The Winter Guardian

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The Winter Guardian

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The Winter Guardian

Parents all over the Core and beyond know the grief of a boisterous young child withdrawing into a sullen, taciturn teenager, but for a few families this change is much more...abrupt...than the rest. One winter the child went out to play in the newly fallen snow, and over the next few weeks grew distant and depressed, weighed down by some powerful secret they could not utter. Such children frequently discard the trappings and companions of childhood overnight and pursue adult goals with relentless ambition. While the parents often have much to be proud of by the time the child is grown, this precocity is double-edged at best.

Such is the work of the Winter Guardian. While this snow-fey is neither malicious nor cruel, he is demanding of his summoner's time and attention. The Guardian is a creature of ambition and loneliness, and he seeks the embers of these traits out in others and stokes them into a blazing fire. When a lonely child pours all their heart into making a companion of snow, the Guardian comes to life.

Appearance: This fey of cold and loneliness appears differently each time he is summoned, but he still stands apart from a common snowman. First, his body has four limbs and a head, all carved from snow by untrained hands, but with careful attention to detail. Second, he wears clothes that are higher quality than one would expect for a mere child's amusement. Finally, he moves on his own, the snow and ice forming itself into more detailed appendages as necessary.

If seen in the world of the fey the rest of the year, the Guardian appears as a tall, thin man carved out of a solid block of hardened snow. He speaks only in whispers, his movements are graceful and reserved, and he has the professional bearing of a master performer, which in fact he is. Life itself is a performance, and he is constantly perfecting his method.

Nature: The Winter Guardian is born anew every year in a lonely child's embrace, having forgotten his former lives and names. After inquiring innocently about the world and its inhabitants, the Guardian decides that he prefers only the company of his summoner. The two become inseparable friends, to the exclusion of all other relationships. As the guardian feeds off the child's loneliness, he discovers arcane power as fodder for more games, such as throwing whispers, running with animals, frost art, and cloud chasing.

When familial responsibilities threaten the relationship, the Guardian discovers a solution: he creates an illusory duplicate of the child out of snow that is indistinguishable from the original. At first this simulacrum may only be used during unwelcome chores, but few children can resist the freedom afforded by the duplicate for long. By the end of their first week, most summoners are living 24 hours a day with the Guardian, with no one else the wiser.

Once the summoner is living with the Guardian full-time, the Guardian begins teaching the summoner magic. Under the Guardian's guidance, the summoner can cast a formidable assortment of arcane spells, and the two go exploring together, far away from human eyes. The Guardian and his summoner explore their new powers together over the next few weeks, until tragedy strikes.

In the last weeks of winter, the Guardian discovers he is dying. Despite their combined arcane power, the two of them cannot hold back the Spring, and after a few desperate attempts to do so, the Guardian passes out of this world. By the time he leaves, he has become all unto his summoner: child, parent, sibling, playmate, and sole companion for at least a month. Before he passes, the Guardian leaves instructions for the summoner to return home, slay the simulacrum, and rejoin his or her family. This final act of morbid reality dashes any hopes the child may have had for innocence, and he or she returns home drowning in despair.

Having tasted the power of arcane sight and movement, childhood play no longer hold any thrill for the summoners, but without the assistance of the Guardian their abilities are feeble, if they have any at all. Most summoners eventually rediscover their calling in the arcane arts after years of lonely pursuit in books (wizardry) or nature's tutelage (sorcerers). A few put on brave faces and pursue the human connections they lost, becoming bards. One thing is certain: this early taste of true power and truer friendship makes all mortal relationships pale as virgin snow by comparison.

The Truth: To say the Guardian is unique among fey is a redundant oxymoron; all fey are unique, and equally so. Nevertheless, even other fey are puzzled by the Guardian's nature. Every year the Guardian loses his memory as he enters the snow-covered world of mortals, to reawaken in the faerie world three months later as if from a horrible dream. All the tragedy and pain of his existence are sincere, yet he has inflicted these things on himself.

Yet few can argue at how well the Guardian's disjointed life pays out for him. His isolation with each summoner allow him to leech out the maximum amount of loneliness and ambition, especially in the hours before his "death" when his summoner is desperately applying every arcane ritual to delaying the inevitable. During the rest of the year the Guardian invites other fey to visit at various parts of the drama: laughter and tears, love and fear, joy and grief each draw their own audiences in the fey world. An invitation to the next year's performance is highly coveted among the fey in both courts, and thus the Guardian commands an impressive amount of power in the fey world.

Nevertheless, the Winter Guardian is not without his enemies in the fey world. The bogeymen in particular despise him, for his summoners lose the innocence bogeymen crave, while the grief and anguish the summoners undergo is nowhere near the nightmarish suffering the bogeymen find entertaining. Moreover, a few bogeymen have been fooled by the Guardian's emotionless simulacra, while others have been assaulted by siblings of targets who still retain remnants of the guardian's sorcery. Bogeymen who interfere with the performance, however, draw the ire of entire courts of fey, and thus these child-stalkers tend to avoid any village that stinks of the Winter Guardian's meddling.
Last edited by DeepShadow of FoS on Wed Jan 06, 2010 11:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Le Noir Faineant »

Good article!!!

...Though this is my solution to the snowman fey dude:

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Post by DeepShadow of FoS »

Never thought I'd see those two on the side of the bogeymen... :roll:
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Post by NeoTiamat »

Well, first off, yes, evil Frosty.

That said, a few very interesting notes come to mind. I'm particularly intrigued by the mechanic of "ever-reborn" Guardian. It reminds me a little of the Breton Ankou, a psychopomp who was the first (or last) person to die in a year and who had to guide the rest of the dead in a parish to their eternal rest prior to being allowed to die. In a sense it was the same entity, or perhaps a position, but each holder/avatar was a different being. I like it because it cuts to the core of the ever-changing nature of what Fey are meant to be.

At the same time, the Guardian is probably a semi-benevolent faerie. Or at least he's creepy and probably not very healthy, but he's out to provide tutelage and friendship. Albeit poisoned friendship, but still.

I can actually see a very interesting adventure hook if the PCs were in a town that was hosting both the Guardian and a Boogeyman at the same time (say, Mr. Fox). Battle for hearts and minds of the children, as it were, with the PCs both wanting to chase off the outright malevolent Mr. Fox, but also wean the kids off the poisoned charm of the Guardian.
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Post by DeepShadow of FoS »

NeoTiamat wrote:That said, a few very interesting notes come to mind. I'm particularly intrigued by the mechanic of "ever-reborn" Guardian. It reminds me a little of the Breton Ankou, a psychopomp who was the first (or last) person to die in a year and who had to guide the rest of the dead in a parish to their eternal rest prior to being allowed to die. In a sense it was the same entity, or perhaps a position, but each holder/avatar was a different being. I like it because it cuts to the core of the ever-changing nature of what Fey are meant to be.
Yeah, I played a lot with the innermost nature, making it a title or whatnot. I even considered making the Guardian spirit itself a construct of fey magic, constructed to put on these "shows" every year to milk the mortals of their best stuff. A soul-construct to inhabit a physical one.
At the same time, the Guardian is probably a semi-benevolent faerie. Or at least he's creepy and probably not very healthy, but he's out to provide tutelage and friendship. Albeit poisoned friendship, but still.
Of course, it's funny you call him evil frosty, because I see him as strikingly neutral, in a moral sense. I mean, we're not talking about a child molester here; he's about as "evil" as getting an education or ordinary growing up. That's what he puts people through, albeit alone and faster than normal.

I specifically wanted him to be beneficial, or at least non-evil, because of all the fey you had in your netbook that were terror-fey, or murder-fey, or disease-fey. I love them all, don't get me wrong, but I wanted to go in a completely different direction. Where are the beneficial fey of RL? Here's one, in a left-handed sort of way. Maybe that's as good as they get in RL.
I can actually see a very interesting adventure hook if the PCs were in a town that was hosting both the Guardian and a Boogeyman at the same time (say, Mr. Fox). Battle for hearts and minds of the children, as it were, with the PCs both wanting to chase off the outright malevolent Mr. Fox, but also wean the kids off the poisoned charm of the Guardian.
Oh definitely. And then there are all the other fey hanging around, making side bets and so forth.

Here's another idea: what happens when a PC arcanist who had this happen to himself discovers the pattern? Does he try to break the pattern, kill the inhabiting faerie? Or does he acknowledge that the Guardian he knew was sincere, even if its death was planned before it was born? The children may even be geased to not talk about what has happened, but there's gotta be a way to break that, and maybe the PC can find healing by allowing the child to speak, and overcome the loneliness.

This is all after the guardian has already done his due for the year, when he's squeezed the child dry and doesn't care if the loneliness stays or not. What about confronting the Guardian in the middle of the process? Suppose a family comes to the PC's of an inexplicable horror story, of how a pile of melting snow was found in their child's bed one morning? The PC's do their homework and realize the child is alive, but they now have to find the child and bring her home. Additionally, insofar as simulacra cannot get sick, someone accidentally or deliberately slew the false child, and may try to do so with the real one.

Or what about the child who is nearly murdered by his own family, who are convinced he's an imposter? Someone saw him meet and kill his snow-double, and now there's talk of doppelgangers and changelings and all sorts of witchcraft. Can the PC's heal the wounds in this family before this already-traumatized child is rejected by everyone as a monster?[/quote]
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Post by Gonzoron of the FoS »

I don't have much to add. just want to say that this is awesome.
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Post by DeepShadow of FoS »

Thanks! I may work it into the backstory of one or more PC's. Always nice to throw some pathos at the reclusive scholar types.
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Post by DocBeard »

e-evil frosty...

I don't drink but I'm totally pouring out an iced tea for you, man. Nice.
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Post by DeepShadow of FoS »

Thanks!

Just rereading the Patchwork Bride yesterday, and IMHO Gerhard Beckmann would have been a perfect candidate for the WG as a child. Same goes for many other golem creators.
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Post by Ail »

I found this idea awesome, and I'd like you to know.
Nothing to add, but it really goes deep emotionally :)
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Post by DeepShadow of FoS »

Update: the Winter Guardian will be playing a role IMC soon. I'm thinking one of the last two adventure ideas--the bed full of snow or the false imposter.
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Post by Drinnik Shoehorn »

I have a feeling they may be walking in the air...
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Post by Ail »

Drinnik Shoehorn wrote:I have a feeling they may be walking in the air...
Any relation to this, by any chance?

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Post by Drinnik Shoehorn »

A lot better than Aled Jones
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Post by Ail »

Drinnik Shoehorn wrote:A lot better than Aled Jones
Definitely. Though the link you gave seems to be for Peter Auty.

I'm not at all familiar with any potential myth-status this song/picture has in Britain, so I really don't grasp the whole story from the blurb of the video.

Anyway, I'm a half-hearted Nightwish fan. I was aware that song was a cover but never cared to look for the original, even though I found the lyrics a bit childish for a metal act at parts. Guess it's because I like Tarja singing it added to that heavy backdrop so much.

But Drinnik, your initial meaning still evades me. Were you thinking of this picture/song when you said that?
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