Brimstata

*"Sing, o Priests of the Mother, of the sullied, tainted flame. Sing of the goddess once bright, turned to smoldering hatred. Of her endless grasping for perfection in a profaned land, of the wars her children caused, of the ultimate failure of her hand, scorched by the last flame she birthed.*

*Mourn, o Warriors of the Wrathmoon, for the bloodbath that was our legacy. Mourn for your comrades lost in the scarlet forests and amber plains, for the gods we felled for the future of the world. Of the warring world of fire and pain, united only in battle and strife, left to shatter once again after the evil was quelled.*

*Recite, o Scholars of the Ancient Era, the tale of the nameless Hero. Recite his journey across a freshly shattered world, one with trees and flowers just starting to twist by the hands of the Witch. His quest and allies, his creation of the Vessels. His final sacrifice to create the seal that lasted a million years.*

*Remember, dear Astrins, the strength our sealing on this infernal rock has given our kind. Remember it well within your hearts each time you leave this world to find a new adventure.*

*Look upon our planet, our world of reds and oranges and golds, our flame-encircled home filled with life and chaos. Look, people of Brimstata, out at the sphere you have conquered time and time again!"*

*-Meirritz Zayshilor*

## Brimstata

### Article Creator

CosmicSmoothie

Brimstata, the world of Fire and Chaos

## Societal Information

### Demonyms

* Sealed Hell
* Burning Plane

## Biographical Information

### Faith

Sun Ring's FaithfulChildren of Hellfire

Among all of Glawiad's worlds, Brimstata has suffered the most. The continents it once knew have been shattered to islands time and time again, sustained only by the intense volcanism ravaging the landscape. Sealed away from the rest of the universe on the day the Twin Blights were eradicated, wrecked and scorched and corrupted for thousands of years by the Catastrophes it birthed, and subjected to countless political and religious wars over its million years of isolation, Brimstata has festered in the far reaches of Glawiad, slowly withering away in the collective memory of the realm.

Though disgustingly tainted by the hands of the Catastrophes, Brimstata has been harboring and nurturing populations of the strongest individuals in Glawiad. The hardships that its people have faced for a million years have made each generation stronger than the last, not in terms of Echoes or raw strength, but in competent leadership and civilization-building. Nations constantly warring over shifting boundaries and unstable resource supplies brough on an arms race of economic sustainability. Though events have sent the people of this burning world back into the stone age several times, the will to survive and preserve the legacy of their ancestors has persisted through the population for its million years of agony and strife.

# History

## Ancient Brimstata - Long-lost Paradise

Brimstata was originally created in the early era of the Universe by the Primordials, the same way all other planets were. Brimstata's purpose was to serve as a paradise of beauty and relaxation for the Primordials during their endless lives. It served this way for around 100,000 years, a common safe ground for the Primordials while their brethren fought violently elsewhere, shattering moons and sending shockwaves across Glawiad in their enraged fervor.

As Death came into existence and the Primordials died off, Brimstata remained a beautiful paradise of greens and blues, continents shifting ever so slowly as its verdant moon loomed above. The people that settled and lived on the bounteous land came to be known as the Brymasti, and as they adapted to hallucinate the traces of Damir-Irrum, they began to worship the ring of light that represented noon. This figure eventually became two distinct entities of two religions: Sun, the god of light and glory, and the Mother of Fire, goddess of warmth and nurturing.

During the era of the Twin Blights, Brimstata's people remained on their world, refusing to go much further than the Skyshards they had access to. They sat and watched as the Haemagora and Apathesia approached their world, uncaring. Someone would take care of it long before it affected them, the people thought. There were too many people fighting it for them not to, they reasoned. They were wrong.

## End of the Blights - Birth of the Witch

The Twin Blights seemed to punish the slothful hubris of Brimstata's people. The Blights reached for each other as they had done for hundreds of years beforehand, and they connected in the sky above Brimstata. From the ripple of power that erupted outwards spread one force: Haemathesia, the Witch of Armageddon. She burst from nonexistence with a villainous cackle, splitting the skies with burgundy lightning and a promise to taint the universe until it was unrecognizable.

Through the sacrifice and calculated efforts of the Chaos Force, the Witch was able to be sealed within a barrier that was fated to last one million years, no more or less. The barrier covered all of Brimstata with a faint golden glow, keeping the Witch and all the people that did nothing to stop her arrival inside. The sacrifice of the life of the young Astrin who casted it allowed the spell to be a rule upon the realm of Glawiad itself, that none may pass through the barrier for its lifespan.

The people of Brimstata watched as their skies darkened, as the newly created force of raw evil and corruption writhed at the borders of their sky, unable to escape. She turned her nine blood-red glowing eyes to the ground, to the tiny playground she had to work with. Her wicked silent smile said more than enough about the future of Brimstata.

## Era of Cataclysm

The Witch was a patient monster. With such limited space, she had no choice but to savor the process of corrupting the matter and magic of Brimstata's people, lands, skies, and oceans. Taking upon herself a guise more similar to a Brymasti and less like her utterly unrestrained visage of unholy terror, the Witch wandered toward a town. The leaves of trees turned a blood red as she walked by them. Plants began to weep and wail, animals went feral and twisted into monsters of flesh and bone, and the ground beneath her feet erupted into a hollow black and amaranth flame. She found a sermon of the Children of Fire, those who worshiped the loving and caring Mother of Fire.

The Witch's blank gaze and eerie smile filled the gathering with paralytic fear. Grabbing the very flame from the brazier they had placed, the Witch spoke her corruptive tongue into it. The fire shimmered brighter, taking form as a young woman with flowing hair of flames. The icon of the Mother herself. The woman of flame opened her eyes, a deep crimson burning within, spreading through her form and twisting her into something new, something sinister. The Mother of Hellfire, as she came to be called, was born.

While the Witch delighted in taking the beauties of Brimstata and turning them into horrendously powerful monsters, soon to be known as the Catastrophes, the Mother of Hellfire began executing the curse she had been given: Perfectionism. Obsessed with creating the "perfect fire", she toiled, creating twelve children in the process, each more powerful than the last. Three times, she begged the Witch to give her a new Catastrophe, one she could study to make new fire. Three times, the Witch of Armageddon obliged. The final Catastrophe, the Dragon of the Infernal Grove, was still imperfect, but close enough to the Mother of Hellfire's ideal that it burned the hand that made it.

The Catastrophes wreaked havoc across Brimstata, sending it into a perilous era where the survival of anyone was not guaranteed. Continents were broken. Land sank and volcanoes rose by the thousands. The skies were clouded out with ash and smoke and the glee of the Witch of Armageddon. They ravaged the world for centuries, tainting everything that came into their path. The Brymasti slowly succumbed to the Witch's curses, their Echoes consolidating in fire as the treacherous forests and jungles became a bloody scarlet.

### The Hero

A lone warrior rose from the chaos. Wearing a horned helmet and never removing his armor, a hero gathered a circle of friends just as large as the ranks of the Catastrophes. He traveled across the world, seeking information and helping rebuild cities lost to the beasts. Starting from the weakest one, the Hero went with his party and sealed away the Catastrophes. They battled each one for days on end.

Months passed, and finally the Hero and his friends had one last feast. The next dawn, the Hero left with the one friend who had not been granted Vesselship to fight the Witch of Armageddon herself. While the others pleaded for him to take them along as well, the Hero refused, telling each of them that their role was to stay alive while he finished the job once and for all and restored Brimstata to its former peace and glory, or at least some reflection of it.

The Hero never returned. His friend came back, holding in his hands the Hero's helmet and sword and having a deep bloody glow in his eyes. The final Vessel had been created, the Witch destroyed, and the Hero killed as part of the plan to split the soul of the strongest and first Catastrophe.

### The Vessels of Dissent

The group the Hero left behind organized themselves into a council known as the Vessels of Dissent. Each one acted as a seal on their respective Catastrophe, and as a bonus, they had each gained a fragment of the power their Catastrophe once wielded. Though deeply hurt by the loss of their friend and comrade, the Vessels took their new world by storm and focused all of their efforts on rebuilding it to a state of peace and prosperity. A new world basked under the Sun Ring, one with plants the colors of flame and with an isolated future ahead of them.

When one Vessel dies, the remnant Echo of the Catastrophe is taken in by another, one who becomes that Catastrophe's new Vessel. Through the ages, the cycle of the Vessels has remained intact, never waking a single one of the sealed Catastrophes by leaving the soul unattended.

## Cyclical Rebirth

Brimstata, freed from the unifying threat of the Catastrophes, was allowed to build itself up again. Resources grew, populations expanded, and cities connected together to form nations. Religions changed and spread, with the most prominent still being the ones spawned from the Sun and the Mother of Hellfire. As the Brymasti and Astrins grew used to their world, they began seeking resources beyond their means. Small tensions became conflicts, and conflicts became wars.

Seventeen times, Brimstata was sent back into a new stone age. Each time, the traditions of storytelling preserved some knowledge of the Catastrophes, the Hero, and the Vessels. Religion increasingly became a part of peoples' lives at the same time most people lost faith, leading to skirmishes between increasingly zealous followers of religious practices and those who rejected the idea of benevolent divinity altogether.

Brimstata's people stopped antagonizing each other so much after a long while, allowing the longest period of peace the planet has seen since before the Witch of Armageddon was created. Technology advanced, religiosity averaged out over generations, and international trade and travel became easier. This era was known as the Karasota Lull. Unbeknownst to the inhabitants of the world of the flames, the million year time limit on the impassible barrier in the sky was running out.

## Unveiling of the World

One curious Astrin with an Echo thought to be weak, deformed so as to only have a right eye, looked up to the sky and the barrier above. A soft, faint golden sheen covered the night sky, tinting the Aestrai he saw beyond. Gathering the magic within his cloak, he flew up to the barrier, doing what millions had done before him. Touching the impassible shell of gold light, he felt something. A flicker of a memory, of an ancient Astrin laughing with several friends. He felt the grief caused by her death, and saw the tears she shed as her body was reconstituted into pure Essence.

Something flickered not far from the barrier. Though he could not pass through himself, the Astrin felt the faintest hint of power through it. Power strong enough to breach Brimstata's barrier. Power that reached his senses. Power he could use. Kneading the power with his hands, the Astrin felt the flow of it pass through the barrier. Concentrating it, he created a thread of this essence. He tugged, and a scraping sound that pierced the cosmos filled his very core. He pushed through, realizing that he had created a tiny hole. The barrier felt alive to him now. Its essence felt malleable. Using the enormous source of energy hovering nearby, he tore the barrier asunder. He was only trying to make a hole large enough for himself, but the whole of it broke - whether it ripped, shattered, or popped is indiscernible. Brimstata was open to the whole of Glawiad again.

The source of energy was a small raft floating in space. It appeared to have no energy of its own, but the source had scattered. Perhaps it was multiple sources. They were long gone now. Looking out into space, the young Aaron Neriota was filled with a new sense of exploration and wonder.

## Fall of the Feltheous

The most recent realm-wide disturbance in Glawiad was the death of the Primordial Grimm-Feltheous and the subsequent destruction of his legacy. The ether of souls, which carried peoples' consciousness on long after their deaths, was destroyed in an instant. Brimstata's people had been subject to death as it was intended for a long time, thanks to the particular philosophy and efficiency of their Reaper. While the destruction of souls did not immediately affect much on Brimstata, a cataclysmic time bomb had begun to tick.

### Destruction of Souls and the Wrathmoon

The few who noticed that souls no longer existed were the wielders of soul-related flames and Echoes. Among them was a single one of the Vessels of Dissent. Without souls to bind the Vessel to the Catastrophe, the seal was effectively broken. A few days were left until the Catastrophes were rejuvenated enough to break free of their prisons. He was not able to warn the others in time. Around the world, the Vessels all fell ill for 34 seconds, spasming and screaming the whole time. They all realized what was happening. The clouds above shifted from a sedate vaporous white to thick and ashy burgundy. The screams of a billion lost lives rang around the world at once as the Catastrophes awoke once again. The event now known as the Wrathmoon had begun.

An entire month of desperate fights broke out, with armies uniting to once again do battle against the dark gods of Brimstata. The Orikawa family, being one of the most knowledgeable groups in the world on the Catastrophes and their weaknesses, took up the main role of leadership. General Retsuho Orikawa was the man behind most operations during the Wrathmoon.

As the fights raged on, the age-old trouble with the Catastrophes was brought to light once more. Once killed, they would regrow from the core of Brimstata once more and continue wreaking havoc. It took until the 16th night of the Wrathmoon to find a way to kill the Catastrophes permanently. By forging metal from the very core of Brimstata into weapons, the corpse of a Catastrophe could be purged from the Coreheart of the world and their tie to it would be destroyed.

The last part of the Wrathmoon mimicked the Hero's journey so long ago. Catastrophes were felled, and the Vessels that had been serving as shields against the Catastrophe that could not harm them once again took up the mantle of the strongest fighting force on Brimstata. The final three nights of the Wrathmoon were spent in the final battle against the Witch of Armageddon herself, now more feral and malicious than ever before. Though it took many sacrifices and a spell that concentrated the whole of Brimstata's energy into one final rush, the Witch was killed once and for all, never to return.

The Wrathmoon is remembered every year with a week of mourning and three weeks of celebration. The champions who fought in the Wrathmoon are heralded as heroes, and the Vessels of Dissent are praised for their protection of the world. Though there is an air of melancholy around the month-long festival, the unity of Brimstata's people for this time is well worth it.