#theros posting

[menea-the-pharmakon]

Approaching the Sanguineous Flood

The active battlefield was, ultimately, a small portion of Amonkhet’s desert. It was to the west of the Kasmut River. The magic of the local nagas had purified part of the river despite the towering structures of Pronoia, which was half-settlement and half-foothold.

Sisters soared through the sky catching the suns’ light only to clash in battle with a flying ship known to others as the Silverwing, manned by five individuals and some cleaning robots of great bravery. The ship was aided by clouds of locusts who chewed their way through any Sisters between them and where they wanted to go, yet the locusts fell through either illness or magic in greater numbers than the Sisters.

On the ground, Imoti pulled her purifying magic from the river and turn it against the Pestoxy and had created a protective aura around the river for fleeing individuals to fall back to. Many of the nagas had already evacuated due to the citadel’s sheer scale. The ones that remained were helping Imoti hold the line. Alongside them were other extraplanar helpers, including a large cicada and the human who was calling more locusts to bolster the defense. It was unclear to both sides how long this line could hold.

Menea the Phármakon and High Marshal Celino Guitirre stepped out of the Omenpath with their respective weapons at the ready. One simply did not need to breathe and would not be harmed by the disease. The other was both the Champion of Pharika and the embodiment of Her teachings. And right now, those teachings had one simple order: find and kill the Pestoxy member known as Thermophagy.

Thus, the two began to approach Pronoia.

[dusk-legion-diplomacy]

Teachings of Home

The time it took to go from Akros to Setessa went by far quicker than Mavren had anticipated. There were only two other Champions that he had to meet with now. The next was the Champion of Karametra, their god of family and of community.

As they traveled, his mind felt a little less burdened by the nervous spiraling that usually consumed it. Having taken the time to mourn what was and could have been had... helped. He felt a bit more at ease. Now he had the wisdom of two gods to keep carrying forward, and he was ready for the third and fourth.

Of course, Menea and her wisdom as acting Champion of Pharika and Aoidi of Kruphix was also with him, but those were lessons and teachings he felt he was more continually trialed with, rather than schooled in brief.

Setessa lay before them by morning. Mavren wasn't holding his wings as close as before. "Where do we find her?" he asked Menea.

[captain-lannery-storm]

Dawn Against Dusk

The morning sun hung low in the sky, illuminating the abandoned town of Gorgia on the conquered island of Skathos.

Sophrosyne was perched upon a chair near the Omenpath. It had been password-locked, and while her divinely-granted power allowed the hydra to push a neck and head through, she did not order it to do so again. There was no sense in launching her attack through there. Not until she got confirmation that Kalleis – poor, sweet, misguided Kalleis – was close on that side. Even with all of her griffins, who flew around the island claimed in Heliod’s name, she did not want to charge through yet.

Her hydra snarled. She turned towards the east, towards the blessed rising sun. Her eyes scanned the waters, until-

There.

An Ixalec ship, not unlike the one she had taken Kalleis from, was coming towards Skathos. A ship bearing the flag of Kalleis’s misguided fleet.

Sophrosyne smiled. It reall had been only a matter of time before Kalleis returned to her. That made this all easier.

Captain Lannery Storm stood on the deck of her ship as they drew close to Skathos. She had a cutlass on each hip, and the small metal box in her pocket felt alarmingly heavy. One click and it would make all of the magic in a ten-foot circle completely stop. The Odithian gods knew what they were doing when it came to this device.

Her half-brother, Captain Marciano Guerra, stood at her left side with his hammer. On her right side was none other than Huehue, the offensive little gnome. Somewhere behind her, Menea was telling Malkonia how to make a triage center, Aoidi was getting a weapon, Mavren was...honestly who knows what the hell Mavren was doing, and Storm’s crew were preparing cannons and other weapons. Once the first shot was done, the crew would have to focus on the griffins. But that was just fine.

“Ready, Lannery?” Marciano asked, hefting up his hammer.

She had learned much about bringing about a reckoning from her time guarded by Tony Fangando. So she offered her brother a grin. “Ready, Marci.” She drew both of her swords and pointed one towards the hydra approaching the ship. “FIRE!” she shouted.

The boom of cannons, of reclaimed freedom, was a beautiful sound.

[expertguidegoblin]

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[the-necroprancer]

She was in the closet again. 

She found herself there many nights, closing her eyes and waking up in the cold, dark closet, alone with her face pressed against the rotting wallpaper skin of Duskmourn. Sometimes she was alone, sometimes she wasn't. Tonight, Telete was there. The phantom of her mother's smiling, serene face leered at her, knife still through her throat and blood still on her mouth.

Octavia hated how happy she looked. 

Like she didn't have a care in the world. 

Like she had truly gotten everything she wanted. 

Like it didn't matter that some part of Octavia was happy she was dead. 

Like Octavia wouldn't wake up from this dream and wash her hands raw for the hundredth time, hoping to stop feeling the hilt of the knife and the warmth of the blood.

"You were so eager to take a life! You broke the tip of my knife off in my altar. I'm so proud of you, Octavia." Telete's mouth moved out of sync, fuzzy as her brain tried to string together enough memories to even guess what Telete would look like saying those words. But she still looked as happy as she had when she had died. The smile she wore when she was playing nice and being subtle in her cruelty. 

"You wedged the tip into the stone. You know, when you stabbed me." The wallpaper against her face felt wet.

 "No one actually believes it was an accident. They all know how much you claimed to hate me." It was blood again. She could feel it running down the wall, mixing with the coating of oil on the floor.

"And now you've proved it to them! And you've proved to me how much you love me. You brought me home, to Nyx, to find our god." It was already beginning to slowly fill the doorless room. She didn't bother trying to stand. She remained seated as it began to rise past her hips.

"He's not gone. And neither am I."

Octavia knew that was truth. Telete would never be gone. Was it grief, that kept her here? Or anger? Was it a bitterness that her own cruelty hadn't been enough to hurt her mother in her last moments? 

Bitterness that Telete had died happy, after failing to kill two of her children and being sacrificed on her own altar?

Was it the look on Nona's face from the shadowed edge of the clearing as she was pulled away by Vasro? The horror and haunting grief and regret on her younger sister's face, which she had hoped mirrored her own? (It didn't. She knew it didn't. She hadn't felt much of anything for a while afterwards, and her face reflected it.)

As the blood reached her neck, she wondered idly who would be there to not pull her out this time. Rain, looking down in disgust as she drowned in a crimson tide? Biilzie, grinning, watching her flounder in the disaster she had created?

... It was Chortos again. The heart broken and haunted look on his face as he watched her drown again in their mother's blood. He turned away before she slipped under every time, lead away by someone she couldn't see. It always hurt the most when she woke up choking after that.

She scrubbed her hands raw with cold water in the bathroom. They stung, at first, before they went numb from the temperature. She didn't bother looking in the mirror as she pulled out her concealer, an ancient bottle she still used from Lake at Strixhaven. It would cover up the bags under her eyes. 

It was only noticeable when you got close. No one would notice.

Dividers by @jasper-graphics

[champion-of-mogis]

Teachings of Timoros

It was mid-morning, the Therosian sun beating down from on high when Dhazdoro had Mavren meet them in a sacred arena, part shrine to Mogis, part fighting ring for warriors to prove themselves. Dhazdoro carried their ax and shield, and had asked Mavren to bring his weapon of choice. Just in case, the champion also had an armory’s rack of weapons set up in the shady part of the arena.

“You are here to learn from me because the Gods of Theros all oppose Aclazotz. They all do so for different reasons. Pharika sees his vision of ‘ever-flowing blood’ as incompatible with her view of healing and injury, Kruphix wants the roads to be safe, Phenax sees him as a failure of a trickster who cheated death, Athreos is charged with controlling the boundary between life and death, Ephara wants to build a peaceful civilization, Karametra seeks to protect people, and Mogis will not suffer any challengers to his throne of blood and slaughter. Those are the reasons they have picked select followers of theirs to help you fight him. I am here to instruct you in the ways of vengeance and war. To start, I need to know why you oppose Aclazotz, and what you seek vengeance against him for.” Dhazdoro proclaimed. “I will also need to see how you fight, but I would like to hear from you first.”

(@dusk-legion-diplomacy )

[thewizardsludge]

Shout out to Theros, the plane of existence that has so much Midichlorian energy in the sky that if people believe in a lived experience enough, it becomes a person. A big person. A person that can give you superpowers.

The great, immutable truths of Theros are aligned with magical reflections of the belief. The sea, the sun, and death have all been around for forever, and they seem to have ever-changing opinions on our lives and livelihoods. What if we... offered them a song? What if we sang to the sun? And what if the sun liked the song enough, it wouldn't give us heat stroke so much?

...what do you mean that worked?

Okay, cool cool cool. The sun is a guy. A huge guy. That is choosing not to give us heat stroke because he likes our songs. Great. Should we make songs for the other stuff we deal with all the time, maybe?

We hunt, and we really need to be good at hunting. Let's sing a song... to the idea of hunting well! Holy shit! That worked! Let's make a song about making better tools to hunt better! Holy shit!! That worked!!

As society crept further and further into stability, more human-centric worship started popping off.

"Hey, babe? I love that we made a big city where all of our people could live together in peace, and I think we've got a really good thing going, but I feel like we're missing something."

"I totally agree, Tiro, I want this place to last. Let's offer some of our best boar to the God of Making Our City Last!"

"What are you talki- oh! Right! Thank you, God of Making Our City Last! Here's our best boars! Love you!"

A booming voice that shakes the grounds of Meletis responds,

"NO BIGGIE"

[razzle-the-dazzler]

[A series of photos. Razzle, Ihrin, Kyros, Biilziebub, Dominic, Saztagoro, Ghostmark, Gary, and Khaeightlynne are all represented, as well as several locations around Towashi. The cat cafe, the orphanage (shot so as not to show anyone aside from the Strixhaven students), a couple street food places, and several pieces of cityscape are all represented.]

I had meant to post these earlier. I greatly enjoyed our trip to Kamigawa.