The Menagerie

This is Orleena, a monk who is part of a team of frontier protectors and demon slayers. She favours a glaive and employs thrown weapons in a pinch. Like any monk, she is trained in the art of unarmed combat, but that is her last resort. Having the extra reach of a glaive is often the difference between life and death when faced with hordes of demons trying to break through the frontier and drown the civilized world in blood. In battle with reckless destroyers like that, every defender’s life is priceless. The onslaught never ends, but the forces of good are few and thinly spread. Orleena stems the tide.

This was meant to be done after a stalwart knight, Sir Glygan, but alas, whenever one does something, there is the danger of that thing being swallowed up by a black hole and disappearing :D

((High-res video here.))

((Download a 3D-printable model here!))*

Trip 16

I journey ever deeper in the extramatter. While some trips are uneventful and others are an unrecognizable chaotic whirlpool, this particular one has been most enlightening, for I have observed a curious but immediately recognizable sight – a celestial being! Yes, many of the creatures I see are known to me, for I am a grandmaster and my knowledge is vast. Still, the circumstances of this viewing were quite perplexing.

Until now, my working hypothesis has been that the extramatter is in its essence a spatial and causal medium between realities, i.e. one may travel via it to a different place and an “alternate reality” [NB: hate the term, change to something clearer]. Well, that hypothesis has been cast aside thanks to this baffling discovery: the extramatter also acts as a temporal tunnel!* Fascinating!

Time, space, and reality change freely in the extramatter!

[NB: add later… “While my Matterportation** spell is quite robust, its animating substrate clearly is something I have never encountered, i.e. the spell’s control variable is not space, time, or reality… it is something completely alien to (me) the whole magical science! But I, Archmage Sylan Synnevere, shall study and describe it for the first time ever!]

In this trip I encountered a powerful celestial being (an angel, deva, or some such, depending on its own definition). On this occasion, I had decided to burn some vision incense to improve my insight. As I saw it (her), epiphany suddenly struck: her true name was Lilithor***. Normally, extramatter images move and change as I observe them. Lilithor, however, was frozen in time. My incense-fueled wisdom told me this: this was a viewing from the celestial’s past! A tremendous find! I should obtain more of this incense for future trips!

I do not know who this Lilithor is, but I received one last piece of wisdom before the viewing ended: the events that unfolded around her were grim. Perhaps in the future I will stumble upon more shreds of her story, or maybe even her own self, if she still exists…

* Here the Archmage seems to have been very excited, as these few words are underlined multiple times and, it seems, on multiple occasions.

** Unfortunately, the Matterportation spell itself is one of the bitter pieces of knowledge lost in the Great Burning of 5612. Losses like this are tragic. We thoroughly condemn all arsonists!

*** Here we share good news, we have searched the Academy’s archives thoroughly and identified this mysterious Lilithor as the fallen Archangel Lilith. The Archmage must have found a viewing of her from before her fall. Truly inspired findings, in our humble opinion!