Difference between revisions of "Darzoni/CampaignNotes"

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Unconnected notes on my campaign.

The Original Sidereals

See, originally, there were five Sidereals (one from each caste) who were the first Chosen of the Maidens, and the Maidens charged them with the teaching and organization of the Chosen of the Gods for the entire existance of Creation, fated never to die of old age, but to never attain the status that the gods possessed. So the five elder Sidereals taught the young Sidereal in the ways of the Maidens, the Solars in the ways of the Unconquered Sun, the Lunars in the ways of Luna. They were teachers, advisors, and mentors, for eternity.

The Prophecy

When the Sidereals met to discuss what to do about the dark and calamitous future they had seen in the stars, the Elder Sidereal favored the ideal of teaching the Solars and Lunars, bringing the Golden Ones and the Silver Ones back onto the path of enlightened rulership. When the bickering and subsequent schism occured in the Sidereals, the Elders left, disgusted that their own students could be so blind. Using their secret Charms gifted to them by the Maidens themselves, they disappeared from the eyes of Fate.

The Time of Tumult

The Elder Sidereals have been hermits since the Usurpation, living in isolation and participating minimally in the bureaucracy of Yu-Shan and the faction politics of their former students and younger brothers. Somehow, the Elder Sidereals have escaped the bonds of the Great Curse, slipping free of the Malfeans' awful curse through isolation from their fellow Exalted and a return to the humble roots from which all Exalted spring. For all these thousands of years, they lived in the guise of mortals.

One Elder, Sijuan Marfa, a Chosen of Secrets, has chosen to help the Gold Faction in a minor way, all the while pursuing his own goals. He teaches the Exalted found by the Cult of the Illuminated in the ways of their patron gods. He teaches the outcaste to be noble soldiers to uphold what is right and not what is law. He teaches the Solars to be leaders of men, and to rule with wisdom rather than an iron fist. He teaches the Abyssals (those that wish to escape their damned fate) to struggle against their dark nature and to see themselves as the Chosen of Endings do, for the Chosen of Endings and the Chosen of the Abyss are not dissimilar in function.

The Great Curse

The Great Curse of the Primordials was levied against all of Creation, not just the Exalted. Any who betrayed their Primordial creators is afflicted by the Great Curse. Even Gaia, who can be said to embody Creation itself, is affected by the Great Curse.

The Celestial Incarna were cursed to become hopelessly addicted to the Games of Divinity, to become obsessed and reduced to amusing themselves to death.

Autochthon was doomed to be consumed by its own creations, the orderly and logical machines it loved so would be taken by chaos and madness.

Gaia's particular curse is to watch Creation slowly die, and be unable to do anything about it.

The curse of the Exalted has already made itself manifest and brought much despair and destruction. The Exalted were consumed by their own hubris and pride. Witness the end of the First Age. Witness the Scarlet Empire's decadence and corruption. Witness the Sidereals' arrogant stride as they manipulate both Heaven and Earth. Witness the Lunars' growing pride and anger against not just the civilization that chased them out, but all civilization in Creation. Witness the dark and terrible fate of the Deathlords and Deathknights, to bring Creation into Oblivion. Witness the indifference shown by the Chosen of the Machine God as they grow in power and succumb to the Whispers of Autochthon.

The fate of mortals is to suffer the weakness of the flesh, to live a life of suffering and die.

That is the true nature of the Great Curse, and it is the very thing that will doom existance.

Vision of a Possible Future

From the journals of Sijuan Marfa

The Maiden of Secrets entrusted her Chosen with many terrible secrets, and I, being the teacher of the Chosen, was told the most terrible and powerful secrets. It is not often I am able to experience a restful night's sleep for the terrible memories of the secrets the Maiden told me. They are memories which demand to be expressed, refusing to lay down and rest peacefully, much like the Primordials which we defeated long ago.Darzoni/CampaignNotes/I>

<i>I beheld that the Key of Twilight had been used to open the Chains of Dawn, bringing Oblivion to the Elemental Dragons, undoing Creation and drawing it into the Underworld, this great darkness enveloping all living things. In this sundering, the Malfeans gained the strength to rise again, rupturing the fabric of the Underworld as they broke free of their tombs, the dark and timeless forms of the Neverborn grasping at life again. They tore down the walls of Yu-Shan, ravaging the Celestial City. I was horrified to see that the Malfeans were consuming the spirits, devouring the immortal essence of their old servants to breathe new life into their withered husks. The timeless edifices of ambrosia and things of quintessence, consumed in the dead Primordials' hunger for life. I saw my old and dear friend Lytek, as he was hunted by the Primordials, activate a great magical failsafe, and I sensed that the Terrestrial host was suddenly increased a thousandfold as the carriers of the Dragons' Blood were blessed with Exaltation.

I nursed a glimmer of hope as I witnessed a great host of Exalted gathered at the ancient capitol of the Realm, on the slopes of the Imperial Mountain. To my dismay, I saw that the Solars, Lunars, Terrestrials, and my fellow Sidereals were bickering, victims of the Great Curse of the Malfeans. The Alchemicals that were present were indifferent, agreeing that they'd go with whatever the majority said. In the end, it was simply agreed that the Exalted would put aside their differences for the moment and rescue Creation from the edge of Oblivion. It was the simplest solution.

The Zenith Solars rallied the mortals, calling all who lived to aide the Chosen in their battle to save existance. To the credit of the mortals, they rallied with little arguement, desiring to die fighting for a cause than living as a sheep. I gazed to the other Elemental Poles and saw the Malfeans gathering their own host, the wraiths, nephwracks, the Deathlords and Deathknights. All who heard the song of Oblivion answered the summons of the Malfeans. The Exalted host knew of this, and prepared to make what they saw would be their final stand on the Blessed Isle. It was five years before both the Malfeans and the Exalted had gathered their hosts to them, and the Malfean host marched, leaving Oblivion in its wake.

The battle was a year long, beginning during Calibration and ending in the next. Vast pieces of dead Creation were simply erased, consumed by Oblivion. In the end, the Exalted had cast the Deathlords and Malfeans down the Well of Oblivion, ending their threat for eternity. Creation was not yet restored, however. The survivors of the Second War were still mired in the shallow twilight world of the Underworld. For a time, the dead walked the earth as freely as the living.

The Yozis were not idle during the Second War, they worked in more subtle ways. The Ebon Dragon celebrated his wedding as Yu-Shan fell and the Celestines were consumed by their progenitors. The chains of the Yozi's self prison were broken. As a wedding gift to his bride, he promised that she would witness Creation cry out in agony. So she watched as the Second War unfolded. She watched as the Ebon Dragon went to the courts of the Fair Folk and fed them sweet lies that couldn't be mistaken for anything but the truth.

The host of the Fair Folk marched again across Creation. I remembered the formidible defense systems of the Old Realm, and saw that they were in ruins, ravaged by the Malfeans' march. They had been exhausted and stood useless. The Fair Folk's weapons were more terrible this time, and they had grown implacable in their fury and indignation at the blasphemy of immutable form. The Fair Folk tore down the magical devices and geomantic wards that had long kept Creation from succumbing to the Wyld's chaos, flooding the remains of Creation with the inifinite nature of their homeland. Even Oblivion, which is said to consume all, could not consume all of infinity itself, and so was filled and sated. Even the Exalted could not stem the great tsunami, and Creation was replaced with the Wyld. I heard Gaia scream as her nature was forever altered by the ravenous mercies of the Wyld, and the Dragon-Blooded felt it in their bones as a great darkness of despair.Darzoni/CampaignNotes/I>

<i>The Exalted managed to drive back the Fair Folk, but were reduced to a mere handful compared to their former numbers. They were left in a chaotic world, with no sense of time. All they could hear was the laughter of the Yozis and their Infernal champions. The Exalted gathered near the Well of Oblivion, where the forces of utter unbeing and endless possibility reacted to create an area where neither Oblivion nor the Wyld was stronger than the other. For an timeless moment, they wondered what to do, constantly mocked and tormented by the Yozi and their ilk.

Finally the Yozis came foreward to offer the Exalted a choice. They could either live in an eternal nothingness as it is now and eventually cease to exist when they finally die, or they could give up their awesome power and live on as shadows of themselves, hiding among the ignorant masses of humanity. This new Creation would never approach the grandeur of what we had known. It would be a World of Darkness. Although we Exalted possess the power to change the course of Fate, in the end, we are only human. We took the offer given to us.

I pray every day to the Celestines that this future does not come to pass, and I will do everything in my power to prevent this dark and terrible fate from befalling Creation.