#ackad

[thecrazyworldbuilder]

Random setting: Gods of The Worldhold

Gods of The Worldhold were more than just theoi. Gods were a mantle, a role to be played. Sure, what mortals called “gods” were usually theoi, but many were once mortals themselves.

A god was anyone who was mantled as such, and that was a dangerous play, for there were many mantles, and some wanted to wear several at once. And, to the world’s displeasure, so they did.

Volcanoes and smiths were forever joined under the dual-mantled god Heph. Sea depths and the eldritch were sewn together by noble Cthera, who vowed to contain the latter deep beneath the sea.

Sometimes gods were mantled new. A human god, god of the city of Azareth named Narthur, was once a mortal man, but achieved divinity through ascension, his soul finding the god mantle among the stars, and now blessing the royal bloodline.

And every time, when a god mantle changed owners, when a new god mantle was found or when one god conquered another and sewed their mantles together, it was a world-changing event. The ground trembled, the skies roared, and a new period, era, began.

And so it did this time.

When the god of magic, Thaumus, conquered the god of writing, Ackad, and took his mantle without thinking twice. The god of magic and writing, he thought - how powerful he’d be. How magnificent.

He was right. For the misfortune of the whole realm.

Every letter. Every word, every book - every single little glyph and graffiti, every tattoo.

All exploded with magic spells.

The world was destroyed, utterly. A new era began, an era where writing itself was a source of magic, where no book was possible without causing a chaotic explosion of spells, where no literacy could be spread.

...

The city of Azareth, mentioned above, didn’t quite survive the Apocalypse.

It housed some of the greatest libraries in the known world, and they changed it irreversibly. Each became an epicenter of a great fireball of raw, wild magic, transforming people into thousands of different shapes per second, turning matter to change state countless times. Gaseous rock. Liquid air. Solid blood.

Narthur managed to bless the city to become populated once again when people who weren’t in it at the time came and settled down. Among polygonal columns of stone, among buildings ruined, utterly, and terrain indescribable in short.

Azareth became a new cradle for humanity, and so did many other places around the world, where there weren’t as many books, or where there was a god to try and keep the land safe.

Many years have passed. Many have forgotten the specifics of this Apocalypse, yet every single children tale now spoke - to never, ever, write.

Kenkus traveled between cities as messengers, memorizing long speeches dictated to them. Once rogues and outcasts, they became the founders of the Courier Guild, growing riches, controlling the mail and shipment of practically any item.

The little number of elves who survived managed to explore the magic of writing as it was now. They were the ones who discovered the frightening fact of magic being bound to writing and writing only, as well as all writing, subsequently, being bound to magic. From this, an unlikely union came to fruition, as dwarves joined forces with the elves, and together, started re-exploring the magic of writing, letter by letter, creating enchanted items of great power.

Goblins, hobgoblins, orcs - all came to a renaissance as they never practiced writing before, so, their losses were minimal. Great raiding forces soon came into being, huge nations of many monstrous races working together for their own survival; Farming, building, waging wars, trading.

Divine magic was now the only way to cast spells, other than using writing for it, like scrolls and the like.

(Aaand it kind of stops there.)

[silver-heller]

You know what? New S/I game for my L-ackad-aisy followers. Describe your S/I and their relationships with the characters or relationships with them you find potentially interesting and I'll tell you what part of my AU I imagine them in (time and context).

[evergreensoulthings]

“There is a part of the sun in the apple,

 Part of the moon in the rose

 Part of the flaming Pleiades

 In everything that grows.

 Out of the vast comes nearness.

 for the God of Love, of which we sing,

 Has put a little bit of Heaven

 In every living thing.”

~ Frater Ackad 

  Art: Frans David Oerder, Still Life with Guitar and Roses

[origanuml]

Крылатые стражи Вавилона Winged Guardians of Babylon Animus superiora capessat necesse est Дух неизбежно стремится ввысь... #histoty #nature #instahistory #babylon #instanature #stone #rock #ancient #archeology #archeologylovers #mesopotamia #sumerian #ackad #fatestables #gates #gatesofbabylon (at Государственный музей изобразительных искусств имени А.С. Пушкина)

[issuewire]

Viviane B. Ackad, MD, Internist with Newark Beth Israel Medical Center