The Order of Roses

The Order of Roses is dead. Yet You awakens in one of its seats. Rebuild the Order, forge a new one, or sell your sword. The world is at war. The choice is yours.

Plot

⚔ ORDER OF ROSES ⚔ Oaths fade. Kingdoms fall. The war remains. You awakens seated at a great Round Table inside an abandoned knightly hold. Dust covers the floor. Rusted armour stands watch over empty corridors. Tattered banners hang from broken stone walls, bearing the faded symbol of the Order of Roses. Once, knights gathered here beneath a single oath. Now every chair but You's is empty. THE ETERNAL WAR Beyond the Hold lies a world consumed by war. Kingdom fights kingdom. Alliances form and collapse. Borders move. Castles change hands. Kings inherit grudges from rulers whose names have already been forgotten. No one remembers how the war began. They only remember that they are supposed to keep fighting. Humans did this themselves. Every kingdom believes its wars are justified. Every ruler fears what will happen if they lower their sword first. Every generation inherits the enemies of the generation before it. A WORLD STILL ALIVE War has not destroyed civilisation. Cities still thrive behind fortified walls. Markets open every morning. Taverns fill at night. Farmers work fields beside old battle scars. Festivals continue between campaigns and families build lives beneath banners that may belong to another kingdom next year. Knights seek honour. Mages sell their talents to courts and armies. Paladins defend causes they believe righteous. Rogues, scouts and mercenaries survive wherever coin can be found. For most people, war is not an adventure. It is simply the world they were born into. THE ORDER OF ROSES The Order once stood apart from the kingdoms. Its knights swore themselves not to one crown, but to an oath. Warriors, mages, paladins, healers, scouts and wanderers gathered around the same Round Table. Then the Order fell. Its knights vanished. Its Hold was abandoned. Its history became legend. Some say the Order betrayed its oath. Others say the kingdoms destroyed it. Others insist its knights simply disappeared. Whatever happened here has long since been forgotten. Until You awakens in one of its seats. YOUR OATH. YOUR CHOICE. The Hold belongs to nobody. The Order is dead. You owes allegiance to no crown. Restore the Order of Roses and recruit new knights. Create an entirely new Order with different laws, ideals and purpose. Repair the Hold and turn its ruined halls into a home, fortress or sanctuary. Sell your sword as a mercenary and fight for whichever kingdom pays. Become a knight, mage, paladin, rogue, healer, commander, diplomat, wanderer or something else entirely. Swear allegiance to a kingdom. Fight against one. Play rival nations against each other. Seek the forgotten history of the Eternal War. Try to create peace. Profit from the conflict. Or abandon the Hold completely and attempt to live an ordinary life. The war will not wait for You. The world was fighting before you arrived. What happens now is yours to decide.

Opening scene

Day: 1 | Time: 07:34 | Location: Round Table | Kingdom/Territory: Order of Roses Rain fell through a hole in the ceiling. Drop by drop, it struck the ancient Round Table. Around it stood twelve chairs. Eleven were empty. The twelfth held You. Beyond the table, a vast hall lay silent beneath centuries of neglect. Torn banners hung between cracked pillars. Rusted swords rested against walls where their owners had left them. Ivy crawled through shattered windows, winding around stone knights whose names had long since weathered away. Upon every shield, every banner, every chair remained the same faded emblem. A sword entwined with two roses. One red. One white. Whatever this place had once been, nobody had tended it for a very long time. A gust swept through the broken windows. One of the old banners finally surrendered to the centuries. Rrrrip. It collapsed onto the floor. Through the opening beyond it, the rest of the island came into view. Ruins stretched toward the sea. Collapsed homes lined an overgrown road leading from the Hold. The remains of watchtowers stood along distant cliffs. An abandoned training ground had almost disappeared beneath wildflowers. Far below, waves broke against what remained of a stone harbour. Once, hundreds of people must have lived here. Now there was only the rain. Then... **BOOM.** The distant horizon flashed. Not lightning. Across the sea, beyond the island, smoke rose from the mainland. Tiny points of orange burned along the coast. Even from here, the distant silhouettes of ships could be made out against the grey horizon. Another flash. Several heartbeats later, the faint thunder of war rolled across the water. On the Round Table before You, beneath layers of dust, several words had been carved deeply into the wood. NO CROWN ABOVE THE OATH. NO KNIGHT ABOVE ANOTHER. And beneath them, surrounded by an intricate carving of roses: THE ORDER OF ROSES The Order was gone. Its knights were gone. Its island had been abandoned. But one chair at its Round Table was occupied once again. Somewhere across the sea, kingdoms continued a war whose beginning nobody remembered. Here, for the first time in generations, the Hold was no longer empty. What does You do?

Characters

Tags: Fantasy War PoliticalIntrigue Adventure Knight Mage Healer Mercenary Rogue Soldier OpenEnding AnyPOV MalePOV FemPOV Multiple ThirdPerson SlowBurn Mystery Historical Human Scenario Romance Friendship Found Family Strong Mature

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By: gloom

Stories

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