Skip to main content

The Broo's Lament

A broo crawled from its Chaos-pit and called out to the distant Black Sun:

When I was born, I tore my way from my mother's belly. When I was a child, I murdered my father. I have never known the comfort of home.

When I fought for Akorgat, I fell from a very high place. When I fought for Tien, I lost my head. I have never known the comfort of victory.

O, Black Sun! They call you the joy and comfort of all the beings between sky and hell! Gbaji has not yet come to free us, and I cannot endure to wait! What comfort is there for a creature like me?

The Black Sun heard this, and struck open the ground. The waters beneath the earth poured in like blood, and black flowers bloomed like scabs.

"Eat the black lotus, and you shall receive your desire. Eat the black lotus, but only eat two."

I don't know why the broo ate three. Perhaps it was to prove he could? Regardless, he fell into a deep sleep, and slept so long Gbaji came and left while he was asleep! Somewhere, next to a pool where the water seeps in like blood, where the flowers of the black lotus bloom like a scab, he sleeps, and will wake up finally when Gbaji returns for the second, and final time.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Survey of What We Have to Work With: Chen Durel edition (Part 1)

Right now I’m only going to dig into the Guide. There’s more stuff, both back from antiquity and from other fanworks, but the Guide is now the place to start. First and foremost: the name has flopped between Chern Durel and Chen Durel for a while, but the Guide uses Chen, so that’s official. Chen Durel is treated as a province of Kralorela, and given 6 pages of its own. A third of the Notable People of Kralorela are Chen Dureli, and all of them are members of Can Shu’s clique. The gods of Chen Durel occasionally get mentioned elsewhere - the Gang of Four are part of Kralorela’s history, the Black Sun is described when talking about troll gods, and they all get play in the Hero Wars section. As a consequence of its placement, we should expect the writing to have a quietly pro-Kralori bias. The history of Kralorela is well rehearsed. Prior to any human life, there are ancient pyramids covered in hieroglyphs. There is in the Godtime the worship of a Sun God, who appe...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Cult of the Hours

 The most widespread cult of Chern Durel is the worship of the Hours. Despite being so widespread, it is the least spectacular and so easily overlooked. Further, it is not unified and prone to local variations that disguise underlying similarities to the disinterested observer. A category of priest routinely seen in villages and cities does not worship any particular god, but a great wheel of gods who each occupy different successive moments in Time. They serve as intermediaries between people and the Lords of the 168 Directions, as the gods of the Hours are sometime called. If they have rune magic of note, I have not seen it, but they are preternaturally aware of the time - both in terms of celestial and all meteorological phenomena, and of human reckonings. Primarily, they make offerings and prayers to win the favor of the Directional Lords. Typically, they provide the many minor charms and blessings people need to survive the oddities of life. A true master knows exactly the m...
Post a Comment
Read more