The Diarist

Fiction about Ravenloft or Gothic Earth
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DeadFingersTalk
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The Diarist

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The following is part of an ongoing Ravenloft Neverwinter Nights project (http://realmsofravenloft.com/guide/) I'm engaged in with another member, NearEthereal, using a narrator from Paridon as a framing device to set the scene and course of some events not prevalent to our intended audience at first. We've been on hiatus from the project for a bit but we're picking things up here and there once more, running several PnP campaigns leading up to the beginning of where the project's timeline will begin itself. It'll be updated quite frequently so hope you enjoy!
Last edited by DeadFingersTalk on Fri Apr 15, 2016 6:00 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The Diarist

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Of Humble Beginnings

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Knowledge is both a wonderful and terrifying thing. Think of it as a trickle over time; the gentle drops of moisture falling in the silence of a dark cave of Stygian black. Those trickles form pools of thought, of consciousness and awareness. The droplets in due time wear greater runnels to become a steady flow and those pools once stagnant are now fed by this new concourse to ebb and curl with motion anew.

Those pools become greater still, the pathways carved by the ever growing water usurp the once immobile rocks and stones around it. Darkness gives way to the shine of enlightenment and understanding yet ever still does the water’s advance increase. Pools becomes streams, streams become rivers, rivers feed and form lakes, those lakes become an ocean, the ocean becomes a deluge that threatens all around it, swallowing whole all it covers.

You see, that is the power of knowledge. It is both liberating and damning.
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A Great Becoming

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I will preface this by stating I am not a selfish or greedy man, although I have been raised in a position of privilege, with an upbringing that lacked of want or need with a sterling education, I have ever striven to remain humble with my lot in life and to be wary of good fortunes. My mother and father made theirs through adventuring, a line of work considered both foolish and fatal by tongue-wagging neighbours. Instead of assured death it founded their legacy.

Despite all this, it has carried with it some small taint that leads others to shun and whisper behind hands as you pass. Looks of suspicion and accusation that long carried into my coming of age as eyes burn into your back and cause the neck to itch through its obsessive scrutiny. Violent discourse has dogged my steps as a result of this parentage and I am ashamed to admit I am no stranger to the shedding of civil blood in the defense of one’s self. These narrow, crooked streets of ours are awash with it come nightfall; a seedy veil that covers our Zheresian metropolis and swallows up the unwary.

I am the youngest of three children and as is custom, those previously mentioned fortunes go to the eldest of whom is my brother. Our sister, the middle child, entered service with the curious witches of Hala and between my brother’s managing of the family estate and my sister’s odd rituals and secretive meanderings I find myself looking beyond the peasoup-shrouded streets of this dark city and into the iron-grey waters that surround it. Out there into the wider world where the unknown comes back to us on ships from the enveloping Mists that surround Paridon; the proud Vistani Captains bringing in curiosities from the Core and beyond for us here to see and wonder over here in our tiny corner. It is on one of these ships I have booked passage, to begin my own journey of discovery and adventures new the next morn.

I stress that I do not chase dreams of yore, hoping to rekindle something my parents sought after in their youth. No, I aim to do this because the pursuit of knowledge is important as in itself as seeking victories and trials of character. This is not an endeavour given to vainglorious ideals but the desire to understand, simply to know. Suppositions and second guesses make for poor material and it is my hope that the knowledge I bring back from the greater world be published in works that themselves become standard text in Universities and Schools the lands over. As a people, we should look not into Subtellurian darkness but into the light of reason.

Tomorrow I say my goodbyes. It is my firmest hope that it is not for good.
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Uncharted Territory

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My departure from Paridon was brief and somewhat informal as the bosun of the ship I was to journey on, the Hesperian Wind, called for passengers to board. I said my goodbyes to my siblings who had come to see me off and wish me well on my endeavour, making spirited jokes and japes about what I will find or coming back a savage “native” of the Core; naked and painted blue.

The Hesperian Wind is of a type of vessel called a Balinger, outfitted to hunt giant sea monsters called whales in a vast stretch of water named the Sea of Sorrows according to the crew (the presence of giant barbed spears, or ‘harpoons’ seems to hint at the truth of this). Her home port lies in the western lee of the kingdom of Darkon in the city of Martira Bay, but after my initial inquiries all conversation turned to that of strong rum and women of low moral fibre.

It was strange, despite this bravado between the crew of misfit Vistani men and fey-bloods I could sense a palpable trepidation at the journey ahead. Perhaps there was even a modicum of fear swallowed down and hidden by levity. I tried to force my own deep into the pit of my stomach as I was shown to my bunk. Having been used to the cramped confines of a city all my life the open waters unnerved me.All that space and emptiness.

I had packed light, only taking with me a brace of pistols, my hunting hanger, the clothes on my back (with some spares naturally) and, of course, my writing implements. The rest of my encumbrance, a few golden pounds and silver-pence to purchase the typical lodgings and potations along the way. But I aim to be as self sufficient as possible if all the accounts of lush forests, wide vistas and actual farmland is to be believed. And so we set sail into the Misty border.

I’m sure you are well aware of the phenomena known as the Mists that envelopes us all. It enshrouds my city like some covetous thief stealing a prize gem from a crown and, set it adrift in a sea of hazy white. But our fate is by no means unique. There are written to be nations far more ancient than ours that have legends similar, although I cannot rightly verify the accuracy of the texts held within the university without actual sources to compare to.

The Mists will be a prominent subject in my travels and our Captain, “Capo Streta’ was amiable enough (for a Vistana) to answer my initial questions about the Core, as vague as his answers were. When I questioned about the Mists he gave me a growled warning not to speak of them on his ship, lest I draw its attention to us and doom us all. I did not think to probe further, most of these men are probably criminals on land and I wished to remain in their good graces. He did tell me to seek the followers of the goddess Ezra if I wanted to know more. “Everything begins and ends with Her.”

My spine tingled at his ominous tone.
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What Lies Beneath

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A life spent travelling the sea is certainly a strange and romantic one, yet I cannot help but warm to this medley crew of mariners and their familial bond as the days wax and wane. I am still unable to get accustomed to the constant shift and motion of the wooden deck beneath me but only ‘man overboard’ my midday meal every other day now (as much as one can regurgitate dried beef and hardtack). Our expected time of arrival in Martira Bay is apparently anywhere from two weeks to six months, but the Captain informed me to take that with a pinch of salt, as circumstances are unforeseeable, and no two paths ever the same. He also began to tell me that the strange ability of the Vistani to navigate the Mistways; a sort of river-like flow, is not as exact a science as men often try to comprehend.

It is apparently a sense, the ability to discern the path of least resistance in the direction one wishes to travel. I just nodded and smiled like I understood what he spoke of and moved back to take more sketches of this strange little vessel that is to be my home. I get the impression, certainly from his manner and those of his crew, and in overhearing their conversations, that Streta’s kin are a lot more amiable Vistani than their land-traveling cousins with their colourful covered wagons.

The many ropes and pulleys that are strung across the ship and its sails look like the web of some bizarre spider but from my observations, each single piece of rigging has its own place and purpose. A line shortened here or slackened there shifts the sails in the most intricate and subtle of ways to make best use of the winds they catch within their voluminous bosom. I asked the bosun, Ondol, if I could learn some of these patterns they enact when the Captain commanded.

I feel one cannot get a sense for something without actually doing it, watching or reading the accounts of others does not give you the first-hand experience to be able to recount a tale accurately to those you wish to engage and enlighten. He gave me a look as if I was mocking him but then studied my hands and seemed pleased to find the callouses of hard work present, I did not spend my life in pampered idleness. He assigned me to one of the other men as an apprentice of sorts and we begin tomorrow by teaching me the most important knots a sailor must learn and how to climb rigging without falling off onto the deck or worse, overboard.

I do not like to think of falling into the realm of that which lives under the surface of those steely waters. I have seen the lidless eyes and mouths filled with row upon row of sharp fang that loom up at us from time to time even if no one else mentions it…
Last edited by DeadFingersTalk on Fri Apr 15, 2016 5:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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The Calm Before The Storm

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Routine aboard the Hesperian Wind has settled into a comfortable quotidian rhythm. I assist with the daily chores as best I can without hindering or getting in the way of the crew and I can safely say a good pair of gloves is needed for this line of work if your own skin is not akin to leather itself. I have been unable to write until now due to a vicious case of rope-burn when what I believe was the tiller line had come undone and I foolishly made to grab it with my bare hands.

The time spent recuperating while the skin healed on my hands has allowed me to get to know the two other passengers aboard ship. While the crew itself consists of waifs, runaways, Vistani and outcasts, the two others travel with distinct purpose like myself. For the first few weeks they kept largely to themselves but as it is impossible to avoid others in such tight confines, I have had the chance to speak to them on occasion and learn the nature of their own business and trade.

The first is Katrina Sala of Sturben, Borca. She calls herself what some communities in the Core name as a ‘Plague Doctor’, specializing in treating diseases using her extensive knowledge of herbal remedies and burgeoning sciences. While at first close-mouthed, she did start to warm to me once she learned I was a diarist and recorder and was intending to publish my observations of the wider world within Paridon. She has been traveling the lands in order to study and acquire various fungi, plant extracts, venoms, herbs and all manner of strange compounds. I asked for what purpose and she quoted that no physician or chirugeon worth their salt would ever turn down the opportunity to study the poisons that grow next to the cures. The way she stressed the word poison appeared no small amount of unseeming to me due to her crooked smile and mischievous wink. Although quite a beauty with a mellifluous voice (that has kept me up at night just thinking about I can tell you), I sincerely doubt that such a woman journeying unaccompanied is anything but extremely dangerous in her own right.

The second passenger aboard ship is a rather unsettling elfblood. Although some of his ilk man the Hesperian Wind, they do not look as alien as this particular one whose lineage is more prominent. With sharp, aquiline features and elongated, pointy ears he barely talks to anyone and keeps his own counsel. The crew refer to him simply as ‘The Sithican’ and he is some form of bounty hunter. Despite standing a full head above him, I am sure he would find me very little threat if the others are to be believed about his alarming success rate spanning more decades than I have lived. My attempts to wrangle some sort of rapport are always met with answers that make it hard to continue a conversation. Like all faerie creatures he is strong as an ox but walks like a feather. His eyes are everywhere but you can never see what he is looking at. Certainly reminded me of a pistol all laid up and ready to go off.

I had spent the afternoon conversing with Katerina about the various different kinds of animals she knows of (animals are an extreme rarity in Paridon and we usually eat them rather quickly) when the Sithican came up alongside us in his noiseless way. He speaks barely above a whisper but we all heard him as he stared towards a looming mist bank that quickly danced and roiled across the calm ocean towards us.

“This is gonna go bad.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, the Captain bellowed orders at everyone but his Vistani bretheren to go below decks and now I wait as the world grows white outside my porthole. I sit with weapons ready for whatever the Sithican saw that our eyes could not. The look, not of fear but certainly concern, in that man’s eyes has chilled me to the marrow as I will now set my quill down with the fervent hope that it is not the last time.

The mist sought us out and now it has swallowed us whole.
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Alone in the Dark

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I write this pained and bloody, the breath ragged in my chest still and I am barely able to stop shaking. Such a short and enamoured time into my journey, only to almost be met with certain disaster but I must record. I must write coherently while the memory of that ensanguined encounter remains freshly burnt into my mind. I cannot believe the events that transpired, even as I took part in them.

As the Hesperian Wind was swallowed by the voluminous layer of mist, I could feel a swell and surge beneath my booted feet as I stood in my cabin. It felt like a tugging pull, as if a great river had swept us along its whorling and tempestuous concourse. This new ferment upon the ship elicited the image of thousands of hands clawing and scraping as if to gain purchase, a vision I could not readily expel in my agitation.

Bedecked in my regalia of buff-leather coat, I gripped the hilt of my hunting-sword tightly in my fear as strange sounds begun to assail my ears from beyond the blank white of the porthole. Low keening and shrieks from throats inhuman, Stygian voices from a place I dare say exists in the dark terror of every man’s mind. They spoke of things only I could ever hope to know, of moments in my life when I was scared, afeared and try as I might I could not block them out. They whispered not of the worries that plague a man in his prime, those that come with raising a family or the hopes of a successful career. No, they clamoured to tell me of those things we as children could only hope to comprehend in the stillness of night away from the protection of our parents. Of the eyes that watch, the rending teeth that wait in the black, the spirits that steal away life-breath as they greedily drink what they once had and so desire again.

The wailing was everywhere and nowhere, in my head and yet outside the cabin walls. I could only hope to fall to my knees and fold myself into the protective foetal ball of a child as I struggled to retain my senses and block those awful visitations from my mind. And in that moment I felt like weeping for it seemed like all light, all hope, all love had fled from my life to become a minuscule pinprick lost in the atramentous void of my mind at that singular definition of time. As if I had been sunk into a deep well with no hope of escape and would ultimately be doomed to that fate for an eternity.

I felt myself being shook by outside forces, being rent from side to side until a blow to my face shook me from this torment and my eyes snapped open, dizzied and unfocused as they fell on what I thought was surely a demon come to claim my soul. As it spoke to me and I managed to narrow my vision in confusion, I could see it was not some hellion force but a bird-like visage looming down at me. A plague doctor’s mask, one adapted for combat, the muffled voice of Katerina issued from it as she dragged me towards the door with a vicious wave-bladed dagger in one hand and the scruff of my coat in the other.

“Writer, what in the fresh hell are you doing!? Get topside, we’re under attack!”
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