Translucidity/ENLightenment

ENL Notes, First Attempt

Here follows an effort to set in print an idea of what was going on. It probably won't work, it'll probably be more confusing than enlightening, but so was the game, I think.

The Present

Hunter and Phoenix have just woken up. It's about an hour before dawn, and the inn/tavern they're staying in has a fairly powerful fire elemental blazing through it, intending to trap them and kill them, or at least drive them into the waiting fists of the Immaculate monks in the alleyway outside. The whole thing has been masterminded by a Sidereal assassin wearing a Resplendent Destiny, but very little else is currently fleshed out beyond this point.

Chance is in the shadowland that was once his home, having charged off to rescue his sister Breeze on the word of an innkeeper called Serenity, whom he trusted far too quickly. Breeze is in the shadowland, but definitely doesn't need Chance to look after her - Serenity only told him to endanger him and keep him out of the way while Hunter and Phoenix are attacked, 'cos she's the Sidereal assassin mentioned above - she's using Ceasing To Exist Approach for her primary identity, that of a God-Blooded prophetess/bartender.

Strix is still talking to Rose, who has finally revealed that she's Solar Exalted (and about 100 years old, too, having escaped the Wyld Hunt with the aid of the Weeping Angel, a Deathlord) and wants to recruit him. First, she wants him to come along on a tomb-raid in the Black Chase, in the territory of another Deathlord, to hopefully establish a decent working relationship. Then, she wants his help taking down the Wyld Hunt in its entirety, which meshes nicely with Hunter's long-term plans, and was going to be the tie-in for getting them together.

Timaro and Kimiko were headed off on a pretty trippy ride, with a huge storm to fire 'em up, near-endless unnatural fog banks to provide some time for reflection, and then a Wyld-tainted island with a tainted Sea Dragon abomination living on it to fight before eating of the freaky fruit and confusing the buggery out of everyone. It all made a degree more sense when Neil and I initially planned it, I assure you. Then it was onward to Calin, to meet up with the rest of the reprobates.

Ghost was just in his own thread, on a not-quite parallel plotline, working for a Mysterious Old Man who acted as the intermediary of a Deathlord nobody - perhaps not even the other Deathlords - knew the identity or even title of. Mostly the thread was there to kill time in while I thought up more material and to provide a tutorial in the Exalted system to the player.

Other stuff in no particular order

The four statues in the central plaza of Sijan were:

• Southeast: Rose's past incarnation. High priestess type, lived in Rathess, escaped the Solar Purge.
• Southwest: The First and Forsaken Lion as he was in life. Hunter's past incarnation.
• Northwest: Strix's past incarnation. The perfect huntsman, betrayed by the First Necromancer, who was his old Circle's Twilight Caste - and Kimiko's past incarnation.
• Northeast: Phoenix's past incarnation.

The Weeping Angel is the vengeful ghost of Phoenix's past incarnation. When she died, and the magics binding her soul broke and allowed her to feel again, her ghost was driven mad - and accepted the offer the Neverborn made her so that she could finish her life's quest to destroy the Wyld.

The first ever Solar necromancer was Kimiko's past incarnation. Ironically, she didn't become a ghost upon her death, but a number of Deathlords were very interested in her - though, ironically, not in killing her or making her an Abyssal, because they feared that such change might stop history from repeating itself... and they wanted her to have a chance to become a powerful tool before they seized her.

Timaro's sister Delira was an Infernal Exalt, albeit one with little experience and fewer hooks in her soul than most would have - she was kept on a fairly loose leash. Keiko, hers and Kimiko's mentor, was also Infernal rather than Sidereal, and intended to use Kimiko as a kind've society-destroying timebomb, priming her with all kinds of juicy secrets that'd shake the world when revealed. Ironically, Timaro, the Exalt with the most obvious demonic ties from her storm-demon heritage, was pure as the driven snow.

Chance's sister Breeze was a Lunar Exalt, but one who'd been struck with almost as much bad luck as he'd had in his own background. As such, she'd been a captive of the Fair Folk for some time before she was found and rescued by another Lunar, and in that time had started spiralling down the path to being one of the chimera. Aura, her rescuer, refused to tattoo her until she'd had a chance to investigate the return of the Solars, since she remembered her First Age mate being able to remove Wyld-taint from people - and wished to cleanse Breeze before she fixed her form permanently.

Perhaps unfortunately for Chance and Breeze, but in keeping with their rotten luck, they were mates in their first incarnations, and memories of such things were going to start surfacing in time.

Willow, Phoenix's best friend, was blessed by the war-god Sings-with-Steel with command over Essence, and made into a God-Blood by the process, so that she could protect her, and as compensation for the Steelsinger having killed her best friend (his daughter). He also restored her memories, and gave her Shield's (aforementioned daughter) to bear as well.

The fletcher in Sijan was completely obsessed with working black ash, and had an unnatural gift for it thanks to being descended from a line of similarly obsessive black ash workers, not all of whom were alive at the time of their contributions to the line. Sijani family trees (no pun intended) can be a wonderful thing, no?

Lady Rose never attempted to deceive anyone as far as I recall. She really was a Solar, working quite happily for a Deathlord, and hadn't even been directly brainwashed, although she was perhaps a little blind to the Weeping Angel's faults - supernatural charisma can do that to ya, as can the hubris that sat just below the surface of Rose's personality. She was cool, immensely knowledgeable, and in control of her own destiny to a large degree... but the trouble was, she knew it, and believed it too much. Still, she was, perhaps, the best ally any of the PCs could've picked up.

Strix's Orichalcum-reinforced buff jacket, which he took from the rogue Lunar he was fighting when he became Exalted, really did belong to him in a past incarnation. Unfortunately, the Lunar was also the most recent incarnation of his old mate, wearing it as a keepsake, and he killed her.

Comments? Questions?

Post 'em if you got 'em.

I would suggest making this page a bit more clear, as a first-time reader (such as myself), can get easily lost in the maze of new names and places. Adding some short character bios at the beginning of this piece, just so one can familiarize themselves with the characters before getting buried in their travails, would really help, as well as some information what this page is about as well. hplovescats

Aye, I do intend to make it a little more reader-friendly in time. Initially, however, it was just me writing down whatever occurred to me as I remembered it, having just ended the game - I didn't really view it as needing to be comprehensible to anyone not involved in the game, and was only recording it for my own amusement and that of the players. As it is, however, not a single one of the scumbags enquired about what was actually going on... :-/ So the page is probably largely defunct. - Translucidity