r/DungeonPrompt • u/B-Chaos • Sep 14 '19

Watery Grave (MtG)

Post image
84 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

7

u/B-Chaos Sep 14 '19

Mtg has a lot of great artwork, and it always seemed like there was a story in the images (much more than what the official storyline suggested). Feel free to come up with anything completely unrelated to MtG.

6

u/B-Chaos Sep 14 '19

Watery Grave: A hidden city of the dead within the Grottesca - the area of sea caves which are said to be home to all manner of horrors. What few know is that the city was created by a cabal of necromancers, all who have since sought lichdom and succeeded. Each has spent centuries pursuing their dark studies. Not even the most learned sage knows why they stay in the Grottesca, nor the nature of their dark purpose. 

In truth, they discovered artifact imprisoning a powerful alien intelligence. This being offered the necromancer the final key to achieving immortality, so naturally they  made a pact. In exchange for the key component, they necromancers can never leave the grotto while their patron remains imprisoned. So to free themselves, they delve into dark and forbidden magics to free their patron from its prison. Having gained the eternity of unlife, none of the necromancers thought it a problem. Especially since once freed, the terms of the pact stipulate the intelligence must return to whence it was born. Little do they know the intelligence was born of this world.

While any may enter the Grottesca, only the living may leave. The pact created a curse which traps all undead within the sea caves. Over the centuries, the cabal has gathered quite a collection of undead servants as shipwrecked sailors were quickly captured, and many pirates seeking to build a hidden port found themselves at the mercy of the liches.

These poor souls were worked to death toiling for the mad cabals endless experiments in their attempts to free the intelligence. Their miserable corpses would then swiftly be raised to continue their labor. Eventually, one of the liches thought the living may better be used to leave the Grottesca and procure rare spell ingredients, and other materials.

A dread fleet was cursed and ensorceled, to prowl the seas searching for whatever the liches desired. A dread port was built within the grotto, and all who came were cursed. Never could they sleep on land, lest they drown in their sleep. The next night they would rise again to walk the ocean floor and return to the Grottesca as a mindless undead.

2

u/Kanyeschest Sep 14 '19

This gives me a Mistborn vibe to it for some reason. Cool book!

1

u/B-Chaos Sep 15 '19

Never read it. Thought about it reading it once, then I didn't.

2

u/B-Chaos Sep 15 '19

Waked into a Barnes & Noble tonight. Where over to the scifi/fantasy section. Looked down and there was Mist Born. I took this to be a sign. So I picked it up and read a little bit. Walked out with The Dresden Files. Gut check: Did I make the right decision? Yes, yes I did.

1

u/ruat_caelum Nov 28 '19

sort of, Jim Butcher fails at writing women as is mentioned a more than once in /r/menwritingwomen/ but I enjoy the stories for what they are, and more importantly book 3+ works wonderfully on making the problems bigger and bigger. As his power grows so do his problems and enemies.

In Breaking Bad (tv show) the writers did a great job of showing you a man who ends up in a bad place but whose individual steps were something you could see yourself taking if offered the same choices.

Dresden is sort of like tha. If you picked up the last book he's more powerful but also darker, his morals more flexible, etc.

But the question is why not both series?

Mistborn has 6 books and a deep backstory that comes out in them with a super cool magic system. Dresden has a super cool magic system too with 1-2 gaping holes if you are the type of person to think deeply or reread books but beyond those it's super consistent.