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Woe Unto World's End: A Fëanorian Quest

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[X] Plan: Luigi Cadorna
P.S. On the second thought, I'll vote for both.
[X] Plan Silver Voice
 
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[X] Plan: Luigi Cadorna

Taking all bets. How many pages does this one get before Telamon takes it behind the shed and puts it down.
 
[X] Plan: Luigi Cadorna

Oh what the hell? Time for a Masochist Trip where we have been told up-front by the QM that we are doomed to fail miserably in the end, no matter what!
Should be interesting.
 
[x] Plan Morgoths-Bane:
-[x] Amrod and Amras
-[x] Female
-[x] Ilcariel (Gleaming-White, Female)
-[x] Smith
-[x] Firstborn
-[x] Weapon Of Elder Days:
-[x] A Lover's Blood:
 
Seems like a very obvious, safe choice to have only pure-bred Valinorean Ñoldor who saw the Trees as origin options, given just how incredibly diverse the Fëanorian following is canonically, combining an impressive number of seemingly disparate groups under one common allegiance to form what's the most multicultural realm in elven history, arguably even Middle-earth's history as a whole.

There could have easily been options for even just Ñoldor born in Beleriand, much less Ñoldorized Sindar, a character of mixed heritage, someone from Hithlum, one of the Northern Sindar, one of the elves from the East or one of the Laiquendi, much less the multitude of human groups if you set it later in the First Age (Bor and Ulfang's Edain aside, Estolad was the first dwelling of Men in Beleriand and it's right in the middle of Fëanorian territory, while Haleth and Marach's people also passed through there), or even Dwarves in the context of a mercenary or ally. It just really feels like a waste to limit players to just a part of a percentage of possible possibilities.
 
Adhoc vote count started by DearestAnnabel on May 18, 2021 at 6:41 AM, finished with 60 posts and 36 votes.
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I: Awakenings
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Plan Silver Voice

    -[X] Maglor

    -[X] Veriel (Bold Daughter, Female)

    -[X] Female

    -[X] Minstrel

    - [X] Mastery Of The First Age

    - [X] Firstborn

    - [X] A Mentor's Blood


    Your name is Veriel. It was not the first name you had, but it is your favorite of many.

    You were born a very, very long time ago. You woke naked under a cloudless and starlit sky, on the shores of a still blue sea. You and those who awoke with you were the first — the first to feel grass upon their feet or wind on their skin, the first to look with unsullied eyes on a world that was then new -- the first mortals. There was no stain upon the moon when you woke, and no name for mountain nor river nor darkling wood. When you walked, you walked alone, and when you sang it was a spell, for no song had ever before been heard.

    You were the very first, and all who have come after you are less. Not in their beings or their spirits, but because they have never seen waters untouched by hand or eye, or breathed in air that had never known lungs. They have never seen the world as it was then: unblemished in it's youth. You are of the Firstborn, and no matter how long the years grow, there is something of that first starlit night of the world in your heart, something ageless and boundless and wordless — for there were no words then or now to describe it.

    In the dark before the days began, the first of the Elves gathered on the shores of the sunless sea of their birth, and divided themselves into three clans. The tribe you hearkened to, those most like you in skill and spirit, were led by one called Tàta, and so called yourselves in the beginning the Tatyar. But for your slow wisdom, your wit, your curiosity and thirst for knowledge above all else, the others called you the Noldor — those who know. Fifty-six of you there were then, dark of hair and proud of eye, and you walked the wild world together, naming nameless things and thinking new thoughts.

    But those innocent days in the dark could not last. In a time immemorial, the Valar found your people by those ancient waters, and they offered to lead you from the place of your birth to somewhere greater and better — their deathless land across the sea, Valinor, where you would want for nothing. Three envoys the three tribes sent to find the truth of their words, and three returned with light untold in their eyes speaking of wonders beyond imagining, of a land lit by two brilliant Trees. These three, the first to see the Undying Lands, had become wise and noble beyond measure, and were hailed as leaders among their people. They were the first of the Elven-Kings, and they were crowned under a moonless sky. The one your tribe followed was named Finwe, but after his kingship they called him Noldoran, and it was he who led your people over valley and river and mountain high to the shores of the sea, and thence from Middle-Earth to the Undying Lands.

    You remember those days so clearly. Some few remained behind, fearful of the journey to distant lands, but you went readily, heart high with hope and eyes undimmed by age or strife. You followed your king across the sea to paradise, and in time fifty-six became a hundred, and a hundred became, after an endless eon of bliss, a hundred thousands. The Noldor became many, and grew bold and proud and wise indeed, deep in knowledge and deeper in strength, and in your eyes there was a light untold. The Noldor became famed among the kindreds of the Elves as makers and delvers and binders, the flame-eyed people of Finwe for whom no challenge was ever too great.

    You yourself became a singer of unparalleled skill, a composer of songs and a maker of music, and the golden strains of your voice were heard on the heights of Ilmarin, upon that mountain high and sheer where deathless reigns the Elder King. Lifetimes upon lifetimes you had to perfect your arts, bending your voice and your words until you could bring the stars themselves to weep, or make the earth tremble in sorrow at your songs. Age rolled upon age, and you danced and sang and grew from old to elder to venerable and to even older still, watching generation upon generation of your descendants come of age in the noontide of Valinor, in the shadowless living light of the Trees, and you believed it might never end.

    Yet now Finwe is dead, and his bold son too. The Trees are ruined, their Light is failed. A Doom unending lies on the Houses of the Noldor. You have come once more over the sea, yet now your heart burns with rage, not hope. Your eyes are dark eyes now, and old eyes, and all they see is sorrow. Darkness unfathomed has fallen over a world that was virgin at your birth. You taste it in the wind, feel it in the earth, see it in the waters. Arda is marred. The world is wrong.

    And so your only songs now are songs of mourning for the kings you have known, for the days in the West that are gone away, and for a still sea under a starlit sky long ago.


    Character Sheet
    Name: Veriel Tuilinde, the Sparrow
    Age    : 4,311
    Health: 1,500
    Grace: 17 -- You have gazed upon the light of the Trees. You are one of the High Elves, and your fea burns with fire. (+1000 Health)
    Reputation: (Rank III): Known -- You are known among your people as one of the Firstborn, and are accorded the respect such a one is due.
    Race: Elven
    House: You are sworn to the House of Fëanor, and to the Kings of the Noldor.
    Lord: You serve Maglor the Golden-Voiced.
    Command: You hold no commands or dominions.
    Stats
    Warfare: 15 -- The Fëanorians have reinvented war from first principles. (+60 Modifier)
    Combat:     15 -- A hundred years of war have honed your skills to a fighting trim. (+60 modifier)
    Strength:     16 -- Yours is the strength of the Firstborn. (+60 modifier)
    Horsemanship:     12 -- You ride well, though not splendidly. (+20 modifier)
    Diplomacy:     18 -- Your words are rich with the weight of years unending. (+90 modifier)
    Charisma:     16 -- There is an ageless beauty about you. (+60 modifier)
    Lore:     16 -- You are older than the sun and moon, and have great knowledge of the secrets of the world. (+60 modifier)
    Wisdom:     20 -- You woke when the stars were new, and yours is an ancient wisdom. (+90 Modifier)
    Crafting:     15 -- Mighty indeed are the works of your hand. (+60 Modifier)
    Magic:     18 -- Your song is among the mightiest this world has ever known. (+90 modifier)
    Woodsmanship:     8 -- You know something of wild and bough and wood. (+20 modifier)
    Tracking:     8 -- You know something of the hunt. (+20 modifier)
    Honorifics and Relationships
    Epessë: Your after-name is Tuilinde, the Sparrow, given to you for your voice that made the mountains weep.
    Names and Honorifics: Esselda, First-Elf
    Friendships: N/A
    Alliances: N/A
    Enmities:
    - Enmity of Morgoth (Rank I): As one of the few Firstborn in Middle-Earth, your age and strength have drawn the attention of the Dark Lord himself. (Face extra enemies in every encounter)
    Traits
    The Firstborn: You are counted among the Firstborn, those elves who awoke on the far shores of Cuivienen when the world was new. You have breathed a fresher air and walked in a younger day, and all who have come after you are less. (+500 Health, +50 to all rolls, Wisdom set to 20)

    The High Elves:     You are one of the High Elves, that saw the light of the Two Trees and dwelt in the Deathless Lands where rules undying the Elder King. The light burns within you still, and will follow you until the end of days. (+2 Grace, +10 to all rolls)

    Mastery Of The First Age:     In you is the glory and beauty of Valinor, and Exile has not dimmed it. Your knowledge from the past is a boon in these dark times. (Experience gain is doubled. When game starts, pick one stat. All checks for this stat are easier, but checks for all other stats are harder)

    Kinslayer:     You are one of the Fëanorians, the ever-cursed, the Dispossessed, the Kinslayers. Long ago and far away you stained your hands with a teacher's blood. Your sin shall haunt you until the world's ending -- or so it was Foretold. (-50 to all relations with non-Fëanorian Elves. The skill your murdered teacher instructed you in still smarts to use, and it causes almost physical pain to pick up the instruments of their craft. Pick one stat that is not a Mastery stat -- it is frozen permanently and cannot grow, and receives a permanent malus to every usage. Receive 1/3 experience from all sources.)



    The skills you learned and honed across the sea have not faded in Middle-Earth, yet in these Years of the Sun, there is one art which you have excelled above all others, a skill which comes to you almost like breathing, and for which you will be famed in later years as one of the great Masters of the First Age:

    AN: A Mastery gives rerolls to every skill check for the subject, along with reduced skill checks and substantial narrative bonuses and interactions. This is what your legend will be founded on. Be wary -- whatever you pick, all other stats will have their checks increased in difficulty to compensate.

    [] Warfare: You are a master of command, of battle, of directing armies in symphony against the forces of the Dark Lord. The Great War has bred many great captains, but you stand head and shoulders above the pack -- cunning in weakness, merciless in strength, a planner and a thinker and a maestro of war. Under you, a thousand might stand against ten thousand, and win the day. You are one whom many might follow, in this Age and all after. (Gain trait: Mastery: Warfare)

    [] Combat:     You are a battler without peer, a master of sword and spear. Before you hundreds might stand and fail, before you the beasts of heaven and earth alike might fall, and the terror of your flashing blade alone has put armies to rout. You are one skilled beyond words in the use of weapons -- and absent weapons you might slaughter trolls with your hands alone. You are a warrior unmatched, a death-dealer of legend in a time of legends. (Gain trait: Mastery: Combat)

    [] Horsemanship:     You are a horsewoman par excellence, capable of forming incredible connections with your steeds. You draw strength from your mount, and they from you, and together horse and rider are capable of feats unrivaled in song or story: to thunder a hundred miles in a day, to charge the troll-ranks alone and send them fleeing, to outpace the wingbeats of the Balrogs and ride over water as if upon the land. (Gain trait: Mastery: Horsemanship)

    [] Crafting:     You are a craft-lord of skilled unparalleled, a maker and a binder and a weaver, a fashioner of things many and mighty, an artisan of whom the songs will be sung in after times. Only a handful living outstrip you skill -- and only one among the dead. The works of your hand will be storied until there are no more stories. (Gain trait: Mastery: Crafting)

    [] Lore:     You are among the first of those who will be acclaimed in after times as the Wise. Your knowledge of beast and bird and sky and sea is nigh unmatched. You know the words that the Valar wrote in stone before the Elves awoke, and the secret language of the stars that is forgotten. Ent-friend, Eagle-walker, Sea-talker -- many are your names and wide, and your old head is full of many tongues. (Gain Trait: Mastery: Lore)

    [] Woodsmanship and Tracking:     You are acclaimed as a hunter who was matchless in the youth of the world. When the stars were new, you led the first hunts through darkened forests, and you have known the prey-chase for centuries untold. You might track a beast over ten continents, and once you ride on the hunt, your prey, be it beast or mortal or servant of Morgoth foul, shall know it's days are numbered. The wilds of the world are yours. (Gain Trait: Mastery: Hunting)

    [] Magic:     Yours is a voice that will be famed long after your age, and held in memory and music -- you are a singer and a troubador of skill so great that none wholly mortal may count themselves your equal. An echo of the first Music that made the world lives in your dulcet tones. When you sing, the trees grow at your hymns, the skies clear at your chants, and when your voice rises in rolling ballad, the hearts of your foes must surely fail, for the world itself bends to answer the call. (Gain Trait: Mastery: Music)

    _______________________________
    ​
    You wake from a nightmare.

    You are screaming as your eyes open. The nightmare resolves itself in your memory, a jumble of impressions and images, each more terrible than the last: Cold hands and cold eyes, reaching out to you from across cold and countless years. Hot blood on your face and hot flame in your heart. A starlit sea painted red. A dark forest, and in the forest -- in the black heart of it -- a voice, and in that voice a will older than the stars, calling you, luring you, snaring you, changing you...

    You blink, and the world snaps back. You are sitting on dry, hard earth in a too-thin tent. Your weapons and armor lie piled up beside you where you placed them carefully the night before.

    Nightmares are not new. Not for you and yours. This, though...this was new. Vivid. Real. Sweat pools under you, and your chest still rises heavily. You spend a few moments raking in shuddering breaths. When you have collected yourself, you rise from your tent to an ever colder world.

    Your tent stands in the middle of a camp of a dozen and a half like it, all trembling softly in the bitter wind wailing down from the north. Ice stings your nose, and frost rimes on the edges of most anything metal. The air smells like death. Tall pale blue mountains rise to your east, like fingers of a mighty hand. The sun shines only dimly from behind them, as if an unwelcome visitor in these lands. Between the gaping fangs of the mountains roll leagues of flat, featureless land -- so level that on a clear day, one might see for miles unbounded. But today is not a clear day: a thick mist lies like the skin of a rough beast over the whole valley, white and impenetrable, somehow undisturbed by the howling winds gusting down from the mountains.

    The great plain before you is the Lothlann -- literally, the empty wideness. It is aptly named, for it is a land without life, without color, without sun -- and, you imagine often, without hope. Here, the Siege of Angband, held for nearly a dozen leagues in either direction, breaks. Here, the mountains open yawning into the north, and to the lands of the Dark Lord. No fortress could hold this plain, no wall could span these cruel peaks, no army could defend this fenceless waste. Here, if anywhere else in Middle-Earth, is where the leaguer the Noldor have held a hundred years might most easily fail, and the power of the Dark Lord stretch out over all Beleriand.

    This is Maglor's Gap.

    To the west, Maedhros, eldest of the Princes, holds the hill-fortress which is known to your people as Himring the Ever-Cold. But, you think, it is misnamed. Himring, though buffeted by high winds and bitter frosts, lies in the shadow of the Ered Luin, sheltered from the worst of the northern freeze. But the Gap is wide and open, and there is no shelter from the wind in these dead lands.

    No fortress could hope to hold this plain -- though it holds his name, Maglor has built his own fastness, Nen Ened, several miles beyond the Gap proper, in the crook of two rivers -- a more defensible position by far than any to be found on the Lothlann. Yet the Gap must still be patrolled constantly, that none of the servants of the Enemy break out and savage the lands beyond. The Lothlann is wide indeed, and only many patrols of skilled cavalry come close to accomplishing such a daunting task as keeping watch on all of it.

    You command now one of these patrols. Some twenty-odd riders of the Noldor, elves mounted on hardy steeds bred in Himring and Doriath. Their spears are sharp, their hearts are sturdy, and their eyes, as your own, dance with bright fire. They are Riders of Maglor, and are counted among the finest horsemen of the Host of the Noldor.

    Command Gained: Third Company of Nan Ened

    You shake the sleep from your eyes and turn to survey your riders as they, too, begin to rouse from sleep. A few fruitlessly try to warm pale hands over the flickering fire in the camp's center, but it is no use -- this land seems to sap the heat from your bones.

    No one mentions your screams. They all have the same dreams, after all.

    A lean elf with deepset eyes and high cheekbones approaches you, gliding through the mist as if a phantom. His name is Canyar, and he is, though bearing no title or rank, effectively your second in command. A good rider and a better spearman, you often think to yourself that he has spent too long in this land. Something of it has seeped into him — he is grave-silent, slow to speak and slower to laugh, and there seems to be no heat left in his body.

    His lips are tight now, however, and his dark eyes are creased with concern.

    "They are not back."

    A heaviness settles over your heart. The night patrol has not returned. Maglor's riders do not tarry. They do not falter or lose way. If they have not returned to camp at sunrise, then some ill fate has befallen them. At best, a horse has thrown a shoe or broken a leg.

    At worst...

    You cast your eyes north. Canyar follows your gaze. Beyond the mist, beyond the plans, beyond the many miles of ice and shadow, your sharp vision picks out three dark points pricking the horizon — the peaks of Angband, visible from even here.

    The Gap is not safe. Riders vanish on the Lothlann. Not often, but often enough. There are stories of things on the plain. Voices in the darkness. Eyes in the mountains. Horses trotting riderless out of the mist, eyes wide with madness. The reach of the Dark Lord is long indeed — and you are on his front doorstep.

    Your company was meant to return to Nan Ened today. Common wisdom among the riders would hold that you should do just that, regardless of the patrol's disappearance. The Noldor are the greatest warriors among the elves, and so anything capable of waylaying six of them is a formidable force indeed. There are tales of entire companies riding beyond the Gap to rescue lost friends, and not a soul returning.

    And yet...

    Canyar watches you silently. He inclines his head towards the horses in a gesture you understand as a question: should I order the men to mount?

    You think a long moment, then give your command.

    "We shall..."

    [] Mount up, and ride for Nan Ened. From there, a proper search party can be dispatched.

    [] Mount up, and ride all together for the Lothlann. You leave no one behind.

    [] Stay here. Wait and see if they return on their own.

    [] Mount up, but divide. Your troops will return to Nan Ened in safety, while you personally shall strike out to look for the missing riders.

    [] Split up. One half of the troop shall ride for Nan Ened and reinforcements, while the other half shall commence with the search.

    [] You have another idea...(Write-In)
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Lore: You are among the first of those who will be acclaimed in after times as the Wise. Your knowledge of beast and bird and sky and sea is nigh unmatched. You know the words that the Valar wrote in stone before the Elves awoke, and the secret language of the stars that is forgotten. Ent-friend, Eagle-walker, Sea-talker -- many are your names and wide, and your old head is full of many tongues. (Gain Trait: Mastery: Lore)

    [X] Stay here. Wait and see if they return on their own.
     
    [X] Magic: Yours is a voice that will be famed long after your age, and held in memory and music -- you are a singer and a troubador of skill so great that none wholly mortal may count themselves your equal. An echo of the first Music that made the world lives in your dulcet tones. When you sing, the trees grow at your hymns, the skies clear at your chants, and when your voice rises in rolling ballad, the hearts of your foes must surely fail, for the world itself bends to answer the call. (Gain Trait: Mastery: Music)

    [X] Stay here. Wait and see if they return on their own.
     
    [X] Magic: Yours is a voice that will be famed long after your age, and held in memory and music -- you are a singer and a troubador of skill so great that none wholly mortal may count themselves your equal. An echo of the first Music that made the world lives in your dulcet tones. When you sing, the trees grow at your hymns, the skies clear at your chants, and when your voice rises in rolling ballad, the hearts of your foes must surely fail, for the world itself bends to answer the call. (Gain Trait: Mastery: Music)

    Mistral already won and its our second highest stat. Might as well lean into it.
     
    [X] Magic: Yours is a voice that will be famed long after your age, and held in memory and music -- you are a singer and a troubador of skill so great that none wholly mortal may count themselves your equal. An echo of the first Music that made the world lives in your dulcet tones. When you sing, the trees grow at your hymns, the skies clear at your chants, and when your voice rises in rolling ballad, the hearts of your foes must surely fail, for the world itself bends to answer the call. (Gain Trait: Mastery: Music)
     
    [X] Horsemanship: You are a horsewoman par excellence, capable of forming incredible connections with your steeds. You draw strength from your mount, and they from you, and together horse and rider are capable of feats unrivaled in song or story: to thunder a hundred miles in a day, to charge the troll-ranks alone and send them fleeing, to outpace the wingbeats of the Balrogs and ride over water as if upon the land. (Gain trait: Mastery: Horsemanship)

    [X] Mount up, and ride all together for the Lothlann. You leave no one behind.

    In a world without cars, let's do what we can to reduce travel time. Hi-yo Silver!
     
    [X] Magic: Yours is a voice that will be famed long after your age, and held in memory and music -- you are a singer and a troubador of skill so great that none wholly mortal may count themselves your equal. An echo of the first Music that made the world lives in your dulcet tones. When you sing, the trees grow at your hymns, the skies clear at your chants, and when your voice rises in rolling ballad, the hearts of your foes must surely fail, for the world itself bends to answer the call. (Gain Trait: Mastery: Music)
     
    [x] Magic: Yours is a voice that will be famed long after your age, and held in memory and music -- you are a singer and a troubador of skill so great that none wholly mortal may count themselves your equal. An echo of the first Music that made the world lives in your dulcet tones. When you sing, the trees grow at your hymns, the skies clear at your chants, and when your voice rises in rolling ballad, the hearts of your foes must surely fail, for the world itself bends to answer the call. (Gain Trait: Mastery: Music)

    [x] Mount up, but divide. Your troops will return to Nan Ened in safety, while you personally shall strike out to look for the missing riders.
    We are the Bold Daughter, after all.
     
    [X] Magic: Yours is a voice that will be famed long after your age, and held in memory and music -- you are a singer and a troubador of skill so great that none wholly mortal may count themselves your equal. An echo of the first Music that made the world lives in your dulcet tones. When you sing, the trees grow at your hymns, the skies clear at your chants, and when your voice rises in rolling ballad, the hearts of your foes must surely fail, for the world itself bends to answer the call. (Gain Trait: Mastery: Music)

    [X] Split up. One half of the troop shall ride for Nan Ened and reinforcements, while the other half shall commence with the search.

    Not an smart idea going solo and I don't want to retreat.
     
    [X] Magic: Yours is a voice that will be famed long after your age, and held in memory and music -- you are a singer and a troubador of skill so great that none wholly mortal may count themselves your equal. An echo of the first Music that made the world lives in your dulcet tones. When you sing, the trees grow at your hymns, the skies clear at your chants, and when your voice rises in rolling ballad, the hearts of your foes must surely fail, for the world itself bends to answer the call. (Gain Trait: Mastery: Music)

    I'm fine with any of the action choices, honestly.
     
    [X] Magic: Yours is a voice that will be famed long after your age, and held in memory and music -- you are a singer and a troubador of skill so great that none wholly mortal may count themselves your equal. An echo of the first Music that made the world lives in your dulcet tones. When you sing, the trees grow at your hymns, the skies clear at your chants, and when your voice rises in rolling ballad, the hearts of your foes must surely fail, for the world itself bends to answer the call. (Gain Trait: Mastery: Music)

    [X] Split up. One half of the troop shall ride for Nan Ened and reinforcements, while the other half shall commence with the search.
     
    [X] Magic: Yours is a voice that will be famed long after your age, and held in memory and music -- you are a singer and a troubador of skill so great that none wholly mortal may count themselves your equal. An echo of the first Music that made the world lives in your dulcet tones. When you sing, the trees grow at your hymns, the skies clear at your chants, and when your voice rises in rolling ballad, the hearts of your foes must surely fail, for the world itself bends to answer the call. (Gain Trait: Mastery: Music)

    [X] Split up. One half of the troop shall ride for Nan Ened and reinforcements, while the other half shall commence with the search.
     
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