Questars - revisited

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

I just re-read my earlier post and realized how incredibly -dry- it was...

Let me try this one on one more time:


Umari, our coampaign world, is a home brewed world with a generous mixture of Greyhawk and FR components. Lammoria is the Kingdom, modeled after a mixture of fantasy kingdoms (Midkemia among them).

Prologue:

Lillias - Human Female Cleric/Mage
Lillias brushed a lock of her hair from her eyes as she peered into the sacred texts of Boccobs writings in the Temple Of Boccob where she now lived. Briefly, she considered her estranged mother and father, both mages in the western continent, and her own humble beginnings. Shaking her head violently enough to fan her hair across her shoulders, she tried to regain enough concentration to focus on the text. It was her acolyte training text that she had been given to study, but it was proving harder to master than she had thought. Her mind drifted to the mysteries the elder cleric had shown her, and she pondered the nature of Boccobs gift for a second, before she forced herself back into the book again.
A moment later, she shook her head in despair, giving up for the time being, and slammed the book shut. Disturbed dust motes rose from the pages, attracting her attention sharply by glinting and glimmering an odd, cold white. She shivered as she felt power threading through the room, and eyed the still glimmering dust motes with suspicion. It was only last week another student had played a severe practical joke on her.
The dust motes glinted in the light from the window, then began swelling into an oddly shaped, pure white bird. It opened it’s beak and she heard, only within her mind, not with her ears, a faint whisper ‘Boccob Calls’. With that, the bird floated slowly toward the door. Bemused, she stood and opened it for the bird. As the bird drifted out, a strange sensation gripped her mind, and she felt the sudden urging to follow it. It led her out of the temple and into the street outside, past her mentor and the temple’s Revered One, both of whom stood gazing at the bird with awe. As it passed it them, it’s wings unfolded to reveal a darkness blacker than night, scattered with pinpricks of white, where it’s torso should be. The Revered One watched her go, then called ‘Fare Well this life, Chosen One. Do well as a Questar!”
The bird flew on, and she found herself following it for many days, oblivious to hunger, thirst, and her surroundings. Finally, she found herself on a dirt path leading up to a solid wooden door sunk into a hillside. The bird disappeared into the door, which was suddenly flung open to reveal an elderly human gentleman.
“Welcome, Welcome, says I, Strephinus, Seneschal of the Academy, who greets you this fine morning!”
As though waking from a dream, Lillias starts, then stares around her. Off in the distance, she can make out a huge sprawling city that could only be the Capital – Eledissil – of Lammoria. She turns back to Strephinus, saying “What is this place? Why am I here?”
“Ahhh little one… You did follow a creature of white and black unrelieved save by stars of twinkling white, did you not? You were led here as you were divinely called forth from wherever you have lived, for you have been chosen by the Gods to be a Questar of Lammoria.”
With that, her heart nearly stopped, and the fragile young woman almost swooned. The legendary Questars, she thought to herself. They who could make decisions and judgement’s as binding as any courtly herald? They who could overrule the magistrates without a second thought? And I am chosen to be one?
“Wha?? Why me?” She finally stuttered.
“Why, because you were chosen. Please, come in. I’ll show you to your waiting quarters. The rest of your Quad will be here soon, it just works that way. Come in, child, come in.”
Finally, reluctantly, Lillias walked into the Questar academy for the first time, embarking upon a new life for the second time in her few years. She had abandoned her magical parents for her temple of Boccob, now she had left the temple for a life with the Questars.

Tull: The Human Fighter
“Put your BACK into it, you maggot farmers!” screamed the drill sergeant at his raw recruits. Tull wiped his massive brow with the back of his hand, and leaned again, cursing his size for the millionth time. Sometimes it was good to be big, like how fast he’d been accepted as a recruit into the Royal Army even though he was only a young farmer’s son. Other times, like now, it was a curse. The sergeant and his companion recruits expected him to do more than his share, as though being bigger automatically meant he could do more. He cursed, grunted, and laid into the ground with the shovel yet again, wondering why a recruit in the Royal Army was digging roadside drainage trenches.
A distant whinney distracted him, and he looked up in time to see something that flashed white disappear behind a thick stand of trees. For a moment, he was startled, distracted just long enough for the sergeant to notice. Blocking out the sergeant’s screams and insults as much he could, he bent back to his work again. Suddenly, something large knocked the sergeant sprawling, and a soft nicker pulled his head back up. Startled, he made eye contact with the horse that suddenly appeared from nowhere. However, as soon as he made eye contact, he knew, in his heart and soul, that this was not a horse. His eyes locked into deep, empty eyes that reflected back to him an aching loneliness, a vast empty region where distant lights twinkled to each other and him, in a velvety darkness blacker than night. Shaking his head to distill visions of incomprehensible distance, he noted the horse stood an easy 20 hands high, and was solid white, an almost glowing white, from head to tip of tail to hooftip. The only non-white part were the eyes. A sudden compulsion overcame him, and he strode to the side of the horse and leaped up onto it’s bareback. The moment he was astride, he was filled with an incredible sense of rightness, that all was right with the world, that this was where he was meant to be. The horse stepped out past the sergeant, and moved away at a trot. Looking after him, the sergeant was heard to say “Gods will, youngling, gods will. Indeed, gods willing, ye’ll be a fine Questar!”
Two weeks of travel brought Tull to a dirt path in a grassy hill. They trotted straight up the path even as Tull waked from what felt like a daydream. He was suddenly aware of hunger, thirst, even his own smell. The horse walked right through the wooden door, but he was rudely bumped off and dropped to the ground painfully.
The door promptly swung open and a wizened old human stepped out, pronouncing “Ah! You must be Tull. You are expected. Please do come in. Let me show you the bath room, then your waiting quarters where your quad is forming.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Tull followed the old man inside.


Author: The Prologue was more detailed than I had done previously, but all the players seemed to enjoy the academy as being the mechanic to pull them together. I just wanted some kind of mechanic that would hold them together - I'd had too many starts into this campaign falter and fail due to lack of party cohesiveness - different characters would just 'decide' to split from the party permanently .

Next post - Farley's Prologue, and the Quad Meets Attila.

 

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

Prologue (con't):

Farley, the halfling bard:
Jonato listened to Farleys voice, shaking his head slowly. When the song ended, and the family was moving around again with awe in their eyes, he called his grandson over to him.
"Farley," he said, "your voice is wasted here. You should go and put it into the service of those who are righteous. The Bardic Guild or the Royal Army."
"But grandfather, my place is here, with the family!"
"Balderdash son, you need to take that gift of yours and share it."
The conversation was an old one, oft repeated, and it fell upon deaf ears these days. Farley was convinced his place was was with his family, and the family business - farming of smokeweed.
Two weeks later, his grandfather lay dying of a heart condition the healers could do nothing for. Farley was at his side day and night, trying to ease his passage. Finally, after the old man had begged him, Farley agreed to journey to Eledissil and try out for the Bardic Guild.
In a wheezy, gasping breath, his grandfather spoke to him, "Thanks, grandson of mine. I served the Royal Army and I wanted your dad to do so, but he never did. Give back to the people what they gave for us all. Search under the big oak in the south forty, you'll find my old, trusty..." The old halflings voice faded away into a whisper and then he was gone.
Farley and family moaned and mourned for the obligatory two weeks. Eventually, Farley searched under the big oak and found a sling of pure white leather that almost glowed. He placed the sling under his pillow as a reminder of his grandfather. He almost forgot about the pledge he had given, losing himself in the family business. That is, until the dreams began. About a week after he placed the sling under his pillow, he began to have dreams about a beautiful faerie that haunted his every waking minute. She seemed to be beckoning him to come to her, and the ache in his heart for his grandfather melted a little more with every dream he had.
One day, he saw her in broad daylight, a transparent, four foot tall pixie of pure, glowing white with wings of purest black, spotted with twinkling white dots. She held a familiar looking sling in one hand, and was beckoning to him with the other.
Racing back to his bed, ignoring the cries of his family, he checked for his sling. It was gone. With a cry, he ran out and towards where he had lost seen the pixie. When he got there, he saw her again, not to far away. Again he ran toward her, but she seemed to always be just out of reach, or just dissappearing around the next corner of the road. For a full two weeks he chased her, day and night, not realizing he was never hungry or thirsty. One misty morning, he charged up a dirt path on a grassy hill to a solid wooden door mounted in the hillside. Just as he reached the door, an old gentleman opened it and welcomed him in, taking him to a waiting room.


The Story Begins:
Lillias, Tull, and Farley found themselves in the same waiting room. Lillias, strikingly pretty human in clerical robes, was speaking quietly to Tull about his experiences when Farley was brought in. Questions abounded as to why they were where they were, and, for that matter, where here was.
They fell silent a moment later, as a figure drifted in the open door of the room. Great gossamer wings of pearlescent, scintillating colors beat slowly, holding the incredibly perfect, four foot tall humanoid female off the ground. Of the people present, only Farley had ever seen a pixie before, but he recognized her at once.
"I'm sure you all have many questions, all recruits do as a rule ." Spoke the pixie in a firm contralto that was as pleasant as the soft chuckle of a pure mountain stream over rocks smoothed with age.
"I can tell you where you are, which is the Questar Academy, and why you are here, because you were divinely summoned by the patron gods of the academy, blessed be they in their anonymity. I can tell you that your past is past, you have begun a new life here as Questars. If you truly do not wish to be here, you may leave freely. However, in my experience nobody ever selected has ever willingly left the service." She smiled at them.
"I'm sure you have many questions. Please, feel free to ask me of them. I'll answer as much as I may, though your instructors will likely add detail."
Lillias was the first to speak "The Questars? I am honored to be summoned to the service."
Tull responded to both Lillias and Attila, "I am a recruit in the Royal Army, and as such, I would like to return there as I was brought here nearly against my will.
"Nay lad, ye were summoned here 'ginst your will, there be a difference, ye know. Would ye turn your back on the gods themselves asking you to serve them directly??" Farly spoke up in a poised manner, his south halfling accent clearly showing. "I'm thinking ye should at least be trying this service, and if ye be worried about deserting your post, as I understand it, the Questar summons transcends all other mortal laws..."
"Quite right Farley - Tull, you need have no worry about your sergeant, he sent word just a few days ago to keep an eye out for you, and to take good care of you."

After reassuring each individually, and explaining a few concepts about their training time at the Academy, Attila left them in the hands of the seneschal to enroll in various classes that would teach them their responsibilities as Questars, the vaguities of etiquette in Lammoria, and the Lammorian Judicial System. Lillias opted to enroll in additional classes to expend her magical abilities, and Tull chose to enroll in additional physical combat training courses. Farley enrolled in just the basic classes, finding himself weaker by nature than most of the people around them.

Next Post: Training finished, First trial mission undertaken.