Black Sun General 3: It's not Dark Sun or Black Sun Rising

Google Doc (leads to archive links and collection of lore: docs.google.com/document/d/14WlvAzOgGdCzG_XytF87LvpruNQx_lUGei--Iun10zg/edit?usp=sharing

Primer: Black Sun Rising is a Veeky Forums created setting that takes dark fantasy and horror and ramps it up to eleven. Eight Dark Lords rule over a broken, mutated Earth under the corrupting rays of the maybe-sentient Black Sun. It is a world of mysteries, conflict, but rarely resolution.

The setting is kept intentionally vague to encourage players, GMs, and wargamers to develop it on their own in the direction they desire. The base setting is a springboard into a world of dark adventure.

Contribute lore suggestions, stories, suggested uses for the setting, and anything else under the Black Sun.

I haven't been involved since the second thread. What major additions have been made in the weekend discussions? I'd check the Google doc, but my phone doesn't like it for some reason.

A brief recap of history

>Once upon a time, there were eight Bright Nobles who joined forces to fight against the Abstracts, the gods of the world.
>In their efforts to win the War Against The Abstracts, and claim the world for humanity (or perhaps just themselves), they summoned The Black Sun, a malevolent force that quickly replaced the actual sun, and bathed the world in corruptive rays, turning it into a nightmarish hellscape.
>The Nobles were transformed into the Eight Dark Lords, and as the deadly forces of Black Sun made quick work of the Abstracts, the Dark Lords set out to conquer and divide the world.
>The Dark Lords were soon given monickers to better associate them with what forces they specialized in or studied.
>The Lord of Plants
>The Lord of Vermin
>The Lord of Fire
>The Lord of Mountains
>The Lord of Hounds
>The Lord of Cities
>The Lord of Black Waters
>The Lord of Stars
>Hundreds of years have passed, and now these Lords rule over the lands with iron fists, as the Black Sun's rays mutate and corrupt those who do not either submit to a Lord's rule and become branded, or stay hidden in places where the Black Sun cannot reach them.
>But not all hope is lost, as the powers of the Abstracts still exist in one form or another to stand against the Dark Lords
>Rebellions and resistants groups work in the shadows tirelessly to regain their freedoms.
>Powerful, mysterious forces are rumored to be battling against the Black Sun as well.
>A machine deep in the earth meant to create a new, pure sun.
>The moon somehow unable to be consumed while other celestial bodies are destroyed.
>Only time will tell if the Black Sun will consume and control all, or if mankind will prevail.

Most of the focus past the first few threads became detailing specific landmarks that can be found in the changing world, different smaller factions and subfactions that make up the rebel and lords' armadas, and, most interesting enough, stories of individuals within the setting.

In short, nothing too major, just fleshing out further details and fluffing up things.

Though the Moon has become a larger force of discussion. Just as the Dawn Machine acts as a potential threat to the Black Sun (with dubious methods and fanatical worshipers, but still), the moon not only weakens the Black Sun and its followers whenever there's an eclipse, but drives them to outright pain and madness whenever there is a rare Blood Moon, rumored to be made when an Abstract truly dies. The Moon also seems to be untouchable from the Black Sun's corruption.

I'm sure there's other things I can't remember off the top of my head, so still make sure to check out the google doc when you can and whatever threads haven't 404'd if they're still around.

Since these generals are usually quiet until some of the big players come in with stories, I'll start telling a story for this setting of my own. Partly to explore the world more and the type of people in it, and partly to just bump it up until interest grows.

>We saw three of the gray skins come down from the skies like angels, just as the informant had told us.
>They were just as they had been described; bulbous eyes and all, each one wearing some kind of scientist coat.
>They were servants of the Star Lord, coming down to earth to hide one of their star maps for who knows what reason.
>Whatever the case was, the resistance needed the information on that map, and Kant and I were the ones to get it.
>But hiding behind that bolder, feet stuck in mud and grime, I was frozen.
>My spear shaking, my goggles fogged.
>Just a few weeks prier I was nothing but a farmer in the Plant Lord's nightmarish landscape, and now I was expected to fight and kill three highly trained beings from space.
>And I had to do it quickly, as they were already starting whatever strange rituals they did to form the pocket dimensions where the map would be hidden forever.
>I turned to Kant, hoping he could do something, say anything, to inspire us both to run out and fight.
>But he was gone.
>I peaked around the rock just in time to see Kant take out his six shooter and blow a hole through the head of one of the Gray's.
>He now had 5 bullets left.
>Another shot, another dead gray.
>4 bullets.
>I was astonished at how quickly they fell, these powerful servants of a Dark Lord dropping like flies.
>The last one screamed out something, I can't remember what, and flung some strange yellow whip onto Kant.
>It burned right through his World-Flesh leathers and slid across skin.
1/?

I figured the Star Lords branded would be a bit more alien and monstrous than your typical grays. It's not a bad idea, but I think it could be pushed further.

Fair enough call. In a previous thread someone suggested that the servants of the Star Lord slowly become gray-like as time goes on. Chock these ones to being relatively new grays if you want to suggest they get even more alien as time goes on.

>He fired another shot in the air.
>3 bullets left.
>In a haze, I rushed forward, and my spear slammed into the chest of the gray.
>Time seemed to freeze in place.
>The gray's hands reached out to me. It said something I could not hear.
>The sound of my racing heartbeat seemed to drown it out.
>Kant turned his exposed skin away from the sky, trying to hide it from the Black Sun.
>The gray went limp.
>Sound started to return
>"Kid, the map, get the map and let's get out of here!"
>The map was on the ground, just next to the pin sized, half-formed portal that was fading away.
>I pulled out the spear, and with a free hand grabbed the map.
>Kant and I ran as far away from the scene of the fight as we could, in case anyone else was expected to come.
>When we believed ourselves to be safe, hiding out in a burnt out trench belonging to who knows what army from who knows when, we looked at the map.
>To our surprise, it was not a star map at all. It did not tell of the current cosmos, or new planets discovered.
>It was a map of the world. A small one at that. Just a simple outline of the countryside, and a pathway leading to...something.
>Very little writing to suggest anything about what the map was for in the first place, at least for two lowly foot soldiers like Kant and I.
>We stayed in the hole for a time so Kant could tend to his wound and I could repair some of his leathers.
>The tears in his suit were clean, and the burns on his skin were evident, but with time he would recover.
>Night no longer comes, but we waited for when most patrols and travelers would be resting, and we made our way back to the resistance.

2/?

>When we brought the map to our superiors, they went to their superiors, who went to our leader.
>And our leader, through whatever mad reasoning of his, decided that Kant and I would be the ones to follow the map.
>Just us.
>Sure, they kept the original map for themselves, and simply recreated it for us to follow, but putting such a task on us was insane to say the least.
>Kant of course disagreed with me. The chance to find one of the Star Lord's treasures was one he wouldn't give up so easily.
>And me? How could I say no? I needed the resistance. I could not risk angering them, and being cast out.
>They were all I had now, and I needed to help them.
>So when the time came, and Kant had recovered enough from his burns, we left.
>Me with my spear.
>Kant with his gun and a knife (supply told us that they could not afford sparing more bullets for him, and the knife would need to substitute).
>And we would follow the dotted line across the lands in search of whatever the Star Lord was hiding.

3/?

>The days were long, hot, and uneventful, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
>Save for hiding from the occasional patrolling bands of soldiers, or a mutated beast here and there, the land was empty, and we were safe.
>These scorched lands of the Fire Lord were hard and unrelenting to travel across, but they benefited in being sparsely populated; for those who serve the Fire Lord are often off in some grand battle somewhere far away.
>Much different from where I was raised, deep in the Plant Lord's swamps.
>I had a great deal of time to think about my home each time Kant and I rested.
>The place I tended to fruits that sprouted from the dead bodies of strangers and friends alike.
>The place where I was destined to be sacrificed as fertilizer when my village's population grew too high.
>I was chosen completely at random. If I was brave, I would have accepted death as a way of protecting my loved ones.
>But I am not brave.
>I ran away from my village through the thorns and the moss filled waters until I made it to the Black Sea.
>I hid in a leaving Slave Caravan until I snuck off on a craggy black beach.
>And I was found by the resistance.
>My saviors, and the new family that would replace the one I left behind.
>A family I had to help however I could, to make up for what I had done.

>Kant was born in these scorched lands. Born and raised as a Branded of the Fire Lord, and thrown into one of his armed legions when he was just a child.
>He looks like he's 20 years older than me, though I don't know how much that is actual age, and how much is from the strain of the life he lead.
>Constant travel, constant battle, constant bloodshed. It's no wonder he was able to kill those grays so casually while I was overwhelmed.
>I never learned the details on why he left his legion and joined the resistance, other than his joking "wanting to tougher challenge" comments, and I never asked.
>What mattered was what we were doing now, not what we did before. Though I admit the stray through of what horrible things Kant might have done in the name of his former Dark Lord did keep me up some nights.

>Regardless, we traveled until we finally made it to the end of the Star Lord's map.
>We were low and food, our bodies were tired and weak from travel, but at the end of it all we found...
>Nothing.
>The map led to another hill of crust dark earth, the same kind we had been seeing for days on end.
>"You read the map right, didn't you?" Kant asked, "You didn't get us lost, right?"
>I knew I followed it correctly, I was sure of it.
>But there seemed to be nothing at the end of this journey.
>I ordered Kant to search the ground, and the hills, for anything.
>He kept persisting that we were lost, that we needed to go back and rethink our plan, but I would not relent.
>Hours passed.
>We were both ready to give up and return to the resistance empty handed.
>Kant kicked the dirt below him, and screamed.
>He had hit into something hard.
>Something metal.
>I dusted the ground under him.
>There was a handle to a hatch.

4/6?