Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
EN Publishing
Tizbiz Zeitgeist Campaign
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Lylandra" data-source="post: 7537721" data-attributes="member: 6816692"><p><strong>Four Fiends and a Covenant</strong></p><p></p><p>Session 32</p><p></p><p>The next morning, Carlyle is treated with a traditional cabbage-chili stew<span style="color: #008000"> (which is maybe just a more moist variant of kimchi?)</span> for breakfast. He then takes a stroll through the enclave to get a feeling for this place and its inhabitants. This way, he can witness the birth proclamation of a new son who had been born this night. There is a small celebration as the baby boy is presented to the public and given symbolic regalia of a warrior. </p><p></p><p>Carlyle then comes across a group of kids playing in one of the enclave's “parks” and is a bit astonished when he sees a big tiger guarding them as they play. He's even more surprised when the tiger seems to be eying him closely. After a while, he comes across the very same tiger as he passes by the nearby gardens. This time, the tiger approaches him, sniffs his hands and then carefully snatches his sleeves and drags him towards the garden. </p><p></p><p>He's not much surprised when he sees Matriarch Galadin there tending to a bunch of small sprouts. The tiger releases Carlyle's sleeve immediately and greets her eladrin companion by bumping her head softly into the Matriarch's upper leg.</p><p></p><p>“Thank you, Rajh. And good morning, Gabriel Carlyle. I hope you had a good night's rest and can assist me with my duties?” </p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(Yeah, Galadin is obviously part druid and has a tiger as animal companion)</span></p><p></p><p>She then hands him a rake and asks him to clear a part of the garden from fallen leaves and weeds. Meanwhile, Galadin asks Carlyle about his occupation and discusses some of her plants' characteristics. She's positively impressed once she realizes that Carlyle has quite the knowledge about alchemy and botany himself. When he goes a bit into more detail about the city of Flint and mentions the smog covering large parts of the industrial center in Parity Lake, Galadin leads him to an old bush, picks a fruit and passes it to Carlyle. </p><p></p><p>“Feanor bush. Eat it, remove the seeds and plant them in Flint. There's no better remedy against noxious fumes than its leaves”</p><p></p><p>Carlyle does as he is told and he's quite surprised to find that the fruit tastes much like a mixture of pineapple and banana. Galadin seems satisfied and then turns the subject towards her daughter. More specifically, she asks Carlyle how a deva who had once been a crisillyiri human would devote himself to living a life with an eladrin. </p><p></p><p>Carlyle stresses out again that he didn't fight in the war because he believed in some holy cause. He became a soldier because he had to, and he believed that he did his part to defend his country from the eladrin invaders. However, that war left its marks on him and when Srasama died and turned his body to ash, he felt as if something fused with him while a part of him died and left this world for the Bleak Gate. When he returned days later on the battlefield, he knew that someone had marked his soul, someone he now knows to be Srasama. He couldn't stand to stay in Crisillyir after the war and was lucky to find a new job in Flint, Risur. </p><p></p><p>He explains that he eventually ended up in the RHC where he met Auryn who, later on, became his partner. Carlyle then slowly but steadily grew closer to her while some uncanny feeling inside him made him care more and more for the fate of the Eladrin and, more specifically, Auryn. He talks about feeling the need to protect her and give her advice should she need it on her path. In addition, he can hear the voice of the goddess quite clearly when she calls to him and he has learned to trust in her. Regarding his wishes for the future, he'd follow a peaceful path of building a better future together with Auryn. He hints that the two of them might have more concrete plans, but he doesn't want to spoil their ideas without her being present. </p><p></p><p>Galadin seems satisfied with both their work and Carlyle's explanations. </p><p></p><p>“Very well then. You seem like a honorable man who has proven his worth to my daughter time and again. However, one obstacle remains: I cannot see my Auryn leading a fulfilled life without any children of her own. And as her mother, her happiness is pivotal to me. But I guess the two of you have already spoken about that topic?”</p><p></p><p>Carlyle nods slowly in response. He then replies that he knows about that problem quite well and he's also pretty sure that they'll find a way to solve it eventually. Galadin remains skeptical, but she releases Carlyle from his gardening duties. </p><p></p><p>After his return from the garden, Carlyle tells Auryn all about his talk with her mother. Auryn seems a bit surprised to see her mother be satisfied so easily, but she doesn't dig deeper into the subject. She quickly changes the subject to Matriarch Kaealys, who might have more information about Kasvarina and who might be able to give her advice as well. Which is why we head to Estelar to ask him to send Kaealys a magical message to call her for a meeting. Estelar agrees to send out a sending tomorrow as he's rarely contacting someone outside Pallita. </p><p></p><p>As we have another day to spare, Carlyle uses the rest of the day to get further acquainted with the enclave and its citizens. During the same time, Auryn reprises her training with Kalaren only to realize that the fiery warrior (and possibly Thorandil) is the only one who's on par with her. She explains that living in Flint and encountering diverse threats and opponents have greatly increased her combat skills, so the decision to stay in Risur for so long wasn't for the worse after all. </p><p></p><p>There is also a grand feast this evening to celebrate the return of both the Matriarch and her daughter with lots of traditional dances, food, music and beverages. As time grows late, we use this feast as an opportunity to show the other eladrin some cultural impressions from Risur.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(Turns out, eladrin don't know about ballroom dances. Or paired dances in general. Which is quite logical considering the fact that there are still more men than women in Pallita. They seemed to enjoy the “intimacy” though.) </span></p><p></p><p>The next morning, Estelar sends our message to Kaealys who replies that she's currently facing problems in a place called Sawyer. Which is why she cannot come visit Pallita anytime soon. Of course, this is less of a problem for us, as we decide to instead pay the small city a visit ourselves. So we ask wandering Meloreen whether he knows about Sawyer and it turns out that he visited the colonial city a few years ago, so he can share a vision of a suitable landmark where we can teleport to. So we say goodbye to Pallita for now and journey to the outskirts of the risuri colony called Kellandia. </p><p></p><p>On our way to the colony's only city, we come across a dead man, a carpenter, who had been living in a nearby wooden house. As he's covered in wounds that can only stem from an elven weapon, Auryn initially assumes that the local eladrin aren't too fond of colonialists, but the man's possessions inside the house indicate that he must have been a friend of her people. She remains suspicious about the man's identity, but Carlyle finds the token gifts of the eladrin to be convincing for an eladrin-friend. So we decide to give the man a proper burial and continue our journey to Sawyer. </p><p></p><p>We then find signs indicating that there might be an eladrin enclave nearby and decide that this might be just the right place to start looking for Kaealys, even if this means a small detour from our path to Sawyer. Thanks to her general knowledge about possible pathways to enclaves, Auryn leads the way to the enclave's true entrance, which is guarded by two veteran guards. Just as we're about to declare ourselves, arrows fall from the sky, wounding one of the guards. </p><p></p><p>We instantly search the sky for any signs of attackers and see semi-humanoid, winged creatures with bows that somehow resemble fiendish versions of eladrin. They call themselves servants and emissaries of King Kalenian Vardanis, the “Shining Light of Elfaivar”, who are here to carry out the order of their lord. Which means striking down all traitors who sinned against his empire. When one of them fires an arrow at Auryn, she turns visibly furious. </p><p></p><p>“You dare to lay a hand on the daughter of Galadin? I will show you no mercy for your crimes!”</p><p></p><p>She then throws a fireball at the four of them, only to see them looking down at her in surprise. Then, they burst into laughter as they are all immune to fire. Carlyle shares a flying spell with Auryn and then uses a warping strike to get close to two of the fiendish eladrin. This causes them to split their focus on both of us, which is quite fortunate as their aim is shockingly precise and their arrows are quite wicked. After a while, we manage to strike one of them out of the sky, but both of us get struck with arrows. </p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(“Do the Boromir” is quite the recurring phrase at our table. These four were actually quit the threat as they were based upon advanced erinyes devils. Who are immune to fire.)</span> </p><p></p><p>Carlyle dives after the falling fiend, manages to catch him and ties him up as soon as he's on the ground. As Auryn is still busy with the other opponents, a whole battalion of eladrin warriors rises to the sky to defend her. Just as she strikes down the second of them (and is about to go into a healing sequence), the warriors shield her and overpower the other two. </p><p></p><p>“Don't kill them yet! They may have crucial information!” Carlyle shouts from afar while dragging his prisoner behind him. The eladrin argue with Carlyle that these four fiends just harmed an eladrin maiden with an intent to kill and therefore deserve nothing but a swift death, but he can convince them to at least bring them to their Matriarch so she can judge them. </p><p></p><p>Some other eladrin warriors are worried about Auryn's condition as she pulls out the last of the arrows that struck her. She realizes that these are the very same eladrin who were wounded as well, so she asks them to stay calm for a moment while she uses a song of healing to close everyone's wounds at once. Only small scratches remain on her shoulder, and when Carlyle hands her a potion he prepared this morning to take care of the rest, she finds that it tastes very much like Feanor fruit. </p><p><span style="color: #008000"></span></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(flavored potions are a pretty sweet idea. He also mentioned that he got the fruit from Galadin.)</span></p><p></p><p>We are then led to Matriarch Eshaya to tell her about the fiend's ambush. The younger Matriarch is very concerned about the attack and explains that her people are currently living under pretty dire circumstances. And now that her main enclave has become a target as well, she fears that keeping up her alliance with Kellandia might not be possible anymore.</p><p><span style="color: #008000"></span></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(Yes, Eshaya shares her name with Cuin'halar's baby dragon. We're pretty sure that this woman is a whole different person though.) </span></p><p></p><p>We're intrigued about this mysterious alliance and ask the Matriarch to tell us more about her connection to the risuri colony. Eshaya seems quite relieved that we seem to be interested in her politics and so she tells us about the human settlers of Kellandia who, after some initial struggles, managed to co-exist peacefully with the people of her enclave. She explains that she has to thank Matriarch Kaealys for this opportunity as the “wandering Matriarch” helped her get in touch with the humans and their way of life. </p><p></p><p>After years of peace, Kaealys proposed a new project to both the governor of Sawyer and herself: Why not try something new, an open enclave where humans and eladrin can live together? She was a bit hesitant at first, but then decided to give this project a try, especially as the young eladrin grew more and more interested in their human neighbors and vice versa. And thus the “Covenant Enclave” was founded, an enclave not hidden behind fey magic. </p><p></p><p>Everything had been fine, until a week ago when merchants found the enclave completely abandoned. She can only assume that there must have been a battle inside the enclave as her own troops only found a few dead humans lying on the streets. As their alliance with Sawyer commands that matters of the Covenant Enclave are to be settled with all parties involved and her own enclave being rather small, she didn't dare to send her own warriors after the tracks left behind by the combatants. </p><p></p><p>Needless to say that we're both pretty shocked to hear about the enclave's fate. However, we can assume that the four fiends and their Mad King might have something to do with whatever happened to the Covenant, so interrogating them might be a good first step. We hint that we do understand that the eladrin want swift justice, but keeping them alive a bit longer might be more beneficial on the long run. </p><p></p><p>Eshaya replies that executing them wouldn't be her part anyway as the jurisdiction lies in the hands of governor Roderick who resides in Sawyer. She can allow us to interrogate her prisoners before they are being transferred to Sawyer though. Auryn reacts baffled at Eshaya's statement as she'd have never thought that a Matriarch would delegate so much of her power to a foreigner. </p><p></p><p>“More specifically, to a man...” she adds snarkily, only to be corrected by Eshaya that Roderick is actually governor Yvonne Roderick, she just goes by her surname as it is common in risuri tradition.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(First sign that something is amiss? Someone has to correct Auryn because she is making judgements based on mere assumptions.)</span></p><p> </p><p>She still finds the project intriguing if that means that Kaealys, Roderick and Eshaya finally found a method to let humans (or “other mortals”) and eladrin live together peacefully. </p><p></p><p>We then turn to the four fiends<span style="color: #008000"> (Rubicante, Barbariccia, Cagnazzo... okay... maybe calling them “Feladrin” is the more more elegant solution <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> )</span> and are being told by the guards that these guys are truly servants of King Vardanis. They were sneaking around and saw us enter the enclave, then decided to follow and ambush us. The guards also tell us that King Vardanis seems to view a collaboration between humans and eladrin as treachery, which is why everyone betraying the empire of Elfaivar has to be punished. </p><p></p><p>We ask the guys to maybe give us a try interrogating them as well and they fortunately see no problem with that. Auryn starts her questions being proud, even cocky, as she declares that “this little ambush” had been one of the worst-planned maneuvers she had ever seen, which is why these so-called “elite troops” of the “Shining Light of Elfaivar” aren't really as dangerous as they wish to be perceived.</p><p></p><p>“Now you're laughing at us, you arrogant little wench. We'll see how much you'll be laughing once you're the slave of our king.” one of them responds dryly. </p><p></p><p>“So your plan just turns from bad to abysmal. You would have deeply disappointed your slave-loving king then had you brought him my corpse, eh? Do you guys even <em>think</em> before springing to action?”</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, Carlyle stares at Auryn with a good amount of disbelief as he'd never actually seen her taunting someone like that. Fortunately, the Feladrin are just as hot-blooded as they seemed as they try to taunt back and state that the citizens of “that undefended enclave” had been easy prey and got all caught by the Enlightened, the elite soldiers marked by Srasama herself. When she asks him whether they are part of these “elite Enlightened” themselves, they laugh and explain that they've been empowered by a powerful ally of their King. Bit by bit, they then reveal that this ally's name is Acheral, herald of the Golden. </p><p></p><p>“Ah. So he's a lackey of Egil the Shimmering, Lord of the Golden Legion. A remnant of the demonocracy. Thank you.” says Auryn dryly before turning around and stating that she's finished here and mentioning that they'll all die very soon at the hands of the people they despise so much. The Feladrin are stunned as soon as they hear the name Egil and take a few moments to regain their posture. </p><p></p><p><span style="color: #008000">(And there it gets worse. The Mad Kings have always been a red flag for Auryn, but being actually attacked and heavily wounded by their agents really ticked her off. Heck, being attacked by eladrin alone shattered a good portion of her beliefs.) </span></p><p> <span style="color: #008000"></span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lylandra, post: 7537721, member: 6816692"] [b]Four Fiends and a Covenant[/b] Session 32 The next morning, Carlyle is treated with a traditional cabbage-chili stew[COLOR=#008000] (which is maybe just a more moist variant of kimchi?)[/COLOR] for breakfast. He then takes a stroll through the enclave to get a feeling for this place and its inhabitants. This way, he can witness the birth proclamation of a new son who had been born this night. There is a small celebration as the baby boy is presented to the public and given symbolic regalia of a warrior. Carlyle then comes across a group of kids playing in one of the enclave's “parks” and is a bit astonished when he sees a big tiger guarding them as they play. He's even more surprised when the tiger seems to be eying him closely. After a while, he comes across the very same tiger as he passes by the nearby gardens. This time, the tiger approaches him, sniffs his hands and then carefully snatches his sleeves and drags him towards the garden. He's not much surprised when he sees Matriarch Galadin there tending to a bunch of small sprouts. The tiger releases Carlyle's sleeve immediately and greets her eladrin companion by bumping her head softly into the Matriarch's upper leg. “Thank you, Rajh. And good morning, Gabriel Carlyle. I hope you had a good night's rest and can assist me with my duties?” [COLOR=#008000](Yeah, Galadin is obviously part druid and has a tiger as animal companion)[/COLOR] She then hands him a rake and asks him to clear a part of the garden from fallen leaves and weeds. Meanwhile, Galadin asks Carlyle about his occupation and discusses some of her plants' characteristics. She's positively impressed once she realizes that Carlyle has quite the knowledge about alchemy and botany himself. When he goes a bit into more detail about the city of Flint and mentions the smog covering large parts of the industrial center in Parity Lake, Galadin leads him to an old bush, picks a fruit and passes it to Carlyle. “Feanor bush. Eat it, remove the seeds and plant them in Flint. There's no better remedy against noxious fumes than its leaves” Carlyle does as he is told and he's quite surprised to find that the fruit tastes much like a mixture of pineapple and banana. Galadin seems satisfied and then turns the subject towards her daughter. More specifically, she asks Carlyle how a deva who had once been a crisillyiri human would devote himself to living a life with an eladrin. Carlyle stresses out again that he didn't fight in the war because he believed in some holy cause. He became a soldier because he had to, and he believed that he did his part to defend his country from the eladrin invaders. However, that war left its marks on him and when Srasama died and turned his body to ash, he felt as if something fused with him while a part of him died and left this world for the Bleak Gate. When he returned days later on the battlefield, he knew that someone had marked his soul, someone he now knows to be Srasama. He couldn't stand to stay in Crisillyir after the war and was lucky to find a new job in Flint, Risur. He explains that he eventually ended up in the RHC where he met Auryn who, later on, became his partner. Carlyle then slowly but steadily grew closer to her while some uncanny feeling inside him made him care more and more for the fate of the Eladrin and, more specifically, Auryn. He talks about feeling the need to protect her and give her advice should she need it on her path. In addition, he can hear the voice of the goddess quite clearly when she calls to him and he has learned to trust in her. Regarding his wishes for the future, he'd follow a peaceful path of building a better future together with Auryn. He hints that the two of them might have more concrete plans, but he doesn't want to spoil their ideas without her being present. Galadin seems satisfied with both their work and Carlyle's explanations. “Very well then. You seem like a honorable man who has proven his worth to my daughter time and again. However, one obstacle remains: I cannot see my Auryn leading a fulfilled life without any children of her own. And as her mother, her happiness is pivotal to me. But I guess the two of you have already spoken about that topic?” Carlyle nods slowly in response. He then replies that he knows about that problem quite well and he's also pretty sure that they'll find a way to solve it eventually. Galadin remains skeptical, but she releases Carlyle from his gardening duties. After his return from the garden, Carlyle tells Auryn all about his talk with her mother. Auryn seems a bit surprised to see her mother be satisfied so easily, but she doesn't dig deeper into the subject. She quickly changes the subject to Matriarch Kaealys, who might have more information about Kasvarina and who might be able to give her advice as well. Which is why we head to Estelar to ask him to send Kaealys a magical message to call her for a meeting. Estelar agrees to send out a sending tomorrow as he's rarely contacting someone outside Pallita. As we have another day to spare, Carlyle uses the rest of the day to get further acquainted with the enclave and its citizens. During the same time, Auryn reprises her training with Kalaren only to realize that the fiery warrior (and possibly Thorandil) is the only one who's on par with her. She explains that living in Flint and encountering diverse threats and opponents have greatly increased her combat skills, so the decision to stay in Risur for so long wasn't for the worse after all. There is also a grand feast this evening to celebrate the return of both the Matriarch and her daughter with lots of traditional dances, food, music and beverages. As time grows late, we use this feast as an opportunity to show the other eladrin some cultural impressions from Risur. [COLOR=#008000](Turns out, eladrin don't know about ballroom dances. Or paired dances in general. Which is quite logical considering the fact that there are still more men than women in Pallita. They seemed to enjoy the “intimacy” though.) [/COLOR] The next morning, Estelar sends our message to Kaealys who replies that she's currently facing problems in a place called Sawyer. Which is why she cannot come visit Pallita anytime soon. Of course, this is less of a problem for us, as we decide to instead pay the small city a visit ourselves. So we ask wandering Meloreen whether he knows about Sawyer and it turns out that he visited the colonial city a few years ago, so he can share a vision of a suitable landmark where we can teleport to. So we say goodbye to Pallita for now and journey to the outskirts of the risuri colony called Kellandia. On our way to the colony's only city, we come across a dead man, a carpenter, who had been living in a nearby wooden house. As he's covered in wounds that can only stem from an elven weapon, Auryn initially assumes that the local eladrin aren't too fond of colonialists, but the man's possessions inside the house indicate that he must have been a friend of her people. She remains suspicious about the man's identity, but Carlyle finds the token gifts of the eladrin to be convincing for an eladrin-friend. So we decide to give the man a proper burial and continue our journey to Sawyer. We then find signs indicating that there might be an eladrin enclave nearby and decide that this might be just the right place to start looking for Kaealys, even if this means a small detour from our path to Sawyer. Thanks to her general knowledge about possible pathways to enclaves, Auryn leads the way to the enclave's true entrance, which is guarded by two veteran guards. Just as we're about to declare ourselves, arrows fall from the sky, wounding one of the guards. We instantly search the sky for any signs of attackers and see semi-humanoid, winged creatures with bows that somehow resemble fiendish versions of eladrin. They call themselves servants and emissaries of King Kalenian Vardanis, the “Shining Light of Elfaivar”, who are here to carry out the order of their lord. Which means striking down all traitors who sinned against his empire. When one of them fires an arrow at Auryn, she turns visibly furious. “You dare to lay a hand on the daughter of Galadin? I will show you no mercy for your crimes!” She then throws a fireball at the four of them, only to see them looking down at her in surprise. Then, they burst into laughter as they are all immune to fire. Carlyle shares a flying spell with Auryn and then uses a warping strike to get close to two of the fiendish eladrin. This causes them to split their focus on both of us, which is quite fortunate as their aim is shockingly precise and their arrows are quite wicked. After a while, we manage to strike one of them out of the sky, but both of us get struck with arrows. [COLOR=#008000](“Do the Boromir” is quite the recurring phrase at our table. These four were actually quit the threat as they were based upon advanced erinyes devils. Who are immune to fire.)[/COLOR] Carlyle dives after the falling fiend, manages to catch him and ties him up as soon as he's on the ground. As Auryn is still busy with the other opponents, a whole battalion of eladrin warriors rises to the sky to defend her. Just as she strikes down the second of them (and is about to go into a healing sequence), the warriors shield her and overpower the other two. “Don't kill them yet! They may have crucial information!” Carlyle shouts from afar while dragging his prisoner behind him. The eladrin argue with Carlyle that these four fiends just harmed an eladrin maiden with an intent to kill and therefore deserve nothing but a swift death, but he can convince them to at least bring them to their Matriarch so she can judge them. Some other eladrin warriors are worried about Auryn's condition as she pulls out the last of the arrows that struck her. She realizes that these are the very same eladrin who were wounded as well, so she asks them to stay calm for a moment while she uses a song of healing to close everyone's wounds at once. Only small scratches remain on her shoulder, and when Carlyle hands her a potion he prepared this morning to take care of the rest, she finds that it tastes very much like Feanor fruit. [COLOR=#008000] (flavored potions are a pretty sweet idea. He also mentioned that he got the fruit from Galadin.)[/COLOR] We are then led to Matriarch Eshaya to tell her about the fiend's ambush. The younger Matriarch is very concerned about the attack and explains that her people are currently living under pretty dire circumstances. And now that her main enclave has become a target as well, she fears that keeping up her alliance with Kellandia might not be possible anymore. [COLOR=#008000] (Yes, Eshaya shares her name with Cuin'halar's baby dragon. We're pretty sure that this woman is a whole different person though.) [/COLOR] We're intrigued about this mysterious alliance and ask the Matriarch to tell us more about her connection to the risuri colony. Eshaya seems quite relieved that we seem to be interested in her politics and so she tells us about the human settlers of Kellandia who, after some initial struggles, managed to co-exist peacefully with the people of her enclave. She explains that she has to thank Matriarch Kaealys for this opportunity as the “wandering Matriarch” helped her get in touch with the humans and their way of life. After years of peace, Kaealys proposed a new project to both the governor of Sawyer and herself: Why not try something new, an open enclave where humans and eladrin can live together? She was a bit hesitant at first, but then decided to give this project a try, especially as the young eladrin grew more and more interested in their human neighbors and vice versa. And thus the “Covenant Enclave” was founded, an enclave not hidden behind fey magic. Everything had been fine, until a week ago when merchants found the enclave completely abandoned. She can only assume that there must have been a battle inside the enclave as her own troops only found a few dead humans lying on the streets. As their alliance with Sawyer commands that matters of the Covenant Enclave are to be settled with all parties involved and her own enclave being rather small, she didn't dare to send her own warriors after the tracks left behind by the combatants. Needless to say that we're both pretty shocked to hear about the enclave's fate. However, we can assume that the four fiends and their Mad King might have something to do with whatever happened to the Covenant, so interrogating them might be a good first step. We hint that we do understand that the eladrin want swift justice, but keeping them alive a bit longer might be more beneficial on the long run. Eshaya replies that executing them wouldn't be her part anyway as the jurisdiction lies in the hands of governor Roderick who resides in Sawyer. She can allow us to interrogate her prisoners before they are being transferred to Sawyer though. Auryn reacts baffled at Eshaya's statement as she'd have never thought that a Matriarch would delegate so much of her power to a foreigner. “More specifically, to a man...” she adds snarkily, only to be corrected by Eshaya that Roderick is actually governor Yvonne Roderick, she just goes by her surname as it is common in risuri tradition. [COLOR=#008000](First sign that something is amiss? Someone has to correct Auryn because she is making judgements based on mere assumptions.)[/COLOR] She still finds the project intriguing if that means that Kaealys, Roderick and Eshaya finally found a method to let humans (or “other mortals”) and eladrin live together peacefully. We then turn to the four fiends[COLOR=#008000] (Rubicante, Barbariccia, Cagnazzo... okay... maybe calling them “Feladrin” is the more more elegant solution ;) )[/COLOR] and are being told by the guards that these guys are truly servants of King Vardanis. They were sneaking around and saw us enter the enclave, then decided to follow and ambush us. The guards also tell us that King Vardanis seems to view a collaboration between humans and eladrin as treachery, which is why everyone betraying the empire of Elfaivar has to be punished. We ask the guys to maybe give us a try interrogating them as well and they fortunately see no problem with that. Auryn starts her questions being proud, even cocky, as she declares that “this little ambush” had been one of the worst-planned maneuvers she had ever seen, which is why these so-called “elite troops” of the “Shining Light of Elfaivar” aren't really as dangerous as they wish to be perceived. “Now you're laughing at us, you arrogant little wench. We'll see how much you'll be laughing once you're the slave of our king.” one of them responds dryly. “So your plan just turns from bad to abysmal. You would have deeply disappointed your slave-loving king then had you brought him my corpse, eh? Do you guys even [I]think[/I] before springing to action?” Meanwhile, Carlyle stares at Auryn with a good amount of disbelief as he'd never actually seen her taunting someone like that. Fortunately, the Feladrin are just as hot-blooded as they seemed as they try to taunt back and state that the citizens of “that undefended enclave” had been easy prey and got all caught by the Enlightened, the elite soldiers marked by Srasama herself. When she asks him whether they are part of these “elite Enlightened” themselves, they laugh and explain that they've been empowered by a powerful ally of their King. Bit by bit, they then reveal that this ally's name is Acheral, herald of the Golden. “Ah. So he's a lackey of Egil the Shimmering, Lord of the Golden Legion. A remnant of the demonocracy. Thank you.” says Auryn dryly before turning around and stating that she's finished here and mentioning that they'll all die very soon at the hands of the people they despise so much. The Feladrin are stunned as soon as they hear the name Egil and take a few moments to regain their posture. [COLOR=#008000](And there it gets worse. The Mad Kings have always been a red flag for Auryn, but being actually attacked and heavily wounded by their agents really ticked her off. Heck, being attacked by eladrin alone shattered a good portion of her beliefs.) [/COLOR] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
EN Publishing
Tizbiz Zeitgeist Campaign
Top