Initiates

Setting

In Cormire post-Lyvian's Fire, Vasker Raiden still serving as the head of the city-state.

Character Creation

You are in your 18th summer and the child of a priestess of the benevolent temple of Celeste. As such, you must go through an initiation/adulthood ceremony.

Being so young, you have little to no professional experience, but perhaps your teacher-father is a blacksmith, or a butcher, or a farmer, or a city guard. Perhaps you have fallen in with thieves and scalawags, or perhaps you've been a dutiful librarian's assistant, or perhaps you're following your mother's footsteps as an acolyte of the temple.

100 point human characters

• you have an implied Duty to comply with your mother's responsibilities to have her children "initiated"
• you are a teenager, so you no more than 8 points total on skills
• max 30 pt Disadvantages
• exotic/supernatural Advantages require GM approval
• magery / power investiture ok if your story supports it
• if you don't choose Status and Wealth you are average in each
• add Literacy if you want to know how to read
• you've lived your whole life in Cormire (and might have Area Knowledge as a result), but might have some traveling/exploring experience if your story supports it (e.g., dad is a merchant who travels back and forth to Zareph and Serenton regularly)

You each have siblings/cousins and/or acquaintances who have been through Initiation. A mature high priestess and a man-at-arms will march you off into the forest, say a few words in front of a really big tree, and then you come home. The primary complaint you've heard from recent Initiates is the unpleasantness of sleeping on the cold hard ground in the wilderness. →Decide what your character's feelings are regarding this obligation.

Each party member is aware of all the others. There should be some "history" between you, whether friendly or unfriendly or romantic or whatever. →Please work out at least one cross-character relationship prior to kickoff.

Equipment

• Base wealth for teens is $400 (which is the cost of a Shortsword). If you want to spend more, you'll need to spend on the Wealth Advantage (10-pt "Comfortable" = $800, 20-pt "Wealthy" = $2000). Exceptions will be consider if part of your story and with a spend on Unusual Background.
• Due to the long journey ahead, you have been advised to keep your Encumbrance level at Light or below.

Campaign Prelude

High Priestess Ena

It is a crystal clear summer morning, crisp and cloudless. The sounds of commerce and activity are beginning to come alive in the grand granite city of Cormire.

After collecting supplies, a short walk leads you to meet High Priestess Ena on the steps of the temple.

Characters

• Harold, Darren's swift-footed scalawag
• Darcy - Blair's socialite
• Sajad - Ernest's Eastern woodcutter

What Happened

Embark

The three youngsters had breakfast and walked their respective paths through Cormire to the Temple of Celeste, down a side street off the Grand Plaza.

High Priestess Ena greeted them warmly and invited them inside. Within, she opened a secret door and led the teens downstairs, where a glowing green egg as tall as a man sat upright in a cramped chamber. Ena said a quiet word and the egg dissolved, revealing a twisted staff. She explained that Cleste herself possessed this staff when she walked the Gurth long ago, and now it is core to the temple's faith.

The group then proceeded to meet up with a dour merchant who provided a ride out of the city and all the way up to the pass, at which they arrived after dark and met up with Ena's friend Spencer, a man-at-arms with a fabulous mustache.

A brief incident with a pair of lascivious barbarians left Sajad knocked out cold, but Ena addressed the situation with a spell which left the assailants unconscious on their backs as well.

Four days of travel bonded the group, with Darcy and Harold tending to Sajad's dislocated jaw daily.

The following morning, as the group was breaking down camp, a elf woman approached at great speed, riding a white unicorn. Ena immediately recognized and greeted her, but then an urgent debate began. The elf Eelia warned of a great approaching danger and advised the group follow her back to her camp. Ena instead insisted on rushing the party further down the forested hill to the Legacy Tree to proceed with the Initiation. Eelia accompanied, distresssed.

At the great tree, Ena urged the teens to approach it, when suddenly, she, Eelia, and Spencer were struck in the center of the chest by thick-shafted crossbow bolts. Each gasped and fell, and then white smoke emerged from the wounds as blood hissed and boiled.

Quick-thinking Darcy used a spell to levitate the staff from Ena's hand, which Sajad grabbed on the way into the great hollow at the base of the tree. Darcy and Harold followed, and all were immediately enclosed by a warm, comforting mist.

Two monstrous elves then entered the clearing, apparently oblivious to the teens' location, and devoured the hearts of the slain before maniacally cackling and dashing off into the forest.

Stunned, the teens debated next moves as the mist began to clear.

Harold exited the cocoon of the tree and brought the fallen priestess back within. He then moved on to the elf. As he touched her, three male elves rushed out of the trees, an arrow nocked and demanding answers. Haughty, outraged, and grief-stricken, they scold the teens to go home to their mommies, collect their sister's desecrated body, and depart.

Aghast and dismayed, the teens consider their options. Without their mentors/leaders, and the unhelpful elves, their direction is unclear.

They watch with wonder as the tree and Ena meld into a single form.

Then they hear a low-voiced moaning far off in the forest. Approaching carefully, they encounter a 15' tall giant apparently made of tree bark, kneeling, crying, at the base of a small tree that has been toppled. He is a simpleton bemoaning damage to his butterfly tree, and the party coaxes him into leading them to his queen, who, he says, will know what this means.

Queen Ciara greets the party with a subtle silent nod, and then uses one of the giant's tears to reconstruct the scene of the crime against the butterfly tree. A flash of light resulted in three monstrous elves astride massive spiders, which proceeded to crash through the tree and off into the forest.

Ciara raises an eyebrow and says, "Hmm, thirteen hundred years early."

A Higher Purpose

A friendly interrogation reveals that more than 1000 years ago, there was some sort of collaboration between the elves and dwarves to purge the land of "Hellions" by locking the "hellgates". Details are scarce, so the party asks who would know. The queen floats the possibility that the Elder Druids may remember.

Four days of hiking back up the mountains, punctuated by an owlbear encounter that Darcy manages with an illusion, the party steps out onto the broad snowfield, flanked by craggy peaks.

Midway, they spot a white dragon which makes several attempts at a wing buffet to knock everyone over. Then, a projectile slams into the enormous drake, scales shatter, and the beast tumbles several times, screeching, before taking flight again and disappearing into the distance.

A handsome elf in a gauzy tunic leaps superhumanly down through the boulders and introduces himself as Kazat. He hears of High Priestess Ena's demise, at the hands of monsttrous elves he refers to as "Voidbringers". He endorses the plan to consult the druids and offers a ride.

Whereupon he assumes his natural form, a mirror-scaled silver dragon twice the size of the white dragon. The team piles on and is soon aloft, flying downslope to the east for hours to an arid plateau with spidery canyons and twisted junipers.

They rendezvous with Dogger, a burly bearded bloke driving a "wind wagon" built entirely of natural materials. The dragon and the man exchange friendly remarks, Kazat flies off, and Dogger says, "Let's go then."

The wagon's leather sail billows mysteriously and a week-long journey of violent bumps at high speed commences. After a close call with a swarm of giant wasps, eventually, the party approaches an ancient stand of massive redwoods - Druid Grove.

There, Sloane Arakian indicates that the druids are aware of a hellgate breach and have been studying the moon and the winds to figure out next steps. In fact, one of their own recently traveled to the nearest hellgate and Sloane herself witnessed him open it and leap inside. She agrees to accompany the party to the site.

When she sees Dogger, she becomes enraged and runs towards him, cursing!

Journey to the Hellgate

After brief fisticuffs between the two NPCs, Sloane gathers her composure and says the children must choose a guide, for she shan't be traveling with "that man", with whom she evidently has some history. Dogg bows out, and the team heads out on foot.

For days of fast hiking, Harold doing his best to keep up with red-headed elf-druid while Sajad and Darcy lumber along far behind.

An ambush in a ravine results in Sloane being knocked unconscious by a rock thrown by a hideous furred/scaled humanoid. Harold quickly scales the embankment and starts stabbing the three assailants, but can't murder them all fast enough to prevent the sounding of an alarm.

Soon pursued by dozens of the unattractive primitives, the party scoops up Sloane and seeks high ground. As the sun goes down, they reach a hillock crowned with a ring of odd granite slabs. Beyond, the glowing eyes of four large quadrupeds presents a new threat. Sandwiched, they take cover among the rocks, but Sajad breaks through into a chamber within the hill, tumbling down 30' with the ragdoll of Sloane's still-unconscious body. He soon reports that there is hewn stone within, flat surfaces.

Under a starlit sky, the party resolves to hide within, and lights an ancient torch to look around. A sarcophagus against the wall and a series of ancient artistic panels are all there is to see. The panels depict a tall black-skinned warrior with snake-like hair slaying what seem to be the monstrous elves, or Voidbringers.

Monitoring the approaching threats, Harold concocts a plan to pit them against one another, with apparent success.

Curiosity piqued, the party opens the coffin, and the undead creature leaps out, dealing wounds until clobbered into oblivion.

The party crawls out of the hole under a dim moon to see the massacre engineered by Harold. A gravely injured Sloane comes to, provides some navigational instructions to Darcy, and then turns into an owl and flies off.

Children of Zog

The party hikes throughout the morning to the top of a rocky hill from which they spot their destination. A cluster of mud huts, some in ruins, and populated by several dozen hunchbacked mongrelfolk.

They sneak closer and spot the evident "boss", a scorpion-clawed horror that limps around with a bone staff, checking on his swaying, chanting flock. The cultish worshippers are surrounding a 20' wide stone well into which breeze is blowing dust from all directions.

Sajad hatches a plan -- because of the center-directed breeze, setting a brushfire all around the village will swarm upon the mongrels.

It mostly works, causing many of the creatures to keel over in a coughing fit. Sensing opportunity, the party rushes in and takes cover among the huts, eventually emerging to (Darcy) backstab a pregnant crow-faced mongrel-lass and (Sajad) seize the warlock leader. The hideous warlock's spells bounce off Sajad's thick skin, and he hurls the creature into the well, where Harold has determined anything dropped within in instantaneously annihilated.

Darcy tends to the crow-lady whose lung she pierced and the party considers next steps as the sun descends towards the horizon. The chanting subjects continue to murmur "Zog... Zog... Zog...".

Harold, in a fit of inspiration, holds the warlock's staff aloft and commands the mindless drones to put the enormous iron lid back on the well. They comply, and with Sajad's muscular and Darcy's sorcery assistance, succeed. The breeze stops.

Meanwhile a pair of mongrelfolk continue harvesting giant termites and feeding their guts to the cult members, who ingest it mindlessly before resuming their chanting.

The party inspects the well and finds a complex metallic circular maze pattern, and conjectures it's a lock, or a key, or seal.

When the sun goes down, the worshippers drop trousers and raise skirts in unison, as if prepared to receive some unholy penetration. After a few minutes, they cover themselves and resume chanting.

The party seeks refuge in a hut and watches. Once the stars are mostly out, a pulse of purple / white energy dislodges the lid once more, and Voidbringer crawls out, covered in clear slime, and evidently exhausted. One of the cultists holds out a bundle as an offering.

Inspired, Harold rushes forward with the bone staff and charges into the creature's chest. The Voidbringer topples over backwards, into the well, and disappears.

That night, Darcy wakes up before dawn and finds herself back in the snowfield where the party encountered the silver dragon. The boys are lyingin the snow, sleepng peacefully.

Darcy's mother stands before her, shimmering, eyes and lips closed, in ceremonial robes. She hears her mother's voice in her head, but it is faint and often unintelligible. She is able to pick up:

• High Priestess Ena
• Celeste's blessings
• Talathese
• Chronicles of the Panther
• Touch your friends with the staff, if they have accepted Celeste
• Your hair is a mess and you need a bath

When she returns to her body and wakes up in the hut, she nudges the boys, confirms their allegiance, and gifts them each with new powers....

Luck - Harold / Blessed (Heroic Feats - ST/DX/HT/Move) - Sajad / Power Investiture (certain colleges -- whichever she has now)