17 years

For 117 years they had been running across the endless plains, rivers, hills, one landmass after another. They passed hundreds of tribes, villages and cities, always inferior, always conquered. These brief skirmishes, sometimes billowing into full-scale campaigns, offered a brief respite for the People, a time to repopulate and repair aging vehicles. The process was always the same; take what the can, scorch the rest. Priceless artifacts of unknown cultures and crude art all burned in the same fire, for the People must remember their past, and not dilute itself in the waters of fallen foes.

So Like My Heaven

You catch the lilt of her voice while reading deep in the night, and strain to listen even amongst the sacred silence of the library. Knowing you are the last student left you tread softly as you follow sibilant whispers and half-heard phrases in the dark, opening the passage into the Statuary, Luna a coy smile in the night sky faintly lighting a path between lonely statues and ornamental flowers. She stands in the courtyard clouded in diaphanous robe, singing in the tongue of your parents and grandparents spoken furtively in homes and rarely  on holidays at the local statuary. They had tried to teach you back when you still lived out in the country, your father the local doctor. There had been a number of farmers who still practiced old customs as an open secret and you had been sent with other children to listen to the old crone speak of lost Sofum and her scattered people. The children stunk of manure and sweat and invariably you stopped going, complaining of the heat, the stench and the increasing senility of the crone. By then your father had gotten the offer to work in the City at the new hospital, and neither of your parents were too worried about teaching you of Sophist culture. Still, you knew enough of the old tongue to know that the woman was singing hymns.

"You know who I am."

You just nod your head, your mouth closed tight because you know exactly who she is. You've seen her all your life, in paintings and carvings and in the Statuary in the library. Standing before you is the goddess Sophia, ruler of knowledge and death in your land and the personal goddess of your people. In this age only the rural folk believed in the physical nature of the gods and goddess, that they came and walked amongst us. Most just followed them out of tradition, or civil excellence, and many didn't even follow them at all, more concerned with scientific-atheism or various semi-legal collectivist philosophies. You yourself found yourself in the former category due to a fairly moderate upbringing by vaguely liberal parents who saw worship of Sophia as a civil and cultural duty, rather than a religious one.

You grew up on tales of her, the myths of lost Sofum, on how one day you'd meet her and she would bless you and the next she'd tear your throat out and leave you for the birds, on her bloody childhood, murdering her father erupting from a headache in his skull, on killing her only true companion in a fit of adolescent rage, on her suicide and eventual resurrection giving her knowledge of the entire universe. You learned the physiology of the body from scripture written by her followers, you learned alchemy and spear-fighting and kinesthetics and surgery and metallurgy. You read from Telo Sofii, Razum Sofii, and Dusha Sofii, have passed four Civil Exams, and achieved rank Braat-Sofii in the Sophist Mysteries.

[MISSING SECTION CONNECTING THESE TWO PARTS]

Her copper talon slicks through your meat caressing the hard plane of your breastbone, peeling you with uncomfortable ease. Sibilant whispers taste the air as her hand closes around your beating heart, slicing your aorta with a deft twist. Her mouth swells in your vision, all teeth and bright red lips and cold loamy breath and her tongue darts hot and soft lapping your hearts-blood. Seconds or centuries later, your mind stuttering to process the events, your skin wraps you whole again and her touch leaves welts on your skin softly burning. Your vision refocuses as she sheds her own skin and reaches inside herself, wrenching ribcage and flesh to reveal her own dark fruit shivering in the air. You stumble on creaking rotting legs like stilts or ancient pillars, swaying madly with a fierce hunger lusting out of that secret place inside you, the cold iron stench of blood churning your stomach to fire, bile lancing your throat. She casually offers herself to you, all that she is, and you drink and drink deeply of her hearts-blood, a cloying mix of cinnamon and gravesoil thick and heady. She holds your head softly to her breastbone, crooning a song to the distant star-light,


"So like my heaven to be this cruel and small 

a cold night in a fog-lit city

desperate for warmth I walk sudden streets and avenues abounding

like bridges in the desperate shrouded air

your voice a far-off glimpse of things to come 

of  the fire and the fury 

so pure and so deep"

When her voice, beautiful as poisoned honey, fades you feel a talon casually slice your earlobe off, the pain a distant flare on the horizon. You take one last shuddering gulp before releasing her sacred flesh and fall to the ground, ornamental flowers for a pillow and the breeze a blanket. You gaze at her before you, alabaster skin gleaming with old scars, eyes tightly closed and lips curved to smile, amber tresses falling like waterfalls over her shoulders, nipples pale black and hard and in between a massive scar from clavicle to vulva like a saintly corpse or the sloppy work of a medical student. Below her knee grows black feathers flush on stick-thin thighs, the feet just three toes ending in dagger-long claws. Her arms, grown familiar in the last few minutes, are long and whip-like with hands tipped with bloodied copper talons clicking together with satisfaction. Her eyes drift open to glance at you shockingly black and full, her mouth open and too full, and more than anything else this terrifies the animal deep inside you.

Religion in Anno Sophia

Holnyr/Holnir - God of Laws and Beasts. Most often depicted as either a large white bull with bleeding eye sockets, or a minotaur also sans eyes. His symbol is the Sword of Horns, an upside-down sword with bullhorns for the crossbar. In Novyrian mythology the goddess Sophia snuck into the cave Holnyr was sleeping in, after massacring a Sophist town, and plucked out his eyes while rubbing a powder that caused the wounds to never heal.

Sophia/Sofia/Athene(Archaic) - Goddess of Knowledge, Healing and Death, uniquely is not a cthonic deity nor does she administer the dead. Usually depicted either as a young woman dressed in scholarly clothes, lips red like a warrior's and hands taloned, or as a flock of ravens. Her symbol is the Healing Spear, a bloody spear wrapped in sageroot. Not native to the Novyr Pantheon, Sophia is the only remaining deity of a people conquered a millenia ago. Her unique brand of natural wisdom and cunning violence, acceptance of outsiders, and fierce worshipers has allowed her to survive nearly unchanged inside an alien culture and stand her own in Novyrian mythology.

Gaalnyr/Gaalnir - Lord of False Creation, the Demiurge, the Necrodeity. Most often depicted as a gnarled tree or a corpulescence old woman. The 'antagonistic' figure in the Novyr Pantheon viewed as having created the world purposefully broken. Gaalnyr is the actual administrator of the dead, forced into Hell by Holnyr, Dres and _____

Dres/Drus - The Scaled One, the Coprophage, God of Fertility. Depicted as a massive crocodile or snake covered in the fruiting bodies of mushrooms, often with the path where he walked overgrown with greenery. The only deity to not have a human depiction, Dres is seen less as a Living God and more as a force that must be dealt with each year due to the widely oscillating climate of Novyreich.

Lufpleh

i want to tear my heavy skull apart with wrecking balls just smash and smash and smash until the emptiness is filled or i die i hate the empty hole my mind leaves like the waterstain from glass just mocking remnants left no filler i want to stain myself with something more than just another lonely day i want to be freed from the slavery of apathy the drudgery that stabs and stabs and stabs with tiny knives into my heart and soul every second of every day i just want it to stop

Anno Sophia

*random writing snippets based around a nascent idea forming in my meatbrain*

She lives in the pitted surface of reality where no man nor beast strays, singing softly of the lies your Father told you. You catch the lilt of her voice while reading deep in the night, and strain to listen even amongst the sacred silence of the library. Treading softly you follow sibilant whispers and half-heard phrases in the dark, opening the passage into the Inner Garden, Luna a coy smile in the night sky

The cool kiss of her copper fingers unzip his flesh and gently encircle his still-beating heart.

...the smooth marble walls sweat in the dimness and the patter of feet echo through the maze....

The foggy street lit by guttering torches echoes with the staccato of cloven hooves. They speak no words, these processional figures with heavy masks of fur and bone laying shaggy and sour on their heads. Behind them comes a white bull stained frothy pink, draped in gored victims like some hellish holiday wreath, their distended viscera painting abstract symbols on the cobblestone. You feel the eyes of your neighbors

THE REARGUARD MOVEMENT ON-GOING IDEASPACE

\\ the Rearguard Movement F.A.Q.\\

Q: What is the Rearguard Movement?

A: Good question, the RM, or Rearguard Movement, is an international organization and belief system authorized by the U.N. as having 'state-like' attributes. We recognize, or 'believe', that the future is filled with human-created Existential Threats comparable to major extinction events. We work to prepare for any and all potential ET-level events.

Q: Where is the RM located?

A: The RM has no official location, but is spread across dozens of sovereign meta-states and hundreds of international missions spanning every continent, and even our Moon. The seven major missions on the seven continents are the Independent Gulf-States in North America, the Former Republic of Chile in South America, Verdonkenland in northern Europe, the Autonomous Mongolian Republic in northern Asia, New South Sudan in Africa, Former Tasmania in Oceania, and Asimov on Antarctica.

Desperado

my mind is a live wire
a fire burning, sparking thin rivulets of heartsblood
down my naked breastbone splayed bare
as a virgin bride or a desert skull

planes trains and automobiles run heavy
through the contours of my half-stitched skull
tattooing a guttural song that wafts turgidly
like diesel smoke, and blinds my eyes to darkness
where owls hunt and wisdom crawls on all fours

Untitled

The flame of my snick-blade kisses your neck
leaving soft welts on your sacred skin
And I laugh surprised

Your hooded eyes flare dawn-bright with anger
freezing over like the realms of Boreal
Moon-bright and churning

Your lips meet mine savage stripped of blades
The room ringing a shields clarion psalm

Your ageless virginal mask in sharp relief
when the blade kisses under my arm
and you bathe in my hearts-blood

Ideas for Campaign

The Dog-Pits of Chalmer - In a nearby system from Footfall lies a bloating orange star, who recent size gain has allowed Chalmer, formerly a plutonian planet, to acquire a thick new atmosphere and some much needed warmth.  Its Terra-like conditions has guaranteed its position as a hub of commerce in the Koronus Expanse, and especially in the handling of xenospecies by smugglers, turning wide swaths of land into temporary kennels for all kinds of friend and foe, the most famous of which are the Dog-Pits. The dank, underground cavern that houses the Dog-Pits is the perfect area for clandestine meetings, and quiet disposals,surrounded by the horrid xenospecies crowded in cages large and small. An informant of mine Branch has left a cryptic message inside a recording of a childrens song.

Oh lovely roses all a bloom
shalt melt and wilt when they are through
Oh galid Gaul in Chalmer-town
begs to buy 'just o' pound'

The rose is the symbol of my Branch, and obviously if we are going to burn then something dangerous will happen. Using 'they' instead of a symbol implies the enemy is unknown or unfamiliar. The 'galid Gaul' referred to Reginald Gaul, the present owner of the Dog-Pits, on Chalmer. And he is looking to purchase whatever will be the danger to the Branch.


Rogue Trader House Shinjiku

The Head Branch Rosen
Minor Branches Stamen and Thornen

We're going to the Dog Pits to eat GIANT HOTDOGS and defend them against the Japonaise


-
Explore Pitstop, learn about the deal

Location of great-uncles lost ship, and proof he and others in RT fam are chaos was an enemy of the Imperium

RT wants to find first, for obvi reasons.

Cant think of anything
bleh

NPC's for Rogue Trader Game

Been working on an RT game that starts tonight. Only two players, so I'm implementing a Mass-Effect style companion system.

The Astropath is Gile, is a small quiet blind man who appears in his late 40's with what would be a bland, forgettable face if it wasn't covered with dozens of thin, surgical scars. I managed to roll the Mutation Necrophage, which means he must consume raw meat often, but on the plus side he basically can't die. Which would be a bad thing if he got possessed....

Roland Yorke is the Void-master, think paranoid balding Stephen Merchant. Loves to fly his lander, and is relatively devout to the Emperor. Was in the Navy for decades. Pretty handy as a pilot/driver but useless everywhere else.

New Daily Thing

So I haven't been paying much attention to this thing so I'm implementing a Daily Writing challenge for myself.

For tonight I will try to build an idea by writing it out. The idea came as a title; "Death-School 2099".

story of a school built in a surreal biopunk future where death is a faux-pas, and no one has yet to Graduate.

cue twisted typical-90's-teen-movie