The following story is narrated to you by Brinthesere – the purple amethyst that is actually responsible for making the Greased Lightening airbourne. She apparently has quite the flair for a narrative, and further investigation will reveal this story of a conversation that took place just before the next combat to be essentially accurate. Brinthesere has imbedded herself into the heart of the main sail, becoming one with the living tree that is the ship upon which you sail.
The twinkling stars stretched out forever against the inky blackness. The Greased lightening, a ship of living wood powered by sentient stone, rocked gently in the mysterious and invisible Everbreeze of the plane in which you now live. All around the ship, soldiers and sailors stare out in quiet reverence at the strange sight, quieted also by the incipient pursuit of an enraged cleric driven mad for his desire for pre-emptive revenge.
Gaston and Shahonrazae whisper quietly at the foredeck, as they often do, unveiling their lives to each other from the different worlds they come from. Jerry practices her swordplay alone on the aft deck, for none will challenge her and her frostblade any more. Lukat is again below decks, meditating or practicing her sorcery. She is becoming quite accomplished now. Oma might be conferring with his students, or the Lightening, but most often transforms into a great Kestrel to scout out the winds before the living ship that protects them all. Methos is not to be found, imprisoning himself in the cabins below while he strives continuously to unlock the secrets of time and magic.
Amid the silence, a small girl approaches a dark drow woman, toying idly with the tip of her oft poisoned blade.
“Excuse me.” The child suddenly asks.
The Ebon lady looks down at her in surprise.
“You, child. What do you want.” The dark woman says impatiently.
“I did not see you.” The child replies.
For a moment the Drow assassin looks like she might turn away. This is just a little child, and a trifling trouble at that. Whatever thoughts the drow was entertaining seem little served in discussion with this child right now, and she looks as though she wished the younger one would turn away.
“Whatever.” The drow replies, and returns to her staring out into the darkness.
But the child, undaunted, sits up beside her on the rails. For a long time, silence is the only companion between them.
“Is it like this were you are from?” The child finally asks. “I have always liked the stars.”
The drow rolls her eyes. Perhaps a few words of conversation will placate this annoying and persistent child.
“No. Not at all.”
“What was it like?” The child asks.
“It’s… too difficult to describe.” The drown replies.
“But the sky was grey. Wasn’t it?” The child says.
The drow looks down at her in disbelief. “And who told you that?” she demands.
But the child continues to look out, taking her time in answering.
“I saw it. When I will be there. The others, they showed me where you were. But it doesn’t happen yet, I don’t think. This was in the future.”
The drow looks at her sideways. “You make no sense.” She accused.
“I know.” The child sadly sighed. “I am not from here. I come from a time where it’s all now. You can’t imagine… this… this land is strange. Things all happen in a line. But they’re not, and I see them all now. I can look into what was and will be. But not always, because it’s changing. That’s what’s so hard about it. Where I am from, it’s all now. Just one place: Now.” She sighed. “It made much more sense.”
“So where are you from?” the drow asked.
“I don’t really remember much else. But I’m there still. Oma. He will see. Lukat too, I think. Methos maybe not. There’s another two too. But I can’t tell you about them because it messes the nows’ up. I’ve learnt that. I cannot tell too much. It makes a mess of all the nows. There is only one was, and only one now, but many to be’s. Do you understand?”
The drow was silent in replying.
After a moment, the child Frangipania, coveted of the pirates, continues “Coming here was hard at first. It took a long time to put everything into words that come out one at a time.”
Still the Ebon lady was silent. Was she too busy to be bothered by this child? Or too wise to ignore the idle prattle of such an arcane curiosity. The child did have skills that were quite… useful… or at the very least… profitable.
“No.” The child replied as if answering a question. “I have no memory of where I am from. I was taken to the orphanage when I was a girl.”
“What do you mean?” The ebon lady wondered, “Is that were you came from?”
The child looked at her quietly. “Oh. Did I answer the question before you asked it again? Yes. I do that sometimes. It’s the hardest part. Like waiting till tomorrow, but sometimes that’s very scary. At least I can always keep myself safe. Almost always.”
The drow and the child stared out at the stars.
“You make no sense.” The drow stated as if she would leave.
“I think they’ll be here soon.” The child then replied. “Meas does not stand up any more. And the main sail will burn. But we’ll chase them away. I think it will be the little boat this time.”
“What are you talking about!?” The drow stated as though loosing her temper. The child watches her with wide eyes fear, and stutters her reply as though lost in a world she cannot explain to a woman who cannot understand.
“I didn’t see you.” She said nervously. “You’re not in the now. Not this now. Not any nows. I don’t understand who you are or why you’re here. But you are here. I can touch you. What are you?” The child asks.
The drow smiles knowingly, and hides her thoughts. “You have no need to fear me, child.” She replies.
The child stared at her in silence, lost in the memories of a myriad of futures.
“Who.” The drow finally asks. “Who is coming in the little boat to burn the mail sail?”
The child looked up into the sky, and sighed.
“I can’t tell you.”
“But you did tell me.” The Ebon lady replied.
Frangipania just sighs.
“When I tell them, everything changes, and I don’t know which now is real anymore.”
“Perhaps it is better that you told me. Perhaps I’m here to change the ‘now’ that you don’t like? When I see the small ship, I will protect the mail sail first. And Meas, I will send below.
“That’s not how it works, “ the child protested.
“Do you see all things how they will be?” The drow asked.
“No.” the child replied. “Only what they were before they become. Oh, I know that doesn’t make any sense! You people are so strange!” she cries.
But the drow pated her comfortingly on the head.
“I know what it’s like to have secrets you cannot tell, not because you can’t, but because if you did, nobody would understand…”
“I thought so.” Frangipania smiled.
But then the smile faded. “But why is your skin so grey?” Frangipania asks the Ebon lady.
Ebon does not smile, and perhaps before she can stop the unconscious thought her hand is upon her dagger in an instant, her eyes wild in anger and fear. But before she can react, before the assassin can put into any action whatever mysterious thought lead her to reach for her weapon, Frangipania looks skyward and gasps.
“The small one.” She stated.
The Ebon lady looked up, there, emerging from the stars and cloaked by the darkness, is another flying vessel half the size of the Lightening. Upon its main deck, a huge cannon rests, arcane fire gathering in its maw.
“Incomming!” Shouted the Ebon lady. The lookout, so used to sailing on oceans, or too sleepy to be wise, did not see the enemy approaching.
There is panic on deck, and the child slips away from the Drow before she can gather her wits. In the ensuing panic, Ebon spots a lone character walking across the main deck, looking about for an enemy he has not yet seen.
Looking about, standing in a direct line between the mainsail, and the cannon.
“Meas!” Ebon screamed in desperation. “Get down! Look out!”
He paused then. He looked where she was pointing. He was only a druid, and had no idea of how to deal with danger, how to jump when he was told. He had to see the danger for himself.
Had he not paused to see what she was pointing at he might have even walked out of harms way, or at least turned it into a glancing blow.
The first blast from the fire cannon was its most deadly. It seared the mainsail of the Lightening with a terrible pain too exquisite to define, but she had no voice to scream with. She had never felt such pain before. In a moment of weakness, she almost wished for death rather than violence, and would have entirely surrendered if they had required it.
The battle went as follows;
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Player handout : Pirates of the Eversea
Overview
The Eversea is a vast expanse of open space, littered with literally hundreds of thousands of little islands of earth floating effortlessly in the darkness. Most are sunless rocks about the size of a house, but occasionally one is large or magical enough to sponsor its own light. There is no need for air, it seems to be everywhere, and gravity almost always points down towards Profundum. Almost. Far too often strangers and enemies are made to walk the plank and find themselves eventually falling sideways in invisible currents of gravity and air to land in foreboding, and forbidden places.
The largest of the floating islands are the five continents, and the largest of those is claimed by the Sultancy. Legend tells that a thousand years ago every single island was visited and claimed by the ancient Tris, but no-one has heard of what happened to them in all that time.
To be fair, not all natives of the Eversea are pirates, and there is next to no sea in the Eversea.
Government
A pirate captain is the law on their own boat and makes all rules, fair and fowl, according to whim and circumstance. Often each pirate vessel will swears fealty to a pirate lord, who usually holds an island or two as a base of power, and can command other captains on their own vessel (as long as they have more soldiers and a bigger boat to back it up with). Only occasionally does a pirate gain enough land and ships to be called a great pirate lord, and only while they are alive - their holding tends to be divided up among heirs who must earn dominance on their own. There are seven great pirate lords at this time, of all kinds of races and genders. This changes every few years, as even immortal pirate lords (such as undead) are eventually brought down by the constant competition among them.
Once every hundred generations or so a particularly powerful pirate lord holds such influence over all the other pirate lords though cunning and persuasion as to be effectively an emperor. Twice in their history the pirate armada has taken sail to the terror of all. Usually, though, there is no strict alliance between factions and the largest unit of government is the boat they are sailing on. There is no honour among thieves.
Cressellia however, the largest city, is a neutral meeting ground for the pirates, and no one pirate lord risks claiming it as their own.
Char Blackthroat – Human. Rogue (polite, cunning, evil) gluttony
Lady Gwendelain – elven arcane trickster (beautiful fem fatales) envy
Hok – orc raider (wanton destroyer) greed
Barrum Stealhammer – dwarven rogue (tyrant) sloth
Sly – Halfling assassin (pragmatic) lust
Ming Wun Fu – githzeri monk (very evil.) wrath
Man Luck – gnome bard (comic relief, but wise, lucky, and kinda helpful. Generally treated as ‘harmless’ by other pirate lords who grudgingly appreciate his cunning and levelling influence.) pride
Geography
Pirates are actually very few in number, but several small towns of scum and villainy do exist. They live scattered on the (hundred) thousand floating islands of the Eversea. Some are no more that a building or two, hoping to go unnoticed and hidden far from trade routs.
Points of interest:
Scholars generally agree that the thousands islands of the Eversea were once a single world, blown apart by some enormous force and swept into this tiny pocket plane. While history records the Eversea was like this prior to the Tris, most blame the Tris anyway.
The whole area, for convenience, is divided into the great outer circle, and the much much smaller inner circle where the vast majority of the population live. The outer circle is essentially blank, except for some points of legend such hidden thrones of the Gods. The outer circle objects follow very erratic orbits, some none at all.
The thousand islands (actually hundreds of thousands, with countless millions of tiny rocks, chunks of dirt, and specks of dust) of the inner circle slowly rotate around the maelstrom, shepherded by the five great continents in a counter clockwise direction.
The maelstrom is an enormous storm of Everwinds at the base of the Eversea, spinning upwards. Some say to ride the maelstrom is to escape the pocket plane forever, if the trip doesn’t kill you.
The outer circle from above;
And from the side;
+ve and –ve planes lie on the north and south sides of the great circle respectively. Celestium (heaven) and Profundum (hell) are at the top and bottom, with a great ring of Aboretum (neutal) right in the middle. Needless to say, most of the space is considered profoundly empty. It is an eight year journey in the fastest skyships ever imagined to cross the Eversea, most ships aren’t 1/100th as fast.
The outer circle can be extremely difficult to navigate, using only the tiny specks of light from the inner circle the only obvious features. Special compasses for detecting Celestium, Arboretum, Profundum, the energy planes and Malestrom also exist, but are excruciatingly rare.
Top down map of the inner circle, including five governing continents, is displayed below;
Water is rare, except for the magically sustained ocean ring (not fit for drinking), and the beautiful by dangerous water continent Oceania where the abolyths currently hold rule. Getting a drink can be extremely dangerous, most mariners never return, and water is at times at a great expense. The demons of Accursed love fire, Iceland undead life on a land made of metal, and the Beastmen enjoy a forested land filled with dinosaurs.
Three month journey from side to side.
Military
Again, almost everyone, but a unified force is highly unlikely.
Daily life
With no strict time determined by sunlight, pirates live life to the schedule set by their captain and look out warily all the time. Families tend to live on the islands in towns or settle on the continents if they can break away from the tyranny of their pirate overlords. There is honest work on the islands, or dishonest work on the Everbreeze as the pirates take to plunder and searching for lost treasures (usually of the Tris) among the islands. They usually avoid the well organised and powerful Sultancy, and the other well defended governing continents.
Pirates believe themselves to be, mostly, descendants from ancient pirates who fled to the realm to escape persecution millennia ago, and then forgot how to get back. Some of them trace their bloodlines back to the Tris, but they are very very rare. Just as rare are adventurous and foolhardy souls who have left one of the governing continents to attempt a life out on the Everbreeze.
Religion
While not typically religious, deities of thieving or chance are common. A few honest but of necessity poor shrines do exist to benevolent deities in the hope of redeeming the people.
Crime and punishment
Whatever the person in charge decides is a crime, basically. It’s chaotic neutral at best.
Cultural oddities
• Pirates are very interested in gold, and can be persuaded quite easily by its lure.
• Pirates are also swayed by good speeches, expert dancing, and other charismatic performances.
• Above all, the pirates value skill – running on rope, balancing, tumbling, juggling etc, and are very impressed by feats of dexterity.
• Most of them are in debt to someone for something.
• Most pirates aren’t savage, allowing those plundered to live. Savage pirates are usually hunted down by alliances of other pirates, ironically.
• Also ironically, pirates value keeping ones word. Sadly, they don’t think anyone can actually keep up that high ideal and lie and betray each other quite often.
The Eversea is a vast expanse of open space, littered with literally hundreds of thousands of little islands of earth floating effortlessly in the darkness. Most are sunless rocks about the size of a house, but occasionally one is large or magical enough to sponsor its own light. There is no need for air, it seems to be everywhere, and gravity almost always points down towards Profundum. Almost. Far too often strangers and enemies are made to walk the plank and find themselves eventually falling sideways in invisible currents of gravity and air to land in foreboding, and forbidden places.
The largest of the floating islands are the five continents, and the largest of those is claimed by the Sultancy. Legend tells that a thousand years ago every single island was visited and claimed by the ancient Tris, but no-one has heard of what happened to them in all that time.
To be fair, not all natives of the Eversea are pirates, and there is next to no sea in the Eversea.
Government
A pirate captain is the law on their own boat and makes all rules, fair and fowl, according to whim and circumstance. Often each pirate vessel will swears fealty to a pirate lord, who usually holds an island or two as a base of power, and can command other captains on their own vessel (as long as they have more soldiers and a bigger boat to back it up with). Only occasionally does a pirate gain enough land and ships to be called a great pirate lord, and only while they are alive - their holding tends to be divided up among heirs who must earn dominance on their own. There are seven great pirate lords at this time, of all kinds of races and genders. This changes every few years, as even immortal pirate lords (such as undead) are eventually brought down by the constant competition among them.
Once every hundred generations or so a particularly powerful pirate lord holds such influence over all the other pirate lords though cunning and persuasion as to be effectively an emperor. Twice in their history the pirate armada has taken sail to the terror of all. Usually, though, there is no strict alliance between factions and the largest unit of government is the boat they are sailing on. There is no honour among thieves.
Cressellia however, the largest city, is a neutral meeting ground for the pirates, and no one pirate lord risks claiming it as their own.
Char Blackthroat – Human. Rogue (polite, cunning, evil) gluttony
Lady Gwendelain – elven arcane trickster (beautiful fem fatales) envy
Hok – orc raider (wanton destroyer) greed
Barrum Stealhammer – dwarven rogue (tyrant) sloth
Sly – Halfling assassin (pragmatic) lust
Ming Wun Fu – githzeri monk (very evil.) wrath
Man Luck – gnome bard (comic relief, but wise, lucky, and kinda helpful. Generally treated as ‘harmless’ by other pirate lords who grudgingly appreciate his cunning and levelling influence.) pride
Geography
Pirates are actually very few in number, but several small towns of scum and villainy do exist. They live scattered on the (hundred) thousand floating islands of the Eversea. Some are no more that a building or two, hoping to go unnoticed and hidden far from trade routs.
Points of interest:
Scholars generally agree that the thousands islands of the Eversea were once a single world, blown apart by some enormous force and swept into this tiny pocket plane. While history records the Eversea was like this prior to the Tris, most blame the Tris anyway.
The whole area, for convenience, is divided into the great outer circle, and the much much smaller inner circle where the vast majority of the population live. The outer circle is essentially blank, except for some points of legend such hidden thrones of the Gods. The outer circle objects follow very erratic orbits, some none at all.
The thousand islands (actually hundreds of thousands, with countless millions of tiny rocks, chunks of dirt, and specks of dust) of the inner circle slowly rotate around the maelstrom, shepherded by the five great continents in a counter clockwise direction.
The maelstrom is an enormous storm of Everwinds at the base of the Eversea, spinning upwards. Some say to ride the maelstrom is to escape the pocket plane forever, if the trip doesn’t kill you.
The outer circle from above;
And from the side;
+ve and –ve planes lie on the north and south sides of the great circle respectively. Celestium (heaven) and Profundum (hell) are at the top and bottom, with a great ring of Aboretum (neutal) right in the middle. Needless to say, most of the space is considered profoundly empty. It is an eight year journey in the fastest skyships ever imagined to cross the Eversea, most ships aren’t 1/100th as fast.
The outer circle can be extremely difficult to navigate, using only the tiny specks of light from the inner circle the only obvious features. Special compasses for detecting Celestium, Arboretum, Profundum, the energy planes and Malestrom also exist, but are excruciatingly rare.
Top down map of the inner circle, including five governing continents, is displayed below;
Water is rare, except for the magically sustained ocean ring (not fit for drinking), and the beautiful by dangerous water continent Oceania where the abolyths currently hold rule. Getting a drink can be extremely dangerous, most mariners never return, and water is at times at a great expense. The demons of Accursed love fire, Iceland undead life on a land made of metal, and the Beastmen enjoy a forested land filled with dinosaurs.
Three month journey from side to side.
Military
Again, almost everyone, but a unified force is highly unlikely.
Daily life
With no strict time determined by sunlight, pirates live life to the schedule set by their captain and look out warily all the time. Families tend to live on the islands in towns or settle on the continents if they can break away from the tyranny of their pirate overlords. There is honest work on the islands, or dishonest work on the Everbreeze as the pirates take to plunder and searching for lost treasures (usually of the Tris) among the islands. They usually avoid the well organised and powerful Sultancy, and the other well defended governing continents.
Pirates believe themselves to be, mostly, descendants from ancient pirates who fled to the realm to escape persecution millennia ago, and then forgot how to get back. Some of them trace their bloodlines back to the Tris, but they are very very rare. Just as rare are adventurous and foolhardy souls who have left one of the governing continents to attempt a life out on the Everbreeze.
Religion
While not typically religious, deities of thieving or chance are common. A few honest but of necessity poor shrines do exist to benevolent deities in the hope of redeeming the people.
Crime and punishment
Whatever the person in charge decides is a crime, basically. It’s chaotic neutral at best.
Cultural oddities
• Pirates are very interested in gold, and can be persuaded quite easily by its lure.
• Pirates are also swayed by good speeches, expert dancing, and other charismatic performances.
• Above all, the pirates value skill – running on rope, balancing, tumbling, juggling etc, and are very impressed by feats of dexterity.
• Most of them are in debt to someone for something.
• Most pirates aren’t savage, allowing those plundered to live. Savage pirates are usually hunted down by alliances of other pirates, ironically.
• Also ironically, pirates value keeping ones word. Sadly, they don’t think anyone can actually keep up that high ideal and lie and betray each other quite often.
Friday, July 2, 2010
In character side quests part 2
Suddenly a shockwave of silver veins tremble across Dzerog-Mak’s usually jet black surface, and for a moment there is a stunned silence in the room. Just as fighting is about to resume Dzerog-Mak shouts “Stop!” and his remaining priests fall to the floor, weapons clattering to the ground. For a moment, there is silence.
“I must… contemplate this new wisdom.” Dzerog-mak explains.
The priests refuse to fight you now, and politely ask you to leave. Perhaps you do, perhaps you don’t, perhaps you are willing to wait the week it takes for Dzerog to contemplate the direction his life has taken these past 300 years. But in any event, on the seventh day, major changes take place.
Dzerog-Mak immediately makes full confession of all his attempts at insurrection, fully refunding thousands of coins forced from the hands of innocents in recent times. He betrays the confidences of dozens of spies he has placed to cause insurrection and contention as far as the offices in the white tower. The Shadow guild, only one of several major organisations that had fallen under his sway, is official disbanded, though few are fools enough to believe this is a permanent change.
The repercussions of this are immense as those formally supported in the corruption are brought to light. Criminals are returned to their sentencing, and thieving activities greatly curtailed. A new era has begun, where Dzerog-mak and his breakers serve the law in Lauresia instead of seeking to become the law, for none had suspected just how powerful the Mirror quartz had really become…
As for Jessica, none can escape the change she initiates as well. Healed by your gratitude, she is renewed with a sense of purpose. No longer taken for granted by her children, the banded haematite becomes forthright and assertive in overseeing that all fulfil their responsibilities to their community. She calls to account many who have fallen behind in their promised duties to their people, and initiates several new policies for seeing the city is properly cleansed, that people are polite, and that door are properly shut after use. Most of all, Jessica enshrines the use of gratitude among all citizens as a means of restoring hope and peace to a people recovering from their own fear, which expressed itself as the riots.
But there is still much work to be done.
Oma
Ebon is a great asset to the burgeoning ‘Oma’s revolution army’ with an inate sense of mistrust and deep understanding of the art of trechery. She exposes a novice spy in a single week, placed there by the druidic circle to oversee your activities and report on your teachings. Several new people have begun to attend your seminars, commoners such as coopers and scullery maids for the most part…
Gaston
Schazonraze turns up, asking to speak to you. She tells you that Sunali is bring driven to madness to find and slay you and your people, and that you all must flee before he finds Toronto’ and destroys it forever.
Lukat.
Hey, no family involvement today… how weird…
Gerry
The thief approaches you through the crowded tavern.
“I haves some information you might find… interesting. That hag whose got yr stuff? Seems she keeps an old warehouse down in brown town, I’ll give you the address. Seems there might be a whole covey of them, they do some kind of ritual, you’ll need to head there at night. Watch yr back though, lotsa folks going against them witches every few years or so… never heard anything from any of them ever since…”
PS Level up everyone! Welcome to level 8!
“I must… contemplate this new wisdom.” Dzerog-mak explains.
The priests refuse to fight you now, and politely ask you to leave. Perhaps you do, perhaps you don’t, perhaps you are willing to wait the week it takes for Dzerog to contemplate the direction his life has taken these past 300 years. But in any event, on the seventh day, major changes take place.
Dzerog-Mak immediately makes full confession of all his attempts at insurrection, fully refunding thousands of coins forced from the hands of innocents in recent times. He betrays the confidences of dozens of spies he has placed to cause insurrection and contention as far as the offices in the white tower. The Shadow guild, only one of several major organisations that had fallen under his sway, is official disbanded, though few are fools enough to believe this is a permanent change.
The repercussions of this are immense as those formally supported in the corruption are brought to light. Criminals are returned to their sentencing, and thieving activities greatly curtailed. A new era has begun, where Dzerog-mak and his breakers serve the law in Lauresia instead of seeking to become the law, for none had suspected just how powerful the Mirror quartz had really become…
As for Jessica, none can escape the change she initiates as well. Healed by your gratitude, she is renewed with a sense of purpose. No longer taken for granted by her children, the banded haematite becomes forthright and assertive in overseeing that all fulfil their responsibilities to their community. She calls to account many who have fallen behind in their promised duties to their people, and initiates several new policies for seeing the city is properly cleansed, that people are polite, and that door are properly shut after use. Most of all, Jessica enshrines the use of gratitude among all citizens as a means of restoring hope and peace to a people recovering from their own fear, which expressed itself as the riots.
But there is still much work to be done.
Oma
Ebon is a great asset to the burgeoning ‘Oma’s revolution army’ with an inate sense of mistrust and deep understanding of the art of trechery. She exposes a novice spy in a single week, placed there by the druidic circle to oversee your activities and report on your teachings. Several new people have begun to attend your seminars, commoners such as coopers and scullery maids for the most part…
Gaston
Schazonraze turns up, asking to speak to you. She tells you that Sunali is bring driven to madness to find and slay you and your people, and that you all must flee before he finds Toronto’ and destroys it forever.
Lukat.
Hey, no family involvement today… how weird…
Gerry
The thief approaches you through the crowded tavern.
“I haves some information you might find… interesting. That hag whose got yr stuff? Seems she keeps an old warehouse down in brown town, I’ll give you the address. Seems there might be a whole covey of them, they do some kind of ritual, you’ll need to head there at night. Watch yr back though, lotsa folks going against them witches every few years or so… never heard anything from any of them ever since…”
PS Level up everyone! Welcome to level 8!
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