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fact #halloween
Yeah if you havent noticed my motivation to write facts kind went down the drain yesterday. so you can have my 30 page short story about Kerathan instead
LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS DARKNESS IN THE LIGHT 1ST DRAFT SZALAMIREAKTOR 2024-10-11. ALL WRONGS RESERVED. Bar
you can also comment on it if you want to... dont have to if you dont want to tho......
fact #18
Kerathan, despite having none of the necessarily geological functions or structure to support it, has a deep cave near its western border. though it is blindingly obvious that it's the work of one of the broken gods - what with the glowing lichen and stoney surface found nowhere else in Kerathan - it is a fairly popular point of interest amount the Verakins.
this is due, in part, to its easy to memorize location, being near both Kerathan's only proper river and the left edge of Kerathan. it's also often used for spiritual/religious purposes, offering plenty of quiet spaces away from predators and the ire of the broken gods.
the real reason, however, near the bottom of the cave. after climbing down roughly 100 feet, there is a large chamber filled with a lichen that glows with golden light. it is the closest thing to a sunset that most verakins will see, and they find it absolutely breathtaking.
fact #17
all verakins go to heaven! or, at least, the weird fucked up simulacra of heaven native to Kerathan.
after dying, verakin souls stick around in the body for a few days after death - a sort of purgatory. it's described as serene and dream-like, and allows some of the nastier emotions associated with death to fade away. many use it to reflect on their lives and who they've left behind.
before long, the souls get drawn out of their body and into the depths of Kerathan, where the proper afterlife is. while the trip across is fairly quick and painless, getting used to the afterlife takes some time. it's home to something like 70,000 verakins, all engaged in strange and exotic activities and places.
there is also the small fact that nobody has a physical body in the afterlife. you are, for all intents and purposes, a mind floating freely in the body of a half-melted god. (more on that later). sure, you'll be able to imagine having a body and doing the familiar verakin things, but it'll never quite be the same.
most of your time spent in the afterlife will be spent coping with this fact, in one way or another.
fact #16
latherkes (lah-THUR-keh) are waist-high foraging herbivores occasionally seen in quieter parts of the forest. appearance-wise, they're somewhere between a deer and a pig, with a characteristic bony protrusion on their mouth we would recognize as a beak.
for reasons nobody can quite understand, they often produce a cacophonous, multi-voiced call comprised of trills, chirping and squawking. every call is unique, though none are pleasant to listen to.
they are being predated to extinction by other, larger animals. turns out constantly broadcasting your location isn't a very smart plan when there are things that can hear you from the other side of the forest.
fact #15
verakins are cuddly little creatures! since verbal communication is a no-go (more on that later) and visual communication doesn't always work, verakins have fallen back to touch as one of the main ways they show affection to each other.
hugs or nuzzles are a very quick, reliable way to tell someone else that they are loved, safe, and welcome - good things to be reminded of in a cold, hostile world.
fact #14
to pretty much no ones surprise, verakins have a mostly adversarial relationship with the Broken Gods.
verakins are reasonably upset that these powerful beings with an incredible capacity to improve things try to fuck them over pretty much any opportunity they get. since they'd get blasted to smithereens if they tried to actually do anything about it, they've settled for a deep, seething contempt for the Broken Gods - and, by extension, much of the natural world.
this relationship goes both ways, of course. the Broken Gods have a vibrant array of dislikes for the verakins - hate, annoyance, disgust, contempt. some are appalled that anyone would dare try to make something that even comes close to the Broken Gods' ability to think logically. others are frustrated with just how damn difficult it is to design an ecosystem around sentient beings. but most are mad because they just didn't want thinking people in their little kingdom.
fact #13
verakins lay eggs! theyre similar to the picture above, but duller in color and material.
this isnt because theyre birds, or anything; creating children is a horrifically messy and complicated process under the hood, and the physiology of verakins is already barely held together with duct tape and tears.
in simpler terms, verakin anatomy is so fucked up that there's no way they could conceivably survive pregnancy, much less actually giving birth. hence the eggs.
fact #12
the Broken Gods - called Vathakin by the verakins - are the mad gods of the forest.
some can be found wandering around the far edges of the forest, terrorizing whomever they come across. others are barely sentient, covering swaths of land with their confused and largely immaterial presence.
there's a few things common between all of them, though. glowing lines etched in the air, with angles sharper than should be possible. strange, colorful lights in the night. and, of course, stories of people meeting them and not coming back right - if they come back at all.
