Just
a loose idea that you can monkey with, modify or completely ignore, as you
please.
A
resident of the community of Three Moons, in Hwyrrd's Promise, recently renamed
the 'Heteronomy of Virduk,' you grew up surrounded by a strange
collection of halfling contradictions, those proud and those beaten,
those growing warm to the new Calastian order and those sinking
into bitter talk of the 'old days' when Halflings could chart their
own destiny. So many willing to talk,
so few willing to act.
Your
older brother, Kitta, went on to become a woodsmen and tracker in the Hornsaw,
braving its dangers and bringing back tales of the Elven folk said
to be lost within, ever battling the tainted titanspawn within.
His tales amused, but nothing more, until he returned with such
an Elf in tow, a feral man, skittish and tattooed, who told the tale of how
his people had sacrificed greatly to keep their woods free of the
taint of the fallen titans. His words
triggered a remembrance of a Ranger friend of Kitta's, who served the goddess
Tanil, and expressed some consternation at Halfling complaints
that they had no control over who owned
their lands, what government determined their fates and administered their
laws. She seemed to think
that a person did not need to be tied to lands, and that any one ruler was
therefore irrelevant, as a *free* person could simply walk away, and
thus be beyond his reach. You cannot tax what you cannot catch, she said.
Meeting
this strange tattooed Elf reminded you of her words, for here too was a person
who had no idea who 'Virduk' was, or why a Halfling should walk
with eyes downcast around his fierce half-orc soldiers.
Kitta was able to put you in touch with a Half-Elven Priest of
Tanil, an archer of the Liliandeli, an elite brotherhood of woodsland archers,
named Fox (at least that was the name he used).
You trained in the outskirts of the Hornsaw, and learned
to recognize some of the many poisonous plants and animals therein, if only
to avoid them, while growing such in your devotion to this new
concept of 'freedom,' no longer embittered
and powerless to do anything about it, that you soon found yourself able to
channel the holy powers of Tanil, to influence the minds of the
animals that serve her and to make your own luck, instead of standing
around waiting for it to be chosen for you by some human overlord
a thousand leagues away.
After
a season, Fox declared your training complete, that you must be free to find
your own path, that the world, that Tanil herself, was now your
only teacher, the only one who could direct your training.
He smiled when you said that you had to return to Three Moons, to
your family, to share the heartening lightness you now felt. In retrospect, he wasn't smiling
because he was happy, he was smiling because he was sad, for he no doubt knew
that you no longer would 'fit' in Three Moons.
Your
family no longer was your own, they seemed especially bitter, and what they
saw as reliable, dependable, acceptable governance, orderly and
safe, you described to them as iron chains around their feet, holding
them to this land, manacles about their wrists, enslaving them
to Calastian overlords, tight steel bands around their chests, keeping them
sullen and bitter and defeated, ever grumbling and sour about their
lot, while they were free to simply walk away.
They humored you at first, but quickly it became less friendly as those
you thought were friends told your family that they would not tolerate
you 'causing trouble' with words of sedition, insurrection or even
treason! They would not tolerate an official crackdown
making their lives more difficult because the wrong person heard of your discontent,
or some impressionable youth took your words as a rallying cry to action.
It
was Kitta who informed you that you had better move along, for the good of
the family, and you agreed that it would be better for them, and
for you, to put your words into action.
So
you walked away, exercising your freedom to disagree.
The
Hornsaw forest, despite the presence of the Elves, was a very dangerous place,
filled with slave-taking undead raiders from Glivid-Autel, and
many foul and venomous beasts, many of them intelligent, titan-loving
and even sorcerous. You had no desire to remain within it, at least not until
you were much stronger in your faith, and also having grown accustomed
to the delights of city life. The
only city within walking distance that was not Calastian-run was
the strange and forbidding 'City of Death,' Hollowfaust. So you began skirting the forest,
heading for it. Now the adventure
begins, the adventure of life, where every footstep takes you to
new places that are stranger than anything your father could imagine,
living in the house his grandparents built, running the farm his father ran
before him.
And
Hollowfaust is indeed stranger than he could imagine. At first you were horrified by the notion that even the
dead in Hollowfaust are not free, required to toil ceaselessly in
some unholy perversion of nature. But
after inspecting some of the 'farmers' outside the city gates (and
being pretty much ignored by the apprentice Necromancer who was supposed
to be directing them, but was actually sleeping in the haywagon), you determined
that these creatures were mindless animations of bone, little different
than the animated stick servants that some of the Druids you met
in the Hornsaw used to set up camp or clear out deadwood.
The 'dead' did not seem present, only moving thoughtless bones toiled
to feed and protect the living of Hollowfaust.
It seemed less like sacriledge and more, well, tacky and
gross and disrespectful. But you remember
the words of Fox, who would drum into your head whenever you would
stare askance at some painful and freakish-looking Elven scarification
ceremony, that a most important aspect of freedom is respecting others enough
to allow them the freedom to behave in ways that do not always
make sense to you.
Watching
the citizens of Hollowfaust go about their lives, at first seeming as oppressed
and grim as your own people in the Heteronomy, you have learned
to recognize that these people are indeed free to leave at any
time, that they are not bound here, to these laws, to these death-mages,
but instead have *chosen* to dwell here and abide by these rules in trade
for the protection of the Necromancers. You
do not agree with their choice, and when you are done seeing this
place, you will again exercise your freedom, perhaps to visit decadent
Shelzar, or far Darakeene and it's fabled war-colleges, or frozen Albadia
and its barbarian witches, as you please.
But for now, there are lessons to be learned here, about
freedom, and about this black magic, that you think you may well have to fight
someday, for you have heard during your training with Fox of another
city of death-mages, a far less wholesome city, named Glivid-Autel,
the Society of Immortals, a city founded on slavery and brutality,
within the Hornsaw itself. Here in Hollowfaust, you might learn valuable secrets
to oppose them, their undead and their necromancy, as it is said that the
mages of Hollowfaust and those of Glivid-Autel are all-but at war
with each other, disagreeing on some finer points of whatever foulness
they craft.
The
enemy of my enemy, if not a friend, is at least someone whose tactics should
be inspected, particularly if they relate to that enemy...
You
have only been in Hollowfaust for a few weeks, and often sleep in abandoned
buildings, as you do not have an established 'home,' nor money
to waste on such (learning quickly to never leave the cover of
a building at night, as the dead patrol the city and cannot be fast-talked!). You find yourself sometimes making small coin
for food and the like in the Plaza of Owls, selling healing services
and consecrating water for visiting merchants, who are often somewhat
superstitious about the walking dead and feel comforted clutching, or even
drinking, such during their encounters with them.
You
have noticed that healing magics seem inhibited in the rest of the city, as
if the lingering aura of death is too strong to channel the forces
of life, but in the Plaza of Owls, this aura is weaker, and healing
magics work at full strength. Experimentation with a necromantic
cantrip, Inflict Minor Wounds, has also shown you that the reverse is also
true, save for the Plaza of Owls, necromantic magics seem enhanced
in potency, which serves to explain the popularity of this city
with the Necromantic Guildsmen.
You
have also noticed that a Half-Orc you traveled with briefly on the road has
also been hanging around the plaza, and while you never liked Half-Orcs back
home, especially ones in Calastian uniforms, as this one was, he doesn't seem
to be in Calastian colors any longer, and is clearly looking for someone here,
a wizard friend if you remember right from his talk on the road.
It seems that you are not the only one to free yourself from the life you
led back in the Heteronomy by walking away...