User:Thilan/Visions

Visions of a Clerical nature.

Altar Visions

1 vision every 10 circles before receptiveness to visions is weakened, caps at 10. Not sure what the timer is.

You feel a warmth run through your skin as you touch the altar, and sense a deep connection with something much greater than yourself. The feeling is brief, and your vision clouds over....

The image of a crystal-clear water fills your mind, spreading out before you. From nearby, notes of pure melodic music drift on the currents of the wind. Though something dark teases the edge of your sight, trying to work its way in, nothing can break the utter tranquility of the moment.

You do not see, but rather feel, a malevolent presence nearby you, squeezing at your upper arm. Though subtle at first, the pressure gradually builds until it's nearly unbearable, and you feel it trying to tear your very soul from your body. All at once, a huge scorpion appears on your shoulder, striking with its stinger and driving the evil presence away.

You see the corpse of yourself rise to its feet, your skin falling off along with decayed chunks of your flesh.

You feel the infinite outrage of the gods in your very bones, resonating through plane and time. The sensation seems to empower you with purpose.

Your vision is completely obscured by a sheaf of misty whiteness. A deep tingling spreads throughout your body, and you suddenly feel as if you are soaring upon a warm, comforting cloud high in the air.
The shroud of satiny, alabaster vapor swirls away from you, revealing The Crossing stretched out far beneath you. Your spirit soars like liquid through the air, your fingers outstretched toward the massive orb of the High Temple below. Expanses of pruned trees and lush foliage skirt the majestic monument. A warm feeling tingles through you, ending the vision.

Your sight is suddenly devoured by a pitch-black darkness, and soon small fingers accompanied by an unholy stench start touching you. Just as they find a way through your clothing and the cold, pulpy flesh meets your skin, twin rays of blinding light blast through the blackness. The fingers immediately retreat, and you glimpse a very short humanoid in the remaining shadows.
After a few moments, you realize that the light is emanating from your own eyes -- a manifestation of your blessed soul. You sweep your gaze through the area, but the creature crawls frightfully from one dark corner to another. The rays catch it at last, sizzling the body of a dead Halfling as its wretched scream fills the air.

A sense of desperation settles over you as you perceive the lingering energy of a dark force marring the Plane of Abiding. It stirs as if slumbering fitfully, on the verge of awakening.

A silvery shape of lined light manifests itself as a mongoose. A tall woman with pure white hair flowing nearly to her feet whispers to you, "Defend the gods always, and may they guide and guard your soul in return." A gust of wind lifts her hair to flutter softly as the vision fades.

A shower of comets swirls through the inky night sky as millions of vaporous living spirits sift off unto their origin.

You find yourself nestled comfortably under a warm quilt, burrowing deeper under the soft cover to cuddle up to a still form lying next to you. As you snuggle closer, a feeling of dread begins to permeate your consciousness before you realize that the body is ice-cold. Your eyes widen in revulsion as you pull back the covers to reveal a rotting corpse, its mouth open in a silent scream. You desperately try to push away, and the vision fades.

A faint sense of worry washes through you as a vision of some mountainous wilderness flashes into your mind. Fleeting twinges of dark energy stab into your spirit, but you cannot discern their cause.

The image of a stately Rakash woman coalesces before you, shrouded in a cloak of bitter ice and frost. The frigid mantle soon melts away, seeping into the ground below. Your sight suddenly grows weak, frosting over like a window pane under Asketi's breath, and the vision fades.

A vaporous Human form manifests in the air above the altar, his skin glowing silver and starry black. He regards you gravely, and an unearthly voice speaks, "Smite down the abominations of Life and Death, Cazvelu, whenever and wherever they are found."
The wraith touches a wispy finger to your forehead, then vanishes.

The altar suddenly becomes deathly cold under your touch, causing you to reflexively yank your hand back -- but not before you experience a momentary fright where you feel bereft of divine favor. As you watch, the cold metal altar shrinks into a mere fragment, yet it still emanates the malevolence of thirteen gods with unabated intensity. Trickles of midnight-hued purple and blue blood drip from its edge, bursting into flame as they spiral downward in a dark void.

You see a plain woman in the distance, towering above thousands upon thousands of unholy creatures. Your gaze strips away her illusions to reveal her ghastly appearance, and her armies turn to dust with so much as a thought. She, however, stays maddeningly out of your reach. From behind her, a tremendous unearthly presence reaches out toward you, shredding through the planar barriers as if they were nothing more than sheer veils.

The image of a dagger with a carved bone hilt fills your mind, seeming to interrupt the vision from the altar. Though a simple weapon, it seems to exude a malevolence of its own, and moves to stab itself into your heart. Just before it reaches you, a twisted paw knocks it aside, and it clatters to the ground, vanishing in a haze of red-tinged corruption.

Dozens of ghostly children emerge from the Void - or are you there yourself? -- and hastily swirl around you with outreached arms. Their mouths are open soundlessly, gushing spiritual waves of warning and import. The apparitions then become bright-winged nightingales that flutter away determinedly.

You see an image of a lion, sitting majestically at the edge of a completely circular pool. It suddenly jumps and growls at an approaching vulture, but quickly calms as the creature places an offering before it. Both creatures rake their claws at the water's edge, breaking the serene image to reveal the tainted corruption lying just below the mirror-like surface.

A small metallic shard hovers over the altar, ablaze with a powerful black radiance. It suddenly drops into a deep-looking pool, instantly boiling the brackish water amidst great yowling clouds of sickly blue and purple steam.

You are plunged into a deep, cold, unending abyss, the nightmarish nothing spreading out in all directions, void of any life or sound. Despairing, you wander forward, with nothing to tell you whether you are going the right way. Suddenly, several white claw marks rend the air in front of you, piercing the darkness with a brilliant white light. As you step through the rip, gentle hands lift you up, and a voice speaks softly. "Do not despair, my child. Though the darkness seems hopeless, it will not last forever."

Infusion/Resurrection Event Altar Visions

You see a pile of tapestries tossed in a heap before you. Some are silk, some cotton, most all frayed and faded. You reach to examine a blood red one, and suddenly you feel a sharp rake of pain across the back of your hand.

You see a great black shell, cracked open like an egg. The surface of the shell is etched with strange, indecipherable runes unlike anything you have seen before. A river of midnight-blue sludge pours out endlessly from within.

The image of a haggard hangman's tree shimmers before you, its gnarled branches bowing heavily beneath the weight of the many souls it has reaped.

The image of an inverted red triangle on a black background flickers before you. It fades as a ghostly musical chorus swells and dies.

You see an image of a three-taloned claw. Struggling within its grasp is purple-speckled dusky blue moth.

A layer of crystalline frost forms over a silvered surface. You wipe away the frost expecting to see your reflection, but the surface gives way to a swirling black chasm.

You see a bridge, arching like a wild ocean wave from the depths of the sea to the shore.

You draw forth a blade from a sheath. Rather unexpectedly, the sword is made of jagged bone.

You are jarred by a vision of an obsidian obelisk. You can discern nothing about it, as the surface is smooth and unmarred.

You see a line of statues, each a contorted, grotesque, reptilian form.

A vision of a black stone basin wavers before you, as several large bubbles of a viscous blood-red liquid within it suddenly expand and burst.

An Elven man with pale skin and thinning grey hair sits in contemplation. His hand bears a frosted onyx cambrinth ring bearing the crest of the Cleric's Guild, and hangs limply at his side. His eyes narrow as he appears to struggle to form a decision.

Milky white eyes gaze out from a face of ebon skin as dark as shadow. An unseen hand raises a scythe etched with intricate patterns along the blade over the face, concealing the eyes. With a silver flash, the vision fades.

An extraordinary walkway stretches ahead, rough and fraught with protruding obstacles. You kneel to examine it and with a shock realize it consists of fused bones!

A soft nagging thought fills your mind, Go Home. Go Home. Go Home.

A bone-shafted spear sails through the air and with a heavy thud embeds into a wooden statue of a woman with an amble figure, her arms outstretched. A dark stain slowly spreads over her carved visage.

You see a flash of deep blue velvet tapestries. Despite the lovely color and soft fabric, an uncomfortable nagging foreboding makes you deeply uneasy.

A massive skeletal claw lurching awkwardly out of a briny mire sinks slowly down, groping a crude altar within its cursed palm. A blood-stained silver chalice lies nearby in the swamp, sinking ever-so-slowly in unison.

A silvery shape of lined light manifests itself as a mongoose. A tall woman with pure white hair flowering nearly to her feet whispers to you, "Defend the gods always and may they guide and guard your soul in return". A gust of wind lifts her hair to flutter softly as the vision fades.

You struggle to make out the words written upon a plaque. A monument to the farility and fallibility of mortal souls, the pawn here forever gathers dust." The words inspire neither hope nor relief.

You are seated at a great banquet. Music filters faintly through the noise of feasting and drinking. You turn to your left to take a drinking cup passed to you, and find in your hand a twisted silver horn that is naggingly familiar.

As you raise it to your lips, you realize the liquid within is hot blood, and that the beast laid before you on the table for dinner is not a boar roasted for nobles, but a slain unicorn stripped of its horn. You look to the guests seated opposite you, and find the feasting hall is full of skeletal beings, without joy or purpose.

The sickly black mist of a nightmare swirls about you. You find yourself trudging through murky swamp waters. Suddenly you stumble as your next step is less solid and you sink further into the mire. You are suddenly caged within a huge claw that seizes you from below and begins to drag you beneath the murky water! Stagnant muck and filth fills your mouth as you feel yourself pulled deeper and deeper.

From an all consuming blackness a pair of radiant green eyes slowly emerge, casting a sickly glow on dusky midnight-blue scales that cover a hulking body. Two deathly black reptilian wings span across the creature's back, tipped with spiked talons that glisten malevolently in the light. A gargantuan tail, thickly plated with armored scales slowly undulates back and forth.

A circle glimmers before you. Gradually you realize you are gazing down into a silver goblet filled with an ebon liquid, the rim forming the circle. As you watch, you see another circle, the borders etched in indecipherable runes. Within this circle is a silver bowl, filled with congealed blood. As you stare, the goblet you hold shatters in a fine shimmering mist.

A vision of a crimson mist forms before you. The mist, shaped vaguely in female form, holds a hideous amalgam of disembodied Human organs floating within it -- two eyes dangling with bloodied optic nerves, a beating heart, and a ragged coil of throbbing entrails. With a terrifying scream, the heart within begins to pulse furiously.

You wake groggily from a head-pounding sleep, to find yourself lying in a coffin, wrapped in a heavy purple shroud. In alarm, you see the lid begin to descend, and raise your hands instinctively to keep it from closing. Just as the lid falls shut, you realize your hands are nothing but bare skeletal bones.

You find yourself flailing in a churn of water. You try to swim, exhausted beyond reason. Battling weakly you are dragged into a violent churning funnel of water that tosses you downward. Water jams into your mouth as you plummet! Like a stone, you fall. And fall.

Global Visions

The Fall of the Great Barrier

A pale shimmer materializes in front of you. It gradually intensifies until it is a solid-looking wall of blinding gold, unfurling vertically as far out as the eye can see. You notice greasy, invasive veins pulsating within the glare, and soon the entire surface is consumed by their taint, the golden hue shifting to an ichorous crimson-streaked black. Just as several grotesque silhouettes begin to emerge, the vision blinks out of sight.

Tachid's Folly and Asketi's Wrath

You suddenly feel airy and light as a feather, and you are whisked away to the midst of a blizzard, floating about a cloudy precipice. Apparently led by a much smaller figure, a pack of skeletal animalian monsters are scaling the mountain, their claws digging into the rock face with ease. One by one, the shrieking winds pluck the large creatures from the mountainside, purposefully hurling them against the jagged cliffs below. Their now-frozen skeletal frames shatter into a thousand beady green pieces as if glass.

The Halfling, however, clings to the granite wall like a little undead spider; a barrage of wind-honed hails shreds his fingers into bloodless ribbons, yet he keeps on climbing without so much as a pause. As he grabs the final handhold with a triumphant yip, the sky darkens, churns and unleashes an ear-splitting lance of icy blue lightning aimed at him! The ensuing blast is powerful enough to send your incorporeal form hurtling back towards your body, ending your involuntary spirit walk as the smitten creature s ashes are scattered to the wind.

Dergati vs. Firulf SMACKDOWN

Changing the Firulf altar in the Ker'Leor to Dergati.
In the darkness, you feel walls closing in around you. Ahead in the distance, an exotic, black-haired beauty says, "Yes Sister, I shall wound his pride for you and take what is his. Such weakness deserves my wrath." As the woman holds out her arm, a shrike swoops down and folds its wings as if home.

You see the woman standing before a flat-topped stone altar. An evil smile crosses her face as she places her hands on it, her eyes closing. She mutters some words you don't quite catch and the altar starts to glow. Suddenly, you hear a loud *CRACK* as bolts of lightning fly out of the rock. In a flash, they disappear, replaced by the image of a shrike that illuminates the stone's surface.

You hear the exotic beauty say, "It is done. They shall worship me now or suffer my rage." She turns to a mass of swirling shadows and says, "I shall strengthen your brethren to guard this place. You may toy with all who enter these woods and feed on their souls."

A black-haired beauty stands before a wall of brambles with a gypsy marauder. She tells the gypsy, "You shall no longer enter here. Tell your king, I claim these woods and my pets shall punish all who dare pass. Remember, I am always watching." As the vision fades, you see three flashing eyes that slowly fade from sight.

Vela'tohr Plant

Vision most likely related to the old Valtusk event but still cool.

[Vela'Tohr Woods, Withered Foothills]
A lone vela'tohr plant grows stoically amidst hard packed ground comprised of small pebbles and stone, tiny remnants from the mountain that looms above it. It stands, a vigilant sentinel, before a rough trail that leads back to a denser part of the woods.
Obvious paths: northwest.

[Vela'Tohr Edge, Adder's Coil]
A velvety carpet of flora explodes suddenly into being in this spot, bearing vibrant flowers and plants of all colors and shapes. A sense of exuberance permeates the air here, as if it were charged with the essence of Life itself. You also see a large vela'tohr plant.
Obvious paths: northeast, southwest.

You reach out and lay your hands upon the vela'tohr plant's stalk, closing your eyes in concentration.

A vision suddenly takes hold of your consciousness, depicting a vast expanse of forest lying at the foot of a giant mountain crowned by an ominous-looking temple.

A horrid shriek suddenly floods your ears, shattering into your mind like a piercing blade and dispersing the vision before you. You grasp your head and slump to the ground in pain!
Note -- stunned here

The image of a Dwarven priest, clad in platemail and bedecked with symbols of Kertigen wavers in the air above you. A forlorn look crosses his face and he disappears as suddenly as he had materialized, a chilling wind rushing over your dazed person.

You manage to regain hold of your senses, although your ears still ring with the incessant cacophony of a banshee's wail.
Note -- stun wore off

The vicious ringing continues to plague your senses! (7x)

The constant ringing in your ears finally ceases. Ahh, blessed silence!

Misenseor Abbey

The altar has been cut from a single block of deepest black obsidian and is devoid of ornamentation. Standing in resolute silence, bearing witness to many unspeakable acts, the altar shall never divulge its secrets except to the darkest of heart and those who are chosen to serve.