History of the bogs community continued

The God's East

The public deliberation on the governance of Xedoc was reaching the six year mark. The group advocating for the communion government had the biggest support, followed by the council system, and a small faction of protectionists. The debates were widely attended but no strong consensus was emerging on how the people wanted to organize their society, as the factions honed their arguments and rebuttals week after week. As the talks reached a stalemate, no one was prepared for the protectionists to walk into the debate theater one day, holding a copper-eyed lizard folk child that they proclaimed was a god, one that was found in the bogs, much like in the reports coming from the north, the plains and the west. The crowd erupted in questions, disbelief and cheers as this divine presence was about to drastically change the debate on how Xedoc would be ruled.

The god child had been found by Vivonox the Salamander, a minor dragon hiding amongst the lizardfolk, as he was flying over the bogs on an evening hunt. The dragon could smell the power emanating from the child and quickly came up with a plan to see the lizardfolk fall under his rule, something he has been scheming since he arrived in the east. They introduced the child to the remnants of the Skinks and filled their heads with dreams about how they could use the child's supposed divinity to get the upper hand amongst the scaly society of Xedoc. The dragon advised them to wait for the child to grow old enough to be able to speak before revealing them to the world, so they took them to a cottage near the mountains and waited. Vivonox then proceeded to slowly release its acid breaths onto the farmlands, making the crops fail and bringing the fear of famine back into the Bogs. The god child, now older, came and purified the acid from the land, in one farm, and showed the people its great power, telling them they could do so much more with their belief behind them. This tipped the scales of debate and the God was voted as the sole ruler of Xedoc for a period of ten years.

Vivonox, elated of their plan's perfect execution, revealed their subterfuge to the God child and requested favor for their help. The God was furious at the deception and unleashed unrelenting magic at the dragon in a terrible clash of power, magic that stole not only the life of the Skink retainers but some of the God's own life force, leaving the God’s body crippled and scarred. The revelation of the dragon’s betrayal made the god paranoid and an intrusive thought kept growing in their head; they must know everything, which over time kept growing and turned into they must be the only one who knew everything. The god ordered the hunters to travel out into the world and hunt, but not beasts or food, but book, scroll, and knowledge of all kinds and bring it back to them. In tandem, they had a large library built in the former skink fortress and hand-selected trusted servants to be the only living beings allowed inside.

Around that time, the God wouldn’t leave their home anymore, making rulings through proxies and decrees spoken from the parapet of their fortress, and even this was a rare occurrence. The one time the God left was when a meeting of all five of the found Gods was called for in the south. For the occasion the God, now named Enigmatic Decay, journeyed in a covered carriage to meet their so-called siblings. This gave an opportunity for the Vipara, now wearing the denomer ‘the Life Brood’ to act. They persuaded one of the God’s servants who was allowed in the library to let them know of any books or knowledge of import that came to its shelves, they made contact lines with the gnomes who gave them magic techniques to protect their minds from the God and dug out a cavern in the western mountain range to retreat to if ever hunted. All they could do to try and prepare against such a strong power as the God, was to build a network, a community and gather knowledge in order to find a way to win in any small way possible.

Enigmatic Decay returned from the gathering with a host of smallfolk who were in need of relocation from the south east, and were taken on by the God in exchange for the South’s archival tomes. Once settled, the confused people of Xedoc gathered at the fortress and the God decreed that the halflings would harvest peat for export, and make slabs of adobe for the creation of a grand tower while the Lizardfolk would train in the art of magic to go and aid the rest of Thiusland, now united under the Gods. A few years of unguided construction passed before the God announced the birth of a child, their child, who would become the ruler of Xedoc while they focused all their efforts on the construction of the majestic Tower of Tomes, which they would move to once the tower was completed. The Life Brood understood that the moment the God would move to the new tower would be their best opportunity to strike and put an end to the rule of the God in the east. So they began moving in the shadows and putting those sympathetic with their ideals into the construction crew.

Nearly half a century passed before the tower was completed. Fallacia, child of Decay, had grown and ruled over Xedoc with an attention and a zeal much unlike their parent. The existence of the Life Brood had been exposed by Enigmatic decay by reading the minds of those embedded in the ranks of God’s retinue but untrained, and their members, or those Fallacia deemed as members, were hanged publicly for all to see. What the God did not understand however was how deep the movement had become and never guessed how close to Enigmatic Decay some of their members were. This allowed Zamchol’s efforts to pass forbidden knowledge and spells to the resistance to stay unnoticed. For ten years the halflings were being taught spells to confuse casters and protect their minds from intrusive spell weaving, for ten years weapons were traded for in Hologall and enchanted in secret. And after these ten years, the moment finally came for the Life Brood to rise again, and in the week of celebration of the completion of the Temple of Tomes, the grandest tower in all of Thiusland, all plans went into motion and the Determined Few rose in the east.