click to enlargeFriday, May 29, 2009
The Undermere
The Lake that spells the terminus of the mighty Bestal Flow River in the eastern Sorado is the cooling resevoir for the ancient Khepathian Volcano, Erythia at present day Gavin Wel. The lake is fathomless and mystics believe it is a portal to many worlds in its lightless depths.
Airships In Gavin Wel
Because of its geographic isolation, Gavin Wel relies on Airship transportation to connect and trade with the outside world. There are four way to fuel and propel an airship: Elemental, Ethereal, Clockwork and Undead. Airships come in many shapes and sizes and each one is a unique vessel with a particular history. The golden age of Airship construction was four hundred years ago, so most airships are ancient.
The Anna Tulau measures nearly forty meters from bow to stern and is powered by Air Elementals who reside inside the frigate's mighty engines.
The Kith Amardae is an airship that catches immaterial, etheral winds in its brilliantly colored sails to propel across the sky.
The Mercy Skate uses energy that it collects from antigravity gyrometers and the powerful engines that use pulsing magnetrons. Omliath Gengineerfae is its gnomish captain.
The Obris Ilbyrn is an airship constructed from the skull of an enormous demonic dragon. The ship is powered by an imprisoned cabal of infernal spirits. Rettin, the veteran captain of the Obris Ilbyrn is a mercenary but not a necromancer.
The Anna Tulau measures nearly forty meters from bow to stern and is powered by Air Elementals who reside inside the frigate's mighty engines.
The Kith Amardae is an airship that catches immaterial, etheral winds in its brilliantly colored sails to propel across the sky.
The Mercy Skate uses energy that it collects from antigravity gyrometers and the powerful engines that use pulsing magnetrons. Omliath Gengineerfae is its gnomish captain.
The Obris Ilbyrn is an airship constructed from the skull of an enormous demonic dragon. The ship is powered by an imprisoned cabal of infernal spirits. Rettin, the veteran captain of the Obris Ilbyrn is a mercenary but not a necromancer.Locales along the Southern Wards, Gavin Wel
The Palaces of Khelm Aneer. Some of the oldest buildings still standing in the City of Gavin Wel are the ivory mansions of House Ulthuil and HouseKhameir along the River Face.
House Yrthandus. The dominating building at the South End of Fire Holm is the headquarters to the wealthyand powerful house Yrthandus that is responsiblefor the Creation Forges of Gavin Wel and buildsmost of the Airship Technology throughout the City.
Round Falls. Just South of the Fire Walls,the expansive area known as Round Falls opens to the main outlet of the Bestal Riverinto Undermere. Also knownas the Theater District, this is the Cultural hub of the Southern City.Riamna, Aumnarch of Gavin Wel
Riamna, a deva, is the Aumnarch of the Council of Eagles. It is the responsibility of the Aumnarch to be the face of the governing party. Riamna delivers an addressto all citizens of Gavin Wel Three time a year from at the Hall of Echoes.Gavin Wel Metropolis
The oldest cathedral in Gavin Wel, perhaps all of Aolder, Sinis Oebyr is a center of Religious culture whereworship of any diety in the Sovereign Host iswelcomed. The Knights of the Platinum Dragon known as the Vassals of the Blade make this their home, monastary and training ground.
A Warforged class of Police known as the Raven Guard patrol the streets of Gavin Wel and enforce civility and the Law.The Richest City in the Sorado, Gavin Wel is a powerful metropolis ruled by a aristocracy of eight members called the Council of Eagles.
Gavin Wel, now considered to be the only Human City in Aolder, is only a tiny part of what was in antiquity a larger City known as Khepathia.
Founded by the King and Queen of Dragonsnearly five thousand years ago, Khepathia was built around an enormous artificial volcano called Erythia.The volcano’s purpose was to mine and smeltan eldritch element known as Cathoid.Cathoid became the currency of the Soradofor the nest three thousand years before internaldtrife brought dominating reign of the City downwhile it was being ruled by the, then mortalRaven Queen. Cathoid is now a bannedsubstance in Metropolitan Gavin Wel although merchant and thieves’ guilds still trade in the adaptable metal. Although Erythia yields no Cathoid, the mining companies who maintain the enormous structure still are able to find unparalleled veins of precioussubstances from gold to silver to gemsstone.Citizens of present day Gavin Wel enjoy a highstandard of living, largely unaffected by therecent Civil War in the surrounding Valley and withthe Blight Wars currently raging beyond its borders.The City enjoys mild temperatures and lots of rain,leaving many to call it the Emerald City for its lushhanging gardens. Although it is at 6000 ft abovesea level snow has never fallen in the Valley of GavinWel.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
A Mother's Concern, Avari Arc Part 3
The days passed by too quickly for Avari. She had forgotten how easy it was to be around other eladrin having spent too much time in the company of men. The Castle of Old Khepathia is among the grandest compounds ever conceived with miles of hallways large enough for the royal elephants to parade down and topiary gardens tended to by armies of pollenbright fairies, the place itself was the best kind of dream with every luxury imaginable. A wonderland for any child and to Avari it was home, familiar and safe. The thing most remarkable to Avari about being here was how startling it was that her family meant so much to her. She found emotions came easy here, laughing with joy was not something she did much of in Gavin Wel. Hours were spent in the gardens playing with her brother, studying ancient books with Myri in the Royal Library, sitting at her father’s feet while he tended to courtly matters, watching her mother get her hair brushed by Myri as she longingly gazed into the water with what might have seemed like sadness if it wasn’t for her dreaming songs to her young son as he shifted in his crib.
It wasn’t until the sixth day in the Ivory City of old Khepathia that a doom set in and the mystery reared itself to consciousness again. After her lessons with Moira, she ran into the bear headed SedNa in an expansive hall outside the library doors. The archmage took her hand and placed in it a small amulet of cold, silver stone. In a whisper the wizard spoke without meeting her eyes, “You will need this in the coming war princess. I have seen it. You are the only one who can save all that is from what is to be.” Before he could finish the were interrupted by the terrifying scream of Avari’s mother from the grand ballroom.
The two ran into the ballroom to see a dark figure with a knife to the queen’s throat. SedNa yelled for the guards and then continued, addressing the man dressed in black threatening the queen’s life, “Xengxui! you have no business here! There is nothing more to discuss, this was settled years ago.”
“Be still magician!” Lotan’s voice was full of madness. “Tiamat. Sister. I have come here only for your safety, you must see. Since you will not go peaceably, I will take you. You will return to Dilmun this night, war is coming! None will survive.”
In a surprising show of strength and power, the queen bent back into the hold of her brother flipped him over her back and then kicked the knife across the room. “You have lived too long on that moon too long brother. I have not been there since Avari’s birth and will not go back now. Your mind doesn’t know what is real. You must stop listening to the songs of the North Wind!”
“I know of what I speak of Tiamat!” he yelled. Xengxui was sweating and Avari could see he was hurt, crouching over as if his stomach gave him pain. “You left me and your birth right…to walking on legs like them. You will not be able to hide who you are forever. This triviality of a life you live…less than grains of sand, the mortal days. Even your half bred children will see the end of their lives before you grow a day older! This is not our war, but that of the insects crawling out from the swamps. Be done with this and return home. Now I beg you one last time…” Ending he rant he straightened himself with the threat and leveled a wand at his sister. “Leave all behind and return to your true form or you will become a twisted vision of your true self.”
“I can never forget how you banished me from my home, left me for nothing and now you say you know what is best for me!” Tiamat yelled. Avari noticed the walls enclosing on the fighting siblings and the sky darkened. Great spirits of wind and smoke circled the ballroom to witness the event. “You are a murderer, King of the Moon! I will not forget that.” The queen materialized a darkwood staff from the air and continued “these half breeds as you called them are the only reason you are not dead already.”
“How, by your husband, the Unonbate? I have him sealed from this place with blood. If you will not go with me, then I shall kill you to save us all from what I know you will become!” With that, a burst of dark energy full of skulls and fire erupted from the tip of Xengxui’s wand. In a movement as quick as thought the queen snatched Avari into her arms and a ball of blue light formed to protect them both from the infernal attack. SedNa was not so protected and in a moment of anguish was instantly incinerated.
“Brother. You are Mad! My destiny lies here! You are a fool!” A bolt of arching electricity stretched across the room from Tiamat’s staff, knocking Xengxui through an enormous stained glass window. Just as the glass is breaking Xengxui throws a poisoned dagger aiming at the Queen, a last and vengeful act…
The wand he had been holding went skittering across the floor. A tiny dragon appeared from Xengxui’s sleeve as he went flying back through the window, a creature whose purpose was to retrieve the wand. Avari too went running after it, but the blazing eyed dragon got there first. Avari grasped a water basin on the table next to her and charged the impish creature that seemed too pleased with itself to notice the little girl sneaking up on it. Avari graceful tumbled and trapped the tiny dragon under the inverted bowl. Grabbing the bowl’s lid, Avari turns it over and traps the creature with the wand and returns to her mother. She sees her mother slumped and the window sill looking out to make sure Xengxui did not return. “Mother, mother, please get up, we have to leave to find father. Mother, please.” A trickle of blood at the edge of her mouth. Turning her over, Avari saw the poisoned dagger in her mother’s gut.
With pained breath, the last words Avari heard her mother say, “I meant what I said. You are my destiny. I know the secret to your mystery. I brought you back to make you remember where it is you came from and what you must do. It was I too that sent you so far into the future to begin with. That is a time of great portend. I will be something else then, you will not recognize me. You are the key to all of this. You are the daughter of Bahamut and Tiamat. You have the power of the ages…the bloodline of the dragon gods…the ability to move through the planes…find what was lost here today.” Tiamat raises a piece of paper and it ignites turning to ash and with a breath, Avari moves through a portal.
Avari awoke in her bed back in Niaskatel as if the experience was a dream. Struggling to bring the room into focus, she sits up wondering if it was magic of a trickster that caused such images. Eladrin don’t believe in dreams as being something different than reality. Getting out of bed to go inspect the bookcase, Avari knocked over a glass basin on the floor, an angry, small dragon emerged and flapped wildly in all directions. Picking up her uncle’s wand the memory returned in full. Looking out of her window she saw then world layered on top of each other like geologic strata made of consciousness constructs. Yes. Answers are coming. Answers that will save them all.
cowritten with Keli Rivers
It wasn’t until the sixth day in the Ivory City of old Khepathia that a doom set in and the mystery reared itself to consciousness again. After her lessons with Moira, she ran into the bear headed SedNa in an expansive hall outside the library doors. The archmage took her hand and placed in it a small amulet of cold, silver stone. In a whisper the wizard spoke without meeting her eyes, “You will need this in the coming war princess. I have seen it. You are the only one who can save all that is from what is to be.” Before he could finish the were interrupted by the terrifying scream of Avari’s mother from the grand ballroom.
The two ran into the ballroom to see a dark figure with a knife to the queen’s throat. SedNa yelled for the guards and then continued, addressing the man dressed in black threatening the queen’s life, “Xengxui! you have no business here! There is nothing more to discuss, this was settled years ago.”
“Be still magician!” Lotan’s voice was full of madness. “Tiamat. Sister. I have come here only for your safety, you must see. Since you will not go peaceably, I will take you. You will return to Dilmun this night, war is coming! None will survive.”
In a surprising show of strength and power, the queen bent back into the hold of her brother flipped him over her back and then kicked the knife across the room. “You have lived too long on that moon too long brother. I have not been there since Avari’s birth and will not go back now. Your mind doesn’t know what is real. You must stop listening to the songs of the North Wind!”
“I know of what I speak of Tiamat!” he yelled. Xengxui was sweating and Avari could see he was hurt, crouching over as if his stomach gave him pain. “You left me and your birth right…to walking on legs like them. You will not be able to hide who you are forever. This triviality of a life you live…less than grains of sand, the mortal days. Even your half bred children will see the end of their lives before you grow a day older! This is not our war, but that of the insects crawling out from the swamps. Be done with this and return home. Now I beg you one last time…” Ending he rant he straightened himself with the threat and leveled a wand at his sister. “Leave all behind and return to your true form or you will become a twisted vision of your true self.”
“I can never forget how you banished me from my home, left me for nothing and now you say you know what is best for me!” Tiamat yelled. Avari noticed the walls enclosing on the fighting siblings and the sky darkened. Great spirits of wind and smoke circled the ballroom to witness the event. “You are a murderer, King of the Moon! I will not forget that.” The queen materialized a darkwood staff from the air and continued “these half breeds as you called them are the only reason you are not dead already.”
“How, by your husband, the Unonbate? I have him sealed from this place with blood. If you will not go with me, then I shall kill you to save us all from what I know you will become!” With that, a burst of dark energy full of skulls and fire erupted from the tip of Xengxui’s wand. In a movement as quick as thought the queen snatched Avari into her arms and a ball of blue light formed to protect them both from the infernal attack. SedNa was not so protected and in a moment of anguish was instantly incinerated.
“Brother. You are Mad! My destiny lies here! You are a fool!” A bolt of arching electricity stretched across the room from Tiamat’s staff, knocking Xengxui through an enormous stained glass window. Just as the glass is breaking Xengxui throws a poisoned dagger aiming at the Queen, a last and vengeful act…
The wand he had been holding went skittering across the floor. A tiny dragon appeared from Xengxui’s sleeve as he went flying back through the window, a creature whose purpose was to retrieve the wand. Avari too went running after it, but the blazing eyed dragon got there first. Avari grasped a water basin on the table next to her and charged the impish creature that seemed too pleased with itself to notice the little girl sneaking up on it. Avari graceful tumbled and trapped the tiny dragon under the inverted bowl. Grabbing the bowl’s lid, Avari turns it over and traps the creature with the wand and returns to her mother. She sees her mother slumped and the window sill looking out to make sure Xengxui did not return. “Mother, mother, please get up, we have to leave to find father. Mother, please.” A trickle of blood at the edge of her mouth. Turning her over, Avari saw the poisoned dagger in her mother’s gut.
With pained breath, the last words Avari heard her mother say, “I meant what I said. You are my destiny. I know the secret to your mystery. I brought you back to make you remember where it is you came from and what you must do. It was I too that sent you so far into the future to begin with. That is a time of great portend. I will be something else then, you will not recognize me. You are the key to all of this. You are the daughter of Bahamut and Tiamat. You have the power of the ages…the bloodline of the dragon gods…the ability to move through the planes…find what was lost here today.” Tiamat raises a piece of paper and it ignites turning to ash and with a breath, Avari moves through a portal.
Avari awoke in her bed back in Niaskatel as if the experience was a dream. Struggling to bring the room into focus, she sits up wondering if it was magic of a trickster that caused such images. Eladrin don’t believe in dreams as being something different than reality. Getting out of bed to go inspect the bookcase, Avari knocked over a glass basin on the floor, an angry, small dragon emerged and flapped wildly in all directions. Picking up her uncle’s wand the memory returned in full. Looking out of her window she saw then world layered on top of each other like geologic strata made of consciousness constructs. Yes. Answers are coming. Answers that will save them all.
cowritten with Keli Rivers
Avari in the Court of the King, Arc part 2
The formless voice, although trying to dissuade her growing anxiety, was unsuccessful. Avari had always been the embodiment of confidence, not ever consciously experiencing fear before cannot find it in herself to move at all. It was as if the void of her consciousness, her history had always laid before her as a vast chasm that was now about to flood with an ocean of self-knowledge that threatened to drown her. “Don’t you remember me…us…your life here, in Khepathia?”
At the ancient word, the room began to glow with such brightness Avari had to shield her face. Once adjusted to the new light, she saw the room was populated by Eladrin nobels, Tiefling diplomats, Titan guards and in the shades acting as bodiless servants to all. The sun filled the room with color through stained glass, vaulted windows. Looking out the window and perceiving the ancient City come to life under a brilliant azure sky Avari whispers, “How could this be? The Sky…the most brilliant blue I have ever witnessed.” A young eladrin boy suddenly pushed her to the ground in a playful manner and runs towards the voice laughing, “Slow poke, I will be father’s favorite by sun down with you day dreaming out the window again.” The urge to run after the boy was too great, and Avari forgot all about the troubling break time and space that she just witnessed.
A large, raven-haired man stooped down to grab the running boy into his arms and effortlessly threw him in the air, catching him and swinging him with such deft force, a gust of wind pushed through the hall. “Again Poppa! Again!” the boy cried. A woman next to them with graceful features and bright, grey eyes catches Avari’s gaze and says “Avari Sweetheart, what is it? What are you staring at?” the woman called out to her. Hearing her own name cemented the reality for Avari as she flung herself into her mother’s arms.
Surrounded by her family, Avari’s memories poured into her mind. Next to her was her father holding her twin brother high in the air. A baby cried grabbing her mother’s attention, moving slowly over to the basket next to the throne was her brother, Quendi, named after a distant uncle that no one liked so he was called lovingly by his nickname, Blendhavin. The fear left Avari, for the King and the Queen were here parents and this was truth and the selfknowledge would not swallow her and she could be safe.
The doors at the other end of the room opened and a quick silence fell over the hall. An enormous cloaked figure shuffled into the room and approached the throne, uncovering his head from under the hood, Avari saw that the figure had the head of an enormous bear. The bear headed newcomer bowed before the King. From his runed robes, Avari identified the newcomer as a Wayfarer archmage, a court magician. “Great King Unonbate, I must request your ear in private chambers, as I have news of Xengxui the Black.”
With the echo of the name the crowd at once began frantically whispering to each other. “SedNa, my friend, I asked you before to not mention his name in the presence of my children. You know of my children’s nightmares…” turning to the an eladrin woman dressed in purple, “Moira, please take the children upstairs and get them ready for their lessons.”
Avari and her brother were ushered from the courtroom by Myri through the back door. Moira was the a court historian and Avari’s teacher and her Regnali, an eladrin word that means second mother. The day turned to night before she saw a member of her family again. Dressed in bed clothes set out by Myri, the door opened and her father walked in, “Ava, you look as though the skyfolk plagued your dreams again. What ails you this night? I hope it is not SedNa’s slip in court today.”
“I am lost father. One minute I was somewhere else, some time else, and then I am here, with you and mother like nothing happened. I feel as if my soul is not my own.”
Looking into his daughter’s eyes as she lay on the bed, leaning over her, he said words full of care “Some questions that can only be answered with questions. All Eladrin Raelfaen souls are on their own journey. I do not know of what you are speaking. Phrase your words carefully other wise you might not get the answers you were looking for.”
Avari took a moment to absorb her father’s warning before saying “ I am in a great mystery father. I am not sure where I belong.”
At that he smiled and hugged his daughter “You belong with me. Maybe you should look into the word sent to find your answers, now sleep, tomorrow is a big day.” He seemed to be totally unaware of Avari’s journey through time or the way he called to her in the Shadow hall. “Oh, I almost forgot…I know it isn’t officially you and your brother’s birthday but if you won’t tell, I won’t either.” A small box materialized on Avari’s lap, “go ahead, open it.” It didn’t take much for Avari to tear through the silk paper to unveil a small wooden box whose lid had a five pointed star in a circle engraved in it. “When you need answers, my little questioner, they will be found in that box. Now go to bed before your mother has my head when you sleep through the party tomorrow.”
Avari about to protest the fact she wasn’t tired, was silenced when her father gently put his hand to her eyes and called sleep into her soul. She slept soundly until a conversation in the adjacent hall awakened her. She recognized the characters talking as her father, mother, Roskilde and two others, knights she suspected. Putting an ear to the door, all she could discern was the name Xengxui the Black, her own name said a couple of time and some ritual coming called, the Gathering of the Court of the Four Stars.
At the ancient word, the room began to glow with such brightness Avari had to shield her face. Once adjusted to the new light, she saw the room was populated by Eladrin nobels, Tiefling diplomats, Titan guards and in the shades acting as bodiless servants to all. The sun filled the room with color through stained glass, vaulted windows. Looking out the window and perceiving the ancient City come to life under a brilliant azure sky Avari whispers, “How could this be? The Sky…the most brilliant blue I have ever witnessed.” A young eladrin boy suddenly pushed her to the ground in a playful manner and runs towards the voice laughing, “Slow poke, I will be father’s favorite by sun down with you day dreaming out the window again.” The urge to run after the boy was too great, and Avari forgot all about the troubling break time and space that she just witnessed.
A large, raven-haired man stooped down to grab the running boy into his arms and effortlessly threw him in the air, catching him and swinging him with such deft force, a gust of wind pushed through the hall. “Again Poppa! Again!” the boy cried. A woman next to them with graceful features and bright, grey eyes catches Avari’s gaze and says “Avari Sweetheart, what is it? What are you staring at?” the woman called out to her. Hearing her own name cemented the reality for Avari as she flung herself into her mother’s arms.
Surrounded by her family, Avari’s memories poured into her mind. Next to her was her father holding her twin brother high in the air. A baby cried grabbing her mother’s attention, moving slowly over to the basket next to the throne was her brother, Quendi, named after a distant uncle that no one liked so he was called lovingly by his nickname, Blendhavin. The fear left Avari, for the King and the Queen were here parents and this was truth and the selfknowledge would not swallow her and she could be safe.
The doors at the other end of the room opened and a quick silence fell over the hall. An enormous cloaked figure shuffled into the room and approached the throne, uncovering his head from under the hood, Avari saw that the figure had the head of an enormous bear. The bear headed newcomer bowed before the King. From his runed robes, Avari identified the newcomer as a Wayfarer archmage, a court magician. “Great King Unonbate, I must request your ear in private chambers, as I have news of Xengxui the Black.”
With the echo of the name the crowd at once began frantically whispering to each other. “SedNa, my friend, I asked you before to not mention his name in the presence of my children. You know of my children’s nightmares…” turning to the an eladrin woman dressed in purple, “Moira, please take the children upstairs and get them ready for their lessons.”
Avari and her brother were ushered from the courtroom by Myri through the back door. Moira was the a court historian and Avari’s teacher and her Regnali, an eladrin word that means second mother. The day turned to night before she saw a member of her family again. Dressed in bed clothes set out by Myri, the door opened and her father walked in, “Ava, you look as though the skyfolk plagued your dreams again. What ails you this night? I hope it is not SedNa’s slip in court today.”
“I am lost father. One minute I was somewhere else, some time else, and then I am here, with you and mother like nothing happened. I feel as if my soul is not my own.”
Looking into his daughter’s eyes as she lay on the bed, leaning over her, he said words full of care “Some questions that can only be answered with questions. All Eladrin Raelfaen souls are on their own journey. I do not know of what you are speaking. Phrase your words carefully other wise you might not get the answers you were looking for.”
Avari took a moment to absorb her father’s warning before saying “ I am in a great mystery father. I am not sure where I belong.”
At that he smiled and hugged his daughter “You belong with me. Maybe you should look into the word sent to find your answers, now sleep, tomorrow is a big day.” He seemed to be totally unaware of Avari’s journey through time or the way he called to her in the Shadow hall. “Oh, I almost forgot…I know it isn’t officially you and your brother’s birthday but if you won’t tell, I won’t either.” A small box materialized on Avari’s lap, “go ahead, open it.” It didn’t take much for Avari to tear through the silk paper to unveil a small wooden box whose lid had a five pointed star in a circle engraved in it. “When you need answers, my little questioner, they will be found in that box. Now go to bed before your mother has my head when you sleep through the party tomorrow.”
Avari about to protest the fact she wasn’t tired, was silenced when her father gently put his hand to her eyes and called sleep into her soul. She slept soundly until a conversation in the adjacent hall awakened her. She recognized the characters talking as her father, mother, Roskilde and two others, knights she suspected. Putting an ear to the door, all she could discern was the name Xengxui the Black, her own name said a couple of time and some ritual coming called, the Gathering of the Court of the Four Stars.
Avari and the Shadow Stairs, Arc part 1
Avari’s studies the concept of other planes existing parallel to her own.
Avari grabbed as many old books as she could carry and sat at her desk and heard muffled sounds coming from the books on the shelf behind her. It was then that she found a group of books that didn’t belong with the others. Older books, worn bindings with what looked to be words but in a language she had never seen in her 155 years. The Tomes of Hirarch.
When trying to touch them her hand passes right through, leaving her hand cold and numb, what should be solid is hallow. The moaning and chiming sounds from the books grew louder as she pulled her hand away. Without gauging of what dangers could await her, Avari walked through an illusionary wall that appeared before her, projected from the eldritch tomes. She found herself in what used to be a grand hall but has sense been left to ruin. The muffled noises filled her head with such volume she fell to the ground clutching her head with her hands. “You must be causing this madness…It must be you Rendgrey…” She unleashes at her pouch that holds the Leomund’s Chest that currently houses the evil sword. The tiny pouch fell to the ground with a thud the belied its true weight. Even above the chiming in her mind she can hear the sentient sword call to her, an impulsive call that not many can resist. Black whispers that forever haunt the mind. After her encounter with the Anathamancer, the mysterious forger of the great sword, Avari believes that she is the only one who can master the will Rendgrey.
The eladrin wizard then stood and began to discern exactly the origin of the crushing noise and the secret cause of her transport to this ruined place. The chiming turned to voices and words from familiar mouths came to consciousness. At first the voices were eldritch and dark. Mouths formed in the darkness and reached for the fearless Avari who understood that this was not their true form but a temporary state of becoming. It became clear that the voices were the same that plagued her before in the presence of the Father Light, again with the Khelem Jahar, and originally at the death of her great uncle, Mikiiel.
Avari’s basic instincts, rooted in ancient Raelfaen magic, allowed her to let go and as calming down a wild horse, she silenced the madness within. A wave of warmth washed over her as she turns the voices to singing. The mirthful songs, familiar and true, then transformed into telling epics of love and joyous times long since forgotten. Deciphering the ancient lyrics, she hears “Mother and Father to all Eldar whisper the truth of your heart and the unlocking of the world…” Then loud and wondrous choirs began to form themselves into manifest figures before her, dancing through dream mist with. The ghostly rabble leads her out of the Ruin where she first appeared.
Without care and with a light heart, Avari followed the ghosts into a dark forest until they came to an ancient stairwell climbing an overgrown hill covered in nightblooming flowers. The dancers evaporated and the voices faded, leaving her in a breath of shadowed silence.
Avari then ran up the stairs without a second thought, full of curiosity. The stairs were covered with writing and as she ran she could read them with the touch of her bare feet as if the words wanted to be in her mind. Ancient histories of her people, the origin of many things. What would seem like hours to a human, is nothing more than a blink of an eye to a daughter of Feywild. The stairwell ends in a dusty, muted grey room long since uninhabited by the living. Large, glassless windows defined the interior space of root and stone. Two thrones sat at the end of the expansive space that was once a grand hall, gilt with gold and silver.
A boisterous, commanding voice erupts and echoes through the empty room. Words from an ancient Raelfaen dialect seem to call warn Avari with a dark and severe tone. Scared for the first time since she walked through the wall she searches for her prime weapon, the minotaur wand but it is not in the holster at her belt. Panic strikes her as she realized that the Leomund’s Chest was absent too, and her books! And even the loud mouth Ahkinat. Feeling reduced to nearly human, vulnerable and exposed, Avari backs toward the stairwell, but it had folded into the shadow. The voice calls again, this time without the severe quality, this time the tone is full of warmth and in a modern tongue, “There is no near to fear, my child, my eyes are old and I did not recognize you, but I see you now…come greet your father, he has missed you.”
cowritten with Keli Rivers
Avari grabbed as many old books as she could carry and sat at her desk and heard muffled sounds coming from the books on the shelf behind her. It was then that she found a group of books that didn’t belong with the others. Older books, worn bindings with what looked to be words but in a language she had never seen in her 155 years. The Tomes of Hirarch.
When trying to touch them her hand passes right through, leaving her hand cold and numb, what should be solid is hallow. The moaning and chiming sounds from the books grew louder as she pulled her hand away. Without gauging of what dangers could await her, Avari walked through an illusionary wall that appeared before her, projected from the eldritch tomes. She found herself in what used to be a grand hall but has sense been left to ruin. The muffled noises filled her head with such volume she fell to the ground clutching her head with her hands. “You must be causing this madness…It must be you Rendgrey…” She unleashes at her pouch that holds the Leomund’s Chest that currently houses the evil sword. The tiny pouch fell to the ground with a thud the belied its true weight. Even above the chiming in her mind she can hear the sentient sword call to her, an impulsive call that not many can resist. Black whispers that forever haunt the mind. After her encounter with the Anathamancer, the mysterious forger of the great sword, Avari believes that she is the only one who can master the will Rendgrey.
The eladrin wizard then stood and began to discern exactly the origin of the crushing noise and the secret cause of her transport to this ruined place. The chiming turned to voices and words from familiar mouths came to consciousness. At first the voices were eldritch and dark. Mouths formed in the darkness and reached for the fearless Avari who understood that this was not their true form but a temporary state of becoming. It became clear that the voices were the same that plagued her before in the presence of the Father Light, again with the Khelem Jahar, and originally at the death of her great uncle, Mikiiel.
Avari’s basic instincts, rooted in ancient Raelfaen magic, allowed her to let go and as calming down a wild horse, she silenced the madness within. A wave of warmth washed over her as she turns the voices to singing. The mirthful songs, familiar and true, then transformed into telling epics of love and joyous times long since forgotten. Deciphering the ancient lyrics, she hears “Mother and Father to all Eldar whisper the truth of your heart and the unlocking of the world…” Then loud and wondrous choirs began to form themselves into manifest figures before her, dancing through dream mist with. The ghostly rabble leads her out of the Ruin where she first appeared.
Without care and with a light heart, Avari followed the ghosts into a dark forest until they came to an ancient stairwell climbing an overgrown hill covered in nightblooming flowers. The dancers evaporated and the voices faded, leaving her in a breath of shadowed silence.
Avari then ran up the stairs without a second thought, full of curiosity. The stairs were covered with writing and as she ran she could read them with the touch of her bare feet as if the words wanted to be in her mind. Ancient histories of her people, the origin of many things. What would seem like hours to a human, is nothing more than a blink of an eye to a daughter of Feywild. The stairwell ends in a dusty, muted grey room long since uninhabited by the living. Large, glassless windows defined the interior space of root and stone. Two thrones sat at the end of the expansive space that was once a grand hall, gilt with gold and silver.
A boisterous, commanding voice erupts and echoes through the empty room. Words from an ancient Raelfaen dialect seem to call warn Avari with a dark and severe tone. Scared for the first time since she walked through the wall she searches for her prime weapon, the minotaur wand but it is not in the holster at her belt. Panic strikes her as she realized that the Leomund’s Chest was absent too, and her books! And even the loud mouth Ahkinat. Feeling reduced to nearly human, vulnerable and exposed, Avari backs toward the stairwell, but it had folded into the shadow. The voice calls again, this time without the severe quality, this time the tone is full of warmth and in a modern tongue, “There is no near to fear, my child, my eyes are old and I did not recognize you, but I see you now…come greet your father, he has missed you.”
cowritten with Keli RiversThe Berenium Front
After the Fall of Brother's Head fort the Civil War turns into a conventional war against the powers of Ragyiel against the united powers of the people of Berenium: The Elves of House Fuhema, the Dwarves of Gnarfold, the Dream Thief elves, and the Skyhunter Griffon Riders. The Front, now running twenty miles down the Salt Road on the eastern banks of the Night Crossing River will define how fighting may or may not cease in Gavin Wel Valley.The Cult of the Liege of the Pit
The Cult of the Liege of the Pit is a wild card in the mind of Tim Tigeon, the Sherriff of Gavin Wel Valley. He has no idea how powerful they really are. Followers of an unknown demon named Rydikos, the cultist with their blight magic and there emblamatic straw masks and thatched armor has developed into a military force along the Salt Road following the Fall of Brother's Head Fort.FelHenge, an ancient sanctuary.
Felhenge, a place on the bright cliffs just west of the Adellian Woods is the site where the refugees gather after the Fall of Brother's Head Fort. What was two months ago a largely abandoned monastary is now a city of several hundred families.The Fall of Brother's Head Fort
Golifer, the Syphon Mage of Urboni rained fire and earth down on Brother's Head Fort in the Twilight of the First Harvest No Moon of 1103. The Fort is Destroyed and 150 are killed, survivors regroup at Felhenge. 
The Goblin Skycutters take over the abandoned ruin of the Brother's Head Fort. The goblins use explosives and continue to destroy the once mighty fort.
The Ruins of Brother's Head Fort. A place that was once a thriving rural city of many thousands in now a burnt shell of ghosts and goblins.
The Goblin Skycutters take over the abandoned ruin of the Brother's Head Fort. The goblins use explosives and continue to destroy the once mighty fort.
The Ruins of Brother's Head Fort. A place that was once a thriving rural city of many thousands in now a burnt shell of ghosts and goblins.Of the friendship of Elves and Dwarves
The House Fuhema is an elven City. Home to the Kurem Fuhema, the House of Flowers. Is is by the funding of the Kurem Fuhema and their powerful geomagic that Fiola the Scavenger is able to build the Hellian Fence from the House Fuhema to Felhenge. There are 200 elves living here and they do not have any alignment to the Northern war between the Starbloom and the Deep River elves. 
Chanela is the leader of House Fuhema and an eladrin spirit. It is by her magic that the fighting between the Men and the fay peoples of the Adellian Woods ends.
the Dwarves of the Gnarfold, led by Oethin Ambergut, march to House Fuhema after the destruction of Brother's Head Fort and are welcomed. A war front down the Salt Road sparks up with a newly united Adellian peoples and the infernal forces of the Cult of the Liege from Ragyiel.
The Sky Folk and the Dream Thieves
The Dream Thieves, a tribe of wild elves who live in the Adellian Woods keep up an extended guerilla campaign against the forces of Brother's Head Fort.
The Sky Folk of the Dry Canyon are not traditionally warring folk but align with the Dream Thieves against the People's army. Tolliver embermage learns that these normally peaceful people are indeed poisoned in the mind and soul by Radikos, the Demon King of Ragyiel. He beseeches Chanela of the House Fuhema to assist in the breaking of the spell. Just after the Fall of the Brother's Head fort, her efforts are successful and the fighting cesates in Adellian and the Dry Canyon.The Radian Knights
Keljmar is the leader of the Radian Knights. the Radian Knights are druids loyal to the COE but not necessarily to the People's Army. They are also called the Votaries.
The Radian Knights form an alliance with the Skyhunters of Gavin Wel to battle the Dreamthieves at Oratel. A particularly vicious fight with hundreds dead after the second Harvest Moon of 1103, just prior to the Fall of Brother's Head Fort and the undoing of the the possession spell of the Dream Thieves.The Hellian Fence, The Berenium Front
the Building of the Hellian Fence, as magically funded by the Fuhema House was actually begun before the fall of Brother's Head Fort. (click to enlarge)
Fiola, the Blind Druid, also known as the Scavenger has been building the Hellian Fence, which is actually a Lae line across the face of Berenium for many months. The Fence is designed as a defensive force against eh growing power of the Cult of the Liege from Ragyiel.
Tolliver Embermage is the policing force of the COE and the People's Army in the Adellian Woods and organized the retreat of refugess from Brothers Head to Felhenge.The Skyhunters of Gavin Wel
Niana the Gold, a sharpclaw shifter is the leader of the Skyhunter Griffon riders who are locked into an extended campaign against the Sky folk and the Dream Thieves, both renegade elven clans who are secretly possessed by the demon Rakydis from Ragiyel.
Shown here above the Red Tower at the Berenium front of the Civil War, one of the spear warriors of the reknowned Skyhunters flies a war griffon. With their large beaks and small hind legs, the griffons of Gavin Wel are carefully bred to preserve these features which makes them appears more fearsome and appear almost as flying lizards.Golifer, the Syphon Mage of Urboni
In the massive underground sewers of old Khepathia, a dark realm known as Urboni, benieth present day Berennium, just east of Brothers' Head Fort, the Syphon mage governs the Scab Clan, mutant goblinkind augmented by cathidic ritual.
Golifer, a Syphon Mage. has been stealing dwarven children from Gnarfold to sustain his experiments on goblin kind. The Sherriff of Gavin Wel Valley found him just before Autumn Feast in 1103 and destroyed his terrible machine.
the Scab clan Maulers no longer exist following the destruction of Golifer.The Stickarein Blade
The Stickarein Blade is the family blade of the Besallyn family. In Zarconus' hand as he grows in self knowledge, the sword is growing in power as well. The Sword is legendary and when combined with Zarconus' dragonmark, there are few who can suffer its might. The blade design itself was copied by the Council of Eagles for commission in the People's army in the early season of 1103. Nearly one thousand copies of the gold blade were forged.The Dragon Forge
Judy explains that there is an ancient demon of fire and smoke called the Hellspark who lives in the dragon forge, an ancient curse on the old weapon. Sensing the threat, the Hellspark bursts to life as Zarconus approaches. The beast is no match for the wielder of the Stickarein blade and is put down quickly before the power of the sword and the dragonmark.
The Dragon Forge is an ancient weapon of mysterious purpose. When Judy shows it to Zarcnous it is clear that it has something to do with the dragon mark stretched and burned with destiny across Zarconus' body. The ancient machine springs to life when the Claw of Bahamut approaches. (click to enlarge image.)
Judicia, or Judy, now a knight of the Platinum Dragon, meets Zarconus again for the first time since childhood at Niskantel. After the meeting with the COE, she shows him the Dragon Forge built long ago in the sandstone pits under Niskantel.Saturday, May 23, 2009
Avari and the Athenamancer
Genot-Paine is a pocket in the Shadowfel. Avari learns to travel there from Akon-Aht, her ancient book that reveals to her the deeper mysteries of the multiverse.
After being swallowed in Avari's arcane weaponary to his demise, the so-called, Anathamancer met his end in the void world of Genot-Paine a place inside Avari. The evil sword Rendgray remains powerful and Avari learns that its disenchantment may be a long journey, not simply the turning of a proverbial key.
Avari's apartment in Niskantel is appropriately above the library. It is her belief from her studies that she has the potential to shut down the evil sword Rendgrey as an evil force in the world. It may be that the mystery of this is the mystery of herself.
Rhyan Laurent, younger sister to the world's most famous bard, Julien Laurent, seeks out Avari and becomes friends with the young eladrin. Rhyan knows the space to find the Athenamancer, the creator of the sword Rendgrey.Tim Tigeon, Betrothed King of the Orcs of Thornbite!
Mslbrg, Orcish prince challenged Tim, the Sherriff of Gavin Wel Valley to the mortal combat ceremony of Naril Kwenosh. Ultimately a mating ceremony, it turns out that Mslbrg is L'gasi's ex-betrothed and this battle was to decide who would marry L'gacy.
In Orcish tradition, the battle itself, which took place in the Barbarian Circle outside of Maiah, is the wedding. In front of an audience of many hundred men and orcs, Tim bested Mslbrg and became the Khani Ahan, the War King of Thornbite, L'gasi's clan. Tim does not recognize the marriage and is ambivolent about L'gasi. After this perceived slight, L'gasi has left Tim and apparently traveled north out of the valley to fight the coming Blight at Femin.
In Orcish tradition, the battle itself, which took place in the Barbarian Circle outside of Maiah, is the wedding. In front of an audience of many hundred men and orcs, Tim bested Mslbrg and became the Khani Ahan, the War King of Thornbite, L'gasi's clan. Tim does not recognize the marriage and is ambivolent about L'gasi. After this perceived slight, L'gasi has left Tim and apparently traveled north out of the valley to fight the coming Blight at Femin.
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