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The three days after the events of The Animated Gift have been busy. You have seen Lord Wright, the Lathau lord who originally asked you to find his daughter Lenore, leading to the events of The Animated Gift. You have talked with some people in the area to discover more about what happened, and why Vorik summoned the evil abominations of nature into the world. Lenore has discovered much information about her past and heritage. She wishes to return her mother’s bones to the Jepali herself. You expect that Lord Wright will ask you to accompany her on her journey.
Lord Wright had kept the following old article, which he shared with you:
Many years ago, the Jepali woman J'miila was searching for old Jepali burial grounds in the northern part of the Southern Forest. She was saved by Vorik Hague from an attack by a rival Jepali clan. They fell in love even though he was a male spellcaster, until J'miila discovered his experiments were evil and, fearing for her unborn child decided to leave him. J’miila escaped with the help of a Jepali woman from the same rival clan, disguised as a friend. A wealthy Lathau family, Stephan and Elaine Wright, whom J'miila knew, adopted her daughter born soon thereafter. Another rival Jepali woman helped Vorik find J'miila by conjuring a creature to track her, although it was instructed by the Jepali to kill all in its path, including a local minor nobleman. The disguised rival Jepali spread rumors that J’miila was an evil Jepali witch and she was tied to a stake and burned alive. Vorik arrived on the scene too late and assumed that both his lover and their unborn child had died in the fire. Vorik knew Jepali custom said that burying her bones would keep her spirit in this area and hoped one day to bring her back to him. Vorik angry and vengeful, locked himself away from the world, and began experimenting with powers beyond his control (which aged him unnaturally) and eventually built the Gifts.
Ivar, Vorik’s younger brother and a cleric of Athena, knew of Vorik's relationship with a Jepali and that they were expecting a child. Vorik blamed Ivar for the burning, believing that Ivar did nothing to stop it. Ivar did find the knife used to kill the nobleman and traced it to the rival Jepali clan. Vorik became jealous and vindictive after the birth of Ivar's daughter, Belinda. As she got older, Vorik attempted but failed to lure Belinda away from her good father and into Vorik’s schemes.
Belinda discovered the truth about Lenore's adoption, found her (she highly resembles her mother, according to Vorik's description) and they became friends as Lenore began to develop her own inherited spellcasting abilities. Lenore fell in love with Richard, a kindly young messenger in Lord Wright’s employ.
Lenore's adoptive parents had told her that Vorik was an evil man and warned her not seek him out. Belinda, while not revealing her knowledge of Lenore's parentage, wanted to protect her from Vorik plans. While she and Richard were escorting Lenore back to Lord Stephan's manor, Vorik's men captured Belinda. Richard was killed and Lenore escaped.
At the crossroads farm town of Stratton Wing, the Party met Vorik Hague. He hired them to deliver a gift to his niece, Belinda, living in Soravin, a town north of Stratton Wing. While in town they learn that the Duchess of the Honorarne, Lady Siskind, has a Sheriff that patrols this area since the nobleman was killed many years ago but that the Baron Fell, prominent in the area, dislikes the lack of local law enforcement. He and Lord Stephan Wright, a wealthy local Lathau landowner but not a nobleman, are at odds on this issue. Before the party left town, they observed some children playing a game called "Burn the Witch" and learned that Richard, a messenger for Lord Stephan, was missing, last seen with two young women heading out of the village.
Strange things occurred during the Party's journey, including some weapons in a shop that moved towards the Party member carrying the Gift, plant creatures that animated and attacked, dead bodies that animated and rose from their graves at a burial site, and an old suit of armor that once belonged to a Knight of St Michael animated and challenged one of them to a fight.
At one point, the person carrying the Gift was stopped in their tracks, feet magically held to the ground, and became possessed, affecting the other party members with “Animal Mind”. They eventually figured out that they needed to gather sticks at the feet of the party member who was holding the gift, and light the sticks on fire, mimicking the game played by the village children. The gift bearer then experienced a Death Memory of J’miila, the Jepali woman. The spirit of J’miila then appeared to the party and told them her death should not be avenged the way Vorik is planning. She showed the party a vision of Belinda being captured and urged them to stop Vorik.
Traveling on, the Party met Ivar who provided them with information regarding his brother, including that his daughter Belinda was Vorik's only niece. Continuing on with Ivar, they discover Richard's body. Within reach of the messenger’s hand, “Vorik” was scratched in the dirt.
Approaching their destination, Vorik greeted the party and tried to convince them to hand over the Gift. Drawing it to him through magic, Vorik opened a gateway through which summoned Warped Creatures emerged. The first was a Butterfly, which he sent to kill those responsible for J'miila's death. Vorik's guards attacked the party while he worked on opening the portal then the summoned creatures also attacked. When the Warped Creatures were defeated, and the portal closed, the party was able to talk with Belinda, Ivar and Lenore (who arrived on the scene after the fight) to learn the truth of the whole situation.
By Peter Sartucci
[Reprinted from the Melee]
Last issue I wrote briefly about the Land of the Seven Tribes, mentioning its diversity. One of the games coming up soon is set in the borderlands of the LOST, so I think it a good time to talk about the neighbor that has the biggest influence upon the LOST. When the people who make up the LOST spread into the southern areas of the heartland of the country and occupied the Southern Forest and Westmarch, they found lots of ruins and graveyards. Many of these had symbols that were incomprehensible to them. We now know that much of this is Jepali work. The Jepali live south of the hills that the Seven call the Border Range, but 500 years ago they occupied a much larger area including nearly 1/3 of the LOST's country. Then a terrible civil war and plague wracked their people and reduced their population by over 3/4. The war was rooted in their religious practices.
Jepali don't wonder about an afterlife - they know there is one, because they talk to their ancestors and the ancestors answer back. Any adult woman and many adult men can pray to their ancestors, usually using their bones as a link, and get some sort of response, though for most it will be vague. Many talented women can get more of a response, even fairly detailed answers (once men did this also, more about that below). These women tend to accrue the bones of their ancestors so that they can more easily commune with the departed, and have thus become known as Bonewalkers. A high-status Bonewalker may carry bones from 50 people with her, using them as buttons, ornaments, tools, etc. A young woman who showed signs of having such talents would normally be given one or two bones of her ancestors upon her entering puberty, and as her older female relatives died off she would get more and more of their bones (and the bones they carried). By the time she became an old woman she might be in intimate spiritual contact with her mother, grandmothers, great grandmothers, great aunts, etc. - and quite a few male ancestors as well. How do they get these bones? That's where a major religious strife with the LOST comes into play. Jepali don't bury the dead family members that they love, they expose their bodies to the elements (often in trees) and when animals have cleaned the flesh away they collect and distribute the bones. Larger bones may be broken up for tools or lodged in tall trees to disintegrate, smaller bones be made into tools or necklaces. If you had many descendants your bones may end up being carried by forty or fifty people once you die. Through the bones, they maintain communication with you, and your dead spirit draws sustenance from that. However, if people thought ill of you, if you were considered evil by your family and neighbors, then a quite different fate awaits your spirit. They will seal your body in a wooden box (metal if you were really bad), place it inside stone or earth, and seal it up, with spells, traps and warnings to keep you isolated in there, cut off from the other ancestors. This is a recent tradition; it began only 500 years ago.
That was when a line of powerful male spellcasters began trying to do more than just commune for information. They began to seek active participation in politics and decision-making by the dead, and also to influence them. Some of these men were evil and they called upon evil ancestors who the rest of the tribe had largely ignored or dealt with simply by scattering their bones and refusing to carry them. They gathered up these scattered bones and used them in powerful necromancies. They accumulated power over their fellow Jepali this way, and wanted more.
The good Jepali pushed back, and civil war ensued. When it was over many of the evil spellcasters had perished. They and their followers were sealed away in tombs and holy places by the victors, but the land was devastated (particularly north of the Border Hills). So the exhausted victors withdrew to settle south of the hills, abandoning half their country to the weather and the healing effects of time. They imposed rituals to protect their people - introducing the habit of gently ending the lives of male spellcaster children so that their spirits could be sheltered safely by the good ancestors. And the good ancestors did take up the spirits of those children and protect them, so it became common practice. The Jepali slowly recovered their numbers in the south of their land, where the weather was better, and planned to someday return to the north, when the evil there had withered away in the tombs. They thought 500 years might be enough. But well before then the Seven arrived, and things went quite differently from the way the Jepali had planned. These strangers actually free the spirits of evil people by executing them and hanging their bodies to rot on gallows and gibbets. They seal the spirits of their good people up in coffins and tombs. They even sometimes plunder old tombs of the Jepali (or at least allow the groups they call 'adventurers' to do it), prematurely freeing malignant spirits before they are safely attenuated by time!
Clearly, most of the Jepali can see only one answer - the people of the LOST are dedicated to the service of evil ancestors. And that’s why war has been simmering off and on for the past couple generations. Neither culture understands the other, but a few on each side have made efforts to try. Against such a burden of pain and hate, how can they succeed?
If you are interested in participating in this game, you can contact the game designers at 303-300-0790 or by e-mail at brett_paul@qwest.net