#draws out long tears at the crest of its jubilation

[ammonitetestpatterns]

released on bi-joopiter in 1994.

[400legends]

Wrongs righted

Quojin

The sun filters through the open windows, motes and a small beetle dance upon the sweet air. It is a beautiful spring day. There is the scent of dew and grass and earth and a rich earthy aroma of rough milled grains and gentle spices simmering on the fire waft up to you as you gather up your belongings. A bedroll… a waterskin… some torches… and hanging on the wall across from the bed, a five sided shield emblazoned with the family crest and an open eye, Trava. You’ve been hired to protect a ranch from some evil-doing. Though you don’t plan to be gone very long, if there’s one thing you know from communing with the ancestors is that you have to follow where evil leads you.

[roll Perception 5] A youngling tries rather unsuccessfully to climb the stairs stealthily and sneak up on you, Dajiv.

[wait for response]

“Mama! Did I surprise you? I can be an adventurer, too! I’ll just sneak up on the evil ones and bop them in the head and they’ll run away never to hurt anyone again! Do you think that I can be a hero like you?”

[wait for response]

“Quojin, Dajiv! Come down to breakfast!” your husband calls up. Heading down to the dim kitchen/dining area, a wave of gratitude and melancholy overcomes you as you see Dajiv’s father place a hand on his head before handing him a steaming bowl of oats. Dajiv will be well taken care of. Sitting in your chair at the head of the table is an object, very poorly wrapped in string and large leaves and oddly shaped.

“It’s for you! I made it myself!” [very quietly, a whisper] “They’re magical…”

Carefully opening the package, you find two very smooth river stones. On one, written childishly with some unknown pigment and misspelled in Draconic, is the word “Mommy” and on the other is “Dajiv.”

“They’re sending stones! That way we can talk to each other while you’re away. I prayed really hard to our ancestors, for like almost an hour, so they must be magical! Do you want to test them out?” You do not have to be a wizard to know that these stones are not magical.

[wait for response]

You finish breakfast, but not before regaling your family with a story. Though the journey was not delayed for more than an hour, the story spanned centuries and generations, but isn’t that the way of stories?

“I suspect that you’ll be gone for a while, but by the time you get back Dajiv will be ready to consider a vocation. He has the temperament for adventuring. Do you think that you’ll be ready to squire him if he decides thus?”

[wait for response]

“Either way, we’re always with you. The ancestors are with you too, but this I don’t have to tell you.”

“We love you ma-ma!”

“Go with our blessing and bring safety to others who have not been so blessed. We love you.”

As you take your leave, walking alongside your horse to save its stamina for tougher trails, tears of happiness and gratitude stream down your face. In the sun of this spring day, the ancestors truly smile upon you. You are blessed.

Threnody

The sun rarely touches the ground in the alleys and backstreets of the capital very much unlike the palatial balconied bedroom you left not long before dawn. While the heat is overbearing midday and you can often find all sorts of unsavory types here finding respite from the heat, in the early morning the hidden paths are free of observers and ne'er do wells. The door you’re seeking is almost perfectly camouflaged but your keen eye and long practiced experience seeks the hidden edge and after a quick glance to ensure you’re unobserved, the door is pried open with your dagger. You close the false door behind you and find yourself in a pitch black entryway, facing a steel door. Two quick knocks, pause, one, pause, then three. The door opens and you find yourself face-to-face with your trouble-making but golden hearted older brother, Fabian.

“Come, quick, I have news!” He says and grabs your wrist, not unkindly to draw you into the hideout.

Looking around you see that there are fewer refugees than usual, and you’re not sure if that’s good or bad news. Normally, this place is pretty packed with hungry, tired, travel-worn people. Many children would seem especially scared, not from any perceivable imminent danger (if there were danger, the children are the last to know), but from their unusual and unstable circumstances and the osmotic pressure of the worries of adults.

[roll Insight, adv 10] Fabian is in particularly good spirits, it seems like he’s been able to house or relocate some of the families after all, into better more permanent circumstances. 

“... and I couldn’t have done it without the help of the Thieves’ Guild. They’re the ones who smuggled them out of here and got them to their new homes! And that brings me to why I’ve summoned you…” a long pause, the wide jubilant grin turns into a more sheepish smirk.

“I may have promised them that you’d help them out with a little problem they’re having overseas…” He averts his gaze expecting you to lash out at him for volunteering you to cavort with this shady institution that he’s ensnared in.

[wait for response]

A small girl, dragging a tattered blanket interrupts the conversation. “Do you have any sweets, Ms. Lady?” You do.

[wait for response]

“She was separated from her family in the last skirmish, poor thing. We still haven’t been able to find her family, but the Guild has contacts. Doing a favor for them, could help her and dozens of others that we haven’t been able to house yet for one reason or another. The Guild just wants someone to discreetly deliver a package to their contact overseas, an apothecarist, and deliver a message to a rancher in the same town. No, not that kind of message, a piece of paper. Then, you’re free to head back. Favor complete. Easy peasy. Because of the embargo, they need someone who can travel freely without being searched. So, what do you say?”

[wait for response]

“I know you have to make it back before Cathilda finds you missing. No questions, no lies. I’ll stay here and await your return. When we get back, maybe the conflict will be over and we can swap stories over drinks!”

You know that with Fabian’s stubbornness, disdain for government, and his fiery desire to help those less fortunate, that some shadowy entity or another will curtail his efforts, but if he’s clever enough, not his life. He’s smart and capable, you just have to trust that he’ll be okay.

Exiting the hideaway, the purple-orange of the early morning sky has shifted to blue, signalling that you’ve been here too long. Time to hurry home and convince your parents that you need a vacation. To book passage across the foaming eastern sea and into the heart of adventure. Secure in the knowledge that the little girl and others like her will be okay. Eventually they will be as free as you feel, when you’re off on your own, carving your own path, and sowing your goodwill unto the world.

Ferris

Walking through the near pitch black of the Underdark is never easy, but with good enough vision, experience, and a familiarity of the dimly bioluminescent lichens that populate the dank caves and tunnels, one can make do. You started your sojourn to the small lagoon hours ago. A place in which you have found yourself spending more and more time communing with the very few small insects, mammals, lizards, and bleached, sightless fish that have wandered in from closer to the surface. There’s life everywhere, even in the deep, if one knows how to watch for it. Both of the times you’ve made your way to the surface with your father in order to engage in commerce with the more skittish traders, you marvelled at the diversity and abundance of life up in the sun, even as fearful, mistrustful eyes follow you through town. You long to spend more time on the surface and one day you will once you know your father is taken care of.

Up ahead you see the silhouette of a thin elf, slightly hunched, and wearing the long flowing robes of a priest. He’s hurrying towards you.

[Perception check, adv, DC 10] You would know that shape anywhere, though the pace at which he moved threw you off for a bit.

“Daughter, my most precious onyx, you must follow me back to the village. A most unusual thing is happening now. No questions, please follow.”

Elves, being nearly immortal, don’t tend to suffer the maladies of age like most, but Riklaunim is bold and passionate, unusual characteristics for a Drow, let alone the clergy. He raised you to cherish life and truth, to be practical, and not to hold the ideas of good and bad as precious. His poor posture came from an accident that stemmed from an attempt to cure your mother from Saint Vitus Dance, a debilitating and ultimately fatal neurological condition that resists magical intervention. He never expected to be a father, he’s told you multiple times, but he couldn’t leave you to be raised as an orphan after all that. While there were times, as a baby where he sometimes wished he’d made a different decision, now he would gladly trade his valuable life to ensure that yours is happy and long.

As you approach the village, you notice an unusual amount of light radiating from the center. Fire! You never see fire in town. There is no need for heat since the temperature never changes, most food is eaten raw, and the fires for forges and other creative ventures are relegated to caves closer to the surface where the gases can be vented safely to the outside world. Even light required for reading and walking about is cast by plants carefully cultivated for that purpose.

“Stay your hand, young one. All is well. Shade your eyes and come with me.”

With apprehension, closing in on the center of town, your keen eyes see what appears to be the lanterns of travellers casting some of the light, but also fire dancers flipping and swinging balls of fire around. Around them, light-skinned creatures large and small perform feats of strength and acrobatics while singing. Two carts of goods and two very nervous looking mules are being tended by yet another of this troupe.

“You see. Some brave traders and entertainers have braved the dangers of our world.” Traders can be useful but you don’t really see the point of the entertainment.

[wait for response]

“They call themselves the Brood. The dwarf you see there is the business manager, Wermek is his name. The gnome singing is in charge of the entertainment. Apparently, they travel far and wide to ply their respective trades. Apparently it’s profitable to go where others aren’t. The young ones were afraid of the light of course, many had not seen such before, but once they were assured, it brought joy to them. Just come watch for a bit and see if there’s anything we can trade for, then we can return to our pending duties.”

The music wasn’t unpleasant. The fire was interesting, sure. The vendor seems to have a decent selection.

[wait for response]

[if browsing wares] The dwarf shows you his wares. The lightness of his skin is strange to you but he seems friendly enough, which is also strange. The duergar are not friendly; they would certainly try to stab you and take your possessions if you weren’t very careful in your dealings with them.

[Investigation check, DC 10] You find some clever, well-crafted shiny items that will help you and your father survive here, trading away a few of your smaller sapphires for them. There are some remote caves and crevices that are positively lousy with “precious” stones and gems.

[if watching fire] The three dancers had ropes with flaming balls at the end of them. They danced in circles, weaving fluidly between each other, the balls of fire never stopping or slowing. Occasionally, they would draw intricate patterns that would leave mystifyingly beautiful afterimages when you closed your eyes. Sometimes the fire would switch directions seemingly defying physics, making one wonder how much of this was mundane and how much magic. Once, all three stopped to take a drink of something and spit it out facing the crowd. Massive draconic flames spewed forth above the audience’s heads. “But they’re not dragonborn?!” one kid says incredulously. They take their bow before taking a break before starting up again in a couple hours.

[if listening to music] The gnome steps forward. She is small, but with a vitality and vibrancy that is unique. Her sly, soft, sultry smile, like the keenest dagger blade, deceptively powerful and holding wild, dark secrets. The voice you heard before was tinny from the poor acoustics of the damp cave and the distance from which you heard it. Now, her voice, soft, powerful, reverberated through your chest, sucking the air from your lungs, making your head swim and your eyes water. She sang in Gnomish and though you didn’t understand a word, you felt the heartache, regret, and furious vengeful rage of her aria. Your eyes meet and the corners of her mouth twitch upward in a smile. She winks at you and turns to belt out the next verse to the other side of the semicircle in which the audience listens, some with tears, some with fierce grins. None of the onlookers are distracted or impatient. The song reminds you of the wild raw energy of life. You are invigorated.

The gnome approaches you, nimbly hopping up a boulder nearly her height to look you in the eyes, speaking in Common, “Hi there! My name is Bimpnottin. I hope you liked the show. I saw you in the audience. What did you think?”

[wait for response]

“The acoustics in this place is lousy but the moistness of the air is good for the vocal cords. You’re beautiful. What do you do here?”

[wait for response]

“What do you want to do?”

[wait for response]

“This job is all about partnerships and recognizing talent. I have a feeling about you. If you love life follow us, help out, travel, and see all sorts of things. Have you ever been to the beach? Our next stop is a lovely little village. It has a ranch, a swamp, a great sea, you’d love it. What do you say? There’s no risk really, no commitment.”

[wait for response]

[if mentions father] “Well if you can’t, I understand. We’re gonna stay for a few more hours, then head for the surface, we could use a guide (we nearly got lost on the way down). I hope you come, I rather like you!” She bends over to you and kisses your cheek.

You talk with your father about this interaction, no secrets between you, and he looks relieved. He tells you to live and not worry. “Come visit often and what you do in the meantime is your business as long as you’re happy.” After making some arrangements with some villagers to make sure he’s taken care of. You pack lightly, you don’t need much when you can forage. Bimpnottin waves to you. It’s time. You take your leave from him, catching up and then leading the troupe slowly towards the surface.

It’s time to meet the light and live your life. Barring an accident, your father will be there. The safety of the dark falls behind you and you exit the caves that you spent most of your life into a verdant forest full of life. You breathe deeply and look back at the gnome. “That’s more like it!” She says. “I love that smile on you!”

Jennora

The time spent at Temple was a necessary evil to appease your family, but frankly it feels like a waste of time. You respect what your parents are trying to do, afterall the righteous causes and opulent equipment are what the Jewelcrusher clan is known for. You, however, are more of a scholar. Sensitive to your inclinations, your family has urged you to pursue life as a Cleric, but why should you limit yourself to one particular kind of magic, why limit yourself to the workings of the divine, when there is so much power to be had from daliences with dark entities. You dedicate yourself particularly to the study of dark artifacts and weapons carved from shadows. It’s been awhile since you swore a blood pact to a hexblade and you’ve felt yourself grow stronger with its power. Growing up with warrior parents and within a collective heritage of weapon making gave you a unique insight into this arcana, but you know you lack experience.

As you head home from a tedious, you detour, heading to a dusty remote crevice in the mountainous terrain. The crack in the rock is tight, but soon you find yourself in a small clearing with an opening to the sky, spare grass, and a single sickly tree. Here you practice summoning and dispelling your spectral blade. 

[Perception or Nature check DC 10] Occasionally you stop to take note of the bones of some forsaken animals who had the misfortune of finding their way in and not making it back out. Absently, you think about all the generations of dead who must be all around us. Surely there are more people dead now than alive.

Knowing that you’ve been gone long enough and that your absence will be missed, you head back home. Upon arriving you find your parents waiting for you with a book of dark arts that you had hidden under your bed sitting on a table.

“Where did you go? What were you doing?” your father starts.

[wait for response]

Your mother: “We’re worried about you, what are you doing with a book such as this? Don’t you know that these spells and magic are evil? This goes against everything that we stand for! Please, explain yourself.”

[wait for response]

“Tell us why we should let this continue” mother again.

[wait for response]

“Please excuse yourself, young one, we need to talk amongst ourselves and contemplate what you’ve told us.”

This was ridiculous. You are not a child, granted you are lacking experience, but whose fault is that? They never let you go anywhere. Maybe it’s time to strike out on your own. It’s likely though that without their blessing, they’d come after you and hunt you down to bring you back. After the discovery of the book, you’d be lucky to escape town at all. You’re on lockdown.

The next morning, you greet both parents at breakfast. The majority of the tension seems to have left the room and through their bloodshot eyes you see nervous excitement.

Mother begins, “We talked long into the night. We trust you. You are our most…”

“...most precious gem.” You finish exhaustedly.

“But you are!” she continues, “We think that if anyone could use the dark arts for good, it would be you. This was not an easy decision to come to and the ethics of it had us going around in circles, but we came up with a way for you to continue your studies in good conscience. Ground rules…”

They were being far more understanding than you anticipated, but the idea of rules holding you back makes you a bit queasy.

“No blood magics, no evil deeds, and you must always protect the innocent. Do you understand? Lastly, always understand the price. Don’t pay the price for magic in a way that endangers your soul.”

You can’t tell them about the pact of the Hexblade.

Your father speaks up, “I happen to know someone in a sleepy seaside town that studies this sort of thing. Train with him and travel and learn about the world. That you would keep such a secret from us means that we can no longer control you, nor should we. You are your own dwarf and you should be out writing your heroic deeds upon the face of the world. Make us proud and don’t forget your way back home.”

You are speechless. Tears well up in their eyes and they smile back at you with joy and the endless enduring love of family. You will become powerful, perhaps the most powerful Jewelcrusher to ever have lived. The dwarves eons from now will know your name and though you may spend endless hours in libraries, crypts, tombs, and other dark places, your heart is light and sings out with the joy and resilience of your clan. You’ve never been to the beach before. Best to start packing. Tomorrow is a new day.

Globnar

In a shallow hillside cave, not far from the capital, four small trails of slime glisten in the sun that filter through the canopy of tall pine trees. Slugnar is clearly the fastest, but Snugnar has been known to occasionally surprise you when properly motivated with its incredibly long stride or glide or whatever it is. The other two are there just to make it interesting. Your large bulky muscular frame is delicately hunched over the event, your gaze a model of concentration and interest. Snugnar can still do it, but it has to make its move now! Dognar, helpfully, is barking at this proceeding, maybe sensing your excitement or maybe to hurry them along. Either way it’s welcome, the noise gives the whole event a sense of urgency. He knows that the two slower ones, likely the untrained newcomers, will be a treat, so there’s that too.

The solitude suits you. Lately, you’ve been feeling a bit of uncharacteristic loneliness, but when that feels strong, you redouble your efforts in training Dognar. Dognar is… challenging. Not bad, not that you’d ever characterize any dog as bad, but Dognar definitely likes to follow his own path, a sentiment that you understand intimately. Also, you trust Dognar and he trusts you. You’ve always looked after each other ever since you came across the lost mastiff puppy years ago.

But before this snail race can come to its thrilling end, Dognar suddenly falls silent, walks to the edge of the cave looking toward the west where the bulk of the forest lies and beyond that the Great Sea. At once, Dognar whines and collapses onto the cave floor. You rush over to see if he’s okay.

[Medicine check DC 10] There’s a tiny spot of red in one of his eyes as though a blood vessel burst. You snap your fingers around his face to check his reflexes and at first he doesn’t seem responsive, but then, slowly, he seems to regain his senses. Within a seemingly eternal minute or two, Dognar seems to be himself again but just very tired.

Like any willful adventuring canine, Dognar is not a stranger to injuries. You try to avoid it, but Dognar is Dognar and stuff happens. For minor injuries, you bandage him up and have him take it easy, and for more major situations, you employ a healer in town. One day it is likely that Dognar will literally bite off more than he can chew, but generally some scrapes and pulled muscles won’t stop him from protecting who he loves most.

This, however, is not like a normal injury, and not like the injury of the old either, as Dognar’s been on the road adventuring for years now. That hard life tends to age furry companions prematurely and that’s doubly so for our larger friends. What’s going on?, you think.

[Animal Handling check DC 10] Dognar looks at you. Never before have you seen a more human face on him, a face that seems to say, “I want to tell you something.” With all of the considerable force of your intention and love that you can muster, you place your forehead to his and think, Tell me, what do you know, friend?

A dizzying array of images, no it’s more than that… memories, pummel your unprepared mind into submission. Already kneeling, you keel over with the pressure of the experiences of a whole other life. 

The angel boy falling from the sky, the battle with the sahuagin, the fireside chat with the man in black and his gift of tarot cards, the grand city of New Gilead, the gunslinger training, the light battle with the baby as its victor, the wizard’s mangled memory, the tanks, and the first orb, the time jump, the mines of the dwarves, the death of Arthur, the town of Crag and the blood stones and the missing children, the mysterious jungle temple with poison and death around every corner, the next time jump, the lobstrosities and the werecamels and the great vast desert, the vast seemingly endless tomb, the inscrutable sphinx and weakened djinns, the mad mage, his eternal love, and the time dragon, the angelic intervention and a trip through the bowels of hell, the bloody fortress and a battle with a fallen angel, and yet another time jump, a time of separation and contemplation and the reunion at a hunters cabin, a frost mage and a flying castle of giants, a myriad of strange battles within levels of the tower, a world across planes bureaucratic and heavily factioned, a trial with a demigod as judge, a town in need of saviors for kidnapped children, an adventure into a strange, magicless future world, a corporation formed to protect reality, mechanical wolves, a sleepy prison town of psychics, a grand illusion of homecoming and fellowship, and at last a field of roses, the song of creation and the tower that holds it all together. 

A wet cold nose nudges you awake. You remember this past life vividly. Your head vaguely throbs and as you sit up you realize that Dognar must’ve experienced the same thing. No wonder he was acting so strangely. A question comes to you immediately, Why? Why do I, we, remember this?

[Insight DC 10] You realize that this has nothing to do with you, or the other, or even tower, at least not directly. When you stood before Gan in that other life, we had all made wishes in our secret hearts, but the wish that won out, the one most virtuous and loud that rose to the top and straight into the ears of Gan is that of Dognar.

Dognar wished simply to live a happy life with his friends, not as they were, but as he sees them at their best. Void of the strife and heartbreak so common in life, but full of the vitality and adventure and love that they had for each other throughout.

You understand what you must do and immediately start to pack up camp. It takes you a moment in the hubbub to find Snugnar and Slugnar and put them back in the box you made for them, full of their favorite foods. You toss the other two slugs up in the air and Dognar catches them nimbly. You pause as you look into the radiant sea of green and gold that is common to most forests when the light is just right and the wind is relatively still. A track appears on your grimy face as a single fat tear makes its way down your cheek.

A bark breaks the silence. Dognar looks up at you expectantly. It’s time to meet our friends again for the first time. Dognar seems to understand this and leads the way into the forest, down the hill, and towards the sea. That shadow of loneliness that’s been following you lifts as the sense of wild possibility that permeates any true adventure takes its place.

[wait for response]

Beyond the sea of green and gold lies everything that makes life worthwhile. In Lan’Repus, friends unite as though they never parted, sharing in merriment and joy, in drinks, stories, warm hospitality, and hugs. 

In your dreams and trances you hear the sweet chorus of the rose. It sings its song of creation, safe because of the greatest creative act of all. Love.