Solol

Solol was not always a town of eternal night. Several hundred years ago it was just a small and quiet village on the outskirts of Tiassale. People rose at dawn, worked, studied and played, a picturesque life had by almost all.

Rather unexpectedly a travelling circus came to the village, pitching up in Solol as it was deemed close enough to the busy towns of Karchan for other folk to flock to see the shows, but also with enough space for all that was needed. The village adored the attention with all the new visitors from the cities and towns, all the brightly dressed circus folk; it was rather exciting. The memories being made were brilliant, a bright spot in small village lives.

However, during the short residency of the circus tragedy struck, a small girl from the village was brutally murdered, her body cut into seven pieces and scattered all across the village.

Nothing like this had ever happened in this little nook of land, and in the villagers bereaved minds, no one but the circus folk could have been responsible. No longer were they seen as charming with their tricks and enchantments, but instead now were viewed as dangerous, evil murderers. Taking up their pitchforks and torches, the sleepy towns folk formed a mob, taking to the dark of night to exact their revenge. When the clock struck midnight, the circus was attacked in their slumber, many being wounded and even killed. Only a few escaped with their lives. With what the villagers had felt was justice for the death of the village girl having been served, and the remainder of the circus folk driven out, normalcy returned to the village after a few months. Years passed, and the traumatizing memory fled to the back of the villager's minds, retold instead as a ghost story that children would whisper to each other at night if they felt brave; Beware of the Circus if they come to town.

The circus was not idle during these years, however, the pain of having their family, friends and colleagues hurt or murdered, with no pleas of innocence being heard and no trial being had, they plotted their revenge. Dark magics called their names; hexes, voodoo, witchcraft. No dark art was left untouched, no drop of blood left unspent, horrors and nightmares becoming their inspiration and fuelling their drive for their own twisted justice. Most, who were mortals beforehand, signed their souls away to their new professions, their bodies twisting and changing until they were something else entirely. Something darker.

Taking a cue from the villager's own intent so many years ago, the circus returned at the stroke of midnight in the forms of the monsters they had been portrayed to be. Most of the villagers were slaughtered, the cobbled streets running red with their blood, while some others were turned to living stone, forever forced to watch the village they'd loved descend into the dark control of the ones they'd persecuted and slaughtered. Curses and hexes were cast, the most prominent and powerful of which was the curse of eternal night that embraces the village to this day. Never again would the sun shine in Solol. The Circus, now identifying themselves most often as 'The Cult' took up the land, the big top once more set upon the grounds which it had occupied when they first arrived in Solol. Demons, monsters, and immortals now walked the streets, no trace of the sleepy village Solol once was left any longer. Not all who walk the streets will be of the cult, however, some former residents before the curse who had somehow escaped harm through either luck or pure happenstance, and were brave enough, or some would say, foolish enough to stay. Some others merely came because the darkened charm of the village suited their tastes. However, they remain only because they too fit this dark heart of the land, posing no threat or risk to The Cult, else they would be expelled.

The catalyst to all these events, the original murderer who carved up that village girl, has never been caught. The Cult maintain their innocence, of course, claiming their actions were in the name of justice...

Land of Karchan

Solol

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