Fury Lore
Both loved and feared by the Amazons they protect, Furies live almost feral lives at the edges of Amazon settlements, living like hermits in caves or secluded huts. The power to channel and shape the Fury is born of pain and sacrifice, so the furies deprive themselves of all luxury and refinement. Fasting, meditation, and even self-mutilation are the keys to their power. Furies adorn themselves with dozens of fetishes, handmade talismans, and striking body paint. The Furies learned long ago how to work together to produce greater magical effects. Three Furies casting together are perilous indeed, and the High Circle of Furies can call up a storm so terrible that it can lay waste to an entire region. Though they look and act like primitive Healers or shamans, Furies do not worship the forces of weather and lightning - they command them, with as much detachment and scholastic discipline as any Wizard or Priest. Like all Amazons, Furies are masters of the bow and spear, and can be formidable warriors even without their powers.
From the very foundation of the Amazon Empire, the Furies have served as advisors to the Amazon Queens. Their cryptic words carry much weight within Amazon society, and over the centuries the Sisterhood of Furies became the power behind the Amazon throne, for no queen had the will or courage to dispute them. The jungles of the South vanished in the Turning, lost on a fragment of the World or perhaps destroyed altogether. The few Amazons who were left behind at the borders of their former Empire turned to the Furies for guidance, and now the weather witches are the overt rulers of the wandering Amazons who remain in the World, searching for their lost sisters.
Look around you: The World you see is a calm one. The rocks and stone of the earth, the wood of the trees, the infinite vault of the sky… they all seem stable and fixed, yes? Know this - all stability is an illusion. A tiger may lie still as a stone when she sleeps, but in the blink of an eye she springs, like lightning, and her fury is unleashed. It is so with all the World. A violent fire of change and motion, a fury, burns within everything, frozen into stillness as water freezes into ice. If unleashed haphazardly, the fury is wasted and its vessel is broken. But if one is clever, careful, and focused of will, the fury's energy can be harnessed and used to transform the things of the World, just as fire hardens a clay vessel or lightning fuses sand into glass. The knowing is the key. Of all the peoples of the World, only the Daughters of Phaedra, the Amazons, understand the secrets of the hidden Fury. The wisest and keenest among us have devoted ourselves to the the Fury's power, and we have taken its name as our own. We Furies have looked into all of the elements of the world, seeking to unleash the power within them. Long have we known how to take the still air and whip it into wind, wring rain from the clouds, and unchain the lightning, the Fury of Air. The ways of air and water and the weather they spawn are well known to us, and the glorious Empire of the Amazons prospered long under our watchful eyes. Never did drought trouble the hidden Valley of Delgana, ancient home of the Amazons, nor was it ever ravaged by flood. Once there were great Furies who could temper the wrath of the earth, raising mountains and calling tremors, but since the Turning all of their wisdom has been lost to us.
We Furies have always guarded the secrets of our craft, hiding it inside walls of superstition, mystery, and rumor. We live apart from our sister Amazons, in squalor, and tell them tales of wind spirits and the ghosts of our ancestors. They think us shamans who call the favor of the dead and spin the breath of the wind. This is not so, but they ask few questions, and the lies make them braver, so who are we to correct them?
For generations, our Sisterhood swayed the will of the Queen, and ours were the hands that steered our Empire from the shadows. Two centuries ago, we saw that the time has come for the Amazons to go forth from our hidden valley, leave our jungles, and shake the World. So we conquered, and all the power of flood and lightning, hail and gale swept away our enemies. So we were far from our ancient home when the Day of Woe came.
With our power comes great danger, for the fury can be deadly if trifled with by the unworthy. Look at the state of the World today - somewhere in the Outside, some man tried to tap into the Fury of the entire World, and in so doing the earth cracked, and the world was ruined. In that moment, the South of the World was sundered, and the way to our beloved Valley was lost. At that instant, all of the Earth Furies, the singers of earthquakes, cried out in terror, and fell into madness. They still gibber and shriek, chained in deep caves, dying though unable to die. And the Fury of the world was wasted, for now nothing can die, and nothing truly new can be made. A Fury need only look to the black face of the sun, and always be reminded not to reach beyond the limits of her power. Ruin is the only reward for such foolishness.
Now the Amazons are wanderers, searching for a way to return to our home. Perhaps Delgana was destroyed in the Turning, or perhaps it endures still, on some island in the Void beyond our reach. None can say. We Furies still serve as the leaders of our sisters, working our magic on the wider world, unlocking what fury remains since the Turning. Perhaps, if we do our work well, we might transform this broken World, and make it wondrous again, or bring back our beloved jungle. Perhaps we are doomed to wander forever, and must seize a new home by force. The winds will tell.
