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)

Desert Trek

The party spends an extra day working their influence skills on the remaining mongrelfolk. Harold in particular identifies a new leader in a 350-lb bear-man and attempts to convince the hulk that he, Harold, will bestow the role of mongrel-king.

It seems to work, and so Harold takes the rhetoric to another level -- instructing the new king on procedures for evaluating arriving Voidbringers, and banishing the unworthy. Progress is made, but the party moves on the next day, hoping to find their way back to Druids' Grove to seek guidance regarding Talathese.

The heat of the summer on the arid plateau is brutal, and days of hiking and subsisting on meager (and sometimes poisonous) indigenous fare takes a toll. Everyone's exhausted, hurting, sunburned, dehydrated when the shrieked warning comes:

"Take another step and I'll put this poison arrow right into your bloody eye socket!"

The warning comes from Kezia, a petite dark-haired archer standing atop a low rise to the south. Harold attempts explaining the party's mission and intentions, but is met with "Whass'at?"

Kezia withdraws to consult her partner and the party follows.

In a shallow bowl beyond, blonde warrioress Cecily reclines in the shade of a scrubby little tree aside an aquamarine pond. Her hand is mangled and her bare legs and feet covered in blisters. Nevertheless, she cheerfully greets the party and tells her partner to stand down.

Conversation reveals that the ladies are adventurers currently seeking dragon heads for a warlord named Rogan in the north - "He pays in platinum, we'll be rich!"

Sadly, the dragon sought kicked the crap out of Cecily and she lost her swords in the process. A deal is proposed -- go get my swords and we'll tell ya the best way to Talathese. Whether dragon heads will also be retrieved, and whether the ladies will tend to the Voidbringer problem are issues left ambiguous, but the party takes a long cool drink of the stinky but safe pond water and resolves to visit the dragon the next day.

For dinner, Sajad returns with an enormous snake to roast, which, despite Harold's cooking skills, turns out to be mildly poisonous, rendering everyone uncomfortable through the night.

In the morning, the bedraggled party nevertheless treks the mile south to a lake of bubbling gravy-mud, approaches to the edge, and meets the nemesis -- a 3-headed dragon-thing.

Dragon Wrangling

Standing at the edge of the lake of boiling mud-gravy, the party takes their time consideration options, as the roaring creature does not seem to be advancing into the shallows. Sajad experiments with whacking rocks at it with his club, and Harold and Darcy fan out and consider other approaches.

In the end, Darcy casts Resist Fire on everyone, and they wade into the goo. Sajad sustains -- and delivers -- terrible injuries, and the mighty lad succumbs while the creature peels away to attack Harold. Darcy sneaks in and pokes it a few times with her rapier too, one attempt breaching the scales and piercing a spleen.

Bloodied, battered, mud-encrusted, the party returns to the warrioress duo with on dragon head, several arrows, a shortsword, and some magic gloves retrieved from a submerged skeleton.

A period of bathing, rest and first aid ensues, and Sajad manages to trap a small wild pig, and so a sort of victory feast is enjoyed by all.

The next day, the party bids farewell to the adventuring ladies and treks west. Five hard days on the arid plateau with limited food and water follow, and the party is relieved to finally get to the great river, flanked by greenery. A raft is built, a trout is speared, and the party camps out for a few days to recover their strength.

Down the River

Well rested, watered, and fed, the party stuffs a few handfuls of dried trout in their packs and embarks on their downriver journey. Fish and water continue to be plentiful, and the broad, lazy river delivers for days as the group tests out their boating skills.

One night, camping on a sandbar mid-river, Sajad spots some kind of enormous river serpent, and Harold sees a few over-sized bats, but other than that, everything seems fine.

The following day, the riparian terrain changes from bushy hillsides to a narrow sandstone canyon with evident whitecaps. The group pulls over to assess on foot. From then clifftop, the torrent appears.... somewhat manageable. Overconfidence wins the group over, and they embark yet again.

After an exhausting day of drenching close calls, the river widens again and soon opens up to reveal a verdant side canyon. On approach, the party sees a grotesque humanoid dangling by an angle from a big shade tree, and keeps their distance.

A little further along and they notice that the verdure is actually cultivated crops, lovingly curated and interspersed with tall red, blue, and yellow flowers. And in the foreground, at a calm inlet, they see a curious little swamp-goblin, who drops his fishing pole and scurries through the cropland to a funky little house built of natural materials.

This is Shandalar's home, and as the party approaches through the flowers, she walks straight towards them, with evident purpose, yelling "Get back!"

The reality emerges that the flowers were wilting as Harold passed them by. On the shore of the mighty river, Shandalar interrogates the party, first with her mind, then with words. She immediately senses that Darcy is "with Celeste", and that Harold is with "the Soul-Eaters". Once she figures out that Harold is carrying a certain thrusting broadsword, she demands it be submerged in water, lest the Soul-Eaters or their minions find the group.

An afternoon and evening of storytelling and bean-bowls commences, at the conclusion of which the group shares some hallucinatory soup and communes in a spiritual fashion. Suddenly, it's dawn, and each party member has received a boon -- High Pain Threshhold, Intuition, and Smooth Operator.

Shandalar's parting advice -- go visit "Saul" of the "Priory of Luna" -- he'll be a great help navigating the dynamics in the city of Talathese. She also warns that the way is long and hazardous, but the river is the best way to get there.

Choppy waters in an ever-deeper canyon creates a sense of foreboding, which is borne out two days later. While approaching Three King Bridge, winged figures atop the arching structure. They swoop in unison on an intercept course with the swirling raft. Luckily, Darcy casts a spell, creating the illusion that the raft and its riders are nothing more than choppy waters. Stymied, the winged creatures swirl around, but do not detect the party.

As a precaution against further malefactors, the party decides to drop the dark Soul-Eater's blade into the deep waters beneath the bridge.

Not far beyond, the cliffs subside and the river widens and slows, revealing arid grasslands as far as the eye can see.

Hancock's Glen

A week of lazy, warm floating commences, as the river widens into a seemingly limitless plain of golden grasses with just a few trees per mile. They spot unfamiliar animals, and hear unknown species at night.

One day, while cooling his enormous feet in the river, Sajad is snatched by an enormous crocodile. He disappears in the frothing waters for a moment, Darcy utters a spell, and Sajad reappears on the raft, wide eyed and bleeding.

The croc returns to continue his meal, but Darcy is ready with the group's 18' rafting pole, which she pushes into its mouth. Harold, meanwhile, struggles to stabilize the makeshift raft as it tosses about in the creature's churning wake.

Sajad regains his senses and whacks the back of the pole with his club, sending the pole deep into the croc's pink gullet and causing it to lurch back and snort in frustration. It dips below the surface and the party does not see it again. First aid commences - Sajad's leg is punctured but will be fine in a few days.

That night, while camping onshore, the group hears strange chirping yelps from dozens of .. something. It turns out to be a pack of weird dog-like creatures, evidently attracted by the smell of roasting rabbit -- or the party members themselves. A decision is made to get back on the water and avoid the encounter.

A couple days later, a swath of green at the confluence of the River Ur and another large river is spotted, and soon the group also sees a dozen or more ramshackle structures, and boats tied to two river piers.

They're greeted warmly by scruffy hunters, trappers, and fishermen, who inform the group they've arrived at Hancock's Glen, a regional trading post where these guys come to trade and acquire moonshine and sexual services. The source of the latter is spotted later, as a nude woman is inspected by a several of the cohort before being taken into a mud hut.

Hancock himself gruffly greets the group and soon there's a circle passing moonshine around and getting Harold to tell some stories of the group's adventures. Darcy has modest success repelling unwanted attention, and at one point, she and Sajad wander off.

A hundred yards out of town, they spot a strange black mass in a ravine and approach but decide not to get too close. When they return, they hear muffled cries of distress from the 'services' hut, but continue on to check in with Harold, who continues to exercise his storytelling skills.

Hancock, seemingly attempting to be a magnanimous host, offers a private hut for the party to avoid the nightly patrols of hungry wild dogs, and the party says yes.

The adobe hut has 3 bedrolls and a small firepit in the middle; an aperture in the ceiling seems designed to allow its smoke to rise. Upon entry, the door slams, a metal bolt slides into place, and, after a moment, a bag of snakes is emptied inside from above.