Lore

How Critters came to be

The Age of Abundance

All lucky enough to call the famed mining Kingdom home witnessed a beautiful age of abundance. With the gemstone of sentience, vision had finally come to life. Everywhere you looked, there was optimism, hope, and a great deal of cakes - with icing!

Supported by the most intricate mining system gopher civilisation had ever seen, society flourished at all levels. Grand cities were constructed by the architects of the day - masterpieces harmonising stone and soil. Inside city gates, civilisation thrived. Bustling markets orchestrated the flow of commerce; lavish academies educated the minds of tomorrow; and museums hosted thrilling exhibitions like “Pebbles of the Past” and “Noses Through the Ages.”

This was the Gopher Kingdom. And it was glorious.

Then, as all things do when left unsupervised, it went terribly wrong.

In this gilded time, the great philosophers (now officially allowed to wear hats indoors) began to ask dangerous questions like, “What came before?” and “Why are we here?” These musings divided even the wisest thinkers. Some believed the answers lay deeper in the earth.

A New Power

Mining technology evolved at a dazzling pace. The gemstone of sentience was no longer the only wonder unearthed. A new mineral had recently been discovered: the Snowdrop Stone.

Cold to the touch, the ghostly-white gem was said to grant magical power. Or time travel. Or a mildly better complexion.

The first to strike it, Jerome Ickbar, was blasted back twenty metres and frozen mid-scream. Sadly for Jerome, it had been a truly awful hair day.

Still, the magical community erupted with excitement. After an excessive amount of beard-twirling, the Royal Order of Wizards decided this stone was the future of magic. It needed to be studied. Harnessed.

The philosophers, hearing of Jerome’s infinitely bad hair day, became obsessed with the idea that these stones held the key to unlocking the past.

The two groups collaborated to fund vast expeditions deep into the mines.

Miners, eager to make a name for themselves, raced into the depths with a pickaxe and a dream.

The Descent

The quixotic life on the surface seemed a world away for those operating in the mines. Conditions were harsh. The mission, absolute: find the gems. Return a hero. Preferably a rich one.

But the deeper they went, the stranger things became. Whole expedition teams vanished without trace. The Master Miners dismissed such rumours - morale had to be preserved, they probably just got lost looking for their sandwiches.

Don Drobar, a young apprentice miner, joined the first expedition to section 462. Unlike the others, he longed not for riches, but for discovery. He was fascinated by the philosophers and wanted to uncover the mysteries of the past.

He returned alone. A shell of a gopher. Stricken with fear, riddled with guilt. He babbled about a presence in the deep - skin like ink. Eyes like bleeding rubies. A whisper that slithered through the tunnels.

This deep evil that awakened in the mines would later be known across the Kingdom as 'The Blotch'. Foul, murderous creatures intent on once again extinguishing all life in the Kingdom. Like gophers, they were touched by the stone of sentience, but they used it only for destruction.

No one could understand his panicked ramblings. Most assumed he’d hit his head on a stalactite and was having a minor episode.

Don eventually composed himself, and sought out Regindald Garson, Minister of Mining. He found his target in the Maiden’s Shield - fat on goose and drunk on ale.

Garson dutifully listened to Don’s plight between gulps, nodding at all the right times, before howling with laughter.

“Mining is what makes this kingdom great, Don. If you can’t seize opportunity, there are a hundred others who will.”

With a theatrical snap, he summoned the bard. “A song, if you please, for brave young Don’s woes!”.

🎵

Young noble Don delved into section four sixty TWO,

But now he stands here, before me n’ YOU,

Don was brave, Don was bold,

But most importantly Don was gone! Don was gone!

Where there is danger and FEAR, never worry- because big brave Don is HERE!

🎵 Humiliated, Don disappeared into the wilds of Bindle Forest, disillusioned with a society that measured courage in song form.

An Unlikely Alliance

Despite the minister’s facetiousness, darkness rapidly engulfed the mines, reaching ever higher by the day.

Alone and bitter, Don carved out a humble life in the Forest of Bindle. He foraged, slept under mossy branches, and, when courage struck, broke into the Kingdom’s Grand Archive under the cover of night. Scrolls, legends, maps, tombs - he read everything, desperate to understand what had awoken in the mines.

One day, scavenging for food, he noticed a plump pink berry. Curious, and slightly bored of bark soup, he popped it to his mouth.

As soon as it touched his lips, a jolt coursed through him. He could not move. He was stuck, helpless, alone in the forest. He tried to laugh at the hopelessness of losing to a berry, but his lips would not move. He waited for the end.

Instead he was met with a boot to the head. “Aye, wake up you lay about! You’re making the place look untidy’. When Don bore no reaction, the stranger narrowed his eyes. “Ah. First Hickero berry. Poor lad, hold still, yes just like that, I’ve got just the thing.”

Don awoke inside a remarkably ramshackle hut. There were bones, potions, and incredibly judgemental herbs scattered about..

His rescuer introduced himself as Orlick, an “almost wizard” - which, he explained, meant he was once part of the Royal Order until he “accidentally” (he emphasised this) set a colleagues desk on fire.

“Pah! Can’t even take a joke,” Orlick muttered, hurling herbs into a bubbling cauldron.

Despite the chaos, Orlick was sharp. He believed Don's story, perhaps not every detail, but enough to see the truth trembling beneath the fear.

“Yes, yes, the mines. I’ve felt it too. Something’s stirring.. Doesn’t concern me, though. Everything ends eventually.”

Over time Don’s stubborn, youthful hope began to wear him down. Bit by bit, Orlick saw something he hadn’t in years: purpose.

Eventually Orlick trusted Don enough to tell him the true nature of his research in the forest: necromancy.

“Look Don, those prudes in the Order might think they’re too good for it, and I’m not saying it doesn’t have a publicity issue, but it’s a perfectly valid school of magic”.

Don didn’t flinch. He had finally found someone he could truly trust. He reached into his tunic and produced a stone white as snow.

Orlick knew it immediately.

“You… you actually brought one back. A Snowdrop Stone.”

Orlick instinctively reached out. As his paw touched the stone, a brilliant blue surged through his eyes. When he returned from wherever he’d just glimpsed, his voice shook: “I’ve seen it. The Before Times. There were creatures, gophers yes, but others, too. Forgotten things. Lost allies.”

“We can’t win this war alone.”

A New Plan

The two concocted a desperate plan. Armed with invisibility potions (Orlick’s "mid-tier, only slightly nausea-inducing" batch), they returned to the mines.

The Blotch had grown stronger, spreading like mould. But brains were not their strong suit. The pair evaded detection, uncovering ancient fossils, buried memories, and many more Snowdrop Stones.

Orlick summoned what was left of The Order in a very passive aggressive letter.

“You can sit there with your dusty books and wait for the end... or help rewrite it.”

A ragtag few answered. Alchemists, scribes, and spell-slingers gathered. For days, they brewed and chanted and muttered at things in jars, until - poof! A bushy red tail burst from a cauldron.

The group looked on in astonishment. A creature, wild-eyed and unfamiliar, blinked into the light.

“What? Do I have something on my face?”

The Rebirth

They had no time to revel in their discovery. The Blotch pressed forward by the day.

But with the Order’s help; and Don bravely returning to the depths for more Snowdrop Stones, they began to create more. Hundreds. Thousands.

They called themselves the Critters - beings of the Before, long lost to myth. Now very much alive, opinionated, and sometimes wearing hats.

Some had logs forking out of their heads, others were slender and glided through water. Some were gracefully sleek, impossible to detect. A few said little and were roughly the size of a wagon, giving the distinct impression they wanted to hit things. A lot.

The Critters were intelligent, and gifted, but wild. Powerful, but untrained.

A great antlered beast stepped forward, taller than any gopher.

“This was once our homeland too. We will not fight for you. We will fight with you. And when the battle is done… we rebuild the Kingdom together”.

A pact of kinship was struck.

Bindle Forest: A Covert Training Ground

The quiet, unassuming Bindle Forest became a ballet of swords, spells and arrows. The critters would be trained in all forms of combat.

Orlick oversaw magical instruction. His beard caught fire at least once a day, which he claimed was “part of the method.”

Don led physical drills. Every claw and paw was pushed to the limit. Bowstrings snapped. Swords clanged. Spells cracked the air like impatient thunder.

Some Critters were naturals. Some accidentally invented new forms of martial philosophy. One particularly energetic squirrel redefined what “archery” meant entirely.

But still, slowly they learned.

Day and night, they trained. And something as dangerous as hope began to take shape.

The Kingdom had one final chance.

And it was furry.

The Battle of Junehorn

From every burrow in the Kingdom, the gophers who remained emerged to protect their home. With the Critters at their side, they stood united.

The Blotch had claimed many counties, festering in the Kingdom’s largest mountain range: the Junehorn.

As they approached the mountain entrance; once the crown jewel of mining, now pulsing with oily dread - a shadow swept across them.

The Blotch stood waiting.

A black tide. Countless and shifting. Eyes like glistening rubies. Mouths that spoke no words, only hunger.

Don looked up at the mountain.

“Ready, my friend?”.

Orlick cracked his neck.

“Nope. Let’s do it anyway. This is all a lot of fuss for a Tuesday.”

Don sounded the horn. Like a tidal wave of fur and fury, the Critters surged forward, with the gophers charging in beside them.

Warriors held the front line, slashing through the Blotch like sunlight slicing fog. Arrows rained from the heavens, enchanted with spells. Wizards and one ‘nearly wizard’ floated around the battlefield slinging spells with fury.

“Look Don, I think I just invented necro-lightning!”.

The Blotch were vast in number, but were uncoordinated. No heart. No memory. The allies fought like the beating rhythm of a song.

In time, the Blotch were pushed back to the depths of the mines. Deeper. Crumbling.

The Blotch were sealed away by a particularly potent spell from Orlick himself, who was only mildly annoyed by the rubble all over his robes.

Light burst through the mines once more.

Restoration

It took decades for the cracks to begin to heal. The Kingdom had been shaken to its core.

Entire counties had to be rebuilt. The toll of the dead would be felt for generations. But something fundamental had changed.

In their moment of need, the universe had answered - not with prophecy or divine fire, but with neighbours. With Critters. With kin.

They rebuilt together.

Don was celebrated as a hero. Some of the statues were even almost accurate. But he preferred to stay out of the limelight, living out his days in a modest home near Bindle Forest, pickaxe and sword by the door, should they ever be needed again.

Orlick? He became Professor Orlick of the newly founded School of Experimental Magic (and Acceptable Fire Hazards).

And the Kingdom?

It stood not just rebuilt, but reborn.

Through the Ages

Mining returned, but with caution. The Blotch had left scars, to both the physical and magical worlds. An Ethical Extraction Committee was formed. Meetings were long, boring, and occasionally interrupted by emotional pickaxes.

Though sealed away, the Blotch had left behind lingering curses, beasts that wandered the wilds, twisted and ancient, still hunting for what they had lost. The Guild of Blotch Investigators (GOBI) maintains a growing bestiary, and a decreasing number of members.

Over the centuries, vast continents of Critters flourished. Cultures mingled. Traditions evolved. There were arguments. Debates. Dueling poets. Very confusing coronations. But in the end, it worked.

A world of strange creatures, old powers, and unlikely friendships. Where anyone could be a hero. Or... a villain.

Long live the Kingdom.

And never, ever, eat Hickero berries.