Description
The tonsured cut of a brown-haired clergyman or the nondescript locks
of a serf: his is a face that is calculatingly non-memorable, a fleeting
gray-eyed glance before he is again a shadow in the crowd, a half-smile
one moment and then a fading memory of a thin nose and a clean-shaven
face, thin and lined, like the face of a battle-weary survivor or
famined refugee.
A moment of recollection: his armors were largely leather with hints
of steel among them, and for a fraction two hilts could be seen,
presumably a dagger and a short sword tucked beneath the swirl
of a cloak.
Role
The Devil You Know
Added Wed Nov 6 18:33:19 2024 at level 10:
BACKGROUND: Ecdgitha was a retainer to the royal house in
Corte. His early years groomed him for a life in quiet, unobtrusive
service, but the invasion and his flight across the Dragon Sea
gave his life a new direction. His early days as a refugee surviving
in the streets of the desert city earned the attention of a thuggee
cult, and they taught their foundational skills to him before he set
out to make his own way in the world. He is not free, however, for he
is aware that his training has come at a price, and they will one day
likely as him to repay his debt.
SPHERE: Loss defined the first moments of Ecdgitha's life in the west,
but it was survival that crushed the shreds of pathos which had come
with him across the water. But as the passing of his previous life
was a catalyst to his new future, a realization struck him: a desire,
a craving, a need pulled at him, propelling him forward. Similarly,
he saw others compelled to slog, drudge, persevere, and fight through
an unpleasant existence. He came to call this motive force love, and
he resolved to discover its many faces.
ALLIANCES: At this time in his life, Ecdgitha cannot see any situation
in which longterm alliances will meaningfully advance his studies. The
best of relationships is merely transactional at some fundamental level,
but his limited life experiences suggest that these see these as fickle,
transitory moments before they disintegrate or are betrayed. However,
there is nothing to prevent these relationships from one day serving some purpose
or fulfill a temporary need. Today is not yet tomorrow.
The Devil You Know
Added Thu Nov 7 09:35:46 2024 at level 10:
BACKGROUND: Ecdgitha was a retainer to the royal house in
Corte. His early years groomed him for a life in quiet, unobtrusive
service, but the invasion and his flight across the Dragon Sea
gave his life a new direction. His early days as a refugee surviving
in the streets of the desert city earned the attention of a thuggee
cult, and they taught their foundational skills to him before he set
out to make his own way in the world. He is not free, however, for he
is aware that his training has come at a price, and they will one day
likely ask him to repay his debt.
SPHERE: Loss defined the first moments of Ecdgitha's life in the west,
but it was survival that crushed the shreds of pathos which had come
with him across the water. But as the passing of his previous life
was a catalyst to his new future, a realization struck him: a desire,
a craving, a need pulled at him, propelling him forward. Similarly,
he saw others compelled to slog, drudge, persevere, and fight through
an unpleasant existence. He came to call this motive force love, and
he resolved to discover its many faces.
ALLIANCES: At this time in his life, Ecdgitha cannot see any situation
in which longterm alliances will meaningfully advance his studies. The
best of relationships is merely transactional at some fundamental level,
but his limited life experiences suggest make him see these as fickle,
transitory moments before they disintegrate or are betrayed. However,
there is nothing to prevent these relationships from one day serving some
purpose or fulfill a temporary need. Today is not yet tomorrow.
The Devil You Know (copyedited)
The Devil You Know (copyedited--sorry for the mistaken posts)
Added Thu Nov 7 09:37:30 2024 at level 10:
BACKGROUND: Ecdgitha was a retainer to the royal house in
Corte. His early years groomed him for a life in quiet, unobtrusive
service, but the invasion and his flight across the Dragon Sea
gave his life a new direction. His early days as a refugee surviving
in the streets of the desert city earned the attention of a thuggee
cult, and they taught their foundational skills to him before he set
out to make his own way in the world. He is not free, however, for he
is aware that his training has come at a price, and they will one day
likely ask him to repay his debt.
SPHERE: Loss defined the first moments of Ecdgitha's life in the west,
but it was survival that crushed the shreds of pathos which had come
with him across the water. But as the passing of his previous life
was a catalyst to his new future, a realization struck him: a desire,
a craving, a need pulled at him, propelling him forward. Similarly,
he saw others compelled to slog, drudge, persevere, and fight through
an unpleasant existence. He came to call this motive force love, and
he resolved to discover its many faces.
ALLIANCES: At this time in his life, Ecdgitha cannot see any situation
in which longterm alliances will meaningfully advance his studies. The
best of relationships is merely transactional at some fundamental level,
but his limited life experiences suggest make him see these as fickle,
transitory moments before they disintegrate or are betrayed. However,
there is nothing to prevent these relationships from one day serving some
purpose or fulfill a temporary need. Today is not yet tomorrow.
"A beloved seed once grew here."
Added Wed Nov 13 09:34:27 2024 at level 16:
In my later years I sit back, reflecting on a life that
threatens to be lost in the mists of time. Sounds are muted,
distorted by the cloying fog rolling off the sea, and years
melt into stretched days before I am deposited...
...in a pasture, surrounded, by servants angry with my taunts
and horses I had slapped into a rage. Here and there they
might land a punch or a horse would rear and strike me in
the shoulder with its hooves, but they would curse as I
would crumple under the blow and roll unseen through the grass
to recover in relative safety.
After one particularly intense round, I collapsed against
a venerable but still functioning well and leaned my head
against its cool stone. Above clouds raced each other across
the otherwise blue sky, but in the wooden cupola over the well
I saw an inscription: "A beloved seed once grew here."
What was this seed? Was it a literal seed or a figurative seed?
What was so important about it that someone might make a record
of it: was it simply because it was "beloved"?
I chewed on a long piece of switchgrass and thought about this.
Outlanders were rumored to roam the lands, although I had never
met one, and so maybe this was a tribute to a revered acorn or
something. Just as likely some farmboy ploughed a serving girl
and created his legacy for the world.
No matter. I would draw strength from this place.
A Crude Carving
Added Sat Nov 16 13:09:30 2024 at level 25:
Dog-eared and yellowed with age, my journal fell open at a page
I had not looked upon in a long while. Bringing the taper closer,
my eyes examined the type scrip written in a much younger hand:
I do not much care for the nature of these strange elves, but
their hospitality is rich enough and they offer no aggression,
so I took holiday here to enjoy the startling air and brisk vistas.
Curiously, carved on some venerable tree that claws the crag like a
monster stalking its prey is a crude heart encompassing four initials.
Was the love of these two as timeless as this tree? Or like the tree,
did that love become encompassed with mottled moss, obscuring their
view of the white-hot sun that drops its gold upon us all? Did
the lover's feelings withstand the weathering of the relationship or the
death of the other?
What manner of remembrance does something like this deserve, this
tribute to a forgotten pair of hearts unified by a dagger so long ago?
Do not mind that stain that blurs the ink of the previous line. Though
I may observe this artifact of a bygone love, the raw feeling that moves
me is for the memory of my beloved Corte, also blurred by the ravages
of imperfect recollections and the distorting mists of time.
The lichens our lives gather make these memories unreliable. Still, tatters
of emotion live on.
"Substance as well as form"
Added Sat Nov 30 23:37:40 2024 at level 35:
The provost's pen scritched across the surface of the parchment in precise, neat movements.
He held up his handwork to examine it, and satisfied, he set it off to the side to dry.
"Everything looks to be in order. How does Voralian City sound as your first post?"
I gave my assent, as all of the potential assignments had their strong points.
The wonder of it was the love the provost had for his job: the forms, the process,
even his interactions with applicants. The provost is driven not by a sense of duty,
but seemingly out of a genuine passion for his work. His attention to the minutia of
my interview was astounding, and although I might be critical of his intermittent
presence, I knew immediately that this person had all the potential markers of a remarkable
leader.
Where this motivation came from was a mystery to me: was it a natural inclination or
a response to some consequential event in his youth?
Of course, his spotty showing of late might be due to a waning motivation, a loss of
whatever drive he once had. The rippling effect of that could be quite profound.
I will have to watch and see how it all plays out.
The Spire: Rigus's Rhetorical Masturbatorium
Added Sun Dec 15 21:24:45 2024 at level 35:
This one loves the sound of his voice. Nonstop, his tinker's wagon rattles on down
the cobblestone path, and he just sings and sings but he offers up nothing any
of us are willing to buy, for the balms and oils are not remedies for what ails us
as much as prescriptions for new maladies.
If a bookshelf were to topple onto him...
Not even his echoes would miss the memory of him.
Lapping waves and distant shorelines
Added Sun Dec 22 12:37:43 2024 at level 35:
Most recent of the interviews was Marensk, that felonious knight of the Fortress.
Like Wrenin of Cragstone, he had lost his family to outside forces, and so he was vulnerable
to the teachings of zealots who offered a sense of family and focused purpose. Isoegaob,
too, was an untethered soul, who took the loss of his unit in the Barovian Gate Guard due
to the politicking lich and vampire of the keep as a call to fight all mages everywhere.
Others were in a pursuit of something that they have never had. Rasathir
is caught up in the wiles of childhood stories of better days when all people
were free. The details of this freedom were necessarily vague, allusions to a time before
civilization when mortals used a pile of leaves rather than a proper chamber pot.
Delmononus wants to learn more than what can be mastered in a mortal lifetime,
and it is that craving that pulls him toward the very grave he hopes to escape.
Ehra dreams of justice, and that dream as well will soon put her into her grave.
Others, too have shared their stories of longing for that which they do not have.
Two conjurers spoken to both desire to explore what these lands and those in other
planes have to offer, to pry out their subtle secrets and shed the shadows
of their ignorance. Though the void may differ in shape for each person,
it pulls at the heart of each person knowing that it can never be filled.
Service Unseen
Added Wed Dec 25 07:46:28 2024 at level 36:
I look upon a landscape now that I have helped create. I am 59 years old,
and I have hidden from view and trained hard, and as I write this now
every martial class I see is an assassin. When I started my career, there
were no other assassins to be seen. The whispers have spread.
I hear their voices, too, filled with drink and bluster, that I cower
in safety until I strike like a coward. They do not appreciate the patience,
the majesty of the precise strike. They fall into a trance of blood and fur
where both parties can flee away and claim a victory, a mantra of "If only..."
they had the right armor, the right weapon, another barrier wand.
A village assassin once asked me if I only hunted criminals in the city,
and I can only think of what is purported to be on one of their tablets of war,
where we should pick or create our battleground. Just as he was doing.
When I stare into the eyes of those I have slain, I see where I will go,
the well into which everything will one day fall, lost to time. The memory of
my service will have crumbled, and all that once was shall be no more
than a half-remembered nightmare of our collective doom.
The Oubliette
Added Thu Dec 26 09:48:12 2024 at level 36:
Crumbling mortar drops from my toes
into the emptiness around me. I can not
hear them strike the bottom over the curses and cries
and lamented moments that cavort in my mind
monsters aping at my pain.
The void stares back at me. Is it a mercy
that one by one it devours my memories and leave
behind this thing I am become?
Loss
Added Mon Jan 27 19:39:10 2025 at level 46:
I have written extensively about forms of love I have found in my travels,
but my own life has little love in it. In the twilight of my years, I see
time I have squandered training, studying, politicking, and stalking,
and I cannot claim to have found respect, honor, mastery, power, status,
nor wealth. All I have is the ruins of a faith and the empty joy brought by
having enemies make efforts to avoid my silent strike.
May the world be damned to the void I have grown to know so well.
Lost Knights
Added Mon Feb 3 16:33:47 2025 at level 46:
I have spoken at length with two knights, followers of Xanathiel, if that is how it is said.
Lenai is devout, a truly remarkable person. Her views are so naively pure, a protector
to her core. She is reluctant to join the Blood Tribunal despite knowing that
as a magistrate, she can in a concrete way influence the Spire and maybe Thera.
If she were successful, it would be a boon for the Spire, but the true
gift would be if she lost her naivety and with it her faith in her world view.
And then there is Laoryn, but that one is a criminal, which says it all.
PK Wins
Nov 29, 2024|Lv 35|The Eastern Road|Rasathir vs 1: [35] Ecdgitha (100%, punch)
Dec 3, 2024 |Lv 35|The Spire of the Blood Tribunal|Quig vs 3: [35] Ecdgitha (5%), [51] Yenelor (60%, double spin kick), [51] Ehra (34%)
Dec 6, 2024 |Lv 35|Graveyard|Skavetra vs 1: [35] Ecdgitha (0%, ) *Assassinated*
Dec 8, 2024 |Lv 35|Graveyard|Skavetra vs 1: [35] Ecdgitha (100%, burst of energy)
Dec 9, 2024 |Lv 35|The Spire of the Blood Tribunal|Vyssma vs 1: [35] Ecdgitha (100%, throw)
Dec 9, 2024 |Lv 35|The Spire of the Blood Tribunal|Khorath vs 1: [35] Ecdgitha (100%, slash)
Dec 10, 2024|Lv 35|Outskirts of Galadon|Dlolith vs 1: [35] Ecdgitha (0%, ) *Assassinated*
Dec 11, 2024|Lv 35|Feanwyyn Weald|Dlolith vs 1: [35] Ecdgitha (0%, ) *Assassinated*
Dec 16, 2024|Lv 35|The Spire of the Blood Tribunal|Zenthian vs 2: [35] Ecdgitha (9%), [36] Gemmern (90%, hit)
Dec 18, 2024|Lv 35|Upper Cragstone|Lelfu vs 1: [35] Ecdgitha (0%, ) *Assassinated*
Dec 18, 2024|Lv 35|Graveyard|Brumbistle vs 1: [35] Ecdgitha (0%, ) *Assassinated*
Dec 20, 2024|Lv 35|Udgaardian Plains|Witwdieb vs 1: [35] Ecdgitha (100%, ground control)
Dec 22, 2024|Lv 35|The Grove|Jhaekhe vs 1: [35] Ecdgitha (0%, ) *Assassinated*
Dec 24, 2024|Lv 36|The Seaport of Hamsah Mu'tazz|Yagus vs 1: [36] Ecdgitha (0%, ) *Assassinated*
Dec 24, 2024|Lv 36|The Plains of Arendyl|Spitrog vs 1: [36] Ecdgitha (0%, ) *Assassinated*
Dec 25, 2024|Lv 36|Enpolad's Game Garden|Jhaekhe vs 1: [36] Ecdgitha (0%, ) *Assassinated*
Dec 26, 2024|Lv 36|The Pass|Delmuth vs 1: [36] Ecdgitha (100%, crush)
Dec 26, 2024|Lv 36|The Spire of the Blood Tribunal|Witwdieb vs 5: [50] Selbugh (5%, torrent of lightning), [38] Zelailbart (13%), [51] Quigimplitz (36%), [51] Zadarian (33%), [36] Ecdgitha (11%)
Dec 29, 2024|Lv 36|Graveyard|Hazreff vs 1: [36] Ecdgitha (0%, ) *Assassinated*
Jan 7, 2025 |Lv 38|A Virgin Forest|Koro vs 1: [38] Ecdgitha (100%, poison)
Jan 17, 2025|Lv 40|The Spire of the Blood Tribunal|Lathok vs 2: [39] Malvok (63%), [40] Ecdgitha (36%, slash)
Jan 17, 2025|Lv 41|Galadon|Zixthar vs 1: [41] Ecdgitha (100%, KB)
Jan 26, 2025|Lv 45|Voralian City|Selbugh vs 2: [51] Dalanthilios (53%, parting blow), [45] Ecdgitha (46%)
Jan 28, 2025|Lv 46|The Ruins of Ostalagiah|Kopa vs 1: [46] Ecdgitha (0%, ) *Assassinated*
Jan 31, 2025|Lv 46|Ayr'Trinil, the Arial City|Mecesha vs 1: [46] Ecdgitha (0%, ) *Assassinated*
Feb 3, 2025 |Lv 46|Galadon|Kurpich vs 3: [46] Ecdgitha (32%), [51] Hildt (60%, slash), [50] Mavnox (7%)
Feb 8, 2025 |Lv 49|Galadon|Gesoros vs 2: [51] Veksrivyn (78%, critical hit), [49] Ecdgitha (21%)
Mar 5, 2025 |Lv 51|The Imperial Palace|Yasdal vs 1: [51] Ecdgitha (0%, ) *Assassinated*
Mar 12, 2025|Lv 51|Galadon|Hazreff vs 2: [51] Ecdgitha (80%, punch), [51] Moldrak (19%)
Mar 17, 2025|Lv 51|The Spire of the Blood Tribunal|Skavetra vs 3: [51] Jezamiko (41%, crush), [51] Ecdgitha (12%), [51] Hildegarde (46%)
Mar 18, 2025|Lv 51|Galadon|Linai vs 2: [42] Zilga (0%), [51] Ecdgitha (100%, slash)
Apr 7, 2025 |Lv 51|The Eastern Road|Dregnak vs 2: [51] Ecdgitha (72%, punch), [44] Salieseri (27%)
Apr 8, 2025 |Lv 51|The Redhorn Mountains|Luria vs 3: [51] Skauzyn (71%, cleave), [51] Ihmeria (22%), [51] Ecdgitha (5%)