An introduction to Old Lacedon (Dark Silver)

OLD LACEDON

In aeons past the Lacedonian city-states thrust wrought-iron towers into a matching sky. In their great cathedrals of the Self, debauched ascetics chanted masturbatory sutras of self-congratulation. In the end, they were doomed.
Proud in their high citadels, the Lacedonians sheltered from the Tath-Kra behind half forgotten wards learned from the pre-human serpent volk, the Icebloods. When the Tath-Kra were defeated by the treachery of the Prince of Fear and the First Empire rose, those spells were no longer sufficient and their walls of stone seemed little protection when Warlord Garrett and Ektherion Tath-Kra led their horde into Lacedon.
It was at Vunsk, where Kharkus Tath-Kra had fled, that Garrett earned his name, Bloodstone, for the very bedrock of the city-mound was stained red from the slaughter he commanded. As Vunsk died screaming, the Lacedonians turned to their sorcerous arts for protection.
The spellworkers of Lacedon found what they thought was their people's salvation. Death was the ultimate destruction of Self, and it terrified them more than suffering, more than fear itself. A dread ritual discovered in an ancient Iceblood scroll promised a Mass Exorcism of Mortality, and the Purge of Lacedon began.
Down into the deep places, the underworld beneath their cities, went the arch-mages of Lacedon, and in the dark belly of the world began their blasphemous incantations. . .

Now the once-great citadels are hollow and broken, overrun by the Snaketalkers and haunted by the ghoulish corpse-folk that the Lacedonians were twisted into by the magic that sought to save them. Those few on whom the spell worked as it should fled centuries ago to Larr Nesh, and the necromancers are still trapped in the bowels of the earth, unknown to modern ken, doomed to eternally chant the very invocations that bound them.
Vunsk, where the First Empire's horde had done such bloody work and subsequently been besieged by the fresh-cursed, cadaverous Lacedonians, swarms with Snaketalkers. A coven of their shamans discovered there, in the deep, cold heart of the ruins, Kharkus Tath-Kra's self-imposed prison, and they and their followers venerate the Lord of Pain with terrible rituals and sacrifices, deranged even compared to the foulness of conventional Snaketalker religion.
The other cities are just as ruined by time and natural overgrowth, and the Snaketalkers hunt through the moss-shrouded remnants just as they do in the misty hills and woodlands between. Even the fearsome Snaketalkers feel uneasy at times though, watched as they are by degenerate, deathless eyes from the shadows of urban relics.

Snaketalkers

Typical male names: Ashiss, Essat, Issath, Ksarsa, Ksiss, Osstashaa, Shaasath, Sratt, Svassta, Tsashath, Tsokhis, Yss
Typical female names: Aes, Cest, Ishto, Issot, Ksaa, Ksoro, Oossa, Sasaat, Shath, Srotta, Svashasta, Tsot, Vossa

They have no one name for themselves in their own tongue, but others call them Snaketalkers after their sibilant, hissing language. They are one of the oldest and most primal peoples in the world, and one of the most fearsome. Their ways are little changed from their origin in the brutal red dawn of humanity; they are cannibals, scavengers and reavers clad in stinking, poorly-cured hides and armed with crude weapons of flint and bone. Even compared to other barbarians the Snaketalkers are savages, primitive and animalistic.
Old Lacedon has become infested with Snaketalkers over the last few centuries, the haunted ruins becoming hunting grounds for the file-toothed brutes. There, the once-great city of Vunsk now hosts the closest thing the Snaketalkers have to civilisation with a kind of warped law established there under the iron fist of a band of powerful shamans who revere a demon rather than the power of the stars as their cousins do. Other tribes are scattered throughout the wildernesses of the north and south-east of the world, staying nomadic and preying on any perceived weaknesses in their neighbours.
The Snaketalkers believe it is a sacred thing to eat the flesh of another human being, a belief fostered by the horrific half-remembered rites of the atavistic star-spirits they worship. Most Snaketalker raids are motivated by this fanatic cannibal urge rather than by plunder, as they seem to have little concept of material wealth.
Religious ceremonies among the Snaketalkers are bleak orgiastic rites of human and animal sacrifice, gladiatorial duels and ritual copulation held under the cold gaze of the stars to which they offer their twisted half-unknowning prayers. In Old Lacedon these rites are usually held at the highest points of the crumbling ruins, being closer to the stars and thus more sacred. In more rural areas the Snaketalkers hold their grim ceremonies atop mountains or hills for the same reason. In the heartlands of the Five Tribes it is thought that the many mounds that dot the landscape were made for this purpose by the Snaketalkers before they were driven out by the Fivesfolk in ancient times.
Snaketalkers usually attack at night, although any tactical edge gained from this is coincidental as they do so simply to allow the stars a good view of the slaughter they perform. They often pause mid-combat to devour parts of their victims and even sometimes fight one another for the privilege of feeding on certain prize corpses. Snaketalkers typically lack cunning and focus as warriors, and rely heavily on surprise and picking weak targets for their victories, as organised and determined defenders can usually drive them off unless they have a significant numerical advantage.

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