They whisper to their children tales of the warm, golden rays of an unfiltered sun, they trade stories with one another of bygone glories, and remember a time when the people of the city smiled and laughed. Many have fallen into the gray despair of the dead that surround them, submitting to the Mask of Winters’ rule, but a few hearts still beat with the pride that once made Thorns great. The dead march through its streets, but the living still huddle in the ruins of their once great city. None speak the city’s name now, and it lies only upon the pages of scholarly tomes.īut Thorns is not dead. When a mountain of rotten flesh stopped at the city gates, it brought with it a new ruler, and the rest of Creation turned a blind eye. Almost literally overnight, the dead rose up to swallow the city in an apocalyptic storm of pain and horror. Their might grew so great that the city, with its Dynastic allies, threatened the Scavenger Lands itself with the greatest war in the city’s living memory.īut with power came pride, and the city’s hubris made it vulnerable at a crucial moment. As a reward for its civility and sophistication, it became a center for skilled artisans, thoughtful intellectuals and honorable warriors, and each lifted their hands to make their city beautiful. When other nations turned their backs upon the Realm, it honored its debts and offered up tribute to the Scarlet Empire. It stood just beyond the simplistic barbarism of the Scavenger Lands and remembered its place in the Shogunate. This city once rivaled Lookshy’s prestige and Nexus’s might. In the grandest square, beneath the towering walls of governmental palaces, a black-iron statue of a dictator raises falsely benevolent hands to support croaking rations, his smiling mask looking with pleasure upon his conquest. Within hollowed-out ruins and empty-eyed houses, flashes of color appear and vanish as bright-eyed residents peek from their homes, the rustle of their furtive conversations, the scent of their cooking food and the slow beat of their still-living hearts subtly reminding the city that it too once lived. The wind sweeps along quiet streets, lifting stray leaves and carrying with it a heavy stench of rot and decay. Wide boulevards ring with iron-shod footfalls as silent, unliving soldiers slowly parade beneath the dead flowers that cling to black-timber arches.

Pale rays creep across the darkened bay and paint looming, black marble edifi ces in hues of silver and gray, casting long shadows across a slowly decaying city. On the southern shores of the Scavenger Lands, dark waves lap bone-white cliffs as a faded sun sets upon one of the great cities of Creation.

Wuthred the unliving voice actor