Raven (Morgan Ravenswing)

History

Raven was led to the American Indian shamaness Stormwind (“She-Who-Walks-Strange-Ways”) by the Trickster, Coyote. Whether Coyote is a member of the family or something else, they both do not know. Their collaboration led them to two others, Caine and Sandman, through Stormy’s familiar, who told them of an attempt by beings from Hopi and Navajo legend to invade the area, and they decided to stop them.

As part of their preparation, Stormy made a medicine spear according to an ancient ritual. Raven attempted to create orichalcum through alchemy and got something unknown but even better: he took seven pure elements (gold, copper, mercury, lead, silver, iron, and carbon), reflected sunlight from Sandman’s crazy crystal (a Fringeworthy crystal) onto the elements, invoked seven different deities from seven different pantheons, and threw in a Burst of Psyche Power Word. The mixture erupted into a column of fire than he had to psychically force back into the cauldron. When it was done, there was a whitely-glowing molten mass, which he used to inscribe runes and symbols of power (with an eagle’s feather) on Caine’s sword and combat knives for the rest of us. The remaining mass became six .38 bullets.

The confrontation was at a mesa known for evil doings and summonings. The actual fight was pretty short, as there were only two beings of other than Human power, and they fell to Sandman’s mage pistol. The portal they were trying to open was closing, when Raven heard the sound of horses on the other side. Raven, being English and not wanting to see horses harmed, used his own power to keep the gateway open, just long enough for two riders to come through, and a swarm of hungry monkey-bat cross-breeds. The creatures were dealt with and the two riders were saved. They introduced themselves as Corridon and Patricia, descendants of Amber, travelers through Shadow, riders of the Shadow Paths from the city of Tanelorn, seekers of the lost and fabled Amber.

Amber, they said, had been lost ages ago through internecine fighting, and no one knows the way back to Amber. Their ancestors had settled in the traveling city of Tanelorn (from Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion books) while seeking Amber. Other branches of the family had also settled elsewhere and were also seeking the fabled land, as who ever ruled Amber, ruled reality.

Together, all six returned to Tanelorn, learning something about how they traveled the Shadow paths and learning more about their own powers, as well. In Tanelorn, we met Serena, the child-like immortal ruler of the city, and pledged our allegiance to it and their quest. Tanelorn had one problem: maintaining supplies. Normally Tanelorn traded with cities in it passed nearby and harvested the fields in it encountered, but that was not entirely sufficient. We solved that when we found a desolate world, ruined and wasted. The skeletons we found showed the end had been violent. All that was left were the intelligent machines that had unwittingly helped their creators destroy themselves. They saw Tanelorn as one way to have a purpose until life on their planet evolved into intelligence. We would continue trade, even after Tanelorn left, through a Trump Codex had made of the area. (I was going to expand on that idea with a Trump of my home Shadow’s Los Angeles, and trade alien artifacts and artwork there.)

We added another character soon enough. Baal was the last survivor of humanity in his Shadow, a space traveler who had wandered the universe and finally came upon Tanelorn on a lonely, desolate planet. The player was a very good roleplayer (as good as I am, if not better): we got into a discussion on the rightness of blood magick once, as we got into a situation which involved blood magick as a defensive and demon binding power.

Afterwards, I decided that Raven had enough of listening to Sandman griping about not getting home and used magick and Codex to create a Trump of his apartment in Seattle. Shadowrun’s Seattle. (He was an adaptation of an old Shadowrun character.) We went over, only to find ourselves in the middle of the insect spirit’s attempt to take over the world (from the Universal Brotherhood campaign sourcebooks.) We could have left, but Sandman wanted to help out, so we stayed.

Raven found this world’s magick incredibly easy to manipulate, to the point of accidentally summoning the Thunderbird spirit when all he wanted was a psychic thunderstorm. That was another reason to stay, as Raven wanted more experience in magick. We (I) eventually made a deal (with a dragon) to learn how to banish the insect spirits, but in it (the deal and the process) would be costly. A piece of amber with an embedded insect was enchanted (using blood magick) as a spirit holding cell. Raven did the enchanting: the dragon (a new PC) who had explained the procedure noted afterward that a dragon could have done better, but that Raven was alive, which was a good sign. Using the amber was incredibly draining, and we had to capture six spirits for the full spell to be effective.

Well, we got close. It took a direct assault at the central headquarters to gain five spirits, and we were going for the sixth, but we knew in it was going to be an ambush, so Stormy decided to use the Broken Pattern to carry us past the ambush.

And it didn’t work. We would up in the Abyss, and only by luck and outside assistance (though Codex: Raven also has Amber Devotee and Good Stuff, which is probably why we got out with as little damage as possible) did we make in it out. Stormy’s mind was fragmented and could only be healed through assistance from Tanelorn. We were getting ready to return when the GM and half of the players moved out of town, effectively killing the campaign.

A pity, as I was definitely having fun.

This was turning out to be a fun campaign: the setting was certainly unique as far as I knew, and it did allow for visiting a lot of different Shadows despite the fact that no one had Pattern. I had plans for Raven: Raven had Amber Devotee, so just in case they ever did find Amber, he could walk the Pattern. He was going to set up a Trump gate back to his Shadow and trading in art and essentials through his foster parents’ gallery, put together his own grimoire and Trump book (with copies of artwork from several different sources, Immortal especially), and build his tower of sorcery in Tanelorn.

Share
The short URL of the present article is: http://www.terryobrien.me/9qnlW

Page 2 of 2
First | Prev | 1 | 2 | Next | Last
View All