Campaign of the Month: July 2011
Sins of the First Age
Character Logs
The following character logs depict anecdotes from the lives of the characters when they’re away from the table – history and back story meets those events which are done better justice on the page than on the fly. They are presented here in chronological order, but are tagged and can be searched using tags by author.
The Radio Show: Recap Episode
And then the man on the radio reminded the players what the hell happened.
The Radio Show: Aug 24, 2012
And then the man on the radio starting talking about the wayward exalt because she was about to be found.
The Radio Show: Aug 23, 2012
And then the man on the radio stopped talking about the wayward exalt because she was gone.
The Radio Show: Aug 13, 2012
And then the man on the radio stopped talking about the wayward exalt and her associates to report on the news.
Leviathan’s Betrayal
This… is not something I’m good at. I have no gift with words and paper is hardly the most durable material on the waves. And still, time and time again we have gained insight from the recorded thoughts of our past lives…
A Dialog Between Incarnations
The following note, written in a flowing, practiced hand, was found by Kadon on his work bench in the factory cathedral at the Eastern Grove. It was written in fluent old realm. A second note, this one in Kadon’s neat, even technical hand, is written on the back…
Fathers and Daughters
This is an odd sort of homecoming for me. Though I know what my father is, I’ve never seen his kind or what he might call home. I don’t even know his name (mother insisted it was best for both of us). And now, for the first time, I am walking a path that leads…
How do we Proceed?
We managed to find Amarel and return her to her beloved with little loss of life and even avoided the outright conflict I almost caused, and to what end? All we have discovered is that more and more foes seek to keep us from our loved ones…
To Those Left Behind
We are returning to Lord Fakharu, Amarel safely in our possession. But it is a trip of a few days and there’s little to do other than spend time with one’s thoughts. Amongst the circle there is little to say to one another that hasn’t been spoken, and Amarel seems to prefer…
No More Games
Mnemia stood at the tiller of a small cutter, the ship sliding through the water as the sun was starting to set in the west. The thin clouds snaking through the sky were starting to light up with color as the day ended…
A Word On Mentors
Seychelles led Kadon into the Wyld, forging a path through the dense foliage that seemed ubiquitous beyond the eastern edge of creation. The noise and industry of the factory cathedral, and the village surrounding it, had been left behind some days ago…
Memories of Another Time
Kadon had tried to sleep in a dozen different spots already, but rest would not come. An irony, considering he had crafted the place from his own mind. Elder Seychelles, it seemed, had no such problems…
New Adventures
As the first rays of sunlight began to fill the room, Zuko awoke alongside Scarlet in their treetop flat. He silently slid out of bed and wandered outside. It had been three days since they left Mnemia with her people and returned to the Workshop for some…
How many angels can fit on the head of a pin?
Even with almost nothing here, foot traffic around the Yellow River dam was surprisingly heavy. The Council wanted little reason for people to linger outside of the city proper, heavily taxing anything within 30 miles to drive the people in closer to Nexus where…
Bonds of Blood
Setting her right foot just behind her, Mnemia dropped into a low, balanced stance. It was a stance born from years of repelling boarders and boarding ships herself. If she could center her weight on a rocking ship she could center her weight here…
Sea Dreamer
He knew it was a dream. After all, she had been the one that tried to teach him lucid dreaming. Her efforts in this matter never took root until after he had exalted, and only then on those times when she would appear in them. And only then did he know it to…
Essence & Darkness
Kadon closed his eyes, but the essence of what he had wrought remained before him, clearly visible through his own flesh. In the near distance, he could see the flows of radiance washing through the architecture of the restored capital…
Hidden Fruits of the Past
“By his four-armed…” Zuko muttered as he paced about the formerly sterile environment.
“They certainly made a mess of things to be sure. Luckily it’s mostly cosmetic…"
Pomp and Circumstance
“I can’t believe I’m doing this” groaned Zuko as he examined his outfit in the mirror, “I look totally out of place in all this finery…”
The Ashen Call
As far as the eye could see in all directions Creation was blue. Above the air was clear, not a cloud in the sky. The only variation in the uniform color was the sun just passing through its zenith. Below the gently rolling sea provided more definition, more detail…
The Shadow of the Silver Prince
For two years the circle had laid low, honing their own skills and waiting to see how Nexus fared and whether or not the Realm would respond. During that time Zis had taken Mnemia to a number of different shadowlands and to the Underworld beyond…
Excerpt from the Journal of Ioni V.
I was sitting on a cliff side. Geeze, I don’t know why I’m even sharing this, but I might as well. Anyway, there I was, just sitting at the top of the cliff. It was an amazing view. Roiling ocean beneath, crashing waves sounding like the earth’s heartbeat…
Journey Home
Waters lashed at her feet as Ioni stood on the quay, looking over the waters to where in the distance, the Fair Isle lurked. Over the White Sea, beyond the rippling waves lay the Fair Isle…
Indelible Concepts
Kadon intoned an invocation to the Great Maker as he completed the thirty-third and final figure, a pentagramatic ward Elsewhere prominent – the lines symbolically connecting the polls of creation broken by a sweep of perpendiculars…
Metastability
Though hardly the great general Raxin was, Mnemia never the less had certain… instincts when it came to going to war. One of which was to survey the forces at her command before leading them into battle…
A World Left Behind
“Always attack from the angle your opponent least suspects! Only a fool attacks their foe head-on.” barked Galek as he watched the new recruit train his spear forms…
Nothing will be simple again
With Zuko focused on training while Kadon and Scarlet were sequestered away working on their secret project Mnemia decided to take the opportunity to return home for a few days, Zis accompanying her. The visit would be mostly pleasure…
Mnemia’s Anima Banner and Harbinger
Her feet together, her hands relaxed at her sides, Mnemia began to call out to Harbinger, drawing the warstrider out of Elsewhere. Though she stood perfectly still, there was no way an observer would be fooled into thinking the woman was inactive…
The Engine of Creation
He was driven to create. In his mortal life, Kadon had been driven to learn, and in exaltation that had blossomed. His past laid before him, now he yearned to know what others never had. To learn secrets never before suspected…
To Kill a Prince
Standing in the transport compartment of Mercury’s Envy Mnemia felt a wave of nausea, a sign that the ship had breached the borders of a shadowland. Not for the first time she wondered if she would ever get used to the feeling of passing over from the world…
Spreading the Seeds
“You have surely accomplished much here, Zuko.” Galek commented as he looked out from his canopy home over the hustle of activity in the factory cathedral below. “Discipline and order are a bit lax, but given your own interests in such matters…”
Tending the Roots
Scarlet crouched low to the ground, bracing herself with one hand while the other held aloft Quicksilver Finger of Death, her eyes darted about the bushes and branches of the surrounding forest seeking out her prey…
Message Across the Chasms of Time
Zuko searched for a nearby place to write in relative peace. He couldn’t stray far, however, there was no telling how long this connection with Aly would last…
Father’s Idiocy
When your father was young, he had the typical roving tendencies. Oh don’t look at me like that, boys. I know you and I know what you have a tendency for. Sweet talking young maidens, smiling, giving flowers, and all for a little of their time and comfort…
The Edge of the Abyss
“Zis!” Mnemia screamed as her lover jumped into the living painting gone black. A moment before the abyssal could barely stand, Mnemia keeping her on her feet while trying to pretend not to. Now she was moving with a speed that surprised the solar…
Null
The nothingness – black beyond black, silent beyond silent – blossomed before him, and in the back of his mind Kharum howled in despair and terror. In the foreground of his thoughts, Kadon’s mind raced, analyzing options…
Unwelcome Shade
Zuko’s arm snapped forward, driving the head of his Twin Dragons Chain deep into the makeshift earth of this strange place he found himself. The portrait had led Kadon and Zuko into a facsimile featuring the front of the Invisible Manse…
Reaching to the Sun
Zuko paced about the desolate arena in the basement of the Hidden Manse, frustrated and bored. Kadon was busy learning a spell to handle the basement’s traps and fill in that Unconquered Sun-forsaken place…
Drive Angry
For most of the passengers, Harbinger was turning out to be a less than ideal mode of transit. After relocating the interns back to the hidden fortress (most of them were too disoriented to stand after the fact) Kadon had put together a harness of sorts…
Shakedown
As quickly as the snow had come it was vanishing, turning the battlefield into a muddy mess far quicker than was natural. And if Mnemia didn’t think Aboshi was behind it, covering the tracks of an army walking through the white drifts on the other side…
Letter Home
Ioni bit her lip, looking around the room that Zuko had shown her as they boarded his ship. She was not looking to take in the sights, just to organize her thoughts. She was worried, very worried. The Bull of the North was seeking to invade the Haslanti League…
To Walk Unseen
Walking through the front doors of the factory cathedral was like walking into a different world. On one side Creation was idyllic and serene; soft earth underfoot, shifting rays of sunlight and the gentle sounds of a land at peace…
Prices Paid
Kadon drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair as he contemplated the character of sorcery. The greater magics were, quite clearly, not natural – even from a perspective which acknowledged the primordial source of the concept of nature itself…
Family Ties
It’s not that Ioni never wanted to return home. The Fair Isle just did not feel like home. Even now it was strange. Like an overlay of an illusion ontop of something real. Faces barely familiar, routines all too familiar. And now she was here, witnessing…
Impossible Voyage
Having left the Fair Isle in search of the Tearing Gale, the collection of Exalts and mortals riding the winds within Mercury’s Envy had crossed what remained of the White Sea and were now cruising over an endless wintry expanse on the way to Diamond Hearth…
Embers In The Dark
Beyond the rune-carved, and gold-chased rim of the Envy’s forward crew hatch, the ship’s matrix deconstruction field shimmered blue-green where it reconciled the seething fractal chaos beyond with the relatively simple and consistent environment it encompassed…
From the Ashes
Should one expect any differently from the Phoenix Born of Blood? In his day Raxin earned this title driving deep into enemy territory and emerging on the other side…
Homecoming
Though sealed away within what seemed to be a hollowed out dwelling tower within the dragon king city of Shakanzer, Valysan did not need to see the sky to know that the Sun was finally overhead. The chamber he sat within was inert and unadorned, but…
The Legion of the Fallen Dragon
“You want what?” Mnemia asked. Rhythm set aside the hammer she was working with within her forge in Nexus…
Legacy Rebuked
It was a sight that those that bore witness would likely never see again. Zis, the Ziggurat of Infinite Suffering, an abyssal whose power had grown ten fold in only a few years, cradled a form in her arms like one would a sick child…
Stacking the Dominos
Ioni pulled out a brush, running it through the giant ice weasels coat. “I know, I’m sorry. I should not have sent you down there…”
Blood Upon the Sand
“The legend is a simple one.” Celeste said as she slowly walked across the soft sand, her footprints being washed away moments after she left them, the ocean rising up to claim them…
Rage of the Discarded
Much like the rest of Deheleshen, this place was both familiar and alien. Those denied reincarnation sought ways to return to their old lives by recreating them in the Underworld. But recreating a factory cathedral was more complicated than just…
Fires on the Edge of Forever
The central pavilion of the Ruby Court would have appeared extravagant even in the wealthiest of communities. But here, the city a veritable oasis within a raging inferno, it seemed an unrepentant display of power…
Journey Maccabre
“I want to learn necromancy.” Mnemia said quietly, staring up at the ceiling from the posh bed, a thin sheet covering her, but leaving nothing to the imagination….
Ioni’s Woodland Adventure
The Eastern Grove was fabulous in Ioni’s eyes. Lush green forest, filled with wildlife, especially after being on board boat after boat. It looked like heaven. Ioni barely remembered their arrival the night before. She was bone tired…