Unlike the other spirits that dwell in the Dreaming, the Muses are very much alive. They are forests, swamps, mountains, plains, oceans, and rivers. They are the manifestation of all the life that dwells in and defines entire ecosystems. For that, these spirits are known to be the voices of nature.
While technically even the smallest creek has a Muse, only the largest areas can bring forth one strong enough to take physical form and interact with the mortal world directly. This is due, in part, to the fact that a single, powerful muse is often the sum total of all the countless others that dwell within their borders. As a result when people refer to the Muses, they are almost always speaking about the ones that have enough power to be either a danger or a boon - the ones that represent very large areas.
Muses do not die if you kill them in their physical form. They will simply reform again in some other part of their territory. The only way to kill them is to lay waste to the life they protect, thus undoing their purpose of existence.
Muses and Magick
Being creatures of both the corporeal and the noncorporeal nature, Muses belong to the Dreaming and to the Physical World at the same time. While in the Dreaming they are free to roam as they wish, in the physical world they are bound to the land that composes them, that gives them life, the one they protect. Nevertheless, their influence may extend beyond the territory they guard even if they cannot walk out of it. While a forest cannot change places, a bird can fly far from its home to see for a Muse. For that reason, it is said that Muses can see far, hear much, and sometimes even act across great distances.
Furthermore, some Muses have allegiances with races and contracts with specific people. As we all know, Magick consumes the soul of those who use it. It kills them and slowly drives them to madness. However, this does not happen to mages that draw their power from a Muse. A Muse is able to generate her own Aether from the life she represents and from those who pay tribute to her. Races such as the Wood Elves and the Moon Elves can cast spells freely without harm if they are within a Muse’s territory. The further away they get from their Muse the further the Aether has to travel through the Webs, which in turn limits the amount of power and magick the Muse is able to provide.
The Fjord War
It was the belief of humanity that the world was made for sentient beings, for them. Seize the day, seize the land, seize the life. In their society no one questioned that remark, and outside of it no one contested it. Many even joined them in the race for industrialization, in that dream of progress.
But nothing is free, and great benefits pay steep prices.
Technology developed from the new economies based on continuous growth and maximization of profits. This is how humans believed they incremented their quality of life, with advances in medicine, with more food production, with new gadgets to make their lives easier and with powerful weapons that ensured them their safety. Gluttony and ambition became the norm, a competition of who can have more. Everything went well, and their population grew, building giant metropolises and countless smaller villages and towns. They failed to realize however that the resources that made all that growth possible were alive…
It was in the year 115 of Nyxheim when the wealthy city of Zenihail began to expand. Population was growing exponentially and they wanted to tap new resources. Besides the city was a massive swap and they began to destroy it. After all, it would provide new resources, eliminate the pests that were plaguing them, and open up new land to build on. It was good business.
By the year 122, Blackwood Swap had no probabilities of survival...
“Take me. Cover me with your waters; sink me in your depth. For I rather share my last breath with you, than with them…” the Muse of the Swamp implored to Lysvana, the great Muse of the Vespen Lake. She was his lover.
“They’ll kill us all. They’ll leave the world barren. They’ll dry the land dead and nothing will stop them. They’ll come with fire. They’ll come with iron. They’ll come by thousands. Breaking, biting, bombing, blowing, burning! Destroyers and Despoilers! Curse them!” So were her words of rage, born from the pain of being voiceless, powerless, and soon loveless.
Lysvana, the great lake, cleaved the earth. With all the strength she could muster, she crawled her way towards the sea. Okahn, Muse of the Swamp, saw her waters retiring and was disheartened. She had abandoned him… She ran away out of fear and left him alive and alone to face his death with a broken heart. Loveless, hopeless, lifeless…
But then the ground was shaken, and over the rumbling, an approaching distant roar thundered. It was Lysvana fast approaching. He open his arms to receive her, guilty to each root to have ever doubted her, and as they kissed they were consumed like powder and fire. Their hate and love clashed against Zenihail, the tall buildings were uprooted from their base, their escape vessels crashed against the rubble, and the people were squashed and drowned. Nothing was left but devastation. The ecosystems were utterly destroyed and the city crumbled to desolation. For love she did the ultimate sacrifice, and in thier triumph they died.
The news spread to all Muses of the world… and her words echoed.
“Destroyers and Despoilers, curse them!”
So began the backlash wave of human conquest. The Muses decided that they will no longer vanish quietly in the night, that they will no longer tolerate the genocides committed against their children, that they will never be annihilated by that growing cancer who had a mind of metal, by that virus of frenzied consumption.
Industrialization experienced a crisis of unfathomable proportions. Disease spread, nature grew fierce, countless populations were destroyed, but they resisted, and they survived. Even now the fight is not over. Cities are walled to keep the dangerous wild outside. Although they have managed to claim some resources and tame some land, there is a growing energy crisis in the metropolises as population keeps increasing. Progress has now to find new solutions, and it has to wrestle whatever resources it needs away from the Muses’ hands.
The sea never retreated from Zenihail, or the swap, or the lake, and no human ever tried to settle there again. That land is now known as the Fjords, and on its honour, the war between nature and progress is called the Fjord War. New life has there sprouted, but it is dark and resentful. I would not go there if I were you.
List of major Muses
Muse of The Oceans & Seas
"I am the black of the deepest ocean, and that tear in your hand."
" Serpent of old, lady of the deep Spirit of the bitter sea; we invoke thee we invoke thee. Watcher in the waves, herald of the storm Mother of Oceans great and terrible - hear us! We invoke thee We invoke thee
Abyssys Abyssum invocat; Aqua pura, Aqua fortis, Aqua Vitas, Eo nomine, Prosterno totus sic quo hic malum! "
- The evocation used by Jeanne Chevalier
Name: Undine to the Efferii / Ophelia to the Humans / Rusalka to those of true naming
Title: The Drowned Maiden; The Sea Witch; Lady of The Deep Waters
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Dominion: Mother of Oceans, Queen of Tides!
Favored Race: Humans, as ironic as it might be.
Prejudice: The Undead; Industrialized Nations
Power Level: Due to the vastness of her territory- the strength of every ocean and sea -Rusalka is perhaps the greatest power amongst the muses, with moods as shifting as the tides she governs. When her waters flooded Zenihail it was fear that sealed her away. The fear of her sister spirits who's territories she might eclipse. Even encased in eternal ice as she is now, Rusalka's rage whips the ocean into terrible storms, and the sailors in their great ships still pray for her mercy.
Activity Level: Passive. Rusalka lacks the freedom of mobility to roam the expanse of her domain as she did in days passed. Instead, she must be called upon in the temple of her prison - upon the northern-most point of the isle Icarus - but there are few who recall the prayer of her patronage; the words which invite her presence, in answer.
Goals: To rid the world of the sickness that bleeds from the shores, that pollutes the very depths of the ocean's heart! She would see it cast back upon those who, in their irreverence, who would be poisoners to the natural world. Rusalka is a savage and tempestuous enemy to have made. She would see them swallow the wretched bi-product of their creations until they were made fat full with it, until they could scarcely breath through it, until their lungs are cast adrift and afloat in seas of toxic filth!
Muse of Evergreen
"When their blood returns to the sea and their bones to the earth, then they will remember that the land does not belong to any man, but that every life belongs to the land."
Name: Evregreen to All; Siempre-Verde to those of true naming.
Title: The Great Mother the Efferii and Elves; The Queen of Clovers to those who have made pacts with her.
Alignment: Lawful Good
Dominion: Evergreen
Favored Race: Wood & Moon Elves; Fae
Prejudice: Humans; Industrial Technology
Power Level: Evergreen is second to none now that Rusalka's power has been restrained, her forest is after all the largest in all Nyxheim.
Activity Level: High. The Queen of Clovers empowers many mages to fight against the industrialized nations and is one of the main allies of the Elves.
Goals: Before Esper appeared, the Great Mother's goal was to regain the land that humans had stolen from Evergreen. Now it is to protect all life that lives in her domain.
Muse of Harrowoods
"There will be no rest until I build an altar of vines and roots upon the ruins of their civilization."
Name: Harrowyn
Title: Poisoned Flower; Lady of Thorns; The Tiger Queen
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Dominion: Harrowoods
Favored Race: Efferii
Prejudice: Undead; Humans
Power Level: Harrowyn along with Evergreen and Rusalka compose the highest tier of the Muses. She has made out of Harrowoods a natural fortress, with poisonous leaves, hallucinogen pollen, carnivorous flowers with thorny whips, and a number of other wild and violent creations meant to halt her enemies' advance.
Activity Level: Unlike her two mentioned sisters, Harrowyn does not just empower her allies. She herself often leads and comes to the aid of the tiger shamans that serve her, turning the very landscape against their foes from leaf, to root, to earth. Usually in presence of the Efferii, she has the appearance of a fearsome feline goddess, but often she takes the form of a beautiful and innocent looking girl dressed as a flower.
Goals: To burry forever those corrupted forms of life they call Undead, and raise upon their grave the most beautiful and terrifying green the world will ever see.
Muse of Promethean Plains
"The sand does not care which way the wind blows."
Name: Esper
Title: Lady of The Waste; The Oracle; The Apparition
Alignment: True Neutral
Dominion: Promethean Plains
Favored Race: None.
Prejudice: None.
Power Level: Unknown. Once upon a time there was different Muse that ruled over the Promethean Plains, but she withered with the rise of industrialization. A few decades after that, Esper rose to prominence. Nobody knows where she came from or what she is capable of, not even her sister Muses. All that is known is that with here came new life to the Plains, and that this life is cunning, sharp, and dangerous.
Activity Level: Low. Many who have set out to find Esper have been able to hear her voice or see her white silhouette. However, she is not known to have any form of contact with any who does not call her name in the scorching sands of her domain.
Goals: Unknown.
Muse of Nightmare Marsh
" Low be! What venomous creature is this coiled before me? "
Be it woman, in all her coifed glory and decietful grace? Aye, she with the feint heart and fleeting love. When I lay at rest and unaware It was you that called me near. I came to, I came willing, and with fleeting love you reviled me. Promised Eve, Oh fated blade I pulled from you my Mortality; bitter and cloying. Low be you! woman who I have loved, you will be my death.
Name: Liannon
Title: The Wailing One; Banshee
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Dominion: Nightmare Marsh
Favored Race: Demons
Prejudice: The Weak
Power Level: Liannon has been rising in power ever since the beginning of the Fjord War. She has slowly but steadily flown into the flooded lands were Zenihail once stood, and within there she has found new strength. It is said that her swamp has consumed the corpses of those who had perished in that tragedy, and that their bitter, angry, and resentful souls have been buried in an eternal torment to feed her hungry black heart.
Activity Level: Known and feared by the demons of the Marsh, but besides that she does not seem to meddle in affairs beyond her domain.
Goals: Liannon woud stop at nothing to increase her own power.
Muse of Nifel Loren
"They are not dead who live in the memory of the land, and the hearts they leave behind."
Name: Sarasri to the efferii, Shalien to the elves
Title: The Auctoritas; Einherjar; The Hierophant
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Dominion: The Winter Mountains
Favored Race: Elves
Prejudice: Those of dark hearts and black intentions are not welcome within her sight! Nor shall be any soul who raises arms or words against a fair born (elf).
Power Level: Though far from the strongest of her lot, Shalien is worshipped zealously. Her followers are numerous amongst the elves, efferii, fae, and even those of humans origin who've taken up the ways of the wild. She is considered an incarnation of justice to her faithful as well as the personification of the Nifeloren mountain range. Unlike most muses, who favor a consistent shape, Shalien adopts the forms of her deceased champions when manifesting to her faithful. It is for this reason that she is called Einherjar, the one through whom the dead live on.
Activity Level: It is quite common for The Hierophant to reach into the hearts and minds of those who travel through her domain, or even near it. Those found to be virtuous and strong of spirit are always welcome within the fold of her power. The magickal gift she most commonly bestows is that of summoning.
Goals: Shalien is ambitious beyond the simple goal of maintenance, preservation; she wishes to expand her territories to the sea, and beyond! Her aspirations are rooted in good intentions, however, and the lady muse has proven through the ages to be a benevolent and fair ruler.
Muse of Caliwind
"I have a hurricane in me that will strip away their pride, if they dare to try me."
Name: Caliza
Title: Stormcloud; Feathered Wind
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Dominion: Caliwind
Favored Race: Efferii
Prejudice: None
Power Level: Caliza has been known to summon ocean storms to sink ships trying to explore Caliwind. In addition, it is believed that she helps the Birds of Preys by forming strong currents of air to enhance their flight, whether to reach places more swiftly or to raid human or undead convoys.
Activity Level: Middle. Her house is the Valley of the Wind, and only there has she been seen. She is believed to pick "heroes" amongst the Birds of Prey, and favour them in their adventures. Many a Bird has sought her for a pact, but only the worthy are not turned back with their hands empty.
