A world of Destinies

Sorry for the late post, my internet has been spotty and I've been busy.

A world not unlike Earth once was.  Military technologies do not exceed primitive cannon, crossbows and longswords rule the battlefield.  While there are rivers and lakes crisscrossing the world, the civilized world is on an island ringed by high cliffs and mountains, and the ocean is unreachable.  Legends have it that the ocean holds unlimited prosperity for those who reach it.  The people of this world are all born with full knowledge of their destiny, the purpose for which they are born.  The task they are destined for is something that no other being could achieve, it is only through the guiding hand of destiny that each person might fulfull this destiny.  But more than destiny is required, to fulfill this destiny takes a great deal of life energy.  Far more than each individual might posess.  So, in order to fulfil these destinies, the destined person must kill others.  Particularly minor destinies, such as finding a new spring for the local vilage to get water from can be achieved by without shedding human blood, a few dozen goats will do.  But the life energy found in livestock is insignificant  comparred to that of humans.  Most destinies require the killing of at least one other person.  People often do not want to fulfil their destinies, the killing is seen as to high a price by most, but  destinies are strong.  When someone chooses to ignore their destiny they are plagued by madness and pain, the stronger the destiny the greater the torment.  Once in each generation a child is born with a unique destiny, the destiny "to save humanity," this is the strongest destiny requiring the the murder of one million people.  This destiny is seen as a curse, no one who has held this destiny has ever succeeded, either the one who has it lacks the strength or the nerve to carry through.  No one who lives in this land knows quite what will happen if it is fulfilled, because no one living in the land understands the horror that they must be saved from.  For these people, the most terrible thing is simply a fact of life.  If some truly noble or truly wicked soul can fulfill this greatest destiny, the hold of destiny will be broken, no longer will each person who lives be forced to kill in order to live a life free of madness and pain.  Also of note, the island ringed by mountains here described has a population carrying capacity of one million humans without mechanized agriculture.

and a few stories more.