[Exalted] Ten Thousand Broken Dreams: session summaries for an ongoing campaign

[Quendalon]

I thought this might be a good place to post the session summaries for my Exalted campaign, given how much the White Wolf message boards suck.

The game follows an Arabian Nights story-within-a-story model. At the start of each session, the players play a group of children in a nameless village who sneak out of their home in the middle of the night to visit Mother Cypress, a storytelling spirit that lives in the swamp. Mother Cypress then starts telling them the story of the return of the Solar Exalted, at which point the players start playing their actual Solar PCs. I interject commentary by Mother Cypress at regular intervals; this storytelling device smooths out exposition by keeping it within the framework of the game world.

The PCs are as follows:
* Li, an orphan-turned-Tya swordswoman from the Western isle of Orchid; raised by Wudi, a God-blooded monk, in accordance with the way of the Eight-fold Path of the Enlightened One, Mahasamatman.
* Thorwald, a warrior from the farthest north, whose tribe must constantly battle against the dead and the Fair Folk; they revile all gods and spirits as being enemies of man for turning their back on the people in ancient days.
* Zera Thisse, a lusty ranger, archer and sometime thief from the city of Thorns, who fights to make the nearby lands safer despite his resentment for his city's despotic ruler.
* Tepet Aekino, a ridiculously handsome young unExalted Dynast from a renowned sorcerous lineage, perpetually caught up in dysfunctional family melodrama and confusing romantic entanglements.

[Quendalon]

In a village of the Third Age, four young boys ran out in the wee hours of the morning to see Mother Cypress, a storytelling spirit, who offered to tell them a tale; of course, they chose to hear the tale of the return of the Solar Exalted.

* * * * *

Mother Cypress speaks:
"Hello, children. You’ve come here for a story, haven’t you. So then, what story would you hear? Would you hear a tale of the last days of the First Age: of how Sharn Larenn's brother killed ten thousand mortal men for sport, of how she slew him for it, and how the Deliberative judged her for her crime? Or would you hear a tale of the Contagion: of how the Jade Stars rescued the Shogun’s seven daughters from the plague, and what became of them? Or would you hear a tale of the doom of Thorns: of how the son of the Autocrat blinded his brother with hot irons, put him in chains and cast him into the dungeons to be forgotten, so that he might take their father’s place? Or would you hear a tale of the fall of the Scarlet Empire, and of how a golden power returned to the world?

"Then gather round, my children, and spread ears like elephants, and I shall tell you a tale of the dawn of the new age, the Third Age, and of how the lost children of the Sun were finally reborn."

* * * * *

Li accidentally killed a boy her age in a fight. Running away, she found herself on the beach of black sand that her mentor Wudi always told never to visit, and was accosted there by a sea-spirit that tried to convince her to join it beneath the sea. Even when the spirit spoke of Li's parents and offered to bring her to them, Li refused its blandishments, until at last Wudi arrived to drive the spirit off.

Thorwald and his friend Frannja traveled to the volcanic rifts near his tribe’s lands to meet with the Firbolg, the one nonhuman folk his tribe will deal with; on the return trip, they were attacked by ice beasts, and Frannja Exalted as an Air Aspect. Thorwald would not deal with her; he called her a demon and tried to fight her, forcing her to knock him unconscious and leave him behind on the snows.

Shirking his lessons, Tepet Aekino wandered into the lower levels of the family manse. Hearing screams from his mother’s workroom, he entered to find a demon torturing his mother to death within a magic circle. He refused to let it out despite its offers and threats, until it killed his mother... or so it seemed, for his mother was not really there; all was illusion crafted by the demon's magic. A moment after Aekino vowed vengeance, his mother arrived in truth, to banish the demon and berate her son.

As young Zera Thisse waited for his parents to return from market day, a runaway from Thorns came to the house seeking refuge from soldiers. Zera let the man in, but demanded to know why the man ran; learning he was a thief, Zera berated the man, but offered to lead him to safety. Then the troops came; Zera hid the thief in the cellar and let the soldiers in, mouthed off and got bloodied for it. He led the troops into the woods on a wild goose chase; when no thief was found, they beat him and left. He returned home to find the thief had made off with all of the family’s valuables.

Mother Cypress then told of Aekino’s first love: of how he met Cathak Neris and Mnemon Dara at school, of how the two friends bickered over Aekino’s favor, and of how Aekino chose Dara over Neris, breaking apart the childhood friendship and creating a rivalry that would last for years to come.

One night, pirates attacked the isle of Orchid, led by the God-blood Zerus Shadow-of-Siakal. Zerus called up two Children of Siakal to fight Wudi, and battled Li to a standstill until Wudi’s loss of a leg distracted Li long enough for Zerus’ spear to pierce her heart. Then the dawn light Exalted Li, and she made short work of the pirates. Wudi gave her a golden boat from the First Age and brought her to an island manse, the Golden-Water Palace, where she found Hearthstones and two ancient blades of orichalcum. She took the boat into the east...

... and was caught in a Wyld storm that deposited her in a tiny hot spring amidst the frozen North. In the spring’s little warm valley, a Star-chosen awaited her, Hotaru, who gave her training and supplies for a trip into the deepest North.

Thorwald’s people came together to fight the painted Fair Folk of the Lhiannan tribe. They joined battle at a mighty spire of stone called Neroon’s Glory. The people’s iron blades served them well until a third force arrived: jade-armored demons out of the blood-realm of the South, beyond the sea. As the sun rose high into the sky, Thorwald was Exalted. The Sun spoke in his heart, telling him that the people would be abandoned no longer, and that Thorwald would serve the Sun in this.

As the battle raged, Li arrived on the scene, having followed the Wyld Hunt to the site. As the tides of battle swept past, the Dragon-Blooded engaged the Anathema. Thorwald’s fresh Exaltation gave him the strength to smite the Terrestrials; even as Li fell with a grave wound, Thorwald struck down all but the last of the Dragon-Bloods, who removed her helm to reveal a familiar face: his old friend Frannja, who had Exalted in their youth. They railed at each other for a time over that moment of Exaltation and betrayal, but neither would slay the other. Frannja faded into the snows, Thorwald helped Li to her feet, and the Sun spoke once more into Thorwald’s mind, telling him to go to the city of Tul Tuin in the Scavenger Lands.

Aekino’s parents, having concluded that he would never Exalt, sent him to join a diplomatic mission to Thorns and points east. Giving him a number of missives sealed in tubes of jade, his mother scorned him as useless, acknowledging that the entire scene with the demon had been staged in an effort to force his Exaltation, and gloated over having arranged for his lover Dara to be assigned elsewhere. Instead, as he learned upon arriving at the ship, Cathak Nerin, the jilted rival for his affections, would be present for the expedition. The trip to Thorns was unpleasant for all concerned, but they survived intact enough to arrive safely at the Autocrat’s palace.

As the sun began to set in Thorns, red light arose in the south; black and scarlet lightning crackled about the city’s towers; and the earth began to quake as the crawling city, Juggernaut, approached Thorns from the south. Zera Thisse watched it all. As his girlfriend Mara joined him upon the balcony, he thrust his money into her hands and insisted that she depart, and that they were to meet again in Nexus in two weeks. As she fled, he strung his bow, gathered his meager possessions, and set off to the slums to his family’s apartment to protect them as best he could.

Aekino, too, saw the coming of Juggernaut from the palace balconies. His cousin Tepet Serenna, the leader of the diplomatic mission, instructed him to leave the city immediately while she led the Exalts against the walking dead. She assigned Nerin to protect Aekino, an awkward pairing at best. The two gathered their possessions, found horses, and rode out into the plaza just as the sun’s last light shone along the boulevard from the West Gate. As the light struck Aekino, he Exalted, though he did not realize it until Nerin pulled him from his horse and forced him to view his own reflection in an ornamental pond.

As Aekino and Nerin prepared to leave, the vanguard of the dead legion arrived, led by a blind deathknight, aged and gaunt, his eyes covered with a scarlet cloth. Naming himself Red Iron Rebuke and claiming rule over Thorns, he attempted to slay Aekino with a volley of arrows enhanced with Charms; but Aekino called reflexively upon the sorcery that was his birthright, warding himself and his steed with whirling winds, then hurling a spray of black glass upon the deathknight and his bodyguard. Wounded and without aid, Red Iron Rebuke fled with a curse, leaving the young Exalts to flee towards the north.

Zera Thisse found the city bursting into riot as he entered the slums. When he came to his parents’ house, he found that looters had burst into the home, mortally wounding his father and violating his mother and his sister. In that dark moment, he Exalted. Alone, he defeated every one of the intruders, making their deaths slow and painful, giving his mother and sister his knives so that they might finish the job.

Sending mother and sister away to escape as best they might, Zera went out into the streets to see how he might fight against the horror that had engulfed Thorns. Encountering a woman in green jade armor who was slaughtering passers-by with a mighty jade daiklave, he attempted to defeat her with arrows; but she replied with bolts of black fire that crumbled the wall behind him to dust, and so he moved on, stopping only to steal a horse and to snatch a helpless young mother and child out of danger.

Zera encountered Aekino and Nerin amidst the chaos at the north gate; seeing themselves both Anathema, Aekino and Zera joined forces, and the group fled through the sewers by a route Zera knew, escaping the city and making their way north in search of safety.

... and then the sun rose in the village, and Mother Cypress ended her tale for the night. She offered to return again to tell more stories, then faded into the trees, leaving the children to wonder at all that they had heard.

[Xolis]

DUDE! That is a FUCKING AWESOME campaign idea.

Thank you... very much!

[ironsquirrel]

Originally posted by Quendalon

The game follows an Arabian Nights story-within-a-story model. At the start of each session, the players play a group of children in a nameless village who sneak out of their home in the middle of the night to visit Mother Cypress, a storytelling spirit that lives in the swamp. Mother Cypress then starts telling them the story of the return of the Solar Exalted, at which point the players start playing their actual Solar PCs. I interject commentary by Mother Cypress at regular intervals; this storytelling device smooths out exposition by keeping it within the framework of the game world.


Totally wicked idea! Why didn't I ever think of this??? (please don't answer that).

Are the children in the meta-story developed characters at all? Do you plan on roleplaying an adventure or two by them? It would be sort of cool to connect the two stories somehow... maybe the kids are the great-great-great-great-grandkids of the embedded story's characters (if that's even possible - I don't know anything at all about the Exalted setting). Maybe they have to tie-up one last little loose end?
Anyway, cool plot-structure.

[Quendalon]

Thanks for the compliments!

Originally posted by ironsquirrel
Are the children in the meta-story developed characters at all? Do you plan on roleplaying an adventure or two by them? It would be sort of cool to connect the two stories somehow... maybe the kids are the great-great-great-great-grandkids of the embedded story's characters (if that's even possible - I don't know anything at all about the Exalted setting). Maybe they have to tie-up one last little loose end? The children haven't been developed, and I haven't thought about them too carefully as yet. Assuming that the PCs aren't swallowed by Oblivion and the Third Age prospers under the harmonious rule of Heaven, the children may turn out to be the descendants or the reincarnations of the PCs. But yeah, it might be fun to let them have an adventure or two of their own, perhaps reprising some theme in the adventures of the heroes of old.

I'll be posting more updates over the next few days. We've only played five sessions so far however, so the posts will quickly catch up with reality. After that, it'll be one session per week, give or take.

- Eric

[Quendalon]

Mother Cypress speaks:
"Hello, children. I see you’ve come back for another story. So… what would like to hear tonight? Would you hear the tale of Kuro the Raven and Blessed Wind, who partook of the Sun’s bright power as it slipped from shackles of jade; of their many adventures as they sought each other out across the miles and across the years; of how they found one another, found love, and how that love turned to hate? Or would you hear the tale of Dancing Water, blessed of the Moon; of how he betrayed his sister out of love; of how he waited a thousand years and more for her rebirth; and of how he betrayed her a second time? Or would you hear more of last night’s tale, the story of the fall of the Scarlet Realm and the return of the golden power?

"Then gather round, my children, and spread ears like elephants, and I shall tell you more of the tale of the children of the Sun, of their rebirth in the shadow of the Scarlet Realm, and the dawn of the new age."

* * * * *

Thorwald and Li made their way east until the mountains barred their way. They traveled to the volcanic rift where the Firbolg dwell, but found no refuge there. So they moved northward towards Gethemane. As they traveled, their supplies grew low, and they had run out of food when they spotted the snow-covered wreckage of a caravan in the evening light. The frozen and mummified corpses of merchants and yeddim lay strewn upon the ice and snow. Despite their fear of the hungry dead, the travelers took the opportunity to loot the caravan of food and jade. As they collected their spoils, the sun set; and as they argued about the danger, the wispy forms of a dozen hungry ghosts rose from the mouths and wounds of the withered dead. Essence flared around the two Solars as they fought, and Li’s blades blazed with solar fire that lay waste to the spectral host. The dead fell in moments, and the travelers built a pyre of crates to burn their bodies.

Tepet Aekino, Zera Thisse and Cathak Nerin fled the city of Thorns, bearing with them a helpless woman and child whose names they did not bother to learn. Aekino and Nerin bickered constantly in High Realm. After a few days, the flood of refugees dispersed over many routes as they traveled north into the lands of the Marukani. As the group followed a trail through brush and light woods, hoofbeats pursued them. Zera fell behind to lie in wait. Soon, the deathknight Forty-Four Devil Blossoms arrived with an escort of dead soldiers on skeletal steeds. She had little opportunity to speak, however; as she addressed Nerin, Zera stood and launched half a dozen arrows at her back, all of which found their mark. Wounded despite her soulsteel armor, she turned her pale steed toward Thorns and fled, leaving her zombie entourage to be slaughtered by Aekino’s obsidian magic and Nerin’s blazing blade.

After a brief visit to Gethamane, Li and Thorwald took ship to Icehome. Some friction arose between Thorwald and the crew, discouraging the Solars from another voyage by water. So they purchased a pair of horses instead. Riding south along the bank of the River of Tears, they heard the distant call of a horn. An elfin rider soon appeared upon a horned steed. This was Galarach, a mighty warrior of the Sihhë, who fed upon the passions of battle. Saluting the travelers, he informed them that he would challenge them both, as no single opponent were worthy of him; and as their horses had fled, he dismounted to allow for an even contest. Thorwald, for his part, insisted on single combat. Galarach deflected the northman’s blows with contemptuous ease, and did not even blood his blade, instead knocking his opponent off his feet with a kick to the face. Li then drew his shining blades and joined the fight, drawing first blood when one of her lunges rode high off a parry and cut the faerie’s cheek. Galarach replied by striking again, piercing Li’s defenses and cutting deeply into her side. The Solars fought more defensively then, and after a few passes in which none of the combatants landed a blow, the faerie sheathed his blade, vaulted back into the saddle and thanked his foes for the fight. Departing, he acknowledged their skill and expressed his wish never to meet them again.

The refugees of Thorns procured horses as they traveled north through the lands of the Marukani. As they reached the barren territory near Deren’s Ford, they accepted the hospitality of a fearful old peasant couple. The peasants spoke of haunts that walked the night, and the husband spoke privately to Zera of a terrible hungry ghost that had emerged in recent days, the shade of a Dragon-Blood whose body had been left behind after the great battle four years ago and entombed nearby. The tomb had been robbed, and now the ghost could not be appeased. Zera and Aekino determined to travel to the tomb and lay the ghost to rest, leaving Nerin to guard the peasant couple and the mother and child from Thorns.

At the tomb, a ghost rose from bones piled near its entrance, and it fell quickly; but it was merely the shade of a wanderer slain by the ghost that lay within the tomb. As the first ghost turned to dust, the Dragon-Blood's shade emerged and it was no easy prey. Zera struck it with six arrows; it shrugged them off and all but disemboweled the young archer with a single stroke, leaving him to bleed his life out upon the path. Aekino blasted the ghost with a razored stream of black glass, but it brushed the spell aside and kept coming, and the sorcerer only evaded its lethal counterstrike by pouring waves of Essence through his frame. Alone, Aekino devised a plan...

... and at that moment, the sun rose in the east. Mother Cypress bid the children return the following night, then faded into the murky shadows of the swamp, leaving the children to discuss what they had heard.

[Quendalon]

The second session was very much a combat-fest, with the intent of getting everyone used to the combat rules. What I learned is that Exalted's combat system is a lot more complicated to deal with in play than I'd anticipated; we rarely remembered to call for or make infection rolls, and none of us remembered knockdown or stun until after the session was over. There was also a good bit of flipping through the rulebook to look up Charms. None of this has improved noticeably by session 5. We're probably going to let things slide and have stun, knockdown and infection be determined by me on an ad-hoc basis. If I run Exalted again, I may well translate the setting into another system, like Sorcerer or HeroQuest.

There was a lot of troupe style play in the first couple of sessions; every single NPC in those sessions was run by the players. This worked out well, except for some problems brought on by the fact that Zera's player wound up running Cathak Nerin, which is why Zera and Nerin never had any direct interaction. Running two characters in the same scene is always a pain.

Session 3 will go up shortly. Stay tuned.

[urbwar]

Originally posted by Quendalon
There was also a good bit of flipping through the rulebook to look up Charms.

This problem is easily solved. Just go to the White Wolf site, and download the Charm Cards. They have them for the core rulebook, the Dragon Blooded, and the Immaculate Charms. More will be following, whenever Conrad uploads them.

Just print the cards to card stock, cut them, and you have them handy, and no more need for the books.

I also don't think Exalted have to roll for infection; our group never does. I think that's only for mortals and the like. Exalted are not so easily infected with disease and such

[Quendalon]

Originally posted by urbwar
This problem is easily solved. Just go to the White Wolf site, and download the Charm Cards. They have them for the core rulebook, the Dragon Blooded, and the Immaculate Charms. More will be following, whenever Conrad uploads them. I'm printing them now. I think they will help a lot. Thanks for the advice!
Originally posted by urbwar
I also don't think Exalted have to roll for infection; our group never does. I think that's only for mortals and the like. Exalted are not so easily infected with disease and such Exalts do have to roll for infection, but the difficulty is lowered to 1, so most Exalts will make most normal infection rolls... but our Twilight and Night Castes aren't terribly tough, and many creatures like undead raise the difficulty back to 3, which is pretty hard to make with a low dice pool and offers a significant chance of failure even for high-Stamina types.

Then again, I seem to recall that a sick Exalt will shrug off an illness pretty easily, so it may not really be much of an issue in practice.

- Eric

[urbwar]

Originally posted by Quendalon
I'm printing them now. I think they will help a lot. Thanks for the advice!

Not a problem. In the group I play in, remembering charms is an issue too, so having those cards helps (except for me, since my character has charms from one of the castebooks, and those are not up on the site yet)

Originally posted by Quendalon

Exalts do have to roll for infection, but the difficulty is lowered to 1, so most Exalts will make most normal infection rolls... but our Twilight and Night Castes aren't terribly tough, and many creatures like undead raise the difficulty back to 3, which is pretty hard to make with a low dice pool and offers a significant chance of failure even for high-Stamina types.

Then again, I seem to recall that a sick Exalt will shrug off an illness pretty easily, so it may not really be much of an issue in practice.

- Eric

Hmmm. Our group doesn't use them. I'd say ditch the rolls myself, or at least only have them roll if they are hurting bad (like say incapacitated). My character has been taken to that level before, and our gm didn't make me roll (I could probably have made it though, even being in that state).

My pc tends to get injured alot, since he tends to ignore extras, and they always wound him for 1 or 2 levels before he then goes back and takes them out (gotta love that foolhardy contempt Virtue Flaw!)

Just because it's in there, doesn't mean you *have* to use it. If it becomes an issue, modify or drop it all together :p

[Quendalon]

Once again, the brothers endured their chores, thinking only of the night and the stories to come. A local peddler came to town that day, and his daughter slept in the loft with the brothers; so when one brother woke to glimpse Mother Cypress in the swamps, he woke her along with his brothers, and they all went to the water’s edge to hear the next part of the tale.

* * * * *

Mother Cypress speaks:
"Welcome, children. Will it be another night of tales, my dears? Yes? Well then, of what would you hear? Would you hear the tale of Faran Ut-Holor, daimyo of Atarani in the eastern lands; of how he butchered his family and his entire household over a single slight to his honor; of how their shades cried out for justice, and the manner of their revenge? Or would you prefer to hear the tale of the Tiger Warrior Resplendent Steel, the finest mortal swordsman in a thousand years; of how, upon his deathbed, he cursed the gods for denying him their gifts, and of what dread power hearkened to his call? Or perhaps the tale of Prince Mahasamatman of Velen, who knew only luxury until his thirty-third year, when the Contagion came; of how he alone of his people survived the plague, and how death and pestilence taught him the ways of enlightenment?

"No? Would you hear more, then, of last night’s tale, the tale of the heroes of the Sun? I see… Gather round then, my children, and spread ears like elephants, and I shall tell you more of the tale of the Sun’s bright children, of the fall of empires and the dawn of the new age."

* * * * *

His belly torn open by the ghost’s black claws, Zera Thisse lay in the dust. Tepet Aekino backed away from the terrible spectre, which followed him in its endless hunger for living blood. Thinking quickly, he devised a plan. He moved before a tree half-shattered by his storm of black glass, and when the ghost struck, the sorcerer evaded the blow so that it fell instead upon the tree trunk; and as the trunk cracked and swayed, he pushed with all his strength so that it toppled upon the hungry ghost. As the ghost struggled to rise, Aekino heard hoofbeats; as the ghost pushed the trunk aside, Cathak Nerin rode into the clearing and struck it down with his blazing red jade daiklave.

As Zera moaned in his pool of blood, Aekino begged Nerin to help him save the young archer’s life. Nerin, seeing little value in aiding a dying Anathema, refused to offer any aid without recompense. In fact, said the Fire aspect, it would be best to let Zera die, so that he would not weigh them down in their travels. The stubborn Dynasts locked horns on the issue, each refusing to budge, until finally Aekino broke down and offered to give Nerin anything he asked in exchange for assistance. Accepting the debt, Nerin helped bind the archer’s wounds and brought him into the tomb. Then Nerin brought forth the withered remains from the tomb’s sarcophagus and, calling upon the breath of the Fire Dragon, set flames upon them until naught remained but ashes.

They remained there for several days as Zera recovered. By the time he was fit to travel, he had found a ring of black jade caught between the stones of the tomb, a relic of the Terrestrial that had been interred there; and the tensions between Nerin and Aekino had slackened somewhat. As they traveled northward, their mood mellowed further, though their animosity never entirely faded. They pressed on to the Yanaze, raitons shadowing their progress, and eventually the Dragon-Blood and the Anathema parted ways, Nerin seeking a way back to the Blessed Isle as Zera and Aekino bypassed Lookshy and rode east toward Nexus.

* * * * *

Mother Cypress speaks:
"They gazed from afar upon the iron heights of Lookshy: its stark gray walls and towers capped with mighty engines of war, its streets resounding with the tramp, tramp, tramp of booted feet as ten thousand soldiers made their rounds; and if we were to peer into the depths of that stronghold, the Lookshy Manse, were we to descend through floors and cellars to view the uttermost vaults of the city, we would witness the preparation of their most ancient powers, shining weapons of the First Age, being brought forth once more after hundreds of years of cobwebs and shadows."

* * * * *

Having found another boat to carry them east along the Yanaze, Li and Thorwald caught their first glimpse of Nexus, its soaring towers silhouetted against the morning sun. The city’s beauty and magnificence awed them... until the rising sun revealed the city’s flaws, its soot-stains and shacks and thick yellow fog, and the changing wind brought the mixed stenches of refineries and tanneries and human waste that poured out from the city like a wave of concentrated nausea. Having spent several minutes praising the city, Thorwald reversed himself and cursed the place all the way to the docks.

After a day of wandering the city and a night in a small flophouse, the two travelers found the Little Market and began purchasing goods for their travels. Soon they found themselves in a part of the market where the disciples of various gods and spirits stood upon piled crates to preach to the crowd. One, a disciple in an orange robe, preached a doctrine that Li recognized – that of the Eight-Fold Path, as first propounded by the Enlightened One, Mahasamatman, who claimed that all life was suffering, that the Dragon-Blooded were no more enlightened than mortal man, and that one could free oneself forever from the changeless Wheel of reincarnation and rejoin the Essence of Creation through austerity and meditation. However, as this doctrine had been proscribed by an edict of the Council of Entities, passersby refused to listen to the disciple, and many threw stones and vegetables at him. Even worse, a passing Immaculate harangued the disciple, and would have struck him had Li not intervened. Li attempted to calm the Immaculate, but was thrown into a merchant’s cart full of caged ducks for his pains. Thorwald, spotting the movements of troops coming their way through the crowd, alerted Li, and the two of them grabbed the disciple and hustled him out of the market, the Immaculate monk on their heels.

The three soon lost the monk in the maze of streets. The disciple departed after a brief conversation; a moment later, the Immaculate returned, escorted by a handful of other Dragon-Bloods who were eager to make an example of a follower of the Eight-Fold Path. Thorwald, understanding the Immaculate only by dint of the monk’s language magic, helpfully pointed out the direction the direction the disciple had taken - lying sat poorly with him. As the Dragon-Bloods ran off in pursuit of their prey, soldiers followed them.

The captain of these mercenary guards addressed Li and Thorwald with a demand to see their permits. What permits? Their permits to intervene in a religious dispute... mandated, of course, by another edict from the Council of Entities. Lacking permits, the guards demanded that the Solars accompany them to their jail. Unwilling to fight so many in the midst of the city, and more hopeful of proper justice than any native of Nexus might fathom, they acquiesced to this demand. However, upon seeing the blocky prison with its barred windows and many guards, the pair reconsidered. Breaking from the guards, they ran up onto the rooftops and fled, only descending to ground level when Thorwald fell through a weak roof into the middle of a family meal.

The pair avoided another group of guards with the aid of a cloaked woman in an alleyway, who drew them into concealment at an opportune moment. She directed them to the docks, and after thanking her, they ran for their lives, bursting through crowds and dodging carts until they reached the river. Seeing a lone barge drawing away from the dock, they sprinted to the water’s edge and leaped.

Earlier, Aekino and Zera arrived in Nexus themselves. Having little direction, they milled about the city after selling their horses, and sought about for supplies that they might need for an eastward journey. But Zera quickly saw a familiar face: Mara, the lover he’d last seen in the sack of Thorns. He’d given her money and asked her to meet him in Nexus, but had had no intention of meeting her; he had wanted to break up with her in any case, and he never expected to come this way. But here she was, penniless and eager to rejoin her old paramour.

Zera tried to turn Mara away, but she would not be dissuaded; moreover, not only did Aekino encourage him to take up with her again, but the merchant at whose stall they were shopping stuck his oar in, offering Zera unsolicited relationship advice and recommending his cousin’s bath-house for a night of frolicking. Somehow Zera found himself there with Mara and a bottle of wine, while Aekino found himself a few youths to entertain him for the night.

The next day, after a pleasant romp with which to break the celibacy of his travels, Zera finally diverted Mara with a tale of how his friend had committed a crime against the Realm; of how he, Zera, had to aid his friend in escaping the Realm’s justice; and of how Mara would only be endangered, but that he would be back once his mission was done, and would she accept this bag of jade to tide her over for a while? Mara acquiesced, asking only that Zera come back to her, and let him depart with Aekino in tow.

The pair found their way down to the docks, where Zera found another familiar face: the river captain Saradene Marac, whom Zera had met some years before when he had tracked a bounty to Nexus. The old riverman invited the pair on board, introduced them to his wife Deedee, and offered them wine and food. After some conversation, they concluded that a river journey to the East might not be out of the question. Jade changed hands, and the Solars made their way down to the main cabin, where they encountered some of their fellow passengers: a crotchety old scholar from Lookshy named Shalàn Firamari, and the veiled Sijanese funerist Yumi of Wintergate and her apprentice. Tiring of the company, they returned to the deck as Deedee sang the wind spirits into the sail and the barge set loose from the dock, in time to see an odd pair of barbarians make a stupendous leap from the wharf onto the barge!

After some alarums and excursions, the four Solars came together to speak; first below decks, then above after Zera realized that the old woman was feigning sleep to listen to their conversation. Thorwald could not understand the language spoken by Zera and Aekino - knowing only Skytongue and a recently acquired smattering of Seatongue, he relied on Li to translate everything for him - but he shared a far more intimate communication with Zera as the two reeled under a quicksilver barrage of visions when they first met one another’s gaze. Though Thorwald rejected the notion, the others soon acknowledged that they were all of them chosen by the Sun. That understood, they had to deal with an encounter with another of the barge’s many passengers. The unExalted Dynast Ledaal Amaya came to greet Aekino, along with her bodyguard, the unExalted Immaculate Joyous Songbird, for captain Marac had told them that Aekino was a fellow citizen of the Realm.

Realizing that he had met Amaya once before, at a party, Aekino feigned sickness and leaned constantly over the rail to hide his face, and assumed the name "Azure Tempest" to conceal his identity. Zera, for his part, assumed the name "Corrin Dan," though he had less cause for anonymity. In any case, they shrugged off the unwanted contact, and made plans to avoid the Dynast in the future.

Over the next few days, they met the other passengers: the merchant prince Darien Tal; his bodyguard, the swordswoman Rei of Nechara; and a pair of wealthy citizens from Great Forks, whose names do not enter into this tale. They found moments in which to meet and discuss matters of mutual interest, avoiding the sailors, rowers and fellow passengers at every turn. And then, of a morning, captain Marac woke them and the off-shift crew to inform them that Deedee had determined that river pirates would attack that day, and that they would be required to come on deck and defend the ship.

Hours passed; the constant rain finally let up; and at last, a pair of bandit-laden rafts appeared from behind a rock outcropping, sweeping out over the water to thump into the side of the barge. As the pirates spilled onto the barge, Li and Thorwald leaped onto one of the rafts and lay into those around them, spilling pirate guts and sending many into the swirling waters. Aekino fared worse, as a pirate seized his staff and pulled, sending the sorcerer tumbling into the river. And as Zera fired arrows into the thick of the melee, an arrow struck him from afar, launched by the deathknight Forty-Four Devil Blossoms from that rock outcropping, where she sat astride her white steed, a black bow in her hand.

Seeing the deathknight, Li started to pole the raft toward the riverbank, until she looked back and saw the chaos on board the barge, where the pirates were hewing down the oarsmen. Then she shucked her buff jacket and dived into the water, swimming back to the barge. Thorwald plucked the sodden sorcerer out of the river, dropped him on the raft along with the buff jacket, and leapt into the water himself, swimming to the shore to fight the deathknight. And then Zera let himself hang from the rigging, pulled the arrow from his thigh, and severed a key rope with a single shot, allowing the boom to swing freely and sweep the deck clean. The sailors swam back to the barge; the pirates, by and large, sank in their armor. Zera and Li picked off the remaining pirates without difficulty. And as the barge began to pick up the swimmers, Thorwald reached the outcropping only to find that the deathknight had gone, departing without trace.

The heroes received the thanks and praise of Marac and the crew, and enjoyed the ship’s fullest hospitality. Crates were arrayed to form crude tables and benches as a feast was laid out that night upon the deck. They partied into the night, and continued to enjoy the crew’s good graces even afterward, over the next several days, as they conversed with one another, taught Thorwald the fundamentals of Riverspeak, and evaded the attentions of the Dynast and the Immaculate. At last, they saw the city of Great Forks rise to the east, the city of gods and spirits, the next stop on their journey to the Hundred Kingdoms and onward to whatever destiny awaited them...

... and as the sun rose, Mother Cypress ended her tale-telling and melted into the swamp, leaving the rest of the tale for future nights, and future tellings.

[Quendalon]

Mother Cypress speaks:
"Hello, my children. Back you’ve come for more of my tales of times long past. So, what story would you have tonight? Will it be the tale of Nanashi the gambler and how he outlived his own death, and the five ways he eluded Heaven when the Maidens came to claim his soul? Or perhaps the tale of Captain Jala of Janapur, who sailed beyond the western tide, and what perils met her and her crew as they passed the edge of the world?

"No? Would you hear more of last night’s tale, my children? ... Then come closer, my children, and spread ears like elephants, that I might tell you the tale of the Sun’s bright children, and how they traveled into the East.

"The children of the Sun cloaked themselves as mortal travelers, and shared a barge that sailed eastward along the Yellow River. They rode the river in secret, trusting to Fortune to safeguard their intentions. But their passage did not go entirely unnoticed. The black-scaled raiton birds, circling upon the chill of the lower air, watched them as they went; and each bird perched in turn upon the black-mailed shoulder of a small, lonely figure who rode a pale horse, and each whispered to her their secrets. And far to the south and west, beyond the bleak and barren lands where rose the citadel of He-who-Walks-in-Darkness, beyond the wind-swept plains of the horse lords, a dark power marshaled his captains to council in the corpse-choked ruin of the city of Thorns.

"He styled himself the Mask of Winters, and bore such regalia as fitted the name. So too did that name fit the manner of his inmost nature, for his heart was as black and secret and cold as the ice upon the stones in the uttermost hidden places of Hell. His throne was built of children’s skulls, his crown a halo of blackest Essence drawn whole from Oblivion’s maw. Gray ice dripped over the arms of his throne and spread out across the floor in a carpet of frost.

"Six of his deathknights stood before him. All in a row they stood, these fine dark captains did, these lords of shadow, these black angels of Oblivion’s sweet caress. The Mask of Winters commanded many deathknights, but of those that could be gathered at this time, these were the ablest, the wisest, and the most loyal. And yet, as to measuring their loyalty, even the keenest of eyes could not easily discern which of his captains were true, and which were false.

"First among his captains was a tall man, old beyond his years, his thin pale hair held back by a circlet of shining black metal; his robes were sewn of silver thread, and a scarlet cloth concealed the ruin of his eyes. This was the one named Red Iron Rebuke, who was once a prince among men, and his was the mastery of the city of Thorns.

"Next was one with eyes like emeralds, hair like falling fire, and a complexion that glowed like moonlight upon unbroken snow. Her green jade armor gleamed like summer leaves made liquid, and her smile held the promise of secrets to be revealed. She was called the Green Lady, and she stood at her lord’s right hand.

"Next a small and wiry man: silent, weathered by pain and time, his plain robe and tied-back hair all of the same shade of gray. He stood with the simple grace of a dancer or a swordsman, and he clasped a monk’s staff of black ash wood between his callused hands. They called him the Leaping Dragon’s Shadow, and his gift lay in the knowing of the ways a man might die.

"Next a dark woman wrapped in shadow; skin, hair, and eyes, all dark as the empty moon, all one with the shadow that clung to her like a lover’s kiss. Black was her cloak, her gloves, and all other garb. Her name was Midnight’s Daughter, and she moved like a shadow at her master’s behest.

"Next an old man with eyes full of whispers, his ragged robe adorned with a thousand talismans of death. Upon his fingers he wore many rings, and each ring held a soul that had been hammered into steel. He had many names: the Confessioner Unshriven, the Abbot of Blood and Dust, the Litany of Gods Below; and in the house of the Dead Gods he called the ghosts to prayer.

"Last came an ancient woman in black silk and gold, a toothless creature of wrinkles and spite with a face like a spider’s web, whose eyes burned with a terrible power that could not be quenched or assuaged. They named her Grandmother Dust, for her heart was dust; her barren womb held only cruelty and hate, and she only found joy in blackest sorcery as it coiled through her veins like mating serpents.

"These captains knelt in that dread hall, amidst cold and shadow and silence, as their master rose from his icy throne to take his captains’ counsel. 'My children,' said the Mask of Winters in a voice like a crow of frost that perched upon the heart. 'My most loyal servant informs me that the Sun-touched ones have traveled into the East, where the Walker and the Dowager and the Wisdom dwell. Tell me, my captains, how we shall reclaim these errant travelers and bring them under our sway?'

"And the six captains rose, to address their lord in council; and words were spoken, and plans were laid that would bring the four bright heroes into the clutches of the Mask, to call them to court in his citadel of shadow in the ruin of the house of Thorns."

* * * * *

Early in the morning, as Li watched the sun rise, the swordswoman Rei of Nechara approached her with a proposition; she craved battle and had been cooped up too long without it, guarding the fat Guild merchant Darien Tal. In the end, they dueled with wooden oars, diverting the sailors and the early risers among the passengers as they moved back and forth upon the deck. For all of Li’s Sun-touched skill, Rei proved to be her equal. Li had no doubt that the battle would have been easy had she employed her Charms, but she refrained; a wise thing, given the unwanted notice that such a gesture would bring. Their duel concluded, the two warrior women spoke with greater candor and friendliness, at least until the merchant Tal called his guard back to her post.

As the sun rose higher into the sky, our heroes looked to the east as the barge approached the city of Great Forks. They gazed upon the city, with its shining temple roofs and its walls and harbor-towers, its fishing-boats followed by river-spirits, its threads of incense-laden smoke rising from a thousand altars, and spoke of gods and spirits as Thorwald expressed confusion and dismay over the whole notion of worship.

As this city was home to the captain and his wife and much of the crew, they declared a day and night of shore leave. Deedee remained to watch the barge, while Marac invited the heroes to join him as he visited the temples for prayer and feasting. They stopped at Madame Teng’s hostel to rent a room for the night, then moved on to the Temple Quarter for the holy feast of the Emerald Queen of the Maruto River. After more discussion of gods and spirits, Li and Zera wandered off, leaving Aekino to ask Marac about Ledaal Amaya and her mission. Marac answered frankly, indicating that she was a courier traveling to Tul Tuin in the Scavenger Lands to bring a message to her cousin, the Fire-Aspect Ledaal Vir, who ruled in that city by right of conquest. Marac then departed to leave offerings upon the altar of the Yellow River King, leaving Thorwald to drink himself silly and Aekino to ingratiate himself with certain handsome temple dancers...

Li sought out a temple of the Eight-Fold Path, but found none. Instead she found a tiny temple devoted to a god whose sign was an eye within a solar disk, tended by an ancient blind woman in brown and gold veils. She asked for the woman’s blessing, which proved to be the blessing of the Illuminated Ones, and departed.

* * * * *

The blessing of the Illuminated Ones:
"Praise to the enlightened ones, the illuminated ones, who dwell beyond the five quarters of the world. May they bring light into darkness, and form into chaos; and may they open the gates that all men and women may know truth and pass into Heaven. Let it be so."

* * * * *

Zera purchased a chain shirt, for his recent battles had proved the need for armor. Then he moved on to the many nightclubs and saloons of Great Forks to ask questions regarding their destination. He heard many rumors, which he dutifully collected: that demons ruled the city of Tul Tuin, or that the Fair Folk reigned there, or that a mighty Dragon-Blood had taken the throne; that the legions of the dead stalked the borders; and more prosaically, that the city was large and civilized as towns in the Hundred Kingdoms went, being a stable source of wheat for the river trade.

That night, the four children of the Sun convened at Madame Teng’s, where they shared the knowledge they had gathered. There they swore an oath to work together, then spent some more time arguing before they went to sleep.

* * * * *

Zera Thisse forms the oath:
"Come Dragon-Blood or Wyld Hunt, Fair Folk or the demon king himself, we are one. Where one goes, we all go."

* * * * *

The next day, Li and Aekino shopped for sundries in the city, while Zera and Thorwald returned directly to the barge… or attempted to, for they were brought up short when a spirit bowed to Zera in the middle of the street. Approaching, the liquid-eyed, petal-tongued spirit addressed Zera as “Kuro the Raven,” spoke of having met him before when Zera wore another body in another life, and mentioned that not all of the small gods had forgotten the old ways. The spirit wished them well and departed, leaving the bemused Zera and Thorwald to rejoin the others at the docks.

At the docks, they found the captain taking on two more passengers: a lovely green-haired woman, and one of the northern Fair Folk. Thorwald’s fellows had to persuade him not to attack the faerie, and Marac, once addressed on the matter, noted that the faerie had promised not to leave his quarters for the duration of the journey.

Weeks passed as the barge moved east along the Yellow River. Aekino meditated in the sun and studied sorcerous texts; Thorwald and Li practiced swordplay with Rei and worked with the sailors at times; and Zera watched everything, waiting for trouble to come. Eventually the barge reached Marita; they watched that city’s marble buildings slip past, including the great white Council dome, as the barge ponderously turned northward to follow the River of Willows, followed ever by a favorable wind.

One day, as the Dayshield’s Daughter made its way up the River of Willows, the captain’s wife observed that she sensed trouble coming once again; once again, it would strike at night, but this time she could not discern its nature. Troubled, the crew marshaled themselves to meet the danger. Likewise did our heroes prepare themselves, climbing up onto the deck or into the rigging to keep an eye out for such adversaries as might come.

When danger came, it came from below. The children of the Sun were first to respond when the screams rose up through the decking, and they sprinted down the stairs before the sailors knew what had happened. Li smashed the door open, revealing the eldritch sight of a thousand silvery tendrils, slim as reeds, which had entangled Ledaal Amaya and her maid and were lashing out at the monk bodyguard, Joyous Songbird, as well.

Our heroes quickly spotted the silvery orb from which all the tendrils sprang and focused their efforts upon it. Zera’s arrows bounced off it and the tendrils turned Li’s steel blade aside. Pushing through the forest of silver thread, Thorwald seized the orb and held it in place so that the others might strike it, but the orb flung Amaya aside and wove a shield of its tendrils to protect itself. Amaya struck the wall with a sickening snap and crumpled to the ground, her neck snapped.

As Li hacked through the shield, spraying the cabin with shattered silver fibers, Aekino finally recollected the exact nature of the thing they were facing, for he had read of it in an ancient tome. Such devices were known as the Strangling Moon-Steel Tresses, and the Anathema had forged them in the First Age for their mortal assassins to deploy against rivals. Moreover, he recalled a command phrase that had been written in that tome. As he uttered that phrase, the orb quivered and withdrew its tendrils, becoming quiescent in Thorwald’s hands.

Marac and his men entered at that point, just in time to hear the monk accuse Aekino of murder. Songbird knew that Aekino, who still went by the name “Azure Tempest,” had carefully avoided his mistress for the entire journey; that his features bore the cast of Realm nobility; and that he had just commanded the very artifact that had slain his mistress. The captain and crew had to interpose themselves to avoid a fracas, a gesture that afforded Aekino the opportunity to seize the orb and conceal it within his pouch.

While this went on, Zera had gone down the passage to see whether any of the other passengers were up and lurking about behind their doors. The green-haired woman and her Fair Folk lover opened their door to see what had caused the ruckus, and everyone began to gather around that door as they conversed. Matters grew confusing as Joyous Songbird once again directed abuse at Aekino, only to be punched in the back of the head by Thorwald; and as Thorwald had used a Charm to make his fists hard as iron, the blow shattered the poor monk’s skull. Before anyone was quite aware of what had happened, Zera dragged the body away as he made noises of “letting him sleep it off,” while Thorwald threw accusations at the Fair Folk noble, Orlàm, until that worthy creature invoked its glamour to convince everyone that he could not possibly be responsible for the murder.

Li and Thorwald then went one way to discuss recent events, while Zera and Aekino had a discussion of their own on deck, with Zera threatening Aekino with various dire fates unless Aekino surrendered the orb, on the grounds that its discovery would culminate in some very unfortunate consequences for them all. Eventually the four gathered at the keel of the barge, and Aekino, convinced, tossed the orb into the river.

Thorwald, however, had surrendered himself to the Great Curse that lay upon the Exalted. All fear had abandoned him, swallowed by the Curse, and deeming the abandonment of the artifact cowardly, he leapt into the river to find it, channeling Essence through himself until his anima flared sun-bright beneath the water. The sailors all gathered to watch, forcing Aekino to spin a tale of communing with a strange spirit of water and light to distract them and calm their fears. Li, for her part, loosed the barge’s skiff to find the barbarian warrior. And Zera? He seized upon the distracted captain to request permission to search Amaya’s cabin for evidence pointing to the murderer. Swearing that neither he nor his companions were responsible, Zera won Marac’s agreement, then descended swiftly and silently.

In the cabin, he found he was not the first to enter; the merchant Darien Tal had slipped in before him to loot the Dynastic courier’s personal effects. Zera ambushed Tal, stunned him with the hilt of his dagger, then gagged the man and left him there while he systematically searched the place. His gaze sharpened by Essence, he saw the marks in the dust beneath the bed where a small hand had placed the assassin orb. He followed this up by picking the locks on all of Amaya’s boxes, including a securely sealed lacquered coffer which proved to hold all manner of occult parchments and an ornately tasseled scroll case of yellow jade and gold, sealed with the mark of House Ledaal.

Seeking amidst the waters and mud, Thorwald found the orb by the golden reflection of his anima upon the metal’s silvery surface, then surfaced to find Li waiting for him. Together, they poled the skiff after the barge, but they could not catch up until the Dayshield’s Daughter stopped the next day at a small village to bury the bodies of the dead.

... and as the sun rose in the story, so too did it rise in that swamp by the village where Mother Cypress told her tale. She faded into the swamp once more, and the children returned to the village to fall into an exhausted sleep.

[urbwar]

This is some great stuff. Keep it coming!

[Quendalon]

Originally posted by urbwar
This is some great stuff. Keep it coming! Will do! We'll be playing the sixth session tonight. Tomorrow I'll put up the fifth session write-up, and the sixth should go up Monday. After that, we'll have to wait for more games to be played. :)

- Eric

[urbwar]

Originally posted by Quendalon
Will do! We'll be playing the sixth session tonight. Tomorrow I'll put up the fifth session write-up, and the sixth should go up Monday. After that, we'll have to wait for more games to be played. :)

- Eric

Don't forget to let us know OOC how well the charm cards helped speed things up for the pc's when they wanted to use their charms

[Quendalon]

Originally posted by urbwar
Don't forget to let us know OOC how well the charm cards helped speed things up for the pc's when they wanted to use their charms Unfortunately I forgot to bring them home from work, so I haven't given them out yet. :(

Since most of the combat this past session was against mooks, I pretty much let the players narrate out the combat so they could kick NPC ass in whatever flashy, stylish ways they saw fit. Since the Dawn has Fivefold Bulwark Stance, all of the fights were foregone conclusions, so there didn't seem to be much point in rolling dice.

- Eric

[urbwar]

Originally posted by Quendalon
Unfortunately I forgot to bring them home from work, so I haven't given them out yet. :(

Since most of the combat this past session was against mooks, I pretty much let the players narrate out the combat so they could kick NPC ass in whatever flashy, stylish ways they saw fit. Since the Dawn has Fivefold Bulwark Stance, all of the fights were foregone conclusions, so there didn't seem to be much point in rolling dice.

- Eric

That makes sense. Sometimes it's easier to just narrate combat rather than roll for it, espeically if it's basically just extras.

I just realized you're also in NY; what part?

[Quendalon]

Originally posted by urbwar
I just realized you're also in NY; what part? New York City; I work in Manhattan and live in Astoria.

Session Five will be up shortly; stay tuned!

[urbwar]

Originally posted by Quendalon
New York City; I work in Manhattan and live in Astoria.

Session Five will be up shortly; stay tuned!

We're neighbors! I live in Flushing! Me and another member of our small group live in Queens, and we commute to The Bronx for our game (where the GM of our Exalted game lives). If you're looking for another player at all, and you happen to game every other week, let me know :p

Looking forward to seeing the next session!

[Quendalon]

Mother Cypress speaks:
"Ah, children. Back for more of my stories. Such beautiful children… So, children, what tale do you wish tonight? Would you hear the tale of how the Dawn-Light general, Katsuro the Righteous, stood against ten thousand men in the ruins of the First City; how he slew nineteen champions of the Dragon in single combat; of how he fell, and as he fell, how he bound his soul to his daiklave, Burning Tiger, that his sword might seek revenge even after his own death? Would you hear of those mortals who took up that blade over the years, of the empires they raised, and of the bloody vengeance they wreaked against the children of the Dragon? Or would you hear more of other heroes: of the children of the Sun, and of their sojourn into the East?

"Then come closer, my children, and spread ears like elephants, and I shall tell you the tale of the Sun’s shining children, of how they raised bright blades against the darkness that lurked in the heart of the River Province."

* * * * *

Come the morning, the barge reached Red Rye Town. As the funerist and the sailors took the bodies of Amaya and her poor nameless maid to the town for burial, Zera confided to Captain Marac that he could not determine the identity of the murderer. Marac, too, left the barge to make arrangements with the townsfolk for burial, leaving the passengers in his wife’s care. Zera and Aekino bickered for a time; Aekino bridled at Zera’s persistence and disrespect.

Time passed, and eventually Li and Thorwald reached the barge, having poled their skiff against the current through the night. Thorwald insisted gruffly that he will not lie nor conceal the truth about the monk’s death; he offered to pay weregild, a custom the others observe is not often practiced in the Scavenger Lands, and expressed willingness to go before the king of Tul Tuin, Amaya’s cousin Ledaal Vir, and present themselves before him in order to give what information they could about Amaya’s untimely demise.

Eventually they convened in the main cabin, where they discover that the monk, Joyous Songbird, was not quite dead; he had been tended in the night, presumably by Yumi the funerist, and showed signs of life. After determining that the monk’s skull had been shattered by Thorwald’s blow and that he was unlikely to recover, they ignored him and continued their discussion of where to go and what to do. Zera maintained that they should leave the barge so as not to further endanger the livelihood and lives of Marac, his wife and their crew, as their presence seemed liable to draw further danger upon them. Aekino, for his part, felt that they should remain on the barge to travel swiftly to Tul Tuin so that they might put their case before Ledaal Vir. Li and Thorwald sided with Zera, and eventually Aekino caved… and Zera noticed that once again, the old scholar Shalán Firamari had feigned sleep and had overheard some part of their conversation. This time, she may have heard too much, as our heroes had alluded to their nature as Anathema.

As the others left the cabin, Zera remained behind to confront Firamari, demanding information about the murder; he observed that she had rarely traveled above decks, and so was most likely to have observed the killer. She dissembled, feigning both innocence and ignorance until Zera threatened her with calm, cold insinuations of bodily harm. Eventually, she told him that she didn’t know who had killed Amaya, and he left unfulfilled.

When the captain returned in a rush, realizing that he needed to fetch Amaya’s treasures as grave goods, Thorwald attempted to give him the assassination orb. Marac rejected the device and insisted that he wouldn’t have it on his boat, as such things brought peril with them. The heroes of the Sun continued their discussion as Marac stormed off to reclaim Amaya’s stolen jewels from the merchant Darien Tal. In the end, they decided to leave the barge behind, and gathered their few possessions. Zera remained behind again with the intent of killing Firamari... but as he stood over the old woman, he could not bring himself to kill her in cold blood, and left her alone.

The Circle stopped briefly in Red Rye Town to attend Amaya’s funeral. They listened as Marac prayed to what gods he knew, and watched as he laid down her jewels and as the funerist covered the bodies with a yellow shroud. As the townsfolk shoveled earth over the corpses, the heroes told Marac of their plans to follow the road to Tul Tuin and give their testimony there concerning Amaya’s death. Receiving his blessing, they made their way onto the road.

The road joined a great north-south highway, a stony route from the First Age that had fallen into disrepair. Its spirit, a stone dog covered in lichen, appeared before the travelers and demanded tribute. Thorwald shouted defiance and demanded that the spirit do battle; it barked with laughter and vanished into the brush. They made camp shortly thereafter as night fell. Soon, an enraged bear lumbered into their camp, sent by the road spirit, but Thorwald killed it with his bare hands. As they traveled northward the next day after a breakfast of cooked bear, other beasts assaulted them en route; and when night fell, they found themselves before the partially scavenged corpse of a bear.

As they made camp, Zera brought forth the papers he had stolen and showed them to the others. Aekino and Li discerned that they contained astrological charts for the horoscopes of the heroes, including horoscopes for the moments of their Exaltations. He also brought forth the scroll case, whose seal Aekino recognized as the official sigil of House Ledaal. It also bore a magical ward, he saw, one that would consume the message in flame if opened improperly. He did not know the pattern for opening a Ledaal missive, and packed it away in frustration.

The next day’s travel was much the same; they ended the day at the bear corpse, and could clearly see from the distant hills that they had made no progress. Thorwald’s fellows chivvied him mercilessly for his disrespect to the road spirit. Eventually he roared in fury and ran off into the north. His companions camped and ate, and as they rested, Thorwald roared out of the darkness from the south, making the road’s deceptive character far too clear. From the woods beyond the road, the road spirit barked its laughter.

In the end, fury drove Thorwald to pound on the very stones of the road beneath him. Gold fire blazed from his fists and cascaded over his body as his Solar might cracked and smashed the paving beneath him. The road spirit yelped with pain and gave in, allowing the travelers to pass onward.

As they passed into the first foothills, the trees parted, revealing a small village spreading to their right. A black carriage in the village drew their notice, and Zera moved stealthily through the fields to see what he might learn there. From a knot of villagers, he learned that some menace required the sacrifice of a child, but that there was still some small hope that travelers might arrive to avert this. Zera returned with this news, and our heroes decided that this might be a place where they could do some good.

Entering the village the next morning, the four approached the leader of the village, a woman named Hoof Cloud, to learn what ill fate had befallen the village. She told them how a spirit named Thirsty Root ruled the life of the earth in their village, and that the crops would fail unless they gave it tribute each summer in the form of an adolescent from the village; in this case, her own child. Our heroes promised to go to its manse, a house of stone upon the hill, and settle the matter. Zera, for his part, brought Cloud’s son Rabbit aside to promise him safety, and gave him a necklace from his erstwhile girlfriend Mara as a token of his sincerity.

The four approached the manse named Ascending Trellis that very day. Zera used a Charm to take on the aspect of an adolescent boy, and the spirit granted him entry to the manse. In his youthful guise, Zera asked what would happen to him and why. Thirsty Root replied that the land was dying; that he himself would die without the sacrifice of human heart’s blood; and that if he died, the land would die with him. Zera revealed his true nature confronted the spirit and demanded that it stop its depredations. Thirsty Root recognized Zera then for a Prince of the Earth, a chosen of the Sun, who had once passed through these lands in another life as Kuro the Raven. Acknowledging his accuser’s power, he nonetheless insisted that his words were true, that the life of the land depended upon his own; that the people of the village were not innocent souls, for they often sacrificed passers-by to him; and that if he and the land died, that the land would pass into death and become a shadowland, like the ancient city of Kaihan near at hand, or like the city of Thorns.

Zera saw only truth in the spirit. Shaken, he departed the manse, and told his comrades of what had transpired. They agreed that the spirit’s tithe, for all its cruelty, was worse than the alternative, and that they could do nothing for the people of the village. Zera could not bring himself to go before them, however, and so Li went forth to address the townspeople. She told them in bald terms that they would suffer far worse if the tithe were to end, and that they were on their own. Helpless, they could offer no reply.

Turning their backs on the village and its manse, the children of the Sun returned to the road, and made their way north, through the hills of Stonegarden, to the lands around the kingdom of Tul Tuin.

[urbwar]

I really like the moral dilemma the characters faced in regards to that village. Wanting to help, but realizing that for all their power, there was nothing they could do. Must have been a sobering experience for them.

[Quendalon]

Originally posted by urbwar
I really like the moral dilemma the characters faced in regards to that village. Wanting to help, but realizing that for all their power, there was nothing they could do. Must have been a sobering experience for them. The scene went very well. It's purely a fortunate coincidence that the group decided to send in, alone, the PC whose background included a passionate hatred of the Deathlords. Zera's player said afterward that this would indeed be a pivotal experience for his character, opening his eyes to some of the moral complexities he faced.

Session 6 writeup coming later today.

- Eric

[urbwar]

Originally posted by Quendalon
The scene went very well. It's purely a fortunate coincidence that the group decided to send in, alone, the PC whose background included a passionate hatred of the Deathlords. Zera's player said afterward that this would indeed be a pivotal experience for his character, opening his eyes to some of the moral complexities he faced.

Session 6 writeup coming later today.

- Eric

That definitely sounds cool. We had our own moral dilemma, and our group royally messed up. We were trying to stop another Solar from taking youths from a city to give to the Fae (who she was allied with). She refused to listen to anything we had to say, and as our willpower and essence was ebbing low, I had to make a choice. She was walking away (she was pretty powerful, more so than the 3 of us could hope to take for awhile), and I had 1 willpower left. My virtue flaw is foolhardy contempt. I had to either spend that willpower to resist the flaw (and leave myself open to possible glamour from invisible fae), or let the flaw take over. I chose to let the flaw take over, and we ended up killing the other Solar. Killing her had greater repurcusions, as the Fae removed their protection of the city, and the goddess of luck seemingly withdrew her favor from the city as well. The whole city had to evacuate, because forces from Thorns now had the way open to this city.

Needless to say, it was the lowest point we ever hit. I was in a funk afterwards (not just in character), but I think I found a way out of it.

Anyway, this dilemma your group faced hit home to me that our group chose one path, where your group chose another (ie they let things stay the same, because no matter what they did, it wouldn't help, and our group became involved, and we actually made the situation worse), which stand as good counterpoints to each other.

I'm really digging these sessions you have going; some of it's helped inspire me to rise above the mistakes our group recently made, and try and make some amends for our screwup. So your game may have helped get ours back on track (when we get back to it; we agreed to take a break from it to play something else for a short while)

Looking forward to session #6!

[Quendalon]

Mother Cypress speaks:
"Hello, my little sparrows. It is a fine night, a night for tales and stories. What tale would you hear tonight? Would you hear of the sorcerer Bagrash Köl of the frozen Northern lands; of how he found the Eye of the Celestial Smith, and wielded it to forge an empire that spanned the northern and eastern Threshold despite all the might of the Realm, and how the power of the Eye corrupted him? Or the tale of how a nameless mortal dreamer conjured the city of Cozen out of empty desert in a single night, of how a thousand dreamers flocked to that city to dream strange wonders into the world, and of the doom of Cozen: how the dream turned to nightmare, leaving ruins thick with hungry ghosts that still cry out amid the desert sands? Or would you hear more of the tale of the children of the Sun and the end of the Second Age?

"Then come closer, my children, and spread ears like elephants, that you may hear the tale of how the Sun’s bright children came to Tul Tuin and the Tower of the Winds, and what they found there."

* * * * *

Our heroes spent several more days on the road, passing along the wooded cliffs that ran along the west bank of the River of Willows. One evening, as they made camp upon a rocky terrace overlooking the city of Longcorner on the river’s far shore, where Guild barges docked to sell goods and take on grain and slaves, Aekino addressed his fellows: he had learned a few interesting things from the astrological charts and notes they’d obtained from the Imperial courier... most notably, that the Dragon-Blooded had ascertained the existence of a fifth Solar, one whose horoscope was not present in the stack. It pleased the Circle to know that there was another one like them out there, though it seemed likely that the Realm had captured that fifth Solar.

Aekino went on to discuss his plans for their arrival in Tul Tuin. He intended upon presenting himself honestly to the city’s prince, the Dragon-Blood Ledaal Vir, along with the notes and the sealed message that the courier had borne, in the hopes of winning Vir’s cooperation and trust. He also proposed to arrange for Zera’s confinement in Vir’s dungeons for the death of Amaya, for he said that one might learn much of a ruler’s character and policy from the nature of that ruler’s prisoners. Surprisingly, Zera proved agreeable; he called Aekino brother and said that he had come to trust him, and that he had faith in the Dynast’s understanding of intrigue. Li, however, was not so easily convinced. How could they be certain, she argued, that Zera could escape once imprisoned? And even if he escaped, would it not be dangerous for Zera if the Dragon-Blood knew him for an enemy?

Choosing to hold any decision in abeyance until their arrival, the group continued on their journey. Soon they reached the tumbledown town of Brinlack, where they found a half-deaf old ferryman who proved willing, after a lot of shouting, to take them across the river to where the small city of Tul Tuin lay upon the slopes of a rocky hill, beneath a promontory where a castle sent up a high tower of blue stone. As they crossed the river, a seaweed-draped spirit poked its head out of the current. As it observed the passengers, its eyes filled with shocked recognition as they lighted on Zera and Thorwald. Recognizing the shape and flavor of their Essence, it uttered the names “Kuro the Raven” and “Blessed Wind” in the tongue of the Old Realm (for it knew them of old, in other lives), then vanished beneath the waters. Only Aekino knew the Old Tongue, but he chose not to enlighten the others as to what he had heard. At last, they reached the far bank, and their destination was close at hand.

* * * * *

Mother Cypress speaks:
"These heroes had seized the message that would have delivered them into the hands of the Dragon-Blooded prince of Tul Tuin. But the folk of that city did not go entirely without warning. For in a small chamber of the Tower of Winds, three servants of the prince met in secret council.

"First was a bright-eyed old gentleman whose long beard and silken robes were of the same clean, pure white. They called him Ikari the Astrologer, for he knew the ways of the stars and planets, and the prince kept him close to call upon his wisdom.

"Next a slender woman armored in black leather, her face as hard and sharp as a bird’s, who moved with the grace of the crane arising at dawn from the reeds. Her name was Shield Willow, and she ruled the prince’s guard with a fist of jade.

"Last was a small man, a plain man in servant’s garb, of the same Realm stock as all the prince’s loyal servants. His face was ordinary, his stance unassuming. They did not know his name, so they called him Spy, for that is what he was.

"’Who are these strangers of whom you speak?’ asked Shield Willow of the astrologer. ‘What signs shall we seek?’

"The old man shook his head. ‘There is nothing I can tell you,’ he replied. ‘They come in secret, and a power moves with them. The rest, we shall see.’

"’Have you informed His Majesty?’” the woman inquired.

"’And what shall I tell him?” asked Ikari the Astrologer. “That bad times are ahead? My dear Shield Willow, bad times are always with us. I have warned him of the coming inauspicious hour; there is nothing more I can do.'

"’Very well,’ the captain said with a nod. ‘We are his loyal servants; it falls to us to weed his garden.’ And to the spy she said, ‘Find these strangers. Learn their names. Watch them well. Learn what you may, and bring that knowledge to me.’"

* * * * *

The river had swept the tiny ferry a ways downstream, and so they walked for a while past farms and orchards to reach the city’s docks at nightfall. The dock district was still thick with workers finishing the day’s labors, reeking of sweat and fish. Strangely, in addition to Easterners and a smattering of Realmsfolk, many of the citizens proved to be of blond Northern stock, a strange sight here in the Scavenger Lands.

Zera vanished into the diverse crowd to gather information, while the others looked about for the Dayshield’s Daughter. Soon they spotted that noble vessel, nestled among fishing boats and grain barges. Before they could board the barge to seek out and speak with its captain, a boy came up and tugged at Li’s cloak, saying that he had been sent to find her. Telling the others to wait, she followed the boy through the lower city to an alleyway between warehouses. There, Li’s finely honed senses caught the whiff of danger, and she concealed herself in the shadow of piled crates to see what happened next.

Unable to find Li, the boy called out, begged, even wept; but Li remained hidden, and so the boy brushed false tears aside, knocked on a door, then vanished into the warehouse. Li could faintly hear the sounds of voices; then the boy re-emerged with a tall hooded figure, followed by a dozen thuggish dockworkers armed with sticks, poles and gaffs. Realizing the nature of the trap, Li carefully opened a door to slip into the warehouse and escape, but alas! The hinges creaked abominably, and the thugs charged in her direction.

Ducking through the door, she waited until the first dockworker came after her, and kicked him backward into his fellows, knocking several of them to the ground. Essence swirled invisibly around her as she assumed the Five-fold Bulwark Stance. She moved through the crowd like a cyclone, her sheathed swords breaking knees and cracking skulls. Within moments, all of the thugs were crippled or unconscious. As the fallen men moaned in pain and the boy vanished down the alley with a pitter-pat of bare feet, the cloaked man stepped forward, a hooked gaff spinning lazily between his hands. Casting his hood back, he revealed a bone-pale visage, bruised beneath the eyes: the face of a corpse.

The two fought, the man mocking Li all the while. He lured her in with a deceptively weak stance, taking punishing blows that would have incapacitated a normal man, then sending her flying with a powerful blow. She drew her swords then and struck, but he twisted so that the blades would lodge in his body. He laughed, until she filled her swords with blazing Essence that burned him from within. Screaming, he spat corrosive black blood that burned her face. She responded with a blinding barrage of cutting blows that severed his limbs one by one. At the last, she cut the head from his body; but his spirit fled the corpse before the last blow landed, and his mocking laughter followed her as she departed the scene.

When she returned to the docks after dark, she warned her fellows of danger. Fearing that the Deathlords had sent the nemissary and that further attacks might follow, they left the docks without speaking to the captain of the Dayshield’s Daughter, and sought out a tavern where they might converse discreetly about what had transpired. And as they spoke, Zera found them there; for he had been moving among the taverns of that part of the city in the guise of a merchant’s guardsman, gathering rumor and gossip that might prove useful to the Circle.

Zera learned much, and he shared what he had learned with his fellows. The northmen, it seemed, had come to Tul Tuin generations ago, led by their ageless queen, Cessair of the Fair Folk, to conquer the native folk and rule from the Tower of Winds. Each year, she took a prince in marriage, and at year’s end she would slay him. But then the Dragon-Blood Ledaal Vir came and married the queen, and either by choice or by necessity, she did not slay him. They ruled together for a time, and brought several children into the world. And then, fifteen years ago, Ledaal Vir usurped the throne and locked Cessair away in a tower in a nearby village, where she has languished ever since. Now he rules by right of both marriage and conquest, surrounded by Realmsfolk who now control the city’s guard and bureaucracy, their authority undercutting that of the indigenous nobility and merchants.

The Night Caste shared what other tidbits he’d ascertained: that the Easterners claimed that the Northmen worshipped the Fair Folk, while the Northmen said the Easterners prayed to demons; that the prince had no overt ties to the Scarlet Realm, receiving few visitors and sending no known tribute; that the monk Shima had founded a shrine to the Immaculate Dragons in the countryside; that strange wild beasts and demonic creatures haunted the wilderness nearby, against which the prince sometimes rode, and which the swordswoman Rei of Nechara had gathered a band of warriors to hunt; and that the nearby kingdom of Longcorner, an ally of the Guild, used its superior military to raid the nearby kingdoms for slaves, and only spared Tul Tuin because one of Ledaal Vir’s sons had married Longcorner’s queen.

Our heroes continued their conversation for a time, despite such distractions as carousing dockworkers and a drunken city guardsman who tried to get into Aekino’s pants. Rebuffed, the man turned his attentions first to Thorwald, and then at last to the tattooed Li - apparently the fellow was entirely catholic in his tastes. Eventually Li said she would get jiggy with the fellow if he could knock her down. Being twice her size, he agreed and stepped outside with her; this being followed by a loud thump and a crash, and Li returning none the worse for wear. Wanting no further unwelcome incidents, the Circle retired for the evening.

The following morning, Aekino dressed himself in his finest Dynastic garb. Fully attired, radiant in silks and satins and jade, his eyes rimmed with kohl, he strode forth on the high road to the Tower of Winds, escorted by his bodyguards: the towering red-bearded Thorwald and the small, tattooed Li. They passed through the city’s bazaar, where strange wares unearthed by scavenger lords were hawked alongside cloth and silver and sweet bean buns; they passed among the high houses of the city’s oldest, wealthiest families; they passed through a large plaza where workers scrubbed filth from statues of the Immaculate Dragons; they passed through the wall of wind that forever encircled the Tower of Winds; until at last they reached the gates of the castle. Zera was to have met them there, but alas! He could find no safe place to wait under the gaze of the castle guard, and was nowhere to be seen.

Aekino gave his own name at the gate and easily intimidated the Realmsfolk guard-sergeant into allowing them passage. Escorted by guards, they entered a large courtyard brightened by gardens and hanging vines, where two large shrines to Hesiesh and Sextes Jylis stood. Aekino quickly earned the attention of Heaven Turtle, the prince’s officious seneschal, who kowtowed before this visiting Dynast and offered him the hospitality of the Tower of Winds until such time as the prince granted an audience. As Aekino demanded a luxurious suite for four, Li took her opportunity to leave the castle and seek out Zera.

Zera, as it happened, had returned to the bazaar to wait. By the time Li arrived, Zera had encountered an old acquaintance, a friendly traveling peddler of curiosities by the name of Bamboo Purple. As they caught up on old times, Zera spotted another familiar face in the crowd, though this one was not at all friendly; it was the merchant Darien Tal, whom Zera had mistreated on the barge, though not without cause. Taking their leave of Bamboo Purple, Zera and Li slipped away down a side street in hopes of avoiding the merchant. But they got lost, and soon found themselves in the warehouse district... in the same alley, in fact, where Li had fought the night before. There, Tal sent forth his bodyguards to teach Zera a lesson. The lesson learned, however, was that a handful of mortal guards are no match for a pair of Solar Exalts. Within seconds, the bodyguards lay strewn and groaning, while Tal whined with an arrow stuck through his knee. Before Zera and Li could take further action, however, they heard the approach of guards who’d heard the commotion, and once again made themselves scarce.

Back in the Tower of Winds, Aekino relaxed upon a silken divan and enjoyed the extravagance to which he was accustomed, there in the apartments reserved for visiting Dynasts. Eventually, his sipping of wine and nibbling upon dried fruits was interrupted; the prince’s captain, the eminent Shield Willow, came to fetch him to audience. So he made his way up stairways and down corridors to the hall where the prince sat enthroned amidst his courtiers. Calmly he made his way forward, his eyes subtly gleaming with Essence as he traced the threads of politics and conspiracy from courtier to courtier, reading only the broad strokes of intrigue with that one swift glance… and then he stood before the prince himself, the Dragon-Blood Ledaal Vir, garbed richly in golden silks embroidered with dragons of green and red. The man's thin sharp features bore the inimitable stamp of the Ledaal line, but his hair, though gray at the temples, was for the most part Cathak red, and his eyes shone Mnemon gray. The two Dynasts, one of Fire, the other of the Sun, greeted one another amicably. Then Tepet Aekino began his tale…

... but Mother Cypress would say no more that night, leaving the rest of the tale for another telling.

[A2K v2]

Oh, my god. This is amazing. I wish I could think of something this great.


-A2K

[Quendalon]

Originally posted by A2K v2
Oh, my god. This is amazing. I wish I could think of something this great. Thanks! A lot of it comes from paying attention to the players and the PCs so that they get what they want out of the game (most subplots are designed specifically to fit the characters, rather than shoehorning them into plots that don't fit them), and a lot comes from having enough spare time to think about and plan the game for several hours each week. :) I'm also blessed with a great group of players who get deeply into their characters.

As to the castes of the PCs, they are as follows:

* Li: Dawn
* Thorwald: Zenith
* Aekino: Twilight
* Zera: Night

- Eric

[Quendalon]

Because the PCs gained access to their horoscopes in-game, and because I am crazy, I decided to write up the horoscopes and provide them to the players. It was kind of fun to try and break down their personalities and what I've thus far determined about their future plot arcs and try and find the appropriate signs for each character.

* * * * *

Li of Orchid
Ascendant: The Mast
Sun: The Spear
Moon: The Sword
Mercury: The Messenger
Venus: The Crow
Mars: The Mast
Jupiter: The Sorcerer
Saturn: The Spear

Tepet Aekino
Ascendant: The Peacock
Sun: The Sorcerer
Moon: The Banner
Mercury: The Musician
Venus: The Lovers
Mars: The Treasure Trove
Jupiter: The Key
Saturn: The Lovers

Thorwald of Stonehold
Ascendant: The Banner
Sun: The Guardians
Moon: The Shield
Mercury: The Sword
Venus: The Messenger
Mars: The Musician
Jupiter: The Pillar
Saturn: The Rising Smoke

Zera Thisse
Ascendant: The Quiver
Sun: The Ship’s Wheel
Moon: The Crow
Mercury: The Gauntlet
Venus: The Gauntlet
Mars: The Ship’s Wheel
Jupiter: The Messenger
Saturn: The Corpse

[Quendalon]

Session #7 went pretty well, considering that one player showed up over an hour late (sessions rarely run over 3 hours), and that Aekino's player told me ten minutes before we started that his character was not, in fact, going to take certain actions that he'd talked to me about earlier in the week, and which I'd based my planned opening scene around. The players liked the session, which I believe to be the only reasonable metric to determine whether or not a session is actually any good...

Unfortunately I'm dead tired and work is extra busy, so I don't expect to be posting a session summary today. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. We'll see. :(

- Eric

[urbwar]

Originally posted by Quendalon
Session #7 went pretty well, considering that one player showed up over an hour late (sessions rarely run over 3 hours), and that Aekino's player told me ten minutes before we started that his character was not, in fact, going to take certain actions that he'd talked to me about earlier in the week, and which I'd based my planned opening scene around. The players liked the session, which I believe to be the only reasonable metric to determine whether or not a session is actually any good...

Unfortunately I'm dead tired and work is extra busy, so I don't expect to be posting a session summary today. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. We'll see. :(

- Eric

Take your time posting the session summary. Those of us avidly enjoying your posts can wait until you feel up to it. it's been a great set of story synopsis's to date!

[Quendalon]

Mother Cypress speaks:
“Hello, my little sparrows. It is a fine night, a night for tales and stories. What tale would you hear tonight? Would you hear the tale of Aljami of Paragon, who freed an ifrit from a jar that he found in the desert; of how the ifrit granted him three boons for his service, and how he misused the boons that were bestowed upon him? Or would you learn the tale of Kiri the White, the youngest of the Sun’s children, and how she escaped the slaughter of her brothers and sisters by a twist of fate; of how she fled into the uttermost East, and what she found there? Or would you hear more of the tale of the Solar Exalted, and the end of the Second Age?

“Then gather round; come closer, my children, and spread ears like elephants; and I shall tell you more of the tale of the Sun’s bright children, of how they met the lord of Tul Tuin in the Tower of the Winds, and of what happened after.”

* * * * *

Tepet Aekino felt all eyes upon him as he strode past knots of courtiers to kneel before his cousin, Ledaal Vir, who ruled in this place. Vir bid him rise, and the two greeted each other warmly. After an initial exchange of pleasantries, Aekino stated that the business that brought him to Tul Tuin touched upon matters of some import that had best be discussed discreetly. Vir then ended his public audience for the day and led Aekino to a small, richly appointed parlor for a private conversation.

Thorwald, who had remained standing guard outside the audience chamber, tried to find and follow Aekino when the door opened and the courtiers spilled out to go their own scheming ways, but Aekino had already gone. He thought then to remain there until Aekino returned, but a courtier managed, with much difficulty, to return to his quarters. Thorwald waited there for a time upon a balcony that overlooked the river. As he sat there, sharpening his swords, an airy spirit descended from the skies to speak with him.

The spirit, one Fourth Breeze by name, did obeisance and proclaimed that Thorwald was his master of old, naming him “Blessed Wind” and showing every sign of joy at his return. But the northman would have none of it. He refused to admit any familiarity with the spirit, for all that it claimed to have known him in other flesh, and would have no truck with it. At the last, rebuffed on all fronts, the spirit turned away and vanished into the air.

In the city beneath, Li and Zera met across the street from their inn, having successfully fled the guards after thrashing Darien Tal and his bodyguards. There they discussed their plans, and agreed that Zera would remain in the city to gather information while Li rejoined the others at the Tower of Winds. As she made her own way back up the sloping city streets, she passed through the market, where a young girl of Western blood hastened to speak with her.

The girl, a slave, sought only to speak with one of her own people in her own tongue; but her owner arrived a moment later and seized her arm, apologizing to Li for the disturbance. Disturbed, Li said she was pleased to speak with one from her own land, and asked that the girl be spared punishment for this. While the man grinned and agreed, they all knew that this would make no difference, and in fact the girl might be punished all the more harshly for the embarrassment her master had suffered. With a heavy heart, Li made her way back up to the Tower.

While these things were coming to pass, Aekino sat in the presence of Ledaal Vir, sipping fine liquor and telling his host of the fall of Thorns – carefully editing out the matter of his own Exaltation, of course. He went on to inform his host of the death of their cousin, Ledaal Amaya, aboard the Dayshield’s Daughter. Vir questioned his guest on both matters, and when he asked whether Aekino had traveled under an assumed name, it became clear that Vir had his own sources of information regarding their visit. Aekino then yielded up the moonsilver orb that had slain Amaya, followed by the jade message tube and the astrological charts that Zera had purloined from Amaya’s cabin.

Aekino held his breath as his host opened the tube and perused the contents, for he feared that the astrologers of House Ledaal might have predicted and written of his status as Anathema. But the suddenly dour Vir said only that four Demon Princes would come to his city, and that he hoped that Aekino would remain within the tower for his own protection. He asked only that Aekino would meet with his counselors so that they might scribe a record of the events of Thorns, and asked that they might meet for dinner that evening for more pleasant conversation. Aekino, for his part, agreed with these requests with good grace.

Vir then dismissed his cousin so that he might write certain missives to his fellow Ledaal on the Blessed Isle. Aekino returned to his chambers, slowly realizing that the Demon Princes that the Ledaal astrologers had written of might not be deathknights such as he had seen in Thorns, but rather he and his companions. He settled down then to enjoy the comforts of the palace, bathing and having his nails done, and eventually speaking with Thorwald and the recently returned Li as to recent events. He shared his discussion with Vir, while Li filled them in on Darien Tal’s aggressive pursuit of grievances and those things he had learned from Zera. It is worth noting that Thorwald did not speak of his encounter with the spirit Fourth Breeze at all.

Aekino went on to spend a few hours in the company of the astrologer Ikari and a couple of the palace scribes. The genial Ikari permitted Aekino to speak as he liked of his experiences in Thorns, with only the occasional question to draw out more detail on this subject or that. Eventually night fell, as it does with a certain regularity within the bounds of Creation. Li and Aekino finally prevailed upon Thorwald to bathe, and as that worthy finally partook of the dubious joys of hot water and soap, the call to dinner came. Leaving her swords in Thorwald’s care, Li dressed herself in servant’s garb. With Li present to act as his valet, Aekino descended to the small dining hall where he would have dinner with the prince

The dinner proved to be a family affair, for two of Vir’s grown children were present: Martin, who had glared at his father with some venom during the public audience earlier in the day, and his sister Tanith. Both flirted with the intensely attractive Aekino as various courses were served. In conversation, it came out that Martin was an experienced swordsman and soldier, while Tanith admitted to a certain familiarity with the magical arts.

Upon learning of the doom that came to Thorns, Martin urged that Aekino should depart at once for the Blessed Isle to bear word of the disaster… with Martin as bodyguard and aide-de-camp, of course, as this would provide opportunities both to see the Blessed Isle and to get into Aekino’s pants. Martin’s kin noted that this would be rather silly, and that Martin would be needed here in any case. The banter continued for a while over courses of mashed fruit and stuffed game birds, until another guest belatedly arrived, one whose presence angered and discomfited Martin and Tanith. This was Mari of Stonegarden, a dark-eyed Eastern woman, and consort to the prince.

After a bit more stilted conversation, in which Mari expressed interest in the astrological charts that Aekino had brought, Vir and Mari took their leave. Aekino lingered over dessert with Martin and Tanith, inviting both to visit him in his quarters later if they so chose. Satiated, the young Solar finally took his leave of his cousins and returned to his lodgings.

Something of a comedy of errors followed as Thorwald emerged from the bath to find that his clothes were missing! They had been taken away to be laundered, and while servant’s garb in his size had been provided for him, he wished to go down into the city to find Zera and refused to wear such garments where others might see him. When he stormed down half-naked into the servant’s quarters to reclaim his garments, they were still being washed, but he managed to procure ill-fitting street clothes from one of the northman servants instead. He also managed to get a suit of servant’s clothes in Zera’s size to help that worthy fellow sneak into the castle, though his ineptitude with manipulation showed true when his first attempt got him a dress. Eventually he made his way to meet Zera and convinced him to sneak back into the castle with him.

With the four children of the Sun reunited at last in Aekino’s chambers, they spoke freely for some time, sharing what they had learned. Zera spoke most of all, explaining what he knew about the region’s complex politics. He reminded them that Cessair, the queen of Tul Tuin, remained locked in a tower in a town just a day’s travel to the southeast, and added that he had heard of a city located three days to the north where the Queen’s daughter Idris still reigned, having split from the kingdom when Ledaal Vir took power. Zera proposed to travel there to seek counsel with Idris, keeping Thorwald at his side to guard him, and thereafter to travel to Iron Tower to speak with the Queen, while Aekino and Li remained behind to gain more information in the Tower of Winds and the city below. The others concurred, and so Zera and Thorwald took their leave, departing stealthily from the Tower of Winds.

Soon thereafter, a servant knocked at the door to deliver the promised chronicle of Tul Tuin’s history. As Aekino opened that book to read of the realm’s history and winkle out its secrets, Zera and Thorwald made their way down a darkened alleyway in the lower city. And as they walked through that shadowed place, a black bird flew overhead, its scales gleaming in the moonlight. Another bird followed, and another; and then, as our heroes turned a corner, a slim figure clad in dark armor emerged to confront them, the raitons circling overhead…

… and there Mother Cypress ended her tale, leaving the fate of our heroes for another night and another telling.

[urbwar]

That was really cool. Looking forward to seeing the next session, to see if that was the deathknight who confronted them at the end of this session, or mayhap a Lunar?

[A2K v2]

Aekino is rapidly becoming one of my favorite characters. Do not ask me why - he just is. :)

Can't wait for the next installment!

-A2K

[Quendalon]

<blockquote><i>Here's a writeup of the history of the local area, as gleaned by Aekino from a chronicle written by his host, Ledaal Vir. I'll provide it to Aekino's player tonight at the start of tonight's session, and see what he makes of it.

I'll be out of town this weekend, so if the summary for tonight's session doesn't go up on Thursday, it'll have to wait until sometime next week.</i></blockquote>* * * * *

In the time before the Contagion, under the Shogunate of the Dragon-Blooded, the region now known as the Hundred Kingdoms was divided into the Laris and Vellens Administrative Districts. Vellens lay to the west and Laris to the east, divided by the Sandy River in the south and the River of Willows in the north. The region’s many rivers nourished the farms that fed much of the Shogunate, while mines extracted the sizable mineral wealth that lay buried beneath the northern hilly country. Several cities of note rose in the northern reaches of the Laris and Vellens districts, most notably Karánishen in the west, Keheyana in the northeast, and Atarani in the north.

The Contagion spread ruin across the Vellens district. Plague decimated the cities, leaving only a residue of human population spread in villages and tribes throughout the area. But the easterners proved resilient; within a century, several cities had sprung up along the length of the Sandy River. These cities signed on to the League of Many Rivers in the year 95, establishing a framework of long-standing peace that would only rarely be interrupted by trade wars and brief dalliances with empire. The north rebuilt more slowly; Fair Folk and their abominations populated the north more thickly, while bandit lords and raiders were far more entrenched. Eventually a few cities and kingdoms rose there as well, most notably Kaihan, founded by the outcaste Ral Therin upon the ruins of Keheyana, and Arashon, built on a surviving fortified manse constructed in the final years of the Shogunate.

Time passed. The south grew more civilized, with the city-states drawing together into the confederations of Laris and Velen. The northern reaches remained fractious and lightly populated. Heretical cults sprang up, dedicated to demons and Fair Folk alike. Eventually, almost two centuries after the Contagion, two of the Demon Princes came to the northern lands: a tall, pale northman named Blessed Wind, and a slim, dark southern woman named Kuro the Raven. There they gathered followers and raised up cities, the former at Tul Tuin, the latter across the river at Brinlack.

Fortunately, evil always turns upon itself. When conflict broke out between the confederacies of Laris and Velen in the Water War of RY 265, the war spilled over into the northern reaches and beyond, breaking the League of Many Rivers and straining the bonds of law and diplomacy throughout the Scavenger Lands. The Anathema turned on each other, reducing their respective cities to rubble and slaughtering most of the area’s citizens. When the Wyld Hunt arrived, the demons were too weak to stop them. The Hunt laid the Anathema to rest in a tomb carved out especially for the purpose, so that their hungry ghosts would not haunt the region forever.

A century later, the Fair Folk Cessair migrated into the northern Laris district with her handmaidens and a large tribe of northmen dedicated to her worship. Establishing herself on the ruins of Blessed Wind’s city, she subjugated the native peoples, sundered their open-air temples to the Anathema, and raised the Tower of Winds with her magic. Around the Tower she re-established the city of Tul Tuin, which remains to this day.

The next two centuries passed in relative calm in the northern reaches of Laris and Velen. The Arczeckhi horde of 435 broke against the southern cities without reaching the north, the bandit kingdoms slowly settled into more peaceable ways, and the indigenous Fair Folk slowly lost their grip on power and were forced out by men. It was during this period that the term “The Hundred Kingdoms” came into common parlance.

In the year 537, the Fair Folk returned in force, leading their forces in from the eastern border of Creation and assaulting the cities of the Hundred Kingdoms. Madness, slaughter and chaos followed in their wake. It took several years to expel the horde, and even now many pockets of Fair Folk linger from that invasion, mingling with Cessair’s brood and a few Fair Folk survivors from the era of the Contagion.

Ledaal Vir came to Tul Tuin in RY 717, where he wed Queen Cessair and put an end to certain distasteful practices that had held sway in that kingdom for some time. Their marriage was not a peaceful one, and he found it necessary to remove Cessair from the throne in RY 743. She currently abides in a tower of iron a day’s journey to the southeast of the Tower of Winds.

The northern reaches of the Laris and Velen districts remain unstable. While many of the area’s population centers remain intact, they must contend with outlaw bands, barbarian tribes from the north and east, Fair Folk, Wyld-twisted beasts, and even demons and the walking dead. Strong militias and standing armies are the norm, and mercenary companies profit handily from selling their services to some towns and plundering others. The Guild profits even more from the slave trade, with regular supplies of criminals and captives making their way down the rivers toward Nexus.

Fortunately, the ruler of Tul Tuin bids fair to make good on the promise of order and stability heralded by the Scarlet Realm. Ledaal Vir has established a proper bureaucracy, balanced the treasury, and expanded the military to withstand challenges from bandit princes, Guild-sponsored raiders and ambitious petty lords. He has purged the local Manses of lingering Fair Folk and demons, suppressed the Anathema cult, and founded a monastery to the Immaculate Order where newly fledged Exalts of the Dragons may come to be trained and learn the ways of Heaven. With the grace of the Dragons, his progeny will finally end the chaos and lawlessness of the northern Laris and Velen districts and gather it under the aegis of the Realm.

[Quendalon]

Mother Cypress speaks:
“Hello, my little sparrows. You have come for a tale, haven’t you? So what tale would you hear tonight? Would you hear the tale of Jori of Chaya, whose lover was poisoned by a jealous rival, and how she sought out the dragon Uktené to grant her a cure? Would you hear the tasks that the dragon set her that she might repay him for his aid; of her travels and adventures; and of how her lover came to grief in the course of her repayment? Or would you hear more of the tale of the Solar Exalted, and the fall of the Second Age?

“Then gather round, my children; come closer, and spread ears like elephants; and I shall tell you more of the tale of the Sun’s bright children, and their adventures in the lands of the East.”

* * * * *

When the deathknight Forty-Four Devil Blossoms leapt nimbly from a warehouse roof into the darkened alley before them, Zera froze in his tracks and threw up a hand to halt Thorwald as well. Zera’s attempts at negotiation proved fruitless; the deathknight drew her long black blade from over her shoulder and aimed it at Zera, mocking him as she called him by name. Seeing combat as inevitable, Zera leapt onto a rooftop to launch an arrow at the deathknight.

Twisting like spidersilk to avoid the arrow, the deathknight leapt to the warehouse wall and ran along it, right past Thorwald, and flipped up onto the rooftop. Dark fire blazed along her blade as she aimed a fierce blow at Zera Thisse. Zera dodged in a swirl of golden light, only to find that he was not the target, but rather his bow, which split with a resounding crack.

Not to be left out, Thorwald leapt from crate to crate to reach the roof. His great sword failed to reach its mark, however, as the deathknight neatly sidestepped his blow so that it fell upon the hapless Zera. The deathknight ignored the northman and concentrated her attacks on Zera amid a rising tower of black flame. Zera’s anima likewise flared as he dodged and twisted wildly. Unarmed, Zera tried to shove her off the roof. He almost succeeded, but she kept her balance on the very lip of the roof. When Thorwald swept his blade about in an effort to finish the job, she danced lightly along the roof’s edge, easily maintaining her perch… until her consuming anima rotted the edge out from beneath her feet, dumping her into the alley.

Forty-Four Devil Blossoms leapt back onto her feet as the glowing Solars jumped down to take the battle to her. Zera swept up a throwing axe from Thorwald’s belt and hurled it as the northman warrior leveled a mighty blow backed with the force of the Unconquered Sun… only to find their blows turned aside by her soulsteel armor. The stones beneath her feet cracked as she considered her foes, her blade moaning with hunger.

And in that moment, the sounds of shouting and booted feet could be heard approaching. The prince had set patrols upon the city to seek out the Anathema that he believed were coming, and the flares of golden anima-fire in the night had drawn their attention. With much of her Essence drained and more adversaries closing in, Forty-Four Devil Blossoms chose to withdraw. Leaping back to the rooftops, she spat a final curse at Zera before vanishing into the shadows. Faced with discovery by the guards, our heroes likewise turned to bolt, their animas casting wild shadows upon the warehouse walls.

The two made their way through the lower city, with Zera dragging his companion this way and that along alleys and byways he’d studied in his scant few days in Tul Tuin. Golden fire still flickered fitfully around Zera as he kicked open a cellar door, revealing a tight and musty passage, and the golden disk of the Zenith still burned on Thorwald’s forehead as he followed his comrade into that narrow place. Their backs to the door, they waited as the footfalls and cries of the guard rose and faded. And as they waited, another door opened before them…

Meanwhile, back in the Tower of Winds, Aekino had finished his first cursory reading of the history of the city, and was speaking of his discoveries with Li. He had found references to a pair of long-ago Anathema that had settled, died and been entombed in that province, Anathema with familiar names: Kuro the Raven, and Blessed Wind. Knowing that spirits had named Zera as Kuro the Raven, and not recognizing the other name themselves, Li and Aekino concluded that Thorwald had likely been Blessed Wind in an earlier life. Aekino hoped to jar Thorwald’s memory by slipping the name into conversation, while Li expressed some skepticism as to the worth of the plan.

Then came a knocking at the door, as the guard captain Shield Willow came to fetch Tepet Aekino into the presence of the prince. He complied with some small trepidation, and guards fell in around him and Li to bring them into Ledaal Vir’s presence. As it happened, the first reports of the altercation between the three Anathema in the lower city had just reached the prince, who felt it imperative to assure his cousin’s safety. Noting that the fleeing Anathema had slain some of his soldiers, Vir assigned several of his own men to Aekino as a personal guard, led by one of his best men, a squat and muscular man named Thundercloud Star. Though disturbed by the incipient loss of privacy, which would make it difficult to discuss anything regarding their nature as Solar Exalted, Aekino could only accede to this well-meant gesture with good grace. He then questioned his host regarding the Anathema in the city, but Vir ended the discussion soon after, claiming fatigue and the need to further organize matters on the city’s behalf, earning more sympathy from Aekino thereby.

Back in the lower city, the cellar door opened to reveal a stringy, middle-aged woman, whose eyes grew wide to see the golden figures before her. Zera leapt forward to deal with the woman; he seized her and pressed a knife to her throat, warning her that he’d kill her at the slightest outcry. When she agreed, he released her, only to step back as she fell to the floor and kowtowed in abject submission, begging to be allowed to serve them in any capacity that she might.

Zera’s gentle questioning revealed that the woman, Nala, belonged to a secret community that upheld what she called the “old ways,” who revered the Anathema and had long awaited their return. Accepting her words as truth and her loyalty as his due, Zera asked her to procure him a bow to replace the one sundered by the deathknight. This would be no trouble, she replied, as one of the city’s armorers subscribed to the same creed. Given leave to depart, she returned some time later with a bow, a sword, and a supply of food for the road.

Upon further prodding from Zera, the woman Nala agreed to fetch a peddler belonging to her sect who might provide them with cover so that they could leave the city undetected. When the peddler, one Gray Mantle by name, arrived, he seemed doubtful as to the divinity of these scruffy fellows. Then Zera and Thorwald set their golden animas aflame. His eyes bugging out of his head, the peddler fell to the floor, kowtowing frantically as he begged forgiveness from these dread lords.

* * * * *

Gray Mantle: “We have kept faith! We apologize for our lapses…”
Zera Thisse: “We are coming back. But you and yours are a blessing we did not expect. Thank you.”

* * * * *

As Thorwald and Zera made their way out of town on the back of a peddler’s rickety cart, Li and Aekino rose to the sound of sparrows as the light of early morning sifted through the richly curtained windows of their suite. After breaking their fast upon eggs and fried meats, of which Li ate but sparingly, they went about their ablutions, katas, meditations and studies until it was nearly noon, when a servant came to ask Aekino whether he would attend that day’s court.

Dressed to the nines, Aekino swept into the court amid whispers of intrigue and speculation, and took his place at the side of his distant cousins Martin and Tanith to the right of the prince’s seat. And shortly thereafter, a petitioner entered the room, escorted by his adult daughter and borne aloft on a litter by four brawny northman slaves. It was the merchant Darien Tal, the bandages around his knee still wet with blood from the wound left by Zera’s arrow, and he had come to seek recompense for his injury.

Tal harangued the court with complaint, demanding that the woman Li who stood outside of the audience hall be brought in for judgment, along with her archer companion. He brought forth one of his guardsmen, a man named Tai Ru, who described how Zera and Li had threatened his master, how they had tried to flee, and how Zera and Li had cornered them and assaulted them without mercy. When the prince mocked the notion that a dozen men would flee a man and a woman in the midst of the marketplace, Tal claimed that our heroes fought with inhuman ferocity and skill, making them somehow more or less than human – a charge that cut dangerously close to the truth.

Li, for her part, calmly stated the truth of the matter: that her companion had antagonized Tal in some way on the voyage to Tul Tuin, that they fled Tal and his men in the marketplace, and that they fought back only when cornered, and then only in self-defense. Though she knew that Zera’s friend Bamboo Purple was a witness to the initial confrontation in the marketplace, Li chose not to mention her when the prince asked about witnesses, for she did not wish to endanger the woman. Aekino added that he had full faith and trust in the veracity of his “servant” Li, and that any accusation of falsehood leveled at her would thus fall upon him as well.

Thinking on the matter for a moment, Ledaal Vir first asked whether Li wished to level charges of her own against Tal. When she declined, the prince cleared her of the charge of assault, accepting that Li and her friend, whomever he might be, had only fought to defend themselves. But the harm they had inflicted upon the merchant, and the deaths of those of his bodyguards that had died in the fight, demanded recompense. So Aekino agreed to pay the merchant a sum of silver, while Li would receive twenty lashes in punishment. Though he muttered complaints of leniency to his supporters as he departed, Darien Tal nonetheless agreed to the terms.

Aekino then proceeded to regale the court with a poetic rendition of the assault on Thorns. As the courtiers listened spellbound to his words, some of them weeping over the hopeless defense of the Dragon-Blooded nobles who sacrificed their lives for a city not their own, guards escorted Li out to the courtyard to receive her twenty lashes from a bamboo rod. Though the blows that rained down upon her back tore and bruised her skin, leaving great red and purple welts that dripped blood onto the stones, she did not cry out.

When Aekino returned to his chambers, he found Li there, binding her wounds; she had elected not to heal them with the Sun’s power, lest such unnatural resilience arouse notice among the inhabitants of the Tower. Not long thereafter, a guest arrived: the prince Ledaal Martin, who’d come to visit his cousin. They greeted one another affectionately and settled down to speak of the events of the court… until the impatient Martin made his move. In an instant, the two lustful young Dynasts were sucking face. Li and the guards politely averted their eyes while the pair went at it.

Matters proceeded in this vein for a few moments, but before these kissing cousins could further disrobe or otherwise proceed to rut like weasels, another knock came at the door. Lo, it was cousin Tanith, come also to greet the most eligible bachelor Aekino! With the speed normally reserved for Charms, the two young men disentangled themselves and adjusted their clothing, making themselves presentable.

The three talked for a time, starting with the events of that day’s court and proceeding on to other matters. Aekino plied the others with strong drink all the while, in the hopes of inebriating them sufficiently to pre-empt any further awkward romantic interludes. Tanith, however, seemed distracted. This proved to be the result of her sensing a spirit lurking in the room, a child of gold and silver that hovered insubstantially on the threshold. Discovered, it fled, but Aekino would take no chances; he and Tanith decided to ward the room against further spiritual intrusion. Later, the rite finished and both cousins departed amidst much flirting, Aekino watched the stars from the balcony and sighed, thinking on his beloved, the Dragon-Blood Mnemon Dara, and wondered where his love might be.

In the countryside, Zera and Thorwald made their way north toward the city of Idris. Along the way, amid the small villages and lone farmsteads they passed, they came to a bridge that curved over a small, yet fierce river that fed the River of Willows. There a wizened figure in a white wrap and wide bamboo hat confronted them. This was Flying Reeds, the spirit of the bridge, who gleefully announced that our heroes could only pass if they would pay his price: a heartfelt prayer to Flying Reeds himself.

Zera, amused, thanked the spirit for his “grand” bridge with flowery, overblown praise, then prodded his companion to do the same. But Thorwald would have none of it. He rudely