The Deep Court and the High Court 2014-08-20

The Deep Court

The Deep Court partakes of all the dreams of fabulous undersea kingdoms.

Its main races are the Mer, the Selkies, and the Myriapoda, with others under their dominion or protection.

The Deep Court proper is headed by a triumvirate of a leader from each main race.
For almost all purposes, the Queen of the Mer and the Queen of the Myriapoda make all decisions, with the Queen of the Mer presiding at court.

The Court perches on the edge of a cliff above an abyssal deep. Within the inky depths of the abyssal canyon awaits the entrance to an Umbral initiation path.

A strong Umbral enchantment alters air-breathing guests so that they can breathe underwater within the area of the Court. Eidolon initiates may have difficulty assimilating this alteration. There is a crystal bubble above the Dry Garden beside the Deep Dock for those who cannot accept the alteration.

Queen Myriada of the Mer holds court with beauty and grace of form, voice, and speech. She appears as a golden-haired mer-woman with a powerful, scaled fish's tail below the waist. She may carry a trident or gaff, whether functional or in ceremonial miniature. She is attended by merfolk and swift fish.

Mapping the Grand Stair by Reaches 2014-08-04

A sketch suggesting an arrangement of the Grand Stair into well-connected Reaches and a set of paths spanning the distance from one Reach to another.

Based on looking back over Bruce Baugh's description of Eternity Ridge as full of ruins, I may switch its position with The Slow Road or The Lost Highway.

Marks of Eidolon and Umbra Initiation 2014-06-03

This post has some character sketches based on a house-rule character quiz I drafted related to the physical and psychic scars of Umbra and Eidolon initiation.


Eidolon Initiation

Pick a defining quality of your character from before their Eidolon initiation, whether physical, mental, or social. Describe how the Eidolon has amplified, sharpened, and perfected this quality.

Pick a particular aspect of beauty, harmony, or order to which the Eidolon has fostered a special affinity in your character. What aspect is it and how does that attraction show up in your personality, behavior, or appearance?

Pick a habit, obsession, or pattern of behavior that the Eidolon has anchored in your personality. What are you stuck on, and how does it haunt you?


Umbra Initiation

Describe a defining quality of your character before their Umbra initiation, whether physical, mental, or social. The Umbra has consumed this part of your essence, destroying or completely warping and transforming this quality. How does this loss or transformation affect your new identity and how you deal with the world?

There's a particular sort of symmetry or order that you're least patient with, after all, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. What form of order do you find most tiresome?

Pick a particular kind of Umbral flaw you're most attuned with, easily perceiving and exploiting it. What is it? How are you most prone to meddle with it?


1. Basileus, The Unthroned, The Tyrant-Rebel

The Stoneborn 2014-03-26

A slow dream, a slow climb toward waking. Slow rumbles vibrate through flesh. A growing itch quickens my awareness. There is a crack, a crumble, a cough, a breath, and here, sputtering, blinking dust and crumbs in the dazzling light, here am I looking out upon a tiled pavement littered with broken stone. Water trickles somewhere I cannot see. Thirst calls me to it.
I struggle, held from behind. Looking down, I see my body is half-merged in a wall that looks half-melted, crumbling where it touches me. The hollow stone mask of a face lies below me on the pavement.

I push, pull, twist, trying to free myself. The rock around my shoulders and arms breaks, showering fragments. With arms, I can push, I can break the crumbly edges of the rock around my body. But my legs are held fast, and hammering with soon-bloodied fists avails not.

A tool handle sticks out from the rock beside me. I pull and twist. It has a double head, knob and spike. I hammer and spike my way out of the wall. It is too much at first to stand and walk, so I sit, looking across the pavement to where it ceases between pillars that no longer support a roof, feeling the breeze on my gritty bare skin.

At length I stand. There are other voids in the wall, rough negatives of human figures. Two figures never escaped, and stare out as bone and husk. Beside my point of emergence is another void, mostly empty, but still holding the withered remains of an arm captive in the wall above a trail of dried blood stains. I hoped a successful escape, if narrow. Another figure is visible, not quite emerged. I take the tool, digging into the wall, anchoring it close by the outline of the figure's arm. Passing on the gift.

Three Faces of Mairi 2013-11-26

Mairi Morrigan / Mira Morag / Moira Murphy

Three character elaborations from the same background.

Says I, Mairi Morrigan, that's my name. As good as any, I suppose, I've been Mairi, and Marie, and Mary; Morrigan, Moira, even Miranda once, but that was long ago. Many have I been, different but the same. I wash, I cook, I push my cart, I mend, and when I cannot mend, do I watch, I wash, I bury.

Comes a young warrior up to me while I wash at the ford, and I say, Good morn to you, and he says Good morn. And I say Beyond me is whom you seek, and it pulls him up, he looks a'me, will I cry warning, but it's all one to me, and I say, Victory is beyond me, over the hill, but it will mean your life. So he sits with me and helps me wash and wring, and then up over the hill he goes. They always do, the heroes.

Few enough heroes, as many armies as I've followed. More sad, lonely, desperate young men, hardening with each step. I've felt their hearts flutter, I've felt them stop, I've held them when they're dying, or far from their darlings. A double dozen soldiers' children have I borne, the boys for soldiers, save one who was a poet, the girls run away when they can, away from me, away from the army with my blessings, save one who was a warrior.

Between wars I wash, I cook, I mend, and I wait. And there is the next war, and once I was Moira, now I am Maigret, and up with my cart and follow. Or did I once. Now I know my secret name, and why I once followed the armies. And now I follow my own path.


Mairi Morrigan

Stormcrow of War, Wanderer of the Stair

  • 19 PSY
  • -10 STR Superior
  • 10 END
  • 10 WAR