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I'll start this off with Gryffon, I suppose
" Gryffon Durime was born the second son of a famed Daveon warlord. The Daveons were a vicious and cruel race of olive skinned people, with raven-colored wings and a lust for carrion much akin to that of a vulture or other scavenger. Gryffon was never as vicious as his brother Wryoko, or any of the other Daveons, and only ate what was needed to keep his sanity from the Carrion Lust. He was disgusted with himself, with his people. He abandoned his home deep in the Black Sands of the Desert, and flew to the Golden Sands beyond them. His brother followed, and gave Gryffon a nasty gash on his leg trying to bring him down. Wryoko succeeded, and ripped off his brother’s wings, dealing a mortal blow to his ribcage in the process. He left Gryffon for dead, and the rest is beyond Gryffon’s memory.
When he woke, he was resting in a white gazebo, lined with soft silk pillows and screened with fine fabrics. He emerged slowly from his resting place, clothed in white, his hair now without color. What he saw amazed him: behind him was a glittering city upon the most beautiful sands he’d ever seen, and before him was a sight truly alien: the sea. Beside the gazebo, a young woman stood on a wooden dock, a beautiful white plumed bird circling above her, leaving a golden trail of light in its wake. The bird flew to Gryffon’s shoulder, and gently pecked at his ear.
The woman was amazed, and explained that she had found Gryffon out in the desert, bleeding to death. The bird that had guided her and was now resting on his shoulder was the Halcyon, the bringer of peace. She wanted to know how Gryffon came to nearly die in the desert, and so he explained his life as a monster to her. He didn’t know how to go on living, he could never be forgiven for the atrocities he had done, and he couldn’t live with these people in their city of Obsydyon, because he would surely get the urge to murder them in cold blood. The woman disagreed, saying that the Halcyon had granted him peace, peace from that primal desire. Still looking to atone for his sins, Gryffon joined the Priesthood of Mytri, dedicated to the worship and teachings of the Goddess of Truth and Light. As he watched many Priests wither before him, he began to understand: to Daveons, time meant nothing, and so he would live on, but those he cared for would become old, would shrivel, and then die.
Gryffon rose through the ranks of the Priesthood until he reached the very pinnacle of its teachings. He sought a way to expand his borders, and left Obsydyon after his eightieth birthday, and resolved to return when he had seen the End of the seas. Gryffon crossed the seas, and searched for redemption, and preached the word of Mytri to an unhearing public. He returned, made six hundred and twenty years wiser by experience, knowing the seas like never before, and returned to a dead home. The walls of Obsydyon were fallen and broken, and Gryffon wept. He saw the temple desecrated, but just above the wreckage he found the five relics of Mytri. Taking them, he went to the gazebo where he had awakened on that day, and sat in meditation. Through the Eye of the Star, he saw what had happened, how the foul beasts, the conqueror of Mehlk had ravaged the city, and he saw a young girl, cowering in the corner of her home, her parents blood upon the door, a soldier raising his cudgel above her. Then, in a flash of light, he saw the girl who had awoken him, standing before the girl, the orc gone, but both wept at the loss of the empire.
Gryffon drifted, unwelcome in the places he had visited. And he came upon a strange land, a land he had not seen before, the land of Graal. He found a home in a place called Dustari, and formed a fast friendship with a kindhearted and philosophical general named Henry Barbarossa, a man destined to be king. He fell in love with a beautiful woman named Scarlet Arianna Crimsa. He did not know that she was engaged, and so he made a fool of himself proposing to her. And thus, a long-standing rivalry began between the House of Durime, and the House of Warhare. But all this happiness and sadness came to an end, with a single word: Ackbar. The Karakaze, a gang of vandals and fools assasinated the King, Kamuii Nightrose, and his then-heir, Henry Barbarossa Nightrose. Gryffon was taken aback, and the remaining Dustarians moved, migrated to the Newlands, to Dustari Isle. Sadly, on the way there, Gryffon lost all but two of the Relics of Mytri. Gryffon drifted again, searching for home in a new world, and was saddened as the reign of two of Dustari’s greatest kings ended. He returned dynasties later to find Tseng Nightrose at the nation’s helm. He rejoined, as Chancellor, advisor to the King, Reagent of his will, and general friend of the crown. He became friends with the nation’s Prince, Padren. Soon, the Phoenix Path began again, and son overcame a tyrannical father, and once again, Nightrose died, and a new Talisan dynasty arose. Gryffon remained, an agent of this new order, and once again, the Halcyon came to him, and in its mouth was a tiny jewel, blue in color, with endless depth. A treasure, for the former priest who he had given peace to, another greatest gift to someone already in the bird’s debt.
Gryffon soon came to have a personal vendetta against the Queen, Zoe Talisan. Through her trickery, she forced Gryffon from his lands in Silverstag Valley, and eventually he found his war to the Sanctuary of the Forest. Under the protection of the elven diety Christian Anthony, Gryffon ascended to the throne of Aran of the Forest. As his first act, he sought to uncover and restore the ancient Hyralts of the Forest Kingdom. Hyralts, he named them, because they were the sainted-statues that contained the essences of a land’s past rulers. The earth, as if in tribute, had made the Hyralts deep within her womb. With some luck and old records, Gryffon discovered and restored two of the Forest’s first Hyralts, devoting the top floor of the castle to a shrine for them. He also managed to transplant the dieing Tree of Life, now clad with the mournful scarlets and sighing gold brilliance of the Autumn of it’s life. While the Hyralts seemed to stabalize the tree, it’s condition has yet to improve. It has, however, begun to once more to produce the Sap of Turns, a mysterious delicacy sweeter than any syrup that has the strange side effect of changing one race into another. The newest batch of the sap is able to transform fullblooded elves into Autumn Elves; Zormitians into several other long forgotton Zormite Tribes, some humans into strange halfblood elves, and is even said to transform some other humans into goblins. Because of the Sap, the Forest once more became a nation of all those who were turned away from other cultures who sought to live in peace. |
03-14-2005, 05:27 AM
Golden Pluffy Winner in Poetry 
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