Cthulhu Gonfalon

Upon hearing the details of this story, Sui Xiong couldn’t help but laugh in amusement.

On earth, there was a group of people who organized the laughable “Darwin Awards.” This prize would be awarded to those who caused their own deaths in stupid or foolish ways as an ironic tribute to them and their lack of intelligence. Basically, this was for people who were not just silly or not smart but total idiots! Hm… One could say that their idiocy made every other human look smart in comparison… Sui Xiong recalled that he had once saw a consensus that their demise helped raise the average IQ of the entire world’s population! For example, there was a skydiving coach who had been trying to emphasize the importance of possessing a parachute when skydiving. To prove his point that a lack of a parachute would cause death, he jumped off the plane without possessing one himself!

There was another case where someone’s sister had stepped on an electric wire and had been electrocuted to death. While explaining the story to a neighbor, her brother had tried to recreate the scene and stepped barefoot onto an exposed wire, causing his own death as well. Yet another example would be when someone had tried to demonstrate that the glass used to construct his office window was extremely solid. He had run headfirst into the glass, which ended up cracking, causing him to be thrown off the 24th story of his building onto the streets. Another case would be when a gambling addict had been playing “Russian Roulette” in a life-or-death round. Normally, one would find a revolver and placed one single bullet inside before turning the drum a few times and firing at each other in turns. His method, however, was to find an automatic gun and shoot it at himself.

The most memorable example to Sui Xiong was of a thief who tried to use a plastic tube to pierce a car’s wooden tank and suck out the petrol with his mouth to steal it. He had managed to find a brand-new car but wrongly inserted the tube into the area of the car, which stored toxic water, leading to him being poisoned to death.

Basically, these idiots had provided much comedic material for the world, and Sui Xiong was entertained every time he was reminded of them. Now, in this world, there was another story to add to this compilation.

Sui Xiong felt that if this world similarly held a “Darwin Awards” ceremony, this year’s prize would definitely be awarded to the God of Rain.

He told this joke to all his friends who laughed in agreement as well. After all, idiocy was always humorous to anyone who listened to these stories. However, this amusement did not last long as problems arose after one to two months. With the fall of the God of Rain, the God of Drought was now uncontested, and rainfall began to cease on the Main Plane, hinting at the start of a season of drought. This was worrying for everyone, especially as there was no God of Rain left to defend against any extreme situation.

From the new year till spring, where snow started to melt, there were only two instances of rain on the Main Plane, and both were only small rainstorms. In the South, there was slightly higher rainfall (about three to four times), but that was still less than previous years.

Time passed, and the spring harvesting season came.

On earth, there’s the idea that during this period, spring rainfall is of utmost importance for the crops. There was a similar idea in this world. But this year, the amount of rain was pitiful.

After the spring harvesting season, there was one instance of rain in the North, and this lack continued for a year. This was not sufficient for even one-third of the land. The northern part of the Main Plane did not have many rivers and could even be said to be lacking since before, and the drought and lack of rain worsened this situation drastically. In contrast, the southern part of the Main Plane was less affected as there were enough rivers for workers to collect water from to combat the drought.

The leaders in the North were extremely worried about the stagnant rain situation as there were not able to sustain their livelihood much longer.

As much as the people remained optimistic, things only worsened afterwards.

After spring came summer, and with the blistering heat came more concerns about the drought.

In the North, many crops and plants had begun to shrivel up. Even as farmers tried their best to use each drop of water efficiently, they were unable to revive their crops, and the fields were filled with patches of yellow. Conversely, the situation was less dire in the South, but the farmers were equally exhausted by the constant need to retrieve water from faraway water sources. Many leaders had even had to set up troops at their own water defenses, and these troops were constantly engaged in battle with those who wished to steal water from these sources.

Under such circumstances, the good gods couldn’t possibly sit and watch without offering any help. They sent down their Oracles and high-level clergymen to give full aid towards the crisis. Many even lowered their avatars to earth and used their Divine Power to open doors to the Water Element Plane, allowing the water to flow towards the Main Plane as rain.

This method may have been effective in the short term, but after a few days, they were forced to halt operations.

The Master of Order spoke up and prohibited the gods from manipulating the natural environment of the Main Plane. He felt that one or two gods playing with occasional wind or rain was fine. If they chose to create a rare volcano eruption or something to that extent, he would probably allow it as well. However, the actions of a few hundred gods combined to supply water from the Water Element Plane was crossing the line! The Master of Order especially criticized the Orc God System. As most of their land were plains and farming land, they had used all their power to create a huge web with the help of hundreds of gods to link the Main Plane and Water Element Plane. Currently, rainfall was extremely heavy with howling winds.

With the Master of Order’s admonishment, the good gods were forced to stop their actions, and none dared to continue creating artificial rain.

The situation, which was beginning to improve, started deteriorating again… at a much faster speed!