PDA

View Full Version : Build-A-Legend: "The Menagerie of Tehn-Keltan"



Admiral Squish
2014-12-19, 07:17 PM
Welcome to Build-A-Legend! It's a simple game, but I do hope you'll enjoy it.
Your task is simply to create the legend behind the name given below. It can be a creature, a place, an event, an idea, or pretty much any other sort of noun you can think of. It can be in any setting you can think of, from high fantasy, to sci-fi, to alternate history, to official settings, or it can even be its own setting, if you're that ambitious. Each week, on Friday, I post a new thread, with a new name for people to build on, and add the last one into the archive. If you'd like, you can suggest names for the future. There's no rules, just have fun and try not to insult other people's creations. Do those count as rules?

The Name: The Menagerie of Tehn-Keltan.

“The Iron Cathedral” (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?378644)
“The Glass Sea” (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?378644&p=18306562&viewfull=1#post18306562)
“The Hounds of Kel'ranu” (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?380942)
“The Vanishing Heights” (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?382217)
“The Order of One” (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?383641)
“Rono's Folly” (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?384719)
“The Day of Shadow” (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?385764)
“The Wandering Crown” (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?386947)
“The Silver Legion” (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?387896)

Freelance GM
2014-12-20, 01:33 PM
The short-lived Empire of Tehn-Keltan once spread across three continents- or so the stories go. Among the especially popular myths of that era are the legends of Emperor Tehn-Keltan's famous menagerie- a massive complex of beautiful gardens and elegant courtyards said to contain at least one of every creature or monster in the known world.

The stories of how he captured them are almost more interesting than the tales surrounding the Menagerie itself, but the most famous of all the legends is certainly the one in which the creatures of the Menagerie escaped.

Tehn-Keltan was growing older, and gathered all of his entourage- vassals, relatives, and servants, into the Menagerie for an amazingly decadent birthday party. Late in the evening, a monster escaped the Menagerie (no telling of the story ever says the same creature), and caused the escape of many more monsters. In some tellings, it was a clever sneak that stole the keys from a guard, in other, a terrifying beast that smashed its way out. Some variants of the tale say that the Emperor's wife (or his vizier, or a servant) deliberately released the monsters as a joke. (...Or an assassination attempt.) Either way, many monsters escaped, and the Emperor and his host were all slaughtered.

And so the Empire of Tehn-Keltan plunged into chaos as the royal family- and the entire line of secession- was wiped out in a single bloody night, not by their many enemies, but because of some escaped animals.

Some people use it as a cautionary tale about political responsibility, or kindness to animals. The more zealous insist it was a sign from the gods that Tehn-Keltan didn't really have a claim to the Imperial Throne, and his Empire was doomed to collapse sooner or later. More skeptical minds will quickly dismiss legends of the Menagerie as just stories- as no trace of the supposedly enormous complex has ever been found.

Taet
2014-12-20, 09:50 PM
________________Menagerie Media___________________
_______A division of Tehn-Keltan Enterprises, Inc._______
____________wants YOU to join our team!_____________
>
>The Menagerie that brought Homo_floresiensis_gallicus and
>Homo_sapiens_vulcanis to the marketplace has need of the
>finest and most persuasive minds in the fields of
>
>>Epigeneticists
>
>>Social Aesthetics Technicians
>>Moral Aesthetics Technicians
>
>>Leads Generators (hourly+)
>>Appointment Setters (hourly+)
>>Closers (100% commission)
>
>The Menagerie of Tehn-Keltan is a cruelty free menagerie.
>Our motto and our guarantee is
>
_______We make them want to have our children.________
>
>A testimonial from S.A.T. Thal.
>
>>I graduated with a Terran Studies degree six cycles ago
>>and started work with Menagerie Media the next day
>>as they supported my beliefs in the power of praise.
>>
>>In four cycles' time I had gone from setting appointments
>>to leading--yes, leading--the Vulcan aesthetics campaign
>>in regards to brow line.
>>
>>Today when you visit Terra and see the eyebrow parlors
>>thriving, and the children born with brows already dark--
>>that was my work.
>>
>>The Menagerie of Tehn-Keltan assisted me in writing the
>>patents and kept my name upon them. I would never work
>>for anyone else.
>
>Send applications to Menagerie Media, Dark Side, Ganymede,
>c/o Tseph, Talent Specialist.
>
<<Prev______________page 232_________________Next>>
>
>Business 200
>>Business News 201
>>Business Data 221
>>Jobs Available 231
>>Jobs Wanted 261
>>Business Education 291
>
>Plutoid Teletext, a part of Galactic Voice Inc. All rights reserved.
>Text 900 for Informational Index and Subscriber Info

Coventry
2014-12-21, 10:58 PM
There are places in this world that no man should see, lest he forfeit sanity.

Yet foolish, arrogant souls seek to achieve that which others have not - to climb the highest peak or dive to the deepest depths. Whether to brave the hottest desert, or survive the endless frozen wastes. To conquer the lands of others, or to plumb the depths of mad science. There are men who have done all these things, and still have grown restless and bored.

Tehn-Keltan was such a man. What wealth he had been given had been magnified by his own success. Some say his only failure was that he could not find ways to spend money faster than he earned more. In time, pulling the strings of others had grown tiresome for Tehn-Keltan.

That was when he heard of the deeds of Old Man Henderson. Tehn-Keltan had found something new to conquer; something new to control.

Tehn-Keltan did not care how many people he sacrificed or what kind of expenses he incurred, so long as he was able to capture and control the minions of the Great Old Ones. And he was successful - but at the cost of his sanity draining away. His collection is vast, but held privately, as a testament to how rich Tehn-Keltan truly is. Or was.

No one admits knowing where Tehn-Keltan stored his artifacts or captives. No one has seen Tehn-Keltan in at least twenty years. Some say he, himself, has been collected and that he has become a specimen in his own Menagerie. But still the cultists of Tehn-Keltan come in response to any murmur of the presence of a minion of a Great Old One, seeking to acquire each new sample whether by purchase, theft or means too dire to report.

Coventry
2014-12-21, 11:16 PM
The Menagerie of Tehn-Keltan is the common name of the micro-galaxy NGC-23234-IIa, a tightly packed group of 35 stars located at the MW/A-L3 Lagrangian Point between the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies. Originally identified by an astrometric survey by Dr. Nguyen Tehn, NGC-23234-IIa was initially surveyed by the science vessel KSS Keltan.

Because of the gravitational interaction between the two larger galaxies, the Menagerie of Tehn-Keltan has allowed an extreme range of the classes of stars to be located with a few hours of travel time by modern survey and research vessels. This makes it a popular destination for Pangalactic Field Survey teams and Space Tourism.

Recent acts of piracy in the area have resulted in an increased military presence from several of the star empires that are members of the Local Galactic Group Treaty Organization. The LGGTO presence has not eliminated the incidents, but has significantly reduced the occurrences over the past two years.