The Sunbane... anyone else thinking it's a desert sun today?
The Sunbane is a Landish perversion of natural law during the Second Chronicles. It imposes a changing corona upon the life-giving star (which in the cosmology of this peculiar realm is more likely a couple of Elohim lounging together than a heavenly nuclear reactor, but never mind that…), which creates artificial seasons lasting for two or three days. They vary from deranged growth spurts of the flora and fauna to monstrous storm-caused floods that even Noah would flee screaming and gibbering.
Origins[]
Some uncountable eons after Foamfollower quite literally laughed himself to death, the Despiser’s foul puissance began to increase again. After many a vulpine whisper and Xanatos gambit from this wily villain, the Land fell beneath the rulership of the Raver-orchestrated Clave. They mass-sacrificed powerful beings such as the Haruchai, and the spilled blood of the victims contributed to the birth and strengthening of the Sunbane phenomenon. By the time Covenant and Linden stumble into the demesne, this has warped every aspect of the locals’ way of life. Agriculture now for instance depends on the Sun of Fertility.
Phases and Practices[]
(tba)
Sun of Pestilence[]
This lovely season of rot and spilth is akin to yule come again to an author that delights in belauding putrescence and transforming decay into something semi-divine. During the fiesta of entropy, everything dissolves into brown goo faster than an ice cube thrown into the sauna stove melts, and noxious insects hum and crawl everywhere. A single bite or a sting may prove fatal, and can only be cured by one of the deus ex machina roborants, i.e. voure or hurtloam. The sun’s aura is red.
Sun of Rain[]
Flash floods. Need one utter more? Via the author’s Norse-fanboy link, the blue-haloed sun summons all the thunder gods dwelling near the Baltic Sea to throw their magical hammers, strike thunderforges, play bagpipes, and race around the upper airs in goat-drawn chariots upon the misfortunate Land. One ought to expect downpours of holy teeth as well, since Þórr, Perkūnas, and Tiermes have never fared along well and will wrestle no matter what.
Sun of Fertility[]
This phase marked by a green aura makes everything explode with anguished growth: a desert with one undernourished cactus wilting in the middle will transform into a tropical paradise complete with colorful birds, exotic trees, and the obligatory Tarzan swinging from a liana. If one planted a Giant into a flower pot, added some fertilizers, and let the ensemble imbibe some of that super-sunlight, he or she might attain the height of 30 feet by duskfall.
The scattered Stonedownors and other Land-folk acquire most of their sustenance during this season: seeds are sown in the morning and matured crops harvested mere hours later. To the already angst-oozing Linden and her newly burgeoned health-sense, the obstreperous ontogenesis feels like mental rape.
Sun of Desert[]
Heed the spelling, screams the grammar nazi! This is not an after-lunch sun, but relates to hot sand dunes and skeletons scattered around a dried waterhole. Hence, during the Sun of Desert, everything is, well, deser-ty. And hot. The worst that can happen during this phase is to catch the so-called Sunbane Sickness, that will mutate any hapless sod into, if not a teenage ninja turtle, then at least into something Lovecraftian with tentacles, scales, and fully associated with the terms grotesque and blasphemous. The only way to retain one’s true form and sanity is to stand on natural stone when the baneful dawn brightens. The aura of the desert sun is brown.