THE SELF-INFLICTED WOUND
DUNGEON DEGENERATES LORE DESTINED FOR THE FIRST LOWLIFE INFORMANT.
THE SELF-INFLICTED WOUND
The most painful wounds are not the ones inflicted by others, but the ones we inflict on ourselves. They are the wounds of regret, of guilt & the knowledge that we have failed to live up to our own standards.
- Das Schaf
The Valhal people faced a dilemma. Their well-worn tribal traditions offered a sense of security, an assuredness of the way the world was & what it meant to be. These were comfortable, familiar methods, old-friends.
However, the prohibited paths that they had copied from the Celestials gave them an undeniable advantage in the world & over their peers. For the first time, they felt like they could control the combative continent of Bödengärd.
With the the secrets of the Celestials, the Valhal gained an advantage over but also shut the door on the past. The tribespeople that would call themselves the Würst decided to make that faustian bargain & turned their backs on their tribal elders.
Those who opened the mystery box called themselves the Würst because it was said you are better off not knowing what they are made of. The Würst had broken the bonds with the old Gods & nature. They threw themselves into the realm of possibility, where anything could happen, & would.
The Celestials had discovered a means to cheat & use death itself, to control & subjugate nature to further their powers in life. The Würst were hungry for this potential & ignored the warnings & pleas of others.
As soon as they stepped out of line, the intellectual outsiders were targeted by their backwards brethren. The tribes would hunt down their fractured family. They painted the Würst as traitorous turncoats who had broken their most sacred taboos, messing in the ruins of the Celestials.
How could the Würst deny the discoveries they had made? Humanity is curious if anything. That same curiosity always causes trouble.
The remaining tribespeople called themselves the Gütter. They were afraid of this turn for the Würst.
The elder tribespeople believed that the Celestials had strayed so far from the natural order that they met a calimitous ending. After all, weren’t their cryptic remains all that was left of them?
The Würst took as much as they could from the ruins of the Celestials harnessed. Making use of the dead became one of the core tenants of the Würst, breaking centuries of Valhal taboo.
The next blood-soaked era; “The Self-Inflicted Wound” was horrible for the Gütter & anyone else that the Würst decided was a thorn in their side. The dead piled up as the Würst asserted themselves over their kin.
The Würst united under the leadership of the seven warrior saints. Men who rose from the ranks & showed themselves to be ready to lead this new people forward.
These warrior saints would form the Holy Order, codify the Würst historic & ideological doctrine & enforce this new way using sword, fire, torture chamber & gallows.
Crusaders of the Holy Order swarmed over the land looking for anything that might challenge the Imperial edict in any way. They killed entire villages of their tribal brethren & scoured the wilds for monsters.
This new body was declared to be the Würstreich. The Würstreich was an empire that would grind up its own people & unite them as one.
The Würstreich was headed by the first emperor Otto Die Schrecklichen, a cruel, fierce man with a curly yellow mane, a fierce countenance & a determination to dominate all the land under the Sausage Stabber banner of the Würstreich.