The Silver Prayer

The wahn lowered her head and bowed, the dregs of her cloak seeping into pools of filth-ridden water run off from the lone dirt road through the village of Pelanor. The man standing before her, sinewy and tall, with copper locks graying from the toil of almost fifty winters, brushed his rough hand past the hilt of the broadsword dangling at his hip to retrieve a threadbare pouch fastened around his waist. From it he produced a tarnished silver coin, its edges corroded and uneven.

He placed it in the woman’s open palm, the long strands of her dark, unkempt hair swaying in the subtle wind that breathed through the village like a hymn. She closed a fist of yellowed fingernails around the offering.

“A prayer for my son, departed into the forest, four days past,” the man uttered lowly, so that no one else around them could hear.

The wahn withdrew a small knife and raised the sleeve from the hand that held the coin, revealing a forearm raw with fresh scabbing and undercoated with old, deep scars. She slowly drew the blade across flesh, whispering words in a language he could not understand while blood trickled down to mix with the stagnant puddles where she stood.

“Llathlu blesses your son’s return,” she replied in a soft voice. “The Pale Hand guides him safely to the forest camp, so long as he remains in the Divine’s true path.”

“Thank ye, maiden,” he answered quietly, taking a step backward, his gaze drawn to the cowled woman’s rose-colored lips as she began to raise her eyes.

He turned and made quickly for the street, ere she pocketed the coin as crimson wept into the folds of her robe.

Looking ahead, and final XP totals for the Khedrun Valley

First-level characters. 0 XP. With as few as four meager hit points.

A single, well-placed hit could kill a party member outright. Zeb and Audric have become the stuff of legends. Level 6 may not have felt so high before, but now...

It may be hard to emotionally invest in these PCs, before any sessions have been played. I don’t expect anyone to. It takes time. Effort. Luck.

Survival.

But, for those who reach 2nd, 3rd level, and beyond... the attachment will start to form. The work you’ve put in will matter. The story will matter. The characters will matter. Taking a night off from being on your game will mean risking the loss of everything. Most of us have been there, know what it’s like. Every decision is important. Don’t hinge it all on a roll of the dice.

Read this post.

...and have fun. May it be a truly epic ride.

* * *

With all that said, I’ll soon retire the previous campaign’s XP totals from the sidebar. Here they are, one last time, for posterity:

• Vonn - 13,088
• Audric - 34,389
• Zeb - 3,000/56,869
• Selben (h) - 18,451
• Lom (h) - 10,730
• Zargon (d) - 14,789

Game on!

Map of PCs in the Forgotten Realms

I know I always kick around the idea of starting a new, homebrew setting, then keep coming back to FR anyway. While I have a lot of ideas for a custom world that I hope to eventually use, it's tough to start over when I have so much D&D history tied up in Faerûn. How much, exactly? Well...

Here's a map of every character played in campaigns I've run in the Realms (with close-ups of various sections), dating back to 2004. Each campaign is depicted in a separate color which shows (roughly) the region(s) it encompassed. This is pretty crazy to look at, all laid out at once.

The Sword Coast North and the Western Heartlands

Cormanthor and the Moonsea

The Vilhon Reach

Rashemen

Full map (attribution)

This doesn't even include my favorite FR campaign I've played in, a game run by Jason over twenty years ago. I thought about adding Cadazcar and Erik Estrada, but I don't know their geography perfectly, and I had to draw the line somewhere.

In addition to the visuals, a few fun facts:

• Total number of characters played: 52
• Total number of players: 15
• Most characters played by the same player: 7
• PC descendants of other characters: 2
• Total character deaths: 9 (seven in the last five years...)

Will this be the last new Realms game before I finally switch?

The Darkness Borne: Prologue

Born to winter’s clutches on a mountain in Icewind Dale,

Raised by wolves of the Beastlord in the vestiges of spring,

Perished on a hillside in the death throes of summer,

And on the first night of winter, reborn.

—Black-Blooded Fables

* * *

The Year of the Scowling Duchess (774 DR)

The High Forest

The raven-haired woman walked lithely amid the ruins, her dusk cloak flowing in ashen waves behind her supple form. Fetishes of feather, gutstring, and bone adorned her body, a chill wind severing the air through which she trod.

She had walked here before, lifetimes ago, had seen a city erected on this site and, years later, reduced to the wreckage that now remained. She had watched its founders traverse the Black Glade, had spoken with he who wrought the city’s ultimate destruction. Even now, as trespassers lurked across these wicked grounds, his essence loomed: unseen, undetected, unknown.

Not unlike her own.

Keravela was the name by which she was recognized, though the true origin of her people transcended continents, worlds, even time itself. Before her eyes would close for the final time, she would bear witness to hundreds of thousands more sunsets across countless planes of existence, to her mere doorways unveiled at the will of the gods.

Scant few could fathom the magnitude of her bloodline. Defier of ages. Defier of death.

That the men and women who traipsed hither and about thought this place a suitable refuge from the forest was a great irony indeed, she mused, watching the unassuming mortals with an idle curiosity. How frivolous it must feel to labor through their menial tasks and dealings, oblivious to the fell shadows that, even now, had begun to eclipse their diverging paths.

For calls to the darkness rarely remained unheeded.

* * *

The Year of the Groaning Cart (1267 DR)

Xantharl’s Keep

The boy rose to his feet, blood from his opened wrist streaming down his crossguard. The injury was superficial, would heal. He snapped back at his attacker, tasting a salty mix of sweat and grime. The ringing of steel echoed across the grounds as blades danced and clashed.

The sparring went on for quarter of a bell, until finally the two combatants lowered their arms, exhausted. A lone man stood in audience, hitherto silent, but watching, ever watching. He nodded his approval, gaze fixed on the dusty-haired boy whose sword hand still bled freely.

“A valiant effort, one to make your father proud. Your fathers, both,” he amended, regarding the second. “Go and clean yourselves, lest your mothers worry overmuch.”

The pair collected their halters and waterskins and tarried off. “Well fought, brother. Ye almost bested me,” said the bloodied boy, markedly. His smoke-gray eyes narrowed. “Almost.”

* * *

The Year of the Blade (1275 DR)

Delimbiyr Vale

Only by understanding the past can we hope to endure the future.

The words, scrawled on a weathered sheet of parchment stowed away somewhere in his pack, resounded in Phelan’s mind as he surveyed the roadside battleground.

A caravan had been set upon here, less than a fortnight past. More than a score men, women, and children, rich and poor, master and servant alike, had been ravaged and slain. Remnants of blood-stained clothing, pikes, and arrow shafts yet littered the site, the victims’ bodies having already been claimed, if not by passersby, then scavengers.

Phelan had studied the history of this land, knew well the cycles by which the road through Delimbiyr Vale, near the outskirts of the High Forest, grew more treacherous as denizens of the Greypeak Mountains pushed their way through the woodlands from the east, much like the waxing of the moon itself.

Some years hence, the evil tide would abate once more, but not without the help of those fearless, or foolish enough to counter its advance. And, this time, Phelan and his new companions would find themselves among the worthy or misguided, as they made their way over the southern foothills to the forest camp known as Aryen’s Hope.

As the reddened sun began to set over the trail to his back, he felt a subtle twinge of pain from a scar above his wrist.