Mortai G/S ~ Brief Type Stuff, 21/1/23 Options

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Any who have played the second (the trip to the spirit realm) and third (trip to the Fey realm) dungeons in the campaign get the following as either a dream whilst you sleep or as a vision whilst meditating. If you neither sleep nor meditate then you did not get this.

You are met with a vision of the face covered by a mask floating in a mist, you cannot make out the person behind the mask but they are adorned with tribal fetishes and totemic scars and tattoos. The mask is recognisably the Mask of Wisdom. From the mask issues a voice that relates the following tale. As the voice continues you get images of the tale that as it is being told as if being remembered or as if you are there.

During the time of the Sallow Princes, early in the formation of the Empire, the forces of the Nobles of the Blood that would soon become the Nobles of the Blood. At the time that the Magiocracy of Kesselharn was being forced to bow to the fledgeling Empire the Legions encountered a small conclave of uncivilised tribes and repeated a feat that had been replicated across what is now the Heartlands of the Empire. That is, on meeting them they drove them off the land or slaughtered them where they would not flee. However there was once group that would not flee, no matter the cost, that dug in about one of their sacred places.

It is said that, on the night of the eve before what would ultimately be the final battle, the lead Shaman of this collection of the tribes visited the Warsire in a Dream and spoke to him.

He warned him that, if it were any other place they would have accepted defeat and retreated to those lands that by their mystic nature were hostile to the Nobles of the Blood, now known as the Broken Lands, but they were trapped by an Oath. The Shaman warned this leader that if they vanquished him then they too would be trapped by the same oath.

The Warsire laughed at such superstition and made clear that he could not back down but he would allow the Shaman and what was left of his tribe to flee in what amounted to a peace. The masked Shaman reiterated his plea but the Warsire. The Shaman, having failed to achieve with words what he had hoped, then attempted to slay the Warsire from within the dream such that he would simply be found dead in his sleep.

The Warsire however was prepared for such an occurrence, being wiser and more cunning in the knowledge of ritual, despite not himself being a ritualist. The mysterious deaths of key members of his retinue who had simply been found dead as they slept had alerted him to the possibility of such a threat and he had taken precautions. Precautions that served him well as he was able to call upon a talisman to banish the Shaman from his dream. It was a strength of will that caught the Shaman by surprise losing his only chance as the Warsire awoke and would remain awake until dawn.

The next day the final battle took place with the Tribes taking their last stand upon Fenton Hill. As all expected the tribes were routed and any who had even touched a weapon were slaughtered, man woman or child at the order of the Warsire.

However as Dusk Fell it was said that the very souls and spirits of the slain could be seen leaving the bodies and walking climbing up the hill and walking towards the setting sun and as they reached the summit they seemed to enter the hill itself as the last rays of the sun touched the hills peak.

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As before you see another vision...

You see gathered on a vast plane two vast armies.

The first looks like a mix of lean very colourful Fey, with long thin spears mounted upon a mix of strange mythical beasts, pennants streaming. As you try and gaze upon them their forms, their colours, even their shapes and sizes shift like an image on water, even the numbers seem inconsistent. The only thing that seems to have any permanence is a large Oak tree that stands at the head of the army

Besides them stands a second army a horde of ghostly figures, an undisciplined rabble armed with tattered shields and rusted spears, most wearing fetishes and totemic talismans. Many bear scars and what look like fatal wounds but wounds that do not trouble them. These spirits grin and laugh and josh, impatiently. At the head of this army a thin stoic spirit mounted upon a golden chariot looks ahead, his features hidden by the vision of a familiar Mask armed with a spear that glows with a ghostly yet bright white fire. That burns into the vision

Before the two armies lies the broken Ruby Seal over which they watch, waiting for something. It seems that they have been there for years. Sentries against an unknown horror.