can't sleep
that's dumb, who would do that
The Black Garda School
In the south there is a school that was a temple that was a palace that was a monastery. A dozen lives it has led, conquered and abandoned, decayed and rebuilt, and now it sits over sun-beaten rocks like a fat spider of stone, grey arches half-crumbled with time, main body bleached white by centuries of dust storms, red-tiled roof ingrown with dry creeping vines. A thousand birds nest in its nooks and crooks, scattering to hunt at every sunset like an army on the march. In the depths of this building are countless cracks in the earth, forgotten chambers and sand-choked corridors that once were on the surface but sunk with the weight of centuries; such subterranean chambers are half-filled with water, and in these pools lie melancholy creatures of the dark and the deep, pale nymphs and albino crocodiles and forsaken children shaped out of flowing water. Beyond the walls is the forest, dry and low to the ground, wide pines and spined shrubs fighting for sunlight, broken by jagged teeth of rock where the salamanders warm their bellies that glow with inner flame.
But in that precious heart, between the walls and above the sunkern chambers, there is the School true to its name; there are the dozens of students and the hundred servants, footsteps echoing in corridors too vast for their numbers, huddling every night in the cold of the desert and fleeing each other in the scorch of the day. And there are their masters: seven black-robed figures, wearing masks or crowns, eyes lined with khol and arms heavy with bracelets of precious metal. They are the Carrion Crows, the fugitives from death. At the highest level of the school, in an empty chamber at the top of a tower, is their master and familiar: a bird like a black peacock with the wings of an eagle, each eye of its feathered tail staring with lines of ochre and red and gold. This bird is living black flame, slipping between worlds, and should he die the Black Garda school would die too.
The Carrion Crows and the Night-Sky Peacock
When the Seven first came to the south, they were a dreaded sight, a whispered rumour. Seven ghost-blooded from across the Threshold had found their way together and worked as one to create works of great awe and terror. They had learned the art of ghost-eating, and their souls had grown fat on the Essence of others; they had learned the art of vampiric geomancy, and had sucked the power out of Demesne and supped upon it as the land died; they had learned the words which make ravens and raitons into obedient messengers and eyes through which to see far away. They had killed a Prince of the Earth, and put his dragon-blood into bottles to study and distillate. They had grown very, very powerful - and now they were afraid. For this power was bursting within them, necrotic Essence too potent for mortal flesh, and already their skin was peeling away, their eyes receding in their sockets, and they knew that if they did not curtail their appetites they would soon shrug off this mortal coil and become true ghosts - and they enjoyed the pleasures of the living far too much to accept this.
And so the seven Carrion Crows came in search of a spirit lord, a bird of fire and song whom they had heard yearned to breach the barrier between worlds and expand his dominion over the dead. When they found him, they made a pact with him; and the Essence of the bird was woven with that of the Seven, and they infused him with the nature of death while they drank of the nature of fire. To seal this pact they forged bands of red jades and clasped them around their wrists, and these have never left them since. Now the Carrion Crows were free to consume and grow beyond what they could before without the risk of death over them; while their patron's feathers turned black, his breath shallow, and he found that he could by twisting his wings just so fly from Creation to the Underworld and back.
Presently the seven made their home of the ruins in which the bird held his court, and they begun to take pupils from the lands outside. With time they extended their pacts to many of the elementals of their region, gifting them a spark of their power and safe domains within their lands, arbitrating their disputes, allowing their numbers to grow; all this they did in the name of the Night-Sky Peacock. For every pact they seal with an elemental, they form a bracelet of precious material and clasp it over their arm, sealing the power of the oath within; by now their arms are so thick with dangling bracelets that a lesser man could not lift them. The essence of death which so threatens them they dilute through a hundred spirit proxies, even as they fuel an inner fire with their elemental strength; some of the seven have made themselves so powerful in this way that their flesh is slowly melting away, and they wear masks to hide themselves. This art of bracelet-forging and pact-making they teach their students, as well as the practices of exorcism and ghost-binding, and to their most prized pupils something more.
The Carrion Crows have grown to fear death, although their powers come from it. They hold a corps of black outriders, students rejected for their lacking skills who know a handful of tricks and hope to prove themselves worthy of a second look; these outriders scour the lands around the school for shadowlands, burning them away with salt and prayer and the practices of life. The school relies on its elemental patron to cross easily the threshold between worlds; at great expenses of time and wealth the Crows have forged a circle in the earth of their ruins from which they can conjure the shades of the dead to trade and bind, but only the fire of the Night-Sky Peacock can ignite it into a true portal, and each time it does so the Seven fear this will be the day when the wretched specters of the Abyss reach out to pull them in.
Lands of the Black Garda
Despite this lack of overt contamination by the Underworld, the lands around the Black Garda School are strange and twisted, for the seven have been shedding off necrotic power through the very spirits that tend to it and dwell within it. The water elementals that dwell in the sunken levels of the school all bear unearthly palor and signs which in humans would be associated with sickliness; but they hold power over the dark and can see omens in their darkest waters. The greenmaws that haunt the woods are like dead dry wood, creaking with every move - yet all too alive when prey comes closer. The three-horned kri that roam the outskirts where the forest ends all gleam like black jet - and each one of them bears in its head a pale gem which binds them to the masters of the school. Flame ducks fly through the skies, the advance messengers of the school to the outside world, arranging pacts and treaties with neighboring lords and headhunting promising pupils; each of these elementals has a black cast its feather, and its fire is dark outlined with white.
Although the Carrion Crows rarely come out of their domains, they have much contact with the outside world. Their teaching comes at a hefty price - those who come to them must bring wealth proportionate to the occult secrets they are willing to share, while those who are brought to them must swear oaths of loyalty and later favors in exchange for the gift granted to them. The seven are often comissioned to create talismans which can protect a mortal from shadowlands or cast a ghost out of its vessel with a touch, for engraved gemstones which contain a hungry ghost to be released when it is shattered, for garda-feather tassels which can adorn the pommel of a sword to imbue it with a pale flame that only burns the dead, for lashes made out of vines which can break the will of the dead, and a hundred more things besides. They are also willing to loan out the services of their elemental servants, or to conjure the shades of the dead. In exchange for this they ask for access to places of power, for trinkets of occult power, for access to secret archives; failing that they ask for great wealth in silver or jade, and failing that they ask for favors to be called upon at a later date.
Enemies of the Black Garda School
Over the years, the Carrion Crows have attracted a number of opponents, and although they have thwarted and slain many, more always come. Their work is considered high heresy by the Immaculate Order, and part of their school's ruin is owed to a terrible battle waged against two Outcastes and thirty mortal monks a decade ago; the seven won it through the unexpected nature of their powers and the assistance of their patron, but fear the next battle; already they watch warily as a group of monks build a new monasteries in the scorching rock-wastes a few miles from the edge of their domain, and ponder a first assault. The Immaculate have ready allies in several lesser Elemental Courts, which while weaker than the Black Garda's own find their practices distasteful (and threatening to their own power and stability) and would be all too willing to band together to fight them.
Even more worryingly, a small kingdom which was bound to them by many lucrative accords has very recently fallen, its king decapitated and turned into a wretched undead slave to its conqueror, the Elk Priestess, who claims to serve the Bone Dragon, a lesser elemental dragon of wood that would have died and clung on as a thing of the Abyss. The Elk Priestess is an Abyssal Exalt and is pressuring the Seven both in Creation and in the Underworld, attacking the domains held by their garda patron. She claims that their half-hearted necromancy is an insult to the art, and intends to sink the school and its lands into the Underworld, to turn the elementals bound to the Seven into undead horrors matching her master, and to finally pull the Seven's souls out of their bodies and bind them at her side, "as should have been done long ago." In the necropolis that was once a thriving kingdom, she gathers undead armies, and the Black Garda school has no horde to fight a true war; several of the Carrion Crows have left the school in search of a solution - an Artifact to uncover or steal, sorcerous workings to defeat their enemy, or Exalts of their own.
Sample Carrion Crow: Erkishal, the Witch With The Ruby Heart
Erkishal's father was the Dry Lord, an undead ruler of the far south whose ghost lived on in the mummified husk of his body, whose veins coursed with sand and whose eyes, it is said, could turn men to stone. Erkishal's ghost blood pulsed thick and potent in her veins, and from the youngest age she suffered seizures and illness of the hearas it struggled to pump it. But she could see the dead, and her hand had weight to them, and so she became a warrior of shadowlands, slaying ephemereal spirits as if they were living creatures. Erkishal has always been the most warlike of the Carrion Crows, and this was her curse; for where others could afford to be cautious and methodic in their research, she needed ever more raw power to survive her battles and slay the mightiest undead foes.
Erkishal is a tall, muscular woman whose skin was once dark; but now it has the texture and color of sandstone and glows red from within, as fire Essence burns within her flesh, so hot her touch can scald a man. Her shape has so mutated that she wears a mask in the effigy of a bird at all times, refusing to show her face. She carries a sword carved out of the bones of a dead dragon of fire, and as her skin grew harder than armor she abandoned the practice of wearing it, instead favoring black ornaments such as her cloak of raiton feathers. Erkishal desires to expand the influence of the Black Garda School, turning it into a true kingdom; to that end she believes mortals should be convinced (through gifts or force) to settle around their school, forming a city where there was none. This plan seems unrealistic to her brethrens, who enjoy their relative isolation.
The most outwardly active of the Carrion Crows, Erkishal is often seen in the surrounding lands, probing the population and its rulers to assess which could be conquered and which could be converted into a flock of worshippers. Although her sorcerous practice takes much time and she has left her days of mercenary work behind her, the Witch with the Ruby Heart occasionally provokes enemies of the school into combat so that she may remove an obstacle in a more reckless fashion than her colleagues ordinarily would.
Erkishal is a graceful fencer with a powerful sword and a mastery over fire, but these are not the true reasons why she allows herself to take such risks when fear of death is the drive behind all Carrion Crows. Her flesh is so imbued with necrotic essence and the fire of the Night-Sky Peacock that she is barely human anymore. When removing her mask and letting her Essence burn free, she takes on a terrible form: that of a woman with four arms and six wings, taut skin as dry as leather and empty eyesockets burning with inner fire. In one hand she holds a lash of black flame, in the other a scythe whose touch freezes water; in both other hands she holds flaming orbs from which she can hurls balls and gouts of golden fire. Even should she meet her match, Erkishal fears nothing but the hand of an Exalt; for she has long removed her heart burned it on a pyre, then put the ashes in a funeral statue. Only by opening the statue and exposing the ashes to the light of day can a mortal or a god slay her forever. In the hollow where was her heart, she placed a ruby in which she trapped the soul of an efreeti lord; this fuels her firey Essence and the power of her sorcery, and is why no enemy ever expects the true power of her greater form.
Sorcerous Initiation: The Black Garda School
The teachings of the Black Garda Schools have a claim to universality; they are not true necromancy but a form of sorcery invented by ghost-bloods, and its teachings may be used outside their original context. The heart of the School is the forging of a band or bracelt out of a precious metal - jade is best, although lesser metals can suffice for weaker spirits - and the signing of a pact between the sorcerer and an elemental. Hereafter, the Sorcerer sheds part of her Essence through the spirit, and in turn can at time call upon its power to weave sorcery.
The catch of this practice is one that has frustrated the Black Garda School's attempts at expansion. Only elementals powerful enough to be sentient and who feed on enough Essence to not notice the loss of some are worth the trouble of the pact. Elementals created by the sorcerer's own spells, or bound elementals without a domain that they carry everywhere as servants, lack the power to form such a bound. This tends to anchor such sorcerers in one place.
Shaping Rituals
- Once per scene, the sorcerer may call upon the elemental Essence of her oathbound spirit as part of a shape sorcery action, gaining an additional number of sorcerous motes equal to the Essence of the elemental. These motes last until the end of the scene.
- At any time, the sorcerer may shed her own Essence through the link with her bound spirit and claim some of its Essence in return. As part of a shape sorcery action she may pay up to (Essence x 2) of her own motes, and in return gain half as many sorcerous motes.
- Once per story, the sorcerer may spend a scene interacting with her bound elemental in a positive way, nurturing their connection, honoring it as a valued ally rather than a tool, and making offerings to it. She gains a number of sorcerous motes equal to the elemental's (Willpower + Essence), which last for the rest of the story.
Other Benefits
- Additional Pact (Merit 3): A sorcerer of the Black Garda School may form many bonds, provided they have the time, effort, and magical power to invest in the sealing of so many pacts. Each purchase of this Merit allows the user to gain another instance of a Black Garda School shaping ritual that they already know by tying it to another elemental. A character may only hold up to (Essence) such additional pacts.
- Elemental Shaping (Merit 2): Elemental Essence lends itself more easily to spells which are attuned to it. When casting a spell which has a strong elemental affinity (such as Flight of the Brilliant Raptor for fire, or Mists of Eventide for water), the sorcerer may reduce its cost by three sorcerous motes if she draws from a shaping ritual with an elemental of that affinity. If it is her control spell, she may also waive one Willpower from its cost once per day.
- Stone-and-Flame Masquerade (Merit 2): The most cunning trick of the Black Garda School, a sorcerer which has mastered this technique may shed her Essence through her elemental connection and draw upon it to cloak herself. To any power which would sense the nature of her Essence, she appears to be empowered by elemental Essence appropriate to her pact. If a human, this usually results in her being thought to be a Dragon-Blood. This ability requires an instant action and an expenditure of (Essence) motes, which do not trigger anima, and lasts for a scene.
Variant Spell: Taint Elemental
Although the Carrion Crows have long been able to forge elementals out of the energies of the world, it is only in the years following their unnatural mixing of elemental and deathly Essences that they have developed, almost by accident, a variant on this spell. Only an individual with a strong connection to deathly Essence, such as a ghost-blood or an Abyssal, may learn this spell easily; although it is theoretically possible for another Exalt to learn it, it could only be used while drawing on the power of an Abyssal Demesne. Taint Elemental summons an elemental as per the normal version of this spell; however, the elemental is infused with necrotic energy, which visibly affects its nature and appearance. A tainted elemental finds itself equally at ease in Creation, shadowlands and the Underworld; furthermore, it may have different abilities from its standard counterparts. Such differences are not standardized; the Black Garda School values this spell precisely because it allows them to mold the basic template of an elemental into something that better suits their needs at the time. Examples include creating an elemental that is immaterial by default, allowing a hunting elemental to specifically track undead beings or connections to the Underworld, creating a cloud person whose astrological ability are fine-tuned to deal with the Underworld, and so on.
A character who knows Summon Elemental can learn this variant at no additional cost, save spending the training time required to learn a new spell studying with the Black Garda School.
Sample Elemental: Pale Nymph
The nymphs are creatures of the sea, which deperish on dry land. But the pale nymphs were born in the dark recesses of the desert, where water pools underground, and coaxed into their present shape by the Carrion Crows. Pale nymphs owe their name to their skin, which is as white as the snow, and to their eyes, which are milky-white and unblinking. Though blind, pale nymphs see the shape of water in all things, making them easily able to detect living creatures or to move underwater. On dry land, they perceive their environment through songs; their haunting melody provide them with a strange form of audible ecolocation. Able to shape the waters around them, pale nymphs use this gift to arrange the pools and currents of their sunken domain as one would simple furniture.
Pale nymphs are valued in the south because they can sense underground water even at great depths, and sense the quickest paths to it. They can meld into the ground to reach such caves across several yards of rock. They are valuable night-time watchers, for despite their blindness it is impossible for a mortal to approach them without their knowing - and although poor fighters in terms of skill, they can use their gifts to draw moisture or blood out of a man. However, pale nymphs are highly sensitive to sunlight, and so when accompanying an expedition across land they wear heavy, formless clothes that cover them entirely, and avoid strenous activity. Although they love their sunken chambers more than any place on the surface, they crave new experiences of taste and find their caves extremely limited in that domain. They can thus be easily hired as helpers as long as one can provide them with new, exotic foods.
