Sworded Tales

For long moments you sit in silence watching the candlelight dance across the pallid surface of the ouija before you.  The delicate breezes brush against your skin, playfully tugging at the long tresses flowing down over your shoulders.  The sound of commonality disintegrate into the night as your essence begins to slowly take shape, weaving itself into existence from the very threads of the great fabric.

You take in a full breath, opening your mind to receive the visions which will grant you clarity into what lies ahead.  Closing your eyes, you exhale deeply, listening to the beating of your faerie heart, lub dub, focusing on your place, your purpose, within the grand scheme.  Lub dub.

Whispers emanate from the darkness all around you, creeping slowly forward against the light.  Lub dub.

Your eyes open and fall on the ouija as nearly invisible hands edge the pointer across its glassy surface.  Lub dub.

The rhythmic flash of light pulls your eyes slightly upward toward the candelabra.  Lub dub.

The flames flicker and dance…seething with light…  Lub dub.

…pulsing in time…  Lub dub.

…with the beating…  Lub dub.

…of your heart.  Lub dub.

Transfixed on the beating flames, your eyes only vaguely notice the ouija spelling out the words that are whispered all too clearly in your ears.  Lub dub.

Is…he…lost…  Lub dub.

One of the candle flames flares brilliantly, and in its heart you see… Continue reading

The Rangers had been organized to serve as protectors of the boundary which encircled the dead lands.  Their task was not to keep beasts inside the dying wastes, that was a pleasant side effect of the nearly impenetrable wall of fog.  The charge of the Rangers was to insure that no one from the living lands wandered into the darker regions of the area.  Keeping the unknowing commoners safe was normally not a difficult task, as the region had a haunting reputation which kept all but the most foolhardy from getting too close.  There were always wanderers and newcomers to the land, but the Rangers were trained to deal with just such circumstances, to anticipate them and deal with any problems before injuries could be sustained.  Continue reading

A largely nomadic people, the Strongheart Halflings are roaming clans of culture and vitality, dotting the southern landscapes of Faerun with their memorably militant ways.  One of the sacred places, the Wild Rock Oracle upon the Arnrock within the Lake of Steam, serves as neutral ground and a focal meeting point for all the Strongheart clans, friend and foe alike.  Every three turnings of the seasons, a new clan is selected to serve as the oracle’s keepers and protectors.

The Hearthblade clan, renowned for their facility with crafting and employing a wide assortment of Halfling sized pole arms, was serving as keepers of Wild Rock during their first summer season when the Crimson Pox came upon the land.  With little warning, a red speckled fever erupted, the living began to die, and the dead began to rise and wreak havoc upon their kin. Continue reading

Gerard put his small feet one in front of the other and pushed himself to physical limits, shapeless terrain blurring by him, blotting out the grim images which were trying to scar his psyche.  His Ranger training was the only tool which served him now, and it provided enough insight to allow him to survive the next few restless days and nights.  His instincts kept him moving in a straight line away from the carnage he had witnessed and toward a safe haven of the Rangers some leagues north of the accursed lands.  There he would perhaps be able to rest, to allow his mind and body to ingest some of what had been seen, and to perchance begin the healing process.  There had been no indication that the Shredder had been giving pursuit, and he at least took some small degree of solace in the fact that his Halfling companion was able to nearly destroy that which had brought about her demise.  Until he was safe though, his faculties were bent only on survival.

The Rangers were created not as a means to deal with the unusual and unexplainable events which surrounded the dead zone, but primarily as an entity to police its borders and to keep those who did not know better from wandering into dangerous areas.  Continue reading

High amidst the peaks of the Lost Emerald mountain range, the sight of winged beasts circling the cloud striations is a common one indeed.  Plentiful enough are the common birds of prey, the black-beaked eagle, the shrieking falcon, and the much prized war shrikes of the renowned Thurillion Air Guard which trains in a nearby principality, but unquestionably the chief among these aerial lords is the Silverglint Wyvern.  So named for the near reflective quality of their abdominal scales, these poisonous predators soar through the frigid skies with almost complete invisibility from below, picking and choosing their prey with calculating ease.

Atop the mountain cluster known as the Skyreach Palisades, a single culture of people, simply referred to as the Martor by their subterranean Dwarven neighbors, exist in unison with the cliffs and aeries of the ancient geography.  A hearty and versatile stock, they are the sole hunters of the mighty Silverglint Wyverns and regale in the challenge provided by felling one of the mighty menaces. Continue reading

A fifty foot climb awaited them before they would achieve the top of the cliff face, and although each individual had reservations about making the climb, all objections went unspoken when placed in contrast to descending toward the day’s previous noises.  The group began their ascent with minor encouragements offered at opportune moments.

As the last of the party crested the top of the clogged ridge, a Shredder burst forth from a nearby thicket, taking each of the travelers by surprise.  The engrained reflexes of the Ranger were all that postponed the female Halfling’s grisly fate.  As it was, the Shredder catapulted into the small clearing, arms, limbs, saws and gears flailing, and with a wicked sweep of its arced momentum, the Human was no more.  More precisely, the top half of the poor man went plummeting back over the precipice, cleanly severed about mid torso.  The rest of the freshly sectioned corpse collapsed in a wet heap, with slow disjointed movements and splashes of crimson ichor to mark the soul’s passing. Continue reading

Upon reaching the logging station, Gerard found himself confronted with a Human, a Dwarf and one of the most beautiful Halflings he had ever had the curse of laying eyes upon.  A band of adventurers by claim, the trio needed to make haste across the north ridge of the sallow wastes toward the Goblin kingdoms to the east.  Important business awaited them amidst the green skins, and Gerard was none too concerned with what those affairs were.  He was a simple lad, and clear cut in his ways and means to achieving the soul satisfaction which allowed him his freeborn beliefs.

The journey began as harmless as any would.  Several steps onto a well worn path, followed by several more along a less traveled way until they found themselves deep within the unforgiving thickets of the bayberry brush barrens.  The two Halflings had passed the time in their native tongue, Gerard relishing the opportunity to again hear the buoyant cadence of his birth people.  They discussed matters of no real import, content in the simple shared heritage and bloodline that bound them closer than either would openly admit to.  She professed some talents with the arcane arts and although never really having been exposed to any of the finer conjurations of magic, Gerard was enthralled enough to ask a few poignant questions and to make some relative observations with regards to his own understanding of things magical or mundane.  The first several days of their journey passed with blinding ferocity, and Gerard was beginning to dread the remorse he would experience when they’re time together would come to an end. Continue reading

Brin Stolsom was born to a seafaring family along the western coast of the Sea of Fallen Stars in the year DR 1750.  Raised in a salty, transient household with little paternal influence, Brin looked to her two older brothers as the strong father figures needed to develop a healthy identity. Brin’s father, Caleb Stolsom, spent a great deal of his time at sea, and her mother, Alina, had her hands amply full caring for the six Stolsom children during Caleb’s absences.

Brin’s older brothers, Caleb and Ethen, were influenced away from the mariner’s life by their mother, but managed to assuage their seafaring genes by working for a merchant shipping business that ran regular transports across the sea.  In time, they were beckoned by the lucrative call of the adventurer’s life found in Raven’s Bluff.  It was only a few short months after their first wayward adventurers that the brothers disappeared while questing near the Dragon Falls.

The entire Stolsom family shattered.  Continue reading

A snorting chuckle followed from Cyric’s throat.  Head lolling back and forth, he shook with the indignity of his current imprisonment.  Thinking his rage had vanished some unknown number of days earlier, Cyric was pleasantly surprised to sense the return of the reddest of his emotions.  The rage blossomed in him anew, reborn through simple utterance of his now fruitless cause.

The feminine enigma above him leaned a few inches closer, nostrils flaring as she inhaled and released the breath with a delicious hum.  The purring vibration in her gullet gathered the humid moisture collected between her breasts and caused a single drop to roll down her rich flesh.  The crystalline liquid fell from her inverted form and splashed on Cyric’s cheek and chin.  He recoiled from the searing touch of the droplet with a shocked, feral grunt, as though acid had been dripped onto his already feverish skin.  The pain which was invoked shattered the illusion of her insubstantiality.

“What are you?” Cyric whispered through clenched teeth.

“I am your deliverer,” the woman replied smoothly, with no hint of sympathy. Continue reading

Lillian Djorn was born in the frosty coastal town of Neverwinter along the Sword Coast of Faerun to a moderately wealthy wizard and his mistress.  Her father, Halmodar Zorath, was an arcane researcher for a small faction of a rather large wizard’s guild based in Waterdeep, who was enthralled with his work to an almost unhealthy level.  Jidae Djorn, Lillian’s mother, was a simple farm girl from a local family who had been sent to serve as a house maid to the group of researchers.  Were it not for the domestic ministrations of Jidae, Halmodar would have likely starved himself into unconsciousness with his work.  Their years of shared proximity and time eventually developed into a symbiotic form of love that would occasionally include sharing of the flesh when Halmodar was able to tear himself away from his studies. Continue reading