Doom and hope, misery and joy, are but two sides of the same mirror to this ancient force that has withstood the annihlation of an entire culture..

Residing in the core of this giant black megalithic structure built to resemble a crude representation of a lightning bolt, lies a Shard of the Storm.

And a lot else..

The Quarsooth stands regally, watching impassively with its disturbingly beautiful golden eyes, as masses of sweating labourers haul massive block of lime stone towards the river banks of the Obo, the most majestic and the largest body of moving water in the little barony of Farkhon. Ample in fish stocks, the new masters of the land have deemed it perfect for humanity's first fledgling attempt at advanced aqua-culture. If this ambitious prject proceeds as planned, the Quarsooth colonizers will introduce into the rivers, aquatic life-forms from their own native home-world that breed abundantly and are platable for the digestive system of most creatures, thereby guaranteeing their subjects a bulwark against mass starvation in the disastrous event of crop faliure or a cattle disease epidemic.

A well crafted but otherwise ordinary steak knife. It makes the cutting of meat sooooooo easy.

Just like with the sharks they so revere,a wrong or inappropriate action can provoke a lethal reaction from a Shura. As the other mer-races are so fond of saying among themselves,the only thing more unpredictable than a shark is a Shura. This is a prefered weapon, simple yet deadly.

''I am so very sorry to interupt your grand schemes for seizing control of the nether-realm, but I am afraid that my master, the Lord of the Desolate Shore, has raised some serious objections..''

The Surash are without doubt,the most distrusted and least liked race in existence.

Have a family that is ever at odds with each other? Beware lest the Slurran comes for you..

Bestowed by the pagan Godess Inar,upon the king of Silamarh in the his nation's most dire time of need,it allowed to destroy nigh single-handed,the great horde of the infamous barbarian war-chief,Hordan.

The classic sword of the incorrigible munchkin,you think? Not quite.

Man, too, is a primal creature, though he binds himself with the chains named Reason and Law, locked link by link from birth. Yet, those locks can be opened, the links broken, in both the savage world of the street-slum, and in the gilded cages of nobility.

One such creature is the petty pirate, Gurad Sorgon. Unknown to those that dismiss him as being merely an ugly face among the multitude of floating scoundrels that abound on the lawless seas, this marauder conceals within him the soul of a prehistoric terror.

As the officer strides into the thick and oppresive pitch-black gloom of the jungle, he silently signals to his men to fan out in a classic Quarsooth battle-formation with a nervous hand-gesture. He is very tense, almost afraid. The soothing, omnipresent presence in his mind tells him that he has no reason to worry, assuring him that victory will belong to those noble warriors that carry the standard of the invincible race of Zor-Tanis.

But there is something else cutting through the easy promises offered by that pleasant, gently commanding entity in his mind, as if determined to seize all his attention and use it to torment his imagination until it begins to scream for mercy. This something he cannot define and put words to, but it makes his skin crawl nevertheless. Despite the heat of the jungle, his blazing gold body-armor had suddenly become a chill prison that raises uncomfortable goosebumps along his chest.

Woried muttering from the rear tell him that his men like him, are unsettled. Turning aound in irritation, he begins to hiss at them to remain silent, afraid of alerting the very band of murdering monstrosities they have finally tracked into this eerie wilderness. It would be a rather embarassing matter for their commander if the very quarry they had been relentlessly pursuing for the past week or so, were to suddenly turn around and massacre all of them.

Too late he feels a something slithering around his neck. Fearful that it might be a pyhton, he reackes for his massive ''fire-bow'', determined to incinerate the scaled menace before it can crush his larynx. But before his fingers even have a chance to close around the handle of the weapon hanging from his belt, another coil slithers out of the darkness and out of the darkness and pinions his arm, holding it in a painful crushing crip. As agony swamps him, he can vaguely hear a grim sound of cracking bones through the pain-filled haze that now holds him. His arm is being crushed. And then so quickly that his stunned mind has no time to register this new fact, there is no time left for more thought. The coil looped around his throat begins to squeeze, suffocating him. As the officer's head begins to swim in the final moments of his life, he finally gains an excellent look at the thing that is stealing his life.

It is not a snake, but a vine. As if in response to this discovery, a now terrifyingly familiar roar of bestial fury rings through the gloom of the jungle..

‘‘We are the Lords Of The Straits, Rulers Of the Sea, and the very ocean acknowledges us as Her children! Men of Pan-Kor, nothing sails on the waters without acknowledging our might !’’

''In a world dominated by savagery and barbarism, we alone represent civilization. Is it any wonder then that we are forced to keep the horrors of the outside world at bay?''

-an anonymous Usholal

Inhabiting the waters of Tarrod, the Organi is a dangerous creature.

Throughly despising the intrigue and scandals of the royal court,Prince Michael has never mourned the loss of his crown and inheritance to a treacherous advisor of his father's. No,inflicting vengeance on the usurper and reclaiming his throne is too petty for him. He has a more important quest to fulfill..

Destined am I to hunt down and slay the half breed called Rachat, for only his demise can bring me what I yearn for...

Prowling the wild seas of Acqua like the ravenous raiders that they are, these militant priests of Holy Jove are sworn to their sacred mission of destroying the unbelievers and infidels wherever they may be found on the open ocean.

Lying forgotten on the ocean floor by the children of Acqua,reposes the very monument that commemorates the passing of the islands from the hands of the Old Ones into those of their ancestors who sailed out of the mists long ago to claim them for their descendents.

But in a twist of extreme irony,others have come to venerate this creation abandoned by the race of man that built it. They are the Old Ones,the very same race whose defeat this statue is supposed to represent.

Suffused with a love for probing every inch of the darkest and most unexplored depths of the ocean,this adventurous octopus like being possesses a dashing courage most odd for one of his race.

Not very surprising perhaps,when you consider the fact that this young explorer is insane.

Some see him as a loathesome reminder of their faliure to cow a race humanity deems unworthy of existence. Others deem him a noble hero and resistance-fighter, a beacon of hope and courage to all the downtrodden of the galaxy.

Regardless, you don't want to smell his breath. Or ever see him up close.