[A crisp new codex is open to the very first page. Medwyn's
careful handwriting covers it; footnotes and annotations are stuck in on
smaller scraps of paper.]
I, Medwyn Haeming, scribe and seneschal to Baroness Cuinn of House Fulcairn, have decided to chronicle the events since the passing of Lord Corrac Fulcairn. I suspect the events in the days to come will change the face of Taeghas, possibly Anuire, and I wish for there to be a clear and objective record.
___________________________________________________________________
Wilder's Gorge is a beautiful, rugged, and remote barony in the northeast corner of Taeghas, known for its hunters, leatherworkers, and hunting hawks and hounds. It lies directly southwest of the territory of Rhuobhe Manslayer, the ancient, genocidal, nearly immortal, evil elven awnsheghlien consumed with hatred for humankind. It has been ruled for generations by House Fulcairn, a house that has been a pariah among the other noble houses of Taeghas for a long time. Its ruler, Baron Cullan Fulcairn, sided with Roger Khorien in the War of Taeghan Succession, due partly to pressure from the powerful country of Boeruine directly to the north of Wilder's Gorge, who also backed Roger; Cullan had little other choice. When Harald Khorien, Roger's nephew, with his backing from the powerful would-be Emperor Darien Avan, won the War of Succession and thus took the throne of Taeghas, the House fell further into disrepute among other Taeghans... despite this, the self-sufficient, hardy Wilders carried on as usual.
Tragedy struck the House ten years after the War of Succession. Corrac Fulcairn, Cullan's heir, a man by all accounts wise, strong, fair, and good-hearted, died of a mysterious illness. As grief near-incapacitated Baron Cullan, Corrac's widow Reynhild, a noblewoman of Rjurik known for her prowess with the bow and hunting dogs, took over day-to-day operations of the House. Cullan's younger son Cathal, who had been sent to Rjurik to be fostered with the Yngvi clan, as per a generations-old treaty, was summoned back to House Fulcairn to take Corrac's place as heir.
Cathal arrived at House Fulcairn at the same time as a mysterious guest-- the young wizard Mara, protege of Count Harald Khorien, claiming she had been sent by Khorien to assist the Fulcairns in their dark time.
At Corrac's funeral, tragedy struck again. An assassin's poison killed the elderly Baron Cullan, leaving Cathal the head of the house. Reynhild managed to uncover the assassin, but interrogation both mundane and magical only revealed he was in the employ of the assassin's guild, the House of Wind, before he was executed.
Cathal's half-brother Brinden, Cullan's bastard son, was not present at the funeral; he had disappeared somewhere on the southern border of Wilder's Gorge. Suspecting the Duenes (the ruling family of the southern barony of Seamist, with a long-standing grudge against the Fulcairns) Reynhild sent the most trusted of her circle of five rangers, Adair, south to try and uncover any trace of him. Adair eventually returned with the news that Brinden had been slain, by bandits in employ of the Duenes.
In an attempt to gain resources and prestige for the tragedy-stricken House, the Fulcairns decided to investigate a rumour-- a lost Imperial villa reputedly in the mountains to the east. They traveled through orog-infested countryside and eventually located it, though a strange sight awaited them-- it was encapsulated by some sort of magical echo of its splendor eight hundred years earlier. The Fulcairns witnessed their own House at the height of its glory, and encountered a man named Melehan, court wizard to the Emperor of the time, Magnus II. Strangely he could see and speak to them through time. They were forced to leave the time-distortion, but not before Mara suspected some strange link or kinship between herself and Melehan.
Mara returned to the site of the villa with an armed escort; many relics were discovered in the basement, and Mara discovered a strange nexus of power there as well, with links to three other nexi hidden somewhere in Wilder's Gorge. In an attempt to acquire its power, she was horribly magically wounded and disfigured in a struggle with a demon. Her armed escort carried her, lingering near death, back to the keep. Cathal and Reynhild, unable to heal her, immediately rode for the Temple of Haelyn in Seamist to try and procure a divine healer. They declined to help her themselves, but they did offer to send a healer along to try and help-- the wandering paladin Varyan. Varyan healed Mara after days of an exhausting ritual, and left the House a treasured and honoured friend.
Reynhild decided to try and build a shadow network to stay ahead of the House's enemies. Cathal's bodyguard Dolan recommended a woman he knew in the capital of Stormpoint: Leandra. Reynhild and Mara traveled to Stormpoint; Reynhild located the "office" of the House of Wind, but although they would not disclose who hired them to kill Cullan, they left her with a means of summoning them. Mara researched the House's history and found little, other than the suspicion that someone had begun to edit House Fulcairn out of Imperial history. Cathal decided to hold a tournament in Wilder's Gorge in the spring in order to boost the House's standing with the other noble houses.
The House held a tournament for the nobles of Taeghas, which proved a grand time and a success on all accounts. Reynhild's ranger Asha won the archery tournament, Count Isilvaere's daughter Corliss did not win the melee but caught Cathal's eye, and finally, a Khinasi bard of some repute, Tashairah al-Muhtadim, charmed all present and won the minstrel competition. Sir Varyan lost the joust to a mysterious red clad knight, and his beloved mount Temperance was sadly killed.
With the last political opponent, Caliedhe Dosiere, the Imperial Chamberlain, dead, Darien Avan
officially declared his claim to the Iron Throne, summoning the noble
houses to Stormpoint to swear allegiance to him. The Fulcairns traveled
to Stormpoint, where they met a Khinasi wizard, Faysal, and exchanged pleasantries with the other noble houses, including Vulpina and Nyrion Duene,
who they then knew to have engineered the murder of Brinden. All
present swore allegiance to Emperor Darien Avan. Cathal forged tentative
alliances with Lord Isilvaere of Islien and Lord Sloere of Brosien,
though most others shunned the Fulcairns.
Mara pressed the Fulcairns to investigate the other nexi of power she had uncovered the locations of. One, located in the northwestern woods, proved to be an ancient elven scrying device. At the site, a ghostly apparition of the man the Fulcairns had seen in the past-- Melehan-- appeared and revealed himself to be a Fulcairn, and Mara's ancestor. They decided to destroy the device, lest it fall into Rhuobhe Manslayer's hands.
They proceeded to investigate the last nexus, far in the Aelvinnwode, and thus extremely dangerous due to the presence of Rhuobhe's genocidal elven warriors, the Gheallie Sidhe. They brought along a war party of twenty Wilders, and decided not to disclose their mission to Count Harald Khorien, for fear of Wilder's Gorge being occupied by Imperial forces and its magic misappropriated. Melehan magically communicated to Mara that the last nexus was bound within a magical golden stag that would need to be slain to release the magic. Reynhild, the group's most proficient hunter, found the stag's tracks and forged ahead to find it, even as two of Rhuobhe's deadly Bladesingers appeared and engaged the warband, slaying nearly fifteen Wilders with one horrific spell. Reynhild tracked the stag with the assistance of one of her rangers, the enigmatic Lwcan, before a Bladesinger found and attacked them. Miraculously both groups of Wilders prevailed, and Reynhild slew the golden stag, unleashing a catastrophic magical maelstrom that strangely incarnated Melehan Fulcairn into mortal flesh. The Fulcairns returned to the keep, the loss of nearly twenty Wilders heavy on their hearts.
The Fulcairns returned and attempted to deal with the aftermath of the battle and the acquisition of the strange wizard from the past, Melehan. Cathal proposed marriage to Reynhild, but she declined, citing her uncertain fertility and the need of the House to gain political alliances through marriage.
Count Richard Duene of Seamist died from an ailment that struck Reynhild as suspiciously similar to that which killed her late husband, and Vulpina took over as head of House Duene.
Reynhild summoned her rangers and announced her intent to found an order of silent warriors in the woods and city streets, to act in conjunction with the Taeghan military but fundamentally to serve the people of Taeghas. She named them the Ghosts after the legendary Caedmon Fulcairn, known as the Ghost in the Pines.
The Fulcairns were summoned to Stormpoint again to attend a council of noble Houses, where they were informed that Count Khorien was abdicating his throne and that a new Count of Taeghas would have to be elected. They decided to vote for Gaelen Isilvaere; the vote was held, but there was no consensus. Upon returning home, they discovered that Melehan had fallen ill, by the same illness that killed Corrac, and evidently, Richard Duene. Mara examined Melehan and learned the illness was necromantic in origin; out of desperation, Reynhild asked her underworld contact Leandra to procure them an ill-reputed book of necromancy so that Mara might learn a countermeasure.
A colourful dwarven tradesman, Dvorak Iron-Tongue, delivered the book to the Keep. Mara conducted a horrifying necromantic ritual to attempt to save Melehan; Cathal, repulsed, demanded Mara destroy the book, and she argued but complied. Shortly thereafter, a message from Stormpoint arrived, stating Vulpina Duene was accusing Mara with necromancy in the murder of her father Richard, and demanding she be tried before a court in Stormpoint. In Stormpoint, the incompetent interim government, left without a count, could not control the situation; Cathal, Mara and Reynhild fiercely denied the accusations, even as Melehan, newly recovered, sent a magical message to Mara informing her that the Khinasi wizard Faysal, in the employ of the Duenes, was the one who had enspelled him.
They returned to Fulcairn keep only to find villagers fleeing the south, as the Duene army was attacking the southern border. They liberated the southern village of Firstcairn from the Duenes and sent the Ghosts to harrass their supply lines; Reynhild stalked and nearly slew Vulpina in their army's camp, but noted that she was accompanied by Faysal and a woman she recognized as a House of Wind assassin. They returned north just before the Duenes laid siege to the Keep. A month passes, then help arrived-- the Silver Lions, a company led by Corliss Isilvaere-- and the Fulcairns engaged the Duene army. They battled fiercely, aided by Mara commanding an earth golem with help from Melehan, and were victorious, though the Duenes and Faysal both escaped alive. The Fulcairns decided to immediately give chase and sack Seamist. They encountered little resistance and, helped by one of the Ghosts' contacts, entered the keep of Seamist through a secret passage. Cathal slew Nyrion, avenging Brindon; Reynhild discovered that Faysal had indeed murdered her husband Corrac, but he was killed by a mysterious geass before she could enact revenge or discover who his true master was. They cornered Vulpina, who admitted she had murdered her own father and attempted to ruin the Fulcairns out of common ambition and greed for their lands; Reynhild slew her, avenging Cullan and Corrac.
I, Medwyn Haeming, scribe and seneschal to Baroness Cuinn of House Fulcairn, have decided to chronicle the events since the passing of Lord Corrac Fulcairn. I suspect the events in the days to come will change the face of Taeghas, possibly Anuire, and I wish for there to be a clear and objective record.
___________________________________________________________________
Wilder's Gorge is a beautiful, rugged, and remote barony in the northeast corner of Taeghas, known for its hunters, leatherworkers, and hunting hawks and hounds. It lies directly southwest of the territory of Rhuobhe Manslayer, the ancient, genocidal, nearly immortal, evil elven awnsheghlien consumed with hatred for humankind. It has been ruled for generations by House Fulcairn, a house that has been a pariah among the other noble houses of Taeghas for a long time. Its ruler, Baron Cullan Fulcairn, sided with Roger Khorien in the War of Taeghan Succession, due partly to pressure from the powerful country of Boeruine directly to the north of Wilder's Gorge, who also backed Roger; Cullan had little other choice. When Harald Khorien, Roger's nephew, with his backing from the powerful would-be Emperor Darien Avan, won the War of Succession and thus took the throne of Taeghas, the House fell further into disrepute among other Taeghans... despite this, the self-sufficient, hardy Wilders carried on as usual.
Tragedy struck the House ten years after the War of Succession. Corrac Fulcairn, Cullan's heir, a man by all accounts wise, strong, fair, and good-hearted, died of a mysterious illness. As grief near-incapacitated Baron Cullan, Corrac's widow Reynhild, a noblewoman of Rjurik known for her prowess with the bow and hunting dogs, took over day-to-day operations of the House. Cullan's younger son Cathal, who had been sent to Rjurik to be fostered with the Yngvi clan, as per a generations-old treaty, was summoned back to House Fulcairn to take Corrac's place as heir.
Cathal arrived at House Fulcairn at the same time as a mysterious guest-- the young wizard Mara, protege of Count Harald Khorien, claiming she had been sent by Khorien to assist the Fulcairns in their dark time.
At Corrac's funeral, tragedy struck again. An assassin's poison killed the elderly Baron Cullan, leaving Cathal the head of the house. Reynhild managed to uncover the assassin, but interrogation both mundane and magical only revealed he was in the employ of the assassin's guild, the House of Wind, before he was executed.
Cathal's half-brother Brinden, Cullan's bastard son, was not present at the funeral; he had disappeared somewhere on the southern border of Wilder's Gorge. Suspecting the Duenes (the ruling family of the southern barony of Seamist, with a long-standing grudge against the Fulcairns) Reynhild sent the most trusted of her circle of five rangers, Adair, south to try and uncover any trace of him. Adair eventually returned with the news that Brinden had been slain, by bandits in employ of the Duenes.
In an attempt to gain resources and prestige for the tragedy-stricken House, the Fulcairns decided to investigate a rumour-- a lost Imperial villa reputedly in the mountains to the east. They traveled through orog-infested countryside and eventually located it, though a strange sight awaited them-- it was encapsulated by some sort of magical echo of its splendor eight hundred years earlier. The Fulcairns witnessed their own House at the height of its glory, and encountered a man named Melehan, court wizard to the Emperor of the time, Magnus II. Strangely he could see and speak to them through time. They were forced to leave the time-distortion, but not before Mara suspected some strange link or kinship between herself and Melehan.
Mara returned to the site of the villa with an armed escort; many relics were discovered in the basement, and Mara discovered a strange nexus of power there as well, with links to three other nexi hidden somewhere in Wilder's Gorge. In an attempt to acquire its power, she was horribly magically wounded and disfigured in a struggle with a demon. Her armed escort carried her, lingering near death, back to the keep. Cathal and Reynhild, unable to heal her, immediately rode for the Temple of Haelyn in Seamist to try and procure a divine healer. They declined to help her themselves, but they did offer to send a healer along to try and help-- the wandering paladin Varyan. Varyan healed Mara after days of an exhausting ritual, and left the House a treasured and honoured friend.
Reynhild decided to try and build a shadow network to stay ahead of the House's enemies. Cathal's bodyguard Dolan recommended a woman he knew in the capital of Stormpoint: Leandra. Reynhild and Mara traveled to Stormpoint; Reynhild located the "office" of the House of Wind, but although they would not disclose who hired them to kill Cullan, they left her with a means of summoning them. Mara researched the House's history and found little, other than the suspicion that someone had begun to edit House Fulcairn out of Imperial history. Cathal decided to hold a tournament in Wilder's Gorge in the spring in order to boost the House's standing with the other noble houses.
The House held a tournament for the nobles of Taeghas, which proved a grand time and a success on all accounts. Reynhild's ranger Asha won the archery tournament, Count Isilvaere's daughter Corliss did not win the melee but caught Cathal's eye, and finally, a Khinasi bard of some repute, Tashairah al-Muhtadim, charmed all present and won the minstrel competition. Sir Varyan lost the joust to a mysterious red clad knight, and his beloved mount Temperance was sadly killed.
Mara pressed the Fulcairns to investigate the other nexi of power she had uncovered the locations of. One, located in the northwestern woods, proved to be an ancient elven scrying device. At the site, a ghostly apparition of the man the Fulcairns had seen in the past-- Melehan-- appeared and revealed himself to be a Fulcairn, and Mara's ancestor. They decided to destroy the device, lest it fall into Rhuobhe Manslayer's hands.
They proceeded to investigate the last nexus, far in the Aelvinnwode, and thus extremely dangerous due to the presence of Rhuobhe's genocidal elven warriors, the Gheallie Sidhe. They brought along a war party of twenty Wilders, and decided not to disclose their mission to Count Harald Khorien, for fear of Wilder's Gorge being occupied by Imperial forces and its magic misappropriated. Melehan magically communicated to Mara that the last nexus was bound within a magical golden stag that would need to be slain to release the magic. Reynhild, the group's most proficient hunter, found the stag's tracks and forged ahead to find it, even as two of Rhuobhe's deadly Bladesingers appeared and engaged the warband, slaying nearly fifteen Wilders with one horrific spell. Reynhild tracked the stag with the assistance of one of her rangers, the enigmatic Lwcan, before a Bladesinger found and attacked them. Miraculously both groups of Wilders prevailed, and Reynhild slew the golden stag, unleashing a catastrophic magical maelstrom that strangely incarnated Melehan Fulcairn into mortal flesh. The Fulcairns returned to the keep, the loss of nearly twenty Wilders heavy on their hearts.
The Fulcairns returned and attempted to deal with the aftermath of the battle and the acquisition of the strange wizard from the past, Melehan. Cathal proposed marriage to Reynhild, but she declined, citing her uncertain fertility and the need of the House to gain political alliances through marriage.
Count Richard Duene of Seamist died from an ailment that struck Reynhild as suspiciously similar to that which killed her late husband, and Vulpina took over as head of House Duene.
Reynhild summoned her rangers and announced her intent to found an order of silent warriors in the woods and city streets, to act in conjunction with the Taeghan military but fundamentally to serve the people of Taeghas. She named them the Ghosts after the legendary Caedmon Fulcairn, known as the Ghost in the Pines.
The Fulcairns were summoned to Stormpoint again to attend a council of noble Houses, where they were informed that Count Khorien was abdicating his throne and that a new Count of Taeghas would have to be elected. They decided to vote for Gaelen Isilvaere; the vote was held, but there was no consensus. Upon returning home, they discovered that Melehan had fallen ill, by the same illness that killed Corrac, and evidently, Richard Duene. Mara examined Melehan and learned the illness was necromantic in origin; out of desperation, Reynhild asked her underworld contact Leandra to procure them an ill-reputed book of necromancy so that Mara might learn a countermeasure.
A colourful dwarven tradesman, Dvorak Iron-Tongue, delivered the book to the Keep. Mara conducted a horrifying necromantic ritual to attempt to save Melehan; Cathal, repulsed, demanded Mara destroy the book, and she argued but complied. Shortly thereafter, a message from Stormpoint arrived, stating Vulpina Duene was accusing Mara with necromancy in the murder of her father Richard, and demanding she be tried before a court in Stormpoint. In Stormpoint, the incompetent interim government, left without a count, could not control the situation; Cathal, Mara and Reynhild fiercely denied the accusations, even as Melehan, newly recovered, sent a magical message to Mara informing her that the Khinasi wizard Faysal, in the employ of the Duenes, was the one who had enspelled him.
They returned to Fulcairn keep only to find villagers fleeing the south, as the Duene army was attacking the southern border. They liberated the southern village of Firstcairn from the Duenes and sent the Ghosts to harrass their supply lines; Reynhild stalked and nearly slew Vulpina in their army's camp, but noted that she was accompanied by Faysal and a woman she recognized as a House of Wind assassin. They returned north just before the Duenes laid siege to the Keep. A month passes, then help arrived-- the Silver Lions, a company led by Corliss Isilvaere-- and the Fulcairns engaged the Duene army. They battled fiercely, aided by Mara commanding an earth golem with help from Melehan, and were victorious, though the Duenes and Faysal both escaped alive. The Fulcairns decided to immediately give chase and sack Seamist. They encountered little resistance and, helped by one of the Ghosts' contacts, entered the keep of Seamist through a secret passage. Cathal slew Nyrion, avenging Brindon; Reynhild discovered that Faysal had indeed murdered her husband Corrac, but he was killed by a mysterious geass before she could enact revenge or discover who his true master was. They cornered Vulpina, who admitted she had murdered her own father and attempted to ruin the Fulcairns out of common ambition and greed for their lands; Reynhild slew her, avenging Cullan and Corrac.
No comments:
Post a Comment