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Falerin -> =Dev, Story= There's a cold wind blowing... (12/20/2012 13:18:52)
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The Dreaded El Niño is a weather phenomenon known for bringing North America harsh weather. 2012-2013 is technically an El Niño year but the odd nature of the winds this year has caused forecasters to debate how the El Niño will affect weather this year. With scientists calling the pattern being observed unprecedented. So what has this to do with Lore? Well as it happens Lore has similar weather phenomena known as the Helifino Winds. Undoubtedly, you have noticed that the town of Battleon is well covered in snow already this year, causing pipes to freeze and Yulgar to replace the fountain with a tree among other things. But the Helifino winds (which blow about once a decade) are harbingers of other things too and in this particular year they mark the return of an old enemy of Lore who was last seen just before the player began their saving of Lore in 2002 CE Terran Time.
In an abandoned Silari Neld somewhere near Battleon, a race of beings known as the Hadeni make their home. The Hadeni, originally came from another planet in the Lorian system, but their people were imprisoned by their sister planet of Purgos and ruled over with an iron fist by the network Autarch Dark Madder. Madder ruled over them with an iron grasp. Long before the fall of their homeworld, however, a group of Hadeni colonists arrived on lore. Finding the place overrun with classical undead and receiving a less then hospitable welcome they selected the underground city of the Silari as their hiding place.
Termed Living Undead, by those not familiar with their origins, the Hadeni are not undead in the classical sense at all but they do have much in common with them.
Life, you see, exists on a spectrum. Most life in the universe carries a positive spirit energy signature.
Undead on the other hand carry a negative spirit energy signature and mimic necrotic life weakly.
This is why normal healing magic for example kills rather than heals undead.
Like the undead, the Hadeni are animated by a negative energy signature, but unlike classical undead they naturally were born that way.
As a result of these commonalities some Hadeni, including their queen Carmilla who ruled in exile, superficially appear to the lay person like undead with some having skeletal and decayed features. Many other Hadeni on the other hand appear to be normal human beings, but positive healing magic will kill them just as surely as it will kill an undead.
Among the Hadeni they refer to themselves as Necrotic Life to contrast the Biotic Life that exists elsewhere.
Though some argue that the negative life force that flows through Hadeni makes them like Undead, they are, in most functional aspects, more similar to biotic life then they are to the necromancers’ weak emulation of their own state.
Some have theorized that it is even possible there are Positive Undead as well, Hadeni that weakly mimic biotic life in the same way that normal undead weakly mimic Necrotic Life. Though, the vast number of biotic beings in the universe, in contrast to necrotic ones, means that there has been little profit in such exploration.
Because of their tenuous relationship to necrotic forces, the Hadeni take a particularly dim view of necromancers. Especially as the ability of a necromancer to control and compel undead has been used against the Hadeni to circumvent their free will. While Hadeni healers do exist that can heal negatively animated beings including undead, they shun necromancy entirely. Viewing it in much the same way as biotic life might view Golem makers (Though with perhaps an even stronger negative given the Hadeni's minority state in the universe of Lore.)
What bearing have the Hadeni on Frostval you may ask.
Well among the Hadeni was once a man known as Frigidere. Frigidere lived (in that he lived at all) a long time ago and he watched the tendency of the world with cold cunning and disdain. A man skilled in a rare form of necromantic cryomancy, cold based necromancy, Frigidere turned from his people’s prohibition on necromancy and began a plan of conquest.
Frigidere feared the danger positive healing held for him and the war like nature of the Lorians, and seeking to protect himself Frigidere used his necromancy to turn himself into a Lich (a powerful form of undead that uses phylacteries to store parts of its soul and prevent its death even in the face of most grievous harm).
Since Frigidere was tuned very naturally to the ice and cold, he was empowered by the Helifino Winds. He was so empowered that all forms of magic that he utilized, even the diametrically opposed fire magic known as pyromancy, would strengthen with the cold. It was strengthened not directly but through the fact that the cold strengthened Frigidere.
Now Frigidere came to lore to conquer but he was defeated. He has repeated this cycle repeatedly. His most recent journey here occurring just before the story of the Chosen came to prominence. Now he has come again... and his plan is nefarious in the extreme. Collect villains of the past and empowering them as zombies turn them to a fixed purpose. His cause, however, is uncertain for he has seen this same task fail before (the Sinister 7, the Terrible 12) and he seems very unconcerned with success or failure.
One can only conjecture his purpose, though feeling out the Chosen and assessing them may in fact have much to do with it.
Frigidere must be stopped. His goals must be thwarted. His undead must be restored by other necromancers to biotic life and the original plan for lore must be restored.
But doing so will be easier said than done for it is far from clear who serves as his Nexus.
The leaders of his armies are:
The Frost King & Jack Frost.
Froidrog & Sandy Claws
Khandie Khain & Nightmare Queen
Kabak & Tydlee Wynx
And improbably, Chillax, although how Chillax has come to exist separate from the moglin Chilly from which he was created is open to speculation.
Ahead of all of these Frigidere has a Nexus, one who serves as one of his many phylacteries. Whom this nexus is remains unknown…
Though it is clearly someone associated strongly with Lore and with necromancy.
Will you make Frigidere cool his heels? Or will Frigidere put you in the Cooler?
No matter what… I plan on giving the Lich the cold shoulder.
Good Luck, Chosen.
Lore is counting on you.
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