Horrors of the Age of Dusk: The Silence

Much talk is there of lost civilisations, old and new, but no talk is there of Piazet, City of Silence, lest even the jaded sensibilities of the men of the Age of Dusk be overcome with grief at its tragic and horrible fate. For an age did the jewelled spires and crystalline minnarets of Piazet caress the Sun and the Moon, its sorceries bringing wonder and joy to the lives of men. Poets and musicians, the lords and ladies of Piazet, strove to bring harmony and beauty to all the world, bestowing upon its citizens enchanted jewelry that allowed men to perceive the beautiful symphonies they wove upon the tapestry of sorcery itself. In time they did erect great towers that resounded like a chime to the winds of sorcery, allowing them to cast their songs across all the world and fill the air with the music of creation. But as the air was filled with heavenly music and all the world was wrapped in song, something else then men did hear the song and was attracted also.

To the few survivors, whose minds were closed to the music of creation, it was known as the Silence.

It came from places unknown, travelling across the hidden pathways that lie beneath the fabric, seeking the source of the song that vibrated along them. A swarming mass of black dots, dimension-less and invulnerable, that ate through flesh like the most potent of acids and that passed through walls as though they existed not. Across the hidden pathways it travelled and by the song it hunted, so all that could hear the song died in the same part of a heart-beat, eaten from within as the Silence burst forth. So it was that Piazet became a city of silence within the space of a hundred heartbeats.

Piazet is a graveyard city in the Age of Dusk, its spires broken, its gemstones and precious metals glinting beneath piles of rubble, tempting greedy and foolish men to their doom. Its abandoned throughways occasionally resound with fragments of telepathic song, a few snatches all that remains of a symphony that once wrapped the world in beauty. So too does the city resound with the death cries of all that perished in Piazet, bringing nightmares and madness to those that dare brave the city. And they say that the Silence lingers on in lost Piazet, sensing men by the sound of their thoughts, seeking all who cannot shield their minds and turning them into wombs for itself.

So did the Silence end the Age of Song and so we remember that a man’s thoughts are best kept to himself, lest it attract horrors unknowable.

Of the characteristics of the Silence, i will say only this:
– No weapon, be it sword or arrow, can harm the Silence.
– No Sorcery, be it the most powerful ritual of Tzyan or the measily cantrips of the Age of Dusk, can harm the Silence. No ward or abjuration can hold it.
– The Silence hunts by detecting the thoughts of its prey. Let those that wield devices of old that broadcast their thoughts be especially wary, for the Silence can descend upon them in the space between heartbeats. For the lucky others, it moves at the speed a man may walk, though it is tireless and ignores obstacles.
– The Silence lingers in lost Piazet, for to leave it would be to brave a wasteland devoid of thought and song, which is to the Silence as the desert is to a fish.
– The touch of the Silence inflicts 5d6 points of damage to living things.