wierdw

Sovereign's Will: A Fantasy Roleplaying Game. [CONCLUDED]

Cedar was well and truly flummoxed. Not just confused, or bewildered, but outright flummoxed.

He had just gone from what had been the worst possible treatment in his life, to being scurried via cramped back allies and byways into the single most auspicious 'human home' he had seen since his dad had taken him past the ruins of 'that damned #%@&ing tower'. His dad had not really wanted to say anything about it, except that it was a monument to the hubris of 'civilized' races, was a 'gaudy death trap', and 'no-one sensible would get caught dead in it.'

Unlike that tower though, which had practically glowed from top (it stretched up higher than seemed possible, and the actual top could not even be seen) to bottom with arcane magics, this place was just fancy wood and plaster set inside ornate but common stone masonry.

Lots of stone masonry. More than he ever had seen in a single dwelling before, and the shere size of it? There couldn't be a rational explanation for a single man to need a house like this.

It was a confusing and jarring mix of long hallways, high and low ceilings, doors that must have taken whole trees to fashion, and others that did everything imaginable to try and blend into the walls. Hallway, after hallway, after hallway, after hallway, and more stairs than he wanted to see in his life ever again. He literally had no idea how to even get back out again, yet all the people he was with seemed just fine with it.

No wonder dad cursed like he did about 'rich #%$&ers'.

At least he had some idea of where all the wood the loggers insisted they needed likely ended up. He silently agreed with his dad, this was just shamelessly and brutally wasteful, for not readily discernable reason.

Anything that wasn't made of a dozen hills worth of quarried and shaped stone, at least a square mile of forest's timber, or enough plaster to coat every surface in mystville 3 times over, was swaddled in the most brightly colored fabrics, garish of paints, or gaudy of metal foils. He recalled that his dad had compared that tightly and magically sealed tower's interior to a 'castle' like this when he had asked about it. 'Gaudier than a #%&$ing castle! Glowing jewels and gold encrusted like SH*T in an outhouse on every %#&$ing surface!' An' the stairs! Don' get me started on them %#&$ing stairs!'

He remembered asking what a castle was, and was told 'a big assed house for people with more money than they has sense, built ta keep people out, and ta make emselves look more fancy 'an theys needs ta. Noplace for nobody decent, 'ats fer sure.'

Looking at the insides of this one, he could not help but agree. WHY WOULD somebody actually NEED a house like this? The king, he had been told, was 'like a mayor, only for an entire nation of people,' and could command thousands of people with weapons and magics to march on small settlements like mystville, burn them to the ground, and kill everyone there with ease, if they felt it wss needed. That's what the villagers had described as 'war' to him. it was shortly thereafter that he had agreed it was for the best that such a thing not come about, now nor anytime soon, and had impressed upon him how important it was to prevent.

And it was why he was here, now. In this house that nobody sensible could possibly want to live in.

His thoughts momentarily reflected memories of his own place; a simple one-roomed wooden structure, where the floor gave way to a nice, big cozy hole stuffed full of cottonwood fluff, and in the rest of the room, just a single wooden bench, a wide flat table, a fireplace, some shelves, and some hooks to hang things on. It was far more sensible to a single person's needs than this place, that's for sure.

He really felt very, very out of place, and that he simply did not belong.

Being too big for any of the furnishings only magnified this feeling. He very much wanted to sit down to digest these thoughts, and to reflect on the mission this 'king' fellow had given him, but he could tell just by looking that not a single one of them was anywhere near strong enough nor wide enough for his ass. The comedic and tragic death of a chair would certainly be the only plausible result from such an attempt.

Somehow, that only made the 'lack of usefulness' of the place more poignant.

He was interrupted from these thoughts and observations by the oddly tall and quiet woman who had done NONE of the things miss Matilda had strongly impressed upon him were 'required honors and protocols when meeting the soveriegn', (such as calling him 'your highness', or 'your majesty' (despite being neither tall, nor majestic..), kneeling when in his presence, and other silliness, and had remained oddly quiet the entire meeting), who was now standing up tall, boldly asserting a loudish 'Greetings', and blasting him with some kind of magic that made him feel more naked than he did in just his fur-- somehow.

He couldn't tell if the glow in her eyes was blue or purple, but there was a definite glow.

He timidly leaned on his staff in leu of finding a chair, looked at the woman (who had pointed ears and smelled... different...), and then gruffed back

"Is there .. something I can help you with, Miss? You seem to be.... looking... for something."

Sovereign's Will: A Fantasy Roleplaying Game. [CONCLUDED]

(over a month earlier)

It was getting to be midsummer in the hamlet village of Mystville. (A tiny logging community, nestled deep into the foothills of a more remote part of Meche, adjacent to one of the remaining primordial forests of the continent.)

Cedar had only just come into town, and sauntered to the magic shop, as was his custom on such a visit. His real objective was with the logging guild steward, but he always made time to visit his friends in town. Flo and her brother ran the combination library and magic shop, and were some of the few people in the town that were friendly to 'somebody like him.' Flo was a half-arachne, while her brother was fully human. The shared life of a fellow demi-human was a thing he had bonded with the pair over, though Flo was much older than he was. His dad had told him it was impolite to ever ask a woman's age, so he never did. She was the bookish type, that spent all her days casting webs in the corners of the library, sorting books, and reading from her collection, waiting for patrons to pay a visit. Though sadly, few did.

Flo's brother, Vanquis, however-- He was something else. In a variety of ways.

He was fully human, and a clever sorcerer, but absent minded, prone to fits of fancy, and tended to skip steps in his projects that he regarded as unnecessary, (Despite often being quite required). He was a typically jovial sort, always happy to have him, or his father come for a visit.

As it had been recounted to him, in the year before he was born, there had been a terrible calamity that had struck the town, as an itinerant magician going by the name of Axios had ventured deep into the forest, and had stolen the embryonic shell through which the local incorporeal forest spirit that resided in the primordial woodlands surrounding the town was incubating to reincarnate itself, as it did every so many centuries. The magician had taken to the fanciful notion that it could steal the forest spirit's powers through a terrible ritual, and attain demi-god status in the process. His father, himself a wandering soul, had simply found his way to their doorstep after being cast out of multiple forest homes over the 40-long year sojourn he had undergone, when he had abandoned his prior life-- or so he had said. At the time, his father was little more than a wandering homeless man, who's rough life experiences had granted him some token measure of connection with the natural world. A thing he had considered hard-won, and precious. After arriving in town, he learned more about the calamity that was going on, in as much as the villagers themselves knew at the time-- and joined in on the local operation to get to the bottom of it, and correct it if possible. Over the course of that year, his dad met his mom, fell in love, slowly learned the art of nature magic, and gently and carefully pried parts of the forest away from the by then entirely deranged and aged forest spirit, as it clawed and bent its forest and inhabitants into twisted and brutal minions, in its desperation to track down its infantile vessel, and reclaim it-- and subsequently-- onto himself. He was not interested in gaining power for himself, he was only interested in ending the unbearable suffering of the forest and its creatures, as the entity at the heart of the wood went steadily and completely mad.

A long story short-- His father eventually learned the horrible truth, then confronted the wizard Axios, culminating in a terrible battle that left wounds on the earth, destroyed part of the edge of town, but succeeded in reclaiming the lost 'seed', before venturing once more into the deepest parts of the wood, confronting the by then nearly completely demented forest spirit. Upon the return of the seed, the spirit promptly died, and in the process, was immediately reborn-- The process of which, his father had helped oversee, after striking an accord with the spirit. The damage to the woods was severe; the animals sick and dying. Even with the successful rebirth, the forest would go into sharp decline, as the infantile scion would not be mature enough to fully oversee the healing and regeneration of the wood. Being already heavily connected with much of it by that time, and having shown a genuine, sincere devotion to that purpose, his father had been bound on the spot. He could no longer properly leave the forest from that day onward. He spent his days spreading seeds, carrying water, tending to the sick and dying beasts of the wood, and pouring the fullness of his craft into healing the wounds that had been carved into the soil by the calamity.

Then, as a surprise to his dad and mom-- He had been borne to them that winter, along with his twin brother, Oak.

Needless to say, when his father "One-eyed Jack", (as he called himself) brought the two of them to the town for the first time, about 2 years later, it had been a scandal. The villagers were not at all pleased to hear that their 'very strong suspicions' about him, and his "relationship" with "That bear of his" had indeed been correct, and not only correct, but "Had borne fruit."

About the only people in town that had any appreciation for this development, were the siblings that ran the magic shop, and the blacksmith in town, who was friends with them. His dad had taken the two of them to see the former, for "Magical aptitude testing"-- which he and "Mama" (His bear life-companion) had underwent the year before, before Jack had embarked down the path that had landed him squarely where he is today.

That was 8 years ago now.

The short end of it-- was that he had been born gifted with a profound affinity for nature magic, while his (technically, by a matter of moments) older brother Oak, had gotten the short end of that stick-- no magical potential at all. Sadly, to the dismay of his father, Oak slowly became sullen, angry, and withdrawn, and essentially ran away from home, first taking refuge with the magic store siblings, then getting essentially adopted by the blacksmith. He works there to this day, working iron into axes, and saws for the sawmill, and plows, rings, fittings, and other essentials for the farmers.

Today however, his intended visit to see his friends and brother in town, took an unexpected turn. Vanquis had apparently gotten another of his fool-headed notions, and had attempted to convert a small bird-bath outside the shop into a lunar scrying pool. He said it was to try and keep abreast of the latest news and happenings, since the village was so remote as to sometimes not even show up on county maps-- and so other than the usual buyers of the wood harvested, there was very little traffic to and from the place, making them effectively cut off. AND-- like pretty much ALL of his little diversionary experiments-- he had neglected a step... Or twelve...

While the pool had in fact "Functioned within reasonable expectations", it of course, exploded-- also "Within reasonable expectations", according to Flo. The issue, is what Vanquis had SEEN in the pool, prior to that explosion.

Despite the isolation of the town, it depended quite heavily on trade with the much more urban and prosperous kingdom of Kinderance, which was the major buyer of its wood products. Wood from mystville was highly prized for its natural resonances with magical phenomena, in addition to its unique beauty and durable qualities, stemming from its deeply magical nature-- what was seen-- an attempt at assassinating the king of Kinderance, by agents that appeared to be agents of Meche-- fortold of a new calamity for the town, as it would be completely unable to endure a war between the two kingdoms it served-- which would be unavoidable, if the plan succeeded.

Being a small town, and only just a few years after a calamity that had killed many of its citizens and livestock, the town was only just NOW starting to get back on its feet again. Everyone was tied up with the essential tasks of harvesting crops, meeting wood cut quotas, and otherwise ensuring the recovery of the village-- not a single man was free to pass on the dire prediction-- and, to put it mildly-- Vanquis' "Reputation", put the "legitimacy" of his prophetic vision at more than just a bit of a disadvantage.

Such was the state of affairs, when Cedar paid his visit.

Due to his being seen as an "Obstruction" to the town's restoration (since he spent his days helping his dad with restoring the forest, and tending to woodland critters-- NOT to assisting the town, like his brother Oak), when he suggested that he could go, and warn the king of Kinderance, or at the very least, do what he could to prevent the war, if possible-- it was settled far more quickly than he would have liked--and was handed a small sack of gold coins, and ushered onto the road before he really had time to have what had happened sink in-- He didn't even really have time to visit with his father about it. (though the magic shop owners asserted they would tell him, when he next came to visit.)

-------------

A week and a half ago

Cedar had finally arrived in the capital of Kinderance, after a very long and mostly uneventful walk up the road. When he arrived, he had wasted no time in trying to determine the status of the king's life, by enlisting the aid of local birds and other wildlife to spy on the castle-- When he had arrived, news of the assassination of the king had been on everyone's lips, and at first, the castle did not dispute the implications. Fearful that he had arrived too late, he had taken matters into his own hands to try and learn whatever he could to apprehend the villains responsible, and to plead before the royal court to not go to war with Meche-- and had enlisted the help of numerous wild birds and small animals--squirrels, rabbits, and the like-- into watching the castle, the city gates, and other prominent areas of interest, whereupon he learned that the king had survived.

What he did not expect, was that the king himself had his own resources, including local practitioners of the natural magical arts, who had likewise, enlisted similar aid-- and they ratted him out, innocently.

One night, as he slept outside the city gates draped over a log, like he was apt to do in the summer, he was ambushed, rendered unconscious, and drug to the city's dungeons for questioning, where he was interrogated, prevented from seeing sunlight, interviewed by the local druid leaders (who were not at all polite), and in some instances-- even beaten. The treatment lasted for days, until one day, without notice or explanation, he was interviewed by a strange orc woman, who had offered him a deal.

Join in a service to Kinderance, or rot in his cell for the rest of his life.

He chose service-- Was given his clothes back, hastily washed with buckets of water doused on him, then released into the orc woman's custody. She said very little, and even admonished him for trying to ask, as she led him toward the castle...

-------------

Present

Cedar was very confused. Apparently, a lot had happened in the week he had been rotting in the city's dungeons. Nowhere in the dire warning that Vanquis had recounted, was there an abduction-- just the assassination. He grunted to himself in irritation-- Vanquis's contraptions never did work quite right-- just like him to only get PART of the message.

At the opening given by the king to ask questions, Cedar took the opportunity.

"Your highness--" he gruffed, in a slow, deep baritone voice that betrayed his heritage (and a very 'rural hick' accent), "I dunno know who is responsible fer yer son's abduction. I don' know if'n yer guards let ya know er not, af'er they beat it outta me, that I came here to warn ya, or in any way, prevent a war between yer lands, an' the kingdom of Meche. The village of Mystville, strongly wants peace between our lands. Any transgres'ion I may have made, I did so to 'at end. I deeply regrets 'at I arrived too late."

"And that is why you were selected." Said the king curtly. "His highness has been fully briefed about you."

He nodded, then looked down solemnly.

"I'll do what I can-- jus..please, do what ya can too.. Don' go ta war..."

Sovereign's Will: A Fantasy Roleplaying Game. [CONCLUDED]

So far, there has been a review process in the discord we have been meeting in. Joining the discord is optional, but advisable.

There is a desire to avoid the creation of Mary Sue, and co. Other than that, it's pretty open.

Sovereign's Will: A Fantasy Roleplaying Game. [CONCLUDED]

"Cedar"

Name: "Cedar"
Species: Half-Bear
Age: 8 (physically adult)
Gender: Male
Appearance: 10ft, 550lbs. Unusually long torso. Tawny brown fur with dark brown grizzling.
Claws are aggressively trimmed and filed down to thick nubs. Concealed in thick holocaust cloak/robes, gloves, and heavy boots. Carries a coarse wooden staff. Cloak decorated with typical druid paraphernalia. Colorblind (Yellow-green)

If disrobed, and on all fours, would pass easily as just a very large bear.

Bio: Offspring from the "sordid" (depending on who you ask) relationship between a forest hermit and a she-bear. Learned his craft and appreciation for honesty, integrity, and reverence for natural beauty from his dad. His "Good looks" from his mother.
Shy/sentimental. Has a brother the same age, and numerous younger siblings. Due to events in his home province before his birth, his father is magically connected with a rather expansive magical woodland, which suits him fine. Local logging town and his dad have a 'mixed feelings' relationship about each other. Cedar helps with diplomatic solutions. Is still young and naive in many ways, but shockingly adult and mature in others.

Skillset:
Woodcraft,
basic potion lore,
basic anatomy,
ecology.
Possesses "Speak to animals" spell-like ability.
Superhuman strength.
Superhuman sense of smell.
Low-light vision

Spells:
"Enhance/grow vegetation"
"Entangling roots/vines"
"Light heal"
"Detect magic"

Equipment: Dark brown and green 'holocaust cloak'/robes. Large wooden staff. Small hand axe. Small boot knife. Ball of twine. Antler knapping tool. Flints.

Other: Will arrive 'later' than other players.

Sovereign's Will: A Fantasy Roleplay Game. (Currently Open, And Accepting Players)

OK, I'll throw in.

Name: "Cedar"
Species: Half-Bear
Age: 8 (physically adult)
Gender: Male
Appearance: 10ft, 550lbs. Unusually long torso. Tawny brown fur with dark brown grizzling.
Claws are aggressively trimmed and filed down to thick nubs. Concealed in thick holocaust cloak/robes, gloves, and heavy boots. Carries a coarse wooden staff. Cloak decorated with typical druid paraphernalia. Colorblind (Yellow-green)

If disrobed, and on all fours, would pass easily as just a very large bear.

Bio: Offspring from the "sordid" (depending on who you ask) relationship between a forest hermit and a she-bear. Learned his craft and appreciation for honesty, integrity, and reverence for natural beauty from his dad. His "Good looks" from his mother.
Shy/sentimental. Has a brother the same age, and numerous younger siblings. Due to events in his home province before his birth, his father is magically connected with a rather expansive magical woodland, which suits him fine. Local logging town and his dad have a 'mixed feelings' relationship about each other. Cedar helps with diplomatic solutions. Is still young and naive in many ways, but shockingly adult and mature in others.

Skillset:
Woodcraft,
basic potion lore,
basic anatomy,
ecology.
Possesses "Speak to animals" spell-like ability.
Superhuman strength.
Superhuman sense of smell.
Low-light vision

Spells:
"Enhance/grow vegetation"
"Entangling roots/vines"
"Light heal"
"Detect magic"

Equipment: Dark brown and green 'holocaust cloak'/robes. Large wooden staff. Small hand axe. Small boot knife. Ball of twine. Antler knapping tool. Flints.

Other: Will arrive 'later' than other players.

[Closed] Lost RPG

"I'm not sure coin would be of much use in our current predicament.. Maybe as a raw material.. I'd be more apt to break with my normal rules on the matter, and take a 'favor' instead. Not like I expect you to 'jump ship'."

Ember made an amused chuckle.

"As for the materials, there's no real need to consider substitutions just yet-- Sure-- I might have broke you what good dahling, but it's not like the pieces simply vanished. Silly boy, they just got shot all over. Not anywhere near the same thing-- There's so many spells made for finding 'lost objects' that it's an entire hall in the university library. In this case, a simple charm will suffice-- Being as the little mishap "Just happened"."

He made a self-satisfied, and amused pursing of his lips, before flicking the wand up and side to side, as if casting a net of invisible threads.

"Now then-- there we are..."

He made one more flick just above the broken shell of "Henri's" chest, then mere seconds later, small bits of white material came floating inbound wrapped in silvery clouds, discretely gliding into position like hauntingly animated puzzle pieces. In a matter of moments, the "missing" pieces of the shell were replaced by a heavily fractured jigsaw of white shards, held in place by the silvery effervescent cloud.

"Now then.. Let's see what we can do about mending it back up... You might notice some differences after the patching-- Without investigating the charms more deeply, this is just putting the materials back in place, and fusing them back together. I'll have to tease out that "Rat-nest" you have whizzing about in there later. But at least you wont look so tatty."

The faintest glimmer of light shone between the pieces, little sections at a time, as the disheveled mage delicately mended the small shards back into place, and pushed the offending iron bits back off, before deciding to use them as a kind of external reinforcement brace. The integrity of the patch could not be assured without fully delving the magic involved in its construction, and a simple, crude frame on the outside would at least help prevent radical fracture until a proper mending could be done.

Then, the shell patched as much as current circumstances allowed, he moved on silently to the burned concealing garments the doll was wearing, now fully within his element of expertise. Myriad tiny threads were spun from the nearby organic filth on the beach, and woven perfectly and imperceptibly into the damaged fabrics, restoring them to like-new in mere seconds while ember hummed bemusedly.

"Now then-- I tend to be a stickler about favors dahling-- You don't have to pay up until after I fully fix this.... Fuckery-- but I expect no hesitation or backing out once it's done. I don't know what I will want from you, but I'll hold it in confidence until then-- No shirking. Well? Go on-- give it a go."

He leaned back on the footlocker. He was glad of being seated. He doubted it would be wise for him to get up and walk around just yet.

[Closed] Lost RPG

@Grade

"And don't you forget it, dahling." ember intoned as if it were simply a matter of fact, before sitting back down (a bit roughly, with a plop) on the footlocker.

On the one hand, it had felt rather nice to "blow the cobwebs out", but on the other... He felt his headache coming back on, and felt dizzy.

There were very real, and important reasons why he relied on the use of a focus. For starters, it actually restricted the flow to something more... sensible... and on the other, it afforded much needed fine control. A good deal of the effort he expended when using magic was not so much in getting the magic, but in getting it to BEHAVE. He was altogether too familiar with the 'cheekiness' and 'ironic disposition' magic tended to get when lots of it got thrown down, haphazardly. He would not be at all surprised if this particular spot on the beach had "anomalies" for a few days. If not right away in fact.

He looked at 'Henri', and felt a momentary pang of sympathy. If he preferred to stay tethered to a beat up wreck that just got a molten magic enema, his body--wherever it was-- must truly be in a bad way. He vaguely recalled the man had mentioned cryogenesis. Perhaps he was just so damned old, that he had considered this as a means of cheating death-- who knows. Regardless, that floppy broken arm was just sad.

"Well-- Let's see about that arm then-- " he sighed, reaching back down and reclaiming the wand from its resting place on the sand near his feet. "It just wouldn't do to leave you in something so tatty..."

He started with a gentle probe-- thin streamers of invisible magical force, delicately threaded through and over the surface of the damaged shell 'Henri' was controlling, looking for signs as to its construction, raw material composition, and any obvious signs of otherwise hidden damage.

It appeared to be a somewhat unusual composition-- clearly highly refined materials-- technically a "ceramic", but not like what you would find from your average potter; the materials were not naturally found in such a precise ratio. It was clearly a custom job. As for the magic-- it twisted this way and that at the attempt to scry it. Usually this meant that it had been warded against prying eyes, or at least formulated in such a way as to discourage duplication. Some of the more expensive magical apparatus one could buy had such clever tricks woven into them for such purposes, but this went above and beyond mere frustration in mind.

"Well...." mused ember with a frown. "It might take some doing-- I can try to collect the raw materials but..."

"You can't fix the enchantments, I know."

"Oh, I COULD if I truly cared to invest the time to unravel the fuckery you've got going on in there-- but I'm not sure I want to for a charity case dahling."

[Closed] Lost RPG

"Oh? You think so do you, "henri"? well then..."

Ember discretely put the wand down, and extended his bare hand.

"I need the focus for control-- It's a tool-- an instrument. It's useless without the hand of the musician-- but if you want to see what I myself am--- "

Ember grinned mischievously. He was CERTAIN this would knock him back down again, and kick him in the balls hard for doing, but this little shit needed the lesson.

with a sudden thrust of his right hand, he placed it palm down on the man's chest, then inhaled more than just the air. The fire sputtered and threatened to die, and the sky seemed to lose some of its azure hue, while ember himself seemed to practically intensify in the color of his hair, lips, and eyes-- a technicolor spectacle, as a huge sum of the ambient, native magic in the vicinity got drawn toward and into him.

"Bear in mind, dahling, I'm NOT at full power..."

Bright incandescence erupted between the joints of the mechanical form, as it rapidly absorbed the torrential flow, reached saturation, then attempted to expel the excess to avoid damage. ---The flow continued, and increased.

"When I said it would pop my wand, I wasn't kidding, dahling--- So, is this enough, or do you need more?"

That wicked smile of his seemed almost demonic, with the intensity of the magic flowing through and around it.

The flow continued to increase...

Ember had EVERY intention of popping this little doll like an overinflated balloon. Swirling sigils and magical formulae that had been laid when the shell was cast began to become visible, swirl, and writhe on the surface of the shell, then after-echos of the casting rebounded in the intense barrage-- a subtle whispering of female voices--

"SO, it was a GROUP effort--" mused Ember with a titter...

The flow increased even more....

[Closed] Lost RPG

"A rose by any other name, smells just as sweetly dahling. I am who i choose to be. You cant get more liberated than that."

ember smiled.

"As for looking for a 'recharge', you're barking up the wrong magician right now. Besides, I'm not going to pop my wand on someone like you dahling. My REAL power cannot be properly... Conducted... by a mere sentimental trinket like this dear. I packed lightly, for a vacation-- not a bloody war. Cough up a proper focus, and we'll business."

Ember smiled wickedly.

"No? Well then. I think that would be all."

[Closed] Lost RPG

Ember momentarily had a quixotic expression,but quickly suppressed it.

"You want me to --- Wait, are you trying to get me to sever your connection, and send you home? Is that it? Smash up your "china doll" enough that the sending fails? --- Why ever would I do that?" ember cooed naughtily, then smiled even more wickedly.

"Or is there some OTHER reason you want me to make a glowing hole where your chest is? In either case, it would take a great deal of explanation to my companions here why I had done so..."