Scribed by Terentius
Spring
It is now almost twenty years since we heard the first warnings of a looming calamity heading our way from the East. We have devoted much of the intervening period to searching for a solution to the threat, largely avoiding the distractions that sometimes ensnare those whose extended lives can make them lose track of the passage of years. Our singular focus has been admirable, and we have made good progress, though as yet a grand theory to underpin our efforts still eludes us. Yet the news of poor harvests beyond our walls is a reminder that we have remained rather isolated from the wider problems besetting the people of these lands. Taxes and prices may have risen, but this is more an inconvenience than a mortal danger, for we eat the same food and drink the same wine as we did in happier times. I wonder how long it will be before our silver will no longer afford us such comforts, for farmers and merchants are likely to hoard food in the face of starvation. The stories our grogs brought back from the war in France are also a salient reminder of the bitter wastefulness of noble lords who are content to spend the lives of their men for a few miles of new territory. How far will such men go when it is survival, rather than wealth and glory, that compels them?
We held a short council meeting at the start of the season. There was little news to discuss from Winter, so conversation swiftly moved onto our plans for the coming year. Jari and Naevius agreed that Summer would be an appropriate time to test their theories concerning using Verditius’ runes to control the powers of a set of standing stones, much in the same way that Myddyn controlled access to the regio at Mynydd Myddyn via the white stones. Jari and Branwen then proposed an expedition to Avebury in Autumn to investigate the presence of a sacred grove at the heart of that circle. Despite the success of her ritual at the stone on the Gower peninsula, Theoclea was reluctant to push her research further until she has some means of ameliorating the mental and physical cost of wielding such powerful magic. She mused about whether a familiar or talisman might help, but neither appeared to offer a clear solution at this time.
Early in the season, Jari learned from our spymaster, Stephanus, that the Earl of Cardigan had discovered that foodstuffs appeared plentiful on the Gower, despite the fact that cupboards were bare elsewhere in the region. He had apparently dispatched the local Sheriff to investigate. Our council discussed the matter, but we resolved not to intervene directly, as even if the authorities discovered the nature of Theoclea’s ritual, there was little prospect that they would tie it back to us. Nonetheless, I agreed to travel there in my spare time to keep an eye on developments.
A few days later, I made my way to the Gower. The results of Theoclea’s ritual were immediately evident, for the fields remained fertile and abundant, even though it was still very early in the growing season. I spied an elegant carriage at the edge of the village and saw a group of priests and monks carrying items to the tavern. At their head was a finely dressed figure that I later identified as the Bishop of St David’s, the most significant cathedral in all of Wales. Later that day, the Bishop and his priests conducted a ceremony thanking Saint Dwynwen, a woman martyred in the fields of Flintshire hundreds of years ago, for blessing the village with such a bountiful harvest. As part of the ceremony, a small statue of the Saint that had been created by a local carpenter was paraded through the village and then set facing the fields. After the clerics departed, I confirmed that the religious ceremony had not affected the small magical aura that lay about the fields. There was some further talk of erecting a chapel, which might extend the power of the Dominion, though my impression was that this might take several years to organise. All in all, the fact that the church has claimed the harvest as a miracle, rather than accusing the locals of witchcraft or some other act of foul play, is as good an outcome as we could have wished for, and so I returned to Severn Temple the next day. The rest of the season passed without any events of note.
Summer
All the members of the council were present for the meeting at the start of the season. We began with a short discussion of Jari and Naevius’ plans to visit the Gower peninsula. The intention is to test their hypothesis that carvings based on Verditius’ runes might be used to provide access to the power of standing stones in a predetermined, controlled manner. Naevius explained that they would take a cautious approach: given that the Gower stone appears to be attuned to weather-related effects, the two magi would seek to invest a minor power, such as predicting the next day’s weather, as an experiment. This seemed like a sensible approach to me, and the fact that the area is very remote limits the potential adverse consequences of any unexpected results. Naevius also stated his belief that the use of such markings would not limit any future attempts to access the stone’s powers.
Theoclea announced that she planned to visit maga Blanche at the Cave of Dead Things to take advantage of an offer to help her find a potential familiar. Theoclea’s experience with casting Myddyn’s rituals had taken a great physical and mental toll on her, and she hoped that a familiar would help to share the burden of future challenges. Spending more than a year to find and bind a familiar is a heavy investment, but Theoclea was convinced that no alternative solution would allow her to continue her research.
[Terentius’ private journal: I resisted the temptation to argue vociferously against this approach, even though it seems to me to be an unwise use of time, as I did not believe I could dissuade her. Simple spells of physical enhancement and enlargement proffer the same advantages, in my view, and they could be created or invested into items by others. Perhaps it is a legacy of the training in my former House, but this seems like an unwise and unfocussed sidetrack by one of the few magi who has a chance to develop the magics needed to ensure our survival].
Several weeks into the season, Naevius returned to the covenant with some alarming news. While Jari and Naevius were engrossed in their research, Races-the-Wind had detected the sounds of battle arising from the village a short distance from the ritual site. Leaving one man to guard the magi, Captain Merick and the grog Cyprian swiftly approached the village, where they saw a large group of bandits pillaging the storehouses and menacing the villagers. The two men bravely engaged the bandits, despite being heavily outnumbered, eventually driving them off, though not before one of the villagers had been killed and a significant amount of supplies had been looted. Our men subsequently learned that the bandits were led by a brutish fellow named Bleddyn, who was infamous in the region for raiding isolated villages and travelling merchants. Belddyn was rumoured to have a hidden hideout somewhere in the forest, which had allowed him to evade any attempts by local authorities to bring him to justice.
The two magi continued with their research for a few weeks, until Races-the-Wind once again detected a noise in the vicinity of their camp. This time, it was a single bandit acting as a scout. Races-the-Wind trailed him as he made his way back out of the forest, across a stream and up into the hills. About a league away from our party’s camp, Races-the-Wind spied the bandits’ hideout in a hollow in the forested hills. There were many more bandits than had been observed during the attack on the village: Races-the-Wind estimated that their group totalled as many as 30 men, though it was hard to be sure. He witnessed the scout giving the bandit leader directions to our camp, and so he swiftly brought the news back to the two magi, and thus Naevius returned to Severn Temple to seek help.
Pyrrhus and I immediately agreed to help eliminate the threat. We flew to the Gower (with a brief delay caused by an excess of speed but a shortfall of perception and agility) and hatched a plan to ambush the bandits before they could trouble our camp. I shall not describe the battle here, for it was a short, one-sided slaughter. The end result was conclusive, though: not a single bandit made it out of the camp alive. Pyrrhus destroyed the bodies, and we scattered their belongings in the wilds so that no tales of what had happened would leave the woods. With our party now safe, Pyrrhus and I returned to the covenant.
Jari and Naevius were, therefore, allowed to complete their research in peace. By the end of the season, they had managed to chisel runes into the Gower stone that permitted anyone to cast the spell Sailor’s Foretaste of the Morrow by tracing the spiral outline of the runes. Interestingly, the spell was accompanied by unusual weather phenomena that increased in strength depending on how far the runes were traced. These side effects also varied depending on who activated the runes: in Jari’s case, it was a wintry storm with dangerous lightning strikes; in Naevius’, it was a deep fog that arrived in a geometric fashion; whereas in Captain Merick’s, it was warm sunlight bathing the area. Curiously, the magical sigils that accompanied the weather phenomena also varied: the wintry storm and arrival of sunlight bore Jari’s sigil, whereas the fog bank bore Naevius’. Still, regardless of these remaining puzzles, their efforts appear to represent a significant step forward in their research.
Autumn
At the council meet at the start of the season, Jari and Naevius recounted the tale of their investigations around the Gower. I do not believe that any additional points of insight emerged from the discission, though we did note the interesting fact that it was the apparent side effect that scaled in magnitude depending on how much of the runes were traced on the stone, not the primary effect. At first glance, this makes no sense, and Jari and Naevius declared that they might pursue the matter in any subsequent investigations. This season, however, Jari will be busy in Avebury with Branwen as the two magi seek to determine whether there are any links between the stone circle and sacred grove at that place.
The only other matter of note from the meeting worth recording was Theoclea’s announcement that she had located a shire horse, which she named Elatus, that she intended to bind as a familiar later this year.
Jari and Branwen’s expedition to Avebury did not proceed without incident. Jari focussed on the carvings on the standing stones, noting that they had a spiral character that differed from the straight lines employed by Verditius’ runes. I am not sure whether he learned very much else of interest from the weeks he spent there, though there may be details that matter to him that are lost on the rest of us. Branwen, in contrast, had a more eventful time, for she disappeared into the higher level of the regio, intending to examine the altar stone and converse with the spirits of the druids that haunt that place. Towards the end of the season, Jari also made his way to the highest level to collect Branwen, but she was nowhere to be found. Ominously, there was the sound of the braying hounds that make up the Wild Hunt of the Horned God, and so he wisely did not tarry there for long. Back at the lower level of the regio, he looked for signs that Branwen had returned, perhaps via a different route, though he found none. After several exhaustive searches, prompted I understand by Races-the-Wind, he returned to Severn Temple without his sodalis, arriving a few days after the winter council meeting.
Winter
In the absence of Jari and Branwen, the council meeting was a short affair. Not knowing what had happened at Avebury, we resolved to wait until the new year before sending a rescue mission, as delays involving traversing regio boundaries are not an uncommon occurrence. We learned more about events when Jari returned to the covenant a few days later, and he left almost immediately to take word of Branwen’s disappearance to Prima Lludwyn at Cad Gadu.
The season itself was relatively quiet, though there was still no sign of Branwen as winter turned to spring. The only event of note was the arrival of the redcap Gaines, who brought news from across the Tribunal and beyond. Gaines informed us that Bori-Tor covenant had been attacked by a force of some three hundred Scottish raiders, including at least three magi from Loch Leglean. Maga Minaxia had been slain, though the attackers had been repulsed, with two of the three Scottish magi also falling. The third escaped; he is thought to specialise in Terram magic, be somewhere between 60 and 80 years old and have a sigil of light reflecting in quartz. Senior Quaesitor Romanus is putting together a group to track down this individual, aided by the magi of Eurus Acquilae. Elsewhere in the north, the Scots have been losing ground to the English forces, who have advanced to Edinburgh and set the Scottish capital aflame. The general consensus is that the war will end in English victory unless the Scots are able to break the siege. In France, Isabella remains focussed on claiming the French crown, but the conflict is essentially frozen, as English attempts to advance beyond their historical territories in autumn were repulsed. In Hibernia, the struggle between the English and Irish lords continues; Dublin remains in English hands, though much of the countryside is in open revolt. Finally, the Teutonic knights have taken the fortress of Pilėnai in Lithuania; over a thousand defends apparently committed suicide rather than fall into the hands of the attackers.
Gaines also brought us some news specifically for members of the covenant. A message from Prima Lludwyn indicated that the House’s seers believed that Branwen was currently lost upon a long road but would eventually make her way back home to us, which was encouraging news. We also received news that maga Salustria and magus Eremon of Eurus Acquilae planned to visit Severn Temple in spring to bring news of that covenant’s efforts to thwart the coming infernal plague.
Spring
It is now almost twenty years since we heard the first warnings of a looming calamity heading our way from the East. We have devoted much of the intervening period to searching for a solution to the threat, largely avoiding the distractions that sometimes ensnare those whose extended lives can make them lose track of the passage of years. Our singular focus has been admirable, and we have made good progress, though as yet a grand theory to underpin our efforts still eludes us. Yet the news of poor harvests beyond our walls is a reminder that we have remained rather isolated from the wider problems besetting the people of these lands. Taxes and prices may have risen, but this is more an inconvenience than a mortal danger, for we eat the same food and drink the same wine as we did in happier times. I wonder how long it will be before our silver will no longer afford us such comforts, for farmers and merchants are likely to hoard food in the face of starvation. The stories our grogs brought back from the war in France are also a salient reminder of the bitter wastefulness of noble lords who are content to spend the lives of their men for a few miles of new territory. How far will such men go when it is survival, rather than wealth and glory, that compels them?
We held a short council meeting at the start of the season. There was little news to discuss from Winter, so conversation swiftly moved onto our plans for the coming year. Jari and Naevius agreed that Summer would be an appropriate time to test their theories concerning using Verditius’ runes to control the powers of a set of standing stones, much in the same way that Myddyn controlled access to the regio at Mynydd Myddyn via the white stones. Jari and Branwen then proposed an expedition to Avebury in Autumn to investigate the presence of a sacred grove at the heart of that circle. Despite the success of her ritual at the stone on the Gower peninsula, Theoclea was reluctant to push her research further until she has some means of ameliorating the mental and physical cost of wielding such powerful magic. She mused about whether a familiar or talisman might help, but neither appeared to offer a clear solution at this time.
Early in the season, Jari learned from our spymaster, Stephanus, that the Earl of Cardigan had discovered that foodstuffs appeared plentiful on the Gower, despite the fact that cupboards were bare elsewhere in the region. He had apparently dispatched the local Sheriff to investigate. Our council discussed the matter, but we resolved not to intervene directly, as even if the authorities discovered the nature of Theoclea’s ritual, there was little prospect that they would tie it back to us. Nonetheless, I agreed to travel there in my spare time to keep an eye on developments.
A few days later, I made my way to the Gower. The results of Theoclea’s ritual were immediately evident, for the fields remained fertile and abundant, even though it was still very early in the growing season. I spied an elegant carriage at the edge of the village and saw a group of priests and monks carrying items to the tavern. At their head was a finely dressed figure that I later identified as the Bishop of St David’s, the most significant cathedral in all of Wales. Later that day, the Bishop and his priests conducted a ceremony thanking Saint Dwynwen, a woman martyred in the fields of Flintshire hundreds of years ago, for blessing the village with such a bountiful harvest. As part of the ceremony, a small statue of the Saint that had been created by a local carpenter was paraded through the village and then set facing the fields. After the clerics departed, I confirmed that the religious ceremony had not affected the small magical aura that lay about the fields. There was some further talk of erecting a chapel, which might extend the power of the Dominion, though my impression was that this might take several years to organise. All in all, the fact that the church has claimed the harvest as a miracle, rather than accusing the locals of witchcraft or some other act of foul play, is as good an outcome as we could have wished for, and so I returned to Severn Temple the next day. The rest of the season passed without any events of note.
Summer
All the members of the council were present for the meeting at the start of the season. We began with a short discussion of Jari and Naevius’ plans to visit the Gower peninsula. The intention is to test their hypothesis that carvings based on Verditius’ runes might be used to provide access to the power of standing stones in a predetermined, controlled manner. Naevius explained that they would take a cautious approach: given that the Gower stone appears to be attuned to weather-related effects, the two magi would seek to invest a minor power, such as predicting the next day’s weather, as an experiment. This seemed like a sensible approach to me, and the fact that the area is very remote limits the potential adverse consequences of any unexpected results. Naevius also stated his belief that the use of such markings would not limit any future attempts to access the stone’s powers.
Theoclea announced that she planned to visit maga Blanche at the Cave of Dead Things to take advantage of an offer to help her find a potential familiar. Theoclea’s experience with casting Myddyn’s rituals had taken a great physical and mental toll on her, and she hoped that a familiar would help to share the burden of future challenges. Spending more than a year to find and bind a familiar is a heavy investment, but Theoclea was convinced that no alternative solution would allow her to continue her research.
[Terentius’ private journal: I resisted the temptation to argue vociferously against this approach, even though it seems to me to be an unwise use of time, as I did not believe I could dissuade her. Simple spells of physical enhancement and enlargement proffer the same advantages, in my view, and they could be created or invested into items by others. Perhaps it is a legacy of the training in my former House, but this seems like an unwise and unfocussed sidetrack by one of the few magi who has a chance to develop the magics needed to ensure our survival].
Several weeks into the season, Naevius returned to the covenant with some alarming news. While Jari and Naevius were engrossed in their research, Races-the-Wind had detected the sounds of battle arising from the village a short distance from the ritual site. Leaving one man to guard the magi, Captain Merick and the grog Cyprian swiftly approached the village, where they saw a large group of bandits pillaging the storehouses and menacing the villagers. The two men bravely engaged the bandits, despite being heavily outnumbered, eventually driving them off, though not before one of the villagers had been killed and a significant amount of supplies had been looted. Our men subsequently learned that the bandits were led by a brutish fellow named Bleddyn, who was infamous in the region for raiding isolated villages and travelling merchants. Belddyn was rumoured to have a hidden hideout somewhere in the forest, which had allowed him to evade any attempts by local authorities to bring him to justice.
The two magi continued with their research for a few weeks, until Races-the-Wind once again detected a noise in the vicinity of their camp. This time, it was a single bandit acting as a scout. Races-the-Wind trailed him as he made his way back out of the forest, across a stream and up into the hills. About a league away from our party’s camp, Races-the-Wind spied the bandits’ hideout in a hollow in the forested hills. There were many more bandits than had been observed during the attack on the village: Races-the-Wind estimated that their group totalled as many as 30 men, though it was hard to be sure. He witnessed the scout giving the bandit leader directions to our camp, and so he swiftly brought the news back to the two magi, and thus Naevius returned to Severn Temple to seek help.
Pyrrhus and I immediately agreed to help eliminate the threat. We flew to the Gower (with a brief delay caused by an excess of speed but a shortfall of perception and agility) and hatched a plan to ambush the bandits before they could trouble our camp. I shall not describe the battle here, for it was a short, one-sided slaughter. The end result was conclusive, though: not a single bandit made it out of the camp alive. Pyrrhus destroyed the bodies, and we scattered their belongings in the wilds so that no tales of what had happened would leave the woods. With our party now safe, Pyrrhus and I returned to the covenant.
Jari and Naevius were, therefore, allowed to complete their research in peace. By the end of the season, they had managed to chisel runes into the Gower stone that permitted anyone to cast the spell Sailor’s Foretaste of the Morrow by tracing the spiral outline of the runes. Interestingly, the spell was accompanied by unusual weather phenomena that increased in strength depending on how far the runes were traced. These side effects also varied depending on who activated the runes: in Jari’s case, it was a wintry storm with dangerous lightning strikes; in Naevius’, it was a deep fog that arrived in a geometric fashion; whereas in Captain Merick’s, it was warm sunlight bathing the area. Curiously, the magical sigils that accompanied the weather phenomena also varied: the wintry storm and arrival of sunlight bore Jari’s sigil, whereas the fog bank bore Naevius’. Still, regardless of these remaining puzzles, their efforts appear to represent a significant step forward in their research.
Autumn
At the council meet at the start of the season, Jari and Naevius recounted the tale of their investigations around the Gower. I do not believe that any additional points of insight emerged from the discission, though we did note the interesting fact that it was the apparent side effect that scaled in magnitude depending on how much of the runes were traced on the stone, not the primary effect. At first glance, this makes no sense, and Jari and Naevius declared that they might pursue the matter in any subsequent investigations. This season, however, Jari will be busy in Avebury with Branwen as the two magi seek to determine whether there are any links between the stone circle and sacred grove at that place.
The only other matter of note from the meeting worth recording was Theoclea’s announcement that she had located a shire horse, which she named Elatus, that she intended to bind as a familiar later this year.
Jari and Branwen’s expedition to Avebury did not proceed without incident. Jari focussed on the carvings on the standing stones, noting that they had a spiral character that differed from the straight lines employed by Verditius’ runes. I am not sure whether he learned very much else of interest from the weeks he spent there, though there may be details that matter to him that are lost on the rest of us. Branwen, in contrast, had a more eventful time, for she disappeared into the higher level of the regio, intending to examine the altar stone and converse with the spirits of the druids that haunt that place. Towards the end of the season, Jari also made his way to the highest level to collect Branwen, but she was nowhere to be found. Ominously, there was the sound of the braying hounds that make up the Wild Hunt of the Horned God, and so he wisely did not tarry there for long. Back at the lower level of the regio, he looked for signs that Branwen had returned, perhaps via a different route, though he found none. After several exhaustive searches, prompted I understand by Races-the-Wind, he returned to Severn Temple without his sodalis, arriving a few days after the winter council meeting.
Winter
In the absence of Jari and Branwen, the council meeting was a short affair. Not knowing what had happened at Avebury, we resolved to wait until the new year before sending a rescue mission, as delays involving traversing regio boundaries are not an uncommon occurrence. We learned more about events when Jari returned to the covenant a few days later, and he left almost immediately to take word of Branwen’s disappearance to Prima Lludwyn at Cad Gadu.
The season itself was relatively quiet, though there was still no sign of Branwen as winter turned to spring. The only event of note was the arrival of the redcap Gaines, who brought news from across the Tribunal and beyond. Gaines informed us that Bori-Tor covenant had been attacked by a force of some three hundred Scottish raiders, including at least three magi from Loch Leglean. Maga Minaxia had been slain, though the attackers had been repulsed, with two of the three Scottish magi also falling. The third escaped; he is thought to specialise in Terram magic, be somewhere between 60 and 80 years old and have a sigil of light reflecting in quartz. Senior Quaesitor Romanus is putting together a group to track down this individual, aided by the magi of Eurus Acquilae. Elsewhere in the north, the Scots have been losing ground to the English forces, who have advanced to Edinburgh and set the Scottish capital aflame. The general consensus is that the war will end in English victory unless the Scots are able to break the siege. In France, Isabella remains focussed on claiming the French crown, but the conflict is essentially frozen, as English attempts to advance beyond their historical territories in autumn were repulsed. In Hibernia, the struggle between the English and Irish lords continues; Dublin remains in English hands, though much of the countryside is in open revolt. Finally, the Teutonic knights have taken the fortress of Pilėnai in Lithuania; over a thousand defends apparently committed suicide rather than fall into the hands of the attackers.
Gaines also brought us some news specifically for members of the covenant. A message from Prima Lludwyn indicated that the House’s seers believed that Branwen was currently lost upon a long road but would eventually make her way back home to us, which was encouraging news. We also received news that maga Salustria and magus Eremon of Eurus Acquilae planned to visit Severn Temple in spring to bring news of that covenant’s efforts to thwart the coming infernal plague.