Immortalis Fides: Lore - Banishment of the Blasphemeriers

    Because most of Earth's cities were in ruins, criminals were either executed immediately or in public, or put in the most basic of prisons. After the ratmen, orcs, and elves became a concern, prison reform and updating were pushed to the side to deal with the new present problems. Some crimes were now ignored while others would only result in empty warnings, slaps on the wrist, and minor debts to be paid in either labor, currency, or materials. In kingdoms where law enforcement was stricter, hands would be cut off, executions were more common, there were public beatings, or a criminal would be disallowed from working within a given region that knew of their name and crimes. Banishing people would be a common punishment, especially when the prisons became full.

    Since the banished had nowhere to go, they would wander the lands and make their homes in nature, or more likely, start again in a different kingdom. Those who were stuck in their criminal ways would not stay too long in foreign lands or be killed by the law or rivals. Eventually, those who could live nowhere because they were banished from most safe places wandered out to distant lands. People would report that they saw these people walk across bridges of ice or dirt and into the fog in the direction of what was called the Americas hundreds of millions of years ago or the North and South Poles. These same bridges would disappear within hours as if the entire event was a dream, however, it is also reported that beastly men would walk from these fog-covered bridges and back into their home territory.

    There were reports of oxen with the bodies of men, women that had the lower half of a serpent, men with the limbs of goats, and women that had the bodies of horses just to name a few. To the witnesses, it seemed as if the creatures of ancient Earth folklore had come to life. These beastmen would either attack their homes, leave them alone, or slaughter a nearby undefended village down to the last animal and take whatever weapons, armor, and food it had. It is only thanks to those who were strong and brave enough to face these beasts that undisputable physical evidence was obtained so that the authorities would take this threat seriously. Theories and speculation started to run rampant from there.

    Were these people really the criminals who walked across the mysterious bridges and into the fog? Was this a result of some heretical or heathen ritual or did these people transform for a similar reason as the ratmen, orcs, and elves? At this present moment, no one can tell for certain. The only certain thing is that these times are unprecedented and there is seemingly no end to the challenges to God's Church and her faithful.