server/pod/books.pod

=begin comment

This is the source for some of the books in crossfire, at least, it should become one.

Authors:
Gorlin <gorlin@freibier.htu.tuwien.ac.at>
Mark Wedel <mwedel@scruznet.com>
Marc Lehmann <crossfire@schmorp.de>

Each =head1 should become its own book.
   
=end comment


=head1 Ancient History, by Khalis, Volume I

In the beginning the land was barren. No life yet moved upon the large
continents and islands that lay empty between the seas. In the seas,
nothing moved as well. The world itself held its breath while the Creator
rested. Then, a spirit from outside, serving the Most High, entered the
world, and she saw a place yet empty of life. So she began to create grass
to cover the face of the earth, and trees and other plants. Other spirits
from outside watched, and agreed that Gaea had wrought wonders upon the
devoid place. Since she was by far stronger than the others, those lesser
spirits asked her for leave to join in her work. Gaea accepted their
offer, and so the spirits of the Elements of Fire, Air, Water and Earth
began their work as Gaea's servants. It can be assumed, that outside the
world, the Creator watched and approved.

In time, the elemental spirits came before Gaea, and beseeched her to
help them create beings able to move of their own free will, living among
the plant world. And Gaea saw that without animals, the green world would
still miss a vital element, so she in turn went before the Creator. What
happened between them noone knows, but soon afterwards living beings began
to populate the land. Fish swam in the seas and rivers, birds flew their
first flights through the air, and other species moved on the land. The
cycle of Nature seemed complete, and Gaea was content.

Already, however, other spirits had noticed what Gaea had done. Dark were
they, and they treasured still the image of the empty world. To them, a
place devoid of life seemed far better, far more perfect, and so they
entered the world to return the world to its past. Sicknesses and
poison began to spread among the animals, that threatened to extinguish
entire species - yeah, indeed several of them might have died during that
time, of which we have next to no information. Bones in the ground seem to
indict that there were large animals which do not exist anymore, and
sadly, we may not meet them evermore. In anger, Gaea named these dark
spirits the Devourers, since they were those who devoured all life, and
she and her Elemental allies fought them back, and tried to heal what they
could.

=head1 Ancient History, by Khalis, Volume II

In that time it also happened, that a great many of the creatures the
Fire Elementals had helped to make were betoken of great madness, and
started to rampage among the other beings. In time Gaea and her allies
found out the truth, that one of the greatest Elementals of Fire, Ruggili,
had turned against them, perhaps on order of the Devourers. Yet, Ruggili
now served neither Devourers nor Gaea, instead he sought to increase his
own power, and spread madness and chaos upon the world, and he became
mightier than any other Elemental in existence.

The other Elemental beings came to Gaea, and spoke, "With both renegade
Ruggili and the Dark Ones to fight, we need others to assist us. Some of
the beings we created are already strong enough to do their part, such as
the unicorn or the sphinx. The strongest of them, however, the dragons,
have switched their support to Ruggili. We need allies, or this world will
become either a place of eternal fire or one of darkness." Gaea was
clearly troubled by this, and again left the world to commune with the
Creator. Shortly afterwards, new, more intelligent races emerged on the
world, among them the dwarves, elves, trolls, goblins, humans, halflings,
lizardman, any many others, and they joined the fight on the side of Gaea
and the Elementals.

During this time, which we now call the Second Age, cultures grew and
were destroyed, races rose to prominence and disappeared again, mighty
magics were found and forgotten. Ruggili#s followers were beaten back at
great cost, and the forces of Gaea could again concentrate on the fight
against the Devourers. The fight went on for a long time, but it seemed
that the Nature Goddess was able to reform the world into a place of Life.
The mortal races assisting her had become weary of the fight, however, and
spoke to her thus: "The fight has clearly been won, the death spirits and
the Fire God are in retreat. We wish to fight no more, but to settle down
in peace. Though we still respect you and always will, we can give you our
support no longer." Gaea accepted in silence, even though she knew that
this meant that the war would not have a definite ending. Neither the
Devourers nor Ruggili would be defeated be her alone.

The Devourers and Ruggili watched the retreat of the mortals, the
Devourers planning to attack and destroy them now that Gaea was not near,
and then to use their own dead spirits against the Nature Goddess. Ruggili
instead bided his time, sending down dragons to burn mortal cities and
Devourer strongholds both. The Elementals serving Gaea assisted the
mortals still, and gave some protection to them so that the Devourers
would not destroy them. During this, Third, Age, the mortals segregated
according to their nature. The dwarves moved into the mountains, and with
the help of Earth Elementals began their first kingdoms underneath the
face of the earth. The elves moved into large woods, the lizardmen into
swamps. Wars broke out between some of the races, none however anywhere in
that measure as the Great War of the Second Age.

=head1 Ancient History, by Khalis, Volume III

In the Third Age it also happened, that spirits from the outside, who had
been content to watch until that time, took pity on some of those races.
The goblins, orcs, trolls and giants began to serve a being called Gnarg,
who had promised to raise and protect them. He helped them build up
protection against the many poisons which still plagued the lands, and in
time they began to use poison as a weapon against their enemies. Their
most hated enemies were the dwarves and the elves, who each had been
stronger than them before the coming of Gnarg. Now, stronger than ever
before, they attacked them and sought to utterly destroy them. First they
moved against the elves. They burned down forests and elven cities, until
the being Lythander came to guide the elves and to oppose Gnarg. He sent
confusion to the goblin races, and cursed them to utter stupidity. this
curse is still active even now, there are fewer orcs or goblins who
possess high intuition, intellect or magical affinity then in any other
of the mortal races. During the time the curse was first spoken it was
much worse. The orcs fell down muttering insanely, the giants and trolls
clubbed each other senseless, and the goblins jumped down high cliffs to
escaped the voices in their head. The goblin attack faltered, and all the
goblin races and giantkind returned - after a few accidents and wrong
turns - to their homes. They also immediately stopped their plans to
attack the dwarves. 

The dwarves, however, had other problems. The dragons also claimed the
mountains, and the followers of Ruggili sought out the dwarven cities and
the treasures they offered. The pitiful cries of the dwarves, and the many
deaths among dwarvenkind, roused the spirit being Mostrai, who entered the
world and came to the dwarves. He showed them how to create magical
weapons which might wound even the greatest of dragons, and he also helped
them to withstand the dragons' fire. As was Gnarg to the orcs and goblins,
and as was Lythander to the elves, Mostrai became god to the dwarves,
protected them as they worshipped him for it.

The most numerous of the mortal races had no god of their own, and they
despaired, seeing that others had gods of great power to call upon for
assistance. In their fear of being destroyed, in their anger for being
left out, and their hatred for those who left them alone, they cried out
for help. And in the darkness, someone heard them. Far away, in another
dimension most probably, dwelt beings of great power. Endless torment was
their desire, hatred, fear and anger the ways to their dark hearts, and
fire their most potent weapon. When the humans had cried long enough, the
doorway was opened, and the demon host went through. The demon lord Gorokh
led those who entered the world, and he offered the humans many riches and
great power in exchange for their worship and for sacrifice. many humans
fell, and began to serve the powers of darkness. Others sought redemption,
and a pure spirit called Valriel came to their aid. Others again returned
to the worship of Gaea, hoping that the forces of Life would protect them,
a few humans even went to the goblin, elven and dwarven gods for help.

=head1 Ancient History, by Khalis, Volume IV

As the human worship began to spread out among all the gods and beings of
power who had entered the world, a small group of them who wished not for
the blessings of Nature but the power of the elements as weapons spake to
one of the Elemental Lords following Gaea. And as Ruggili long ago, Sorig
left Gaea's path and accepted the mortal's worship, teaching them the way
of lightning and thunder in return. Other small sects began to emerge, and
then the one things noone had foreseen happened. Some humans began to
worship the powers of Death, who until then never had living followers.
Those poor deranged people believed that in death they would be truly
free, and the Devourers gladly accepted their help. When those humans
died, the most mighty of the Undead were finally created - those who
joined the Devourers of their own free will: the vampires, the spectres
and the liche.

And so the world lies before us today, turmoil and chaos has spread among
the many gods who have entered the world. The fights are numerous, but at
least we can be called lucky that no single faction has power as great as
during the Second Age - for another Great War would probably destroy the
world itself. In the First Age only the spirit being existed, in the
Second Age we mortals served the forces of Life to survive, in the Third
Age we left them and began to worship other Gods. This then is the Fourth
Age, in which we hope the ceaseless fighting and wars will finally end,
and we will be allowed to live in peace. But whose peace will it be, which
gods, which peples will lead and which will follow?

Khalis,
Grand Hierophant,
Servant of Gaea


=head1 History for the Impatient

Written by Maris the Scholar, a student of Khalis whom he opposed much
later in his life.

Gaea created the world. However, for things to thrive, rain is needed
so Sorig came along, and provided the rain and lightning. The lightning
created fire, and so Ruggili was born.

Gaea is the source of all nature and life, without any great need for
followers, as the natural world itself gives her power. She gave life to a
number of sons, all gods of their own.

Her son Mostrai saw a flat and uninteresting world and created massive
mountains and deep dungeons.

Her other son Lythander was bored and created some animals.

Gnarg saw that and created the goblins on the world for some reason we no
longer know.

Lythander, disgusted what the goblins where doing to the beautiful
forests, created the elves and halflings to help protect the forests from
uncontrolled goblin destruction.

Mostrai, seeing what was happening to the forests, decided to take
pre-emptive measures and created the dwarves to live deep within the
mountains he created.

Then Gaea created the humans, to protect and provide balance in the plains
and along the coasts.

With the constant battles for balance, many of these new life forms died.
The gods that created them did originally see the souls that these new
life forms had, but the gods Gorokh and Valriel did. They took the worst
(and best) of these departing souls in order to create creatures for their
own desires.

The souls that neither claimed became the domain of the devourers. What
the god of devourers lacked in the strength of individual souls, he gained
in the sheer number of souls he controlled, and with these he created
wights and vampires to give him even more souls. Some of the powerful
humanoids worshipped him in hopes of eternal life. For some of these,
they gained this eternal life in the form and lichs and demilichs.

The Red Dragons were created by Rugilli because he wanted some worshippers
of his own. It is believed that the other dragons eventually resulted from
those by the constant in-breeding experiments Ruggili made.

Nobody knows where the nearly god-like titans came from. Some scholars
claim they could be descendants of some of the forgotten gods so little i
known about nowadays.

Revision:	1.1
Committed:	Mon Jan 1 14:50:15 2007 UTC (17 years, 4 months ago) by root
Branch:	MAIN
Log Message:	added some possible sources of interesting books
#	User	Rev	Content
1	root	1.1	=begin comment
2
3			This is the source for some of the books in crossfire, at least, it should become one.
4
5			Authors:
6			Gorlin <gorlin@freibier.htu.tuwien.ac.at>
7			Mark Wedel <mwedel@scruznet.com>
8			Marc Lehmann <crossfire@schmorp.de>
9
10			Each =head1 should become its own book.
11
12			=end comment
13
14
15			=head1 Ancient History, by Khalis, Volume I
16
17			In the beginning the land was barren. No life yet moved upon the large
18			continents and islands that lay empty between the seas. In the seas,
19			nothing moved as well. The world itself held its breath while the Creator
20			rested. Then, a spirit from outside, serving the Most High, entered the
21			world, and she saw a place yet empty of life. So she began to create grass
22			to cover the face of the earth, and trees and other plants. Other spirits
23			from outside watched, and agreed that Gaea had wrought wonders upon the
24			devoid place. Since she was by far stronger than the others, those lesser
25			spirits asked her for leave to join in her work. Gaea accepted their
26			offer, and so the spirits of the Elements of Fire, Air, Water and Earth
27			began their work as Gaea's servants. It can be assumed, that outside the
28			world, the Creator watched and approved.
29
30			In time, the elemental spirits came before Gaea, and beseeched her to
31			help them create beings able to move of their own free will, living among
32			the plant world. And Gaea saw that without animals, the green world would
33			still miss a vital element, so she in turn went before the Creator. What
34			happened between them noone knows, but soon afterwards living beings began
35			to populate the land. Fish swam in the seas and rivers, birds flew their
36			first flights through the air, and other species moved on the land. The
37			cycle of Nature seemed complete, and Gaea was content.
38
39			Already, however, other spirits had noticed what Gaea had done. Dark were
40			they, and they treasured still the image of the empty world. To them, a
41			place devoid of life seemed far better, far more perfect, and so they
42			entered the world to return the world to its past. Sicknesses and
43			poison began to spread among the animals, that threatened to extinguish
44			entire species - yeah, indeed several of them might have died during that
45			time, of which we have next to no information. Bones in the ground seem to
46			indict that there were large animals which do not exist anymore, and
47			sadly, we may not meet them evermore. In anger, Gaea named these dark
48			spirits the Devourers, since they were those who devoured all life, and
49			she and her Elemental allies fought them back, and tried to heal what they
50			could.
51
52			=head1 Ancient History, by Khalis, Volume II
53
54			In that time it also happened, that a great many of the creatures the
55			Fire Elementals had helped to make were betoken of great madness, and
56			started to rampage among the other beings. In time Gaea and her allies
57			found out the truth, that one of the greatest Elementals of Fire, Ruggili,
58			had turned against them, perhaps on order of the Devourers. Yet, Ruggili
59			now served neither Devourers nor Gaea, instead he sought to increase his
60			own power, and spread madness and chaos upon the world, and he became
61			mightier than any other Elemental in existence.
62
63			The other Elemental beings came to Gaea, and spoke, "With both renegade
64			Ruggili and the Dark Ones to fight, we need others to assist us. Some of
65			the beings we created are already strong enough to do their part, such as
66			the unicorn or the sphinx. The strongest of them, however, the dragons,
67			have switched their support to Ruggili. We need allies, or this world will
68			become either a place of eternal fire or one of darkness." Gaea was
69			clearly troubled by this, and again left the world to commune with the
70			Creator. Shortly afterwards, new, more intelligent races emerged on the
71			world, among them the dwarves, elves, trolls, goblins, humans, halflings,
72			lizardman, any many others, and they joined the fight on the side of Gaea
73			and the Elementals.
74
75			During this time, which we now call the Second Age, cultures grew and
76			were destroyed, races rose to prominence and disappeared again, mighty
77			magics were found and forgotten. Ruggili#s followers were beaten back at
78			great cost, and the forces of Gaea could again concentrate on the fight
79			against the Devourers. The fight went on for a long time, but it seemed
80			that the Nature Goddess was able to reform the world into a place of Life.
81			The mortal races assisting her had become weary of the fight, however, and
82			spoke to her thus: "The fight has clearly been won, the death spirits and
83			the Fire God are in retreat. We wish to fight no more, but to settle down
84			in peace. Though we still respect you and always will, we can give you our
85			support no longer." Gaea accepted in silence, even though she knew that
86			this meant that the war would not have a definite ending. Neither the
87			Devourers nor Ruggili would be defeated be her alone.
88
89			The Devourers and Ruggili watched the retreat of the mortals, the
90			Devourers planning to attack and destroy them now that Gaea was not near,
91			and then to use their own dead spirits against the Nature Goddess. Ruggili
92			instead bided his time, sending down dragons to burn mortal cities and
93			Devourer strongholds both. The Elementals serving Gaea assisted the
94			mortals still, and gave some protection to them so that the Devourers
95			would not destroy them. During this, Third, Age, the mortals segregated
96			according to their nature. The dwarves moved into the mountains, and with
97			the help of Earth Elementals began their first kingdoms underneath the
98			face of the earth. The elves moved into large woods, the lizardmen into
99			swamps. Wars broke out between some of the races, none however anywhere in
100			that measure as the Great War of the Second Age.
101
102			=head1 Ancient History, by Khalis, Volume III
103
104			In the Third Age it also happened, that spirits from the outside, who had
105			been content to watch until that time, took pity on some of those races.
106			The goblins, orcs, trolls and giants began to serve a being called Gnarg,
107			who had promised to raise and protect them. He helped them build up
108			protection against the many poisons which still plagued the lands, and in
109			time they began to use poison as a weapon against their enemies. Their
110			most hated enemies were the dwarves and the elves, who each had been
111			stronger than them before the coming of Gnarg. Now, stronger than ever
112			before, they attacked them and sought to utterly destroy them. First they
113			moved against the elves. They burned down forests and elven cities, until
114			the being Lythander came to guide the elves and to oppose Gnarg. He sent
115			confusion to the goblin races, and cursed them to utter stupidity. this
116			curse is still active even now, there are fewer orcs or goblins who
117			possess high intuition, intellect or magical affinity then in any other
118			of the mortal races. During the time the curse was first spoken it was
119			much worse. The orcs fell down muttering insanely, the giants and trolls
120			clubbed each other senseless, and the goblins jumped down high cliffs to
121			escaped the voices in their head. The goblin attack faltered, and all the
122			goblin races and giantkind returned - after a few accidents and wrong
123			turns - to their homes. They also immediately stopped their plans to
124			attack the dwarves.
125
126			The dwarves, however, had other problems. The dragons also claimed the
127			mountains, and the followers of Ruggili sought out the dwarven cities and
128			the treasures they offered. The pitiful cries of the dwarves, and the many
129			deaths among dwarvenkind, roused the spirit being Mostrai, who entered the
130			world and came to the dwarves. He showed them how to create magical
131			weapons which might wound even the greatest of dragons, and he also helped
132			them to withstand the dragons' fire. As was Gnarg to the orcs and goblins,
133			and as was Lythander to the elves, Mostrai became god to the dwarves,
134			protected them as they worshipped him for it.
135
136			The most numerous of the mortal races had no god of their own, and they
137			despaired, seeing that others had gods of great power to call upon for
138			assistance. In their fear of being destroyed, in their anger for being
139			left out, and their hatred for those who left them alone, they cried out
140			for help. And in the darkness, someone heard them. Far away, in another
141			dimension most probably, dwelt beings of great power. Endless torment was
142			their desire, hatred, fear and anger the ways to their dark hearts, and
143			fire their most potent weapon. When the humans had cried long enough, the
144			doorway was opened, and the demon host went through. The demon lord Gorokh
145			led those who entered the world, and he offered the humans many riches and
146			great power in exchange for their worship and for sacrifice. many humans
147			fell, and began to serve the powers of darkness. Others sought redemption,
148			and a pure spirit called Valriel came to their aid. Others again returned
149			to the worship of Gaea, hoping that the forces of Life would protect them,
150			a few humans even went to the goblin, elven and dwarven gods for help.
151
152			=head1 Ancient History, by Khalis, Volume IV
153
154			As the human worship began to spread out among all the gods and beings of
155			power who had entered the world, a small group of them who wished not for
156			the blessings of Nature but the power of the elements as weapons spake to
157			one of the Elemental Lords following Gaea. And as Ruggili long ago, Sorig
158			left Gaea's path and accepted the mortal's worship, teaching them the way
159			of lightning and thunder in return. Other small sects began to emerge, and
160			then the one things noone had foreseen happened. Some humans began to
161			worship the powers of Death, who until then never had living followers.
162			Those poor deranged people believed that in death they would be truly
163			free, and the Devourers gladly accepted their help. When those humans
164			died, the most mighty of the Undead were finally created - those who
165			joined the Devourers of their own free will: the vampires, the spectres
166			and the liche.
167
168			And so the world lies before us today, turmoil and chaos has spread among
169			the many gods who have entered the world. The fights are numerous, but at
170			least we can be called lucky that no single faction has power as great as
171			during the Second Age - for another Great War would probably destroy the
172			world itself. In the First Age only the spirit being existed, in the
173			Second Age we mortals served the forces of Life to survive, in the Third
174			Age we left them and began to worship other Gods. This then is the Fourth
175			Age, in which we hope the ceaseless fighting and wars will finally end,
176			and we will be allowed to live in peace. But whose peace will it be, which
177			gods, which peples will lead and which will follow?
178
179			Khalis,
180			Grand Hierophant,
181			Servant of Gaea
182
183
184			=head1 History for the Impatient
185
186			Written by Maris the Scholar, a student of Khalis whom he opposed much
187			later in his life.
188
189			Gaea created the world. However, for things to thrive, rain is needed
190			so Sorig came along, and provided the rain and lightning. The lightning
191			created fire, and so Ruggili was born.
192
193			Gaea is the source of all nature and life, without any great need for
194			followers, as the natural world itself gives her power. She gave life to a
195			number of sons, all gods of their own.
196
197			Her son Mostrai saw a flat and uninteresting world and created massive
198			mountains and deep dungeons.
199
200			Her other son Lythander was bored and created some animals.
201
202			Gnarg saw that and created the goblins on the world for some reason we no
203			longer know.
204
205			Lythander, disgusted what the goblins where doing to the beautiful
206			forests, created the elves and halflings to help protect the forests from
207			uncontrolled goblin destruction.
208
209			Mostrai, seeing what was happening to the forests, decided to take
210			pre-emptive measures and created the dwarves to live deep within the
211			mountains he created.
212
213			Then Gaea created the humans, to protect and provide balance in the plains
214			and along the coasts.
215
216			With the constant battles for balance, many of these new life forms died.
217			The gods that created them did originally see the souls that these new
218			life forms had, but the gods Gorokh and Valriel did. They took the worst
219			(and best) of these departing souls in order to create creatures for their
220			own desires.
221
222			The souls that neither claimed became the domain of the devourers. What
223			the god of devourers lacked in the strength of individual souls, he gained
224			in the sheer number of souls he controlled, and with these he created
225			wights and vampires to give him even more souls. Some of the powerful
226			humanoids worshipped him in hopes of eternal life. For some of these,
227			they gained this eternal life in the form and lichs and demilichs.
228
229			The Red Dragons were created by Rugilli because he wanted some worshippers
230			of his own. It is believed that the other dragons eventually resulted from
231			those by the constant in-breeding experiments Ruggili made.
232
233			Nobody knows where the nearly god-like titans came from. Some scholars
234			claim they could be descendants of some of the forgotten gods so little i
235			known about nowadays.
236