Light of Fontan/Hannibal's Reports

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1. Dear nobles of Fontan,

When you have time, please travel to Fontan and join the Light of Fontan religion. We worship the Gods of the Celestial planes: The Sun, The Moon and The Stars.

The Light of Fontan temple (in construction in Fontan City) is built upon the site of an ancient civilization. My brother Asdrubal was the one that discovered it not long ago. He was digging around looking for buried treasure ( I think some wench told him it was a good idea!) and he came across a stone slab in the ground. Thinking he’d found treasure he commanded his troops to remove the slab. To everyone’s shock and bemusement, there was just a dark, cold chasm, with no obvious signs of *anything*.

He sent me a messenger telling me of this strange “hole” in the ground. I told him that he should keep guarding it until I had time to get there. Some time ago I had to travel to Fontan to deal with this, and since then the site has kept pulling me back to it. As if there was something, no….. some-*one*, begging me for help.


2. The first time I arrived there I commanded my troops to lower me down on a rope. They seemed glad that I volunteered myself, their eyes were avoiding mine, as if they knew something I didn’t. I couldn’t see anything until I hit the ground. I lit my torch and only then realized I was stood in a massive chamber, painted in artwork of creatures I have never seen before.

It was dark, but I wrote down everything I could describe. Here is a copy of my original writings:

“It’s freezing down here and I think I’ve just about had it with my stupid, cowardly troops. Anyway, the room is about 10m high and 20 metres wide in a pyramidal shape. It seems I came through the top of the pyramid. I wonder if this is the entire structure, I can’t see any signs of anything below me. The walls all have paintings of people fighting bizarre looking animals….there’s what look like hybrid creatures, half man – half….something else. There’s also birds, but not as we know them, they have reptile like faces and skin, with jaws instead of beaks. It’s hard to tell what this all depicts, it might be a story or just random pictures.”

I hauled myself back up the rope. I’d seen enough to know I should be careful and come back with some equipment and better lighting. This “find” obviously needed to be studied in detail.


3. Asdrubal kept asking me questions at this point. I told him to be quiet, he’s not the brightest and I feared if I told him what some of the pictures showed, he might cause a widespread panic. I brushed him off as I knew I had to, whatever was down there, it could be devastating to our people.

The next time I went down to the dig, I setup a more permanent base of operations at the centre of the chamber. I lit the torches and the room became fully illuminated for the first time in perhaps generations. It was strange, the stone slab that sealed it appeared to be thousands of years old, worn and full of roots seeping their way into the cracks. However, the inside looked as if it had been built within the last few years. There was no damage to anything, and the paint was vibrant, not dull like the paintings we have.

There was no evidence of this place even having existed as a myth, so what the hell was going on. Who built this place and for what reason? I think what was most disturbing were the images of people fighting creatures that were….not from this world.


4. As I looked around the chamber, I decided I should try and document the objects. This might shed light on what this place was and would help to keep a useful inventory in case of looters. Here’s the extract of what I found:

“North Wall:

A bookshelf with 10 books. All written in some unknown script. Looks a bit like how our ancient writing was, but it’s not the same.

East Wall:

10 Swords, all pointing to the North Wall.

West Wall:

10 Axes , all pointing to the North Wall.

South Wall:

10 Bows, all pointing to the North Wall again.

Nothing else, apart from the paintings of course, which happen to cover the entire room. I’m beginning to realize that there must be a story here, as the pictures appear to follow a sequence. It starts at the North Wall, goes around each wall, and spirals all the way to the top. From what I can tell, it ends at the North Wall aswell. Unless there’s more to this place, I think the answer to this enigma are the books. While I try and figure out what to do with that, I’ll make a log of the story of the pictures.”

At this point I was deeply worried, the pictures were grotesque in places. The events depicted were…. disturbing.


5. This was getting bad, I knew I should bury the lot, but something kept me going. Something kept drawing me back. I had to solve the riddle, I just didn’t know how.

Asdrubal was starting to suspect I was “losing it”, but what did he know? To him the world is “black and white”, and this to him would definitely be evil. My common sense was telling me that this place should be buried and forgotten. I can’t explain in words, but for some reason I had to finish what I had started. It was almost as if I knew this place was an answer to something we did not know about.

I pushed my torch closer to the North Wall. It lit up the entire face clearly. The pictures at the bottom were much smaller than the ones at the top; I guess so it was possible to get the maximum amount of information across without needing the viewer to climb up the walls. I touched the first wall near the first painting in the elaborate sequence. It was incredibly smooth, either the paint was extremely thick or the stone had been carved that way. However they did it, it was clearly at the limits of our anything our technology could create. One odd thing about the wall, was its temperature. It seemed to be as warm as my hand. I took off my shoes and stood on the stone floor….it was warm also. I can offer no explanation for this.


6. So there I was, stood in the Pyramid, looking at the first picture on the North Wall in the lower left hand corner. It took up the entire bottom row of the Wall, and it depicted a battle of truly epic proportions. I looked at it in amazement. Maybe I’d spent too long on the battlefield, or maybe we really didn’t have great artwork. The depth of colours and perspective were astonishing, it was like they had taken the real world and placed it onto the wall.

On the left hand corner of the wall was an army of many battalions, from various Flags. Thousands of knights, all in formation, ready to charge forward into what lay over to the right of the painting. What lay there was a castle, no…it was a fortress. There was water behind it, and so the fortress was surrounded by invaders. The fortress was under siege and from what I could tell, there were not nearly as many troops defending it as there were attacking. The troops inside looked just like the troops outside, except with a different flag. They had similar armour and even had similar expressions on their faces. I think the picture showed that the war was a pointless one, and that they fought for false reasons. It doesn’t appear to show any siege that I can remember, and although the people are certainly like us, they are subtly different. The flags and some of the siege weaponry are totally unknown also.


7. The next picture lies on the East Wall. It shows what has to be the middle point of the battle. Waves of invaders were charging forward, most getting slaughtered on the walls, but a few successfully scaling the defences. The sun was setting, and shadows were casting long shadows on the invaders, as if they were being cursed. The fortress inhabitants didn’t escape the darkness either, in fact they were suffering the most. There were markings, possibly speech bubbles, next to some of the knights. Some of them were holding the slain of the enemy as if they would their own brothers. Only now did I realise that two of the flags were similar, one of the invaders and the majority of the defenders were almost identical. It looks like there must have been a civil war.

The next picture was on the South Wall and showed the aftermath. The sky was black. Thousands of bodies littered the battle field and the fortress. The civil war had been won and the new flag erected; it was almost the same as the old one. All the knights had distressed faces, not victorious ones like I was expecting. Looking at it this way their war appeared stupid. There were no heroes, no victors even. Everyone lost, *badly*.

It made me think about the recent battle with Avamar, there are many sieges, but obviously this came to mind instantly. The civil war, the darkness…. I wasn’t sure if it was coincidence or if there was more to this somehow.

The East Wall showed the dead being buried in mass graves, for there were too many to give them individual resting places. The place was still dark, but the people were distraught, almost for fear of their lives, maybe wishing they had died in the battle. In the background the troops were being filed into ranks once more, to fight again against some other enemy. In the very far distance were troops originally from the fortress, evidently running away from whatever fate was trying to catch them.


8. Looking back to the North Wall, the story continued at a higher level. But as the walls were getting smaller as they got higher, each level depicted one event in a panoramic type view, a full 360 degree landscape, that spiralled up the top. On this level there were troops from many nations fighting on a very large battlefield. They were fighting in all directions, under tens of flags. There were a few from the losing side in the civil war, scattered around fighting other people’s wars, seemingly trapped in an endless cycle of bloodshed. The winners of the civil war were also fighting again, but they were just a small feature compared to the overall picture. I could see oceans in the distance, with islands, perhaps continents, each with yet more troops fighting. The darkness from previous paintings had gone, but there was still something wrong. The light from the Sun was much dimmer than it had been on the first picture, as if it had lost some of its strength, perhaps weakened by an unknown force.

I wanted to know why they were fighting. There was writing under each picture along a bar. I knew I had to understand it if I was ever going to find out the details. Having glanced at the rest of the paintings, I was also hoping that there would be some explanations.

I looked up to the next level. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing…


9. The painting seemed much like the others to begin with. There were armies at war and random battles occurring all over the place. In one corner though was a temple. It was in the grasp of some sort of darkness, creeping up from the ground, smothering its bright walls. And all around it were foul, lothesome creatures. They were gathering quietly while the knights fought each other. I’ve seen monsters before, plenty of times, but not like this….this was like a view of pure horror.

The final level showed the obvious outcome of this horror. The fiends were massacring the knights, peasants, women and children. No-one could escape their terror. And they did not use swords or axes, but weapons that were grafted onto their body parts. Perhaps the most terrifying part of the painting was the lack of hope. The temple had literally thousands of evil creatures surrounding it on the ground and in the air. Darkness was spreading from the spire, casting its shadow over vast distances.

I decided I’d seen enough. The paintings were of a distant place, obviously not related to anything here, I hoped. There was only one thing left to do, translate the books and try to get some answers about this place.

I spent weeks painstakingly trying to find words that I could match with English equivalents. And then one morning I woke up, and everything was readable. I understood the books as if they were written in English. Why this happened I can’t explain. Maybe it was divine intervention?


10. Each book was an in depth guide to becoming a Knight of this religion. Here’s the list of titles:

1. Integrity 2. Trust 3. Honour 4. Respect 5. The Path 6. Courage 7. Weakness 8. Strength 9. The Unseen Prophecies 10. The Seen Prophecies

The books were all at least 500 pages long and fairly fragile to hold. The opening part of the first book explained that a knight must tackle each book in order. This would shape the knight into a true warrior that understands the values he protects. The rough translation is as follows:


A knight first and foremost must have integrity, without that the knight can be corrupted and turned against those he cares about most. Trust allows the knight to gain honour and then respect, from his contemporaries. After the knight has gained respect from his superior, he must then follow The Path. This is when the knight travels to distant places to uphold the values he has learnt so far. The destination and style of the journey is usually chosen by the knight’s superior, to create a personal experience unique to each individual. Once the knight returns, a new set of challenges await. The superior in charge of the knight will devise difficult and sometimes dangerous problems for the knight to overcome. The knight’s courage is tested first, and once the knight has passed that test he/she is almost ready. However, in order to gain the strength to fight even in impossible odds and under extreme physical pain, the knight has to endure a period of weakness. This is usually carried out by starving the knight for one month whilst having to train daily from dawn to dusk. Other tasks have been known to be handed to knights, at the discretion of his/her commanding officer. There are other circumstances, and in special cases a knight may be waived through this if there is sufficient evidence of past experience in this regard. The final part, Strength, has no task. The knight will now have gained strength from completing each book, and as such, the book Strength is more about the ethics of combat. Every knight that completes the training will receive a copy of the final book during the graduation ceremony. This will help the knight to make decisions outside of battle, so that when he/she enters battle, the dead shall not have died in vain.


The overview apparently made a good argument and my first thoughts were how useful they would be in training our new knights.


11. How could I explain all this to you, the knights of Fontan, who would surely question my sanity? So I decided to write a series of instalments, which would allow the people of Fontan to view the events as I experienced them. Only in that way could anyone hope to understand the greatness of the Pyramid.

Perhaps arrogantly, I decided I did not need to read the books in absolute detail, as I am already a seasoned knight. I chose to skim read, and try to pick out the more interesting parts. A few things were starting to appear repeatedly in the books. The strangest, most confusing aspects of these repetitions were the way that they were occurring. For the text did not contain them directly, it lay behind the words somehow. As if I was reading two sentences when there was only one. There were repeating references to something called “No Space”. It was hard to make any sense of it, but eventually I came to understand the basic premise. This “No Space” contains many worlds within their own bubbles. And those worlds are completely sealed off from other worlds, even so called, parallel ones. Apparently, bubbles could collide with each other very occasionally. When this happened, the worlds within the bubbles would overlap and unexpected events would occur. The evil from the pictures were thought to come from one such bubble that intersected another bubble. Some of the worlds within each bubble overlapped, causing objects to travel (sometimes partially) from one bubble world to another.

It appeared that the Pyramid may have come here via some similar method of travel. It would help to explain the enigma, but it also can sound like the words of a mad man. I guess there is a fine line between those that are truly enlightened and those that are insane.

There was more hidden in the texts. The ancient scriptures were filled with more and more information. I think there were layers below what I could read, my understanding obviously not quite enough. I knew a good scholar though, one that might be able to decipher the most hidden parts.


12. Asdrubal informed me that the scholar had arrived at the dig’s location. I climbed out of the Pyramid and ordered the guards to let him through. I explained some limited details to him, careful to keep most details secret.

I asked him to try and decipher any hidden text that he could see within Book 1 : Integrity. He looked a bit confused, but I assured him that there was something encoded. Obviously I didn’t mention how I knew this.

A few days later he came back to me saying “I can’t find any evidence of any hidden text! Nothing!”. I thanked him anyway and paid him a few gold coins for his efforts. Why could I, a simple knight, find many hidden phrases, whereas this scholar could not find a single word? I guessed that the Books hidden text could only be read by those that understand its visible text fully. As an experienced knight I already knew many aspects of what is in the Books, and this might explain why the scholar found nothing; for he has no real knowledge of what it is like to fight on the battlefield.

There was only one way to test my idea, find a knight at least as experienced as I. I was almost spoilt for choice, being in Fontan, a realm of not just seasoned veterans, but of knights that believe in many of the same values that are in the Books. After a day of deliberation, I made my decision and it proved to be wise.


13. I sent my brother off to gather the best knights of Fontan. I was happy to see the cream of Fontan all in one place, ready to help me. Just outside the dig were Lycastus, The Revenger, Zedd, Teshup, Col Kilo, Private, Sartan Morningstar, Lionel, Otranto, Lord of Blood, Leon, Maldrik, Alexi, Symphony, Lolaap, Quanto, Guthrinc, Lord Smoke, Tzarina, Sparky, Jelle, Jim and Henri. I could make out more knights, hiding in the shadows, keeping their faces hidden.

They didn’t know why they were here; all they knew is that I requested their urgent help. I spoke about the Pyramid, keeping most details secret, and began to explain the importance of the Books. The knights looked surprised at my sudden change in attitude. Before I opened the dig, the only thing I could believe in was the power of the sword. I even chose to stay fighting as a knight than accept a pen pushing position of a Lord.

I asked the knights: “All of you are more experienced than I. The Books contain layers of hidden messages that can only be read by veterans of combat. I look to you, my friends, and ask you to step forward.” Immediately, 10 knights stepped forward in unison. “You will each be given one Book to read and protect. We will meet again in a few days.” Why exactly as many knights stepped forward as there were Books I will never know. It was probably coincidence…

I obviously had to take down their names and which Book they had. I passed them the Books at random, noting down the details:

Book Knight 1 Col Kilo 2 Private 3 Jim 4 Lord of Blood 5 Alexi 6 Sparky 7 Teshup 8 The Revenger 9 Lycastus 10 Zedd

A few days later an anonymous message arrived at my quarters. It said: “The sacrifice of a Leader will cause…….” The final word left blank. The paper was worn and bleached from the Sun, making it appear weeks or possibly months old. For the first time since I opened the dig I felt worried. Not for myself, but for the people. An evil force was coming.


14. Asdrubal sent me word of a meeting that required my presence in Fontan City. It was signed by Lycastus; maybe he had found something? I jumped on my horse and rode there whilst trying to plan what to do next.

The guards motioned me into the new fort. The room opened up in front of me, displaying the opulence that only a Duke possesses. All the knights with their respective Books were sat around the table in a heated debate. Lycastus turned and requested me to sit down.

I sat there for a bit watching, and listening to their constant arguing. It appeared that they each thought that “their” Book was the only Book worth reading. I stood up to get their attention, slamming my fist onto the table. I spoke instantly, asking them to pass their Books back to me, which they did, albeit grudgingly. I then asked each of them what they had found and to explain it in no more than one sentence. The first knight I asked was Lord of Blood. He said there was a great darkness that we had to fight collectively. The second knight, Teshup, said a chosen few had to protect a temple. The next knight, Zedd, was adamant that we should bring about peace to some of our enemies. I heard from the others, but I already knew that they were all describing small sections of what I had already discovered. I guess this was bound to happen, as I had read most of the Books and managed to put the pieces together. Of course, I had also seen the paintings in the Pyramid and spent many more weeks studying the Texts. Lycastus, however, had a useful suggestion, to build a temple on the Pyramid, so we could prevent looters and public suspicion whilst we try to figure out what to do.


We decided to swear an oath of silence on this matter until it became public knowledge. I gave a quick rundown of the events to the knights, and gave them each access to an information base I had collected over the past few weeks. (OOC: the wiki page http://wiki.battlemaster.org/index.php/Light_of_Fontan ).

I looked around the table and thought “Who of these will rise to the challenge?”. I stared out of the window at the landscape. I could see the less experienced knights practising in the distance. “Will they help me?” I wondered how much help they could be, being barely able to wield a sword let alone fight a war.

The next few weeks were filled with days of long, tiring, back breaking work. Building a temple was no easy effort, and even with a few hundred peasant volunteers it was proving to be difficult. The design we chose was a simple architecture of a stone building and spire. Due to the pressure to build it quickly (before word could get out about the Pyramid), we chose to build a relatively small version of a temple we had seen in text books. Occasionally knights would come to help in their free time, granting me a rest for a few hours.

Eventually all that was left to construct was the floor. Lycastus decided it would be best if we, the knights, would complete this final task. So we worked a final day and night on the temple. As we worked, knights had to leave for other duties, slowing down the progress. The next day I went for breakfast, but all the others had left. And then just when I was about to give up myself, I saw Lycastus struggling to move the last slab into the floor. I couldn’t believe it; he had worked through the night moving slab after slab of heavy granite. I paused in amazement, and then realised he wasn’t actually able to move this final slab. I ran over and began lifting it will all my might. Slowly we dragged it over to the centre of the temple, where the entrance to the Pyramid lay. We stopped for a moment, looking down at the original slab that topped the Pyramid, and then we saw it… For the first time, we saw the top of the Pyramid as it had once been. It was covered in beams of light, shooting up into the spire. The beams made some words, in an ancient script.

It said: “Light of Fountain”.

At that moment I think we both realised that the words were no coincidence. Suddenly, a bolt of light came down from the top of the spire, hitting Lycastus and myself in the chest. I could see my hands and arms glowing white. Looking over to Lycastus I saw him surrounded by some sort of yellow/white aura. Everything quickly went white.

I woke up dazed, not sure of what just happened. Something was attached to my arm, it was white and semi translucent. There was some scripture on it which I recognised immediately as “Light of Fountain”. I shouted to Lycastus to see if he was ok. I heard him mumble something I can’t really repeat! He was clutching something in his right hand that looked like a sword. It wasn’t really a sword like any I had seen before because its blade appeared similar to my shield. In fact, both strange items were made of pure white light. I looked more carefully at the shield and I noticed another inscription: “Avatar of Light”. I ran over the Lycastus and told him to read the hilt of his sword. It said “Founder”.

We both got up to continue what we were doing originally. We grabbed the slab we dragged in and placed it over the Pyramid’s slab, sealing the light in. The “Light of Fountain” had to be hidden from view.

And so it came to be; the Temple of Light was constructed, and its Founder and Avatar were chosen.


15. The next few weeks proved to be decisive in shaping the future of Fontan, and the Island. Lycastus studied the books in detail, drawing up similar conclusions to my own. Whilst he worked on that, I was busy explaining the temple and the religion’s values to anyone that walked in. It actually became tiring telling the same story over and over again. It was becoming obvious that I needed help from…. some priests.

I knocked on Lycastus’ door. He didn’t hear me, so I shouted at him….nothing. I walked into his study and snatched the book. It was Book 9, the Unseen Prophecies, the one I had lent to him at random before the temple was constructed. He looked tired, almost no resistance to my actions were evident in his eyes. I ordered the guard to get some food. We sat there for most of the night discussing the Pyramid and the Books. It was only then did we realise we had formed a religion. Up to that point, events had just taken their “natural” course. There was only one option available: To make a stand against all evil and corruption. The Light of Fontan needed more. It needed priests, knights, guards….people. We needed a Realm.

We thought the ancient seal of the Pyramid had the perfect title: “Light of Fountain”. The idea was in place, and the plans a mere formality now. It was going to happen… it had to happen.

The next few weeks were a difficult time for us. We had to try and find support, whilst keeping true to our values. There wasn’t a lot we had to offer, no visions of paradise, quite the opposite in fact. But that was why we knew we were different.

We spoke to some knights over the coming weeks. Their main concerns were about the loss of democracy. I wondered the same thing myself. How could we go seemingly backwards in terms of governmental progression? I spent days questioning this problem. Eventually I found out some references to democracy in the Books. It appeared that the original “Light of Fountain” was a mix between a theocracy and a democracy. A kind of “demotheocracy”. This existed to allow people to vote for what they believed in, not necessarily who they believed in. It allowed the emphasis to shift from voting a person into power, to voting on a set of values and ideals, based on those from the Books.

  • For those who believe in the true values of a knight;
  • For those who believe in deciding their futures with both the vote and the sword;
  • For those who believe in the Books, the Temple of Light and its Founder;
  • For those who have the courage to fight against the odds;
  • For those who will endure weakness and draw up strength from within;
  • For those who support what they know to be right;
  • For those who want both a democracy and a Path to follow;
  • For those who fought in the Great Battle;
  • For those who have fallen;
  • For the Light of Fountain;

Come join us. Your new Realm welcomes you, the honourable knights of Fontan.

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