|
Post by SigniferLux on Aug 16, 2013 22:49:06 GMT
(Since it has been mentioned, please bear in mind that many of the following stories are not made by me. Most of them are parables written by people long dead by now or are part of religious books with no copyrights and have been posted on other sites from where i have seen and copied them. If you wish to know the exact site, then please pm me. Slight adjustments have been made to fit the idea of this game and campaign.
If i accidentally added material made from a user of a specific site, and only if the user himself claims to be the creator of the aforementioned, please pm me. For all those concerned about the rules of the forum, here is a link to help you find your way. General Forum Rules)It begun as nothing more than a journal from Athamia, An-Ei's great-grandmother. She would sit down and write about each moral edict she went through in her adventures after a decision was taken. Since her allies prefered to remain unknown and asked her to not write such a book, they compromised with the promise that she would not write about specific people or places. So she begun writing in a way that reminded that of parables and wise stories. The book passed from mother to daughter, since for some reason the family always seemed to have a daughter as the firstborn. There was a legend in the family concerning Athamia's mother, but that is a tale which will be told some time in the future. Nevertheless, the book passed from hand to hand, only to reach the hands of An-Ei. But, until then it seemed half complete, and to skip stories is like adding flavor without baking the cake... A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. What food might this contain?' The mouse wondered. He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.
Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning:
There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!'
The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, 'Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.'
The mouse turned to the pig and told him, 'There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!' The pig sympathized, but said, I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.'
The mouse turned to the cow and said 'There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!' The cow said, 'Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose.'
So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap . . . alone.
That very night a sound was heard throughout the house -- like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.
The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail was caught by the trap. The snake bit the farmer's wife.
The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever.
Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient.
But his wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock.
To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.
The farmer's wife did not get well; she died.
So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.
The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.
So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn't concern you, remember ----when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk.
We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another.
|
|
|
Post by SigniferLux on Aug 17, 2013 1:18:05 GMT
It was a cold, silent night. Athamia and her fellow travelers passed through a village a few days ago. Their healer and spiritual leader, going by the name of Daviel, saw a young boy, trying to learn how to swim. But the boy failed and seemed like it begun drowning. The fighter, the always hasty in his actions and slow at his thoughts, Vorias, rushed to save the child, only to be stopped by Daviel. Vorias tried pushing Daviel slightly, not using strength but showing to the healer his intentions. Seeing as he got no positive respnse, he stood there looking, trusting at the wisdom of Daviel. Athamia saw the scene and approached to take a better look. All three of them were now staring at the child, who, after choking on some water, managed to swim back out. Daviel just looked at the other two, and kept walking towards the place he intended to, the inn.
Now, Athamia decided to write a story about that day, always in the parable style she promised she would keep.
A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole.
Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther. Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily.
But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened!
In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.
|
|
|
Post by SigniferLux on Aug 17, 2013 1:30:30 GMT
Once more night came to take the place of day. Athamia was injured, and so were her comrades. They encountered a necromancer today, one who plagued and they hunted for more weeks than she could care to remember. While the others were preparing the tent and watching over Vorias's wounds, who rushed in to save a civillian from the necromancer's grip, Athamia sat down, lit her candle and begun writing again a subtle reflection of today's adventure.
The Hart was once drinking from a pool and admiring the noble figure he made there.
“Ah,” said he, “where can you see such noble horns as these, with such antlers! I wish I had legs more worthy to bear such a noble crown; it is a pity they are so slim and slight.”
At that moment a Hunter approached and sent an arrow whistling after him. Away bounded the Hart, and soon, by the aid of his nimble legs, was nearly out of sight of the Hunter; but not noticing where he was going, he passed under some trees with branches growing low down in which his antlers were caught, so that the Hunter had time to come up.
“Alas! alas!” cried the Hart: “We often despise what is most useful to us.”
|
|
|
Post by SigniferLux on Aug 17, 2013 2:10:43 GMT
After the quest of defeating the necromancer was over Athamia found some of his journals and stories. She nearly fought over them in an arguement she had with their knowledge keeper, Lathenia, but managed to win with the promise of buying her some new books when they hit town. Inside the necromancer's writings she found this:
I went around to places where the economy was horrible, the rulers were tyrants, and the people were downtrodden.
There, hidden in cairns and crypts, I taught. I taught the people how to use the dead in their defense--and when defense was not needed, in their fields. I taught spellcraft and surgery. I taught them to think for themselves.
I overthrew tyrants, I saved civilizations. I left in my wake prosperous, well-fed democracies, populated by the living and the working dead.
Eventually, I became old. Tired. I knew that lichdom was not for me--benefits aside, I was ready to move on. I had mastered this side of death--yet there was so much more to learn, that required intimate knowledge of the other side.
As I prepared my final resting place, with a missive spell to go out to all my proteges, I used a simple scrying spell to view the places I had visited, once more.
What I saw surprised and disgusted me. The living once again worked the fields, instead of the schools and libraries. So-called 'good kings' once more had tyranny over the people. Ignorance and fear ruled these lands again. And bodies were cremated, even the bones, and scattered so that no necromancer could use them, for good or for ill.
I traced back the lines of fate to find what had caused such disasters, what had destroyed the lands which I had saved.
Adventurers, So-called saviors, hunting down the most powerful necromancer in the world. The Arch-Lich, they called me. I wasn't even dead! The stories they circulated claimed I had lived a thousand-thousand years, spreading misery and the walking dead in my wake. Misery, most certainly not, and I was scarcely sixty years old, though my mentor had certainly lived a long time, and his mentor before him. I was not even a lich! Not long after I discovered this, my body failing, one organ at the time, this group of adventurers found me.
I lay on my deathbed. They were expecting a fight, some cackling, evil mastermind to kill so that they could have been called heroes. They did not expect an old, bitter man who had seen his life's work destroyed because of paranoia and bigotry.
I told them what I had done, and why I had done it. I told them of my hopes and dreams, for a world where no living man would have to work, where all could spend time doing what they truely desired--study, advancement, even the simple pleasures of a small farm and family, if they so wished. A world free of petty tyrants, where each man could vote for the ruler of their town or their nation.
In the end, I cried. For my proteges, good men dead at the hands of these heroes. For my plans, dashed against the rocks of hatred. For myself, an old, broken dying man with a wasted life.
Seems like these were from the journal of the necromancer's master, maybe teacher, as much as Athamia could understand.
|
|
|
Post by SigniferLux on Aug 17, 2013 2:19:25 GMT
After reading these, thoughts overflowed Athamia that night. She could not sleep and stayed all night awake trying to think what is and what is not, what should be and what should not be. She slowly lit her candle, informed Orovos, the group's leader and fighter at both arms and heart alike, that she would not sleep and just went some feet away from the group's camp, sat under a tree and begun writing. The first thing she thought about was the various people who came to the adventurers and expressed their taboos, speaking badly not of something bad, but of what they would not like.
In Calidor, an owl was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem. One day an acquaintance, a fox, met the great philosopher and said, “Do you know what I just heard about your friend?”
“Hold on a minute,” the owl replied. “Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be good idea to take a moment and filter what you’re going to say. That’s why I call it the triple filter test. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”
“Well, no,” the fox said, “actually I just heard about it and…”
“All right,” said the owl. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now, let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?”
“Umm, no, on the contrary…”
“So,” the owl continued, “you want to tell me something bad about my friend, but you’re not certain it’s true. You may still pass the test though, because there’s one filter left—the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?”
“No, not really.”
“Well,” concluded the owl, “if what you want to tell me is neither true, nor good, nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?”
|
|
|
Post by SigniferLux on Aug 17, 2013 3:09:58 GMT
Days have passed and the anxiousness and sadness of Athamia had already gone away. This time they had to escort a noble man who paid well through some plains. Nothing serious apart from the time the trip would take to reach their destination. Daviel said that they should not help people for a price. An anexpected answer came from Orovos, saying that they were only taking what others did not need. They would never take a copper from someone who only has a few, but one less expensive soap for the -majesty's buttcheecks-, as he used to call all rich people, thankfully not while they were present, would not make any man hungry.
The following story that Athamia wrote was something actually happened while they were leaving from a small home in the wilderness where a poor farmer family lived.
One day a rich father took his son on a journey to the country with the firm purpose of showing him how poor people can be. They spent a day and a night on the farm of a very impoverished family.
When they got back, the father asked his son, “How was the trip?”
“Very good, Dad!”
“Did you see how these people live?” the father asked.
“Yeah!”
“And what did you learn?”
The son answered, “I saw that we have a dog at home, and they have four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of the garden, they have a creek that has no end.We have imported lamps in the garden, they have the stars. Our patio reaches to the front yard, they have a whole horizon.”
When the little boy was finishing, his father was speechless.
His son added, “Thanks, Dad, for showing me how rich they are!”
After the incident, Daviel murmured something that Athamiel decided to add at her story as a side note.
"If the children were our parents, then i am sure we could learn a lot."
|
|
|
Post by SigniferLux on Aug 17, 2013 4:21:20 GMT
This night was a rather regular one for Athamia. They have helped the noble, took the gold, spent it on whatever each one of them wished for, and now they were asleep besides her, while she was sitting with her trusty candle and the book she was writing in. Today's story was one that she thought while they were traveling aimlessly on the road.
A cleric of Sarenrae asked the high priest of his church, “I have studied the Holy book with the teachings of Sarenrae for many years, yet there are many areas I do not quite understand. Please enlighten me.”
The high priest responded, “I am illiterate. Please read out the book to me and perhaps I will be able to explain it's meaning.”
The cleric said, “You cannot even read the book! How are you able to understand the meaning?”
“Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky. Words, in this case, can be likened to a finger. The finger can point to the moon’s location. However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger, right?”
|
|
|
Post by SigniferLux on Aug 17, 2013 17:51:50 GMT
After having walked a long road, Athamia and her fellow adventurers have reached a beautiful city. Despite all of it's beauty they saw many people ill and the great difference of commodity in districts built for the poor and those built for the rich. Orovos commented on the poor people, being stack up like tree logs in houses too close to each other, to make room for the rich to have a better view of the miracles of nature.
The group split up and Athamia, interested in learning more about the people, went towards the hospitals of the poor where she met a sick and depressed man sitting on a bed. That man told Athamia a story, real as he said, that occured a few days before the group came. Athamia decided to write down this story.
Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room’s only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service.
Every afternoon when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.
The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside.
The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children were swimming. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color.
As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene.
One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing by. Although the other man couldn’t hear the band – he could see it. In his mind’s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.
Days and weeks passed.
One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep. She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.
As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.
Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside.
He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed. It faced a blank wall.
The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window. The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall.
She said, “Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you.”.
|
|
|
Post by SigniferLux on Aug 17, 2013 18:17:07 GMT
This time the adventuring group decided to settle down in a city for a few years. They all cashed in most of their gold and managed to buy one of the big houses in the city. Then everyone took their own ways, some trying to find entertainment, some others to find evil to banish. Athamia went around with her book, collecting and writing stories whenever she could.
A few weeks later she met a man, not much older than her, who was a messenger between two nobles. He was waiting to take a message from one of them to deliver to the other. It was afternoon and Athamia had nothing better to do, so she stayed and watched the man. When he took the message and went on his way to the other noble, Athamia approached him and asked him if she could accompany him. He smiled and, answering positively, begun walking towards the other noble. Here begins the story Athamia wrote this time.
I walked with a friend the other night, he was a messenger between nobles and was delivering a message at the time. After reaching the noble's house he received a tip, thanking the noble politely. The noble, however, did not even acknowledge it.
“A sullen fellow, isn’t he?” I commented as we walked away.
“Oh, he’s that way every night,” shrugged my friend.
“Then why do you continue being so polite to him?” I asked.
And my friend replied, “Why should I let him determine how I’m going to act?”.
Just a few weeks later and having spent a lot of time with the man, Athamia fell in love with him. He was so simple, so wise, so strong yet so gentle and kind. She spent more than two years with him. They went everywhere together. After two years they decided to get married, though not with a marriage made for tales, but one made in the dark, with only trusted friends of Kenevan, that was this man's name, and Athamia's companions. All went well, maybe except for Vorias drinking too much and then collapsing on the table, his snoring greater that a dragon's roar.
|
|
|
Post by SigniferLux on Aug 17, 2013 18:43:16 GMT
A few months after their marriage, Athamia found work as a bookkeeper in the local justice court. She also was pregnant, so it was hard for her to work like that since she was not really accustomed to difficulties. Kenevan, in a twist of irony, lost his job. He didn't tell Athamia, and tried to find another job, but no matter where he went he was not accepted, due to him working for nobles of a dishonorable family, now fallen from their positions.
This would last three weeks before Kenevan informed Athamia of the problem. She have already suggested to him that she could ensure a spot as a judge in the place she worked. This is what was told, and Athamia kept it as a story for her book:
Kenevan came to Athamia. “Athamia, I am in serious financial trouble.”
“So, what is the problem?”
“I lost my job. I lost every job I ever had.”
“And why do you keep losing them?”
“Well, whatever job I take, it seems my heart is not really in it and my bad reputation precedes me.”
Athamia looked at Kenevan. “You are an outstanding man, one of the kindest i ever met still you can understand what is just and what is not. Why don’t you become a judge?”
Kenevan grimaced. “Athamia, I have yearned to be a judge. But judges interpret the law for people. Their judgements might affect the destiny of a person’s soul. I can’t be a judge. I’m afraid I might make a mistake!”
Athamia met Kenevan's eyes. “So? Who should become a judge? Someone who is not afraid of making a mistake?”.
For many moments they stood there, looking at each other. Kenevan lowered his head and asked her to give him time to think, to consider, like with great wisdom she told him, whether it would be a mistake or not to take such an action.
One week later he was accepted as a judge and he, many times, asked for Athamia's guidance so that they could both work on bringing justice to the city.
|
|
|
Post by SigniferLux on Aug 17, 2013 19:08:57 GMT
One day that her husband was working and Athamia had the day out, carrying the baby in her belly, she decided to take a walk. There, she saw a few people gathered around a beggar, laughing at him. Orovos was there too, moving through the small crowd of people, having the serious face of the defender that he always wore when times of need would rise. The following story is what happened that day.
A beggar used to stand in the street on market days to be pointed out as an idiot.
No matter how often people offered him a large and a small coin, he always chose the smaller piece. Orovos said to him: “Beggar, you should take the bigger coin. Then you will have more money and people will no longer be able to make a laughing stock of you.”
“That might be true,” said the beggar, “but if I always take the larger, people will stop offering me money to prove that I am more idiotic than they are. Then I would have no money at all.”
After a few days, Orovos announced that, when we leave, the house would be donated to the poor and homeless of the city. It was the first time Athamia saw him take a decision without talking it over with the others. What surprised her more is that Orovos actually threatened to slit the throat of Vorias and Lathenia when they tried to negotiate the matter.
Nevertheless, Athamia didn't want to think of the day they would have to leave so she just retreated from the room.
The next days, Orovos was seen with talking to the beggar in the inn, and when the beggar was begging during market days, Orovos was silently standing a few feet away ready to defend him if need arised.
|
|
|
Post by SigniferLux on Aug 17, 2013 20:07:00 GMT
Athamia was walking in the city, collecting stories as always, when she heard the quick footsteps of Daviel, running towards Athamia. He stopped, took a few deep breaths, and announced to Athamia that her husband was being executed for working against a local underlord. He also said that Orovos and Vorias were already there, trying to negotiate the matter.
Athamia's heart was about to crack. She still had time though. Her belly was too much of a weight for her to handle alone, especially while running. She gave anything she was carrying to Daviel and rushed towards the execution spot.
...
Reaching the spot, she saw a lot of people and, of course, the spot the execution would take place. She saw Orovos trying to negotiate with the grand judge, Vorias shouting at the masked executioner about how immoral he was and how much pain is he going to be in once Vorias finds him and her husband tied up and his head on the chopping block.
When Orovos spotted Athamia, he shouted to the peopel and the grand judge that Athamia was carrying Kenevan's unborn child and trying to appeal at the honor of the people since the judge's emotions were untouchable, like they should be. Some of the people gave a positive feedback, but most of them were craving blood and show too much. Orovos, seeing as he used the last chance he had, got down from the heightened spot the execution was taking place, followed by Vorias, and approached Athamia asking for forgiveness. He also told Athmaia that, if she wanted, he could charge in and try to save him. But he already knew the answer as well as she did.
It took only a few minutes for the execution to happen, just a few seconds to lose the one Athamia loved most. She fainted a few seconds after Kenevan's death. She heard the furious growl of Vorias and could barely see him charging towards the executioner before she lost consiousness and ended up in Orovos's hands.
|
|
|
Post by SigniferLux on Aug 17, 2013 20:20:35 GMT
When Athamia woke up Kenevan was lost, along with Vorias who went berserk and took the executioner's head. Oh, the irony.
As if irony was still playing tricks with her, the first thing she found while searching in her bag for her book were the writing of the necromancer. As she looked around, she was in the forest along with wh owere left from her companions. Maybe days have passed, maybe weeks, or maybe mere hours, she could not tell.
In the following days, when she felt she could walk fine again, she secretly went back to the city her lover was killed in. She learned where they trashed his body and went there animating his body as an undead.
She carried Kenevan's body wherever she went. Her other companions would not dare or want to ask her anything about it. Athamia would sleep side by side with Kenevan's body, caress him, put some extra blankets over him if the weather was cold and tell him stories so that he could sleep at night. She even used him and her healing skills to successfully give birth to her daughter one night. She wouldn't trust anyone else to do help her ,so the night she felt that she was going to give birth she took Kenevan's undead body and went away from the rest of the group.
...
After the birth of Vael "the dreamdancer", Athamia went back to her tent with Kenevan. Since no one could sleep that night due to the cries of the baby, they decided to just prepare for tommorow's trip, while Athamia wrote a new story in her book.
An old man sat outside the walls of a great city. When travelers approached, they would ask the old man, “What kind of people live in this city?”
The old man would answer, “What kind of people live in the place where you came from?”
If the travelers answered, “Only bad people live in the place where we came from,” the old man would reply, “Continue on; you will find only bad people here.”
But if the travelers answered, “Good people live in the place where we came from,” then the old man would say, “Enter, for here too, you will find only good people.”
And with this, she closed the book, this time for a long time. She had a daughter to look after. And, after many years, Vael inherited this book of course, only to see what and who her mother was and to continue from where she stopped.
|
|
|
Post by SigniferLux on Aug 18, 2013 6:09:16 GMT
Vael's adventures didn't kick in until her late 25. Ithamia, after the age of 15, gave Vael to a church of Sarenrae because her call came from lands far away, where a child would not survive.
Having lost all her companions until now, Ithamia went on alone, for the first time without her trusty book since she left that with her daughter. Her travels led her in the knowledge she needed to bring back the dead, just a little bit changed. Bearing in mind the writings of the necromancer she long before found, and always accompannied by her husband's body, she traveled to find a similar fate with his.
|
|
|
Post by SigniferLux on Aug 18, 2013 6:14:12 GMT
The king planted a flower garden, but when the flowers came up so did a great crop of dandelions among them. Wishing to eliminate the unwanted guests, the king consulted with gardeners near and far, but none of their solutions worked.
Finally, the king traveled to the palace of another king to seek the wisdom of their royal gardener himself. But alas, the king had already tried all the methods the kind old man recommended to him for eradicating such troublesome weeds.
Silently they sat together for a good long time.
At last, the royal gardener looked at the king and said, “Well, then, the only thing I can suggest is that you learn to love them.”
|
|