over time, the elves being contnually villified as “worshipping themselves” and beliving themselves “gods over men.” Human religions tend to consider such beliefs self-centered at best and blasphemous at worst, while the orcs are often insistent that elves deny their beliefs in their own divinity and embrace the atheist and ancestor-centric Hamurabash.

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Avaricea, the Fel Demoness of the Seventh Sphere, had a varied portfolio of infernal interests over which she had at least patial control. She was the underdemoness of filth, for instance, associate overlord of rudeness, and princess of pettiness. Those who, knowingly or not, held Avaricea as their infernal patroness were largely lackluster people whose hatred of their jobs and their lives was reflected in shoddy quality-of-work and watercooler dictator tendencies.

As with all the fel demons of the various spheres, Avaricea enjoyed sojourns on Earth to practice what she preached. Like all creatures of her ilk, precipitated from the nauseating worst of humanity’s transgressions in the damned depths of the infernal realm, she had no set form. Many of her contemporaries used this mutability to assume eye-pleasing or impressive Earthly forms; while Avaricea did appear as such when she had something to gain, her portfolio was more interested with other sundries.

As such, her favored form was that of an old, ugly, grumpy, grimy janitor, one who invariable made things dirtier and slung dirty language at any who were irksome. Wor betide anyone who sought out her damned janitorial supply closet, for theirs was a one-way ticket to the trash mines of the Seventh Sphere’s Repository of Infinite Refuse.

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The Cessna’s fuel guage was needling on empty. There was still no sign of the coast, of any solid land at all, and the radio crackled uselessly with static.

John sucked in a panicked breath. How could he have been so stupid, to get that disoriented? To let himself walk out the door without filing a proper flight plan, knowing that Jim would let him fill it in after the fact? Dammit, he may have been 71 years old, but John had been piloting for six years and was fully instrument-rated. He should have known better.

The engine sputtered. Just for a moment, but it was clear that there was not much time left. Ditching in the drink was the only option, with a stowed life raft and life vest that had come with the plane, secondhand, and a flare gun still in its wrapping paper from World War II.

John pulled back on the stick, trying to gain altitude he could use in the glide down to land in a gentle patch of sea or on any sliver of land that might present itself. In doing so, he burst through the ceiling of grey clouds that had led him to get so disoriented in the first place.

It was sunset, above the clouds, and the hidden sun was painting them in the boldest and most vivid colors John had ever seen. Orange the color of his old Camaro, purple like his daughter’s hair, flaming red like the three drops of blood Mary-Beth had coughed up with her last breath as the cancer took her. Every shade that had ever meant anything to John was there, gathered for a final farewell: a sight he never would have seen at any other moment, at any other time.

“Thank you,” he said, tears shining behind his glasses.

He nudged the stick forward. Just a few thousand feet to go.

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The Wakeful Watcher is the boundary between sleep and alertness, keeper of the border and hunter of those that would stray from one realm to the next. When it appears, it appears as a two-headed owl: one head forever watching the world of sleep, one head eternally guarding the world of wakefulness. It speaks, if it must, with both heads at once in a tremulous unison.

Those who cross the boundary each night are watched, and in the event that a dream becomes to wakeful or waking life becomes to dreamlike, the Wakeful Watcher will turn its attentions thereto. It will pursue dream attempting to become real or reality attempting to become dreams, and it will offer them only a single warning before attacking.

Thus it was that the great two-headed owl waited atop the boughs of a twisted cypress one cool morning. It was waiting for Cindy Gompers, with a warning borne on steel talons and destruction carried on the same. Her crime?

She thought that she was real.

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The tree first appeared growing through the cracks in the checkerboard that had once been the Marquis’ outdoor garden. A parched, spare little thing, and the boy took pity on it. He found a dinged-up watercan in the ruins of a garden shed and patiently gave the sprout a few drops.

Every day thereafter, he would return for the same ritual. A little water from the old can, depending on how dry it had been–the sort of thing he was already learning from Father for when he was older and could begin to help with the harvest.

In time, the tree grew tall and strong, spreading boughs over what remained of the garden terrace and tearing up what remained of the Marquis’ checkerboard with its roots. Birds came to perch amid its spreading branches, and will ‘o the wisps could be seen about its trunk at dusk and dawn.

It was an inspiring sight, but also a fearful one. The boy had begun watering the shoot when he was five years old. By the time he was seven, it was larger than all but the oldest boughs in the forest.

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It had been a tough trial. Melinda had begun to doubt herself, to doubt her client. He was charged with a horrible crime, killing and eating man he had only just met.

But through it all, she had felt that something deep inside him was innocent…

And so, against every instinct and piece of legal advice, Melinda put her client on the stand.

“Tell me in your own words what happened,” she said.

“GAAAARRRR! SNAP SNAP! CHOMP CHOMP!” said the shark. It was a diatribe that wasn’t going to win him any favor with the jury.

But it was enough. The shark dry heaved, a pair of hands opened its mouth from inside. Fitzwilliams, the recreational diver that had been swallowed, emerged safe and sound, sustained by his wetsuit and oxygen tank.

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It was that hum that first keyed most people into the fact that something was deeply wrong.

Oh, there had been signs before. Flocks of birds flying south in June, for one. Massive deaths among the ones that stayed, like the flock that beat itself to death against the front windows of the IGA. Lots of people lost their dogs, and lots more found them cowering under couches and in crawlspaces.

But that hum, that ominous pitch-defying hum that seemed like the music of the spheres one moment and a dire portent the next…that ever-uneasy tone that seemed straight out of the sound design for a horror movie.

We knew where it was coming from: cicadas. 17-year cicadas, emerging from their split shells to sing from the treetops. It shouldn’t have been anything to worry about, just an annoyance. But seeing the creatures was what made most people sit up and take notice.

It had only been five years since they’d last come up. The 17-year cicadas were 12 years early for the first time in human history, and nobody had any idea why.

We found out soon enough.

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In time, the land and the road seemed to fall away in the mist. But Ellis kept driving, the cargo strapped to his back too precious to risk. The sounds of the world fell away as well, with only the whine of his motorbike’s two-stroke engine remaining.

When he had gone further than it should have taken, driven for long enough to make two trips there and back, the bike backfired and stopped. Ellis dismounted, disoriented, and looked around.

He could see nothing but clouds above and below, towering above as they towered beneath.

Eliis had unknowingly ridden into the skies on his errand of mercy.

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For theirs was a city
Build from staples and paper
But even at its coolest
Its cleanest
Its most paved
They were there
In the gutters
In the furrows
Beneath floorboards
Behind walls
Listening
Watching
Waiting
Probing for weaknesses
And every piece of information
Every chink in the armor
Borne on scurrying legs
Borne on owls’ silent wings
To the great king
Whose domain they had displaces
Who waited on silent throne
To reclaim what was once his
And would be soon again

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Of all the beings to interact with humans, dwarves have had perhaps the longest and most peaceful history. Unlike elves, but like orcs, dwarves established a great kingdom in their native lands to the far north. A rugged, tortured land of short summers, long winters, pine forests, fjords, and lake-filled islands with island-filled lakes, the archipelago formed the Kingdom of the Shattered Isles.

Dwarves tunneled below the permafrost to take advantage of the land’s latent geothermal heat and rich ores, while their outriggers sailed far and wide to trade (and occasionally raid) the great human kingdoms and even the orcs of the far south. Their stocky build and powerful physique made dwarven mercenaries extremely popular, and they served in the personal guard or shock troop vanguard of many a ruler.

But the dwarves’ hold on their land was always tenuous. Like elves, dwarves had extremely low population growth: females were only capable of pregnancy once every five to seven years, and the tendency of these cycles to align in the various hold across the Shattered Isles meant that serious losses to combat or disease stood to annihilate a population with startling rapidity. The fact that every dwarven pregnancy, without fail, was a difficult twin birth did not help matters; before the advent of modern medicine, many dwarven women died in childbirth.

These problems came to a head with the invasion of the Sea Peoples. Driven from their traditional homlands by the rising empire of the Hamurabash orcs, they set upon the Shattered Isles with savage fury. Their warships were less stable but much larger than dwarven outriggers, resulting in a series of lopsided naval defeats for the kingdom. Worse, the Shattered Isles had just emerged from a vicious war with a human kingdom, leaving their ranks thinned and more territory than usual to defend.

The Sea Peoples also possessed horses and heavy cavalry, which the dwarves had traditonally spurned in favor of infantry and naval warfare. They were of little use over much of the Shattered Isles but at the crucial Battle of the Two Lakes they were able to smash the dwarven army of the King Over The Isles in a charge over frozen ground. The Sea Peoples eventually gained complete control over the Shattered Isles, dispersing the dwarves that they did not enslave.

Known as the Shattering to dwarves, this event was a watershed for their culture. Many were welcomed with open arms by human kingdoms and settled within them in exchange for their service as warriors and sailors. The death of the King Over The Isles also had a profound effect on dwarven religion, which had been a dualistic faith with the king as high priest of Dvagnchi the Dayfather and the queen as high priestess of Qingvnir the Nightmother. Religious epics from the time before the Shattering emphasized the eternal courtship between the two and their shared rule over the world, each embodying opposing traits.

Such was the violence of the Shattering that the entire household of King Tsovngan IV and Queen Jinheiq III was slaughtered. Traditionally, the King and Queen would designate their own successors or leave matters to a Great Council comprised of the heads of the Great Holds. But with no designated successor, all the most likely claimants dead, and the Great Holds annihilated or in exile, no king and queen–and therefore no priest and priestess–could be chosen.

The void that this left in dwarven religious life led many of them to abandon the worship of Dvangchi and Qingvnir and take up the faiths of their new homes, from human religions to the Hamurabash. Those who remained faithful were often used as pawns by the surviving Great Holds in schemes to attain the Shattered Throne or to retake the Isles.

A combination of modern medicine and a latter-day revivial of Dvangchi and Qingvir has proved a headache for the modern lands settled by dwarves. Thanks to an innovation that dwarves refer to as tsviao qio nvrguchi, or “Homage to the Empty Throne,” the lack of an official high priest or priestess is overlooked through the support of local Twilight Courts–the traditional dwaven temple–and the setting aside of tithes to fund the reclaimation of the Isles or the official consecreation of a new homeland.

As a result, where once dwarves had been regarded as assimilated members of various states, there is a growing movement toward reclaiming their political and religious identity, their language, and a trend toward dwarven militias and armed groups that has resulted in bloodshed both in the modern Republic of the Shattered Isles and elsewhere.

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