Wenelia in the Hero Plane

From: Jeff Kyer <jakyer_at_ikt7x0rwZlKDrlnlF0YfaRiebVEs5iofkb3vAiWXooC8uAFlukkX6KPrc9Rh-ZjwwqdYZ>
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 21:29:38 -0400


Another snippet. Wenelia suffered some of the worst depradations of the God Learners.

WENELIA: A DARK AND WOUNDED MYTHOLOGY Wenelia’s magical landscape suffered terribly during the Second Age. Slontos was one of the Middle Sea Empire’s greatest centers. It was here that the Goddess Switch happened, and it was at the Pythos University that so many heroquest paths were pioneered and exploited. For many Wenelians, the name “Heroquester” is synonymous with God Learner.

The most devastating act perpetrated by the God Learners was an experiment to switch two of the land goddesses, Inica and Einkorn, commonly thought to be Wenela and Slonta, for no other purpose than to see if they were identical. For several years there seemed to be no ill effect, then some insignificant flowers failed to bloom in each land, and then their sacred crops disappeared. In one land, the divorce rate became almost one hundred percent, and in the other Slontos shuddered and sank. To this day, growing the goddesses’ sacred crop is nearly impossible in both lands, and the Wenelians have suffered as a result.

The surviving heroquest paths in Wenelia are either relatively minor local Founder myths or are the mighty pathways essential to worship. Venturing far from these safe and secure stories is dangerous, for the wreckage of the God War hems these pathways closely. Myths lie in rubble. Guardians have been warped or slain. The magical landscape is a wasteland and the Great Darkness is always close at hand. God Learner heresy taints even the simplest stories – nothing can be trusted. Rumors persist of dark figures lurking at the edge of sight, sometimes guarding arcane travelers from terrible foes or attacking the impious with devastating force.

A prime example of this victimization were the local grain goddesses and their myths:

Inica, sometimes known as Wenela, is the local goddess, manifest in her sacred grain called by her name. Inica is a form of rice that only grows in the river bottoms and boggy valleys. Unfortunately for the primitive Wenelians, Inica requires both intensive cultivation and frequent irrigation before yielding a good crop. Places where Inica grows readily are surprisingly rare in the rough uplands of Wenelian, and those clans lucky enough to own such fields defend them fiercely.

Long ago, the priestesses say, this was not so. Once her grain grew rich and golden throughout the highlands, but evil tricksters fooled the goddess into becoming someone else who was just the same. Now Inica only grows along rivers and marshes, and few benefit from her bounty. This agricultural poverty only serves to increase the Wenelian’s reliance on other foodstuffs and many clans in the easternmost lands have turned to other, more bountiful crop goddesses instead.

--
Flight to Peru - £1000
Camping gear - £200
Native guide to take you into the mountains - £50
Radiation detector to find mysteriously radioactive old tomb - £150
Sledgehammer to break down stone door - £12.99
Awakening one of the Great Old Ones - priceless.

There are some things man was not meant to know. For everything else,
there's Mastercard.



           

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