Recent Entries

  • LotS: Frost Moon - Chapter Thirty-Five

    Then and Only Then     "As we commend their souls to Aetherius, blessings of the Eight be upon them, for they are the salt and earth of Nirn."   Three graves were freshly dug outside of Morthal, on higher land less likely to succumb to the marshes. One denoted a warrior's gra...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon - Chapter Thirty-Four

    Change Moon   The round window glowed like a vampire’s eye, turned blood-orange from dusk falling through the trees. Agni’s legs burned from the steep climb, but she hastened, panting and tightening her hold on the green vial clutched between her fingers. In her haste to do h...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon - Chapter Thirty-Three

    Nightfall     Blood on the steps. A weeping cub. Shades of dusk on the cooling sands. A broken home, life lost.   "I'm s-sorry," Zahrri sobbed, her mother's blood in her veins and on her teeth. His beautiful Ahndra, gone.   The house is too still. His heart cracks, empty...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon - Chapter Thirty-Four

      Gaining Allies     The Stormcloaks slept as hard as they drank; deeply and loudly. Even face down on straw mats or sprawled over fur bedrolls didn’t muffle the grunts, whistling snores and baritone dream-murmurs. Reidar wondered if a cave of bears would have been quieter...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon - Chapter Thirty-Two

    The Forest of Ice & Fear   They were like flies crawling through the stone bones of a corpse, and a pulsation on the surface of their skin grew more intense as they encountered a final door, separating them from the heart of Frostmere Crypt.   Mor’vahka pulled his scimitar fr...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon - Chapter Thirty-One

    Frostmere   The silver-edged scimitar glowed white, cooling as if fresh from the forge. The soul gem was in shards, empty of its host soul. In his years of service to Arkay, Mor'vahka had never heard protest from the Neutral God over their usage.   The souls he used did not deserve...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon - Chapter Thirty-One

    That Hateful Name     These were not the soldiers he’d met at Camp Varglya. This was a new warband, a new slew of faces Reidar made little effort to memorize unless there was something outwardly distinctive about them. A fetching scar, an outlandish feature, a fierceness in th...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon - Chapter Thirty

    Deepened Shadows   Last night, he had dreamed of dolls that rotted like corpses, with maggots crawling through the cloth. He had stumbled through the dream-fog half man, half monster. Laelette glared at him from the shadows, and the scent of snowberries mixed with wet earth and fresh bloo...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon - Interlude

          The sky thundered with the ancient call of a forgotten beast. Ulfric lifted his attention from the missive, jaw tilted like a wolf scenting the air.   Dragon.   It must have been close. Was it arrogant enough to attack this city? To challenge their walls of ...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon - Chapter Twenty-Nine - Awakening

    Awakening   The mountain peak shook off a thousand years of stillness, and craned its neck over the word wall.   Odfel and Reidar turned to rabbits, frozen by the incomprehensible size and reality of the dragon before them. The dragon's talons marred the intricate carvings as it ad...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon - Chapter Twenty-Eight - Into Shadow

    Into Shadow   The hour passed quickly. He did not trust Kjeld White-Paw, and forwent the urge to bathe, to cleanse himself of the world’s filth. The choice was made instead to retire by the fireplace with a steaming mug of canis root tea and a malicious thought to its effects—...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon - Chapter Twenty-Seven - Northwind Mines

    Northwind Mines     Reidar stifled a yawn, watching with a drowsy tracking of his eyes as a courier walked into Shor’s Stone. It took only a second to realize the courier came from Windhelm —and another second to realize he was walking straight for him.   The urge t...
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  • Light & Shadow

        The Headache   He was reluctant to part with the Gauldur amulet. But Ossien had enjoyed its benefits for long enough. Though his home directly outside of Whiterun’s capital could accommodate even the most zealous of hoarders, Ossien knew when to keep something—...
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  • Wasteland Recipes Vol 1

      Sitting on top of an explosives crate, you find a stack of papers held together with bits of yarn. It’s a recipe book!   Curious, you leaf through it.       Got sick of eating salisbury steak all the friggin time. Made these recipes. Plenty of food out there...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Twenty-Six - Plans Are Made

    Plans Are Made     It wasn’t Meridia. Why would a Daedric Prince who hated the unnatural create a seal to wear his soul away? To contain his power, instead of simply killing him?   Kjeld turned the page, and flinched at the horrific illustration of a horned, demonic creat...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Twenty-Five - Redbelly Mine

    Redbelly Mine Content Warning: Language, Spiders   "Let me guess, someone stole your sweet roll?"   Odfel glowered at the helmeted guard, unable to see the insolent eyes behind the cold metal, though the tone got through with ease.   "What good are guards if they won’t ...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon - A Bundle of Letters

    Galmar, Imperial presence is stronger now than the beginning of the year. We have intercepted one supply cart, but it cost us our battlemage just to shield ourselves from the retaliation. Folgunther’s body has been sent to Rorikstead for burial.   We need more mages.   Igmund...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Twenty-Four - Dawnstar

    Dawnstar   Dawnstar was as wretched as he remembered. The air ws heavy with the tang of salt-water, with each salty breath freezing in his lungs only to thaw and get pushed out in a puff of mist streaming behind him.   The sun still slept below the horizon, and would slumber on for a...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Twenty-Three - A Sigh of Ghosts

    A Sigh of Ghosts   He had spent the morning trying to make locks. Morthal had persisted without a blacksmith for so long that much of the town had ‘gone to the marshes’. He wasn’t a carpenter — and Morthal needed one badly — but that didn’t mean he had an...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Twenty-Two - Changing Shape

    Changing Shape   I’m a dead man. Death didn’t frighten him. Not really. Life and death were part of the natural cycle of the world; to live was to breathe, to die was to let that breath go. And to the Skaal, there was always the chance to breathe again. Their spirits would be re...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Twenty-One - Fables Unearthed

    Fables Unearthed   The guards, their newly repaired armor picking up a shine in the overcast sun, greeted him upon return. There was no point in hiding the book; Kjeld could do no more than quicken his stride and put on a harried smile to fend off any questions. He could see the incredulous...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Twenty - The Jagged Crown

    The Jagged Crown   Reidar ran through the corridor as if his life depended on it. And it did. With a hiss of pain from between clenched teeth, Reidar was forced to acknowledge that he wasn’t so much running as he was hobbling. The ebony claw was clutched in his bloody hand, and the ac...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Nineteen - Korvanjund Part II

    Korvanjund Part II Content Warning: Language, Violence, Gore The adrenaline was starting to subside. Several feet underground, there was no protection from the cold beyond their uniforms; the morning spent by the fire in Camp Varglya suddenly seemed so far away. Reidar didn't regret his d...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Eighteen - Korvanjund Part I

    Korvanjund Part I   If there had been bandits here once, there weren’t any longer. A stone firepit was cold, the ashes undisturbed in the center of the ring. The unused sleeping bags scattered across the floor looked like shedded skins.   Thurza and Reidar could not shelter ins...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Seventeen - Windbreak Chapel

    Windbreak Chapel Each time the hunting knife sliced through the fungal pods, separating them from their stems, a wet, musty smell was added to the already pungent swamplands. Kjeld placed the pods into a small wicker basket, on top of the flat, mud-brown discs of lichen and nightshade flowers h...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Sixteen - Thurza

    Thurza   Reidar limped back to Camp Varglya. His cocky stride had quite literally been broken, and every step sent a tremor of pain through his foot and a string of expletives through his brain. He slowed only to glower at the cart that had arrived ten minutes before him, though the drive...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Fifteen - Delayed

    Delayed   He missed the cold press of Rakki’s nose against his face, and her impatient whine for him to get up to feed her. Kjeld opened his eyes to the dim, cold interior of a room he did not recognize. Kjeld sat up, drawing an itchy woollen blanket off his legs and torso, swinging h...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Fourteen - Fool Me Once

    Fool Me Once   Galmar was three days late. Frustratingly, there wasn’t so much as a whisper about the Jagged Crown, and he dared not bring it up in case the conversation overheard in Windhelm had been a secret. The entirety of the camp was concerned only with guard duty, training, and...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Thirteen - Bearer of Bad News

    Bearer of Bad News    His blood called to the wolves of the forest. He caught grey shapes flitting through the trees, fresh blood-scent no doubt seeping into the air though he’d wrapped the wound in cured leather and cloth. There were other things to be concerned over, however; h...
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  • Legends of the Skaal: TOC

    Legends of the Skaal will chronicle the lives of two Skaal brothers as each must answer the call in the Fourth Era of Man and Mer. Dragons have returned to the lands of their ancestors, threatening fire and ruin to all; ancient powers stir in the shadows, growing stronger with each passing momen...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Twelve - Vigilant

    Vigilant   The coachman had been right about the road. The horse moved with the steady pace of an animal used to this labor and piss-poor infrastructure, but Kjeld felt his bones rattle each time a wheel struck a rock or the road dipped.   If anything could be said of the journey...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Eleven - Camp Varglya

    Camp Varglya   Content Warning: Language, Spiders   The life of a marching soldier suited him better than he thought. He found it peaceful, traipsing over the snowy slopes leading away from the city, his boots hammering down the thick, crunching layers of snow made wet by the close...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Ten - Diverging Paths II

    Diverging Paths II   Working at the forge again was a small solace. There would be many hard days ahead—that was just one of life's irrefutable truths—so he quietly reveled in the scent of smelted ore and burning coal, the feel of a hammer in his hands. It was not Baldor's for...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Nine - Diverging Paths

    Diverging Paths     The house seemed a little less miserable, now. This understanding between two forces that usually clashed (and sometimes roughly) had chased away some of the wretched chill.   Kjeld withdrew for a moment, getting his thoughts in order.   Reidar was ac...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Eight - In Search of Truth

    In Search of Truth     A bottle of nightshade extract glimmered in the torchlight, the strange purple substance sloshing against the sides of its container as Kjeld walked. It was his free pass, permission to go into the deeper rooms of the Palace of Kings and bypass Jarl Ulfric and h...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Seven - Windhelm

    Windhelm   The great city of Windhelm sat on the edge of the Sea of Ghosts like a black, somber crown. Snow-dusted and wind-lashed. Ancient and formidable.   It reminded him instantly of the crypts of unknown warriors and nobility scattered over Solstheim like scabs. But this city ...
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  • The Story So Far (LotS: Frost Moon Recap)

      In part one, we met two brothers who couldn’t have been more different: The protective pacifist Kjeld White-Paw with a secret he’ll do anything to get rid of, and his obnoxious, sly-tongued brother Reidar who longs for an adventure of his own. Life in the Skaal village was quie...
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  • LotS: Knörr and the Laughing Bear

    Amazing cover made by Axius Revan! Knörr and the Laughing Bear Author Unknown Foreword & Afterword by Varnard Karessen   One of the early works that fueled my research on lycanthropy, I found this tale tucked away in a historian’s desiccated library, with no author to speak of...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Six - Resolved

    Resolved     The world came back to him in a violent dash of white light and the burn of salt water in his nose and eyes. Kjeld sputtered like a drowning man, his body almost unresponsive—legs kicking in leaden jerks—and his arms were nothing more than dead weight, seeming...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Five - Lightning Strike

    Lightning Strike     Content Warning: Language, Violence, Thalmor     Where in Oblivion did you go? Damn these elves. The shape of the land had given him little choice but to descend the mountainside; as he passed over ash-stunted shrubbery and shattered storm-strewn woo...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Four - Rescuing Baldor

    Rescuing Baldor   Content Warning: Language, Violence, Thalmor   Rakki zigzagged over frosted hill and ashy plain, her nose to the ground, tail quivering with energy as she charged—slowed—charged again in pursuit of the missing blacksmith. Kjeld, Morwen and Reidar kept cl...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Three - First Signs of Trouble

      First Signs of Trouble   Content Warning: Language   The eruption of the Red Mountain in 4E 5 had drastically changed the neighboring island’s identity. Divided into two halves by an encroachment of ash and molten rock, the southern half of the island took on the name...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter Two - Questions Arise

    Questions Arise     Dawn broke over Skaal village, rosy fingers stroking snow-covered eaves and sooty chimneys, the Greathall bathed in a dusty glow. Kjeld shambled out of bed like a draugr from a coffin, adopting an undead lurch and a bearish yawn, wide naked feet striking cold woode...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon Chapter One - Predictions in the Smoke

    Predictions in the Smoke   Far from the troubles brewing in Skyrim, on an island choked in ash and ice, existed a tiny village sitting high on the Felsaad Coast. Though they claimed their lineage from Nords, they were a humble people, respecting nature and preserving a Oneness with the la...
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  • LotS: Frost Moon, Prologue

    Breaker of Rings     Only the Greybeards of High Hrothgar could call together a Moot. That was fine. He didn’t need a Moot. Not yet. Scarcely had the rope burns begun to heal and the smell of cinders and scorched earth lift from his clothes, when the Jarl of Windhelm called up...
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  • Until Dawn - A Tale of Legend & Lycanthropy

    A tale of lycanthropy and a legendary bottle! Follow the misadventure of Tavareth Redvale, a Bosmer ranger living and hunting in the Fall Forest when he encounters a little more than he bargained for. ---------- The gates of Riften swung out and the chilly autumn air tried seeping through the gaps...
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