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BONOUS EPISODE - My Chronicles of Wildheart
12 Plays4 hours ago
Gnome explorer extraordinaire, Tillian Stump regales to the hundreds in audience in Obsidia of his latest adventure. An adventure to the kingdom of Wildheart. He recounts what he saw, what he experienced to the audience in attendance hoping to impart just a little wisdom of this strange and unforgiving place.
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Transcript
Tillion Stump's Wild Heart Journey
00:00:00
Speaker
My Chronicles of the Tidal Surge. Transcript from the Erith Cartographic Forum. Eastern Erith Focus. Magics and their historic dominance in Wild Heart. Collected by Pashant Gordyn.
00:00:12
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Archivist for Roth Hawksplitter.
00:00:26
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Foul hearts land where legends grow Tidal surges rise and flow Golden treasures deep below Time to get moist, here we go
00:00:44
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Honourable scholars, esteemed guests,
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honourable scholars esteemed guest Your Lordship, I am Tillion Stump, a humble traveller and author. I speak before you at the Aerith Cartographic Forum here in Obsidia as testament to a place and to a people that, as of yet, have been much maligned, written off and ignored.
00:01:35
Speaker
I come to speak of my travel through Wild Heart. As an adventurer, a scholar, and a self-declared enthusiast of the marvels of the natural world, I, Tillian Stump, have traversed lands both quaint and perilous in search of truth.
00:01:54
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Yet of all the wonders I have observed, from the fathomless libraries of the Eltrine Scolarium, the decimated blightlands of eastern Sleetgard, the rolling dunes of Dralak, the terror of the civil war in the Hural Empire, the luxury of the sanguine lands or the ethereal glades of Moonrise...
The Fascination and Danger of Wild Heart
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None have left as indelible an impression upon my soul as Wild Heart's tidal surge, a force of destruction, of unbridled power, and a phenomenon so grand that entire civilizations have risen and fallen in its wake.
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For those unfamiliar with this untamed frontier, let me be your guide With quill in hand and a determined curiosity in my heart, and more than a few spare pairs of trousers, I embarked upon a journey across the breadth of Wild Hearts, from its sun-bleached borderlands with the Horal Empire to the cresting waves of the tidal surge itself.
00:03:09
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I found heroes and scavengers, visionaries and madmen, all drawn by the inexorable pull of the wave's hunger.
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Today i shall relay the wonders and terrors I encountered, so that you, esteemed guests, may judge for yourself whether this land is a paradise, or a death trap, or perhaps both.
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To begin, one does not simply stumble into Wild Heart, lest they wish to be devoured by its unpredictable landscape. Its northern border, with Shadowmend, is in a perpetual state of military readiness, and its southern border, with the high Jade Heart dwarves, is even more perilous. No, no, one must enter with intent, as I did.
00:04:06
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From the west, through Hural Empire, the border into Crosswind Town, a place of perpetual movement, where the sands of bureaucracy and trade are ever-shifting.
Meeting Jai Ali in Crosswind Town
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Crosswind Town. and if one is being charitable, is the tethered vestige of civilization before one steps into the heart of chaos. ah The people here do not stay long.
00:04:34
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It is merely a place of transit, a town on the precipice of wilder things. The very air of Crosswind hums with expectation.
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Caravans loaded with surge diving equipment rumble past weather-worn inns, their drivers shouting last-minute haggles for ropes or for reinforced crates.
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Guides and mercenaries exchange contracts, some over stiff drinks, others in hushed whispers beneath the flickering glow-moss lanterns of the trade-houses.
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The personnel were inviting in their own crosswind way, and save the occasional duel to the death, it really was a nice place, and a place of beginnings indeed.' "'I stayed but a single night, "'my frayed nerves tattered from the long journey "'and the constant screams of bar fights. "'It was not the commerce nor the transit I sought.' It was the road to Stormspire.
00:05:40
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And from there, the moor and the surge's great fury. If my calendar was correct, and the friendly tide caller to be trusted, I have since learned of their reverend, almost holy position in society, we should be at Stormspire in just right time for a spot of lunch and then watch the little wave.
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ah To the untrained eye, Stormspire is an architectural contradiction. It is at once a fortress and a crumbling monument to a stubbornness, its jagged stone walls braced against the unrelenting surge.
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It stands defiantly upon cliffs. An unmovable bastion against the tide, and and yet its very foundations are gnawed at by the water below. Fascinating stuff.
00:06:31
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It is here, esteemed colleagues, that that one finds the greatest collection of those who seek fortune, or an early grave within the tidal surge's grasp.
The Tidal Surge and Jai Ali's Fame
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Surge-divers, they are called, a particular breed of folk, equal parts daring and deranged. With naught but enchanted lines, weighted boots and their own steel-willed recklessness, and they descend into the drowned ruins unveiled by the receding waters after the surge.
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The dangers are many. Collapsing structures, hidden predators, the sheer will of the surge itself. And yet, the rewards they pull from the deep are enough to tempt even the most rational soul into folly.
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It is here that I met the famous Jai Ali, whom was to complete his second dive into the treacherous waters. Already revered as somewhat of a folk hero, Jai Ali spoke highly of those that helped the surge dive.
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ah Scalers, they are known as. It is only with their deft hands, solid footing and stout knots are the divers not only able to descend with speed and precision, but also get back to the cliffside with ease.
00:07:46
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The evening before the major dive, I sat with Jai Ali in the Gilded Anchor, a half-sunken tavern precariously balanced within the cliff's edge.
00:07:57
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There, the air was thick with the smell of salt and damp wood, and the mood was one of both revelry and superstition. He spoke of lost cities glimpsed through shifting waters, of ghosts who whispered warnings,
00:08:13
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of creatures older than memory lurking in the deep. I listened, scribbling notes furiously, wondering whether such tales were embellishments or dire truths.
00:08:29
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And then came the morning tide.
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There are a few words in any language to describe the raw power of the tidal surge, To call it merely a wave is akin to calling a dragon a lizard.
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It is insufficient. Insulting, even. When the waters recede, they do so in a slow, ponderous motion, revealing silt and fauna weakly submerged by the babbling rivers of the ravines.
00:09:01
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But it is what comes that commands reverence. from the horizon. A wall of water, blue and effervescent and shimmering and rumbling and dominant moves with the inevitability of time itself. If one is not awestruck, one is wonderstruck.
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And if neither permutation elicits a response, then one is dumbfounded by the power. Its crest foams like the gaping mouth of some celestial beast swallowing all before it.
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The sound is deafening, a deep, thrumming roar that drowns out thought and speech alike. And then the surge divers jump.
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I stood, esteemed guests, Upon the moor, clutching my journal to my chest as I watched them scramble up the jagged paths, water streaming from their clothes, relics clasped in trembling hands, some did not make it.
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The water does not discriminate. It takes all that are too slow, too unlucky, too burdened by greed. I counted the heads of those who had departed and counted again upon their return.
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Twelve. Of the fifteen were lost.
Tidewatch Keep: Understanding the Surge
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Their names were murmured into cups that night, drowned in ale and sorrow. Jai Ali had survived and had been catapulted into infamy.
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He moves to Tidewatch Keep, the capital, to capitalise on his newfound fame.
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I recount this first experience of the tidal surge, but obsessed as I was, and not alone in the obsession that seemed to subsume all my will, there were many others that I observed over my weeks in Wild Heart.
00:10:53
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All mimicked the thirst and the emotional energy it elicited, save for the ground-shattering end of a tidal surge witnessed in Thunderstrike and the speed farmlands can drown in surgewater, far from the ravines, in Mistcrest.
00:11:11
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One might ponder the rationality of those souls that dive, those that take such risks in the face of danger, esteemed colleagues, and yet they dive. This speaks more to the mindset of what makes a wild heartian, one of energy, power, and sudden, unrelenting willingness to end one's life in the wave, at all cost.
00:11:35
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Esteemed colleagues, If Stormspire is Wildheart's reckless heart, ah then Tidewatch Keep is its unblinking eye. Here the scholars and rulers alike attempt in vain to map the Tidal Surge's whims, to predict its ever-changing patterns, to bend chaos into order.
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The Keep is a fortress of knowledge, its halls lined with maps drawn from memory, from guesswork and from fleeting observation of those who barely escaped the water's grasp.
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It is also a place of politics. The Tidecallers, self-proclaimed stewards of the land and sea, hold council here, locked in endless debate with merchants, warriors, and emissaries from the high jade-heart kingdoms.
00:12:22
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Some wish to harness the power of the search, others to tame it, and others still to let it run its course unimpeded. And yet, for the grandeur of the capital, something felt amiss.
00:12:36
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I walked without purpose, with a mind hazed and numbed by what had been done to me, yes, done to me, through the bustle of what must be a fascinating location with little more than a passing interest in some of the characters, places and events that took place.
00:12:54
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As for myself, I found solace in the libraries, poring over texts that detailed theories both ancient and new One thing was certain, none could fully grasp the nature of the surge.
The Surge's Overwhelming Power
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Not yet.
00:13:14
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Still, I yearned for more. I dreamt of the surge, awoke from daydreams hearing the roar, the power, the majesty After weeks at the capital, I was able to convince my guide to track a route to the north.
00:13:34
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I wanted to see where it came from. If this was the power that erupted, what majesty should await me at the fabled origin? and and out Now, please, i I ask for order.
00:13:48
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I call it that only as the locals named it so. I am not heretical. I am not turning against the triumvirate. My faith is true. yeah
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"'Thank you. Yet, to see—' "'Thank you. To see what I have seen, "'that there must be a god that makes such power come forth.
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"'We travelled north from the capital, from Tidewatch Keep. "'I have never seen such unrelenting mountain ranges as I did to the north.' The soft, rolling hills of the south, albeit scarred by the deep-cut ravines, seemed a world away from this.
00:14:31
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Many times I almost turned back. Many times my guide asked to turn back. Many times I den denied both. And pressed on.
00:14:42
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The snow and wind were intolerable. I remember one night, our last night due north, huddling over what remained of a fire, thinking if my folly was right.
00:14:59
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We had followed as best we could the ravine north. The gale that whipped outside felt enough to pinch me out of existence and send me straight to Terriani.
00:15:11
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Then we felt it. We dare not move from our lean-to, We felt another surge, albeit right on time by my reckoning, but the power here was stronger.
00:15:23
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So much stronger. I observed as the flames in the fire slowed, grew, and quivered like reeds in a lake,
00:15:37
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I felt an energy surge through me, too. I felt the most alive I have ever felt in my ninety-eight years. I looked to my guide. Her eyes twinkled a blue-green hue which was not there before.
00:15:50
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As quick as it came over us, it disappeared, and with it came a lethargy. A weight. i Like that of being in the tide-caller pools only to leave and your body weigh you down upon exit.
00:16:05
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I knew then... I could not continue. My body would give way before my mind, and I nodded to my guide, and we begrudgingly began our descent, never truly knowing, never truly experiencing what powers the tidal surge.
Unanswered Questions and Future Explorations
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I spent a week in the capital before retracing my steps west, and out of Wild Heart, not before experiencing the tidal surge of final time.
00:16:36
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Honorable scholars, I tell you, its pull and allure is addictive as research and academia is to you or to I. I came to Wild Heart seeking to understand its most formidable force.
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But I leave with more questions than answers. The tidal surge is not merely an event, it is a force of nature, a deity unto itself revered and feared in equal measure.
00:17:12
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It has shaped the land, the people, and perhaps even the fate of Wild Heart itself. Know this, esteemed colleagues, I, Tillion Stump, shall return.
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For the water calls. And I... am not done listening.
Conclusion and Call to Explore More
00:17:38
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And that's a wrap on this bonus episode of Wild Heart. But the adventure doesn't stop here. Dive deeper into the world of Wild Heart over at fellowshipofthetabletop.co.uk. There you'll find expanded lore, detailed maps of Aerith, and a brand new blog covering both Wild Heart and Bellum Draconis.
00:17:53
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Got theories? Questions? Wild predictions? We'd love to hear them. Drop us a message on fellowshipofthetabletop at gmail.com. Check a theory on the blog or join our conversation on our socials. Your input might just shape what happens next.
00:18:06
Speaker
And if you're craving even more stories from Wild Heart, don't forget to check out the Interregnums, our short fiction podcast bringing the hidden corners of this world to life. This drops every other Tuesday. Until next time, subscribe to keep up to date, stay curious, and as always, watch the tide.
00:18:32
Speaker
Meanwhile, Heartland where legends grow Tidal surges rise and flow Golden treasures deep below Time to get moist, here we go