“Rocky, the Ymmp” Ymmps are creatures in the world of the Aerendel role playing game that insist on telling you that their D.N.A. has three strands, so it’s technically ‘T.N.A.’ – They also claim to have all the D.N.A. of ‘all possible and impossible’ sentient creatures not quite dormant in their T.N.A. – They say they can be anything between six inches to six meters talls, even if nobody has ever reported seeing an adult Ymmp who was not between 2 feet 5 inches and 3 feet 6 inches tall – This is the best ‘near representation’ of an Ymmp I’ve seen and our friend Doug Otterson managed to do this by playing with the sliders in the character creation and modification application that comes with the software we are using to develop the game world and eveything inside it. Ymmps can have anything from baby soft skin to rock hard reptilian scales. They don’t often grow hair ( ‘grass doesn’t grow on a busy highway’ ) but some have been known to wear wigs. This is a screenshot from inside the game creation software package, working on a windows computer.
— The Last Wars Of Magic —
— “Aerendel” began as a word that popped into my head after reading the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. If Rivendel was a small secluded valley by a river, then Aerendel would be a small secluded valley near the sky.
— I began writing stories that included a city founded by the kind of tall, fair haired Elves that populated JRR Tolkein’s world and included a place called Aerendel. Gradually, Aerendel became the Sanctuary where a married couple of very Spiritual Elves brought a rag-tag conglomeration of refugees from a brutal war in their world that was a reflection of a greater multi-dimensional war that had threatened the existence of all creation. While the husband and wife were leading two separate groups of refugees from all sorts of strange and wonderful races (and some not so wonderful characters) they became separated and believed each other dead. Their progress was severely thwarted and both of them became involved with humans. Both of them had one child each with their human partners, both human partners were killed by marauding evil warlords’ hordes.
— The darkest hour of that total war came with a multi-dimensional climax that reversed the polarity of their planet, sent tidal waves crashing over whole continents and killing at least 75% of that world’s population. But they survived. And mythical creatures began appearing to them, talked to them and led them to a port where they reunited, with their half human sons, and where a fleet of sailing ships was waiting to take them away from the anti-climactic ravages of all sides of the nasty conflict fighting to the death.
— They found an island that was far away from any trade routes, that was barely more than a huge mountain in the middle of nowhere. A unicorn appeared and told them to climb that mountain in a hurry, find a cave up there and get everybody inside, quickly.
— There was one more magical storm that was the bad guys’ last ditch attempt to tear their world apart, because it would not submit to their demonic rule.
— There were massive earthquakes that hit all around the globe simultaneously, and for the second time in a decade, the world slipped on its axis and tidal waves rushed across continents and tried to drown everybody who was left.
— But again, they survived – and when they emerged from their cave they discovered that their small island had become a sub-continent. They later discovered that a rocky, mountainous land bridge had formed linking them to a larger continent.
— They were informed that ‘The Last Wars Of Magic’ had ended in an impasse when both sides – which had recruited and activated dozens of ‘lesser allies’ to fight their wars in many other worlds and dimensions – Both of the original parties in that all out war had realized there was no way either side could emerge victorious – The most ‘dedicated’ leaders on either side had seen most of their families decimated, children and elders butchered, whole worlds ravaged – and only when they became convinced that their own existence was threatened – realized they were not willing to pay any higher price for whatever shred of ‘Victory’ they might just possibly be able to pull out of some proverbial hat. The leaders of both sides of this insane conflict left the Material Universe to retreat to sections of the Astral Universe – Ostensibly never to return to the ‘lower’ realm of the Material Universe.
— The shape-shifting Guardians who had led the elvish family and their refugees to the island that had become a continent named the land, “Aerendel” and called it a ‘Principality’ – “No man or woman should be a King or a Queen. No one should have absolute power over anyone else. But as long as you and your heirs abide by the guidelines we have given you, there will be peace in this land and we will protect you from all wars and let you know about all rumours of possible wars that might affect any of those peoples and creatures under your protection.”
— After the mother and father died of ‘Elvish old age’ – which would have been something like ten thousand years – The half elf / half human brothers still appeared to be young adults. Most Elves and other very long-lived beings had taken to their own hidden communities around their world to avoid anyone who might try to worship or exploit them as ‘immortals’. But the young ‘princes’ of Aerendel were taught to regenerate their bodies periodically and ‘blessed’ or cursed with near immortality –
— They were also shown the tunnels beneath the castle that had been built near the cave where the original refugees had survived the last storms of the last wars. The ‘tunnels’ were part of an ‘anomaly’ that had been brought into being by the Guardians, who, fearing that all of creation could come to an end before anyone in that cycle had evolved enough to exist ‘beyond creation’ – had engineered a ‘pocket dimension’ that could connect with earlier times so the Guardians could ‘save’ as many people and things as they could and bring them back to the earliest time when it would be safe for their form of life to live and give them that much more time to learn and evolve, and go back again and again through a nearly endless loop if need be.
— They had tried to make their ‘Anomaly’ adaptive, and when they weren’t looking, the Anomaly began evolving, became more or less sentient, developed extreme empathic abilities and rescued many lost and lonely beings and tampered with their dna to grant them the desires that many of those ‘lost’ ones believed they couldn’t live without.
— And by changing their dna, the anomaly nurtured sideways evolution, great leaps forward and backward and released legions of odd sentient beings on the world. Cat People, Dog People, Bear People, Fox People, Otter People, Winged Flying People – minor and major metamorphs – and the myriad creatures that we have come to know as the inhabitants of the ‘Faer Kingdoms’ –
— From there my vision moved this insanity into a multi player game world and that is still coming closer and closer to becoming a reality that anybody who wants to might even be able to connect with and play around in before this world of ours comes to an untimely end –
— 🙂 —
