GoldenCat/FiDSIntro
An Introduction
( The Introduction to the first session in which all players were together...)
It is a Time of Tumult. Winter Rose knows that. Child of a Lunar Anathema and a Second Circle demon, herself a Sidereal Exalted, a Chosen of the Stars, a secret agent of heaven. An impossibility, children of as many different powers as possible, she knows of the threat of shapechanging Lunar barbarians terrorizing the threshold, beings that, at the same time, fight back the forces of the Wyld. She knows of the demons in Malfeas, screaming in agony as they test the boundaries of their living prision. And of the Gods in heaven, absorbed in their own corruption, with but a select few trying to mantain a crumbling order. And yet, she believes in it. She works in Heaven, trying to keep the world in control, trying to stop it from unraveling, just as the Celestial Bureaucracy disintegrates in self-serving corruption around her. Six Months ago, she has fought a Second Circle Demon attempting to create another demonic cult in Creation, witnessing the power of one the like of her mother. Her missions to the Realm have been more frequent as the Dark Dragon of Malfeas extends its whiskers on Creation, and anything she tries to do on the Realm, like applying bandages to a dying patient – for all they mantain on the world, the manipulations of the Sidereals seem to have little effect on the upcoming civil war.
Ledaal Calistas feels it as well. His scope is narrower, not spanning three planes of existence and the far reaches of the Threshold. Yet, it is focused on one place. And that place, is the center of the world. Born, raised, and trained under the rule of the Empress, a close relative of this unaging, powerful woman, Calistas is a sorcerer, a bureaucrat, and more than anything, a savant, a problem-solver, a detective- someone able to pin down a situation to a theoretical equation, solve it, and find out exactly why. Yet, he sees the world he knows disintegrating in back-stabbing intrigue, in a chaos that has no answer – and only a handful of his house seem to be immune to it. He sees the the succession war brewing... and yet, like the Ledaal, he sees more. For it was just a year ago that he met a power even his wife is blind to - one of the Abyssal Exalted, one of the Deathknights. And a fading scar on his chest is the memory of the meeting with something whose puissance far surpasses even hers’. Not only that, but in the course of the last year, he had to solve more assassination attempts and to take the blame off difamed nobles than he had in the last decade. He tries to solve the problem, to attain an answer... but the true problem is a much broader, greater thing – whose nature would swallow him whole, whose comprehension would change his very understanding of the world.
For Lily, everything always seemed a greater thing – for someone whose life has been a succession of slavery and training, followed by Exaltation, worship, and even harsher training, life seemed a simpler thing – to do your duty, to find out what that is, and to have fun when one can. And yet, it was not a week ago that she detained the assassination attempt of a Dynast – for no other reason as to get his spouse a better marriage in the endless jockeying towards the Scarlett Throne. A prodigy far beyond her years, with raw power to measure up to a elder Dragon-Blooded, and a mastery of the Celestial understanding monks train years to attain, even she cannot denial the chaos around her – even if the true understanding of it would deny all she knows about life... once again.
And V’neef Lyrin, of course... is the living embodiment of the Time of Tumult. Half of his soul is dead. Half of his soul was a Solar anathema, a terrible monster. When it died, its blood splashed his face. And he had tried to help the creature. What does that say of him? Only half-alive, Having waged greater campaigns against the Fair Folk in the last few years than the Realm has in decades, he has seen and pierced the enemy up close – he knows what they are, he knows how they think. And knows that, even in their fickle chaos, they have a plan.. a pattern amidst the seemingly senseless chaos, that does seem to lead somewhere. He has fought against Barbarians and the children of Lunars – and he has faced the Abyssals in the field of battle. More than Calis would dare to imagine, he has hackled his way through zombies and ghosts, and took the blade and aide of one of the champions of the Underworld. And now, outside of fate, detached from life, he carries a blade of shadow. And it whispers to him. The most infamous Chosen of Endings whispers on the back of his mind, twisting honor and duty, pushing hate to the forefront, engulfing his half-soul in its cacophony of madness, a promise that he shall be instrumental to the chaos...
They shall meet. They shall fight. They shall learn. They shall love, and they shall hate. They shall learn as the true players in the game of chaos appear before them. And theirs is the chance to prevent an empire to vanish in shadow...
Thus spoke Nara-O, in words seared upon the Loom of Fate.
Kejack: “Speak clearly for once damn you!”
As far as Fate is concerned, it began with an attempted coup. Calistas and Lyrin know that; That it began as some malcontent generals of the Varangian City-States, the astrologically-obssessed empire southeastern of Creation, tried to overthrow the royal family on the first day of the first week of Ascending Wood. And they had Zombies and Hungry Ghosts at their side. And the people... they were driven and psychotic, the same way the Immaculate Monks sent to clear up Rainfall had found its populace when they came for the purge, on the wake of events an year ago. Said coup was stopped by the Varangian forces, but not before its king, the powerful outcaste Anteus Delei Akhil, its queen, Maya Akhil and most of its Dragon-Blooded Elite Guard, were struck down by the rebels. The Generals’ executions have yet to come, and are scheduled to be held during Calibration.
An even greater chaos would ensue if the Royal Astrological Ministers hadn’t placed forth the firstborn of the Varangian royal family, the Mars-Born Asha Akhil – and she was no disappointment to them, managing to muster enough presence to hold back the chaos and fill the commonfolk with confidence. At least, for the moment. The seeds of revolution are still fertile, and a number of powers are aware of any crack in the wall they can leak in by... like the nearby Jackal Tribes, and the inclement Fair Folk. Varang needd help to keep its order, and so, it called for the instituition they have always been great supporters and allies of - the Realm.
Asha is a Dragon-Touched lady, but not a real Exalted, to her shame. Varang needs good blood, money, and power, to make up for what they lost during the coup attempt... and beyond. They need the Dynasty. Peleps Leonidas was a good friend of the queen, and grieved her death deeply. Well-liked on Varang( To the extent a foreigner, even a Prince of the Earth, can be, there.), and of good breeding – both grandson and great-grandson to the Empress from mother and father - his’ was a logical choice to marry princess Asha. Peleps needs the foothold on the Threshold, the power and money that come with it. But... something seems to be up in Varang aside from territory... something that made other Great Houses cast their lot on it as well.
V’neef has little intention of actually losing the money for the initial investment of the courtship and social help in Varang, since trade with it is already so lucreative, but is determined to have a foothold in it as well. The courtship would not only be expensive, but unsure – since Leonidas already has such a good standing there, any competition would be risky at best, and they cannot afford to try and lose.
And as such, in well-planned gestures of ‘good will’, they lent one of their few First Age Luxury Liners to Leonidas, and a escort... that is at the same time their plant on the Peleps projct, someone with charisma and skill to create a power base in Varang, a way to have Peleps in their debt and to spat on their face... by giving them the talented, ill-reputed social outcast V’neef Lyrin. But it’s not only V’neef’s hands. There are eyes for other houses among Lyrin’s own troops as well. And of course, house Ledaal feigned political maneuvering sending a bureaucrat, Ledaal Calistas, to court.
But Ledaal is not interested on the Throne, or in maneuvers for it. It is interested on the Realm.. and on the implications of the events in Varang. Calistas is there for the Realm, and for Heaven – for where those who work fate are blind, he who perceives the terrestrial veil shall see, and find out why. Winter Rose, his wife, is with him, unknown to the Dynasty. Her and Blaine, a walking fountain of trouble, but himself a Chosen of Fate as well.
But Winter Rose knows the truth Calistas and Lyrin have not heard about – of how, on the wake of the Coup, the City Father of Yane vanished, as did all of its protector spirits. On the realm of spirits, Yane is now empty. A Celestial takeover has begun, cloaked in the Terrestrial one, and Heaven has already lost one agent to it. And then, there is Lily... an agent of the All-Seeing Eye, sent there to spy and learn. To protect Calistas, and learn what he does, and from him. But, unknown to herself, also sent there, cryptically, by the higher eschelons of Heaven.
Soon, they shall leave with Leonidas and his fleet, towards Varang’s capital of Yane, and the darkness and chaos building within it. But for now, the players of this drama gather on a Ledaal Manse, the Garden of Sublime Wisdom, where four have already met... Calis, Winter Rose, Lily and... Blaine.
