AntiVehicleRocket/HazyShadeOfWinters
Ahem. Is this thing on?
Hazy Shade of Winters is my freshly-begun tabletop Exalted campaign. It's a strange cross between an epic tale of destiny-forging, salvation, and revenge in the shadow of Oblivion and... a buddy comedy. Complete with kid sidekick.
This game is going to be totally rad.
The Story So Far
Session One: Vengeance and Flowers (or, Why Not To Be a Mercenary) -- in which our heroes find some high weirdness in the Scavenger Lands, and then it finds them
Cast of PCs
Myrmidon Walking the Fields of Carnage (played by the Mysterious Jake the Elder): The first character I had submitted to me and the reason the campaign exists. (Jake the Elder is my current Exalted tabletop GM and desperately wanted to actually play, see...) Anyway. Myrmidon is a Midnight-caste Abyssal, a former mercenary leader who found himself killed in battle just before he was to Exalt as a Solar; he accepted the Mask of Winters's offer of the Black Exaltation to escape death and served loyally for a while until he and his company one day refused to bend to the Mask's cruelty. In return, the company was crushed and Myrmidon captured and tortured by Mask. Finally, a year into his torture, Myrmidon managed to escape from the Mask's clutches -- thanks in no small part to the Sidereal Exalt who stole his Monstrance from under the Mask's nose and let him flee. Now a ronin, Myrmidon is still recovering his strength and his purpose.
Petal on the Windswept Plain (played by Shadowy Committee Leader Ben): Petal on the Windswept Plain is a Chosen of Journeys, the only survivor of a plague household whose Exaltation and training came right on the heels of her parents' deaths. In her post-training travels as an independent Golden Barque agent, she became fascinated by the young man who would become Myrmidon; imagine her shock when one of her assignments, with a Bronze Faction member who wanted to block a particularly inauspicious Exaltation, resulted in his death and subsequent Abyssal Exaltation. Fate definitely works in strange ways... especially since, not too long after, one of her superiors assigned her to watch the newly-ronin deathknight who owes him a big favor. Well, life is strangeness, after all, and this is as good as any for the peripatetic Petal.
Oursa (played by Sub-Frosh Alex): Oursa is a Dawn Caste, and he's all of about ten years old. He grew up in a typical Scavenger Lands farm family and Exalted rather suddenly, and to protect his family and figure out better what's going on in his life, he's adopted Myrmidon and Petal as a surrogate family. (Good choices, kid...) He hovers somewhere between terrified and excited most of the time, which really seems only right and proper. Oursa is a smidge obvious -- he's got a permanent caste mark (covered by a headband), a buff jacket that's too big for him, and an orichalcum goremaul (wrapped on his back) -- but the cover of his stranger "family" have kept him mostly free of scrutiny for now. Also he's got a kitten.
NPCs Thus Far
Tomaso Too-Tall, the Stolen Omen -- The Stolen Omen is a Chosen of Journeys and Petal's immediate superior. (He typically goes by "the Stolen Omen," which is technically the title attached to his shard that's gone through a few incarnations with it; "Tomaso Too-Tall" is his given nane, but he uses it rarely.) Much like Petal, he's a restless wanderer, uncomfortable with anything resembling a 'desk job' and relentlessly independent, although he slightly favors the Gold Faction. He's an expert in artifact and First Age wonder recovery and spends copious time in Creation, raiding tombs and ruins for the glory of Heaven. (These commendable skills allowed him to pull off a theft he regards as his masterwork -- the theft of an Abyssal Monstrance from under the Mask of Winters's nose... an act that earned him a heady favor from one young Midnight.) As his name suggests, he's a tall, gangly man with a cheeky, irreverent air, fond of talk but reticent about his particular colorful past.
Mewling Whelp -- Mewling Whelp is Petal's familiar, a huge dog (think a Newfoundland, but moreso) that outweighs her and is nearly as tall as she is. (The name is a joke, one which Whelp is just smart enough to get.) He's a loyal companion and fairly dependable, as befits a huge dog.
Miko -- Miko is Oursa's kitten familiar. While not physically strong, he's nearly as smart as Oursa is and is useful as a companion and a spy.
Vanilwen -- Vanilwen is the ghost of a mercenary captain, summoned by Myrmidon in Session 1 after he found her grave vandalized. A heavyset, forthright Northern woman, Vanilwen in life was one of the leaders of Heshieh's First Efficacious of Whitewall, a Northern squad of firewand-users notable for both their skill and for their internal struggles; in one such internal struggle, Vanilwen explained to Myrmidon, she assassinated one of her co-captains. Several years later, while she was off-duty in the Scavenger Lands, her "victim" came back and blew her straight into the Underworld. She's got her regrets, for obvious reasons, but a soldier in life is a soldier in death, and she and Myrmidon spent a bit of time reminiscing about the foibles of the mercenary business.
The Snowblinded Justicar -- Deathknight in the service of Dust and Ash of Slaughtered Empire (see below). In life, he was one of the leaders of Heshieh's First Efficacious until he was ambushed and assassinated by Vanilwen. After accepting the Black Exaltation, he evened the score in short order. The Snowblinded Justicar is an intimidating figure, six and a half feet tall and dressed in solid black, with a particularly strange soulsteel mask/helmet that covers his face and shoulders entirely accept for one visible ice-blue eye. His voice is very soft and his motives mysterious.
Dust and Ash of Slaughtered Empire -- A Deathlord and the liege of the Snowblinded Justicar. None of the PCs have had any particular contact with him, but he is known to operate in the Northwest and to be allied with the Lover Clad in Raiment of Tears and the Bodhisattva Anointed By Dark Water. He is generally regarded as a "harmless" Deathlord in that he is not actively warring with any forces of Creation and seems fairly content just to keep his current territory.
The Mask of Winters -- Has yet to appear, but in a campaign called "Hazy Shade of Winters," be certain that The Deathlord Formerly Known as Larquen Quen will make his due appearance.
