log

Cit­i­zen Ian Ikase of Beroea Jarred Ja­cobs jarred.­ja­cob­s@g­mail.­com 361 648 5446

Con­jor­er pro­hib­it­ed necro, en­chant

Cit­i­zen of The Pe­los Em­pire. You are as­signed to the re­serve bird, Blue Raven based in Beroea. (A bird has around 730 sol­diers in it, it is like a di­vi­sion in mod­ern mil­i­tary. Re­serve units are ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly based and most­ly not cal­vary) But you have been on “leave” so long you have been tak­en off the ac­tive rolls and don’t cur­rent­ly have a rank or po­si­tion. When you re­turn to Pe­los Em­pire lands you are ex­pect­ed to no­ti­fy the mil­i­tary so that you can be as­signed to new re­serve unit and per­form your oc­ca­sion­al re­serve du­ties.

Did you want to go to Tri­cade­my? It’s ex­pen­sive but you could have found some way af­ford it at least for a year or so. Un­til you got bored, frus­trat­ed(they aren’t very mar­tial/mil­i­tary train­ing ori­ent­ed) There is none in Beroea. “Tri­cade­my of Sky­ros” in Psili on Sky­ros is­land. You’d still be a stu­dent there in name at least. To “grad­u­ate” you must cre­ate a new spell or ar­ti­fac­t.

Did you want to have trained in be mem­ber of any paidi­a’s(­mag­ic “gym­s”)? http://66.11.112.46:8080/game/rpg/­cam­paign­s/dirt/pelos/­mag­ic#sam­ple_­paidias

Beroea is a large city/­colony of The Em­pire on the South­ern Con­ti­nen­t.

Skros is large is­land in the Cor­cyra Sea to­wards the east­ern edge of The Em­pire.

Family:

Gnaeus Ikase, un­cle(re­al fa­ther) Kallis­to Ikase, aunt

Gabriel Ikase, fa­ther Ju­lia Ikase, moth­er Cobon, trust­ed ser­ven­t/ex slave of Ikase

Damaris for­mer wet nurse and ser­vent of Ikase now with in Berorea with House Ision

Ian’s grand­fa­ther sired two sons in­to the House Ikase. The el­dest, Gnaeus, was raised to take over as head of the fam­i­ly and the youngest, Gabriel, went in­to mil­i­tary ser­vice. Gnaeus was al­ways fa­vored, be­com­ing charis­mat­ic and ma­nip­u­la­tive. Gabriel was much sim­pler; He looked up to and ad­mired his old­er broth­er and was nev­er jeal­ous of the at­ten­tion and fa­voritism Gnaeus re­ceived. Gnaeus, on the oth­er hand, would be­came quite jeal­ous when­ev­er his younger sib­ling had some­thing he did not.

Gnaeus had an ar­ranged mar­riage to a home­ly and cold wom­an who was un­able to pro­vide him with an heir. Gabriel mar­ried for love to a beau­ti­ful and kind heart­ed wom­an named Ju­li­a. The broth­ers were fair­ly close, Gabriel hav­ing gen­uine love for his sib­ling and the Gnaeus ex­cel­lent at de­ceiv­ing his lit­tle broth­er. Gnaeus soon came to cov­et his sib­lings beau­ti­ful wife and sought ev­ery op­por­tu­ni­ty to se­duce her.

He had enough pow­er and in­flu­ence over the lo­cal mil­i­tary to con­trol Gabriel’s de­ploy­men­t, thus in­sur­ing that Ju­lia was left alone for long pe­ri­ods of time. He used these op­por­tu­ni­ties to com­fort his broth­ers young wife, eas­ing her lone­li­ness with fre­quent vis­it­s. Even­tu­al­ly Gnaeus used his charm and good looks to get in­to her bed. Soon af­ter the af­fair start­ed Gabriel re­turned and Ju­li­a’s guilt and love for him com­bined with her fear of be­ing dis­cov­ered drove her to try and break it off with Gnaeus. The el­der broth­er had no in­ten­tion of end­ing the re­la­tion­ship he had tak­en so long to achieve. He ar­ranged for Gabriel to im­me­di­ate­ly be sent on an dan­ger­ous mis­sion from which was lit­tle chance of him re­turn­ing.

Gabriel nev­er sus­pect­ed any­thing. He loved and trust­ed both his wife and his broth­er. He was a brave and loy­al sol­dier and glad to un­der­take such an im­por­tant mis­sion. He did no­tice his wife seemed dis­tant dur­ing their love­mak­ing the night be­fore he was to leave and thought the tear­ful farewell she gave him was un­usu­al. But he as­sured her that he would be al­right and that the press­ing mat­ter she need­ed to dis­cuss with him could wait un­til he re­turned. Soon af­ter he left Gnaeus re­sumed his af­fair with his younger broth­er’s dis­tressed and con­fused wife.

The news of Gabriel’s death came a few weeks lat­er. Ju­lia im­me­di­ate­ly end­ed the af­fair de­spite Gnaeus’ force­ful at­tempt to con­tin­ue it. She was still in morn­ing two months lat­er when she found she was with child. Ev­ery­one told her she was blessed to have a child by which she could re­mem­ber her hus­band. But she knew in her heart that the child was not her hus­band­s. She came to hate and de­spise her broth­er-in-law and her­self for what they had done.

Six months lat­er Ian was born. For a time she con­vinced her­self that maybe the child was her hus­bands but the nag­ging doubt and guilt she felt ate at her. Gnaeus was over­joyed to fi­nal­ly have an heir, for even in his il­le­git­i­ma­cy the child was seen as the le­git­i­mate son of his broth­er and thus first in line to in­her­it the fam­i­ly for­tunes. Sup­port­ing his broth­er’s wid­ow and son and even tak­ing them in­to his house­hold was nat­u­ral. But Gnaeus was care­ful to pre­serve the le­git­i­mate sta­tus of his nephew and stopped pur­su­ing his broth­er’s wid­ow, hav­ing found a younger mis­tress any­way.

Gabriel was raised by a lov­ing, though some­times dis­tan­t, moth­er and a dot­ing un­cle. Gnaeus took ev­ery chance to spoil the child and cul­ture Ian’s af­fec­tion. His moth­er would con­stant­ly tell Ian sto­ries of his fa­ther the hero, who had sac­ri­ficed him­self to in­sure the safe re­turn of ev­ery­one un­der his com­mand from a dan­ger­ous mis­sion. He grew up idol­iz­ing his fa­ther and yet he al­so saw is un­cle as a fa­ther fig­ure. He ea­ger­ly signed up for his re­quired mil­i­tary ser­vice as soon as he was of age. Due to his fam­i­ly’s sta­tus and re­spect that was still award­ed his fa­ther he soon be­came an of­fi­cer known for the pas­sion and skill with which he bat­tled the Kjore that slew his fa­ther. When his re­quired cit­i­zen­ship stint was up he in­tend­ed to con­tin­ue his mil­i­tary ca­reer. But his moth­er and his un­cle would have none of that. He was the fam­i­ly’s sole heir and a mil­i­tary ca­reer was both un­fit­ting and un­nec­es­sar­i­ly dan­ger­ous. His un­cle want­ed to be­gin groom­ing him to take over the fam­i­ly, but his moth­er sent him away to a far off wiz­ard acade­my, main­ly to get him away from his un­cle’s in­flu­ence.

When he re­turned from school he found his moth­er even more de­spon­dent than usu­al. She’s fi­nal­ly learned that it was Gnaeus who de­ployed Gabriel on the dan­ger­ous mis­sion that killed him and con­fessed her af­fair with Gnaeus to her son. Ian went to the Pub­lic House for a stiff drink and to think about what he had just learned and work out his con­flict­ing feel­ing for his fa­ther­s. Fi­nal­ly, Ian went to con­front his un­cle, his fa­ther’s sword in hand. Up­on ar­riv­ing at his un­cles’ bed­cham­ber he dis­cov­ered Gnaeus al­ready mur­dered. See­ing the ob­vi­ous ev­i­dence that a wom­an had per­formed the deed he as­sumed it was his moth­er. Hasti­ly he re­moved the in­crim­i­nat­ing ev­i­dence and de­cid­ed to flee his home­land to cast sus­pi­cion for the mur­der on him­self. He did­n’t know that his un­cle’s lat­est dis­card­ed mis­tress, had al­ready turned her­self in, her dress soaked in Gnaeus’ blood, and con­fessed to the crime.

Gnaeus’ wife, Kallis­to, a shrewd high Pelosian, knew all about her hus­bands in­dis­cre­tion­s, in­clud­ing his af­fair with Ju­li­a. Now rid of Gnaeus she was more than con­tent to take over the fam­i­ly’s for­tunes. She knew her new po­si­tion would be lost how­ev­er if the right­ful heir, Ian, ev­er re­turned. So she sent an as­sas­sin to track down Ian and solve her lit­tle prob­lem. Ju­lia al­so sent men to track down Ian and tell him the truth about what hap­pened to Gnaeus and bid him re­turn to take over the fam­i­ly.

Pregame:

You were born and raised in Beroea but left for The Em­pire prop­er. Even­tu­al­ly find­ing your­self in Psil­i, largest city on Sky­ros is­land and cap­i­tal of Sky­ros prov­ince. While there you take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to see(from far off shore, clos­er vis­i­tors are un­wel­comed) Gali­dor’s Tow­er. It is lo­cat­ed just north of Sky­ros at the end of The Great Road, on a tip of the main­land that splits the Theops and Cor­cyra Seas. Gali­dor is the great­est mage alive, per­haps ev­er. Af­ter see­ing his tow­er you have lit­tle doubts to the ve­rac­i­ty of those claim­s. The tow­er is sev­er­al hun­dred feet high and is topped by an im­mense crys­tal/­glass/­force? sphere.

One day you get a mes­sage from some­one you do not know, Cit­i­zen Rhea (no last name given). She claims to have served with your fa­ther and has in­for­ma­tion for you. And bids you come to Scu­pi, a prov­ince of Pe­los Mi­nor. The mess­ge came with a vi­sion crys­tal(hold it, con­cen­trate “see” men­tal im­ages) and a mil­i­tary pre­cept al­low­ing trav­el on/with any Pe­los Mi­nor Navy ves­sel. The pre­cept ex­pires in 40 days. Hold­ing the crys­tal to your tem­ple it con­tains sev­er­al im­ages of your young fa­ther and a fetch­ing pelosian fe­male. They are ob­vi­ous­ly on “de­ploy­men­t” with some mil­i­tary unit. Al­though this unit’s col­ors/­mark­ings are un­fa­mil­iar to you. The im­ages are: the two spar­ring with broadsword­s, grins spread across their faces, in front of a crowd of cheer­ing sol­dier­s. Stand­ing next to each oth­er, with sev­er­al oth­er sol­diers in a pa­rade/in­spec­tion for­ma­tion. Your fa­ther in bed, head ban­daged, eyes closed, she at the bed­side pray­ing. The last one is of a dra­mat­ic sun­set, pair of tow­er­ing stat­ues(­Sunesh?) in the back­ground and in the fore­ground, your fa­ther and this un­known wom­an wav­ing with one ar­m, the oth­ers wrapped around their waist­s.

Find­ing no Pelosian Mi­nor ship com­ing to Psili any­time soon you sell your few valu­able pos­ses­sion­s. Com­bined with your sav­ings it is enough to buy a tele­port to Sy­mi on Thas­sos Is­land part of Pe­los Mi­nor. There you have no trou­ble get­ting on­to the “Gull Chaser” a Spri­gate class(­fast light scout/escort/raider) 14 days lat­er you ar­rive in Scu­pi, cap­i­tal of Scu­pi Prov­ince. You find no sign of Rhea. You do dis­cov­er one du­bi­ous lead point­ing east to Sil­ver­town. You join the next car­a­van go­ing that way.

0th session “In search of Madness”

In Sil­ver­town out of fund­s, you, a dwarf Ung­var, and an in­sane sor­ceror named Kokero, hear tales of the Mines of Mad­ness. Fo­cus­ing on the part where lost trea­sures are men­tioned you seek out these mines. But in­stead find Kobolds in­fest­ing a crypt of So­leth(mi­nor god, of peace­ful death) which ap­pears to have been nev­er uti­lized be­fore the famed Trans­muter Vervigis made a pri­vate lab out of it.

0th session “Lab of Vervigis”

Ung­var feels re­spon­si­ble for Kokero’s con­di­tion and stays in Sil­ver­town while you re­cruit a new gang to raid Vervigis’s se­cret­s. Faces and names of which you have al­ready for­got­ten. On this sec­ond at­tempt you achieve mi­nor suc­cess. De­ter­min­ing that pow­er­ful and dan­ger­ous trans­mu­ta­tions of Vervigis still linger in the halls of this silent cryp­t. The lead­er of the Kobold­s, Tazex, has been trans­formed in­to an un­nat­u­ral ab­ber­a­tion. It has the abil­i­ty to slip in and out of our ex­is­tence foil­ing all at­tempts to rid the world of this hor­ror. It har­ries and taunts you as you re­trace your steps out. In the hall­way to the Gong Room it catch­es the bard with it’s elec­tri­cal­ly charged bat­tle ax­e. Your cler­ic is able to save him from nev­er end­ing sleep here in So­leth’s cryp­t, but he must now be car­ried. As you are stum­bling down the ravine. The thing ap­pears at the en­trance wav­ing its pur­ple ten­ta­cle “Sim­ple flesh things, hear me! Tazex the Ev­er­chang­ing is not done with you yet.”

1st session “Deadly Desert part1”

You and your gang trav­el to Scu­pi to find rea­son­able prices for the trea­sures you stole from Tazex. Af­ter di­vid­ing the spoils you all go sep­a­rate ways. You de­cide to head back to Sil­ver­town to try and track down Rhea again.

The car­a­van, both ways, was es­cort­ed by a feath­er(9 peo­ple) of Pelosian sol­diers on hors­es who are dressed in black with sandy yel­low cloaks and black and yel­low crest­ed hel­met­s. Talk­ing up the sol­diers over dai­ly meals you find out these are the col­ors of the Desert Con­dor cal­vary bird to which they be­long. Al­so that all but the right wing of the Desert Con­dor is in Scu­pi Prov­ince. Most of it is de­ployed around Scu­pi it­self but the Fore Sec­tion of the left wing is in Sil­ver­town and small­er set­tle­ments out east. The right wing is south and far in­land chas­ing tribes of Zatar(orc­s) who have been trou­bling the Ka’im(al­so orc­s, but friend­ly to Pelos) in that area. You keep most­ly to your­self and the sol­dier­s.

Not the same feath­er both ways. The sol­diers that es­cort the scu­pi->sil­ver­town car­a­van are sta­tioned in­/s­tart from scu­pi. So you go­ing to scu­pi caught the re­turn trip of one es­cort. Al­though, both times they were from the Mid­dle Sec­tion who’s 1st is Galatea a fe­male com­mon Pelosian. Hyr­mi­na is 1st of the Fore Sec­tion.

On the re­turn trip trav­el is fast at first along a fine stone road. Dur­ing the 4th night the road ends as you pass the crews busi­ly ex­tend­ing the road east. They are a large num­ber of Ka’im, slaves?(btw slaves are com­mon), en­gi­neer­s, and sol­diers from Desert Con­dor’s body(“­bod­ies” of birds typ­i­cal­ly con­tain siege, lo­gis­tic­s, and sim­i­lar el­e­ments). Along the rough, rocky trail the car­a­van’s once good speed is cut in half.

Late on the 7th night a hor­ri­ble sand storm en­gulfs the car­a­van. It was worse than you could have imag­ined and gives cre­dence to what you had thought were ab­surd sto­ries of winds and sand so fierce they strip flesh down to the bone. Dur­ing this the car­a­van is at­tacked by un­known as­sailants. You nev­er see the at­tack­er­s.

2nd session “Deadly Desert part2”

En­counter an an­i­mat­ed thorn tree from which Dyrk­ius re­trieves a fine red silk veil. It ra­di­ates faint evo­ca­tion mag­ic. Some­how Ione ends up wear­ing this.

You stum­ble on­to a “forest” of stone trees. Many of which are top­pled and bro­ken. You are am­bushed by hye­na men. Af­ter Tariq, Dyrk­ius fall and sev­er­al oth­ers have tak­ing many ar­rows you and Ione at­tempt to es­cape. But you fail to do so.

The hye­na men be­lieve you have died and dump you in the desert.

That night you have a bizarre dream. You and the rest of the group are in what ap­pears to be a city park. In stark con­trast to the desert there are rolling lawns of grass, pond­s, creek­s, and leafy copse of un­fa­mil­iar trees. The park is full of High Pelosian­s(s­trange you see no Com­mon Pelosian­s), strolling, frol­ick­ing, talk­ing. It looks like a nor­mal day out in the sun ex­cept there are an in­cred­i­ble num­ber of golem­s, con­structs and oth­er mag­i­cal servi­tor beasts walk­ing, crawl­ing, rolling, and fly­ing ev­ery­where. There’s more ar­ti­fi­cial be­ings than peo­ple!

In­ex­plic­i­ty you can now read the words carved in­to the pil­lars of this tem­ple. It ap­pears to be ded­i­cat­ed to some na­ture/­for­est god. Af­ter solv­ing the rid­dles a hu­man dressed in un­usu­al green cloths (like noth­ing you have ev­er seen, pants, shirt, many pock­et­s) ap­peared who looks at each of you and then says “Don’t open the Flakarg, argh! The seal, don’t open the seal.” Then looks over his shoul­der and dis­ap­pears.

You awake days, week­s? lat­er in Sil­ver­town, un­der ar­rest, and wear­ing in­ter­dic­tion man­a­cles(they pre­vent mag­ic, vi­sion and speech)

<to be con­tin­ued>