yeah im not in any rush to level regular levels, but i could add some levels on if thats what we are doing
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it all sounds good to me, gonna have to update my character and whatnot. not sure what kind of mythic tier i should go with as a psion. archmage seems obvious. normal or mythic levelling sounds cool
well, you all arent too far out of the way and he may have gotten off the beaten trail a bit. he wasnt headed towards Riatavin with any sort of purpose in mind, merely to drop by.
Aovar begins a long trek from Naarkolyth to Riatavin, his goal being the College of the Eclipse. It is a long walk, but he enjoys the relative peace after the debacle in Wianar's keep. It is also good to stop in the varying towns along the way and pick up world news.
The day has come again. Always a nuisance, today is the day of tax negotiations with Lord Eles Wianar. The Lord has become more and more bold in his demands, seeking to take advantage of Aovar's generally kind nature and the guise of an old man that he affects when going into Arrabar. "Well, we should be going. I'd like to be a little early," said Aovar to Lorosu. Lorosu was a gnome, and the best Nomad in the colony. "The others are here, we can leave now," said Lorosu as the others arrived. Seer Annashdan and Telepath Enugan, Pseudodragon sister and brother. Shaper Esin, grey dwarf. Kineticist Anenmer, high elf. Egoist Sana, human from the College of the Eclipse in Tethyr. In their company were a small host of psychic warriors, wearing various armors and carrying varying weapons, if any at all. An instant later, the group appears in the grand courtyard of Generon, the palace from which Lord Wianar ruled. Generon's stately dome is plated in silver and gold, and barracks and guard posts of Lord Wianar's personal army surround it. The group walks in a column through the huge arched entrance, with bodyguards flanking each psion. "One moment," says the court herald, a balding and portly man dressed in the middling finery of current court fashion. He clearly recognizes Aovar's group, as few in Chondath were so diverse. The man turns around, and the doors to Lord Wianar's throne room are opened by two attendant guards. The man walks in and in a voice much louder than one would expect, the man shouts "Aovar, Mayor of the newly risen city of Naarkolyth, has arrived with his host of advisors!" "Mayor, come in." Lord Wianar sits on his throne, a man well into middle age and dressed in finery more befitting a king than a lord. "But there is no king, is there?" Aovar muses to himself. The group from Naarkolyth enters and the doors are closed behind them. Aovar leans on his cane and bows shakily, as befitting the guise of a rickety old man that he has assumed. After some silence, Aovar began, "I have come, as scheduled, to address the issue of the taxation of our cit-" Lord Wianar interjects, "Yes, yes, the taxes are too high. Every year you return with your lackeys, begging for lower taxes. I am preparing this nation for WAR, old man, and war costs money. You are fortunate enough that I allow you to pay in spellcasting services, yet you refuse to fulfill most requests, citing law that I determine!" Lord Wianar is getting red in the face by now. This will not end well, but neither will maintaining our current course, Aovar thought to himself. In spite of Wianar's anger, Aovar presses the issue. "M'lord, laws are in place to protect the people. All people. None are above the law, including yourself. We will not use our Art to dominate the minds of those who would oppose you. To do so violates laws set forth by Auppenser, whose law carries more weight than the laws of man. Furthermore, your increase in taxes proves too distracting from our research, and far exceeds a fair percentage of the moss-covered stone we heaved up from the depths." Lord Wianar seems to have regained his composure when he says, "Then what do you propose? The law states that the cities will pay the taxes that I set. If they refuse, then I am within my rights to reclaim from their cities what I must in order to recover what duly belongs to the state. You will do your part in this war, I assure you of that." Aovar says, "Naarkolyth, by law, is a historical ruin. As such, it is not subject to taxes. We pay taxes as good faith in return for protection from the state in which it falls. The fact that we are living there does not in fact make it a city by law. To send soldiers there to claim subjects of our research would be larceny or worse. If the state does not protect the site, as it wouldn't in the event of your repossession, then we have recourse to declare independence, in which case such a repossession would be an act of war and governed accordingly by laws of war. We want nothing but to be left out of your war and to perform our research in peace." The acrid stench of red-hot steel assaults the nasal passages of those immediately nearby as Enugan interjects mentally to the group from Naarkolyth, "Hostile intent detected from Wianar." Aovar responds mentally, "Damnation, I had hoped to avoid hostilities. It seems that this petulant child does not like it when a toy falls beyond his reach. Still he grasps for Naarkolyth, to keep from sharing it with us. I do not want any of his guards harmed if hostilities erupt. I will give him a final lesson before we leave here, never to return." The redness has returned to the Lord's face, and he shouts, "Guards! Seize them!" Particles of light fall to the ground, giving off a musical note as each mote touches the ground. Less than a second later, all the guards instantly disappear. At the same time, an aura of white fire erupts around Esin's head as a roiling mass of neon green ectoplasm blocks the door. "What do you think you are doing, old man?!" Wianar shouts, while reaching for a pouch at his waist. "Old man, eh? If only he knew how right he was and how young he truly is," Aovar thinks to himself, somewhat saddened by the man's behavior. Aovar aims his cane at Wianar with blinding speed, and a purple beam hits the man, the purple energy coalescing around him. As he tries to cast a spell in response, the energy dissipates before the spell forms. "Guards! GUARDS!" pleads Lord Wianar as his next spell fails. As Aovar walks forward, his appearance shifts to exactly match that of Lord Wianar in all respects. His walking stick becomes a silvery staff with scores of gems encrusted into it, with a few orbiting the head of the staff. "Young Lord, know that I now strike you not in anger, but as a father strikes his errant son. Let the memory of what transpires today stick with you longer than your bruises will. I sincerely hope that, rather than ferment your rage, this teaches you that there are beings more powerful than yourself, holdings more grand than yours, and armies mightier than yours." "You can't do this!" says Wianar, now staring at the mirror image of himself that approaches him. Aovar reaches Lord Wianar's position, stops, and continues to speak, "Naarkolyth henceforth will not count among your holdings nor among your allies. You will receive no taxes or aid of any sort from its inhabitants. Any incursion by you or your forces will be considered an act of war and responded to in kind. I and my advisors now take our leave of your nation." Aovar then strikes the man twice with his staff before Wianar falls into his seat at the throne. Sana steps forward and closes the man's wounds and ensures his vitality is stable before the group from Naarkolyth disappear. Hours later, the guards reappear in a flash of light and soft musical notes. "Where'd they go, m'lord?" the captain of the guard asks quizzically, looking back at the tyrant. "M'lord? M'lord!"
Aovar's Story: Aovar prefers to appear as a nonmagical bearded old man with a bald head in simple yet clean robes and carrying a walking stick. Aovar had known a life longer than the oldest of elves, despite being depicted as a human-like creature. What had started as the quest of any Psion, to master psionics, had become something of a higher order: to master himself. Spending centuries in research, conferring with ancient tomes and long-lost crystals, Aovar sought to shed that which he once sought: his very body. Aovar began life as a human, but was recreated as an Elan under the Eleventh Council of Elans. Gifted now with a lower-maintenance physical form, Aovar was able to devote 35% more time to the study of psionics. This, in conjunction with a lifespan that had no known end, allowed him to travel far and wide, and study with all manner of psionic creatures and crystals. He admired the crystals, those who had eschewed their living bodies to exist purely as a mind housed in a crystal. For a long time he had sought that existence. Then he met the uncarnates. It was as if a new door had opened to him, a door that led to a mansion full of hallways and doors. They had made all previous psionics seem like prestidigitation to him. Decades of intense study and far travel later, Aovar had earned his new namesake in exchange for his physical form; a trade he gladly made. Aovar arrived in the realms via a portal that he lead his team through after the collapse of an illithid stronghold on the other side. On the side of what they would come to discover was Faerun, was the chamber of an elder brain. The elder brain was blocked off from its original colony due to a cave-in. It was driven semi-mad from lack of food and attacked. Aovar struggled to keep his team from tearing themselves apart, but he was unable to stop the brain's control. He used what was left of his power to shield himself until the melee ended. He then shielded himself from the brain's controlling influence, and confronted it. A protracted battle began, with neither side succeeding in destroying the other. Eventually, exhausted, the elder brain sought to parley with Aovar. The two conversed mentally for nearly a day, exchanging centuries of history and knowledge. Both parties knowing that little could be done to save the brain's life with both of its colonies destroyed, Aovar agreed to teach the way of the unbodied to the brain. However, it was too late, and its condition deteriorated so much that a year later, it died. Aovar, armed with the knowledge that the elder brain had amassed from the thousands of brains it had consumed, began to travel the lands. He learned of the Invisible Art, which is what his abilities were referred to as. He even learned of a psiocratic nation that had existed and had since fallen. Aovar marveled at the history of this land and sought to research it. He traveled to Chondath and set about his work. He recruited several local psions to help with the research, and learned that the leadership of the nation following a coup caused the forest elves to call down nature's terrible power on them. The sunken cities were filled with psionic items whose latent psionic energies were corrupting beasts nearby. Aovar negotiated ownership of the ruins from the nation in exchange for the riddance of the corrupted beasts from the area. With his fellow psionicists, he descended below the sea to the ruins to collect these psionic items for safekeeping and study. Then, they traveled about the nation for a few years, following reports of beasts and slaying them in addition to their study of the ruins and items from the ruins. As word spread of what he was doing, Aovar's group was bolstered to nearly 100 psionicists. Among the ranks of his group, worship of Auppenser began to circulate. Aovar had anticipated this, and welcomed it with the caution against repeating the history of Jhaamdath. Aovar hoped to bring back the slumbering deity, or take his place. As reports of corrupted beasts slowed, Aovar began turning his group to the task of raising the city. After receiving the ownership to the ruin, Aovar arranged a metaconcert with four other psions. Combined together, their mastery of the invisible art rewrote reality, raising the city from the depths of the Vilhon Reach to around a thousand feet over the water. They spent years and thousands in gold to restore the city to a fraction of its former glory, and now use it as a monastery. The city of Naarkolyth restored, Aovar and his group took up residence there and began teaching. The monastery is a city-state in and of itself, paying lip service to Eles Wianar, the Lord of Arrabar. They are taxed in "spellcasting services" but primarily keep to themselves. When taxation becomes too disruptive, Aovar has to reason with Wianar. This has become more difficult of late, and Aovar worries that outright hostilities will emerge. Therefore, he is working on a plan to move the monastery farther away towards a more suitable nation, perhaps Haldruun.
This is Tenro's submission. I have spent his 880k personal wealth. I haven't statted out Naarkolyth, the city he raised from the depths and currently lives in. I imagine it not as some sort of personal castle with defenses and retainers and all that, but more of just a city he lives and works in. I will get some NPC friends of his fluffed out soon. |