Tag: prison

#Lore24 – Entry #168 – Wild West Month #16 – New Fortresses of Stone and Metal

As told by Kumiko Stalks-Amongst-the-Stars, shaman of the Midnight Panther tribe of Kerra-Kerra

The People from Beyond the Great Walls are quick to forget where it is they come from, where it is they still live to this very day, and perhaps, have forgotten the lessons that were learned from the Devil-Wardens…or perhaps have learned the wrong lessons.  As they spread further and further into the Bitter Frontier and claim more and more of the land as their own territories, so too do they begin to build new Fortresses of Stone and Metal to use as places to keep those who would break their laws.

Those who commit wrongs should be dwelt with swiftly and justly, punishments to fit the crime as our ways dictate, but it has come into the minds of those from Beyond the Great Walls that it is more just to keep these wrongdoers in cages, to have them seek to repent for their crimes through heavy labor and being trapped within these many walls they build.  This is the way of the Justicars of Lashana, at least.  There are others not of the Sister Goddess’s faith who build these new Fortresses of Stone and Metal who seek not to make those held within repent for their crimes, but to suffer tortures of mind and body, to toil until death takes them at long last.  It is these who have learned the worst of the lessons of the Devil-Wardens, and who gather more and more power around them to enforce their will upon others at the end of many Thundering Weapons.

It is within the Bitter Frontier that these evil Fortresses of Stone and Metal are built, for there is no law but what those who control their claimed territory create.  These lands we must now avoid, lest our people suffer at the hands of those who would be new Devil-Wardens, though the Red Fangs do not see it as such.  They say that we, all Kerra-Kerra, should go to war with those who would create these places and claim our lands.  In this I am conflicted, for I do not wish war, and I do not wish to follow the lead of the Red Fang tribe…and yet I cannot deny that war between our people and those who have began taking our sacred lands may be unavoidable.

I must continue to commune with the Many Spirits and seek their wisdom, and the wisdom of our Great Mother Saressh, for I fear that our mostly peaceful times are running out.

#Lore24 – Entry #155 – Wild West Month #3 – Spirits of Nature Arise

As told by Kumiko Stalks-Amongst-the-Stars, shaman of the Midnight Panther tribe of Kerra-Kerra

So, it came to be that the Devil-Wardens’ power would come to wane, and ruin would follow soon after.  Our ancestors say that the Devil-Wardens had imprisoned the very spirits of land and sea and air, had used foul sorcery to shape the land itself to their dark desires.  However, the spirits of nature would not take well to such treatment, and soon enough would prove that they were more powerful than even these sorcerers and their Ships that Sail the Stars.

It would come to be that one day, the bound spirits of nature would tear free of the great devilish device that the Wardens had created to contain them, had used them to reshape the world as they saw fit.  Then, without the dark sorcerers knowing, for the Many Spirits are more cunning than we can fathom, they gathered their power and begin to dismantle the evil spells which bound them.

In a Great Uproar, the spirits of nature would break the sorcerous chains that bound them and bring terrible destruction upon the Devil Wardens and their Fortresses of Stone and Metal.  In great torrents of wind and water, of eruptions of earth and fire, with fury that rent the very earth beneath us, they would tear down the walls of the fortresses that once imprisoned our ancestors and drive the Devil-Wardens from the Broken Cage that Still Imprisons.  They would flee in their Ships that Sail the Stars, and, for a time, even the future of the Many Peoples would be in doubt, for the Great Spirits were angry, and their fury would not end for many moons. 

Though the Fortresses of Stone and Metal once imprisoned the Many Peoples, some would find safe shelter within them during the Fury of the Spirits, while others, our ancestors, would follow the guidance of our Great Mother goddess, Sarresh, and embrace the will of the spirits who had freed them, to learn to worship and appease their volatile moods, to find harmony amongst them, and so we would prosper in the wilds beyond the Fortresses.  And this is how the many tribes of the Kerra-Kerra came to be, of how each tribe learned of its sacred totem spirit, and how the Broken Cage that Still Imprisons came to be as it is now.

But do not think that the Great Spirits are tamed.  Never assume such!  For the Great Spirits still hold memory of their own imprisonment, and they will lash out with their rage and fury, just to remind our people, and the Many Peoples who are not of the Kerra-Kerra, that the spirits are to be respected and feared, for it is they who hold the true power of life and death upon the Broken Cage that Still Imprisons.

#Lore24 – Entry #154 – Wild West Month #2 – The Devil-Wardens

As told by Kumiko Stalks-Amongst-the-Stars, shaman of the Midnight Panther tribe of Kerra-Kerra

The Night-Skinned People and their Devil Wardens…our ancestors know that they came from the Many Worlds Beyond the Sky just as they once did, but for whatever reasons, they hated those not of their own kind, and sought to terrible things to them.  We know that they held great power, could change the very nature of the Broken Cage that Still Imprisons, could change the very essence of what makes one’s flesh. 

They are called the Night-Skinned People because their own flesh was the color of night, black as the obsidian stone, or perhaps slightly lighter, with a bluish hue, like that of the night skies.  They were known to have unearthly white hair, though some of the ancestors say that a few of their Devil-Wardens had other shades, like that of blood or the sun itself, though this had little bearing on how they would treat those they brought to the Broken Cage that Still Imprisons.  Their ears were as knives or spear-tips, long and narrow, not unlike the Elf-people who prefer the forests and rivers of the lands far beyond the Bitter Frontier, and it is said that their eyes shone like flame, their gazes cowing any who would dare oppose them.  It is told that they possessed strange magical weapons and mechanics that would render even the massive Horse People or the mighty orc warriors helpless before them.

Those we call the Devil-Wardens were rulers of the Night-Skinned People, directing how their lesser followers would treat those they held within their Fortresses of Stone and Metal from their High Towers, their eyes all-seeing within their walls.  They always knew what their prisoners were doing and would bring swift and harsh punishments upon them.  The Devil-Wardens had the power of life and the power of death, and wielded it upon their whims, which could change as does the wind.  Their command of great sorceries and foul rituals meant that even the sacred flesh of those they held within their Fortresses were not safe, for our ancestors tell of many horrible abominations born from the whims of the Devil-Wardens, that entire peoples were changed into monstrous things that now roam the Bitter Frontier. 

Their reign over the Broken Cage that Still Imprisons would come to end in time, however, for their sorcery, while strong, was not all-powerful, and the very spirits of our world would rise up against them.

#Lore24 – Entry #153 – Wild West Month #1 – Prisoners from the Many Worlds Beyond the Sky

As told by Kumiko Stalks-Amongst-the-Stars, shaman of the Midnight Panther tribe of Kerra-Kerra

We Kerra-Kerra are born into this world, and yet none of our people who walk upon it now or who have ever walked upon it are of this world, for all were brought here from stars far beyond.  Each star in the sky is perhaps a world unto itself, perhaps multiple worlds, and it is from these Many Worlds Beyond the Sky that our people come.  Even those not born of the Kerra-Kerra tribes are from these Many Worlds Beyond the Sky, for they were brought to this world with us, not willingly, but as prisoners.

Many, many moons ago, this was the Time of Chains, when all peoples who were not allied with the Wardens of the Night-Skinned Peoples were subject to their rule, were forced onto Ships that Sail the Stars and brought here, to our world we call the Broken Cage that Still Imprisons.  Upon the land that was once barren, made livable by the great magic of the Night-Skinned Peoples, our ancestors and the ancestors of those not of the tribes, were held in great Fortresses of Stone and Metal, not permitted to leave, forced to follow the will of the Devil-Wardens less they be punished. 

It is told by our ancestors that the Devil-Wardens would perform foul sorcery and strange rituals upon the many peoples they held within their evil fortresses, warping the very flesh upon their bones, turning them into the many abominations that roam the Bitter Frontier to this day.  None remember why they would do such things to those they brought here, only that the Night-Skinned People were as devils and demons, using their magic and machines upon those they had deemed to be less than they.

Who were the Night-Skinned People and these Devil-Wardens, you ask, and what do we know of them?  Well…

 

LORE24 ENTRY #24 – Incarcerus IV

Category – Place

Incarcerus IV is a rather notorious, if mostly forgotten, planet held by the dark elves, and was once one of their largest prisons (the fourth such  planetary prison, as its name indicates).  Located in a distant and rarely traveled system, this planet was originally an uninhabitable rock that was terraformed using one of the ancient arca-tech tarraforming devices that radically changed the planet into a perfectly habitable world.  Though the records are inconclusive, it would seem that the planet was originally meant as an isolated colony world, but due to poor resource availability, was converted into a solitary prison planet once the dark elves had fully taken control of the galactic prison system.  The space around the planet itself is covered by a still-functioning security net filled with various devices that will warn ships away from the planet, and attack those that are not authorized for approach, ensuring that most will avoid coming too close, to say nothing of attempting a landing or a jailbreak. 

However, at some point, the planetary terraformer went out of control, causing a global catastrophe that destroyed much of the population and reshaped the surface of the planet, which had been left behind by the dark elf wardens when they escaped the planet.  Though most assumed the world was destroyed and left completely uninhabitable, this was not the case.  Though the world was left greatly changed during the upheaval, quite a large number of the former prison colonies survived, and once the worst of the destruction had ended, these survivors picked up the pieces and formed their own societies and began to rebuild.  Though filled with dangerous areas and sometimes radically shifting weather due to continued malfunctions from the terraformer, the planet is perfectly livable, and there are multiple large countries and peoples across its surface.

Currently, the world has reached a technological state consistent with the real-world late Victorian era, with steam-based technology, continent-spanning rail systems, dangerous frontier towns, prevalent repeating cartridge-based firearms, and smaller pockets of a more “civilized” nature.  Due to the occasional upset from the malfunctioning terraformer, it seems that most technological advances have been halted at this level, preventing the local populations from advancing to a level that would allow them to attempt to escape into space, though most have long since forgotten the original purpose of the planet and its former status as a prison.  

 

LORE24 ENTRY #20 – Seal-Tech

Category – Technology

Amongst the most controversial and feared arca-tech (arcane technology) in the known galaxy is Seal-Tech, unique to the dark elves, its secrets fiercely protected behind walls of secrecy.  Used primarily in the dark elf-controlled prison system (a lucrative business in its own right given their successful business model), on its surface, Seal-Tech is used as a means of controlling the prisoner population.  At first glance, one could assume that Seal-Tech was simply an advanced form of latex, typically seen in the form of a skin-tight bodysuit prisoners are placed within, sometimes with attached restraints, and able to be recolored at a signal from a controller to indicate various statuses of the wearer, even report back on their general state of health.  It is known to be much more durable than standard latex, and generally is reasoned to be used because nothing could be hidden on a person wearing it.

Below the surface, however, Seal-Tech is much more advanced and insidious.  Having gone through multiple advances over the centuries, Seal-Tech, while indeed latex at its core, is far more than a simple rubber compound.  The reason behind the name is primarily from the most powerful of the material’s abilities, namely the ability to seal away the magic of those wearing it, completely blocking the ability of arcanists and even divine or druidic casters from casting their spells.  The ability of the material to reshape itself on command also makes it perfect for immobilizing hostile prisoners and limiting their ability to cause trouble or even use basic implements, able to form a variety of restraint devices (straps, cuffs, mittens, gags, an inescapable sack to immobilize the wearer, and more).  In the most recent iterations of the technology, the dark elves have managed to incorporate a life-sustaining magic into the mix, which serves to keep a prisoner wearing the suit nourished without the need for actual food (though once their sentence is complete and the suits removed, they are ravenously hungry and must eat immediately), as well as self-cleaning functions so that the suits never have to be removed.

The truly nefarious nature of Seal-Tech is tied to its near-indestructability; once a person has been placed within a suit of Seal-Tech, they cannot remove it.  If the suit is damaged, even with cold, fire, or other means, to the point of being completely burned away, somehow, the Seal-Tech will regrow and reform itself in a matter of minutes (older iterations of the technology took much longer to reform itself, hours or days).  Though outwardly able to affected by magic, it is highly resistant to magical analysis, and the nature of its legendary resilience has yet to be determined, though many arcanists surmise that it is tied to a very advanced form of curse magic.  Others have theorized that Seal-Tech is somehow related to the dark elves’ patron goddess Yurisaya, as her faithful followers often make use of the material for their own purposes, and are known to work closely with the prison system to provide care, discipline, and spiritual guidance to prisoners.